Podcasts about widener library

Harvard's Widener Library has long served as a sanctuary for learning and intellectual pursuit on Cambridge campus. Recently, this institution found itself at the center of controversy when faculty members conducted a "silent study-in" protest in its main reading room, challenging the library's fundamental role as a neutral space for scholarship. The ensuing suspension of faculty library access has sparked a crucial debate about the delicate balance between political expression and preserving spaces dedicated to undisturbed academic pursuit. Samuel Abrams from Sarah Lawrence College shares that while Harvard's libraries have always been platforms for diverse ideas within their collections, the question of whether their physical spaces should remain politically neutral touches on the core mission of academic libraries as welcoming havens for all seekers of knowledge.

Show Notes: Amelia Noel-Elkins, a graduate of Harvard, shares her journey since graduating from the university. She began her career in intercollegiate athletics after graduating and worked as the manager of the men's swim team and an internship in the athletic department, and she was convinced this was the path she wanted to follow.  After moving back to Indiana, she was accepted into an internship, and she started a master's program at Indiana University, where she also worked in the academic advising office in the athletic department. She eventually became a full-time academic advisor and was promoted to the role of associate director.   After finishing her PhD at Indiana, and started the position as an Associate Director, one of her basketball players set her up with his professor. They met at a bar in Bloomington, Indiana, where her parents had met. They married and  moved to Illinois where Amelia took a position as Director of University College. She talks about what was involved with this role.   After 15 years, she was promoted to Interim Assistant Vice President for Student Success at Illinois State. Most recently, she started as the Associate Provost at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Amelia believes in fate and believes in  following signs and signals that guide you through life. She has two children, one starting college and another junior. Amelia talks about academic advising and how she was focused on athletic advising. She talks about the friendships formed and helping students with individual courses, tutoring, time management, mentoring and working with students over the course of several years.    Amelia discusses the challenges of managing the workload and balancing the demands of athletics and academics. She explains the demands of Division One athletics and offers examples of challenges faced. An example of a player student that Amelia worked with was a baseball player who faced constant travel and strict attendance requirements. Athletes especially find it difficult to manage traveling during the school year, and combining academic studies with athletic demands. She helped them plan their schedules, ensuring they could take courses at another institution or time and transfer them back to finish their degree. Amelia also discusses the importance of setting up students for success in the long term, especially during championship sports. Many of her soccer and basketball players went pro, and she helped them manage their identities as athletes while focusing on their career. She explains that a typical week for a division one athlete involves choosing classes carefully, with many morning classes and afternoon practices. However, smaller schools may have limited facilities and practice facilities, making it more challenging to manage time. Amelia also discusses the differences between student athletes and general population students in terms of time management and self-management. She believes that students from the general population school experience includes extracurricular activities, such as student government, orientation, jobs, or research labs.  Overall, the advising profession in higher education is a complex and multifaceted field that requires a deep understanding of the students and their needs. Amelia has a passion for athletics management, having worked with the men's swim team and gaining an internship in the athletic department. She believes that if student athletes have people who are committed to helping them be students and athletes, there is the capacity for them to succeed. She sees this happening at Harvard, Indiana, and Illinois State, but not as much at School of the Art Institute where they don't have a collegiate athletics program.  Amelia also shares her favorite theory in student development, the challenge and support theory. This theory suggests that students need both challenge and support to overcome challenges and grow. Some students need more support at the beginning, while others need less. In conclusion, Amelia emphasizes the importance of providing students with the necessary support and challenge to succeed in their academic pursuits. By advising students on time management and promoting a love for their studies, they can achieve success in their future careers.  An Academic Advisor's Advice  The challenge and support model is essential for students to perform optimally in their academic pursuits. It is crucial to provide both leeway and support, which can be beneficial for both students and adults. One tip for young people struggling with study tips is to go to office hours and consult professors for guidance. In the world of electronic gadgets and apps, Amelia stresses the importance of time management. It is important to remember the basics of plotting all tasks and print out a weekly schedule. This helps students plot their classes, jobs, and eating habits, etc.  Amelia states that the political landscape has a significant impact on higher education, particularly in the field of College Student Personnel Administration. Many professionals in this field work with students on equity, diversity, and inclusion issues. Recent Supreme Court decisions and subsequent issues are expected to have a significant impact on how college personnel operate. Amelia's perspective on the coddling of the American mind is complicated, as it is more complex than often described. She believes significant mental health issues need to be addressed. In higher education, providing mental health support is not coddling them, but rather a medical issue.   Amelia's current role involves working behind the scenes on curricular issues that she didn't normally have the ability to work on in her previous job. At the School of the Art Institute, which has a high rate of students seeking a creative outlet for their creativity, it can be difficult to help identify which courses students' actually need. She mentions a project she recently completed to help the programs work more effectively. The challenge and support model is crucial for students to perform optimally in their academic pursuits. By focusing on the basics and addressing the complex issues faced by students, institutions can better support and help students navigate the challenges they face.   Amelia talks about her experiences with professors and courses that have resonated with her personally and professionally. She mentions History Professor Mark Kishlansky, who was her shadow advisor for her thesis. Kishlansky was known for his expertise in Early Modern English history which Amelia loved.  After graduation, she continued working part-time for the library while she was there, which was a fun post-college job. She enjoyed not only getting books but also having conversations with the people who were working there. In summary, Amelia's experiences with professors and professors during her college years have been invaluable in her personal and professional growth, and her experiences at Widener Library and her work at the library have left a lasting impact on her life and career.   Timestamps: 01:30 Career path and life journey after graduating from Harvard 05:29 Academic advising in higher education 09:45 Balancing athletics and academics for college athletes 13:47 Managing time and balancing athletics and academics in college 19:34 Time management tips for college students 24:01 Mental health, and higher education challenges 28:54 College courses and professors' impact 33:16 Bear and bull baiting sporting laws   CONTACT: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/amelia-noel-elkins-240ba229 Email: anoel92@post.harvard.edu FB and Instagram: amelianoelelkins  

thirty minute study with me by Bella on youtube (Harvard Widener Library)

In 1969, the rare and valuable Gutenberg Bible was taken from the Widener Library at Harvard. What prevented it from being taken permanently out of circulation? About forty feet of rope.

Tess and Karen interviewed the delightful Edwin Hill, the Edgar and Agatha-award nominated author of Little Comfort, The Missing Ones, and Watch Her.He shared how a walk past the Widener Library on the Harvard campus gave him the idea for his mystery novel protagonist, and how he made connections in the writing community. He also told the story of the time he delivered a completely different book than the one previously promised to his editor.The writing book Edwin recommended is Plot Perfect by Paula Munier: https://amzn.to/3z2XcXeThe essay referenced on the inevitability of writing terrible first drafts can be found in Anne Lamott's book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.https://amzn.to/38URsV2(If you get the Edith Ann reference in the interview, you might be a tad old. Karen can relate.)Find Edwin here:https://www.edwin-hill.com/https://www.facebook.com/edwinhillauthor/https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16513610.Edwin_Hill Come over and say hi to Karen & Tess on the BTB Facebook page: https://bit.ly/3k5J8bC

In today's episode we are taking a different approach. We are starting off in the realm of fiction and learning about the Necronomicon, a fictitious book made up by a man we've discussed in the past. Then we switch gears and head into the real world, the land of the living, as some say, except we are looking at the land of the dead. We will be discussing a few true life Necronomicon books, or books of the dead. We have some examples of true to life books discussing preparation of the dead, helping them cross over, even what to do and expect when you get to the other side. Without further ado, let's get into this by visiting a previous subject, the one and only magnificently weird… H.P. Lovecraft!        Since we've discussed ol H.P. in a separate episode we are not going to get into the man himself really. If you want to hear our take on Lovecraft, make sure to check out episode 37 from way back in January of 2020. What we are going to look at, however, is the book that he references in 10 separate stories. Those stories include: The Call of The Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, The Haunter of The Dark, The Thing On The Doorstep, and several others. The book we are talking about is, of course, the mother fuckin' necronomicon. That's right… The Necronomicon as most of you know it, was made up by Lovecraft himself.  The book became such a part of his stories that Lovecraft wrote a short history of the book itself. That being said, let's see what the history of the book is as written by the creepy genius, himself:    Original title Al Azif—azif being the word used by Arabs to designate that nocturnal sound (made by insects) suppos'd to be the howling of daemons.      Composed by Abdul Alhazred, a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen, who is said to have flourished during the period of the Ommiade caliphs, circa 700 A.D. He visited the ruins of Babylon and the subterranean secrets of Memphis and spent ten years alone in the great southern desert of Arabia—the Roba el Khaliyeh or “Empty Space” of the ancients—and “Dahna” or “Crimson” desert of the modern Arabs, which is held to be inhabited by protective evil spirits and monsters of death. Of this desert many strange and unbelievable marvels are told by those who pretend to have penetrated it. In his last years Alhazred dwelt in Damascus, where the Necronomicon (Al Azif) was written, and of his final death or disappearance (738 A.D.) many terrible and conflicting things are told. He is said by Ebn Khallikan (12th cent. biographer) to have been seized by an invisible monster in broad daylight and devoured horribly before a large number of fright-frozen witnesses. Of his madness many things are told. He claimed to have seen fabulous Irem, or City of Pillars, and to have found beneath the ruins of a certain nameless desert town the shocking annals and secrets of a race older than mankind. He was only an indifferent Moslem, worshipping unknown entities whom he called Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu.      In A.D. 950 the Azif, which had gained a considerable tho' surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age, was secretly translated into Greek by Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople under the title Necronomicon. For a century it impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts, when it was suppressed and burnt by the patriarch Michael. After this it is only heard of furtively, but (1228) Olaus Wormius made a Latin translation later in the Middle Ages, and the Latin text was printed twice—once in the fifteenth century in black-letter (evidently in Germany) and once in the seventeenth (prob. Spanish)—both editions being without identifying marks, and located as to time and place by internal typographical evidence only. The work both Latin and Greek was banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, shortly after its Latin translation, which called attention to it. The Arabic original was lost as early as Wormius' time, as indicated by his prefatory note; and no sight of the Greek copy—which was printed in Italy between 1500 and 1550—has been reported since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692. An English translation made by Dr. Dee was never printed, and exists only in fragments recovered from the original manuscript. Of the Latin texts now existing one (15th cent.) is known to be in the British Museum under lock and key, while another (17th cent.) is in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. A seventeenth-century edition is in the Widener Library at Harvard, and in the library of Miskatonic University at Arkham. Also in the library of the University of Buenos Ayres. Numerous other copies probably exist in secret, and a fifteenth-century one is persistently rumoured to form part of the collection of a celebrated American millionaire. A still vaguer rumour credits the preservation of a sixteenth-century Greek text in the Salem family of Pickman; but if it was so preserved, it vanished with the artist R.U. Pickman, who disappeared early in 1926. The book is rigidly suppressed by the authorities of most countries, and by all branches of organised ecclesiasticism. Reading leads to terrible consequences. It was from rumours of this book (of which relatively few of the general public know) that R.W. Chambers is said to have derived the idea of his early novel The King in Yellow.   That was the history of the necronomicon as written by Lovecraft. Lovecraft stated that the name of the book came to him in a dream. Some claim however that Lovecraft was inspired by Robert W. Chambers' collection of stories titled The King In Yellow even though he isn't thought to have read the book until the late 1920s. Another person theorized that the book was derived from Nathanial Hawthorne. When asked about the Necronomicon, Lovecraft always maintained that it was wholly his invention even though The History Of The Necronomicon played as an historical text.    Despite the book showing up in several stories the details of the book were pretty sparse. There were a few passages and words that were attributed to the necronomicon. The book's physical properties are not really talked about but generally it's described as being bound in some sort of leather and with metal clasps. As for the passages attributed to the book, there is a fairly long one that is described in the Dunwich Horror. The passage reads as follows:              Nor is it to be thought...that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They had trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them. They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraven, but who hath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.   Another is a considerably smaller snippet that is actually found in 2 stories, call of the Cthulhu and the nameless city, which goes as follows :          That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.   It is in Call of the Cthulhu that this small couplet is said to be from the Necronomicon.   In at least one story, the book was discovered to be disguised as another book.    When asked about the contents Lovecraft once wrote:          "if anyone were to try to write the Necronomicon, it would disappoint all those who have shuddered at cryptic references to it."   According to Lovecraft's "History of the Necronomicon", copies of the original Necronomicon were held by only five institutions worldwide:   The British Museum The Bibliothèque nationale de France Widener Library of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts The University of Buenos Aires The library of the fictional Miskatonic University in the also fictitious Arkham, Massachusetts The Miskatonic University also holds the Latin translation by Olaus Wormius, printed in Spain in the 17th century.   Other copies, Lovecraft wrote, were kept by private individuals. Joseph Curwen, as noted, had a copy in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1941). A version is held in Kingsport in "The Festival" (1925). The provenance of the copy read by the narrator of "The Nameless City" is unknown; a version is read by the protagonist in "The Hound" (1924).   Although Lovecraft always maintained he created the book, there have always been plenty of people who believed the book to be real. There have been several books published that are supposedly translations of the actual Necronomicon. Interestingly enough the Vatican received calls every year from people that believe the real Necronomicon resides there. There have been hoaxes and others who have added their cards into library files to make it appear as if they have a copy but it is checked out. In Norway, the library of Tromso lists that they have a translated version but it is listed as unavailable.    In 1978 a version of the necronomicon popped up that had been edited by George Hay. Hay was a writer and the founder of the science fiction foundation. The version included an introduction by the paranormal researcher and writer Colin Wilson. Wilson also wrote a story, "The Return of the Lloigor", in which the Voynich manuscript turns out to be a copy of the Necronomicon. Which is a pretty cool idea. The Voynich manuscript will be a bonus we're going to tackle so make sure you become a Patreon Poopr to get access to that and all of the other amazing bonuses.    Kenneth Grant, the British occultist, disciple of Aleister Crowley, (another future bonus episode topic) and head of the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis, suggested in his 1972 book The Magical Revival that there was an unconscious connection between Crowley and Lovecraft. Grant claimed that the Necronomicon existed as an astral book as part of the Akashic records and could be accessed through ritual magic or in dreams.  The Akashic records are a pretty crazy topic which we will definitely cover one day. In theosophy and anthroposophy, the Akashic records are a compendium of all universal events, thoughts, words, emotions, and intent ever to have occurred in the past, present, or future in terms of all entities and life forms, not just human. They are believed by theosophists to be encoded in a non-physical plane of existence known as the mental plane. There are anecdotal accounts but there is no scientific evidence for the existence of the Akashic records.   In 2004, Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred, by Canadian occultist Donald Tyson, was published by Llewellyn Worldwide. The Tyson Necronomicon is generally thought to be closer to Lovecraft's vision than other published versions.[citation needed] Donald Tyson has clearly stated that the Necronomicon is fictional, but that has not prevented his book from being the center of some controversy. Tyson has since published Alhazred, a novelization of the life of the Necronomicon's author. Tyson had also been known to back Grant's thoughts about Crowley, Lovecraft and the Akashic records.   l The most famous of these versions of the book is the  “Simon Necronomicon,” named for its pseudo mononymous compiler (widely believed to be occultist Peter Levenda). The book is cobbled together from a mishmash of recontextualized Sumerian and Babylonian texts peppered with added references to fictional deities created by Lovecraft and the orientalist magical system of Aleister Crowley. Simon's text basically steals the work of pioneering Assyriologists like R.C. Thompson, from whose Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia many of the translations are lifted. In their original context, these texts were incantations against evil spirits and the various ills they caused, not spells for conjuring them. (“Simon” has a tendency to present descriptions of demons' evil natures in English, but slips back into transliterated Akkadian when the texts begin to call for the spirits to be cast out, leading to an implication that the demons are being invoked rather than exorcised.) These ancient Mesopotamian incantations have come to be considered “satanic” through a centuries-long process of reinterpretation. The Simon Necronomicon reads its ancient sources through a combination of medieval demonology, 19th-century Theosophy, and 20th-century pulp fiction.   But despite its clear origins as a hoax, the Simon Necronomicon has been used as evidence in murder trials like that of Rod Ferrell and his so-called “Vampire Clan.” In 1996, Ferrell murdered the parents of one of his friends in a brutal but mundane home invasion. But numerous factors that emerged in media coverage of the crime-- including Ferrell's self-identification as a vampire and the discovery of a copy of the Simon Necronomicon in his car--led to the murders being reframed as a satanic ritual killing. This information on the Simon Necronomicon comes from an article written by Gabriel McKee for The Institute For The Study of The Ancient World.   So that's a basic history of the Lovecraft Necronomicon. Versions of this book have been in storytelling through the ages. Including Moody's favorite movies like… The evil dead series. It also makes an appearance in Jason goes to hell to build the narrative that the Necronomicon was used in some capacity to bring Jason Vohees back. The Necronomicon was again shown in Pumpkinhead 2: Electric Boogaloo. Oh wait… Make that “Blood Wings”, wrong sequel. This version of the necronomicon was shown to be written in sumerian instead of Arabic.  So what about real life books of the dead? Well, there are some out there. The Egyptian book of the dead is probably the most famous.    The Egyptian Book of the Dead is a collection of spells which enable the soul of the deceased to navigate the afterlife. The famous title was given the work by western scholars; the actual title would translate as The Book of Coming Forth by Day or Spells for Going Forth by Day and a more apt translation to English would be The Egyptian Book of Life. Although the work is often referred to as "the Ancient Egyptian Bible" there is no such thing although the two works share the similarity of being ancient compilations of texts written at different times eventually gathered together in book form. The Book of the Dead was never codified and no two copies of the work are exactly the same. They were created specifically for each individual who could afford to purchase one as a kind of manual to help them after death. The afterlife was considered to be a continuation of life on earth and, after one had passed through various difficulties and judgment in the Hall of Truth, a paradise which was a perfect reflection of one's life on earth. After the soul had been justified in the Hall of Truth it passed on to cross over Lily Lake to rest in the Field of Reeds where one would find everything that one had lost in life and could enjoy it eternally. In order to reach that paradise, however, one needed to know where to go, how to address certain gods, what to say at certain times, and how to comfort oneself in the land of the dead; which is why one would find an afterlife manual extremely useful.    The Book of the Dead originated from concepts depicted in tomb paintings and inscriptions from as early as the Third Dynasty of Egypt (c. 2670 - 2613 BCE). By the 12th Dynasty (1991 - 1802 BCE) these spells, with accompanying illustrations, were written on papyrus and placed in tombs and graves with the dead. Their purpose, as historian Margaret Bunson explains, "was to instruct the deceased on how to overcome the dangers of the afterlife by enabling them to assume the form of several mythical creatures and to give them the passwords necessary for admittance to certain stages of the underworld". They also served, however, to provide the soul with fore-knowledge of what would be expected at every stage. Having a Book of the Dead in one's tomb would be the equivalent of a student in the modern day getting their hands on all the test answers they would ever need in every grade of school. At some point prior to 1600 BCE the different spells had been divided in chapters and, by the time of the New Kingdom (1570 - 1069 BCE), the book was extremely popular. Bunson notes, "These spells and passwords were not part of a ritual but were fashioned for the deceased, to be recited in the afterlife". If someone were sick, and feared they might die, they would go to a scribe and have them write up a book of spells for the afterlife. The scribe would need to know what kind of life the person had lived in order to surmise the type of journey they could expect after death. Prior to the New Kingdom, The Book of the Dead was only available to the royalty and the elite. The popularity of the Osiris Myth in the period of the New Kingdom made people believe the spells were indispensible because Osiris featured so prominently in the soul's judgment in the afterlife.  As more and more people desired their own Book of the Dead, scribes obliged them and the book became just another commodity produced for sale. Bunson writes, "The individual could decide the number of chapters to be included, the types of illustrations, and the quality of the papyrus used. The individual was limited only by his or her financial resources"       It continued to vary in form and size until c. 650 BCE when it was fixed at 190 uniform spells but, still, people could add or subtract what they wanted to from the text. Other copies of the book continued to be produced with more or less spells depending on what the buyer could afford. The one spell which every copy seems to have had, however, was Spell 125. so what was spell 125 you ask, well we'll tell you.       Spell 125 is actually pretty cool and it's a story that spans other religious texts in different forms. It is essentially the judging of a person at the gates of the afterlife. In this case it is the judging of the heart of the deceased by the god Osiris in the Hall of Truth. As it was vital that the soul pass the test of the weighing of the heart in order to gain paradise, knowing what to say and how to act before Osiris, Thoth, Anubis, and the Forty-Two Judges was considered the most important information the deceased could arrive with. When a person died, Anubis would guide that person to the Hall of Truth so that they could make the Negative Confession. This was a list of 42 sins the person could honestly say they had never indulged in. Once the Negative Confession was made, Osiris, Thoth, Anubis, and the Forty-Two Judges would confer and, if the confession was accepted, the heart of the deceased was then weighed in the balance against the white feather of Ma'at, the feather of truth. If the heart was found to be lighter than the feather, the soul passed on toward paradise; if the heart was heavier, it was thrown onto the floor where it was devoured by the monster goddess Ammut and the soul would cease to exist. wow… Crazy! The reason that this spell is included in every book is fairly obvious. One needed to know the different gods' names and what they were responsible for but one also needed to know such details as the names of the doors in the room and the floor one needed to walk across; one even needed to know the names of one's own feet. As the soul answered each deity and object with the correct response, they would hear the reply, "You know us; pass by us" and could continue. The spell finished up with a summary of what to wear and even what to offer. It read as follows: "The correct procedure in this Hall of Justice: One shall utter this spell pure and clean and clad in white garments and sandals, painted with black eye-paint and anointed with myrrh. There shall be offered to him meat and poultry, incense, bread, beer, and herbs when you have put this written procedure on a clean floor of ochre overlaid with earth upon which no swine or small cattle have trodden."   There were quite a number of slips the soul might make, however, between arrival at the Hall of Truth and the boat ride to paradise. The Book of the Dead includes spells for any kind of circumstance but it does not seem one was guaranteed to survive these twists and turns. Not every detail described above was included in the vision of every era of Egyptian history. In some periods the modifications are minor while, in others, the afterlife is seen as a perilous journey toward a paradise that is only temporary. At some points in the culture the way to paradise was very straightforward after the soul was justified by Osiris while, in others, crocodiles might thwart the soul or bends in the road may prove dangerous or demons might appear to trick or even attack. In these cases, the soul needed spells to survive and reach paradise. Spells included in the book include titles such as "For Repelling A Crocodile Which Comes To Take Away", "For Driving Off A Snake", "For Not Being Eaten By A Snake In The Realm Of The Dead", "For Not Dying Again In The Realm Of The Dead", "For Being Transformed Into A Divine Falcon", "For Being Transformed Into A Lotus""For Being Transformed Into A Phoenix", “For being transformed into more than meets the eye” and so on. The Book of the Dead, as noted, was never used for magical transformations on earth; the spells only worked in the afterlife. The claim that The Book of the Dead was some kind of sorcerer's text is as wrong and unfounded as the comparison with the Bible. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is also nothing like The Tibetan Book of the Dead, although these two works are often equated as well.    The information about the Egyptian book of the dead was taken from a great article on worldhistory.org It's a great resource for anything historical!   And speaking of the Tibetan Book Of The Dead, let's see what that's all about! Although in Tibet there is no single text directly referred to as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, this English work is the primary source for Western understandings of Tibetan Buddhist conceptions of death. These understandings have been highly influenced by Western spiritualist movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, resulting in efforts to adapt and synthesize various frameworks of “other” religious traditions, particularly those from Asian societies that are viewed as esoteric or mystical, including tantric or Tibetan Buddhism. Isn't Tantric sex about having an intense orgasm without having intercourse? It's also a great band. This has resulted in creative forms of appropriation, reinterpretation, and misrepresentation of Tibetan views and rituals surrounding death, which often neglect the historical and religious realities of the tradition itself. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a prime example of such a process. Despite the lack of a truly existing “book of the dead,” numerous translations, commentaries, and comparative studies on this “book” continue to be produced by both scholars and adherents of the tradition, making it a focal point for the dissemination and transference of Tibetan Buddhism in the West.   The set of Tibetan block prints that was the basis for the original publication of the Tibetan Book of the Dead in 1927 by Walter Y. Evans-Wentz (1878–1968) consisted of portions of the collection known in Tibetan as The Great Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State or Bardo Thödol (Bar do thos grol chen mo). This work is said to have been authored by Padmasambhava in the 8th century CE, who subsequently had the work buried; it was rediscovered in the 14th century by the treasure revealer (gter ston) Karma Lingpa (Kar ma gling pa; b. c. 1350). However, as a subject for literary and historical inquiry, it is nearly impossible to determine what Tibetan texts should be classified under the Western conceptual rubric of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This is due partly to the Tibetan tendency to transmit textual traditions through various redactions, which inevitably change the content and order of collected works. Despite this challenge, the few systematic efforts made by scholars of Tibetan and Buddhist studies to investigate Bardo Thödol literature and its associated funerary tradition have been thorough, and the works produced by Bryan Cuevas and Donald Lopez Jr. are particularly noteworthy.   The Bardo Thödol is essentially a funerary manual designed to guide an individual toward recognizing the signs of impending death and traversing the intermediate state (bar do) between death and rebirth, and to guide one's consciousness to a favorable next life. These instructions provide detailed descriptions of visions and other sensory experiences that one encounters when dying and during the post-mortem state. The texts are meant to be read aloud to the deceased by the living to encourage the consciousness to realize the illusory or dreamlike nature of these experiences and thus to attain liberation through this recognition. This presentation is indicative of a complex and intricate conceptual framework built around notions of death, impermanence, and their soteriological propensities within a tantric Buddhist program developed in Tibet over a millennium, particularly within the context of the Nyingma (rNying ma) esoteric tradition known as Dzogchen (rDzogs chen). Tibet and other tantric Buddhist societies throughout the Himalaya have developed a variety of technologies for practically applying Buddhist understandings of death, and so this particular “book” is by no means the only manual utilized during the dying and post-mortem states, nor is it even necessarily included in all Tibetan or Himalayan funerary traditions. Nevertheless, this work has captured the interests of Western societies for the past century and has unofficially become the principal introduction not only to Tibetan death rites but also to Tibetan Buddhism in general for the West. Information in this summary was taken from the Oxford Research Encyclopedia website.     To go along with these, there is also the lesser known Texan book of the dead. This one is followed by a certain group of people in the Americas. There are some interesting passages in it and they read as follows:    you say you want to go to heaven? Well, I got the plans Kinda walks like Sasquatch But it breeds like kubla khan In original dialect, it's really quite cryptical   Following this it says:   It's given me powers but kept me low Many have scorned this Modern day pharisees fat with espressos   Interesting… It continues:   you want to know paradise Do you want to know hell? Want to drink that cool clear liquor? Better dig a little deeper in the well  It goes on to reveal the mantra you need to recite to move on in the afterlife:           Do you want that mantra? Well, here you go   One for the money, two for the show And a knick knack paddy whack Give the lord a handicap Ooh ee ooh ah ah Twing twang walla walla bing bang Oh ee ooh ah ah Twing twang walla walla bing bang, oh yeah Ooh eee ooh ah ah B-I-N-G-O Ooh eee ooh ah ah E-I-E-I-O   It finishes with an emphatic phrase to remind you that on the afterlife, you're not running shots anymore, it reads:   "It is written, I have spoken So put this in your pipe and smoke it"   Ok so if you made it through that with us you probably surmised that it was a bunch of hogwash. Texan book of the dead is actually a song by the band clutch but we figured we'd have some fun.  Some think the song has a deeper meaning referring to the ridiculousness of trendy ideas about spirituality and the process of life and death.    https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/necromicon-movies-book-of-the-dead/ BECOME A PRODUCER! http://www.patreon.com/themidnighttrainpodcast   Find The Midnight Train Podcast: www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com www.facebook.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.twitter.com/themidnighttrainpc www.instagram.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.discord.com/themidnighttrainpodcast www.tiktok.com/themidnighttrainp   And wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.   Subscribe to our official YouTube channel: OUR YOUTUBE   Support our sponsors www.themidnighttraintrainpodcast.com/sponsors

Harvard’s enormous Widener Library was born from the Titanic tragedy. Join Laura and Sarah and a very special guest this week as they unearth a never told story from the Titanic.

Robert Darnton is Harvard University's Carl H. Pforzheimer Professor, Emeritus and University Librarian, Emeritus He was educated at Harvard and Oxford (where he was a Rhodes scholar). After a brief stint as a reporter for The New York Times, he became a junior fellow in the Society of Fellows at Harvard. He taught at Princeton from 1968 until 2007 when he came to fill the roles mentioned above. Among his honors are a MacArthur Prize Fellowship, a National Book Critics Circle Award, election to the French Legion of Honor, the National Humanities Medal, and the Del Duca World Prize in the Humanities. He has written and edited many books, including The Business of Enlightenment: A Publishing History of the Encyclopédie (1979, an early attempt to develop the history of books as a field of study), The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (1984, his most popular work) and The Forbidden Best-Sellers of Prerevolutionary France (1995, a study of the underground book trade).     We met at his office in the Widener Library to talk, among other things, about why book history in so exciting; French police enforcing edicts on the book trade; The Private Life of Louis XV,  sex, scandal and politics; David Hall; the fertile crescent of publishing houses around France in the 18th century; book pirating; the communications circuit; and Roger Chartier, and the fluidity of texts. 

You may have heard the advice that to build your vocabulary you should read, read, and then read some more--and make sure to include a wide variety of publications. But what if you just don't have that kind of time? Martha and Grant show how to learn new words by making the most of the time you do have. Also, when new words are added to a dictionary, do others get removed to make room? Plus, words of encouragement, words of exasperation, and a polite Japanese way to say goodbye when a co-worker leaves at the end of the day. Also, you bet your boots, the worm has turned, raise hell and put a chunk under it, bread and butter, on tomorrow, a love letter to libraries and an apology to marmots. FULL DETAILS After inadvertently maligning marmots in an earlier discussion of the term whistle pig, Martha makes a formal apology to any marmots that might be listening. Uff-da! is an exclamation of disgust or annoyance. In Norwegian, it means roughly the same as  Yiddish Oy vey!, and is now common in areas of the U.S. settled by Norwegians, particularly Wisconsin and Minnesota. The worm has turned suggests a reversal of fortune, particularly the kind of situation in which a meek person begins behaving more confidently or starts defending himself. In other words, even the lowliest of creatures will still strike back if sufficiently provoked, an idea Shakespeare used in Henry VI, Part 3, where Lord Clifford observes, "The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, and doves will peck in safeguard of their brood." Raise hell and put a chunk under it is simply an intensified version of the phrase raise hell, meaning "to cause trouble" or "create a noisy disturbance." The phrases You bet your boots! and You bet your britches! mean "without a doubt" and most likely originate from gambling culture, where you wouldn't want to bet your boots or trousers without being confident that you'd win. Quiz Guy John Chaneski takes us on a road trip, which means another round of the License Plate Game! A Chicago-area listener wonders: When dictionaries go from print to online, are any words removed? What's the best print dictionary to replace the old one on her dictionary stand? For more about dictionaries and their history, Grant recommends the Cordell Collection of Dictionaries at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana. When two people are walking side-by-side holding hands but briefly separate to go around an obstacle on opposite sites, they might say bread and butter. This phrase apparently stems from an old superstition that if the two people want to remain inseparable as bread and butter, they should invoke that kind of togetherness. There are several variations of this practice, including the worry that if they fail to utter the phrase, they'll soon quarrel. Another version appears early in an episode of the old TV series The Twilight Zone, featuring a very young William Shatner.   John Webster's 1623 tragedy The Duchess of Malfi includes the memorable lines Glories, like glowworms, afar off shine bright, / But looked to near have neither heat nor light. Much later, Stephen Crane expressed a similar idea in his poem A Man Saw a Ball of Gold in the Sky. A woman in Monticello, Florida, is bothered by the phrase on tomorrow, and feels that the word on is redundant. However, this construction is a dialect feature, not a grammatical mistake. It has roots in the United Kingdom and probably derives from the phrase on the morrow. What phrases do you use to encourage others to pick themselves up and dust themselves off? move on? What words do you say to acknowledge someone's bad luck and encourage them to move on? In a discussion on our Facebook group, listeners offer lots of suggestions, including tough beans, tough darts, suck it up, tough nougies, and you knew it was a snake when you picked it up. A listener in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, requests advice about expanding her vocabulary as a writer, but admits she spends only about ten minutes a day reading. The hosts offer several suggestions: Make sure to stop and look up unfamiliar words; listen to podcasts, which will also introduce you to new words; check the etymology, which is sometimes a helpful memory aid; build vocabulary practice into your routine with a word-a-day calendar or a subscription to Anu Garg's A.Word.A.Day newsletter. A teacher in Oakley, Vermont, noted a curious construction among his students while teaching in Maine. They would say things like We're all going to the party, and so isn't he orI like to play basketball, and so doesn't he.  Primarily heard in eastern New England, this locution has a kind of internal logic, explained in more detail at one of our favorite resources, The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project. A Jackson, Mississippi, woman who used to work in Japan says that each day as she left the office, her colleagues would say Otsukaresama desu, which means something along the lines of "Thank you for your hard work." Although its literal translation suggests that the hearer must be exhausted, it's simply understood as a polite, set phrase with no exact equivalent in English. Pulitzer-winning historian Barbara Tuchman has observed that her single most formative educational experience was  exploring Harvard's Widener Library. She captured the feelings of many library lovers when she added that her own daughter couldn't enter that building "without feeling that she ought to carry a compass, a sandwich, and a whistle." To go at something bald-headed means "to rush at something head-on." The same idea informs the phrase to I'm going to pinch you bald-headed, which an exasperated parent might say to a misbehaving child. The more common version is snatch you bald-headed, a version of which Mark Twain used in his Letters from Hawaii.     This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett. -- A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donate Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: words@waywordradio.org Phone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donate Site: http://waywordradio.org/ Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/ Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/ Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/ Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2017, Wayword LLC.

You may have heard the advice that to build your vocabulary you should read, read, and then read some more--and make sure to include a wide variety of publications. But what if you just don't have that kind of time? Martha and Grant show how to learn new words by making the most of the time you do have. Also, when new words are added to a dictionary, do others get removed to make room? Plus, words of encouragement, words of exasperation, and a polite Japanese way to say goodbye when a co-worker leaves at the end of the day. Also, you bet your boots, the worm has turned, raise hell and put a chunk under it, bread and butter, on tomorrow, a love letter to libraries and an apology to marmots. FULL DETAILS After inadvertently maligning marmots in an earlier discussion of the term whistle pig, Martha makes a formal apology to any marmots that might be listening. Uff-da! is an exclamation of disgust or annoyance. In Norwegian, it means roughly the same as  Yiddish Oy vey!, and is now common in areas of the U.S. settled by Norwegians, particularly Wisconsin and Minnesota. The worm has turned suggests a reversal of fortune, particularly the kind of situation in which a meek person begins behaving more confidently or starts defending himself. In other words, even the lowliest of creatures will still strike back if sufficiently provoked, an idea Shakespeare used in Henry VI, Part 3, where Lord Clifford observes, "The smallest worm will turn being trodden on, and doves will peck in safeguard of their brood." Raise hell and put a chunk under it is simply an intensified version of the phrase raise hell, meaning "to cause trouble" or "create a noisy disturbance." The phrases You bet your boots! and You bet your britches! mean "without a doubt" and most likely originate from gambling culture, where you wouldn't want to bet your boots or trousers without being confident that you'd win. Quiz Guy John Chaneski takes us on a road trip, which means another round of the License Plate Game! A Chicago-area listener wonders: When dictionaries go from print to online, are any words removed? What's the best print dictionary to replace the old one on her dictionary stand? For more about dictionaries and their history, Grant recommends the Cordell Collection of Dictionaries at Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana. When two people are walking side-by-side holding hands but briefly separate to go around an obstacle on opposite sites, they might say bread and butter. This phrase apparently stems from an old superstition that if the two people want to remain inseparable as bread and butter, they should invoke that kind of togetherness. There are several variations of this practice, including the worry that if they fail to utter the phrase, they'll soon quarrel. Another version appears early in an episode of the old TV series The Twilight Zone, featuring a very young William Shatner.   John Webster's 1623 tragedy The Duchess of Malfi includes the memorable lines Glories, like glowworms, afar off shine bright, / But looked to near have neither heat nor light. Much later, Stephen Crane expressed a similar idea in his poem A Man Saw a Ball of Gold in the Sky. A woman in Monticello, Florida, is bothered by the phrase on tomorrow, and feels that the word on is redundant. However, this construction is a dialect feature, not a grammatical mistake. It has roots in the United Kingdom and probably derives from the phrase on the morrow. What phrases do you use to encourage others to pick themselves up and dust themselves off? move on? What words do you say to acknowledge someone's bad luck and encourage them to move on? In a discussion on our Facebook group, listeners offer lots of suggestions, including tough beans, tough darts, suck it up, tough nougies, and you knew it was a snake when you picked it up. A listener in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, requests advice about expanding her vocabulary as a writer, but admits she spends only about ten minutes a day reading. The hosts offer several suggestions: Make sure to stop and look up unfamiliar words; listen to podcasts, which will also introduce you to new words; check the etymology, which is sometimes a helpful memory aid; build vocabulary practice into your routine with a word-a-day calendar or a subscription to Anu Garg's A.Word.A.Day newsletter. A teacher in Oakley, Vermont, noted a curious construction among his students while teaching in Maine. They would say things like We're all going to the party, and so isn't he orI like to play basketball, and so doesn't he.  Primarily heard in eastern New England, this locution has a kind of internal logic, explained in more detail at one of our favorite resources, The Yale Grammatical Diversity Project. A Jackson, Mississippi, woman who used to work in Japan says that each day as she left the office, her colleagues would say Otsukaresama desu, which means something along the lines of "Thank you for your hard work." Although its literal translation suggests that the hearer must be exhausted, it's simply understood as a polite, set phrase with no exact equivalent in English. Pulitzer-winning historian Barbara Tuchman has observed that her single most formative educational experience was  exploring Harvard's Widener Library. She captured the feelings of many library lovers when she added that her own daughter couldn't enter that building "without feeling that she ought to carry a compass, a sandwich, and a whistle." To go at something bald-headed means "to rush at something head-on." The same idea informs the phrase to I'm going to pinch you bald-headed, which an exasperated parent might say to a misbehaving child. The more common version is snatch you bald-headed, a version of which Mark Twain used in his Letters from Hawaii.     This episode is hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett. -- A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donate Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: words@waywordradio.org Phone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donate Site: http://waywordradio.org/ Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/ Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/ Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/ Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2016, Wayword LLC.

March 9, 2016 at the Boston Athenæum. For John Singer Sargent, Corsano and Williman argue, the Great War changed everything, particularly after the death of Robert André-Michel, the husband of Sargent’s beloved niece Rose-Marie Ormond. During most of the war, Sargent busied himself with work in London and eventually went to America to escape the realities of war. When Rose-Marie herself was killed in the spring of 1918, Sargent promptly left Boston and traveled to France to paint. Corsano and Williman will discuss Sargent’s reflections on the war, which can be viewed in the murals of the Boston Public Library and Harvard’s Widener Library, among other works.

Sarah Thomas draws from her years in the stacks at Oxford, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and now, as the Vice President of the Harvard Library, to describe her vision for the future of libraries at the 2015 Dinner in the Library celebration hosted by the Library at UC San Diego. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Education] [Show ID: 28725]

Sarah Thomas draws from her years in the stacks at Oxford, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and now, as the Vice President of the Harvard Library, to describe her vision for the future of libraries at the 2015 Dinner in the Library celebration hosted by the Library at UC San Diego. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Education] [Show ID: 28725]

The technological advancements of the past twenty years have rendered the future of the library as a physical space, at least, as uncertain as it has ever been. The information that libraries were once built to house in the form of books and manuscripts can now be accessed in the purely digital realm, as evidenced by initiatives like the Digital Public Library of America, which convenes for the second time this Friday in San Francisco. But libraries still have profound cultural significance, indicating that even if they are no longer necessary for storing books they will continue to exist in some altered form. Radio Berkman host David Weinberger postulated in his book Too Big To Know that the book itself is no longer an appropriate knowledge container – it has been supplanted by the sprawling knowledge networks of the internet. The book’s subtitle is “Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room.” Inspired by the work of Harvard Graduate School of Design students in Biblioteca 2: Library Test Kitchen – who spent the semester inventing and building library innovations ranging from nap carrels to curated collections displayed on book trucks to digital welcome mats – we turned the microphone around and had library expert Matthew Battles ask David, “When the smartest person in the room is the room, how do we design the room?” Matthew Battles is the Managing Editor and Curatorial Practice Fellow at the Harvard metaLAB. He wrote Library: an Unquiet History and a biography of Harvard’s Widener Library. David Weinberger is the author of Too Big To Know and a senior researcher at the Berkman Center. He is also the co-director of the Harvard Law School Library Lab.

In this installment of Faculty Insight, produced in partnership with Harvard University Extension School, ThoughtCast speaks with the esteemed Harvard classicist Gregory Nagy about one of the earliest and greatest legends of all time: Homer's epic story of the siege of Troy, called “The Iliad.” It's a story of god-like heroes and blood-soaked battles; honor, pride, shame and defeat. In this interview, we dissect a key scene in “The Iliad,” where Hector and Achilles are about to meet in battle. Athena is also on hand, and she plays a crucial if underhanded role, with the grudging approval of her father, Zeus. And Nagy is the perfect guide to this classic tale. He's the director of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC, as well as the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard. We spoke in his office at Widener Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this installment of Faculty Insight, produced in partnership with Harvard University Extension School, ThoughtCast speaks with the esteemed Harvard classicist Gregory Nagy about one of the earliest and greatest legends of all time: Homer’s epic story of the siege of Troy, called “The Iliad.” It’s a story of god-like heroes and blood-soaked battles; honor, pride, shame and defeat. In this interview, we dissect a key scene in “The Iliad,” where Hector and Achilles are about to meet in battle. Athena is also on hand, and she plays a crucial if underhanded role, with the grudging approval of her father, Zeus. And Nagy is the perfect guide to this classic tale. He’s the director of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC, as well as the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard. We spoke in his office at Widener Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this installment of Faculty Insight, produced in partnership with Harvard University Extension School, ThoughtCast speaks with the esteemed Harvard classicist Gregory Nagy about one of the earliest and greatest legends of all time: Homer’s epic story of the siege of Troy, called “The Iliad.” It’s a story of god-like heroes and blood-soaked battles; honor, pride, shame and defeat. In this interview, we dissect a key scene in “The Iliad,” where Hector and Achilles are about to meet in battle. Athena is also on hand, and she plays a crucial if underhanded role, with the grudging approval of her father, Zeus. And Nagy is the perfect guide to this classic tale. He’s the director of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC, as well as the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard. We spoke in his office at Widener Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this installment of Faculty Insight, produced in partnership with Harvard University Extension School, ThoughtCast speaks with the esteemed Harvard classicist Gregory Nagy about one of the earliest and greatest legends of all time: Homer’s epic story of the siege of Troy, called “The Iliad.” It’s a story of god-like heroes and blood-soaked battles; honor, pride, shame and defeat. In this interview, we dissect a key scene in “The Iliad,” where Hector and Achilles are about to meet in battle. Athena is also on hand, and she plays a crucial if underhanded role, with the grudging approval of her father, Zeus. And Nagy is the perfect guide to this classic tale. He’s the director of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC, as well as the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard. We spoke in his office at Widener Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this installment of Faculty Insight, produced in partnership with Harvard University Extension School, ThoughtCast speaks with the esteemed Harvard classicist Gregory Nagy about one of the earliest and greatest legends of all time: Homer’s epic story of the siege of Troy, called “The Iliad.” It’s a story of god-like heroes and blood-soaked battles; honor, pride, shame and defeat. In this interview, we dissect a key scene in “The Iliad,” where Hector and Achilles are about to meet in battle. Athena is also on hand, and she plays a crucial if underhanded role, with the grudging approval of her father, Zeus. And Nagy is the perfect guide to this classic tale. He’s the director of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington DC, as well as the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard. We spoke in his office at Widener Library. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry and Fr. Mark O'Connell **Today's topics:** A look back at our first 100 shows; Scot's and Fr. Mark's stories; Sunday's Gospel readings **Summary of today's show:** Fr. Mark shared with Scot his own vocation story, which called the most boring we've heard, as well as the reasons why he pronounces "out" funny and how he came to be a canon lawyer. Scot and Fr. Mark then reflected on the first 100 episodes of the show, how Scot came to be host, and his own time as a seminarian before becoming a husband and father. Finally, a reflection on thisSunday's Mass readings. **1st segment:** Scot told Fr. Mark that today is his last week on theshow for the next two weeks while he's on vacation. We have taped shows for the next 10 shows, including Artie Boyle talking about Medjurgorje; Fr. Andrew Apostoli, CFR, on Fatima; Fr. Roger Landry on Catholic Marian beliefs; Fr. Peter Loro from South Sudan; Jim and Terry Orcutt from My Brother's Keeper; and some more. There will be a live news show next Thursday. Scot wished a happy birthday to Sr. Olga Yaqob, who is founding a new religious order in the Archdiocese at the request of Cardinal Seán. Fr. Mark said this Monday he will be participating in the golf tournament at St. John's Seminary. He wasn't going to go, but Kathleen Heck at the seminary sent him a personalized top-10 list of reasons why he should go.  Look for more information on the tournament at [St. John's Seminary's website](http://www.sjs.edu). Scot said it's inspiring to see prioests out and having fun in an event that really provides good support to the seminary. **2nd segment:** Scot asked Fr. Mark about growing up in Toronto, Canada, until he was 12. His father is from St. Mark's Parish in Dorchester and his mother is from St. Theresa's parish in Watertown. His father was a university librarian and he was head of research at Widener Library at Harvard, the second-largest library in the US. That's where his father met his mother when she was working for a professor and he sent her to the library to get a book. There was a brand-new university in Toronto called York University. His father was offered a job and went to create a brand-new library from scratch. That library now has more than 1 million books. Fr. Mark was born there and grew up playing hockey. He moved to the US on July 4, 1976. They moved to Dover where he attended high school and then he attended Boston College, where his father had become the college's librarian. His father created the Thomas P. O'Neill Library and then the Burns Special Collection library at Boston College. On his eighteenth birthday, he was sitting on the porch in the back yard of his parents' house and thinking that he had no idea what to do with his life. He had a thought that if he could do anything, he'd like to be a priest. Fr. Mark's uncle was a priest and his father's uncle was a priest too, and they were happy priests and a good example of the priesthood. He had the thought that he'd like to be a priest and wanted to God call him, then thought that maybe this is the call. So he decided to live his life as if he was called. In his years at St. John Seminary, he had no doubts that he was going to be a priest and has never doubted since then. An altar boy once asked him, if he could be something other than a priest what would he be. Fr. Mark said that he couldn't be anything else because being a priest is his identity. It is who he was created to be. After ordination 21 years ago, he was first assigned to St. Barbara's in Woburn for five years with Fr. Vin Malone who is still pastor there. He served at St. Mary in Danvers and Salem State College. Bishop William Murphy, then the vicar general, asked him to make an appointment to see him and Fr. Mark thought he was in trouble. It turned out that the the bishop wanted him to attend school to become a canon lawyer. He was asked to attend Santa Croce Seminary in Rome. Scot asked him why he thought he was chosen, and he thought it was because he was loyal and open and willing to work for the Church. The hardest part was  that all the classes were in Italian with a Spanish accent and grammar because all the teachers were from Spain. Despite studying Italian for the summer, his first class he understood only two words: *Molto importante*. Very important. There was another student in the class named Jim Snow, who took his notes in English. So for the first month that's how he got by in class. Suddenly in one class, he understood. He eventually defended his doctoral dissertation in Italian. The dissertation was written on one paragraph of one canon out of 1752 canons. He'd been advised to make the subject as narrow as possible. After coming back to Rome, he spent 7 years as the assistant to the moderator of the curia for canonical affairs. He worked in the old chancery in Brighton and Bishop Murphy was his boss. He served under Bishop Edyvean, Bishop Lennon, and then Father Erickson before moving to the tribunal. He spent a lot of his time on the abuse crisis and closing parishes in addition to the usual tasks of dispensations and reviewing books for imprimaturs. Those 7 years were perhaps the most difficult 7 years in the history of the Archdiocese.  He always tried to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. He and Fr. Robert Kickham are the only two left in the pastoral center who were here throughout those events and they provide the institutional memory. In 2007, he became judicial vicar running the metropolitan tribunal. He also teaches canon law at the seminary and is vice-chancellor. He's also chaplain of the Catholic lawyers' guild and liturgical master of ceremonies for Bishop Walter Edyvean. * [Catholic Lawyers Guild of Boston](http://www.clgb.org/) The Catholic Lawyers Guild goes back 800 years in Catholic history and they sponsor the annual Red Mass for the opening of the judicial year every year. They are Catholic judges and lawyers who network together and try to nourish their faith in the midst of this very interesting Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He's served Bishop Edyvean as master of ceremonies for 10 years and counts him as a close friend. **3rd segment:** The idea for The Good Catholic Life came from Cardinal Seán after the inaugural Mass for WQOM on November 1, 2010. He said it would be great to have a local show. Scot started talking with Jim Wright, owner of The Station of the Cross network. At first, Jim wasn't so sure about it because so often local shows are the equivalent of local cable access, but he remained open to the idea. Over the next several weeks, they continued to talk about it. Scot had a background in college working on sports radio. Fr. Mark said Scot has an ability to talk about anything. He recalled one show where Fr. Phelan of Holy Cross Family Ministries and when the remote feed dropped, Scot picked up from there, but Fr. Mark was paying attention to what producer Rick Heil was doing and when Scot threw it to Fr. Mark, he had to admit he wasn't listening. Scot said live radio is exhilarating. He's also learned so much about our faith in the 115 hours of radio that we've recorded. Scot spends several hours before each show preparing and that's helped him to learn so much more about the local Church. There have been 135 guests including 45 priests and bishops and a handful of religious sisters. He noted inspiring stories of My Brother's Keeper in Brockton and Easton or Cor Unum Meal Center in Lawrence or the dozens of inspiring vocation stories of priests and religious. He realizes that God has called each of us in unique ways. He's learned so much more about many ministries, now knowing more than just their name. Fr. Mark said going over the Sunday reading is appreciated by the listeners to go over the readings before the Sunday Mass. He noted that Scot was a seminarian once and he has a gift of preaching. Scot said he entered the seminary acknowledging a 50/50 chance of having an authentic call to the priesthood and being generous to God with his life. Fr. Mark noted that Scot and his brother Fr. Roger were featured in a book about seminarians at the Pontifical North American College. An Associated Press reporter who had worked in Rome for many years but wasn't Catholic wanted to find out more about so many "normal" guys giving up careers and entering the priesthood. It included profiles of six men in their first year at the seminary. Scot said it made them somewhat one-dimensional, but it's still a good read. Fr. Mark said he read the book before he went to Rome and Scot said many of the seminarians there have read the book before going to the college. Scot said living in Rome is phenomenal experience of the Church. Fr. Mark said it is interesting how God called Scot instead to marriage and family and ultimately to serving the Church. **4th segment:** * [First Reading for July 31, 2011, Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Isaiah 55:1-3)](http://www.usccb.org/nab/073111.shtml#reading1) >Thus says the LORD: All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, receive grain and eat; Come, without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what fails to satisfy? Heed me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare. Come to me heedfully, listen, that you may have life. I will renew with you the everlasting covenant, the benefits assured to David. * [Second Reading for July 31, 2011, Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Romans 8:35, 37-39)](http://www.usccb.org/nab/073111.shtml#reading2) >Brothers and sisters: What will separate us from the love of Christ?  Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?  No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. * [Gospel for July 31, 2011, Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Matthew 14:13-21)](http://www.usccb.org/nab/073111.shtml#gospel) >When Jesus heard of the death of John the Baptist, he withdrew in a boat to a deserted place by himself.  The crowds heard of this and followed him on foot from their towns.  When he disembarked and saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, and he cured their sick.  When it was evening, the disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already late; dismiss the crowds so that they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.”  Jesus said to them, “There is no need for them to go away; give them some food yourselves.”  But they said to him, “Five loaves and two fish are all we have here.”  Then he said, “Bring them here to me, ” and he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass.  Taking the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, who in turn gave them to the crowds.  They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up the fragments left over— twelve wicker baskets full.  Those who ate were about five thousand men, not counting women and children. Scot said for the first time in several weeks we don't have a parable, but instead Jesus performing one of his most powerful miracles for perhaps 12,000 to 15,000 people. How phenomenal it must have been for them to be there. But it starts with Jesus hearing of the death of his cousin John the Baptist. How sad he must have been, but how caring he must have been to see those who hungered not just for food but for him. Fr. Mark said to notice that Jesus is disturbed in that deserted place, so he heals them and cares for them./ Afterward, Jesus goes back to the deserted place. That's a lesson for all the busy people who have a hard time to find that deserted place to pray. For mothers and fathers, it can be difficult to find a quiet place to pray uninterrupted or for busy working people. Jesus shows us how not to let the distraction that is good to prevent us from going back to prayer every time. Scot notes that Jesus could have created food from nothing. But he used the meager gifts of the multitude to create abundance to feed them all. It's easy to feel inadequate to say that it's all on me, but we turn to God and say all things are possible in Him. We bring what we have and God makes it happen. St. Peter doesn't meet the job description for the best possible pope, but God uses what we have and multiplies it. Fr. Mark noted that Fr. Paul O'Brien saw a huge need in Lawrence and created the Cor Unum program that feeds huge numbers of people every day. Fr. Paul didn't do it himself, but he offered what little they had and God multiplied it. Not only have they served 600,000 meals, but other dioceses have come to see it as a model for what they could do in their dioceses. Think of the five people who only had a loaf of bread for themselves to eat, but they gave it up in faith to Jesus for their friends and neighbors. Fr. Mark in all 102 shows, we have so many people who did the same thing, saying I can offer this and let God make something beautiful with it. From the first reading, an ancient symbol of God's love is the fountain and God's love is like the water that is everlasting and always flowing.

-In this episode: Leon hides in Widener Library after closing hours to spy on the minister--and his followers.

-In this episode: Leon tries to track down the reclusive minister at his office in Widener Library...and makes an unwelcome disocvery.