Raymond Peringer
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Industry | Arts |
| Occupation | Observer of the passing parade |
| Location | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Introduction | View my my incomplete profile. Except when travelling or at university, I have spent my entire life in Toronto. Three of my four children were were born in Toronto. The first was born during my final exams at the University of Windsor. |
| Interests | Our wonderful English language. The Catholic Church. The arts: literature, architecture, music, painting and stage. The media. Canadian and Toronto history. The Middle Ages. The Italian Renaissance. English Tudor. European history, especially French. The historic interface between Christianity and Islam. My novel, Aldine's Progress, and non-fiction Domus, short stories, essays, poems, diary and blog posts. My diaries, my commonplace book and 30 scrapbooks. |
| Favorite Movies | High Noon (man alone), Casablanca (man sacrificing), The English Patient (man misunderstood), 2001 Space Odyssey especially when HAL is unplugged (man on his own) and when he returns to Earth (man re-born). Other poignant moments in film, e.g., Paradise Road where, to the music of Gustav Holst (Jupiter from the Planets), we have this description of the action from The New Yorker (14apr97): "When a ship bearing women and children is attacked by Japanese planes, the images are so startling that, just like the victims, you have no time to prepare; the panic slices through you, and only afterwards do you think about the dreadful beauty of the shell bursts, black as night against a clear sky. And the music fades, giving time to catch one's breath." Apocalypse Now and the horrific helicopter attack on a village to the music of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. |
| Favorite Music | Classical: That brings tears to the eyes, that makes me want to dance, that makes me want to sing, that moves the gods, that breaks barriers to love and opens the heart, that just makes me feel good. The most beautiful ever written is Gregorian chant Credo 3, In Paradisum from the Requiem Mass, Dies Irae, Te Deum, and Gloria 8, the majestic maestoso movement of Symphony 3 by Saint-Saens, the glorious ending of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Marguerita's plea for redemption in Gounod's opera Faust, the loneliness expressed in the Humming Chorus in Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly, the soul-searing moment in the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra of Richard Strauss as it speaks to humanity's ever striving for the ultimate, however futile. In the same mode I place Wagner's Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, the majesty of The Great Gate at Kiev by Mussorgsky, the Adagio from Schubert's Notturno. Among musicals, Les Misérables is in a class by itself (along with Victor Hugo's magnificent novel) portraying deceit, exploitation, unconditional love and caring, along with the best popular music ever written. |
| Favorite Books | In addition to the novel I've written, Aldine's Progress, and unfinished non-fiction Domus, the many books I have enjoyed: The Bible especially Matthew and the Acts of the Apostles, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Judith, Micah (against oppression of the poor and weak), many papal encyclicals, the insightful and joyful Don Quixote by Cervantes, almost all of Shakespeare, the humanity of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the magnificence of The Book of the Courtier by Baldesar Castiglione, Fitzgerald's version of The Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam, The Mechanical Bride by my university professor Marshall McLuhan, Civilisation by Kenneth Clark, the Oration on the Dignity of Man by Pico della Mirandola, The Genius (or Beauties) of Christianity by Chateaubriand, A Voice from the Attic by Robinson Davies, the supremely beautiful Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. The Unconscious Civilization by John Ralston Saul, anything by Margaret MacMillan and William L. Shirer, The Victory of Reason by Rodney Stark, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., A Man Called Intrepid by William Stevenson, The Last Lion by William Manchester, Roosevelt & Hopkins by Robert E. Sherwood, The Third Man by Neville Thompson and the English Language by George Orwell -- an essay on clear writing, and many more. |
You've successfully slain the dragon! How will you toast your marshmallows?
I have not slain the dragon: love does not yet reign. But I'm working on it.