Jimmy

The movie I chose for this weekend was Jimmy, about the five years or so of James Stewart's life between winning the Academy Award for Best Actor in The Philadelphia Story and making It's a Wonderful Life. In between, he didn't do much. Other than, you know, joining the U.S. Army's Air Corps, flying 20 combat missions over Europe and returning from World War II as a decorated colonel.

The film features Kiwi actor KJ Apa doing a credible impression of Jimmy Stewart as he goes through hell and comes home deeply scarred. The actor is embarrassed when studio boss Louis B. Mayer gets him exempted from the draft. He is no more ready to hear it when his own father, a World War I veteran, tells him to his face that he doesn't have the stuff to fight in a war. Already an avid pilot and itching to serve his country, Jimmy goes anyway and gets the stuffing knocked out of him, spiritually. He has to put on a performance to sell the risk of death to the men he commands. Then he has to watch them die horribly and write letters of regret to their loved ones. He comes home, flinching at the burst of cameras' flash bulbs and going quiet when he hears airplanes passing overhead. But then his old friend, Frank Capra, talks him into playing George Bailey and giving hope to generations of movie lovers. I think Capra's prediction that the film will be remembered 100 years after both men's death is on track to come true (though it's only been 30 years since we lost Jimmy), though at the time it wasn't successful. But we do get to see Jimmy on the way to some sort of healing, happiness and success at the end, with a closing-credits montage of film of the real James Stewart's life and career that kept the audience I shared it with nailed to their seats all the way to the end. Cue applause. Not to mention tears.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Jimmy freezes up at the point of saying a few words into a microphone at his small hometown's celebration at the end of the war. His father pinch-hits for him, saying words that totally put a lump in my throat. (2) The speech Jimmy gives that turns his squadron around from the brink of mutiny to send them out on a costly bombing mission with renewed spirits – and the self-hatred he experiences afterward. (3) The twin performances of "Ragtime Cowboy Joe," the one song Stewart could play on the piano – first with Apa singing it to his love interest, and later with the real Stewart singing it to Dean Martin. Ironically, the one flaw in Apa's portrayal is that he sings the song too well.

Apa is known for playing, among other characters, comic book hero Archie on Riverdale. Playing Mayer is Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame. Max Casella of The Sopranos plays Capra. Gray's Anatomy player Sarah Drew makes a grating impression as gossip maven Hedda Hopper. Neal McDonough gets some tender scenes as Jimmy's dad. Chrisopher McDonald has one important scene as Lionel Barrymore, the actor who played the heavy in It's a Wonderful Life. SNL alum Rob Riggle plays Stewart's commanding officer. And it's ironically an American actress, Kara Killmer of Chicago Fire, who plays the British lady Jimmy dallies with during his war. Also playing an important role is a Psalter handed down from Stewart's Presbyterian father, which Jimmy pulls out during the type of "I'm not a praying man" prayer he would later deliver in Wonderful Life. Watch the role it plays in what is ultimately a story about a man's quest to earn his own self-respect, founded in kindness and honesty. Try, I dare you, just try to get through this whole movie dry-eyed.

614. Medicine Hymn

Ignatius of Antioch, to the Ephesians: "...breaking one and the same bread, which is the medicine of immortality, and the antidote to prevent us from dying, but [which causes] that we should live for ever in Jesus Christ." Tune: WUNDERBARER KÖNIG by Joachim Neander, 1680 ("God Himself is present"). ART: A Russian fresco of Ignatiy Bogonosets, a.k.a. Ignatius of Antioch; dedicated to the public domain.

Medicine enduring,
Blessed life securing,
Come, my bone-bred sickness curing!
See my vices thronging:
Every unclean longing,
God as well as neighbor wronging!
Lamb once slain,
Raised to reign,
Come with grace abounding,
Sin and death confounding!

Blameless having striven,
Yet abused and riven,
Holy body, You have given
Now the last full measure,
That I might this treasure
Take to heart with grateful pleasure.
You who died
Justified
Me, who in believing,
Life am here receiving.

Blood of Christ now pouring,
Pure and fresh, restoring
All who drink with faith adoring:
Heal my conscience stricken,
Cheer the reins that sicken;
Hands and lips to service quicken!
In me flow:
Joy bestow,
Both to You contouring
And to life maturing.

Wildwood

Yesterday, I took myself out to see Wildwood, a film adaptation of Colin Meloy's young adult novel by the same name, which unsurprisingly ends with a song that Meloy wrote and performed with his band, the Decembrists. It was one of the things I expected from this movie. What I maybe didn't expect, and this is probably down to the fact that it's been 12 years since I read the book, is how grown-up it is. With a blend of stop-motion animation (from Laika, the studio that made Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls and Kubo and the Two Strings) and digital effects, it has an amazing PG-13 rating.

Remember how The Black Cauldron blew everyone's minds by being the first PG-rated Disney animated feature? This is next-level. Its main characters are kids, but it is aimed at an audience of teens and adults, complete with violent battle scenes, dark magic, mature themes and mildly salty language (such as "hell" and "son of a bitch"). But it's also one of the most visually stunning, original and way-out-there different animated movies that have rocked up in recent years. Like, on the level of (draws a reverent breath) Ron's Gone Wrong, The Wild Robot or Into the Spiderverse. Not your paint-by-numbers Disney princess fairy tale. A grim, heart-string-pulling, thought-provoking fantasy that tips over the edge of a present-day urban landscape (Portland, Oregon) into an "impassible wilderness" on the other side of a railway bridge – a wilderness that has been purposely and magically made impassible to "outsiders" like Prue and her not-by-choice best friend, Curtis.

They have to go there because, in Prue's case, a murder of crows has swooped down and kidnapped her toddler brother, Mac, and in Curtis' case, because he gets dragged along by accident and there's no turning back now. The pair is soon separated, and the different routes they take through the Wildwood before they reunite has fateful results. He gets recruited into the all-coyote army of an evil witch known as the Dowager Governess, and later finds himself imprisoned alongside a band of bandits who have been fighting to protect their ancestral homeland. She stages her own escape from another type of prison, passing through many perils before they meet again on a horrific battlefield. And it all comes down to preventing the evil governess from using Mac's blood to perform an awful spell that endangers the lives of everyone in the Wildwood.

I've spotted some reviews whose headlines or thumbnails suggest that this is a "meh" movie despite its powerful imagery and fantastic potential. I don't see anything "meh" about it. It's breathtaking, full stop. And before I do it, and you, the disservice of over-synopsizing it, let me struggle mightily to reduce the many Scenes That Made It For Me to just three: (1) The prodigal coyote returns to his pack, feigning injury at the hands of the awful bandits and wailing that he has been shot, stabbed and forced to listen to their folk songs. Oh, the folk songs! (2) Stretching the definition of "scene," the character arc between Curtis and Septima the rat – a relationship that develops from Curtis dry-heaving at the sight of the self-admitted vermin to his heartbreaking grief at the end. I particularly got a kick out of Septima, literally swimming in Curtis' soup, asking if he wants any and the boy's reply – roughly, "No thanks, I just stood in some food." (3) Prue's shocking change of perspective when her parents explain to her that they, not she, are at fault for the crows getting Mac. Her eccentric folks made a pretty dark bargain in order to have kids. How dark? Consider the dad's reaction upon recognizing Satanic symbols on the tent of the specialist-of-last-resort – not good! – and she only gives them a referral. The really dark bit happens after that.

Let's talk cast. Nerdy young Curtis is played by Jacob Tremblay, who was nominated for an Oscar at age 9 for his role in Room. Leading the film as Prue is Peyton Elizabeth Lee of Andi Mack and other Disney productions. As the Dowager Governess we have BAFTA winner and Oscar-nominee Carey Mulligan (An Education). Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali (The Green Book) plays the bandit king. Richard E. Grant (Oscar-nominated for Can You Ever Forgive Me?) plays a royal owl. Two-time Oscar nominee Angela Bassett is the General, an enormous golden eagle who takes Prue on a spectacular flight. Awkwafina (Golden Globe winner for The Farewell) voices Septima. Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) plays the coyote with an aversion to folk music. Jake Johnson, who played Peter B. Parker in the Spiderverse films, is Prue's dad. Len Cariou of Blue Bloods plays the postman who gives Prue a lift. Blythe Danner plays the wicked witch who puts Prue's parents on a tragic collision course with the dowager governess. Other cast members include singer Tom Waits, Amandla Stenberg of the Hunger Games films, Rob Delaney ("Peter Wisdom" in the Deadpool movies), Marc Evan Jackson of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Parks and Recreation and Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords (the band and the TV series). There are a lot of characters in the movie, and quite a few of them get a chance to make a real impression.

DCC The Graphic Novel, Vol. 2

Dungeon Crawler Carl: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 2
by Matt Dinniman, Tevagah, Kuzomari, et al
Recommended Ages: 15+

This graphic novel, based on Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl, is based on chaptes 14-30 of the webtoon series, following Vol. 1 (reviewed here). So, of course, I snagged a copy of it as soon as it materialized at the place where I'm always looking out for the latest paperbacks – Walmart. Again, there is a whole string of author-type credits on the cover, but I take Laurel Pursuit and Aethon to be a publisher and a webtoon studio. Dinniman created the source material; Tevagah and Kuzomari (a.k.a. Chistopher Krady) seem to be the actual, human manga artists. Correct me if I'm wrong.

If you've read the original novel, you hardly need another synopsis at this point, other than that this installment picks up just as Carl and Princess Donut blow up the goblin borough boss on Level 1 of the world dungeon. If you're joining late, he's a tragically shoeless and pantsless man and she's his ex-girlfriend's prize-winning cat. They recently survived the arrival of the aliens to destroy earth, only to become live combatants in an intergalactic game show where the survival is a cutthroat business tied, in part, to your popularity on social media. And now they start to meet other survivors, including a pair of "naughty" crawlers who have killed other people (not counting the "mobs," with whom it's strictly kill or be killed). Later, they join forces with a party of nursing home residents and staff who somehow survived the collapse, and are just hanging on. But to get to Level 2 before the whole floor pancakes down on top of them, they have to get past a floor boss that has already killed a bunch of people. So, I guess this is about the middle third of the original novel, culminating as our heroes are about to enter Floor 2 and get yanked out of the dungeon for a quick interview on a highly rated talk show.

The graphic novel translates the gripping middle part of the original book into vivid imagery, dramatizing the characters and laying some stress on the theme of Carl's resolve not to let the game break him. It's nice to see more human characters enter the frame. And I appreciate the fact that, compared to the first volume, I didn't have to strain my eyes as much to read the in-game notifications that present themselves to Carl and Donut. I do, however, have a new bone to pick with this adaptation – I was sometimes confused about the sequence of events. Callbacks to previous scenes, and visualizations of future and hypothetical events as well as scenes happening elsewhere, get mixed together in a way that more than once left me scratching my head and going back a page or so, to straighten it all out in my mind. Maybe it's me. Maybe I just haven't spent enough time with my nose in a graphic novel, conditioning myself to read them effectively. But while I like Carl and Co. as depicted by these manga artists, I think the vanilla novel just worked for me.

At any rate, it's a fast-paced read. Maybe to a fault. You get through what's left of Floor 1 in no time and sigh, wondering how long it'll be until Vol. 3 appears on the discount bookshelf. Meanwhile, there are a bunch more installments in Dinniman's series that have yet to fall into my lap. I've only personally seen a hardcover of the third book, The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook, and it's been a while since I've seen that in stock. So, maybe a paperback issue will be landing soon. I'm currently seeing hints that at least 10 books may be in store for fans of this series, with the eighth just released this year. If the paperbacks don't hurry up, I'm going to have to look for them in the library. I won't let them break me!

The Eye of Zoltar

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

The Eye of Zoltar
by Jasper Fforde
Recommended Ages: 12+

We've met Jennifer Strange before. In previous adventures, she has risen from a mere orphan sold into indentured servitude to acting manager of Kazam, a house of enchantment in the bizarre Kingdom of Snodd (roughly Herefordshire, in the UnUnited Kingdoms). Then, in quick succession, to the title of dragonslayer (later ambassador to the dragons), then Royal Mystician, and now ... well, we'll see what she becomes as this book unfolds.

Fiercely protective of her wizards' independence, though she has no magical abilities herself, Jennifer accepts a challenge from the Mighty Shandar, a powerful and all-but-immortal wizard who threatens to exterminate the last remaining dragons. She is to find a legendary, goose egg-sized gem called (surprise!) the Eye of Zoltar. Problem 1: It's legendary because it's not very likely to exist. Problem 2: If it does exist, it seems the one wizard who knows where it is lives in a neighboring empire (a seriously dystopian version of Wales) that is known for, among other things, "jeopardy tourism" – where people pay to risk being eaten by wild animals and/or cannibals with a funny thing about taxidermy – and, for another example, kidnapping people and holding them for ransom. Problem 3: The likeliest location of the legendary gem seems to be the lair of an even more legendary sky pirate, in the most-legendary-of-all secret burial ground of flying leviathans. Those are probably more than three problems, to be honest. But even bigger ones will face Jennifer and her traveling companions, problems they won't know about until they're in the thick of them.

Those companions include a spoiled princess who has been body-swapped with a starveling maidservant, a recently licensed wizard who has been trying to take Jennifer out on a date, a 12-year-old guide who has seen more than anyone her age should, and several other more or less unwelcome additions to their party. They set out, knowing (thanks to a type of premonition that tends to be statistically accurate) that 50 percent of them won't make it back. And after they pass a certain point in their trip, the statistics in favor of survival go down to zero. I won't sugarcoat it. Several of these characters come to gruesome ends.

The rest of it I wouldn't spoil for all the world, except to hint that the more you know about the Mighty Shandar, the less you like him. Along the way, Jennifer and Co. encounter strange beings, deadly creatures, terrifying magics and awesome scenery. There's a "leap of faith" bit that'll give you the heebie jeebies, whether you've seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or not. There's a city that seems to exist for the sole reason that two railroad companies are fighting an actual war to be the first to reach it. There is a subversive thread of economics running through the book, which seems for a while to give the princess something to be hilariously good at but that turns rather dark later on. And finally, the ending has the kind of rushed grimness that cries out for a fourth installment.

Coming on the heels of The Last Dragonslayer and The Song of the Quarkbeast, this is the third book in the ... well, depending on where your edition was published, it's either "The Chronicles of Kazam" or the "Last Dragonslayer" novels. How to shelve it is only one of several textual problems for this book. Apparently it had more than one working title prior to publication, including Strange and the Wizard (so Google's AI tells me) and, according to a footnote referencing it in the second installment, The Return of Shandar. Then there's the fact that this episode comes to a cliffhanger ending and it took Fforde seven years to pen the fourth and concluding installment, The Great Troll War. At least we're on the other side of that long interval, which seems to be a theme for fans of Fforde's fiction; there were even longer waits before the latest installment of the "Thursday Next" series (14 years!) and the sequel to Shades of Grey (15 years!), a pause during which this book and The Constant Rabbit of a year prior were the only new titles he put out. I hope Fforde's recent rush of productivity continues!

613. Ecce nunc benedicite

A paraphrase of Psalm 134, the last of the Songs of Ascents or pilgrimage hymns (Pss. 120-134) and thus, the end of this series of hymns. Hear my sigh of relief! It's a quicky: a tiny little psalm, and for once I wasn't up to the challenge of out-economizing it. In fact, I had to repeat a bit from the beginning at the end to make it work. And again, I'm not turning up an existing tune to fit this text, so I did have to write one, below. ART: A Swedish priest giving the Aaronic benediction, photograph dedicated to the public domain.

Behold, bless ye the Lord,
Ye servants of the Lord,
Who vigil stand
With prayerful hand
Uplifted all night toward
The altar of the Lord.

The Lord is He who made
The heav'ns, in light arrayed,
And made earth, too:
May He bless you
From Zion. Bless the Lord,
Ye servants of the Lord!

612. Ecce quam bonum

A paraphrase of Psalm 133, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn by David. I'm a bit reluctant to write it, since I'm inordinately pleased with a musical setting of this psalm that I wrote some years ago. But a paraphrase it wasn't, so here goes. I am acquainted with only two tunes that would fit this text: Henry Jenner's mediocre QUAM DILECTA (cf. Service Book & Hymnal, "We love the place, O God", etc.) or the just slightly less unremarkable ST. CECILIA by Leighton G. Hayne, †1883 (CF. SBH, "Thy kingdom come, O God"). I'd rather go for the Hayne (below) than write another original tune. ART: Moses anointing Aaron, from the Medhurst Picture Torah, 1835.

O brethren, it is well
And pleasing to behold
For us as one to dwell,
Like oil most dearly sold—

Yea, oil most dearly sold
That, poured on Aaron's head,
Onto his garment's fold
And o'er his whiskers sped—

As Hermon's, Zion's dew
The mountainsides descend.
The Lord His word will do—
The blessing without end.

611. Memento, Domine

A paraphrase of Psalm 132, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn. It's the biggest one in the group (Pss. 120-134). Compared to other paraphrases in this set, I took more liberties with this one, stretching here and compressing there, and rearranging the thoughts in a more explicitly Christocentric manner. Tune: MAGDALEN by John Stainer, 1875 ("My hope is built on nothing less"). ART: David prepares to build God's house, an illustration of 1 Chronicles 22 from the Providence Lithograph Company, 1896, public domain.

Remember Lord, when David swore
That he would build Your house before
His own: and in return, his Son,
You vowed, would sit upon his throne.
From Bethlehem the tidings flew,
Wherefore we come to worship You.

Let us to Christ now go with haste,
The offered Victim touch and taste,
In flesh as our eternal Lord
To dwell with us has not abhorred.
His weakness now our ark of strength,
Let Israel shout for joy at length!

O Christ! We fall before Your feet,
Enthroned upon the mercy-seat.
Robe us in Your own righteousness,
Nor hide from us Your holy face.
As You once tabernacled here,
Encamp with us, our Savior dear!

Bless Zion, Lord, with holy food;
Provision her with all things good.
Let priests, in Your salvation clad,
And all Your saints shout and be glad.
Oh, lamps be lit! Oh, trumpet sound!
The Lord's Anointed One is crowned!

610. Domine, non est exaltum

A paraphrase of Psalm 131, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn by David. I struggled to make this hymn fit a tune in a different meter, but it was having none of it. Then I turned a page in my hymnal to BOYLSTON by Lowell Mason, 1832 ("Blest be the tie that binds"), and the words started to come. In a trickle, to be sure, but with so brief a psalm, it was enough. ART: An illustration by Jessie Willcox Smith, 1920, from "The Princess and the Goblin" by George MacDonald, public domain.

My heart, Lord, is not proud,
Nor are mine eyes grown vain;
My thoughts, by weighty things unbowed,
From mysteries abstain.

O soul, be calm and still
As child at mother's breast!
Upon the Lord, O Israel,
Your hope forever rest!

609. De profundis

A paraphrase of Psalm 130, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn. I approach this psalm with fear and trembling, since I don't expect my setting to hold a candle to Martin Luther's Aus tiefer Not. And I'm definitely not so arrogant that I'd choose the same tune. So, instead, here it is, arranged to fit the tune TENBURY by Frederick A.G. Ouseley, 1861 ("It is not death to die," etc.). ART: The oubliettes of Fort-la-Latte, Brittany, France, photographed by Pierre André Leclercq, 2017. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

My whimper from the pit
I beg You, Lord, to hear.
To the petition I submit,
Incline a gracious ear.

Should You take note of sin,
Lord, who had dared appear?
But You forgive: the grounds wherein
I cry to You in fear.

I wait on You; my hope
Is in Your faithful word.
As eastward eyes for morning grope,
My soul waits for the Lord.

Hope, Israel, in the Lord!
For mercy dwells with Him,
Who bounteous goodness will afford
And Israel redeem.

608. Saepe expugnaverunt

A paraphrase of Psalm 129, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn. While it may seem, from the speed with which I'm shooting this series of hymns out, that they present no difficulty, believe me, I struggle mightily with their form and structure – some more than others. And when a particularly resistant text finally falls into place, as often as not, I find that without meaning to, I've invented a new metrical or syllabic verse form that compels me to write an original tune as well. So it is with this hymn. I could probably add a few syllables here and there to make it fit something, but I don't want to, since above all I prize economy of words. ART: A thatched roof in Lesotho, photograph by Tjeerd Wiersma, 2004. licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Let Israel say: How often from my youth
The wicked have oppressed me for the truth!
Yet they won not in their attack,
Though plowing furrows in my back.
The Lord is just, redressing wrongs;
He cut apart their binding thongs.

Let those who tilt at Zion be turned back,
Like grass upon the housetops, withered black:
The mower's hand fills not with leaves,
Nor does the baler's arm with sheaves.
Then none who pass them in their shame
Shall say, "We bless you in God's name."

607. Beati omnes

A paraphrase of Psalm 128, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn. Tune: ICH DANK DIR SCHON by Michael Praetorius, 1610, as paired with "The King of love my Shepherd is" in The Lutheran Hymnal. ART: Michelangelo Cerquozzi, †1602, still-life with grapes, figs and other fruits, public domain.

Blest are you all who fear the Lord,
Who walk in His ways, tasting
Fruit of your labor as reward,
Yea, pleasure everlasting.

Well shall it go with you—your mate
A vinestock richly fruited,
Your children growing in full spate
Like olives, firmly rooted.

From out God's throne may you be blest
And be His city's blessing,
Till all your seed obtain the rest
To which your days are pressing.

606. Nisi Dominus

A paraphrase of Psalm 127, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn by Solomon. Tune: ST. BRIDE by Samuel Howard, 1762 ("And wilt Thou pardon, Lord," etc.) ART: Building the wall of Jerusalem (cf. Nehemiah), from Sunrays Quarterly, 1908; public domain.

Unless God build the house,
The workmen toil in vain.
Unless the Lord His watch maintain,
In vain the watchmen rouse.

Why eat the bread of pain
From rising with the sun
To midnight watch, if such a One
The gift of rest ordain?

Behold, it is His gift
A fruitful house to build,
With children as with arrows filled—
Full quiver, fletched and swift.

Oh, happy be those walls
And they who dwell therein!
They shall respond with no chagrin
To the besieger's calls.

605. In convertendo

A paraphrase of Psalm 126, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn. The latter verses of this psalm have been set to music multiple times, including a motet by Heinrich Schütz ("Die mit Tränen säen") and parts of the first movement of Brahms' German Requiem. There it is combined with Matthew 5:4 ("Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted"), which I've taken the liberty of citing at the end of this hymn. Tune: WEIL ICH JESU SCHÄFLEIN BIN, Leipzig, 1784 ("I am Jesus' little lamb"). ART: The Sower by Jean-François Millet, c. 1865, public domain.

Like a dream it was, O Lord,
When the captives You restored!
Zion's mouth was filled with laughter;
Throats welled forth in song thereafter.
Nations could not but discuss
What great things You did for us.

Great things You have done indeed:
Let us all the more be freed.
Freshen us, like washes streaming
With the springtime torrents gleaming.
Come captivity again,
Break, we pray, oh, break its chain!

Though with tears we till our field,
Fill with joy our harvest yield!
We who sow with voices weeping
Will return with gladness reaping.
Lord, who calls the mourner blest,
Give the weary captive rest!

604. Qui confidunt

A paraphrase of Psalm 125, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn. I couldn't find a usable tune to suit it, so I wrote one on the spot; tune in when I release Profitable Hymns to get a look. ART: Mount Zion, engraved by W. Finden, 1836, after a sketch by F. Catherword, public domain.

Those who on the Lord rely
Stand like Zion's mount:
Firm, immovable for aye,
Guarded all around.

Evil's scepter shall not rest
On those reckoned just,
Lest iniquity should wrest
Them from pious trust.

Lord, do good unto the good,
Those upright at heart.
Grant that, having sin withstood,
They be set apart.

Those who turn to crooked ways
Cause, Lord, to decrease,
That on You may rest all praise,
And on Israel peace.

EDIT: All right, all right. Here it is:

603. Nisi quia Dominus

A paraphrase of Psalm 124, another Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn by David. For the tune, I'm turning to the old Lutheran Hymnary, John Adcock's 1882 tune DERWENT ("Behold, how good a thing").

Were God not on our side—
Proclaim it, Israël—
Were God not on our side
When foes upon us fell,
We had been swallowed in their ire,
Consumed by its volcanic fire.

Were God not on our side—
Let all His people say—
Were God not on our side,
We had been swept away.
The raging torrent would have drowned,
Without His ward, this holy ground.

Praise be to Adonai
Who, His belov'd to spare,
The dogs' teeth would deny,
Would break the fowler's snare.
In His name lies our hope of aid:
The One who earth and heaven made.

ART: Gustave Doré, The Great Flood, 1866, public domain. And the tune:

602. Ad te levavi

This is a paraphrase of Psalm 123, a Song of Ascents or pilgrimage hymn, continuing a series that goes back to Psalm 120 and forward (God willing) to Psalm 134. It's pretty brief, so don't blink. I'm recycling the tune SHEMINITH that I wrote for my paraphrase of Psalm 6, back here.

I lift my eyes to Thee,
Whose throne the heavens spans.
As man and maid beseechingly
Look to their masters' hands,
So too our eyes look the Lord
Till He full mercy doth accord.

Have mercy on us, Lord;
Yea, let Your love descend!
For men's contempt on us is poured,
With scorn that knows no end.
Hear the derision of the crowd,
The cruel catcalls of the proud!

ART: The Mocking of Christ by Matthias Grünewald, c.1503-05, public domain.

601. Levavi oculos

A paraphrase of Psalm 121, another Psalm of Ascents, or pilgrimage hymn. I'm thinking I might paraphrase the whole set of them. Not the whole psalter (goodness, no), just the Ascents ones, from Ps. 120 (which I've already done) to 134. Don't expect me to re-do 122, which I treated way back here. May the Lord bless this modest undertaking. For the tune, I picked a ditty called TUNBRIDGE by Jeremiah Clarke (†1707).

To the hills I lift my eyes:
Where is He who help supplies?
He so loved me that He willed
Even heav'n and earth to build.

He your every step will keep,
Lest you slip: He will not sleep.
Rest, O Israël, rely
On His watchful, wakeful eye!

See the Lord o'er you revealed
As a helm and sturdy shield:
Neither sun by day shall smite
You, nor fickle moon by night.

With the Lord, fear no alarm:
He will keep your soul from harm
And will guard you round about,
Coming in and going out.

ART: Jerusalem (1935) by Konstantin Ivanovich Gorbatov, public domain. And the tune:

600. Ad Dominum

A paraphrase of Psalm 120 – a Song of Ascents, or pilgrimage hymn. This is the psalm that references Meshech and Kedar, foreign places far to the north and south of Israel. As I wrote this paraphrase, stanza 4 was originally stanza 1, but I found it hard to let the hymn end the way this psalm does and I was loath to add any new ideas to it. Not that that should necessarily stop a hymnwriter – some of my other psalm paraphrases are actually quite loose – but I didn't feature tampering with this one any more than absolutely necessary. For the tune, I plumped for a supposed Norwegian folk-tune called DRAW US TO THEE, from the old Concordia Hymnal.

False tongue, what shall put paid to you?
Bolts from the arm'rer's smithy!
Wry lips, what are you fit to do
But burn like kiln-fired withy?^*

Alas! I sojourn far from home,
For blest communion pining!
How long, Lord, will You bid me roam,
Far from Your precincts shining?

Alas! For I am domiciled
With hateful men surrounded,
And though I plead, "Be reconciled,"
Their war-lust is unbounded.

To God in my distress I cry,
His ears my plea receiving:
Lord, save my life from lips that lie
And from a tongue deceiving!

---

^* a reference to the ancient craft of charcoal-burning.

The Song of the Quarkbeast

The Song of the Quarkbeast
by Jasper Fforde
Recommended Ages: 12+

Jennifer Strange is only 16, but she has a head on her shoulders. She'd better. Since the wizard she works for disappeared eight months ago, the former foundling is the de facto manager at Kazam – part talent agency, part retirement home, catering to a coterie of cracked sorcerers. Kazam has only one competitor in the Kingdom of Snodd (the area around Hereford in the Ununited Kingdoms), recently rebranded from Industrial Magic to iMagic and led by a sleaze named Blix who has just gotten himself appointed as the Royal Wizard. Blix is in cahoots with King Snodd and his chief advisor to turn magic, which powers all technology in their world, into a lucrative, government monopoly. Jennifer and the wizards at Kazam think magic should freely benefit everybody. So a challenge is thrown down: whichever house of wizards gets the farthest in rebuilding the collapsed bridge at the center of town will get to decide.

To make sure he wins, Blix pulls some dirty tricks. Between Kazam's wizards being jailed on trumped-up charges and a few of them getting turned to stone for their efforts to restore their home's magical battery to full use, Jennifer is pretty much down to one wizard – a youth who has only just passed his license exam – to put up against Blix's three-sorcerer team. She turns to everyone she can think of to help. The old crone who ran the home for foundlings where she grew up. The bitter ex-sorcerer who hasn't done a single spell since she was kidnapped in 1975. Even a daring, supersonic trip on a magic carpet to chase down a wizard's premonition of where her missing boss might momentarily appear – smack in the middle of a demilitarized zone patrolled by the kingdom's deadly enemy, the trolls. She must survive being scrobbled by the bad guys and imprisoned in a tower, face a contest of magic with the odds stacked against her – and mind you, she has no magical talent herself – and somehow save magic, and the kingdom, from a dastardly plot.

This is a fun book, set in a quirky world where utter weirdness is taken in stride. I haven't even figured out a way to describe the creature mentioned in its title, let alone the Transient Moose – a quasi-sentient simulacrum that somehow plays a pivotal role in this story. There's a bit of youthful romance in it. There's a stiff snort of sociopolitical satire in it – relating to the way upper classes, and especially royals, treat common people, and especially foundlings. There is a bizarre blend of fantasy world-building and modern technology in it, from Volkswagens to mobile phones (although the tech hasn't been working so well lately, due to magic being in decline). There are hilarious notions, such as light globes powered by sarcasm, and moments of breathtaking danger blended with whimsy, such as when a couple of troll sentries try to coax Jennifer out of hiding with "Here, person, person, person." There are fiendish plots, creepy curses, sweat-eliciting buildups of suspense and, running through it all, a nonstop flow of clever originality that can only be described as magical.

This is the sequel to The Last Dragonslayer, and I've been meaning to read it for something like 12 years. So remiss am I that I only lately discovered the series continues after it in The Eye of Zoltar and The Great Troll War. Jasper Fforde, whose name (I believe) is pronounced exactly like Ford, lives in Wales and is the author of many books I have read and some I have yet to get around to. I'm working on it. His titles include now eight "Thursday Next" novels (the most recent addition being Dark Reading Matter), the two "Nursery Crime" spinoffs, Shades of Grey and its recent sequel, Red Side Story, Early Riser and The Constant Rabbit. Three of these titles are already on my TBR pile.

Just One Damned Thing After Another

Just One Damned Thing After Another
by Jodi Taylor
Recommended Ages: 14+

Madeline Maxwell, a.k.a. Max, takes a demotion from Dr. Maxwell to Miss Maxwell when she goes to work for St. Mary's Institute of Historical Research. It's a secretive outfit that, she learns only after she signs on the dotted line, does its research "in contemporary time." Like, via time travel. Their pods run circles around TARDIS; for one thing, you can pick the exact coordinates in time and place where you want to materialize. More or less. There's still a lot of mapping to do, and there are risks. St. Mary's chews up historians and sometimes doesn't spit them out. But Max survives her first five years with the organization before a three-month study of the Cretaceous period takes a disastrous turn.

You'd think being stalked by velociraptors would be the biggest danger. But as Max finds out, her fellow man is just as deadly. Besides a traitor within St. Mary's, there also seems to be a rival outfit that doesn't bat an eye at tampering with history, so long as they can make a profit off of it. Despite Max's best efforts to protect St. Mary's independence from outside interference, another visit to the Cretaceous uncovers evidence that the enemy is cruelly exploiting dinosaurs for the entertainment of trigger-happy tourists. And their trigger-happiness isn't confined to exctinct reptiles.

Max perseveres through disaster after disaster, getting closer and closer to the center of the conflict between St. Mary's and the villainous Clive Ronan. It all comes to a head during a daring exploit to save what they can from the burning library of Alexandria. Her adventure is packed with danger, devastating loss, heartbreak and discouragement – but also sharp comedy, thrilling adventure and sexy romance. St. Mary's is packed with almost too many eccentric characters to keep track of, lampooning the types of characters many of us deal with among the departments of our real-world workplaces. And Max's narration, which is to say Taylor's writing, crackles with the kind of inventive wit that makes me want to quote it. Like:

He was built like a large brick shithouse. Two large brick shithouses actually. In fact he was so big it was possible he distorted time and space. He had his own gravitational pull, like a blond planet, and he'd fallen for Kal like a sperm whale failing to clear the Grand Canyon on a bicycle. He thought no one knew.

And:

We watched the show and then the disco started, so after shouting pointlessly at each other for a few minutes, we got up to dance. The usual thing hapened. Just as we arrived on the dance floor the good music stopped and they started with the smooch stuff.

I'll stop there, because if I go on, I'll give away the punchlines of a couple jokes that made me laugh loud and long. You wouldn't want that. So go read this book for yourself, and you're welcome.

This is the first novel in the soon-to-be-15-book series known as the Chronicles of St. Mary's. Among its sequels are A Symphony of Echoes, No Time Like the Past, What Could Possibly Go Wrong, An Argumentation of Historians, A Catalogue of Catastrophe and, coming in August 2027, Well, That Could Have Gone Better – all besides several short stories sprinkled throughout the series. Jodi Taylor is also the author of three "Frogmorton Farm" novels and its companion short stories, the quartet of "Elizabeth Cage" thrillers, six Time Police novels plus short stories (which apparently overlap with the St. Mary's series), a couple of "Smallhope and Pennyroyal" books (also related to time travel) and the historical novel A Bachelor Establishment, published under the name Isabella Barclay. If this isn't the first you've heard of her, you probably first ran across her under the rubric "readers who enjoy Jasper Fforde also buy..." Either way, you'll probably see more reviews of her books on this blog in time to come.

Today's Dream

This morning, just before I awoke, I had a weird dream that, in retrospect, makes me feel a bit like I can understand Beethoven's deal. I was responsible for playing the organ for a big, important worship service, but the organ console was apparently sequestered in some kind of soundproof booth and I couldn't hear a note of the music I was playing, or the singing of the crowd accompanied by it. Also to my disadvantage, the sheet music I was given had only the melody I was supposed to play, and I had to improvise the harmony on the spot. I had to make do with hearing what I was playing in my mind's ear. It should have been a mortifying dream. Embarrassing or frustrating, maybe. But other than the impression that I was being judged by some highly critical VIPs, I didn't feel like I was doing too badly. And the hymn tune I was hearing in my mind's ear at the moment I awoke was REX GLORIAE, by Henry Smart, a.k.a. "See, the Conqueror mounts in triumph."

It's not all that far-fetched a dream. I've played the organ at two different churches where the acoustics of the joint conspired with the location of the organ console so that I couldn't get a real-time impression of how loud I was playing. People complained that I was playing too loud and it gave them a headache. In one of those situations, the acoustics were so bad, and the console was in a recessed alcove below and behind the speakers that were aimed out at the nave, that during postludes when people were standing up and talking at the tops of their voices, I couldn't hear a note of what I was playing. You really need auditory feedback to do the job properly, as I stressed when the latter congregation installed a new organ – making sure they put the console up at the front of the church this time.

As for hearing the music in one's head ... well, that's how Beethoven did it, isn't it? And it's not all that exceptional. I've spent hours at the wheel of my car, driving from one state to another, unable to stop my mind from turning over voice-leading problems in my head. Chord progressions that I could both see and hear in my mind, as if reading from sheet music. I felt like it was driving me insane. It gave me an insight into the conditions under which a musically inclined person might feel they just have to compose music. It pours out of one, sometimes.

Heart of the Beast

My local, three-screen movie theater gave me the choice, last night, of what looked like a wilderness survival drama starring Brad Pitt (Heart of the Beast), an Aaron Sorkin legal drama about the Facebook files (The Social Reckoning) or an adaptation of a trashy novel (Verity). I wasn't super excited about any of them, so I asked the kid at the cash register, "What am I going to see?" – specifying either Heart of the Beast or The Social Reckoning. She said something to the effect of, "I haven't seen either one, but the one I'm looking forward to seeing is Heart of the Beast," so I said, "Give me a ticket to that."

Well, I don't want to spoil the whole movie for you, but it's not quite accurate to call it a survival drama. Remember my synopsis of another brutal Brad Pitt flick, Ad Astra? I quote myself: "A man travels 2.7 billion miles to find his absentee father, only to learn that the old man doesn't care to have a relationship with him." Well, this movie is almost as much of a one-man show as that one was. It's long stretches of one dude (Pitt) alone in the Alaskan wilderness with his dog, credited on screen as Odin (actually the name of the dog character, played by four actual dogs), suffering in seemingly every conceivable way. And yet despite the ending, at which I have already hinted too much, you come out of this movie feeling altogether better than from Ad Astra. Man and dog go through hell on earth (I emphasize, on earth), yet somehow their lack of human company and the, um, incomplete fulfillment of their quest doesn't leave you depressed. I would even say there's something uplifting about it. And it's all about the fully believable love story between Jim, the human, and Odin, the dog.

There are a few other human characters in the movie. Canadian First Nations actress Anna Lambe has a tiny role in a scene that frames the main body of the movie. J.K. Simmons appears in approximately one scene, and says probably 50% of the entire movie's dialogue, as a guy in a canoe who crosses paths by chance with Jim and Odin just before the feces hits the air circulation device, though (you may be surprised to learn) it's none of his fault. A seaplane is the next most important character, other than Army guys glimpsed in PTSD flashbacks (backstory for the combat veteran man and dog), and I won't conceal from you that when said plane crashes, it's no fault of the plane's or even the storm Jim has just flown it through. Dude straight-up has a heart attack at the yoke, and it's amazing that he survives the initial crash and how hard he fights to save himself and his dog from their seemingly inevitable doom in the back of nowhere, 49th Stately speaking.

What do they survive? Well, not just the crash itself, and the heart attack that led to it, but also starvation, painful trips and falls, probably hypothermia, attacks by a bear and a pack of wolves, a perilous crossing over a whitewater gorge that doesn't go to plan, griveous injuries, strenuous passages through almost every kind of difficult terrain, etc., etc., etc. How many things go smoothly for them? Not a single one. But do they give up? Well ... not on each other. And the way they look at each other, and the way they talk to each other (within a given definition of "talk"), is so tender it'll go right to your heart. Whatever this is a tale of, and it's not entirely one of survival, it has healing from trauma and, above all, friendship in it. Across a landscape that feels like a very big, very real place, this seemingly very real man – not altogether lovable – and his completely lovable dog struggle together, struggle to save something, and the movie is well crafted to keep you hanging on what they do save, if anything.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) The crash sequence, a total nailbiter in which you wonder how either of the hero pair can possibly survive. (2) In another callback to Ad Astra, specifically to its gruesomely clinical specificity, Pitt self-administers a medical procedure that requires Odin's assistance, sparing the audience not one awful detail of his disturbingly realistic ordeal. (3) The last moments the man and his dog share with each other, in which their mutual love reaches an emotionally devastating level. Moral: See this, not that Aaron Sorkin thing. Facebook, shmacebook!

The Kaiju Preservation Society

The Kaiju Preservation Society
by John Scalzi
Recommended Ages: 14+

Jamie Gray goes into his six-month performance review at a tech startup with big ideas about how to improve the food delivery app, and comes out with a pink slip and an opportunity to become a delivery driver just as COVID-19 hits. It's a tough break, but luckily he runs into an acquaintance while making a delivery and gets offered a job. Lifting things. For an organization called KPS that protects large, endangered animals. The pay is good, so Jamie takes it. And then he's let in on the secret. The off-the-grid, foreign-country situation he'll be working in? It's a parallel earth. An earth with a warmer climate, a thicker atmosphere, and kaiju. Like, you know, Godzilla.

The Kaiju Preservation Society is what KPS stands for. And Jamie adjusts quickly from gosh-wow-sense-of-wonder to more than competent lifter of things who, with his group of newbies, soon becomes passionately committed to protecting Kaiju Earth's mountainous, nuclear-powered denizens. Despite the fact that said denizens, and their parasites and other critters down to insect-sized, would gladly eat a human being if they can. Jamie and friends have a few tricks to defend themselves, though. Like stun batons and monster pheromones.

They're there mainly to study the creatures, but now and then they also have to babysit tourists – mainly richie-rich investors, government and military officials – and one of the first group Jamie gets saddled with turns out to be the evil CEO who fired him. On a bet. This guy, Rob Sanders, tries to throw his weight (and money) around on Kaiju Earth and very nearly gets thrown to the parasites for his pains. But while he pretends to learn his lesson, he still has something up his sleeve that's going to turn the final act of this funny, fast-paced, intense novel into a life-or-death fight to save a momma kaiju and her brood.

This is my first time reading a book by Scalzi and I'll give him credit for making it a fun ride. His characters patter with wit and well-delineated personalities. They're smart, tough and recklessly brave, yet understandably scared at the same time. There are whole scenes that are so good, you'll want to find someone who'll let you read them aloud. (I read to my dad an early scene in which a doctor tells Jamie about the side effects of a series of vaccines.) I could complain about the left-wing politics that everything filters through – sometimes distracting to the point where I, for one, had to double back to understand the antecedent of a character's pronouns – but in the big picture, the only bone I really want to pick at is Scalzi's disinclination to describe.

When the kaiju appear, I yearned for a paragraph, a sentence, a phrase, a metaphor or simile, whatever, to suggest a mental image over and above the implied "you do know what a kaiju is, don't you?" Establish it for those of us who aren't plugged into your mental movie, Scalzi. Paint with words, just for a little bit! I psychically begged him on this, multiple times, but did he listen? No. He told what happened and reported what the characters said, which was (I admit) sufficiently entertaining to keep me turning the pages. But at the expense of slowing the pace just a sukoshi, he could have seeded the reader's imagination with, like, imagery. Just sayin'.

John Scalzi is the Hugo- and Locus-award-winning science fiction author of the seven-book "Old Man's War" series, the "Interdependency" trilogy (The Collapsing Empire, etc.), some "Dispatcher" mysteries, and the novels Agent to the Stars, The Android's Dream, Redshirts, Starter Villain, When the Moon Hits Your Eye (in which the moon turns into cheese), Constituent Service, Monsters of Ohio and End of All Things.

599. Deus, auribus

Reminding you once again that the original hymns posted on this blog are numbered all the way back to zero, lo, this paraphrase of Psalm 44 is officially my 600th hymn. Rejoice with me! The tune I have in mind for it is SALVATION, from the 1816 Kentucky Harmony,, which the Ev. Lutheran Hymnary paired with "God moves in a mysterious way." I kind of dithered between it and JEG SER DIG, SØDE LAM for Hymn 598 and when I went the other way on that occasion, I planned a hymn specially to go with this early American tune.

Our ears have heard, O God, the deeds
You did in days of old,
When You supplied our fathers' needs
With gracious acts and bold.
For neither bow nor blade, dear King,
Can halt our haters' host;
But every day, in everything,
Your name shall be our boast.

Are we cast off and so disgraced,
Made for our foes a spoil?
Must we from scorn to scorn be chased,
Our cheeks with blushes boil?
A proverb though we may become,
A shaking of the head,
Your deeds of old within us thrum:
Deliver us from dread!

Had we forgotten, Lord, Your name,
Or stretched our hands elsewhere,
Would You not intercept the same,
Detect our faithless prayer?
But for Your honor, all day long,
Our very lives we pledge.
Hear our faint-hearted, chastened song;
Recall us from the edge!

Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?
Arise! Hide not Your face,
Nor cast us off into the deep;
Heal the oppressed with grace!
Behold our soul, bowed to the dust,
Our flesh pressed to the ground:
Rise, help, redeem! In You we trust,
Whose mercies e'er abound.

598. O Lord, You Know

O Lord, how well You know my sin,
Whose depth words scarely frame:
The war that even now within
Strikes at Your holy name.
What effort, yea, what discipline
Can such disorder tame?
Yet through my inward bedlam's din
Your love remains the same.

O Lord, You know the debt I owe,
Down to the basest mite:
Yes, how to pay it blood must flow
And Death assert his right.
Yet as a silent lamb You go,
Bared to his baneful bite,
And all his powers overthrow
Full in his prince's sight.

O Lord, You know how Naaman's bath
Could make the leper pure;
Likewise, of sin and doubt and wrath
You know a certain cure.
Plucked as a grain from beaten path,
From worldly lust and lure,
Drown me and into me blow faith:
Make my salvation sure.

You know, Lord, how a widow's jar
Of oil and bowl of meal
Might never fail of food: You are
Swift always to reveal
Gifts that surpass man's grasp by far,
And what You say is real.
You summoned bread from heav'n afar;
So, too, Lord, with me deal!

And now, O Lord, You know the day
Once even hid from You,
Since into heav'n You strode away,
Your Father's throne to view.
Make haste, then! Lend Your gospel sway,
All that You will to do,
And homeward call us all, I pray—
All whom so well You knew.

What's in Te Laudamus?—Part 4

My survey of the contents of Te Laudamus (TL) continues. The hymns are over. The next section, headed by Luther's "Christian Questions & Answers" (in preparation for the Sacrament) and a Cranach painting of the Last Supper, is the Divine Service. Not three settings. Not five. Not eleven (cf. ELW). One setting, the Healey Willan one (here starting on p. 324). No surprise if you know Dean Reuning, among the editors, whom I've personally heard play this Mass setting at a swift tempo. I gather he's a proponent of it. The service opens with a corporate confession and absolution, essentially as taken from TLH's pp. 5 and 15 or LSB's Divine Service 3. The Service of the Word begins with six Gregorian chant settings of the Gloria Patri ("Glory be to the Father and to the Son," etc.), both in the modern-language "and will be forever" and the traditional "world without end" form. Different tones are assigned to different seasons of the church year, starting for some reason with Trinity I-IX. I guess they're given in order of the numerical designation of each tone. So, look first, then leap.

On the next two pages, you get a choice between a threefold and a ninefold Kyrie ("Lord have mercy upon us," etc.), each with a written-out organ intonation and (again) a choice between singing it in Greek or in English. A two-plus-page setting of the Goria in Excelsis ("Glory be to God on high," etc.) begins with that first phrase pointed for the celebrant to chant. The chant notes for the Saluation and the "Let us pray" and "Amen" bookending the Collect for the Day are very simple—Gs all the way across. The "This is the Word of the Lord" / "Thanks be to God" responses at the end of the first two readings are also quite simple and familiar to Lutheran liturgy watchers. Lessons, graduals, Alleluia verses or tracts are indicated with references to the propers, which (I rejoice to see, after 20 years of enduring LSB) are actually in the pew book, within the page range 368-461. Again there are five different chant tones designated for the Alleluias depending on season. Gospel acclamations are also chanted to very simple musical cues.

Moving on to p. 334, we find the Nicene Creed given as the presumptive creed for the service, which in turn indicates a presumption of weekly communion. The alternative option, in red rubrics (if you'll forgive the tautology), is to sing the Creed to Willan's setting of the plainsong melody back in hymn 236. Certain phrases of the Creed ("and was incarnate..." and "is worshiped and glorified") are italicized, suggesting, I think, that you bow your head during those bits, and the sign of the cross is suggested at "life of the world to come."

After the hymn of the day and the sermon, the service suggests singing the offertory ("Create in me a clean heart") either immediately after the sermon or while offerings are being brought forward. The prayer of the church indicates the responses "Let us pray to the Lord" / "Lord have mercy" after each bid, concluding (p. 336) with a paragraph-long eucharistic prayer. Then the Service of the Sacrament commences with the Preface, all chanted, with the pastor taking rather familiar notes and the congregation responding with phrases a bit more elaborate than I am accustomed to playing out of TLH, LW or LSB. The "It is truly meet, right, and salutary" bit indicates that the Proper Preface be inserted, again, from the propers later in the book. Then you get Willan's quite attractive setting of the Sanctus ("Holy, holy, holy"). The Lord's Prayer is started by the pastor saying "Our Father" and all joining in from there; the traditional text all Protestants used to be able to say in unison until updated-language hymnals started splintering us into innumerable sects. A page reference is also given for an option to chant the Lord's Prayer, toward the end of the book.

"The Words of Christ's Testament (Verba)" follow, fully pointed for chant according to the instructions Luther notated in his liturgical writings. It's followed by the "Pax Domini" ("The peace of the Lord ..." / "Amen"), the Agnus Dei ("O Christ, Thou Lamb of God") and the distribution of the Sacrament, then the Nunc Dimittis ("Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant," etc.), the chanted post-communion thanksgiving, two choices of collect and Amen, concluding salutation ("The Lord be with you" / "And with thy spirit"), Benedicamus ("Bless we the Lord" / "Thanks be to God") and Benedicition ("The Lord bless you ...") with threefold Amen. So, basically, it's point-by-point exactly like the Communion liturgy in TLH, LW's Divine Service 1, LSB's DS 3 and so on, only with different melodies thanks to Willan.

Then you get a woodcut. And a new section, The Propers, headed by a painting of St. Alcuin of York, apropos of I know not what. And some notes (p. 348) on the organization of the propers and chanting instructions. I think families and congregations thinking about starting to use this book will be well served by starting here and attentively going over these notes and instructions. And then, one service at a time from the First Sunday in Advent, some of them subheaded by their Latin names such as "Ad Te Levavi" for Advent 1. Each set of propers has a specifically notated chant tone for the Introit, Gradual and Alleluia, and also gives the full Collect for the Day, lists the lessons and gives hymn choices for each day.

It's a one-year lectionary series, of course. Here are some interesting signposts along the way. Epiphany is given as Jan. 6, then the First Sunday After the Epiphany follows with the gospel lesson from Luke 2, the Boy Jesus in the temple; then propers for the Baptism of our Lord, with no preference toward it vs. the previous propers. I guess you can pick between them, or even use both in separate services. For the Fourth and Fifth Sundays After Epiphany, Introits, Graduals and Alleluias are indicated "as for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany." Also, The Presentation of our Lord and the Purification of Mary (Feb. 2) is interpolated after Epiphany 4. Epiphany 6 is identified as Transfiguration with a rubric saying it's customary to use these propers on the last Sunday after Epiphany except when there is only one such Sunday. Then you get the Pre-Lent Sundays—Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima—which folks accustomed to a three-year lectionary may have forgotten about amid longer Epiphany seasons and later Transfiguration Sundays. Then Ash Wednesday, the Sundays in Lent with their Latin titles, the Annunciation (March 25) interpolated after Lent 4, propers for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as well as a Holy Saturday specifically desingated for the Office of Matins. This includes a long canticle, the Song of Hezekiah from Isaiah 38, and a reference to the Litany later in the book. Easter services include propers for Easter Dawn, Easter Day, Easter Evenng/Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday, before continuing with Sundays After Easter by number and Latin subtitle. Ascension comes after the fifth of these six Sundays.

Pentecost gets its old-fashioned name, Whitsunday back, followed by propers for Pentecost Evening/Whitsun Monday, Whitsun Tuesday and the Feast of Holy Trinity, and then it's Sundays after Trinity numbered from one to five. Next we get the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24), SS Peter & Paul (June 29), and the Visitation (July 2) before the numbered Sundays resume with 6-18. The next interruption is for St. Michael and All Angels (Sept. 29), then Trinity 19-23, then the Reformation (Oct. 31), All Saints' Day (Nov. 1), then Trinity 24 ff. with 25-27 subtitled as the third-last, second-last and last Sunday of the church year. Propers conclude with a day of national thanksgiving, followed by a table of Psalms for Sundays, weekdays and principal feasts (pp. 461f) and a tiny woodcut of David at prayer.

The next major section of the book, then, is Matins, opening with a full-page painting of the Annunciation. The book credits the setting of this morning prayer office to a 1589 prayer book by Matthäus Ludecus, with organ intonations, unaccompanied chanting by the liturgist and harmonized responses for the congregation. The Alleluia after the Gloria Patri can be replaced by a "Praise to You, O Christ" dealie from Septuagesima to Passiontide. Proper invitatories (the antiphon framing the Venite/Psalm 95) are actually laid out on the page under the chant tone. It's a Gregorian tone, don't you know, sung responsorially between the liturgist and the congregation. Chanting continues with, for example, responsories for different seasons, set to more elaborate music than in LSB (another challenge you'll have to carefully prepare your congregation to get over), with seasonal options going on for several pages. After the sermon comes Luther's paraphrase of the Te Deum, actually the first thing I am truly thrilled to see (as opposed to just generally pleased) because no Missouri Synod hymnbook, outside of a 1970s worship supplement, has ever included Luther's Te Deum ("Lord God, Thy praise we sing") and this has frustrated me since time out of mind. As an alternative, there's also a chant setting of the Benedictus (Song of Zechariah). The office continues with a chanted Kyrie, spoken Lord's Prayer and Apostles' Creed (with the option to chant them on the pitch G), collects, versicle, the concluding Collect for Grace, Benedicamus and Benediction ("The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ..."). As an appendix, the Matins office concludes with Willan's setting of the Te Deum, a through-composed piece that goes on for eight pages; similar modern settings can be found in LW and LSB.

Vespers (the evening prayer office, again per Ludecus) begins on p. 490 with the Bidding Prayer, traditionally prayed on Good Friday, followed by a painting of Noah's Ark from what looks like an illuminated manuscript. It's similar to Matins but without the Venite or anything in place of it. The canticle is a choice of the Magnificat (Song of Mary) or the Nunc Dimittis (Song of Simeon), set to Gregorian tones with full harmony. After this service comes the Litany on p. 505, pointed to be sung responsorially. And the last page before the Appendix is another color picture, David tuning his harp.

Appendices: p. 518 is an "ektenia" prayer of the church. Pages 519-521 give us the proper prefaces for Communion, with space at the end for a depiction and explanation of the Luther rose. Page 522 presents handbell settings for the chant tones used with the propers. The next two pages provide modern and traditional accompaniments for the Gloria Patri chants set to all those tones. Then there are two pages of copyrights and acknowledgements in fine print, and a note from the publisher.

Indices: p. 528 starts an index of composers, authors and translators, alphabetical by last name. Page 530 is an index of artists and artwork. Page 531 is a hymn-of-the-day index. Hymn tunes are indexed alphabetically on pp. 532-33, then hymn titles on pp. 533-35, and finally historic collects and prayers at the bottom of p. 535 and that, dear reader, is the book.

Question answered. New question: What shall we do with this book? More than any other hymnal I have reviewed so far – including ELDoNA's book as well as the Reclaim project – I'd be keen to see congregations, Protes'tant Conference or not, give serious consideration to using this book. I'm not necessarily admonishing anyone to pitch out the hymnal they're currently using and replace it with this. But it would at least serve well alongside the other book, used in alternation with it or as a supplement to it. Families who are seriously into hymns and liturgy, and I know several of them so don't tell me there's no such thing, should get enough copies of this book for everybody in the household and use it for home devotions. Private persons who are away from family, say, on a secular campus or even at a sectarian school whose campus chapel has gone flaky, should take this book into their closet with them and maybe, if they can interest someone in joining them, start a pirate chapel in a dorm lounge, a stairwell, a student union, a dining room, a collaborative learning space or a practice room in the music department. Get some music learners working on the hymns, the Healey Willan Mass and Luther's Te Deum. Try it out, introduce it with care, talk about it and then decide.

Meanwhile, if your congregation is using Reclaim, or Evangelical Lutheran Worship and its supplements, or Christian Worship: A Hymnal, or This Far by Faith, or the Ambassador Hymnal, for a few examples, and asking them to look at this book as a possible supplement if not replacement gets you ejected from fellowship, so be it. Shake the dust off your feet and start your own church around this book, perhaps with an additional resource like ELH or LSB. Or if the same premise holds but the result is they're interested and your suggestion takes hold, work patiently toward the day when those other books can be loaded into a rollaway recycling container and, you know. Rolled away. † The peace of the Lord be with you.

EDIT: I've discussed this with a fellow pastor and taken his comments into consideration and I'll grant him this: If a pastor decides to plant his flag on this hill, he will die on it. Your ministry won't survive without putting more weight in the balances of hymn selection on what modern congregations are accustomed to singing. So I want to underscore once again that I would only advocate using this hymnal as a supplement to another hymnal and introducing the musically challenging, rhythmic chorales and chant music gradually and with great care. My friend is of the opinion that this book and its type of thing are mostly of value as historical documents. Except that he would love to find a way to introduce the Willan Mass to his congregation. I won't identify him any further except to hint that his church body's primary hymnal already has the Luther Te Deum in it.