To Be Precise, The "all Female Crew" Aboard The Flaming Phallic Symbol Were Not Crew, They Were Cargo.

I love the lanyard.

Boatswain’s call - Bosun’s call with sailor-macraméd lanyard, 19th century

On top of all these other shenanigans, Ol' Pooty Pants has poured enormous amounts of money into the monastic community at Mount Athos, specifically for the Russian monastery and sketes. And subsequent to that, there's been an opening of an investigation into how the monks (who are allowed bank accounts) have been laundering funds for Putin and his cronies. Also, since the opening of hostilities in Ukraine, security services believe Russia is running a spy ring out of Mount Athos through Kirill's cooperation.

The Moscow Fiasco

At the prodding of @quonunc, here is a quick overview of the incident I fondly referred to as "the Moscow fiasco" in a previous ask about the difference between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. It's a subject dear and horrifying to my heart after I wrote my undergrad dissertation on it.

In short: this is to do with how the Moscow Patriarchate (Russian Orthodox Church, hereafter ROC) is entirely in bed with the Russian government, and how Patriarch Kirill (of Moscow and All Russia) has been responding to the ongoing situation in Ukraine (and former Soviet lands more generally). Picture will make sense lower down the post.

The slightly longer short answer is that Patriarch Kirill is entirely in favour of the Ukraine war, and the ROC clergy are under significant pressure to support that as an official church stance-- my dissertation topic started to germinate when, completely by accident, I came across a 10-minute video of a ROC priest explaining very slowly and carefully that when he met the Pope, he did not talk about Ukraine. Will link this video if I can find it again, but at present it's proving elusive. (EDIT: found it!!! It was the Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary. This video looks like a hostage video honestly £10 says there's someone behind the camera holding a gun to this man's head for legal reasons this is a joke).

The foundation for this belief is obviously completely political (and the history of how the ROC and Russian state are completely entwined is long and complicated to say the least!), but officially the ROC stance is that it's about reclaiming the historic Slavic spiritual unity founded on the Baptism of Rus' in the year 988 by Vladimir the Grand Prince of Kievan Rus' when Slavdom become Orthodox. Proponents of this "Russian World" theory (Russkiy Mir') basically argue that it's the influence of the West that has fractured the unified Slavic people into different, opposing nations, and that by "liberating" Ukraine of this alien ideology of nationhood, the Slavic Orthodox world will regain its historic unity under the common banner of Orthodoxy. All I will say on this is that these people have a very rosy view of Kievan Rus', but that's a post for another day.

This has obviously caused friction within the Orthodox world. Ukraine now has two Orthodox churches-- the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is in communion with the Russian Patriarchate. They are not in communion with each other, and Constantinople's decision to grant autocephalous status to the OCoU caused Moscow to schism with Constantinople. Constantinople is also accusing Moscow of heresy (specifically, ethno-phyletism). Moscow obviously denies this. Obvious question for the Catholics among us-- does this mean Russian Orthodox christians are no longer Orthodox? No, because schisms between Orthodox churches are not particularly unusual, and they remain within the general cloud of Orthodox communion links.

The whole mess is then immortalised in the absolute monstrosity that is the Main Cathedral to the Russian Armed Forces, which is what I wrote my diss on. The YouTube video linked there is promotional material from Russian military-themed TV channel Звезда, and is one of the better sources of info on it-- a lot of English-language sources contain a lot of incorrect information on it-- either because they don't understand the cultural background, or just straight up lies from the Russian govt propaganda arm--, so take anything they say with a grain of salt. Kirill then gives televised sermons from this cathedral in which he talks about the glorious Russian martyrs of the Ukraine invasion, does his best to harmonise Stalinism and Orthodoxy, and oversees military parades for national holidays. This cathedral has a huge amount of weird symbolism and imagery, and I am super happy to talk more about the mosaics and propaganda going on there, because it's a lot (to say the quiet part out loud: pLEASE ask me more about this cathedral because the more I think about it the more scream-worthy facts about it I remember).

You may have seen memes with this picture of the Virgin Mary (below). Yeah that's from this cathedral. And it's a really really fucked up image. Like, more fucked up than you may think. Could have written my entire diss on this image alone and how shockingly awful it is. western orthobro converts who keep reblogging it as if it's somehow cool and macho are just showing how little they know and it's embarrassing.

The militarism of the ROC since this whole thing has also gone bonkers and there's a huuuuuge amount of corruption and weird stuff going on. The tension between the clergy and the laity has been extremely high for decades, and has spilled over most notably in Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer stunt, an exhibition called Осторожно, религия! (beware, religion!), and some shenanigans in church-building more generally. On this particular incident I would point to the blessing of nuclear weapons and the canonisation of a patron saint of long-range nuclear missiles as key moments. The cathedral also has matching mosaics of Putin and Stalin, a fact that the Russian government very much wants you to think never happened (officially the mosaics were removed, but they absolutely were not-- muggins here found them and has the pictures to prove it).

The main takeaway from this topic is that situation is obviously complicated and the repercussions for everyone involved-- particularly Russian and Ukrainian laypeople-- are unpleasant to say the least. It gives something of a window into the Putin regime and its propaganda arm (Epiphany swim, topless horseriding pictures, Soviet-style policies, I could go on) more than anything else, because the situation inside the ROC is still quite obscure. From talking to people who know Kirill personally, it's not clear quite what he thinks is going on or why he's involved the way he is. Either way. Fiasco.

When the old world and the new collide:

Feeding the wood stove earlier, and the fire set slipped. Had to grab a burning log to keep it from falling out, and burned the fingerprint off my finger. My phone doesn't recognize my finger now to open.

One thing all the cottagecore types either obfuscated or ignored: living in the woods in a cabin is work. The forest is perpetually trying to reclaim the cleared area. Firewood never lasts as long as you think it would, and it's heavy. We just had a really bad windstorm blow through, lost five white pines, and now I have to take a chainsaw and limb & buck them out. On top of that, there's cabin repairs to be done. Not much time for Instagramming bread or knitting.

Apparently in the last 18 months, we've been nominated as the county eccentrics. People whom I don't know from Adam are striking up conversation with me, knowing where I live. I was informed of the "eccentric" status relatively recently at the little country store down the road. This pleases me.

Ch😁

I'm fascinated by the history of the Grand Guignol. Even read the collection of translated plays, and properly done with modern practical effects, they could still hold up today. If anything, it's deserving of a revival, possibly in concert with some dark burlesque and apropos musical acts.

Gojira at the Olympics put up the Bat Signal for culture vultures that forgot metal music exists. Well, that'll because they have the retention of a goldfish, but that's beside the point. Happened recently before that with Stranger Things and Master of Puppets. This irks me as apparently it's enough to attract their attention, and they're stirring as evidenced by their objections to Gojira's lyrical content and then the subsequent turn onto Cannibal Corpse.

First off, lemme say "get bent tourist" and get that out of the way.

Secondly, Cannibal Corpse has been around since 1988. They're a horror movie with growled vocals and blast beats. They were in Ace Ventura:Pet Detective with the original vocalist. They're not just going to up and go away because some noob wieners start flinging words like problematic around.

That's the wonderful thing about metal, all the weird little sub genres. If bands like Cannibal Corpse, Ghoul, Circle of Dead Children or Dying Fetus are worrisome to you, you can go bugger off and listen to DragonForce elsewhere. Don't harsh another metalhead's mellow, maaaaaan.

It's the 21st century and I'm dealing with wood heating like it's still pre industrial times. There's supplemental electric heaters for places like the bathroom and a propane burner to keep the roof clear, but otherwise I'm dealing with cords and ricks of splits and rounds. Sharp axe, sharp hatchet, dead blow hammer, splitting wedges, ash can, hearth broom, ash scuttle, aaaaaaaagh.

I wonder if this is the replacement for the ACES suit. Time to look things up!