A Chance non-meeting, as we say in Middle-Earth...

I just met a person who had been to, of all places, ChesterCon 08 (not 09). I did not talk to him at the conference.

As for how I met him.....well, you should probably learn that he and I are both seminarians now.

My Experience at Chesterton Conference 2008

“They do not want regular plenty, but irregular wealth…They want Surprise.”

--G.K. Chesterton, “The Surprise”

Yes, I was one of the attendees of the 2008 G.K. Chesterton Conference, the
Orthodoxy Centennial, and I think that “Surprise” is one of the best one word
descriptions of it. Not that I came expecting nothing, and was gloriously
surprised. It was so good, that I could expect and expect and still be
surprised.
In the first place, I was surprised that I was able to attend at all. But
that does not pertain to the conference itself, so I will pass over it.
Second, I received a very pleasant sort of “Wake Up, you need to go to this”
when I saw that Dr. Jennifer Overkamp, a resident of the same city as myself,
would be on the program. I had met her just a few weeks before.
Third, I found the abundance of attendees quite refreshing--especially after I
saw a friend of mine, went to talk to him, and “got lost” in a large crowd of
homeschoolers that I had not met and probably would never had otherwise.
Apparently, I never found my way out. My membership on this blog is one of the
results, and they‘re not over yet.
Fourth, I was struck by the utter fascination provided by the speeches,
especially the ones that “expanded” Chesterton into the world of Pascal, Jane
Austen (I learned more about Austen from the conference than I did from Pride
and Prejudice!), and the Pro-Life movement.
Fifth, I was surprised by the utter accessibility of the conference
“dignitaries;” I was able to talk to five of the speakers (including Mr.
Alquhist) and eat with two of them.
Sixth, I got to serve mass outside my diocese for the first time in the most
beautiful cassock and surplice I have ever worn.
And last, but not least, I was shocked when I got home and found that one of
the books I bought was by a radical feminist. It made good firewood, which was
not a surprise. I got a very good replacement by Jacques Martain, and that WAS
a surprise.
In other words, unless you know you hate literary conferences or are an
anti-Chestertonian, you MUST go to the 2009 conference.

A Request

This actually came originally from Dale Ahlquist and hasn't really been fulfilled. I know this is a little funny to be asking about at this time of year, but I'd really like to have the Chesterton conference attendees on this blog write about their experience of the conference, particularly for the sake of those who weren't able to attend or those who might be thinking about attending this year's conference.

Fire away!

The Radical Feminist of Notting Hill (An Antecdote of ChesterCon)

What would you do if you saw a book called 'The Gift of Beauty, the Good as Art' on sale from Notting Hill Books? If you said 'nothing,' think again. Remember that you would be in a frenzy of Chesterton Enthusiasm.
Anyway, I did see such a book in such a place, and blithely bought it. Contentedly, it sat on my shelf, waiting to impart supposed words of wisdom and giving me all the famed 'delights of anticipation.'
It was then that I decided to take a look at the bibliography. I discovered, to my shock, that many of the source texts had titles like...well, you may have younger siblings looking over your shoulder. I felt even stupider when I saw on the book jacket (which I had read before buying) that the author was a radical feminist. Don't worry, this is a happy story.
Soooo...I e-mailed Notting Hill Books. You would be surprised if they turned out to be evil, wouldn't you. I learned (drum roll, please) that the book had been bought by Notting Hill Books as part of a large collection, and that its inclusion in the display in St. Paul had been a complete accident. So now, I am going to return it so that Notting Hill Books can have heat this winter, and in return, they are going to send me a much better book by Jaques Martrain. So next time, please do judge a book by its cover.

Our table (well most of it) during one of the many toasts at the closing banquet. And speaking of toasts David Zach's delightful toast can be found here.

Opera, persecution, and geometry

The jumbled thoughts of GilbertGirl and Ria after a busy day at Chestercon:

Meeting new Chestertonian teenagers, listening to entertaining and enlightening talks, delving deep into Chesterton's stunningly simple masterpiece Orthodoxy, and best of all, eating Stilton cheese while conversing with internet acquaintances are a few of the intellectual pleasures we've been enjoying these last two days.


The whole thing got off to a splendid start with Dale Ahlquist's "In defense of everything else," an introduction to Chesterton's introduction.

David Zach gave us a spirited, rousing talk (trying to keep us awake late Thursday night) all about Chesterton as a futurist, based off the chapter "The Eternal Revolution". Begginning by defining futurist, he showed how Chesterton thought about and invested in the future, emphasizing children and incorporating a slight thread of The Ethics of Elfland.

Tom Martin woke us up Friday morning with his electrically captivating "the maniac: Especially, Nietzsche". Supremely satisfying arguments concerning reason, faith, heresy, and other juicy subjects were displayed in a scholarly and Chestertonian style.

Unfortunately, we were absent for a great deal of Sean Dailey's talk regarding The Suicide of Thought. ): So despite the fact 'tis GilbertGirl's favorite chapter, and one of my favorites, we have nothing to report.

The clock stuck twelve long ago, and the princesses are late for bed, so we'll continue our summary tomorrow with Jennifer Overkamp's Fairy Tale talk.

P.s. If you're wondering about the three nouns comprising the subject, although they have not yet entered the narrative, they are what our heads are full of:)

What ho, Chesterteens!

A gleeful salutation from Mapaz, Ria, and myself, reporting from ChesterCon 2008 (also Abbreviated Algy - story pending)! Plunged in a vortex of Nietzcshe's nuttiness, stilton cheese, animate robots, and the stature of elves, we have no more time to spend at present disclosing the delights of the conference, as there are still so many to absorb, but will deliver a detiled update this evening. Until then, comrades!

Gilbert: the Conference Edition

In case you couldn't tell from my brilliant title, Gilbert arrived today... not just any Gilbert, the conference edition Gilbert. Besides two lovely :) pictures of yours truly and the, dare I say typical, spread of columns and essays, there is a delightful summary of, you guessed it, ChesterCon 07 With a number of photos from the said event, GKC's short story, A Picture of Tuesday, and wonderful, though very short, essay by the same on "Who is Sunday?". The latter I found particularly interesting, having spent a good deal of time discussing and wondering about that very topic. Chesterton's summary, big surprise, is fascinating and makes perfect sense. If you don't "get gilbert?" (no pun intended) this essay can be found in Masie Ward's famed Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Oh and of course the annual Clerihew contest winners, the overall winner is....
Rob MacArthur for:
God
Is odd
He
Is three
(Just in case you didn't know that already:).
Oh and I really am planning on finishing my report, but school is kind of monopolizing my time, or at least my thoughts. But I really do want to finish it, I haven't talked about Aidan Mackey's "small" group discussion yet!

ChesterCon 07- Saturday Ante Luch

After reading and discussing Animal Farm by George Orwell, I found the first talk on Saturday, Inside every thin man is a fat man struggling to get out; Chesterton and George Orwell, especially interesting. Not that it improved my opinion of GO very much, I didn't know much about him before and I can't say that to know him is to love him. Anyone that says Chesterton's ideas, such as the idea that people would like to be self-sufficient, are ridiculous is rather odd, especially if he then goes and does them. George Orwell did that. He said that Chesterton was quite wrong in thinking that people would want to be self-sufficient and then he went and tried to be self-sufficient for many years. To be fair, Animal Farm was interesting, although far from my favorite book in the world, and I'm sure others are too.

Let us turn to a brighter subject, that of Sigrid Undset, on whom the next talk was based. Geir Hasnes is a Norgwegian bibliographer and has a really cool accent, and his talk was fascinating. I really knew next to nothing about Sigrid Undset, but I have learned a great deal and so far I love her. How could you not love someone who read old Norse legends to her dying father in the old Norse language when she was only ten? She first discovered Chesterton when she read his book on Dickens. Then when she read Orthodoxy there was no way back, she was on her way to Catholicism. And so in 1924 on November 1st she became a Catholic. Her literary output earned her the Nobel Prize (the money she earned, she gave to mentally retarded children and to Catholic schools in Norway) and also the less comfortable position of number 1 on the Nazi extermination list in Norway, although it was complementary to her work I would say. This postition caused her to flee to America. There is of course much more to her story, but I'm not the one to tell it.
Thanks to this talk, I am now very interested to read her books now, which are, so I hear, a good cry.

More to follow shortly (within the year) on what came next.

ChesterCon 07- Friday, After Dinner

Actually, this is going to be mostly after dinner, but I do have to mention that during dinner was when Mrs. Brown finally arrived. So it was very nice (especially since I was by then very nervous for the recitation coming up) to have a quick chat with her. After dinner we ( I was with three other girls just about the entire time there) strolled over to the other building where the talks were given. There we had a wait of approximately half an hour before it was time for me to recite. For those of you who don't know, at the ChesterCon I recited the first book of the Ballad of the White Horse, and that is what I have been alluding to throughout this post. So after the half hour was up and after Dale introduced me I recited.

I made it through. I had only a few minor stumbles, but I think I had help (I was desperately praying that I wouldn't completely forget the poem, both before and during the recitation). And afterwards I got a standing ovation. I still can hardly believe it. Throughout the rest of that evening and the next day, dozens of people came and chatted with me. It was so cool to meet so many wonderful people. A thousand thanks to all of you who came to chat with me. Talk about making my day, making my week would be nearer the mark.

Dawn Eden was next, and she was awesome. She is a convert to Catholicism, and as often happens Chesterton helped. She pointed out that The Man Who Was Thursday is about both false rebellion (the anarchist movement) and true rebellion (the police force) and that Christians are rebellious too, against the fallen world. A few quotes I learned or was reminded of by her talk: A sound atheist cannot be to careful of his reading C.S. Lewis, The most important part of a picture is its frame GKC and we don't need wonders but wonder GKC (I think but I'm not sure, it sounds like him). And I was not the only person who liked this talk.

Joseph Pearce followed her, speaking on Small is Still Beautiful: Chestertonian Economics. The title was adapted from the title of the book by E.F. Schumaker, Small is Beautiful. Schumaker has a very interesting story. He was a very well respected economist and also an atheist. A sound atheist cannot be to careful of his reading. His friend got him to read several papal encyclicals. Although Schumaker was at first skeptical he soon found that the popes really had a lot of answers to the problems in economics. After reading the encylical Humana Vitae Schumaker's mother and daughter both converted, and eventually so did Schumaker. The world needs to repent or it will die of consumption, were his thought-provoking closing words.

ChesterCon 07- Friday

First off friday (following breakfast of course) was a talk by our own Dr. Thursday! He spoke on "A Week of Thursdays". He used each letter of the word Thursday to provide topics for his talk. Thus:


T-theta (a syllable of enthusiasm)
H-Humility (and humor)
U-Universe
R-Rhyme and Reason (the princesses from the Phantom Tollbooth)
S-Subsidiarity
D-Dragon
A-Art
Y-Yo (Chesterton's word for both yes and no)

And a few more interesting tidbits:


Humility means Honesty
There is but one thought greater then that of the Universe, that is the thought of its Maker.
It is just as easy to be logical about imaginary things as real ones
It is the humble man who does the great things


Next came Robert Moore-Jumonville whose talk had the amusing yet very logical title of Why Did the Lamppost Cross the Road: Chesterton's Theology of Civilisation, so there is not much to explain as far as what the main purpose of his talk was. The lamppost played a key role in this talk since, in GKC's writing, the lamppost is often used to symbolize civilisation (e.g. TMWWT). So again, a few of my notes from this talk, quotes from the speaker or Chesterton respectively:
Man is the animal that makes dogmas
Man is content to picnic in the ruins of this palaces
What man has done, man can still do

By then it was time for lunch after which came two panels in a row. The first consisted of Aidan Mackey, Christopher Chan and Kerry MacArthur. Aidan Mackey was wonderful, he knew Ada Chesterton (Cecil's wife) quite well and also (if I remember correctly) Chesterton's secretary. The first book of Chesterton's that he read was The Man Who Was Thursday in the year that Chesterton died on the recommendation of his brother who told him to get his nose out of the junk he was reading. So he read it and found it very interesting, and of course, since then he has read a good deal more of GKC, he was, as my mother remarked, the original ChesterTeen.
Next was Christoper Chan who spent most of his time, rather then on the TMWWT, speaking about how hard it can be to make a difference and yet encouraging us to try. After him was Kerry MacArthur, who I really liked although I cannot explain to myself why. He compared different areas of TMWWT to different typical types of dreams, the Professor De Worms chase to a dream where you can't move; the duel to a dream where you are fighting for your life; and the chase at the end to a delirious dream.

The next panel was made up of Jorge Iglesias, Mike Streeter and Rob MacArthur. Jorge Iglesias spoke on Chesterton and South American author, Borge. Mike Streeter spoke on Chesterton and Hume and Rob MacArthur on Chesterton and Chesterton (contrasting Chesterton's work in varying genres). My notebook was not available during this talk so I don't have the convenient lists of interesting points as I did from the others, but this was still quite interesting, and again you can listen to them, as you know CDs are available here.

This post is getting extremely long and run-on so I will continue with after dinner in my next posting.

ChesterCon 07- Thursday

We arrived at the Chesterton Conference around four, and although the talks didn't start till seven there was plenty to do in the mean time. What with meeting people (such as Dr. Thursday, finally!!!!) and chatting with them, browsing the vendor hall, playing frisbee and fitting dinner into the schedule, we were not bored. Then once the time had come, we all piled into the auditorium for the talks. Actually first was not really a talk but a "Welcome". In other words for about fifteen minutes Dale Ahlquist told us about the ACS, and what we should buy from the ACS etc. and kept us laughing the entire time. Then came his actual talk.

He told us a good deal about the background of The Man Who Was Thursday, a possible inspiration for the character of Sunday (Chesterton's former schoolmaster) and about a few short stories which gave hints of elements of TMWWT long before that book was written. Those included A Picture of Tuesday (which I have read) and The Man With Two Legs (which I now very much want to read). But since I can't tell you everything that he said, I will have to recommend you buy his talk, and all the others for that matter.

Next was Chesterton himself (ok, ok it was really Chuck Chalberg) speaking on Islam. And it wasn't just about Islam, it was also about Jerusalem and Rome and a good deal more. Some of my favorite quotes/points were these:

In the crusades it was Islam that invaded rather then Europe
Obviously, obvious things are easily forgotten
Islam possesses a great truth, so great that it was impossible to see that it is a half truth
The friction of two truths together breeds that firse of the mind
A wall is like a rule and a gate is like an exception to the rule
Gethsamane was the place where God said his prayers
The object of war is peace so the object of religious war is mental peace
"I will not wear a crown of gold where my master wore a crown of thorns" a quote from the knight who led a temporarily triumphant invasion of Jerusalem, was offered its crown and refused it in those words

Then after a few questions and singing Happy Birthday to Dale Ahlquist it was time to retire for the night.

This is Not a Frisbee...

This is the G.K. Chesterton-We-Can't-Call-It-A-Frisbee-Due-To-Copyright-
Restrictions. There are many more enticing products available here and, I assume, at the ChesterCon later this week. Speaking of ChesterCon do any of you plan to go? I'm going, unless of course a calamity occurs as happened last year, and I plan to report on the goings-on there.

Chesterton and the Da Vinci Code

I absolutely LOVED this talk. Carl Olson is sooooo funny! He was cracking jokes through almost the whole talk, it was hilarious. I was supposed to clean my room for twenty minutes and so I decided to listen to part of his talk, I was in my room for at least an hour.
He began by asking how many people had read and/or watched The Da Vinci Code, he then remarked for those peoples benifit that there would be confessions later on.
He also read a review by Barnes and Noble on this book, The Da Vinci Hoax. They seem to think that since The Da Vinci Code is "just fiction" that it's not dangerous.
On the contrary I think it is more dangerous in the form of novel because people are more likely to be interested in reading a novel than a non-fiction book.

He continued througout the talk to summarize the inconsistencies in Dan Brown's novel. The absurdness of these, plus Carl Olson's sarcasim made for a absolutely hilarious talk. My brother and I had a great time.

"Abandon All Hopelessness Ye Who Enter Here"

We just got the set of ChesterCon CDs. I have finished Dale Ahlquist's and Carl Olsen's, and I really like them both. I am going to blog about Dale Ahlquist's first and then do Carl Olsen's.
Dale Ahlquist's was really good, it was really funny too. He read the last paragraph of the Charles Dickens book, which talks mostly about eternity. Then he said"That may be the end of the book but it is not the end of this talk, you are just beginning to learn the meaning of eternity."(:
And then of course there are the actual Chesterton quotes that are always hilarious. Like this one:

The strength of Cromwell was that he cared for religion, but the strength of relgion was that it did not care for Cromwell.

But it wasn't all laughter, he was explaining to us about hope. That hope isn't pessimism or optimism but that it is a the happy medium between these extremes. Of course he had many great Chesterton quotes to go with it and I'll try do my best to remember them.

The optimist is the person who thinks all the world is good except the pessimist and the pessimist is the person who thinks that all the world is bad except himself.

(to be continued) (hopefully:)