![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonRecently an online friend, of the magic with a K persuasion, posted a general inquiry as to who the 'God of Editing' might be. Don't want to get too much into other people's posts here, (never being sure if it might be a breach of social network etiquette), but the question really sparked my curiosity. So I fired up the search engines and stumbled upon a one John Bosco - the Patron Saint of Editors.
Prior to being beatified, venerated and canonized, John 'Giovanni' Bosco was a juggler, an acrobat and a stage magician. An odd profession for a future saint but not so in the context of the times he grew up in. In 1817, the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and a relentless draught had ravaged the Piedmontese region of Italy. To help make ends meet for his poor widowed mother, Bosco hustled the Circus and carnival circuits... but always finding a way to slip in a prayer from the crowd.
Bosco's path was one born of dreams. Dreams that led him to missionary work amongst the indians of Patagonia down in Argentina and dreams predicting funerals amongst the noblity in the Kingdom of Sardinia. An unapologetic 'Ultramontane' (or 'Pope Worshipper' as the saying used to go), his fiery sermons induced several attempts to be made on his life. These included an attempted stabbing, a bludgeoning and a shooting. Though his biographies don't say as such - I like to imagine that he survived these assassination attempts by use of his juggling and acrobatic skills.
Despite a rep, (both pre- and post-humous), for being a bit of a 'shake-down' artist, Bosco was canonized some 41 years after his death by Pope Pius the XI. He is also considered the Patron Saint of Illusionists. Which is great in that editors and stage magicians of a Catholic persuasion are all petitioning the same saint in their prayers.
Hours later, after moving on from Bosco to whatever, I was riding the Northbound line to work. As is my habit, I was buried in a book for most of the ride. Jay Robert Nash's 'Bloodleters and Badmen' to be exact. A few pages in and came across an interesting entry -
Casey, James P.
Murderer * (? - 1856)
Casey's bio begins as such:
"San Francisco was a rough town in the Nineteenth Century, even for civilized people. Though James Casey was the editor of the Sunday Times, his position did not prevent him from calling his enemies out into the street for fistfights and shootouts."
Casey was arch-enemies with an editor for a rival newspaper. When he spotted the man on the street he drew his pistol on him while shouting - "Draw and defend yourself!" - a split-second before gunning him down in cold blood.
During his trial a vigilante mob broke into Casey's jail and nabbed him along with three other prisoners for an impromptu public execution by hanging.
On a brief tangent, throughout 'Bloodletters & Badmen', I keep running into reports of the communal festivities made of a criminal's execution. Dispatches of murderers being ordained with flowers by children on their march to the noose, while others were made to ride their coffins as the crowd cheered them on merrily from picnic blankets. Often marching bands were deployed during the condemned's last pilgrimage and from the gallow's pulpit fiery sermons were delivered by the local collar. It all reads like something straight out of Frazer's 'Golden Bough' - the pharmakos and its ritual. I'm reminded of the intoxicating power of the Guillotine during the Terror of the French Revolution. How what was supposed to be a humane form of execution became an object of worship amongst the rioting masses. The atavistic need to deify corporal punishment.
When they hung James P Casey, along with those three other men, "20,000 good citizens cheered."
I like to think of Casey as the American Saint of Editors and that both he and Bosco are worthy of being roomies on the same shrine. At times, or at least so I imagine, a good editor needs to be a bit of a juggler and prestidigitator herself. An economy of motion applied to the word's harmony rather than merely the hand that guides it. Other times a good editor has to be ready to call you out on the street with hir iron already drawn.
Heh... not that grammar, much less editing, is my strong suit. On a literary, if not literal, level you'll find that I'm a lover not a fighter. Still, I'll be sure to drop Casey and Bosco in my heathen prayers for my success in the literary field.
Prior to being beatified, venerated and canonized, John 'Giovanni' Bosco was a juggler, an acrobat and a stage magician. An odd profession for a future saint but not so in the context of the times he grew up in. In 1817, the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and a relentless draught had ravaged the Piedmontese region of Italy. To help make ends meet for his poor widowed mother, Bosco hustled the Circus and carnival circuits... but always finding a way to slip in a prayer from the crowd.
Bosco's path was one born of dreams. Dreams that led him to missionary work amongst the indians of Patagonia down in Argentina and dreams predicting funerals amongst the noblity in the Kingdom of Sardinia. An unapologetic 'Ultramontane' (or 'Pope Worshipper' as the saying used to go), his fiery sermons induced several attempts to be made on his life. These included an attempted stabbing, a bludgeoning and a shooting. Though his biographies don't say as such - I like to imagine that he survived these assassination attempts by use of his juggling and acrobatic skills.
Despite a rep, (both pre- and post-humous), for being a bit of a 'shake-down' artist, Bosco was canonized some 41 years after his death by Pope Pius the XI. He is also considered the Patron Saint of Illusionists. Which is great in that editors and stage magicians of a Catholic persuasion are all petitioning the same saint in their prayers.
Hours later, after moving on from Bosco to whatever, I was riding the Northbound line to work. As is my habit, I was buried in a book for most of the ride. Jay Robert Nash's 'Bloodleters and Badmen' to be exact. A few pages in and came across an interesting entry -
Murderer * (? - 1856)
Casey's bio begins as such:
"San Francisco was a rough town in the Nineteenth Century, even for civilized people. Though James Casey was the editor of the Sunday Times, his position did not prevent him from calling his enemies out into the street for fistfights and shootouts."
Casey was arch-enemies with an editor for a rival newspaper. When he spotted the man on the street he drew his pistol on him while shouting - "Draw and defend yourself!" - a split-second before gunning him down in cold blood.
During his trial a vigilante mob broke into Casey's jail and nabbed him along with three other prisoners for an impromptu public execution by hanging.
On a brief tangent, throughout 'Bloodletters & Badmen', I keep running into reports of the communal festivities made of a criminal's execution. Dispatches of murderers being ordained with flowers by children on their march to the noose, while others were made to ride their coffins as the crowd cheered them on merrily from picnic blankets. Often marching bands were deployed during the condemned's last pilgrimage and from the gallow's pulpit fiery sermons were delivered by the local collar. It all reads like something straight out of Frazer's 'Golden Bough' - the pharmakos and its ritual. I'm reminded of the intoxicating power of the Guillotine during the Terror of the French Revolution. How what was supposed to be a humane form of execution became an object of worship amongst the rioting masses. The atavistic need to deify corporal punishment.
When they hung James P Casey, along with those three other men, "20,000 good citizens cheered."
I like to think of Casey as the American Saint of Editors and that both he and Bosco are worthy of being roomies on the same shrine. At times, or at least so I imagine, a good editor needs to be a bit of a juggler and prestidigitator herself. An economy of motion applied to the word's harmony rather than merely the hand that guides it. Other times a good editor has to be ready to call you out on the street with hir iron already drawn.
Heh... not that grammar, much less editing, is my strong suit. On a literary, if not literal, level you'll find that I'm a lover not a fighter. Still, I'll be sure to drop Casey and Bosco in my heathen prayers for my success in the literary field.