but the electronic jobs in new churches are grating, especially when they play them nonstop on Sundays. Since they don't need bell ringers, why not?

The only churches I'm interested in are some of the community churches in the hinterlands here in NM, mostly because I love retablos. The little churches here are great places to look at folk art since most of them were decorated inside by people in the parishes.

I grew up in a long series of pastry cooks' nightmare cathedrals so I'm afraid the thrill over more refined religious art is long gone.

I still love the retablos.

(Clip from "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies" - the hilarious French spoof of Bond movies. With the wonderfully smarmy Jean Dujardin.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Uvjyy5fnIeA

As I remember, he's just saying: "Shut up! Shut the f!ck up!" Then he goes up on the minaret and tosses the muzzein off.

Later he tells an Egyptian woman about it:

"I was woken by a guy screaming on a tower. I couldn't sleep. I had to shut him up."

Woman (shocked): "A muezzin? You `shut up' a muezzin?! He was calling for prayer!"

"Yours is a strange religion. You'll grow tired of it...it won't last long."

Set in 1955, the whole movie is a real goof on clueless "colonial" European ideas of the time. e.g., they're in Egypt and constantly complain about "all the bloody foreigners."

In one scene, they're talking about other French trouble spots around the world and say something like: "Now that we've taken care of Indochina, we'll soon have that little problem in Algeria sorted out..."

The movie also has Russian spies, Nazis, and completely incompetent fundamentalist terrorists.

I see nothing wrong with seeing aesthetics you like in religion. How many songs do you listen to that reference God in some way? I love Greek mythology, and find many of the sculptures from that time beautiful. That does not mean I believe in it.

Similarly, I find many Cathedrals quite beautiful, and like many songs with references to God and Christianity. This still does not mean I believe in any of it

I love the sound of some gospel music. I also love the song "Yellow Submarine". Neither makes me think I should believe something I don't.

Some are triggering.

I love the sounds of church bells especially on a beautiful day. It's peaceful.

I also love religious art, movies and some music. I'm as atheist as they come, but I appreciate the art that religion has brought us. Some of it is quite moving and some gives us insight into human nature.

Nothing wrong with that.

Song is a mix of the French national anthem, god save the tzar, and a Russian hymn.

Better with real cannons too.

Dammit, you guys know I can't resist bait like this...

Song is a mix of the French national anthem, god save the tzar, and a Russian hymn.

1. La Marseillaise wasn't the French national anthem in 1812 - Napoleon had banned it in 1805. It first became the French national anthem in the revolutionary days of 1795. But by 1812 France was an empire, thanks to you-know-who. The last thing Napoleon wanted was to stir up revolutionary feelings in the largely foreign and conscripted Grand Armee that invaded Russia in 1812. Large swaths of that army deserted as soon as they got the chance anyway.

2. Nobody was singing God Save The Tsar in 1812, either. It wasn't written until 1833.

3. Tchaikovsky wrote the 1812 Overture in just 6 weeks, on commission. He never liked the piece, calling it "without artistic merit because I wrote it without warmth and without love." He didn't care too much for The Nutcracker, either, which he also wrote just for the money. He was paid to adapt the E.T.A. Hoffman story as a ballet, but Tchaikovsky thought the Hoffman story was the worst kind of syrupy popular dreck. He was absolutely right about that.

Keeping in mind that I'm musically illiterate, my favorite version of the 1812 Overture is the one recorded by Igor Buketoff circa 1960. He uses men's, women's and children's choirs singing a capella, mixing human voices seamlessly with the music. Incredibly beautiful. And we still get cannons and church bells!

La Marseillaise is the current national anthem of France. That's why I used present tense. (Trying to make it easier for people to find it if they looked.)

From the almighty Wikipedia:

"Beginning with the plaintive Russian Orthodox Troparion of the Holy Cross played by four cellos and two violas, the piece moves through a mixture of pastoral and martial themes portraying the increasing distress of the Russian people at the hands of the invading French. This passage includes a Russian folk dance, At the Gate, at my Gate (U Vorot, Vorot&quot .[5] At the turning point of the invasion—the Battle of Borodino—the score calls for five Russian cannon shots confronting a boastfully repetitive fragment of La Marseillaise. A descending string passage represents the subsequent retreat of the French forces, followed by victory bells and a triumphant repetition of God Preserve Thy People as Moscow burns to deny winter quarters to the French. A musical chase scene appears, out of which emerges the anthem God Save the Tsar! thundering with eleven more precisely scored shots. The overture utilizes counterpoint to reinforce the appearance of the leitmotif that represents the Russian forces throughout the piece.[6] A total of sixteen cannon shots are written into the score of the Overture."

...

"After the Russian Revolution the Tsar's anthem melody was replaced with the chorus "Glory, Glory to you, holy Rus'!", Славься, славься, святая Русь! from the finale of Mikhail Glinka's opéra A Life for the Tsar."


I agree, that is an excellent recording, I have remastered copy on CD. The company that remastered it is called 'Quintessence' I believe. They sell very inexpensive copies of such material. Most recordings I've come across either had the choir using hand bells instead of good, brass church bells, or, fake cannons. Finding a combination of the real deal made me very happy.