In which the pond licks the spittle with the bromancer and the reliably rolling Stone ...

Hagiography, the historical genre which is the subject of this (day's pond) comprises narratives concerned with the saints and their achievements, especially the miracles which God has performed through them and on their behalf. Six basic types of hagiographical ‘story’ or ‘scenario’ may be distinguished: first, the vita, the story of the achievements that a saint performed in his or her lifetime; second, the passio, similar to the former, but about a martyr who has died a violent death for the faith or for some other God-arranged reason; third, the inventio or revelatio, the story of how a new saint or more often a saint’s bodily remains were discovered; fourth, the translatio, the story of how a saint’s relics were brought to a church or moved to a new shrine; fifth, the visio, the story of how a saint appeared to someone in a vision; and sixth, the miraculum, the story of how a miracle was performed on the saint’s behalf by God. Miracula are typically concerned with the wonders that were performed after the saint has died and become a resident of the heavenly kingdom. A hagiographical text might well combine many of these stories or ‘scenarios’. Many vitae continue on, for example, well-beyond the scene of the saint’s death to describe how his or her corpse was lost, re-discovered and then brought and enshrined in the church where it now rests. In these texts the true climax comprises the saint’s translatio and enshrinement. Miracula, furthermore, were often combined to form libri miraculorum, ‘books of miracles’, which sometimes (but not usually) extended beyond the usual few dozen items to encompass hundreds of episodes. 

Now students wanting to know more about the original source can head off to Lancaster University here, but the pond is interested in the art and science of historiography as practised in the here and now down under, the miracula, as it were of ScoMo, and is there a better historiographer to be found than the bromancer?

First the pond must require students to abandon apocrypha, 

Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. Newspaper apocrypha is a set of texts included in the Graudian and or the Fairfaxians or the ABC or even Crikey, but not in the lizard Oz bible. While middling sane readers considers some of these texts to be deuterocanonical, devoted far right lizard readers consider them apocryphal. Thus, lizard Oz writers do not include the books within the their texts, unless to consign them to hell or to include them in a separate section. Other non-canonical apocryphal texts are generally called pseudepigrapha, a term that means "false writings". (Go Greg Hunting here for the original).

As concrete examples speak louder than dictionary definitions, here's some recent apocrypha, as seen in Fairfax, the Graudian and Crikey …

 

What's that, the cawing Crowe is now talking of ScoMo's foreign affairs brand of knighthoods? By golly, abstaining from the reptile holy water can work wonders ...

Well the pond could provide links to these texts, but surely only deviants, preverts and Satanists would go there, or spend a nanosecond googling them up, when they might instead be improved by encountering the perfect reptile exponent of the art and science of hagiography …

Now here the pond must again warn against deviants, preverts, Satanists and inner city 'leets. Why there are even some heretics to be found amongst the reptiles, with this turning up in today's lizard Oz editorial …

Alas and alack, there is a tendency to fall into error and heresy and deviancy at the drop of a hat … and yet the genuine hagiographer fits comfortably into a role and a tradition long established by an historical awareness ...

 In its various manifestations hagiography was the mode of historical discourse most frequently deployed in the lizard Oz pages, generating many thousands of vitae and miracula and contributing substantial passages to many chronicles and rhetorical histories. The similarities (and sometimes, the lengthy verbal affinities) between these narratives naturally lead to the suspicion that most, if not all, instances contain much that has been borrowed from earlier examples or which has been re-fashioned so as to resemble the scenes found in key archetypes—such as the millennial Life of St Onion Muncher by Bromancer of Surry Hills—which exerted great influence over the development of the genre. This conclusion seems inescapable; but the process might sometimes involve an oral phase, prior to the writing up of the legend, in which the hero’s story assimilated many standard elements or was gradually re-fashioned with each act of re-telling, bringing it ever closer to the recognised archetypes. The few texts which admit importing episodes from the lives of other saints invariably claim that the story was true of some saint if not of the saint with whom the text is chiefly concerned or that there is so little doubt about the subject’s sanctity that the mis-attribution of a few stories will scarcely make any difference to his or her cult. As such admissions show, hagiography’s claim to authority rested, as in the case of ecclesiastical history, on its claim to record actual events—actual moments of divine intervention in the world.

Now any speaker in tongues would understand that a new revelation is at hand, and with the onion muncher now wandering in the wilderness, the speaker of tongues has arrived, and the bromancer is just the right man for understanding the divine intervention that now strides across the land, by bus, or perhaps preferably, by plane … because after all, you can only be dinky di and true blue for a little while ...

Truly there is such infinite, Trumpian wisdom in all this, and somehow it reminded the pond of a relatively ancient Wilcox cartoon, with fresher Wilcox to hand here …

Of course Wilcox couldn't find the room for the peanut-flavoured Gado Gado fudge, but now it's back for a final gobbet of pure, undiluted hagiographical delight ...

Of course heretics, deviants, preverts and Satanists might suggest his biggest impediment is his undiluted fuckwittery, but that's why they need a daily dose of the bromancer's expert hagiography … and why the lizard Oz editorialist could also do with a dose.

While the sceptical editorialist did the very best to put lipstick on the pig known as the Donald, the sunny side up, glass full to the brim, full as a goog optimism of the bromancer passed by in a cloud of unknowing and uncertainty, with dire warnings of pitfalls …

Oh pish posh and tish tosh and mish mosh, everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, as the speaker in tongues travels amongst us and pursues his saintly mission abroad, and all can relax knowing that his faithful hagiographer will record his miraculous deeds …

And be warned, gentle passing stray read,er, there'll be a hell of a lot more hagiography to be done and read before the federal elections …

And now, as John Oliver might say, this …

The pond makes no apology. The rolling Stone has long been a regular feature and a reliable favourite, and when he's not explaining climate science for dummies, anything else he has to say is a matter of keen interest.

It turns out that the rolling Stone is still grieving for some of that good old onion muncher moss, and the loss still runs through his scribbling like a trickle of tears ...

This inspirational text immediately moved the pond to run a few cartoons celebrating the Donald's latest doings …because he's not just building a wall and deploying the military and bashing refugees ...

Alas and alack, that was a lengthy distraction from the final thoughts of the rolling Stone ...

Yes, where there's hagiography, there must also be an undiluted strain of bigotry, and blather about the Australian way of life (who can recall the days of three veggies and a chop?), but as usual the rolling Stone saved the day by brushing the moss of some splendid forms of abuse ...

Chucklehead? Why the rolling Stone still yearns for the greatest chucklehead of them all, the onion muncher from Manly, and yet the pond has a deep affection for the term, as it still turns up in all sorts of places … as cited here …

...Many years of study of conspiracy theory lore leads me to suggest that Donald Trump is a co-opted sycophantic con man chucklehead, put in place to further an agenda. The "conspiracy's" end game: rule the world through China. To do that, America, its institutions and its standing in the world must be destroyed….

…Never underestimate Boris Johnson, at least not if the criteria you are using to judge him on is: "How awful has that chucklehead been today?" In years to come I imagine symposia of HR professionals will meet in hotel conference rooms to discuss the eternal mystery of "What does Boris Johnson have to do to get sacked?" Undermined your boss with loose-cannon newspaper articles? Not an issue. Made jokes about dead people in war zones? No probs. Potentially added to the jail sentence of an innocent Briton in Iran? Heck, we all make mistakes. 
This level of awfulness is a boon to me in a number of ways. As a bumbling incompetent of long standing, it is greatly encouraging to see that being a Grade A Ding-Dong is no barrier to holding some of the highest offices in the land. And as a smartarse newspaper columnist, this stuff is gold.

Indeed, indeed, and somehow this mix of hagiographers, saints and chuckleheads and Boris and Brexit sometimes comes together in a perfect onion munching storm …

More here, but that was back in June. How have things been progressing in this wonderful moment, as the Brits stride towards global success?

Well, the pond has a secret vice, routinely watching 4 and the BBC on YouTube as things unfold on a daily basis, which is coupled with a secret yearning … that soon, very soon, the bromancer will turn his hagiographical vision on this global success and the most excellent contributions of the onion muncher …

But there's only so much hagiography that can be fitted into any day, and really, Rowe put the business of chuckleheaded hagiographical foreign affairs into a cartoon nutshell this day, with more nutters reliably to be found here ...