Althouse: Easter cake.

March 16, 2008

Easter cake.

A bakery window on Court Street in Brooklyn.

21 comments:

titusgrandjete said...: How come there are no "black sheep" easter cakes?

Racist bakery.; 3/16/08, 2:24 PM
Ron said...: What tha?!? Sheep lay eggs? Wait, where do marshmallow peeps come from?

I think I'll just stick to ham!

hmmmm....ham.; 3/16/08, 2:38 PM
Anthony said...: Nice. Bloody lamb cake with flags sticking in their bodies.

Round up the kids.; 3/16/08, 2:41 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: Anthony said...
Nice. Bloody lamb cake with flags sticking in their bodies.

Round up the kids.

Ya never heard of the slaughter of the lambs?; 3/16/08, 2:56 PM
rhhardin said...: The Easter roosters out back are spending more time fighting with each other than looking for food today, a sure sign of Spring, I imagine.

Fighting is the message of Easter. The winner gets the hens, and hence the eggs, and hence you get rebirth and ultimately more roosters.

Roosters are optimists.

They have not noticed that there are no hens. Those are probably in Madison.; 3/16/08, 3:05 PM
rhhardin said...: The nicer side of roosters is their male voice audio

so longed for after listening to hours of feminist seminars.

That's not an Easter message, however.; 3/16/08, 3:10 PM
rhhardin said...: Hens think roosters have nice eyes.; 3/16/08, 3:28 PM
Honza said...: This is unrelated to this post, Ann, but I just read an old Atlantic Montly article about Emily Dickinson, who said this:

"I find ecstacy in living; the mere sense of living is joy enough."

This reminded me of you, and I sense from the posts I've read here(but I fear to presume) that this is akin to how you feel.

Thanks for sharing your spark for life with the rest of us.

The Atlantic article on Dickinson is here if you want to read it: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/189110/emily-dickinson-letters; 3/16/08, 3:38 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Thanks, Honza. I'll read that.; 3/16/08, 3:49 PM
Meade said...: A Conway Twitty clap-along it isn't, but hey, whose garments ARE spotless?; 3/16/08, 4:11 PM
titusgrandjete said...: That Emily Dickinson quote must of been when she was very young.

She became a recluse and never left a homestead for much of her life and would talk to people through the closed front door.

She stayed in her bedroom at her father's funeral with her door cracked.; 3/16/08, 5:49 PM
Honza said...: You're wrong, Titus. Her joy was obviously not dependent upon significant social interaction. Go read the Atlantic article from the 1890, which was written by her literary confidante. The quote in context:

"I find ecstacy in living; the mere sense of living is joy enough." When I asked her if she never felt any want of employment, not going off the grounds and rarely seeing a visitor, she answered, "I never thought of conceiving that I could ever have the slightest approach to such a want in all future time;" and then added, after a pause, "I feel that I have not expressed myself strongly enough," although it seemed to me that she had. She told me of her household occupations, that she made all their bread, because her father liked only hers; then saying shyly, "And people must have puddings," this very timidly and suggestively, as if they were meteors or comets. Interspersed with these confidences came phrases so emphasized as to seem the very wantonness of over-statement, as if she pleased herself with putting into words what the most extravagant might possibly think without saying, as thus: "How do most people live without any thought? There are many people in the world,--you must have noticed them in the street,--how do they live? How do they get strength to put on their clothes in the morning?"; 3/16/08, 5:57 PM
Trooper York said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/16/08, 6:07 PM
rhhardin said...: The cake looks Catholic to me.

compare the design feel

Alas Veronica has passed on and is no longer on the radio with messages.; 3/16/08, 6:23 PM
Trooper York said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/16/08, 6:27 PM
Bissage said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 3/16/08, 6:41 PM
Bissage said...: KLIBANESQUE CAPTION: Inspired by an Althouse post, Bissage reaches for art.

And the punchline?

THIS!; 3/16/08, 6:44 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Yay Italy!

You know, that lamb there, in Jesus' day that lamb would be the pascal lamb eaten for the passover. That's one of the things that pissed of Jesus; the priests had a real racket going there first selling the animals to be sacrificed to Jewish pilgrims gathering from throughout the Roman world and then reselling the butchered animals for the feast. So the priests had them coming and going. Later, against his teaching and counter to his instructions, his followers turned Himself into the sacrificial lamb. It was just that impossible for them to accept the good news of the gospel, that God loved them without the need for a sacrifice. Shame, because it was a gigantic leap in the understanding of deity.

The lamb up there, the eggs, peeps, bunnies, etc. the iconography we associate with Easter is entirely pagan Spring related stuff that became incorporated into Christian ritual as the religion spread.; 3/16/08, 7:45 PM
former law student said...: Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccáta mundi: miserére nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccáta mundi: miserére nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccáta mundi: dona nobis pacem.

Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccáta mundi. Beáti qui ad cenam Agni vocáti sunt. Dómine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum: sed tantum dic verbo, et sanábitur anima mea.; 3/16/08, 7:52 PM
former law student said...: The lamb up there, the eggs, peeps, bunnies, etc. the iconography we associate with Easter is entirely pagan Spring related stuff

I think the lamb imagery is a little older than that. During Holy Week, the time to think of sacrifice and redemption, we can start at the beginning:

And this is the testimony of John. When the Jews from Jerusalem sent priests and Levites (to him) to ask him, "Who are you?"
20
15 he admitted and did not deny it, but admitted, "I am not the Messiah."
21
So they asked him, "What are you then? Are you Elijah?" 16 And he said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" He answered, "No."
22
So they said to him, "Who are you, so we can give an answer to those who sent us? What do you have to say for yourself?"
23
He said: "I am 'the voice of one crying out in the desert, "Make straight the way of the Lord,"' 17 as Isaiah the prophet said."
24
Some Pharisees 18 were also sent.
25
They asked him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet?"
26
John answered them, "I baptize with water; 19 but there is one among you whom you do not recognize,
27
the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie."
28
This happened in Bethany across the Jordan, 20 where John was baptizing.
29
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God, 21 who takes away the sin of the world.
30
22 He is the one of whom I said, 'A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.'
31
I did not know him, 23 but the reason why I came baptizing with water was that he might be made known to Israel."
32
John testified further, saying, "I saw the Spirit come down like a dove 24 from the sky and remain upon him.
33
I did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'On whomever you see the Spirit come down and remain, he is the one who will baptize with the holy Spirit.'
34
25 Now I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God."
35
The next day John was there again with two of his disciples,
36
and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God." 26
37
The two disciples 27 heard what he said and followed Jesus.
38
Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?"
39
He said to them,"Come, and you will see." So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. It was about four in the afternoon. 28
40
Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus.
41
He first found his own brother Simon and told him, "We have found the Messiah" 29 (which is translated Anointed).
42
Then he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon the son of John; 30 you will be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).
43
The next day he 31 decided to go to Galilee, and he found Philip. And Jesus said to him, "Follow me."
44
Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter.
45
Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one about whom Moses wrote in the law, and also the prophets, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth."
46
But Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."
47
Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said of him, "Here is a true Israelite. 32 There is no duplicity in him."
48
33 Nathanael said to him, "How do you know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree."
49
Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; 34 you are the King of Israel."
50
Jesus answered and said to him, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? 35 You will see greater things than this."
51
And he said to him, "Amen, amen, 36 I say to you, you will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man."; 3/16/08, 8:03 PM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: Trooper York said...
Of course it's a Catholic cake. If it was Protestant, it would be a fucking cracker.

This is the funniest thing I've read in awhile, and I'm a Lutheran!; 3/16/08, 8:21 PM