From “A Hard Day’s Write” by Steve Turner:
On deck: Mean Mr. Mustard. Eccentric miser or obnoxious SDMB poster?
Or both?
… A tradition started by the first (and last) Scandinavian pope, Pope Thor I.
JoseB
March 30, 2011, 2:25pm
24
Even better than that… That very same mallet is used when the Pope is dead. From “Catholic Pages dot com” (emphasis mine):
After the pope drew his last breath, a doctor was called forth to pronounce the death; in some pontificates, no more than a mirror was used to detect breath. To be certain of death, the Church had its own formula: The Cardinal-Camerlengo of the Church would come forward. All others would drop back behind him while he removed from a small red leather bag a small silver mallet engraved with the arms of the deceased. Three times the Camerlengo would gently tap the forehead of the deceased pope as if to say, “Get up!” With each tap, he would call out, in the pope’s native tongue, the name given to him at baptism, the name his mother whispered to him as a child.
So, maybe Maxwell was a Papal Camerlengo who got a teensy bit caught into the flow of funereal rites…! ^.^
Papal sources deny this popular myth :
The reality of this popular and dramatic tale is positively denied by Hartwell de la Garde Grissell, Chamberlain of Honor di numero to Pope Pius IX, Pope Leo XIII, and Pope Pius X, who was present at the ceremony of recognition in 1903: "It may also be here mentioned that no such ceremony as striking the dead Pope’s forehead with a silver hammer takes place, and that the exact method of calling aloud his name is not tied down to any determinate form, but is left to the discretion of the Cardinal Camerlengo… In an original [manuscript] diary in my possession written by Domenico Cappelli of Ascoli, who was Master of Ceremonies to five Popes—Alexander VII., Clement IX., Clement X., Innocent XI., and Alexander VIII.—he states that the custom of calling aloud three times the words ‘Pater Sancte’ was discontinued on the death of Clement X. in 1676 (Hartwell de la Garde Grissell, Sede Vacante, being a Diary written during the Conclave of 1903, with additional Notes on the Accession and Coronation of Pius X (Oxford and London: James Parker and Co. 1903), page 2.
No matter - it is a popular myth that found its way into popular song.
Is living really easier with eyes closed?
Misunderstanding all you see is one thing, but Paul seems to want us to misunderstand all we hear of what he wrote.
He was the one between Pope America and Iron Pope, right?
The true story:http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/239712 Probably NSFW.
I think I know I mean a ’yes’ but it’s all wrong, That is I think I disagree
Forget the silver hammer – I’m more curious about the silver spoon brandished by the girl who came in through the bathroom window.
Whoa dude! Next you’ll be telling me that Helter Skelter isn’t about taking the man down, the girl doesn’t really have kaleidoscope eyes, and John wasn’t actually a walrus! :eek:
Did Paul ever really go to the USSR, much less go back?
Ludovic:
I thought the second verse was a flashback to when Maxwell was in elementary school, when he was assigned a punishment of writing something 50 times on the chalkboard, but in anger, kills the teacher.
Everyone’s amusing responses aside, I concur with this. I always took it as illustrating that Maxwell’s homicidal tendencies originated when he was a wee lad. The “again” is just in there to make it flow. Ya know?
Yes, but not that Paul: the song was a knockoff of the Lewis Carroll poem–the Walrus was Paul, and Jesus was the Carpenter!
Errm. It’s pretty obvious that the verses are not meant to be in chronological order. The school verse does not take place simultaneously with him majoring in medicine. It’s grade school, as opposed to medical school.
The narrative is fairly loose anyway. It’s possible it’s just a sequence of non-sequiturs that isn’t resolvable into any logical sequence.
Maybe someone should do a remake, using the name Hannibal Lecter
**'**Pataphysics might be considered one, though.
