I Want You!

Saint Philip, Church of Orsanmichele, Florence

 

 “Hello world!” is what they say over at the illustrious competition of Wordpress.com when you start your first blog post. I actually got as far as registering a domain with these ruthless opportunists when I discovered that my blog would be carrying the extra moniker “Just another WordPress.com site”. Let me make something clear right from the start: this is not just another site or blog or simple collection of senseless, foam-at-the-mouth ramblings, this is the new scripture for the digital age, upgraded to serve the hooded, cross-eyed information gangsters leaking quantum fluid from their atomic nostrils. Here you will find the essential information necessary to not only survive Uncle Ted’s concrete jungle and the judgment before King Minos, but also leave a splendidly preserved corpse when you finish.

I will be your gracious host and guide throughout the trials and combats ahead, and will pretty soon start to haunt your dreams like a voodoo-crazed black crow raised on a steady diet of turpentine and radiator fuel. I was born Philippe Luc Jeanne on the majestic spring night of June 1^st, 1986, and my birth was accompanied by the mysterious burning down of the wondrous temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Wait….or was that Alexander the Great? My parents actually thought of naming me Alexander, but bristling Boreas, blowing from the North, made them decide otherwise.

Philippe derives from the Greek Philippos (Φίλιππος), “friend of horses”, suggesting the nobility of the person involved, as if you hadn’t noticed. There have been a number of historical luminaries bearing this hallowed name, including two saints, one a member of the twelve apostles and the other a more elusive evangelist nicknamed “the Deacon” whose feast is celebrated on June 6. You all know of course that Alexander’s father himself was Philip II of Macedon, and yes, the synchronicity is so staggering that it’s making me feverishly tug at my genital appendix as well. Then there was the Capetian dynasty of France, which managed to produce six Philips over the course of three-and a half centuries, including a Philip “the Bold”, “the Fair”, “the Tall” and “the Fortunate” besides. Spain and Portugal had a couple of Philips, too.

But my favourite one is Philippos of Croton, a 6^th century BCE (Before Common Era) Olympic victor who became venerated as a hero after his death (but then again, in Greece you would also be honoured as a champion when you were struck by lightning, which doesn’t require any special skill at all, only sheer stupidity, but I digress). In his Histories (book 5, chapter 47) the famous Greek historian Herodotos describes Philippos as “the fairest Greek of his day” who received “offers accorded to no one else” for his majestic physical beauty.

Illustrious predecessors therefore, so you know that you are in good hands when I will start divulging the secret knowledge of divine truth and unworldly illumination to you on this blessed and fortuitous fragment of the World Wide Web. Now you will ask, what gives me the right and the credentials to barrage your senses and clutter your feeble cerebrums with these violent periodic tempests of vital information? Because I read books, damnit. While you waste your precious hours and indispensable mental capacities slugging in front of the TV, watching mindless chatter and talentless hacks, I devote my time to the pursuit of truth in all its forms and incarnations, the outcome of which I will share with you here despite your ghastly unworthiness and inadequate abilities of understanding. For free! Fertile wisdom! Unbridled literacy! Heavy, pregnant storm clouds opening up and dropping torrents of information down into your fecund loins!

So if you have any interest at all in myth, religion, philosophy, art,  history, culture, science and the manifold challenges of today’s society in the foul year of Our Lord 2011, check back here regularly and I will take you on a journey through the sacrosanct halls of the New Binary Aether Academy, where you will learn all the skills and erudition necessary to become the preeminent Renaissance polymath of this day and age.

Come back soon for the overture...