JUST TO REMIND YOU, BEFORE ADVENT: Daniel Mitsui's November series on Christian artwork of death continues. Click here for the front page, but don't miss this requiem chasuble, these souls in purgatory, this death's-head rosary, and this ossuary (one of several he's posted).

EVERY YEAR, Daniel Mitsui dedicates the month of November to memento moris (mementos mori?) and other Christian artistry of death. Every year, I forget to tell you guys until it's been a couple weeks! But definitely check out his typically stark and sublime collection of death masks, dances of death, Outside Over There-style tombs, and even an alphabet of death.

THE FLYING MONK: Daniel Mitsui is running a series on "Early Catholic Aviators"--like, really early.

The first known serious flight attempt in world history occurred about a thousand years before the Wright brothers, in western England. Then, a young Benedictine monk leapt with a crude pair of cloth wings from a watchtower of a church abbey at the beginning of the 11th century. This monk, known to history as Eilmer of Malmesbury, covered a furlong - a distance of approximately 600 feet - before landing heavily and breaking both legs. Afterwards, he remarked that the cause of his crash was that he had forgotten to provide himself with a tail.

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and another!

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE BEAUTY: Dappled Things, the Catholic literary magazine which accepted many of my earliest published short stories, really needs your financial help to continue. If you like what I write, just think how many other Catholic writers and artists are out there for you to discover! Daniel Mitsui, whose intricate black-and-white illustrations are like Graeme Chapman* + MC Escher = icons, is also offering an artwork exclusively for DT donors. (Uh, or at least he was last time I checked. You should ask them!)

[* ETA: Oh LOL! Graeme Base. Clearly my memory is pining for the fjords.]

I know with the economy so bad, it's tempting to neglect the arts in your giving. But you could, for example, get the Mitsui print or a DT subscription as a Christmas gift, thus feathering two birds with one dollar! And all of us need beauty, too, in order to live.

Survival is the least of my desires.
--Dorothy Allison

SO MANY STEPS TO DEATH: As he does every November, Daniel Mitsui is posting Catholic and Orthodox artwork/liturgical whatnot relating to the Last Things. Yes, there are a lot of Dances of Death; you also get Alaskan spirit houses, Requiem chasubles, ossuaries, death's-head rosaries (!), and the Museum of the Holy Souls in Purgatory.