First, I noticed that Herr Beck labelled your humble & obedient scribe as “my impossibly bizarre former colleague” and a “living anachronism”. The context was largely complementary, as Beck expressed his certainty that I could enlighten him further upon the subject of Ember days (which of course I can, but won’t). But then I noticed a more subtle — and yet simultaneously all-too-blatant — anti-Cusackian dig in his piece on Ted Gioia’s The Birth (and Death) of the Cool in B&N Review:

Ceremonial maces?!? While six of those seven terms are undoubtedly aimed at other individuals, there is no way that this mention of one of my particular areas of expertise can be construed as anything other than a mischievous and deliberate anti-Cusackian provocation by the forces of Beck. I questioned the son of Granby seeking the meaning behind such an act, but in his inimitably mysterious fashion he emitted a soft, false laugh and faded back into the folds of the evening mist.

The real reason for Beck’s act of aggression is simple: he’s envious of my having been published in the Quarterly Journal of the Guild of Mace-bearers of England & Wales. He’s likely further miffed that I attended the university with the finest collection of medieval maces in the world, while he was stuck sacrificing holly-crowned virgins to Wotan in the wilds of New Hampshire. There you have it: mace-envy, the latest vice of today’s jaded youth.

Those of you unfamiliar with Stefan Beck’s work are all the poorer for it. Just the other day I was speaking with the ever-delightful Allison Burbage, who was searching for unfamiliar books to read. I directed her to Stefan Beck’s demi-annual Fiction Chronicle in the pages of The New Criterion to steer her in the right direction. In the future Mr. Beck best watch his back — we members of what I like to call the ceremonial mace enthusiast community are skilled in the sophisticated art of retaliation.

Fans, foes, and other followers of that favoured son of Granby, Mr. Stefan M. Beck, can track his hoots, wails, and whinnies at this new locale. The site archives a number of Stefan’s writings as well as containing his food blog, where, most recently, you can investigate the Ulster fry. Past mentions of Beck can be found here, including my favourite mental image of “wearing a bearskin and sacrificing holly-crowned virgins to Wotan”.

I’ve heard tell that the ‘Indian head’ is a ‘racist depiction’ of Native Americans. But it should be obvious that the Indian mascot is not meant to depict present-day Native Americans, so how can this be the case? Native Americans have changed a great deal over the course of history. So have people of all ethnicities. That’s why I’m studying English at Dartmouth College rather than wearing a bearskin and sacrificing holly-crowned virgins to Wotan. That’s why people of Scandinavian descent don’t dust off their battle-axes and sack Minneapolis whenever the Vikings play.

The Panero recently announced my accession to the position of Assistant Editor at the New Criterion, from which Associate Editor Stefan Beck is sadly departing at the end of the month. The most ardent followers of this little corner of the web will recall that I interned at the august publication in the summer of 2005. I started work just yesterday and am already privy to all the guild secrets of the New Criterion. If I am unexpectedly found dead at the bottom of a river with my heart carved out and my hands tied behind my back, look for Stefan Beck. He’ll be the one with the daring but strangely successful combination of seersucker and denim, sunning himself on a Greek isle.

Previously: Awaiting Pars Secunda | Whither Cusack?

The New Criterion‘s Stefan Beck (black iced coffee, no sugar) has an excellent little ditty in National Review on a little brouhaha up in Hanover, New Hampshire. It makes me somewhat glad that I go to a university where religion is generally met with the rolling of the eyes or a quick nap rather than modernist ire and indignation.

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