Though I have neglected to share this recent professional development with my friends on the newsletter, I am pleased to share that for the past year and a bit, I have been privileged to serve as the inaugural Director of The Robert Farrar Capon Memorial Center for Needless Splendor and Research Institute in Unnecessary Studies (RFCMCFNSARIUS).
RFCMCFNSARIUS is an entirely unofficial, and indeed illusory, organization which I founded in 2023. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I should note that I stole the name Center for Needless Splendor from an art gallery in London. One of the key qualities of RFCMCFNSARIUS is a certain cavalier attitude toward so-called intellectual property.) The Center has no funding, no staff, no institutional affiliation, and no projects of any any kind, and officially exists nowhere other than in my own mind. Though I have installed a sign over my office door.
The sole purpose of RFCMCFNSARIUS is to informally encourage acts of frivolity, heedlessness, pleasure, beauty, conviviality, and feckless joy of all kinds. To that end, the Center’s chartered mission dictates that it will never take any steps that involve paperwork, organization, deliberation, metrics, efficiency, automation, pragmatic considerations, or work of any sort.
In all it does, the Center gently declines to make sense or to contribute one whit to the enrichment of anyone or anything. As such, it is probably the most important thing I do.
This is a joke, but it is also serious.
Recently, at the Center, we have been pleased to launch a few new initiatives, and by initiatives, I mean, of course, ideas that have no tangible reality of any kind. Please read on to discover the many opportunities we don’t really offer!
Fellowships
We invite any scholars to become Fellows whose work (or hobbies, or lifestyle, or general vibe) resonates with the mission of RFCMCFNSARIUS. All that is necessary to become a Fellow of the Center is to take its pledge: “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.” Reading Robert Farrar Capon’s masterwork The Supper of the Lamb is also gently encouraged. Many of you may already be Fellows!
As of January 2025, RFCMCFNSARIUS is pleased to offer a research degree in Unnecessary Studies. This program, of course, is unofficial, unaccredited, unserious, unknown, unnecessary, and very probably unadvisable. Students wishing to pursue their degree in Unnecessary Studies will dedicate a minimum of 126 hours to such activities as:
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Aimless wandering and cloud-gazing
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Non-required reading
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Singing half-remembered snatches of songs
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Thinking about that person you lost touch with
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Turning over rocks
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Napping when you have too much to do
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Arguing with God
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Gazing into the middle distance
Prospective students are welcome to reach out to me for more information, though I have to say I’m unlikely to provide it.
The Penny Preservation Society
The penny is the official currency of RFCMCFNSARIUS, and accordingly we object strongly to any attempt by large orange persons to do away with this most impractical of coins. For us, the fact that a penny costs more than 3 cents to manufacture makes the coin an especially significant symbol of the primacy of splendor and waste, and is thus a reason for its preservation.
For those who still doubt the intangible value of the penny, we invite you to contemplate the words of Annie Dillard, whom we have just now named an official Fellow, when she writes:
The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand. But — and this is the point — who gets excited by a mere penny?
It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won’t stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days.
It is that simple.
We invite like-minded individuals to join us in hoarding pennies. Pack glass jars with them and display them in prominent locations in your home. Pay for large purchases one cent at a time. Stack them in shifting columns on your desk. We have everything to gain.
Have other ideas for acts of useless splendor? Let us know here at RFCMCFNSARIUS headquarters. While we are unlikely to take action upon them, we are very likely to tell you how amusing they are.
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