My wife calls it the Dungeon. It's the dank place we take our clothes to wash, one load at a time. We need to leave our cozy apartment through the back, down the steps overlooking our unprotected car port (it's not a garage, it's a little concrete lot) and down a couple steep steps into a subtarranean lair with low ceilings. I've hit my head on that ceiling a few times. I'm sure I would've stubbed my forehead a few times with the drop-down boards holding up our floor, but I have my ego to thank for keeping me out of danger. (Don't go down there. You don't want to go down there. It's rather foul and dark. You don't know what rodent or plank could be awaiting you.)
On one of my few and oh-so precious days off, the wife has me running errands (which is why I did not disclose this fact to the rest of my family. "Oh, you've got all the time in the world now! Why don't you..."). Well, one specific errand. Laundry to the Lavanderia. All one hundred and three pounds of it down a eighth-of-a-mile trek. Can't complain really, but that's never stopped me before.
As I'm putting the clothes in a large, strapless, torn gym bag and two large garbage bags that should not survive the journey, I listen on my $300 iPod to a sermon by Mars Hill Bible Church's Rob Bell. He's doing a series called, appropriately enough, "Jesus Wants to Save Christians." And the sixth in this series is on the parable of the good Samaritan. Jesus' point, Bell argues, isn't to be a "Good Samaritan", but to be a good neighbor, recognizing the dignity and worth of - and actively loving - every person, including those we can't name by name because doing so would give them a pause in our lips (for example, "Oh, you mean, my ex? You mean, those people?") and possibly a space in our hearts and gasp, homes!
At a time when some very specific people are getting on my last nerves and I'm trying to decide how I need to open up my eyes to see the world around me and love "the least of these," I'm making headway into the Dungeon to retrieve our cute little detergent bottle (The real reason the Mrs. needs to buy the concentrated ALL). I open the back door (with no environmental sound, mind you, coming in my direction) to see a suddenly startled lady in dirty baggy clothes pull up herself and her pants from the ground. Just beneath her is a large puddle (hint: it's not rain) and this is all happening in front of the one car that's parked in the back.
I automatically, and just as reflexively as the lady, shut the door and try to hide the shame. I'm in agreeance with myself that maybe I should or could offer some assistance. After all, although there are many diners in the immediate area, the only truly public restrooms are in the parks, and the small one nearby may not be open or hospitable to her or "her kind". I try to calm myself. It's not like I've never seen that before nor that it's wholly unnatural or unexpected. There are a lot of homeless in our immediate area and we live at a pretty busy intersection. But I don't know what to do. Honestly, I knew that she'd have left in a major hurry after hearing the door open, but what if she didn't? What is the proper response? Is there a proper response?
"Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your liver"?
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Get me back
I love my life. But I'm in a funk. And it's a difficult little jump to get over it, as the Staples would say.
I hate comparing the life of a middle-class White dude with the Civil Rights Struggle. It's not fair, but sometimes those songs and icons are so easy to appropriate...
My wife doesn't understand. But even she had to make movements that others didn't understand. I took today off work, partially to catch up on sleep. Partially to get the cobwebs out of my head. Partially to get grading done. Of course, other things are expected of me. Laundry. Shopping. Awaiting a never-ordered set of bookshelves for our many books and CD's. Well, mostly my many books and CDs.
The sun's finally shining on me. It's a bit nippy in the Starbucks. I'm wearing one of my funny-looking hats (the kind with the elongated top and two twisted sides that makes me look like a slightly tanned, overweight, and bespectacled version of a brunette Pippy Longstocking) and too-hip funny t-shirts.
I wear ties and slacks (usually dark kahkis) to work nearly every day. Every day. Wow. I never wore ties before unless it's required of me, and then I would always feel suffocated.
One of my students (that I also taught last year) can not get his hands around the fact that I dress up this year. He proposed that he would continue to act up until I started dressing down again. How's that for a threat. Two stubborn men, locked into patterns of behavior that neither would cede. He never proffered why he misbehaved (on a level that borders illegality) last year, or the years prior to that. I just thought it funny. Especially that a young man incapable of growing a beard and who constantly harasses women (his latest victim within the school being a teacher - which earned him a ten-day + suspension) would claim that my shaving de-genders me.
But I'm not sure what I'm writing for. I always assumed that I'm a writer because I have no choice. I like the click of my own words. I like a tensely-structured sentence. I like to come up with them on the fly, the idea that I'm letting go of my ego by dreaming words, that I'm demonstrating some otherwise hidden talent by writing some long latent string of words, by rearranging popular phrases into something personal and yet not private.
And maybe I'm writing now out of a fear. That underneath it all, I'm only a sham. I don't know how to teach reading skills. I don't know how to make the horse drink. I don't know how to bring the horse to the water. I don't know, in other words, how to teach. Hell, it seems to me that I'm driving the equestrians away by my dextrious vocabulary and monotonous whispering.
Maybe I just need to exorcise the demons by exercising my key-tappers. David Sedaris talks of his need to percussively beat and pound out his ideas on his old electric keyboard. And here I am, on a cheap Acer, using free space on the nowhere internet to pound out some meaningless ideas that nobody in their right mind will find exciting (I mean, there's something universalist about poetry, and a focused essay is - at the very least - focused, but where am I on this sphere? If you read this all the way through, you do deserve some kind of heroic/yeoman's medal. Maybe on my next little mid-week break, I'll fly down to you to personally deliver your yogurt caps on string - which may double as beads for Mardi Gras. Maybe...).
Maybe I can continue a thread of essays. Maybe I'll refocus some meaningful energy on the next few forays.
In the meantime, we're going to teach Monster over the next few weeks. Any fresh, inspired teaching ideas? I'm having the students write a teleplay. Now, they're studying racial disparities in the judicial system. That's about it for my ideas.
Peace.
I hate comparing the life of a middle-class White dude with the Civil Rights Struggle. It's not fair, but sometimes those songs and icons are so easy to appropriate...
My wife doesn't understand. But even she had to make movements that others didn't understand. I took today off work, partially to catch up on sleep. Partially to get the cobwebs out of my head. Partially to get grading done. Of course, other things are expected of me. Laundry. Shopping. Awaiting a never-ordered set of bookshelves for our many books and CD's. Well, mostly my many books and CDs.
The sun's finally shining on me. It's a bit nippy in the Starbucks. I'm wearing one of my funny-looking hats (the kind with the elongated top and two twisted sides that makes me look like a slightly tanned, overweight, and bespectacled version of a brunette Pippy Longstocking) and too-hip funny t-shirts.
I wear ties and slacks (usually dark kahkis) to work nearly every day. Every day. Wow. I never wore ties before unless it's required of me, and then I would always feel suffocated.
One of my students (that I also taught last year) can not get his hands around the fact that I dress up this year. He proposed that he would continue to act up until I started dressing down again. How's that for a threat. Two stubborn men, locked into patterns of behavior that neither would cede. He never proffered why he misbehaved (on a level that borders illegality) last year, or the years prior to that. I just thought it funny. Especially that a young man incapable of growing a beard and who constantly harasses women (his latest victim within the school being a teacher - which earned him a ten-day + suspension) would claim that my shaving de-genders me.
But I'm not sure what I'm writing for. I always assumed that I'm a writer because I have no choice. I like the click of my own words. I like a tensely-structured sentence. I like to come up with them on the fly, the idea that I'm letting go of my ego by dreaming words, that I'm demonstrating some otherwise hidden talent by writing some long latent string of words, by rearranging popular phrases into something personal and yet not private.
And maybe I'm writing now out of a fear. That underneath it all, I'm only a sham. I don't know how to teach reading skills. I don't know how to make the horse drink. I don't know how to bring the horse to the water. I don't know, in other words, how to teach. Hell, it seems to me that I'm driving the equestrians away by my dextrious vocabulary and monotonous whispering.
Maybe I just need to exorcise the demons by exercising my key-tappers. David Sedaris talks of his need to percussively beat and pound out his ideas on his old electric keyboard. And here I am, on a cheap Acer, using free space on the nowhere internet to pound out some meaningless ideas that nobody in their right mind will find exciting (I mean, there's something universalist about poetry, and a focused essay is - at the very least - focused, but where am I on this sphere? If you read this all the way through, you do deserve some kind of heroic/yeoman's medal. Maybe on my next little mid-week break, I'll fly down to you to personally deliver your yogurt caps on string - which may double as beads for Mardi Gras. Maybe...).
Maybe I can continue a thread of essays. Maybe I'll refocus some meaningful energy on the next few forays.
In the meantime, we're going to teach Monster over the next few weeks. Any fresh, inspired teaching ideas? I'm having the students write a teleplay. Now, they're studying racial disparities in the judicial system. That's about it for my ideas.
Peace.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
(Seemingly random) Thought for today
Dick Gregory, according to my source(s), is a real primaddona jerk.
Bill Cosby is a womanizing elitist.
See, liberals and conservatives, really, are more alike than different.
Bill Cosby is a womanizing elitist.
See, liberals and conservatives, really, are more alike than different.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Life ain't a game, we suffer through pain, anger, no one to blame... but we got to maintain*
You would think with nearly two months off blogging, I'd have something significant to say. Good huntin'.
Hope to watch the Bears game - or at least most of it (Church. Dang.) on Sunday this time.
We don't have a tv, and I got really sick Sunday, so I only got to hear most of the game before I went into a coma.
Which lasted straight through the next day.
Which meant that I couldn't go into work the next day.
Which meant I got a substitute teacher.
No, three substitute teachers.
And a hell of a mess to clean up.
But if I speak more on work right now (or at least directly, I could find myself in compromising situations).
Although, I could speak on two things:
One, today is/was Homecoming. Homecoming days are nice in Chicago because students in predominately gang-infiltrated schools (where the uniforms are usually dull-inducing black and white and/or blue and white) get to wear color. It's nice for the eyes to see a wave of blue and gold. Tomorrow is the game. I have no idea how our football team is performing this year (I haven't had time to check with our coaches or go to as many games, so this year I'm another fair-weather Clemente Wildcat fan. Yikes!), but, it's always a good time.
On another note: our baseball team (for a school named after one of the greatest of all time,
surely one of the greatest shortstops) is consistently good.
Two, I read a news article on Chicago State University and how predominately White schools in the nearby suburbs never consider sending their students down predominately Black CSU's way. Some students did question why White-population schools tend to fair better than African-American- or Latino-population schools. That's a great question. On our last visit to Borders, I picked up a copy of Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. I'd tell you all about it, but Mrs. jasdye devoured it. Basically, it's about how Brown V. Board has reversed within the last twenty plus years. Or, as one student put it, "How come schools like us are worse off than white schools?"
The answer? I didn't answer her directly, but honestly, if I was in a power position and saw what position my children were in, I would do what I could to improve their position. That's what all parents want. I just think America's going about it the wrong way, ignoring the rights of the less-fortunate and then ignoring the problem all-together.
*Props to LA Symphony
Hope to watch the Bears game - or at least most of it (Church. Dang.) on Sunday this time.
We don't have a tv, and I got really sick Sunday, so I only got to hear most of the game before I went into a coma.
Which lasted straight through the next day.
Which meant that I couldn't go into work the next day.
Which meant I got a substitute teacher.
No, three substitute teachers.
And a hell of a mess to clean up.
But if I speak more on work right now (or at least directly, I could find myself in compromising situations).
Although, I could speak on two things:
One, today is/was Homecoming. Homecoming days are nice in Chicago because students in predominately gang-infiltrated schools (where the uniforms are usually dull-inducing black and white and/or blue and white) get to wear color. It's nice for the eyes to see a wave of blue and gold. Tomorrow is the game. I have no idea how our football team is performing this year (I haven't had time to check with our coaches or go to as many games, so this year I'm another fair-weather Clemente Wildcat fan. Yikes!), but, it's always a good time.
On another note: our baseball team (for a school named after one of the greatest of all time,
surely one of the greatest shortstops) is consistently good. Two, I read a news article on Chicago State University and how predominately White schools in the nearby suburbs never consider sending their students down predominately Black CSU's way. Some students did question why White-population schools tend to fair better than African-American- or Latino-population schools. That's a great question. On our last visit to Borders, I picked up a copy of Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. I'd tell you all about it, but Mrs. jasdye devoured it. Basically, it's about how Brown V. Board has reversed within the last twenty plus years. Or, as one student put it, "How come schools like us are worse off than white schools?"
The answer? I didn't answer her directly, but honestly, if I was in a power position and saw what position my children were in, I would do what I could to improve their position. That's what all parents want. I just think America's going about it the wrong way, ignoring the rights of the less-fortunate and then ignoring the problem all-together.
*Props to LA Symphony
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Top 25 Played iTunes/iPod Songs
(Yes, I wasn’t able to blog this whole month, but I’ve sure done my share of insular The Office viewing and smirking on the El)
Train in Vain - The Clash. Funny, I don't remember listening to this song that much. But I do love it, still.
Gone, Daddy, Gone - I confess that it's not the original version running so high on my shiny new headset... I'm not sure what Gnarls Barkley were planning on doing, besides a very faithful cover.
Under the Bridge - Red Hot Chili Peppers. What can I say?
I Want you to Want Me (Live) - Cheap Trick. With a bullet. I keep singing this to my wife whenever she asks what I want.
Surrender - also Chi-Town's finest, CT. Just a weird little power pop song that jumps the day.
Ziggy Stardust - Bowie.
Crazy - I know everyone else is sick of this song. In fact, I was at a coffee shop earlier today where the opening bass line was playing. I instinctively starting jumping my foot. I think the someone else was too. But the baristas changed it. I thought better of jumping over the registers... After the fact of course. I owe so much money.
Sadie Hawkins Dance - Relient K. My wife - and the song - informed me that it's a traditional Girl's Choice dance. It's goofy and it was played at a camp we took our youth to this summer.
Diamonds on the Sole of Her Shoes - Ladysmith Black Mazambo. Yes, I just screwed up their names. Yes, it was originally done by Paul Simon with LBM two decades ago. Listen to it and try not to smile.
Love Vigilantes - New Order. I am in love with the Vigilantes of Love. I keep forgetting this isn't them.
Where Did Our Love Go? - Soft Cell. Beep-beep. Remember that commercial?
She Belongs to Me - Dylan. ShEE beLOngs to mEE. How could you not love that.
Under Pressure - The only reason that this is the only Queen song on this list is because it's the only Queen song on my iPod. The rest are on the WMP. And I'm sick of transferring all my files.
B Part: (A Quiet Interlude) - David Crowder Band. Along with Israel Houghton, one of the only worship acts that I like.
All in Your Hands - Duvall. I've got a bit of power pop representation here, as the "Christian Smoking Popes" would prove. I love this stuff, despite and besides the tag.
Eric B. Is President - Eric B. and Rakim. Funny that the only rap represented on this list at this moment is two decades old. O' well... Thinking of a master plan.
Homeless - LBM. What? You don't have this record yet? What is your problem?
I’m Lion-O - Relient K. They're singing about the Thundercats. Fortunately, their music has only gotten more nuanced over time. 'Cuz it's a shade annoying.
Subterranean Homesick Blues - Dylan.
Love Minus Zero / No Limit - Dylan.
Changes - Bowie.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Monday, August 21, 2006
End of the World, pts. 1 & 2
1) I guess they won't be rolling any Bronto Doobies in future Hanna Barbera movies.
Offered in the tradition of the "Cop in E.T. wasn't holding a pad" and "Hans Shot First" complaints.
2)
I'm taking a blogger's sabbatical through the end of September. I have a feeling I'll still write essays and get pissed at media (big and so-called democratic), or rather, the wheels that turn the various media. I just won't have a media of my own to outlet for a while.
I think Solomon says it best, better to keep your trap shut and appear wise than open your mouth and show the world you're a doofus [I Hesitations vii, IJasdyeV].
I'm gonna try to look wise beyond my years for a moment.
P.s.,
I'll still try to answer my one or two replies. And, if you need me and can figure it out, I'll still be available via gmail.
Offered in the tradition of the "Cop in E.T. wasn't holding a pad" and "Hans Shot First" complaints.2)
I'm taking a blogger's sabbatical through the end of September. I have a feeling I'll still write essays and get pissed at media (big and so-called democratic), or rather, the wheels that turn the various media. I just won't have a media of my own to outlet for a while.
I think Solomon says it best, better to keep your trap shut and appear wise than open your mouth and show the world you're a doofus [I Hesitations vii, IJasdyeV].
I'm gonna try to look wise beyond my years for a moment.
P.s.,
I'll still try to answer my one or two replies. And, if you need me and can figure it out, I'll still be available via gmail.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Look up in the sky if you wanna, I'm going to bed
Last week, Chicago Reader film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum quoted a possibly apocryphal Stanley Kubric line in his own assessment of Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. He supposedly said about his sometimes foil's popular movie, “The Holocaust is about six million people who get killed, Schindler’s List was about 600 people who don’t.”
I should admit, I have an issue with that statement. As if somehow the survivors amongst the brutal wreckage don't carry with them the weight of the dead. I can't say the same for Stone's movie.
But I love this quote the proven film scholar and social critic Rosenbaum attributes to Orson Welles in the same year of his infamous War of the Worlds broadcast, 1938, "before," Rosenbaum notes, "he started making movies."
Although Rosenbaum brings this up in his review of The Illusionist (he reviews it as one of those ever-rare four-star masterpieces he dishes out considerably less than his t.v.'d brethren), it recalls to me the newest Superman movie. Apparently, in the original version, the movie posters promised that, "You will believe a man can fly."
I did. My family did. We wanted to see him go up in the air and hold Lois Lane from falling great depths to the ground with her simple, naive statement of disbelief, "You've got me. But, who's got you?" And we believed that he was holding her through the nightsky high above the busy, dirty streets of Manhattan - I'm sorry, Metropolis - and at the tip of Lady Liberty's lamp.
The new movie had none of that magic. Everything it had going for it, if anybody heard anything from anybody about the movie, was in the special effects. In this post-cynical times, though, with every piece of media meta-ing all over themselves (not the least of these being Superman Returns), special effects and over-the-top self-referencing aren't enough (not to ruin any surprises here, but the biggest piece of self-referencing of Kal-El & Lois Lane's love is evident and all over the place from the first act).
There was no wooing in this movie, as there is in little that comes out of big-bdget movies. There were no hints, there were no suggestions. The magic was gone. The mystery was gone. I no longer cared if a man could fly, no matter how much the filmmakers showed me he could.
I should admit, I have an issue with that statement. As if somehow the survivors amongst the brutal wreckage don't carry with them the weight of the dead. I can't say the same for Stone's movie.
But I love this quote the proven film scholar and social critic Rosenbaum attributes to Orson Welles in the same year of his infamous War of the Worlds broadcast, 1938, "before," Rosenbaum notes, "he started making movies."
I want to give the audience a hint of a scene. No more than that. Give them too much and they won't contribute anything themselves. Give them just a suggestion and you get them working with you. That's what gives the theater meaning: when it becomes a social act.
Although Rosenbaum brings this up in his review of The Illusionist (he reviews it as one of those ever-rare four-star masterpieces he dishes out considerably less than his t.v.'d brethren), it recalls to me the newest Superman movie. Apparently, in the original version, the movie posters promised that, "You will believe a man can fly."
I did. My family did. We wanted to see him go up in the air and hold Lois Lane from falling great depths to the ground with her simple, naive statement of disbelief, "You've got me. But, who's got you?" And we believed that he was holding her through the nightsky high above the busy, dirty streets of Manhattan - I'm sorry, Metropolis - and at the tip of Lady Liberty's lamp.
The new movie had none of that magic. Everything it had going for it, if anybody heard anything from anybody about the movie, was in the special effects. In this post-cynical times, though, with every piece of media meta-ing all over themselves (not the least of these being Superman Returns), special effects and over-the-top self-referencing aren't enough (not to ruin any surprises here, but the biggest piece of self-referencing of Kal-El & Lois Lane's love is evident and all over the place from the first act).
There was no wooing in this movie, as there is in little that comes out of big-bdget movies. There were no hints, there were no suggestions. The magic was gone. The mystery was gone. I no longer cared if a man could fly, no matter how much the filmmakers showed me he could.
Ramseys = *Shivers*
Wait. Are they sure this guy isn't the father?
It's just creepy all the way around.
Please, bloggers, for the love of God and man, no pictures. Please!
It's just creepy all the way around.
Please, bloggers, for the love of God and man, no pictures. Please!
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
What's the deal with... (part one)
The need for a lowered toilet seat?
Now, I know. Fools rush in... The heavyweights - the Bill Cosbys, Jerry Seinfelds, Dave Chappelles, Sinbads, Carrot Tops, Gallaghers - won't touch the subject. They know it's potential comic disaster; it could be extremely hokey. Before they learn better, every hack amateur and poor-man's slum-lord comedian has a bit on the act. Well, here's mine:
I don't understand how it's so flippin' universal. Every woman I know from every house I've ever had to use the facilities in has yelled at me about this issue. Now, I'm not sloppy. That's not my problem. I wipe up and all. But, all women everywhere always get upset about leaving that danged toilet seat up. Why?
We only need the blasted seat once a day. We use the toilet, or some variant thereof, several times though. So, you see, the seat itself is... not really dispensible, but certainly an afterthought.
Why go through the process of lowering it when we'll most likely need to raise it again in a couple hours of intense Sunday afternoon festivities anyway (most likely with the aid of cheap beer)? It's not for aesthetic reasons, so don't bother telling me that. That toilet looks no better with the seat up, down, covered, or tossed into the bath itself.
In fact, it's worse covered. God invented porceline for toilets, honey. Don't give us shaggy carpets or fluffy pads. Keep it cold and hard.
The other question I gotta ask is, Why aren't men taking back their roles in this? I don't want to sound like Bill Maher on this (who the hell does?), but shouldn't this at least be a neutral zone? Shouldn't men have the lisence to liberate ourselves from the constraints of the contemporary world in one place?
Isn't the toilet, of all places, sacred? If a man's home is his castle, then surely his throne is the throne. We need to fight for our masculinity in the place where it matters most - the potty.
Now, I know. Fools rush in... The heavyweights - the Bill Cosbys, Jerry Seinfelds, Dave Chappelles, Sinbads, Carrot Tops, Gallaghers - won't touch the subject. They know it's potential comic disaster; it could be extremely hokey. Before they learn better, every hack amateur and poor-man's slum-lord comedian has a bit on the act. Well, here's mine:
I don't understand how it's so flippin' universal. Every woman I know from every house I've ever had to use the facilities in has yelled at me about this issue. Now, I'm not sloppy. That's not my problem. I wipe up and all. But, all women everywhere always get upset about leaving that danged toilet seat up. Why?
We only need the blasted seat once a day. We use the toilet, or some variant thereof, several times though. So, you see, the seat itself is... not really dispensible, but certainly an afterthought.
Why go through the process of lowering it when we'll most likely need to raise it again in a couple hours of intense Sunday afternoon festivities anyway (most likely with the aid of cheap beer)? It's not for aesthetic reasons, so don't bother telling me that. That toilet looks no better with the seat up, down, covered, or tossed into the bath itself.
In fact, it's worse covered. God invented porceline for toilets, honey. Don't give us shaggy carpets or fluffy pads. Keep it cold and hard.
The other question I gotta ask is, Why aren't men taking back their roles in this? I don't want to sound like Bill Maher on this (who the hell does?), but shouldn't this at least be a neutral zone? Shouldn't men have the lisence to liberate ourselves from the constraints of the contemporary world in one place?
Isn't the toilet, of all places, sacred? If a man's home is his castle, then surely his throne is the throne. We need to fight for our masculinity in the place where it matters most - the potty.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Woo-Hoo White Sox!
Ivan the Terrible Rodriguez. Image credit: ESPN.com.I think it's because my wife and I went to Friday night's opening game that we whooped les Tigres. And I think my little catch-phrase should catch on. It goes, "Shut up, De-Troiit!" Try it. Wildfire, tellin' ya.
Self-fulfilling prophesize!
We had decided that the best thing for us - and, by extension, for our God, families and friends - was to get married soon and quickly. To get the wedding out of the way so that we could begin life together as married, be blessed by God and church (and hopefully the extension of that), and be there to support each other on a daily basis.
But it strikes me as... not funny, ironic, the obsession we have with a big, long, planned and expensive wedding and the exceptional (but imagined) correlation we have between the largess of the wedding and the quality of the marriage. So, now, not only do I have to spend a lot of time, energy, focus and money on my new spouse and beginning our new lives, now I also have to please everybody else and begin our new lives in extreme debt for a momentary day?
I'm not against big weddings, by the way. I love 'em. I love my friends that're able to pull them off with all of their stamina and integrity intact. In fact, I still want to do a big feast/celebration for us. But you know, it just wasn't for us at the time. And I think people should be okay with that. My parents did a quick wedding. They're still together after 35+ years (not that they're my model or inspiration, necessarily in their troubles. But certainly in sticking it out). But the expense and hugeness of the event has absolutely nothing to do with the marriage itself. If you want proof, check the tabloid section of your newspaper.
Marriage is a beautiful and sacred organism and its birth should be witnessed and celebrated by the participants' communities. But if the participants decide that putting it off is more harmful than helpful, more dangerous than delightful, that should be the bride and groom's decision and should be honored, even if cautiously.
Anyway, I'm rambling. What I wanted to point out is that sometimes (and I'm witnessing this here) the forces that love you and want to protect you from wrecking yourself and your marriage are so worried that they become devestatingly antagonistic. As a result, they contribute to the atmosphere of wreckage, as if they wait on the fringes of the marriage to help pick up the pieces after it fails and just barely restrain themselves from saying, "See, I told you so." It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Mrs. and I know that we are climbing an uphill battle. We know that we have some bridges to mend. We are realizing anew and bodily that "the wages of sin is death." Add to that the fact that we are learning, on a daily basis, what it means to truly love each other - to think as a pair (And I admit my slowness in this). But this demonization is sad and foolish. It's not loving. Despite best intentions, it's hateful, and hate spurs destruction. Pray for us, and others on our road.
But it strikes me as... not funny, ironic, the obsession we have with a big, long, planned and expensive wedding and the exceptional (but imagined) correlation we have between the largess of the wedding and the quality of the marriage. So, now, not only do I have to spend a lot of time, energy, focus and money on my new spouse and beginning our new lives, now I also have to please everybody else and begin our new lives in extreme debt for a momentary day?
I'm not against big weddings, by the way. I love 'em. I love my friends that're able to pull them off with all of their stamina and integrity intact. In fact, I still want to do a big feast/celebration for us. But you know, it just wasn't for us at the time. And I think people should be okay with that. My parents did a quick wedding. They're still together after 35+ years (not that they're my model or inspiration, necessarily in their troubles. But certainly in sticking it out). But the expense and hugeness of the event has absolutely nothing to do with the marriage itself. If you want proof, check the tabloid section of your newspaper.
Marriage is a beautiful and sacred organism and its birth should be witnessed and celebrated by the participants' communities. But if the participants decide that putting it off is more harmful than helpful, more dangerous than delightful, that should be the bride and groom's decision and should be honored, even if cautiously.
Anyway, I'm rambling. What I wanted to point out is that sometimes (and I'm witnessing this here) the forces that love you and want to protect you from wrecking yourself and your marriage are so worried that they become devestatingly antagonistic. As a result, they contribute to the atmosphere of wreckage, as if they wait on the fringes of the marriage to help pick up the pieces after it fails and just barely restrain themselves from saying, "See, I told you so." It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Mrs. and I know that we are climbing an uphill battle. We know that we have some bridges to mend. We are realizing anew and bodily that "the wages of sin is death." Add to that the fact that we are learning, on a daily basis, what it means to truly love each other - to think as a pair (And I admit my slowness in this). But this demonization is sad and foolish. It's not loving. Despite best intentions, it's hateful, and hate spurs destruction. Pray for us, and others on our road.
Friday, August 11, 2006
What I'm doing
Nothing.
Tonight, Mrs. jasdye and I are going to take in a Sox game. Against the Detroit "Holy Hot Streak" Tigers. Goodness. We better win or I'm gonna be miserable to console.
I went into work a couple days this week. I moved stuff around, including to a larger room. But honeymoon weeks weren't meant for work. I so wish she didn't have to work. Lord, I miss her when she's away.
Well, I'm not gonna let you into that aspect of what I'm doing. If you wanna find out, get married for the first time and spend precious time with your spouse in the warm august days of summer, wake up to his or her smile and remind yourself how blessed you are that someone as truly beautiful as she or he is looking into your eyes, just as transfixed by you as you by her or him. (OK, so we do need optional gender-neutral singular third person pronouns. Are you happy? I never denied it. It's just the ones proffered are repulsively ugly.)
Reading the books of Romans and Psalms with her. Continuing to read Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang, Setting Limits in the Classroom: How to Move Beyond the Dance of Discipline in Today's Classrooms by Dr. Robert J. MacKenzie, and - when my head doesn't hurt from the tech-lite jargon, Practicing What We Know: Informed Reading Instruction, Ed. by Constance Weaver. Also the blogs on the left (esp. McKnight's daily series on Romans - which I'm still trying to catch up to.) And just checking out the Christian Vision Project, which asks the over-riding question of visionary leaders (pastors, scholars, et. al.) "How can followers of Christ be a counterculture for the common good?" The trend of answers that I'm seeing there are so anti-Pat Robertson/Ted Baehr/James Dobson/President Bush (not against those people, but against their representations of what Christianity is supposed to be about) that it makes me happy to count myself as a Christian again.
We're also praying alot more. Though the Book of Common Prayers is only ocassionally referenced. Short on time, really.
As far as music, iTunes ( not the iPod, which I haven't even bothered to ask permission for) is literally changing the ways I buy music, freeing me up to check out stuff I wouldn't normally get to listen to, such as folk-rockers Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley (of course, generally having more money is beneficial in this area too). And since I was young, I've been marginally interested in
world music, but fearful that I wouldn't be able to listen to it without appearing to be a big fake. I finally decided that, well, every one's gotta start somewhere.
This morning, in addition to this year's additions of Ladysmith's Long Walk to Freedom and Peter Gabriel's Passion, I grazed over and picked a few of Afro-pop's Fela Kuti's shorter works (which only clock in at 7-10 minutes), as well as an obvious sex-crazed single by his son, Femi, titled "Beng Beng." Fela's music is a mix of West African beats tinged with sweaty, tribal funk (which seems looser than Brown's and more frentic than Clinton's to me) underlayed by a Miles Davis-influenced jazz, with a bit of a rock-fusion thrown in there for good effect. Oh, and some more Ladysmith, from the Paul Simon-produced Shaka Zulu.
Oh, and tomorrow the Mrs. and I begin our pre-marital counseling. Haha. I know, funny, right?
Tonight, Mrs. jasdye and I are going to take in a Sox game. Against the Detroit "Holy Hot Streak" Tigers. Goodness. We better win or I'm gonna be miserable to console.
I went into work a couple days this week. I moved stuff around, including to a larger room. But honeymoon weeks weren't meant for work. I so wish she didn't have to work. Lord, I miss her when she's away.
Well, I'm not gonna let you into that aspect of what I'm doing. If you wanna find out, get married for the first time and spend precious time with your spouse in the warm august days of summer, wake up to his or her smile and remind yourself how blessed you are that someone as truly beautiful as she or he is looking into your eyes, just as transfixed by you as you by her or him. (OK, so we do need optional gender-neutral singular third person pronouns. Are you happy? I never denied it. It's just the ones proffered are repulsively ugly.)
Reading the books of Romans and Psalms with her. Continuing to read Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation by Jeff Chang, Setting Limits in the Classroom: How to Move Beyond the Dance of Discipline in Today's Classrooms by Dr. Robert J. MacKenzie, and - when my head doesn't hurt from the tech-lite jargon, Practicing What We Know: Informed Reading Instruction, Ed. by Constance Weaver. Also the blogs on the left (esp. McKnight's daily series on Romans - which I'm still trying to catch up to.) And just checking out the Christian Vision Project, which asks the over-riding question of visionary leaders (pastors, scholars, et. al.) "How can followers of Christ be a counterculture for the common good?" The trend of answers that I'm seeing there are so anti-Pat Robertson/Ted Baehr/James Dobson/President Bush (not against those people, but against their representations of what Christianity is supposed to be about) that it makes me happy to count myself as a Christian again.
We're also praying alot more. Though the Book of Common Prayers is only ocassionally referenced. Short on time, really.
As far as music, iTunes ( not the iPod, which I haven't even bothered to ask permission for) is literally changing the ways I buy music, freeing me up to check out stuff I wouldn't normally get to listen to, such as folk-rockers Nick Drake and Jeff Buckley (of course, generally having more money is beneficial in this area too). And since I was young, I've been marginally interested in
world music, but fearful that I wouldn't be able to listen to it without appearing to be a big fake. I finally decided that, well, every one's gotta start somewhere.This morning, in addition to this year's additions of Ladysmith's Long Walk to Freedom and Peter Gabriel's Passion, I grazed over and picked a few of Afro-pop's Fela Kuti's shorter works (which only clock in at 7-10 minutes), as well as an obvious sex-crazed single by his son, Femi, titled "Beng Beng." Fela's music is a mix of West African beats tinged with sweaty, tribal funk (which seems looser than Brown's and more frentic than Clinton's to me) underlayed by a Miles Davis-influenced jazz, with a bit of a rock-fusion thrown in there for good effect. Oh, and some more Ladysmith, from the Paul Simon-produced Shaka Zulu.
Oh, and tomorrow the Mrs. and I begin our pre-marital counseling. Haha. I know, funny, right?
Thursday, August 10, 2006
I said if they take my stapler, I may have to burn this place down.
My wife doesn't like too many movies. And she absolutely abhors anything that could give her the willies (she profusely warned me that Superman Returns better not give her nightmares!). But there is one comedy (she just screened it for the first time a few weeks ago) we keep quoting and referencing - Office Space.
Certainly one of the better scenes in recent history in regards to technology. Sometimes I'm ready to perform this on my computer.
Certainly one of the better scenes in recent history in regards to technology. Sometimes I'm ready to perform this on my computer.
Perfect soundtrack, btw.
In other movie-related news, Talladega Nights is really, really funny. I haven't read a single review on it, and I don't want to. I'm taking the lady. I hope she likes it. 'Cause I could go for some Ricky Bobbie quotes around the house. And, honestly, who wouldn't want to pray to Christmas Baby Jesus?
Shake. And bake. Indeed.
Shake. And bake. Indeed.
Looking at Justice via the scope of some local news, pt. 1
Like most of the post-Watergate generation, I'm not a big fan of the political game. I consider myself neither Republican nor Democrat, liberal, conservative nor moderate. I suppose I do fit somewhere in there, closer to one side than another in general. But, I tend to think of myself as an advocate of social justice, which, despite their claims of compassion, caring or service, neither party gives a rip about.
And the issues are usually more difficult than polarizing political polemics can more than conjure. I'll give two issues that were addressed in the Chicago news yesterday.
1) The Big-Box Ordinance. The mayor is fighting with city council about this proposal that he may or may not veto. So are big box companies (such mega-area outlets as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, etc.), many of which are planning on moving proposed - and even already functioning and thriving - stores from Chicago proper to the suburbs. The ordinance will force such big-box companies (with 90,000 sq. ft and annual sales of over a billion dollars, according to my regular news source, Red Eye) to pay employees at least $10 an hour plus $3 in benefits (health, et. al.). The mayor, some business bureaus and certain aldermen are concerned because the advent of Wal-Mart into blighted areas of the city means jobs right on the front. People with little to no experience and training can get full or nearly full time jobs. Construction would also be in an upswing.
But, much like building prisons, the long-term downturn is worse than the immediate upturn would have us believe. Wal-Mart, especially, is parasitic. (Click here for the "JibJab Big Box-Mart" video. Note: You need to open in crappy IE window.) It already receives gobs of tax relief for opening new locations, and is quite good at squashing the competition. For instance, my parents live in a town in north-eastern Oklahoma. For the first ten or so years they lived there, they would do their regular shopping at the local supermarkets. And then the local Wal-Mart shut-down upon completion of its Super Wal-Mart neighbor. Complete with a grocer's area. It only took a couple of years before all of the other supermarkets shut down.
Could this happen in super-blighted places like Englewood or Austin? (Blighted, btw, being just a comparison to more middle-class and affluent neighborhoods, spec. in Chicago. Not to, say, Haiti.) Sure. But the jobs coming in could make it worth it. Could. If they pay well enough. Wal-Mart is notorious for paying near minimum-wage sans benefits. The ordinance calls for them to raise their pay to a living-wage rate. It says, in effect, that the city and county shouldn't have to burden the whole cost of health and welfare of its working citizens (when I was working for near minimum-wage w/o health benefits, it was understandable. I could deal with a couple years - being single, young, male and healthy - without such health care. But when you're raising a family in the city, it's a different animal altogether). Wal-Mart is the biggest retail company/corporation in the world. They can't afford to pay their workers $13/hour? That's like BP saying that they have to raise gas prices again. Huh! What a crazy world.
I used to hate the strong-arm tactics of the unions. But now I see an anti-union powerhouse putting a stranglehold on the city of broad shoulders. I think the reason that I haven't heard Home Depot raise a stink about this is because they already pay their workers at least ten an hour (this from an old roommate who worked for them part-time in the late '90s. I would assume they've raised their wages since then). So, it's not that big a deal. And their workers aren't necessarily that experienced either.
2) A fourteen year old got shot by police the other day in the quickly closing Cabrini Green projects near downtown. The kid was brandishing a bb gun that looks remarkably like a real pistol, according to police reports and the picture they posted in the news yesterday. Police said that they told the young man to drop his weapon but he refused, steadily aiming at them. They shot and severely injured him. Residents are protesting and marching.
The question I would ask is why they are marching. Not that it's not justified. Distrust between low-income blacks and police in big cities like Chicago is well-grounded and deeply scary. Just because the police say that they told the youth to drop his weapon doesn't mean they actually told him to before they shot him. Regardless, I think that most people in such a situation would be justified in firing. Especially in the high-fear climate in such an area.
It's the climate, however, that's prompting the response. Much as in the case of O.J. (Nobody believes that Simpson didn't do it. Please! He killed 'em and he liked it. But the obvious racism parlayed by the arresting officers and the racist and covering trends of the LAPD made a hero of The Juice, despite obvious class and guilt issues.) Residents of the Greens are being evacuated from the only homes many of them know - largely by a confluence of wealth and politics - and many of the remaining have yet to find a new residence. Or, rather, the powers that be have yet to find residence for them, despite their earlier promises. And those who remain are finding that, in general, the police are more responsive to their affluent neighbors' needs than they have been to them. The residents of the Greens have every right to rally and protest, for up to this point, they were looked at as if they lived in Fort Apache: The Bronx, or on the set of Escape from New York.
And the issues are usually more difficult than polarizing political polemics can more than conjure. I'll give two issues that were addressed in the Chicago news yesterday.
1) The Big-Box Ordinance. The mayor is fighting with city council about this proposal that he may or may not veto. So are big box companies (such mega-area outlets as Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, etc.), many of which are planning on moving proposed - and even already functioning and thriving - stores from Chicago proper to the suburbs. The ordinance will force such big-box companies (with 90,000 sq. ft and annual sales of over a billion dollars, according to my regular news source, Red Eye) to pay employees at least $10 an hour plus $3 in benefits (health, et. al.). The mayor, some business bureaus and certain aldermen are concerned because the advent of Wal-Mart into blighted areas of the city means jobs right on the front. People with little to no experience and training can get full or nearly full time jobs. Construction would also be in an upswing.
But, much like building prisons, the long-term downturn is worse than the immediate upturn would have us believe. Wal-Mart, especially, is parasitic. (Click here for the "JibJab Big Box-Mart" video. Note: You need to open in crappy IE window.) It already receives gobs of tax relief for opening new locations, and is quite good at squashing the competition. For instance, my parents live in a town in north-eastern Oklahoma. For the first ten or so years they lived there, they would do their regular shopping at the local supermarkets. And then the local Wal-Mart shut-down upon completion of its Super Wal-Mart neighbor. Complete with a grocer's area. It only took a couple of years before all of the other supermarkets shut down.
Could this happen in super-blighted places like Englewood or Austin? (Blighted, btw, being just a comparison to more middle-class and affluent neighborhoods, spec. in Chicago. Not to, say, Haiti.) Sure. But the jobs coming in could make it worth it. Could. If they pay well enough. Wal-Mart is notorious for paying near minimum-wage sans benefits. The ordinance calls for them to raise their pay to a living-wage rate. It says, in effect, that the city and county shouldn't have to burden the whole cost of health and welfare of its working citizens (when I was working for near minimum-wage w/o health benefits, it was understandable. I could deal with a couple years - being single, young, male and healthy - without such health care. But when you're raising a family in the city, it's a different animal altogether). Wal-Mart is the biggest retail company/corporation in the world. They can't afford to pay their workers $13/hour? That's like BP saying that they have to raise gas prices again. Huh! What a crazy world.
I used to hate the strong-arm tactics of the unions. But now I see an anti-union powerhouse putting a stranglehold on the city of broad shoulders. I think the reason that I haven't heard Home Depot raise a stink about this is because they already pay their workers at least ten an hour (this from an old roommate who worked for them part-time in the late '90s. I would assume they've raised their wages since then). So, it's not that big a deal. And their workers aren't necessarily that experienced either.
2) A fourteen year old got shot by police the other day in the quickly closing Cabrini Green projects near downtown. The kid was brandishing a bb gun that looks remarkably like a real pistol, according to police reports and the picture they posted in the news yesterday. Police said that they told the young man to drop his weapon but he refused, steadily aiming at them. They shot and severely injured him. Residents are protesting and marching.
The question I would ask is why they are marching. Not that it's not justified. Distrust between low-income blacks and police in big cities like Chicago is well-grounded and deeply scary. Just because the police say that they told the youth to drop his weapon doesn't mean they actually told him to before they shot him. Regardless, I think that most people in such a situation would be justified in firing. Especially in the high-fear climate in such an area.
It's the climate, however, that's prompting the response. Much as in the case of O.J. (Nobody believes that Simpson didn't do it. Please! He killed 'em and he liked it. But the obvious racism parlayed by the arresting officers and the racist and covering trends of the LAPD made a hero of The Juice, despite obvious class and guilt issues.) Residents of the Greens are being evacuated from the only homes many of them know - largely by a confluence of wealth and politics - and many of the remaining have yet to find a new residence. Or, rather, the powers that be have yet to find residence for them, despite their earlier promises. And those who remain are finding that, in general, the police are more responsive to their affluent neighbors' needs than they have been to them. The residents of the Greens have every right to rally and protest, for up to this point, they were looked at as if they lived in Fort Apache: The Bronx, or on the set of Escape from New York.
Cookin' with the Cookster
I made some pasta last night. Neither me nor Mrs. jasdye are, technically speaking, what others would refer to as "cooks." We don't - to use technical jargon - "bake" or "boil" or "broil" foods. Unless by "bake" you mean, "thaw and heat frozen pizza" or by "boil" you mean, "cook hot dogs." I am, however, pretty decent on a grill and have tried my mean hand at deep-frying chicken wings. But, because of our schedules, with the Mrs. working all day and me employing my teacher's summer schedule, I'm thinking it'd be nice to prepare a nice home-cooked meal every night for the two of us. This works especially well since she only really eats once a day. And since we both like pasta (to a fault), I'd start there.
The pasta recipe book called it rigatone and chorizo. Although I didn't have rigatone outright, I did just buy some rigate mostaccelli. I just bought some chorizo (and I cook some mean spaghetti and chorizo, btw. And I mean that) earlier that day (although I didn't realize 'til later that it was 'no picante'), but more importantly, I have a bunch of Italian sausage laying around in the fridge from the week before - and I need to use that before it begins to go bad. As far as the rest of the ingredients are concerned, well, all good chefs improvise. I just substitute. I look through six different markets for mozzarella. None. But there is plenty of fresco queso. I don't know what that is, but hopefully, it'll do. Also, no white, dry wine. Fortunately, the quick-thinking kicks in and I grab our bottle of merlot.
F***in' merlot. Man, it's got a strong scent.
Slice up a whole onion? That's crazy talk! I ain't crying over no meal! I chopped half an onion. You would've been proud of me. And we didn't have pre-sliced tomatoes. So, you know what I did? You'll never guess....
Ok, give up? I sliced them all by myself! Yep.
Add to this the fact that although we have two or three sets of pots and pans, the only sharp knives we have are a couple steak knives. Like the type that you would have at the table, next to your plate, to dig into that particularly tough piece of steak that my mom is famous for - and that I'm sure will carry down through the generations. Since we didn't have salt, I peppered generously. Since we didn't have basil, I grounded the pepper generously. Oh, and some fresh-ground chili pepper.
The mostaccelli done, I drained it and spread some grated fresco on it. And then the homemade sausage/darkredwine/extravirginoliveoil-sauteed onions/beefsteak tomato/wine-vinegar (for good measure)/chili pepper sauce went into the pot atop the pasta. Add some more cheese, put the cover on and leave on low heat 'til she comes home.
With the mozzarella. Well, we'll use it later, I tell her.
We settle down. My hours of searching, pining, running around, slavishly chefing all over the place (it was like a one-man "Hell's Kitchen." I think. I dunno. I never watched it), cleaning the dining area and setting up the candles and flower arrangement just right.
I worry that the strong boozy smell from the merlot and vinegar might be a turn-off, since neither of us are very good at alcohol consumption. Nope. She takes a bite, declares - much like God himself over creation - it good. We ask God to bless the meal and our evening. She tells me how she had lunch with her brother and updates me on him. It takes a second to register... She ate already! Snap! I should've warned her specifically in the morning.
But, on the bright side:
1) I experimented. And I liked that challenge.
2) It's better than Sbarro's pizza.
3) She wasn't turned off. Au contrair, mon frere.
Take that, babies!
The pasta recipe book called it rigatone and chorizo. Although I didn't have rigatone outright, I did just buy some rigate mostaccelli. I just bought some chorizo (and I cook some mean spaghetti and chorizo, btw. And I mean that) earlier that day (although I didn't realize 'til later that it was 'no picante'), but more importantly, I have a bunch of Italian sausage laying around in the fridge from the week before - and I need to use that before it begins to go bad. As far as the rest of the ingredients are concerned, well, all good chefs improvise. I just substitute. I look through six different markets for mozzarella. None. But there is plenty of fresco queso. I don't know what that is, but hopefully, it'll do. Also, no white, dry wine. Fortunately, the quick-thinking kicks in and I grab our bottle of merlot.
F***in' merlot. Man, it's got a strong scent.Slice up a whole onion? That's crazy talk! I ain't crying over no meal! I chopped half an onion. You would've been proud of me. And we didn't have pre-sliced tomatoes. So, you know what I did? You'll never guess....
Ok, give up? I sliced them all by myself! Yep.
Add to this the fact that although we have two or three sets of pots and pans, the only sharp knives we have are a couple steak knives. Like the type that you would have at the table, next to your plate, to dig into that particularly tough piece of steak that my mom is famous for - and that I'm sure will carry down through the generations. Since we didn't have salt, I peppered generously. Since we didn't have basil, I grounded the pepper generously. Oh, and some fresh-ground chili pepper.
The mostaccelli done, I drained it and spread some grated fresco on it. And then the homemade sausage/darkredwine/extravirginoliveoil-sauteed onions/beefsteak tomato/wine-vinegar (for good measure)/chili pepper sauce went into the pot atop the pasta. Add some more cheese, put the cover on and leave on low heat 'til she comes home.
With the mozzarella. Well, we'll use it later, I tell her.
We settle down. My hours of searching, pining, running around, slavishly chefing all over the place (it was like a one-man "Hell's Kitchen." I think. I dunno. I never watched it), cleaning the dining area and setting up the candles and flower arrangement just right.
I worry that the strong boozy smell from the merlot and vinegar might be a turn-off, since neither of us are very good at alcohol consumption. Nope. She takes a bite, declares - much like God himself over creation - it good. We ask God to bless the meal and our evening. She tells me how she had lunch with her brother and updates me on him. It takes a second to register... She ate already! Snap! I should've warned her specifically in the morning.
But, on the bright side:
1) I experimented. And I liked that challenge.
2) It's better than Sbarro's pizza.
3) She wasn't turned off. Au contrair, mon frere.
Take that, babies!
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Can you SHUT me up??? NO!!
At first I was concerned that I've run out of things to talk about. My life just seems to be one hot trend after another, with gossip following me like FMZ trailing the Gibson family. And I can't stand the confessional nature of so many blogs. Which is why I'm not on MyFacebookCrappyLies.com.
But then I realized, heck, I'm married. I can tell little stories without becoming too self-indulgent (and I mean, who would ever criticize me of being self-indulgent?) and only a bit revelatory (I also don't care for the idea that Aunt Phoebe's daily goings-on with her cats can teach us a lot about ourselves [not that they can't - but they don't] or that anybody on the blogs has a corner-market on truth - even the so-called relativistic truth that there is no truth, or has earth-shattering statements coming out of their arses). But, in our quest to become a family - through some of our little travails and li'l ol' triumphs - I'd like the opportunity to share some stories if I may that others may relate to, laugh at/with, or enter into.
I don't know. Sounds like I'm just starting this blog thing - rather than being a hardened veteran of several hundred posts. Yeah, I'M THE FLIPPIN' MAN, gyros!
So, cooking story next. And it's a doozy. You'd have thought Christine B. wrote it.
But then I realized, heck, I'm married. I can tell little stories without becoming too self-indulgent (and I mean, who would ever criticize me of being self-indulgent?) and only a bit revelatory (I also don't care for the idea that Aunt Phoebe's daily goings-on with her cats can teach us a lot about ourselves [not that they can't - but they don't] or that anybody on the blogs has a corner-market on truth - even the so-called relativistic truth that there is no truth, or has earth-shattering statements coming out of their arses). But, in our quest to become a family - through some of our little travails and li'l ol' triumphs - I'd like the opportunity to share some stories if I may that others may relate to, laugh at/with, or enter into.
I don't know. Sounds like I'm just starting this blog thing - rather than being a hardened veteran of several hundred posts. Yeah, I'M THE FLIPPIN' MAN, gyros!
So, cooking story next. And it's a doozy. You'd have thought Christine B. wrote it.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Sign o' the Times
How to tell that your new neighborhood has monied church peoples, Part 1:
That's right. The whole congregation can afford to go on sabbatical and say, "Screw you" to all the neighbors. And, apparently, God.
But, honestly, did they have to give us a "War-Hearted Affirming"? That's just downright nasty of them.
What can you say, though? Rich folks, y'know?
That's right. The whole congregation can afford to go on sabbatical and say, "Screw you" to all the neighbors. And, apparently, God.
But, honestly, did they have to give us a "War-Hearted Affirming"? That's just downright nasty of them.
What can you say, though? Rich folks, y'know?
Friday, August 04, 2006
Wha' Happened?
I've been trying to get as many posts in as soon as possible before the mad-rush of teaching season begins. But every once in a while you run into a few snafus. This week in Chicago - as in much of the nation - it was extremely, extremely butt-hot. But rather than that being an excuse to stay indoors and write more self-absorbed essays and geeky pop-cultural blood-letting. But, apparently, human beings who occupy physical space and sweat were not the only ones affected by the stroke-waves. Internet waves everywhere were asking, "Are we not particles? Do we not sweat?"
I don't think so!
So, yeah. And then there's the fact that I've been making plans all week to get me and Jennie (wow. I'm gonna have to change my frame of mind from here on out. It's gonna be plural - 'we' instead of 'me'.) out of this limbo stage that was killing us. But, tonight's the night. We're getting married.
I know a lot of people (well, maybe three of the four of you reading this) may have a lot of questions. I'm sorry, but I don't feel that this is a space to answer many of those questions - at least not now. But we did what we felt was right and God-honoring. And as much as we wanted to honor her parents, there was no way to please them except to wait for a year or two. And that's just not something that we could do - as Fred Willard noted above.
I love my faithful readers. Please pray for us. I gotta shower and get the rental. So, peace!
J.
I don't think so!So, yeah. And then there's the fact that I've been making plans all week to get me and Jennie (wow. I'm gonna have to change my frame of mind from here on out. It's gonna be plural - 'we' instead of 'me'.) out of this limbo stage that was killing us. But, tonight's the night. We're getting married.
I know a lot of people (well, maybe three of the four of you reading this) may have a lot of questions. I'm sorry, but I don't feel that this is a space to answer many of those questions - at least not now. But we did what we felt was right and God-honoring. And as much as we wanted to honor her parents, there was no way to please them except to wait for a year or two. And that's just not something that we could do - as Fred Willard noted above.
I love my faithful readers. Please pray for us. I gotta shower and get the rental. So, peace!
J.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Sometimes birthdays suck!
Yesterday was Jennie's 29th. It was also, in her words, her worst birthday ever. I could see that statement being justified. It was a really bad day. Maybe I'll share why later. Maybe I won't.
But it was a really bad day and as much as I was able to temporarily soothe her and allieve her pain, it was only a temporary solution. As much as I want to be the Man of All Answers and Comfort, I'm just another Thunderheaded Man.
And then it strikes me that God the Father is the God of all Comfort, and my job is to lead her to God. And I haven't been doing the best job at that.
I'm trying to fix that problem. I'm beginning to fix myself and my sorrowful spiritual condition, but in the meantime, I had some walls arise from things I done and decisions I made. Those are all slowly starting to turn (and, yes, reap). But in the meantime, I'm realizing that my primary job to my wife is going to be her priest - her guide-to-God.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
But it was a really bad day and as much as I was able to temporarily soothe her and allieve her pain, it was only a temporary solution. As much as I want to be the Man of All Answers and Comfort, I'm just another Thunderheaded Man.
And then it strikes me that God the Father is the God of all Comfort, and my job is to lead her to God. And I haven't been doing the best job at that.
I'm trying to fix that problem. I'm beginning to fix myself and my sorrowful spiritual condition, but in the meantime, I had some walls arise from things I done and decisions I made. Those are all slowly starting to turn (and, yes, reap). But in the meantime, I'm realizing that my primary job to my wife is going to be her priest - her guide-to-God.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Eat this jogging.
I started the practice of jogging last week. After doing two-a-day miles for a total of an hour, I took a break. Since the heatstrokewave hit this week rather coincided with weak knees and weak wills. But, fortunately, I have this on archive:
About taking up the rhythms of jogging and a relationship between that and reading and living out (or obeying) the Bible, Eugene Peterson writes:
Calvin taught that - as many theologians and preachers from the beginnings of the biblical canon taught - that in order to understand the Bible, you have to live it, obey it.
Staying true to the idea that the Bible is God's revelation of his story to us and that we enter into his story - not the other way around - Peterson tells a story of a couple that he pastored that further illustrates the point.
From Eat This Book.
About taking up the rhythms of jogging and a relationship between that and reading and living out (or obeying) the Bible, Eugene Peterson writes:
Running developed from a physical act to a ritual that gathered meditation, reflection, and prayer into the running. By this time I was subscribing to three running magazines and regularly getting books from the library on runners and running. I never tired of reading about running... How much is there to write about running? There aren't an infinite number of ways you can go about it - mostly it is just putting one foot before the other. None of the writing, with few exceptions, was written very well. But it didn't matter that I had read nearly the same thing twenty times before; it didn't matter if the prose was patched together with cliches; I was a runner and I read it all.
And then I pulled a muscle and couldn't run for a couple of months as I waited for my thigh to heal. It took me about two weeks to notice that since the injury I hadn't picked up a running book or opened a running magazine... I wasn't reading because I wasn't running. The moment I began running again I started reading again.
That is when I caught the significance of the modifier "spiritual" in "spiritual reading." It meant participatory reading. It meant that I read every word on the page as an extension or deepening or correction or affirmation of something that I was a part of. I was reading about running not primarily to find out something, not to learn something, but for companionship and of the experience of running... [I]f I wasn't running, there was nothing to deepen.
The parallel with reading Scripture seems to me almost exact: if I am not participating in the reality - the God reality, the creation/salvation/holiness reality - revealed in the Bible, not involved in the obedience [John] Calvin wrote of, I am probably not going to be much interested in reading about it - at least not for too long.
Calvin taught that - as many theologians and preachers from the beginnings of the biblical canon taught - that in order to understand the Bible, you have to live it, obey it.
Staying true to the idea that the Bible is God's revelation of his story to us and that we enter into his story - not the other way around - Peterson tells a story of a couple that he pastored that further illustrates the point.
Anthony Plakados was a thirty-five-year-old truck driver in my congregation. Anthony grew up in Greek home, conventionally Catholic, but none of it rubbed off. He left school after the eighth grade. He told me that he had never read a book. And then he became a Christian, got himself an old King James Bible with small print, and read it three times in that first year of his conversion. Anthony was off and running. Mary, his wife, was interested but also a bit bewildered by all this and asked a lot of questions. Mary had grown up a proper Presbyterian, gone to Sunday School all her growing up years, and was used to a relition of definitions and explanations. When Mary's questions got too difficult for Anthony, he would invite me to their trailer-house home, papered with Elvis Presley posters, to help him out. One evening the subject was the parables - Mary wasn't getting it. I was trying to tell her how to read them, how to make sense out of them. I wasn't getting on very well, and Anthony interrupted, "Mary, you got to live 'em, then you'll understand 'em; you can't figger 'em out from the outside, you got to git inside 'em - or let them git inside you."
And Anthony hadn't read so much as a word of John Calvin.
From Eat This Book.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Do beetles bite?
No, seriously, that's the question.
I was just finished with my shower and putting my clothes on, and then I felt a low-registering but sharp pain on the left side of my neck. I grab for that area (as we are wont to do, w/o the slightest clue of what-who-how has transpired), pull off the alien and toss it at the sink.
Because it was a beetle, it had that hard shell of yumiliciousness, which means it's harder to kill, say, than a cockroach or an ant. In any case, I emerged the victor.
Or, did I?
My question again, for those of us just joining or not paying attention earlier, will the beetle have the last laugh as I lay gasping for my last breaths in a slow, torturous process of beetle-poison-induced death? I just wanna know.
I was just finished with my shower and putting my clothes on, and then I felt a low-registering but sharp pain on the left side of my neck. I grab for that area (as we are wont to do, w/o the slightest clue of what-who-how has transpired), pull off the alien and toss it at the sink.
Because it was a beetle, it had that hard shell of yumiliciousness, which means it's harder to kill, say, than a cockroach or an ant. In any case, I emerged the victor.
Or, did I?
My question again, for those of us just joining or not paying attention earlier, will the beetle have the last laugh as I lay gasping for my last breaths in a slow, torturous process of beetle-poison-induced death? I just wanna know.
Friday, July 28, 2006
This is just a test
I just wanna see how many people come to this site for stupid reasons. I just think by next Friday, it'd be interesting to see how many people will come to this site from a poor Google search.
Jessica Rabbit and Homer Simpson are both cartoon characters; some even find them to be Sexy.
Historical books have Images of General Lee; Photography books usually have a Picture of a Daisy.
I believe both Hewitt Packard Bell and Arthur Anderson are familiar with failing businesses.
Love,
jasdye
Jessica Rabbit and Homer Simpson are both cartoon characters; some even find them to be Sexy.
Historical books have Images of General Lee; Photography books usually have a Picture of a Daisy.
I believe both Hewitt Packard Bell and Arthur Anderson are familiar with failing businesses.
Love,
jasdye
Let freedom and desserts ring! Let freedom and desserts ring!
A bit of blogging press has recently been inked on blogging's favorite 'news' persona again, Stephen Colbert. This time, it involves Colbert using the tactics of mainstream news (particularly, the sharp, sound-bite montage) to exact revenge on the mainstream news. I thought it was a brilliant twist (whereas the Presidential Press Corps. dinner may have been - although subversively brilliant - out of his league) on how we shape our newsmakers, or rather, how our newsmakers are shaped by the gatekeepers. But, if you read blogs, you've probably heard this argument too many times.
I'm more interested in the dreamsicle.
I'm more interested in the dreamsicle.
I Have a Dreamsicle
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Draft - "damNation"
what to say?
what can i do?
when the
careless,
carefree,
careful,
consequences of Sins
leads to
the Lean Years -
forlorn, languishing,
lusty, laborious,
hell-scorched and kerosene-lit
Lean Years -
of Lent?
what can i do?
when the
careless,
carefree,
careful,
consequences of Sins
leads to
the Lean Years -
forlorn, languishing,
lusty, laborious,
hell-scorched and kerosene-lit
Lean Years -
of Lent?
Woke up, fell out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head.
You know, as I'm reminded several times a week, teachers get two months off (and the most beautiful ones at that) each year. Now, earlier yesterday, I stumbled upon this entry of Scot McKnight, where the seemingly perpetually busy author, blogger and professor (remember, he teaches at Trinity Evangelical International University) discloses his regular daily summer schedule. It was upon the point of reading his entry that I came upon a unique idea all my own, I should give a glimpse into the life of a typical teacher (me) via a typical daily summer schedule. So, without further ado about nothing:
6:15 a.m.- Awakened on my bed or couch by cell phone alarm.
6:15:30 - Wonder to myself, "Was it all just a dream?"
6:17 - Begin daily conversation with self about the importance of jogging regimen.
6:50 - After vigorus workout of the will, I hit the showers.
7:05 - On a regular rotating schedule, I either clip the ol' toenails, fingernails, nosehairs or earhairs.
7:10 - After all that activity, and to cool down for the day, take a mid-morning siesta.
10:25 - Wake up. Debate with self about DVD rentals: Tsotsi, Vertigo, Tokyo Story, Rashomon.
10:30 - "The View"
11:30 - "Days of Our Lives"
12:30 p.m. - "I Love Lucy"
1:00 - "Lucy Loves Ricky"
1:30 - Go out for healthy lunch.
1:45 - Yell at manager of McDonald's that the Double QuarterPounder w/ Cheese Meal Deal is McMisleadingly McTasty.
2:30 - Begrudgingly finish my third strawberry shake with Reeses Pieces to offset the four Big & Tasty Meals.
2:32 - Begin my jog home.
2:32:10 - Realize I didn't bring the appropriate jogging shoes, effectively ending my jog home.
2:55 - It strikes my funny bone that y'all are still working during this perfect day.
3:00 - "Judge Mathis."
4:00 "- Maury" Marathon.
6:00 - "Inside Edition."
7:12 - Get into a shouting match with a jerk who keeps eyeing me at Coldstone.
7:19 - Find, much to my dismay, that I'm just yelling at mirror image of myself.
7:45 - My belly says 'Yummy.'
8:00 - Think I'm drunk on the Rum Raisin Ice Cream.
8:30 - Pass out on park bench.
9:40 - Read my bible.
9:41 - Pray.
9:42 - Brush my teeth.
9:44 - Prank call my girlfriend.
9:45 - The gig is up. She knows it's me.
9:47 - Prank call my girlfriend.
10:00 - "Fear Factor" while blogging.
11:00 - More "Fear Factor"
12:00 a.m. - Go to Coldstones for more Banana Ripple.
12:10 - Finding that the doors are locked, throw a garbag can through window of Coldstones.
12:35 - Promptly brought to area police ward.
12:38 - Loudly proclaim that my rights are being violated at area police ward.
12:40 - Promptly fall asleep at area police ward.
Repeat cycle.
6:15 a.m.- Awakened on my bed or couch by cell phone alarm.
6:15:30 - Wonder to myself, "Was it all just a dream?"
6:17 - Begin daily conversation with self about the importance of jogging regimen.
6:50 - After vigorus workout of the will, I hit the showers.
7:05 - On a regular rotating schedule, I either clip the ol' toenails, fingernails, nosehairs or earhairs.
7:10 - After all that activity, and to cool down for the day, take a mid-morning siesta.
10:25 - Wake up. Debate with self about DVD rentals: Tsotsi, Vertigo, Tokyo Story, Rashomon.
10:30 - "The View"
11:30 - "Days of Our Lives"
12:30 p.m. - "I Love Lucy"
1:00 - "Lucy Loves Ricky"
1:30 - Go out for healthy lunch.
1:45 - Yell at manager of McDonald's that the Double QuarterPounder w/ Cheese Meal Deal is McMisleadingly McTasty.
2:30 - Begrudgingly finish my third strawberry shake with Reeses Pieces to offset the four Big & Tasty Meals.
2:32 - Begin my jog home.
2:32:10 - Realize I didn't bring the appropriate jogging shoes, effectively ending my jog home.
2:55 - It strikes my funny bone that y'all are still working during this perfect day.
3:00 - "Judge Mathis."
4:00 "- Maury" Marathon.
6:00 - "Inside Edition."
7:12 - Get into a shouting match with a jerk who keeps eyeing me at Coldstone.
7:19 - Find, much to my dismay, that I'm just yelling at mirror image of myself.
7:45 - My belly says 'Yummy.'
8:00 - Think I'm drunk on the Rum Raisin Ice Cream.
8:30 - Pass out on park bench.
9:40 - Read my bible.
9:41 - Pray.
9:42 - Brush my teeth.
9:44 - Prank call my girlfriend.
9:45 - The gig is up. She knows it's me.
9:47 - Prank call my girlfriend.
10:00 - "Fear Factor" while blogging.
11:00 - More "Fear Factor"
12:00 a.m. - Go to Coldstones for more Banana Ripple.
12:10 - Finding that the doors are locked, throw a garbag can through window of Coldstones.
12:35 - Promptly brought to area police ward.
12:38 - Loudly proclaim that my rights are being violated at area police ward.
12:40 - Promptly fall asleep at area police ward.
Repeat cycle.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Tidbits
Continuing the tract of not really talking about the most important things on my mind at this point:
- I - an unrepentant non-denominationalist - am anxiously awaiting my first Book of Common Prayers in the mail over the next week. I want to thank Eugene Peterson, Lauren Winter, Scot McKnight, Dallas Willard, my mamma and my agent for this new outlook.
I'm also eagerly awaiting classic ep and lp discs from LA Symphony. Since Call It What You Want is still out of order, gots me the Baloney EP and Composition #1. I would like to thank Pigeon John, Joeay the Jerk, Flynn, Cookbook, my mom, and your mom. Especially your mom.
- That's right, she's very nice.
- We got a place. It's big; the smallest of the three bedrooms is the size of some of the master bedrooms we were looking at. It's right next to public transportation (like a block away). It has a back patio with a grill some soul just left for us. A common washing machine. First floor apartment. Plenty of Mexican diners and shops and the Cozy Corner (my favorite greasy spoon / breakfast hangout) right next door. Within two miles of the church and school. We'll be moving some of Jen's stuff in on Friday. I'll be moving in... well, pray about that.
- Actual photograph of my actual playing miniature golf. Note the furtive attention and worship the posture. Worship it!
- Don't say a thing to me about the White Sox. Don't! Even!
- So, a cab driver offers a free ride to a woman in a rough spot, delivering her from would-be womanizers and possibly even rapists; no fare on top of that. Only, it turns out he's the rapist. Gaw, WTF! Hormones out of whack, gentlemen?
- Been keeping busy at a couple of blogs: Out of Ur (associated with the Leadership Journal aspect of Christianity Today. A lot of theoretical theology meeting with practical street levels and iron-sharpening-iron) and Jesus Creed (by Valparaiso U.- Correction: What I Meant to Say Was: North Park University - Professor Scot McKnight, who also happens to be a fellow moderate Evangelical, if either he or I can be typecast as that). In the Jesus Creed (so-named for McKnight's belief that Jesus and his disciples may have added the passage about loving our neighbor as ourself to the traditional Shema [You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart...] that was to be repeated several times a day by observant Jews) I'm catching up on a summer-long study in Romans.
- I hate technical difficulties. It's kept me from making a few links, dropping a few pics and watching the doc Lost Boys of Sudan, not to be confused with the teen-vamps movie.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Tidings
Some activity recently got me upset but also thinking about racism and what we refer to as 'reverse racism' as well as hate crimes. (My thoughts are that there is no such thing as RR. Any use of power over another person on the pretext or assumption of race or ethnicity is racism, which is - as Dr. King pointed out - a moral evil and sin. Anyway, this post was supposed to be short...) But just as my collar was getting a bit hot and heavy, I caught the usually observant Mary Mitchell making what I would classify as a great column in the Chicago Sun-Times. If the title "Is 'white boy' a slur? It sure isn't a compliment" doesn't get your attention, I don't know what else could.
Speaking of the Sun-Times, although Roger Ebert is still out of commission, they're still doing good things there. Check out the series on an experimental public school chartered by the U of C with the premise of mixing high-middle class and well-below-poverty-level elementary school kids through a three part series. The reporting, by education reporter Kate N. Grossman, for these perspective pieces was done during the ever-important and formative first academic year in one third-grade classroom. Part 1: One Classroom, Many Classes; Part 2: Doubts Emerge in School Experiment; Part 3: Grading the School Year. Personally, I still have to read parts II & III. Bon apettit.
Josh Hurst of the Reveal Listening Lounge has a review of Gnarls Barkley (as he says) finally posted. I merely disagree in that the mode of using, mixing and mashing pop-culture references was a mode of using, mixing, and mashing so much divergent styles of pop-music, including but not limited to, as he notes, zydeco, gospel raves, hip-hop, Frank Sinatra torches and post-modern disco.
What is it with falling-apart American cyclists and the Tour de France? I mean, it'd be one thing if their wrists were giving them pause or they got a torn rotator cuff. But an arthritic hip that's falling apart and a cancer-ridden scrotum? For a bicyclist, those areas are too close and too chafen to mess with for my money. Seriously, I'm just happy to shove it in the face of those (Micah's term) surrender monkeys. Audio from the victory lap.
Speaking of American athletes not considered athletes by a slim majority of Americans, after Tiger's triumphant 18-under-par at the Open yesterday morning, I felt newly inspired to triumph in my own version of the Masters - playing with (but yet against) the future in-laws that afternoon. In an indoor course that I could only define as about as treacherous (and untampered) as the Liverpool course, I managed to double-bogie as often as I birdied. I also got a couple hole-in-ones, but I doubt my fiancee added that correctly, as I finished 7-over. Which fulfills neither of my wishes: 1) win, or, if impossible, 2) get the highest score.
Yes, that was how I reacted yesterday afternoon. But then we went to the Cheesecake Factory. So, everything's ok now.
Speaking of the Sun-Times, although Roger Ebert is still out of commission, they're still doing good things there. Check out the series on an experimental public school chartered by the U of C with the premise of mixing high-middle class and well-below-poverty-level elementary school kids through a three part series. The reporting, by education reporter Kate N. Grossman, for these perspective pieces was done during the ever-important and formative first academic year in one third-grade classroom. Part 1: One Classroom, Many Classes; Part 2: Doubts Emerge in School Experiment; Part 3: Grading the School Year. Personally, I still have to read parts II & III. Bon apettit.
Josh Hurst of the Reveal Listening Lounge has a review of Gnarls Barkley (as he says) finally posted. I merely disagree in that the mode of using, mixing and mashing pop-culture references was a mode of using, mixing, and mashing so much divergent styles of pop-music, including but not limited to, as he notes, zydeco, gospel raves, hip-hop, Frank Sinatra torches and post-modern disco.
What is it with falling-apart American cyclists and the Tour de France? I mean, it'd be one thing if their wrists were giving them pause or they got a torn rotator cuff. But an arthritic hip that's falling apart and a cancer-ridden scrotum? For a bicyclist, those areas are too close and too chafen to mess with for my money. Seriously, I'm just happy to shove it in the face of those (Micah's term) surrender monkeys. Audio from the victory lap.
Speaking of American athletes not considered athletes by a slim majority of Americans, after Tiger's triumphant 18-under-par at the Open yesterday morning, I felt newly inspired to triumph in my own version of the Masters - playing with (but yet against) the future in-laws that afternoon. In an indoor course that I could only define as about as treacherous (and untampered) as the Liverpool course, I managed to double-bogie as often as I birdied. I also got a couple hole-in-ones, but I doubt my fiancee added that correctly, as I finished 7-over. Which fulfills neither of my wishes: 1) win, or, if impossible, 2) get the highest score.
Yes, that was how I reacted yesterday afternoon. But then we went to the Cheesecake Factory. So, everything's ok now.You Are My Sunshine
I've just started reading The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis by University of Chicago Professor Leon R. Kass. Kass is a professor largely of ethics and especially how it pertains to biology (two previous books - that I'll probably never be the least interested in - are Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics and (with James Q. Wilson) The Ethics of Human Cloning. But, being a well-rounded learner/educator - he regularly teaches classes on Plato and other foundational Western philosophy classes - he decided to tackle the biblical beginnings of Genesis to uncover the truths therein.Now, despite the obvious flaws with which he would undertake such a task (most noticeably, once again using a Western [or, Euro-Centric] way-of-thinking to frame a religion that is largely dressed in Eastern - certainly Middle Eastern - garb), his - largely unskeptical and wondrous - approach and frame of reference gives casual and pious readers of the Bible (specifically, the Mosaic Law) reason to deliberately pause. Not out of doubt or cynicism, but as a way of re-approaching Genesis with a fresh perspective.
One such perspective came while Kass is setting up the creation story not as a chronological set but as a hierarchical setting. Kass argues that the further in the story gets, the more loco-motive the creations are (from light itself [which merely occupies space], to plants [which apparently don't move but only grow], to the sun [which moves among a track], to birds and fish [which largely move in rhythms of back & forth - i.e., migrations], to land animals [which move back & forth, left and right, etc. but are largely leashed to their natural ways of moving], to human beings [who can set and re-order their own paths and, largely, limits]), the higher-up they are in the natural order of superiority.
In so arguing, he notes that most myths/religions place the superiority on the sun, which most clearly gives light and heat and life and so is first in priority of that which we can see (for without it, we could not see, right?). As a result, they worship the sun as the or a major god. Many cosmological explanations, Kass points out, involve sexual relations between celestial beings, usually including the sun.What I get out of this is not the mere fact of the supremacy of man (although among all creation we are, based on any reading of Genesis because we alone are created in the image of God), but the supremacy of God's creative powers. God - in his authoritative take on the creation of the cosmos - does not need the sun - or any heavenly powers - to create light or warmth or life. My understanding is that, 1) he devalues the importance of the sun or any seeming other 'god' - which the Hebrews would come into contact with both in Egypt, in the wilderness and in the Promised Land - in order to emphasize his own abilities, his own God-ness; 2) he can actually do such amazing things, creating a temporary light ex nihilo (out of nothing) and then setting up a more substantial light source later, if for no other reason than to prove point 1.
Praise God, our ultimate source for everything that is good and life-giving. Praise God, who is so much more than the Other. Praise God, for he is mysterious and above us, but he allows us to see him and his ways.
Friday, July 21, 2006
Best Songs Ever, Anyone?
I'm thinking (to let you in on how deep we teachers think and meditate during our summer breaks) that there are two classes of greatest songs. First, there's the type of song where it doesn't matter who covers it, who sings / belts / screeches it out, it still grabs you by the collar and makes you hum / sing /belt / screech it out alongside - as best you can. Heck, even after Michael Bolton tries to steal it, you move along and that song still screams to you, "Sing me. You know you want to." Second, there is the type of song that was produced and performed in such an incredible way that it left an indelible imprint in your mind that the performance cannot be duplicated or excavated. No one, not even Frankie himself coming out of the grave with coolness (and flesh) intact could trump it.
Now here's my challenge. What are some of those commonly agreed upon songs. Following is a short list of my own; tell me what you think (add, subtract, come up with your own, etc.).
Of the first order:
1) Be My Baby (originally by the Ronettes) Check it out on iTunes; There's tons of less-talented singers, arrangers and all sorts that covered this classic. But the foundation was already laid in those larger-than-life drums that laid down the foundation for the Wall-of-Sound, that it's hard for someone to mess up in re-recording the song. Of course, no one else could sound like Veronica Spector (not Brian Wilson nor Joey Ramone even), but you can't blame 'em for trying.
2) In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel) I've heard this in coffee shops sung and strummed by fairly competent players and just dropped my breath. Obviously, it gets me every-stinkin'-time. And since my fiancee has the largest, most beautiful eyes this side of anime cartoons, this is one even Bolton can try and fail to mess up. I could go on in my life without ever hearing his version, but still...
3) Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper) In a fruteria I heard this performed on the spanish radio. Sang right along, well, with the chorus - when I could figure it out. Sang along to this chorus with many people of many cultures and colors many times. Heck, sing along. I dare you not to. "If you're lost, you can look and you will find me / Time after time / If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting / Time after time." What is it about this ditty that keeps tugging at the heart?
Of the second order:
1) Good Vibrations (the single done by the Brian Wilson-led Beach Boys) I know Wilson tried to redo it on his SMiLES album. No. No good. I just don't think anybody this side of God himself could top this version of this song.
2) A Natural Woman (You Make Me Feel Like) (The inimitable but never duplicable Aretha Franklin) Actually, probably just about anything put out by this woman in the mid-60s through the 70s (including covers of well-known hits, like "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" and some Beatles songs) is probably a gimme on this list. But this song sticks out to me, for whatever reason. Heck, I think it makes me feel like a natural woman.
3) You Are My Sunshine (No version even comes close to Ray Charles'.) "Ray
Charles does country?" People were also upset about Dylan doing country, but much like him, Charles never belonged to a subset, genre or particular pocket. However, Bob's the songwriter everybody else made famous, Ray's the dam*ed genius, unfolding for the world what Cash, Haggard, Nelson and Williams (the eldest) had been resigned to the underground for - the soulfulness of country music. God rest 'em all.
Now here's my challenge. What are some of those commonly agreed upon songs. Following is a short list of my own; tell me what you think (add, subtract, come up with your own, etc.).
Of the first order:
1) Be My Baby (originally by the Ronettes) Check it out on iTunes; There's tons of less-talented singers, arrangers and all sorts that covered this classic. But the foundation was already laid in those larger-than-life drums that laid down the foundation for the Wall-of-Sound, that it's hard for someone to mess up in re-recording the song. Of course, no one else could sound like Veronica Spector (not Brian Wilson nor Joey Ramone even), but you can't blame 'em for trying.
2) In Your Eyes (Peter Gabriel) I've heard this in coffee shops sung and strummed by fairly competent players and just dropped my breath. Obviously, it gets me every-stinkin'-time. And since my fiancee has the largest, most beautiful eyes this side of anime cartoons, this is one even Bolton can try and fail to mess up. I could go on in my life without ever hearing his version, but still...
3) Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper) In a fruteria I heard this performed on the spanish radio. Sang right along, well, with the chorus - when I could figure it out. Sang along to this chorus with many people of many cultures and colors many times. Heck, sing along. I dare you not to. "If you're lost, you can look and you will find me / Time after time / If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting / Time after time." What is it about this ditty that keeps tugging at the heart?
Of the second order:
1) Good Vibrations (the single done by the Brian Wilson-led Beach Boys) I know Wilson tried to redo it on his SMiLES album. No. No good. I just don't think anybody this side of God himself could top this version of this song.
2) A Natural Woman (You Make Me Feel Like) (The inimitable but never duplicable Aretha Franklin) Actually, probably just about anything put out by this woman in the mid-60s through the 70s (including covers of well-known hits, like "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" and some Beatles songs) is probably a gimme on this list. But this song sticks out to me, for whatever reason. Heck, I think it makes me feel like a natural woman.
3) You Are My Sunshine (No version even comes close to Ray Charles'.) "RayCharles does country?" People were also upset about Dylan doing country, but much like him, Charles never belonged to a subset, genre or particular pocket. However, Bob's the songwriter everybody else made famous, Ray's the dam*ed genius, unfolding for the world what Cash, Haggard, Nelson and Williams (the eldest) had been resigned to the underground for - the soulfulness of country music. God rest 'em all.
Emerging and Movement of Families
Generally speaking, I hate sharing news on the internet before I tell at least a few physically-proximate friends, relatives, etc. So, I really don't have any news on the whole marriage front. I still want it sooner than later.
School doesn't begin until the first Tuesday in September, and then it'll be nearly impossible for at least a month and a half to get anything else off the ground. (Such as that sweet tea shack I wanna open next summer. That'll be sweet. We don't have any sweet tea - to the best of my knowledge - on the Near North Side of Chicago.) Although, truthfully, I do have a lot of sick days (three weeks worth, honestly!) and all three personal days left.
Maybe after this weekend, we'll have more of an idea. Spending some time with her family.
Speaking of la familia, mi abuelos are selling all their property (from the OKie state) and moving all their worldly possessions to the Philippines, where gramps is from.
So, another reason to make this fairly soon. And another possible vacation spot.
School doesn't begin until the first Tuesday in September, and then it'll be nearly impossible for at least a month and a half to get anything else off the ground. (Such as that sweet tea shack I wanna open next summer. That'll be sweet. We don't have any sweet tea - to the best of my knowledge - on the Near North Side of Chicago.) Although, truthfully, I do have a lot of sick days (three weeks worth, honestly!) and all three personal days left.
Maybe after this weekend, we'll have more of an idea. Spending some time with her family.
Speaking of la familia, mi abuelos are selling all their property (from the OKie state) and moving all their worldly possessions to the Philippines, where gramps is from.
So, another reason to make this fairly soon. And another possible vacation spot.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
You're wondering who I am, machine or mannequin...*
This is for Christine Emilia Barnes & Noble, aka Kurisuteen Nakata, Jamaican cum Canadian cum Jewish-Christian observant cum black Japanese extraordinaire. Inspired by Bill Murray, our Li'l Miss Linguist is going to Japan to teach English to the masses.
And remeber, if you see Godzilla, don't turn around until you're miles away. Then you can gawk.
*Yes, that's right. "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto."
Speaking of which, I found this great short-form video of the Styx ummm, masterpiece. The other one I spotted was for the whole song and done by one singular, stay-in-the-basement-of-his-parent's-home kid. He really needs Mr. Roboto to help him escape. Secret, secret, he's got a secret.
Yes, of course it's obvious. Doesn't make it any less funny.
And remeber, if you see Godzilla, don't turn around until you're miles away. Then you can gawk.
*Yes, that's right. "Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto."
Speaking of which, I found this great short-form video of the Styx ummm, masterpiece. The other one I spotted was for the whole song and done by one singular, stay-in-the-basement-of-his-parent's-home kid. He really needs Mr. Roboto to help him escape. Secret, secret, he's got a secret.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
I'm really liking this youtube thingamabob
Here's a Mars Ill video featuring Ahmad Jones of 4th Ave. Jones:
I checked out their myspace page today. They included mashups of a Jurassic 5 and an Outkast song. That took me by surprise. I just didn't figure that to be their style - like reverse mix-tapes.
"More"
I checked out their myspace page today. They included mashups of a Jurassic 5 and an Outkast song. That took me by surprise. I just didn't figure that to be their style - like reverse mix-tapes.
"Sound Off"
In other news, I fried me up and fed me up a cheeseburger. It felt awkward, but as Micah points out, at least I didn't have to swallow it through a blender and a straw.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
And may their first child be a masculine child.
My jaw's so big, I feel like Popeye. I'm talking a bit like him, too.
Just looking in the mirror, I look like Marlon Brando as The Godfather.
I have big, deep, gaping holes in the back of my mouth.
The gauze pads that I kept placing back there were turning a nasty dark red.
I haven't had anything to chew in a day and a half. I've only had half a cup of ice coffee and a little bottle of Starburst Smoothie. It tastes like you'd expect a Starbust Smoothie to taste like. Dang the options at Walgreens.
I'm not hungry, though. Haven't been. And I'm... how should I say this?... a good eater.
I just gurgled some warm salt water. Not as weird as I had expected.
I walked home from the dentist office yesterday alone. They put me under while they removed my wisdom teeth. I was understandably confused when they woke me up and dizzy for a while after. I walked to the pharmacy across the street, but they don't take credit cards. I walked to the bus stop, one came quickly enough. Which was good. I hobbled like a drunkard. But the bus, with its constant starting and stopping, made me nauseus. It's a good thing I only live a third of a mile from the dentist.
If they're called wisdom teeth, shouldn't we keep them in our old age? Wisdom teeth are wasted on the young.
I'm gonna eat a big juicy cheeseburger tonight, or I'll be upset.
Just looking in the mirror, I look like Marlon Brando as The Godfather.
I have big, deep, gaping holes in the back of my mouth.
The gauze pads that I kept placing back there were turning a nasty dark red.
I haven't had anything to chew in a day and a half. I've only had half a cup of ice coffee and a little bottle of Starburst Smoothie. It tastes like you'd expect a Starbust Smoothie to taste like. Dang the options at Walgreens.
I'm not hungry, though. Haven't been. And I'm... how should I say this?... a good eater.
I just gurgled some warm salt water. Not as weird as I had expected.
I walked home from the dentist office yesterday alone. They put me under while they removed my wisdom teeth. I was understandably confused when they woke me up and dizzy for a while after. I walked to the pharmacy across the street, but they don't take credit cards. I walked to the bus stop, one came quickly enough. Which was good. I hobbled like a drunkard. But the bus, with its constant starting and stopping, made me nauseus. It's a good thing I only live a third of a mile from the dentist.
If they're called wisdom teeth, shouldn't we keep them in our old age? Wisdom teeth are wasted on the young.
I'm gonna eat a big juicy cheeseburger tonight, or I'll be upset.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
She doesn't want that record. No, wait, I'm sorry, is she in a coma?
It's hotter than Gehenna out here. And I wanna send a shout-out to the fine folks from Gehanna, Ohio who came down for a week of working at our church this week. I got a lot of sun. Which is why I'm indoors right now while Jennie's walking in the park by herself.
I need some more ice coffee.
Continuing my earlier thread:
1) Danielson, Ships. I've already done a slight review / meditation a few posts down on this overlooked gem. (Why do I say it's overlooked? Well at least Gnarls Barkley and Sufjan Stevens get some radio play, as well as spots on the iTunes lists. [Full disclosure, I iTune a lot of stuff now, even though I don't own an iPod yet. However, I'm getting married soon. And if you're not very creative with gifts but have some extra cash on hand...]) I'll only add this extra bit, this album's got me wrapped around itself with its childlike melodies and complex, percussive, and often surprising orchestrations. Note, Danielson and related projects are available through Sounds Familyre Records as well as Secretly Canadian, so it should be available at your local li'l record shop. "Did I Step on Your Trumpet" and "Cast It at the Setting Sail" are available on their myspace page.
2) Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Long Walk to Freedom. Also wrapping around my head like a wet towel. I've also written about them and this album within the last few months. Many of the songs recorded here - if most or even all of them - were originally written and performed during the Apartheid era. In fact, one was written by a former - if not fully repentant at the moment - slave trader. That's just a slight observation I just made. Beyond that, I don't know Afrikaan nor any tribal language, much less South African tribal languages. I only say this because I don't do much world music. Unlike foreign-language films, there are no subtitles. But Ladysmith Black Mambazo has been in the back of my consciousness for awhile. In the mid-80's, they played a prominent role in Paul Simon's Graceland, which was all over the radio at the time. In the early nineties, Adam Again's song "Walk Between the Raindrops" addressed the murder of Headman Shabalala, one of the original members of the group. And in the late-90's, they joined with Charlie Peacock (a favorite of my formative Christian artistry years) to sing on a record produced by Steve Taylor (another favorite). And then I saw them perform Simon's "Homeless" on Leno or Letterman or whoever with Sarah McLaughlin. I iTuned the album the following day.
I have friends from Kenya that would blow me away every time they sang in Swahili. It's a certain polyrhythm that seems to rise just below the surface. I'm not sure it's a pan-African thing (I've felt that same experience with other West Africans), but LBM has the same effect, only with a more diverse and dynamic vocal arrangement. And with this album at least, they have great pop songs to go along with the arrangement.
3 & 4) Mars Ill, Pro*Pain & Pirate Radio. These albums are just now starting to grow on me. The funkier sounds off of their remix BackWaterProphets made that an instant hit with me. But, as mentioned, BWP is a remix of an already superior album. As begets the independently produced and released Pirate Radio and the finally released, and aptly-titled, Pro*Pain, both albums belie a decidedly hard-rock edge that Dust had been rocking (and I remember my misgivings on it on the last DeepSpace 5 record that he had a large hand in), with a bent toward B. B. King-styled blues on Radio. But the sound is starting to grow on me. They never give into cheesy Rick Rubin-stuff nor give in completely to just Anthrax-Public Enemy-rock-out, leaving plenty of room for their filled-in but definitely independent and non-mainstream hip hop sound. Although, as they say on "Pirate Radio", "They'll never shut us down / Revolution's public now / the signal's too strong / to keep us in the underground." If you haven't checked out Mars Ill yet, I'm ashamed. I have links all over the place, because I write about these underappreciated cats all the time.
5) Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere. "Go-Go Gadget Gospel" sums it up pretty well. Cee-Lo has been known as a gospel-inflected proto-singer for the longest (why some critics seemed surprised by his pipes is beyond me. He came up with Outkast after all). Danger Mouse, the other collaborator in Gnarls, is the go-to guy in producing goofy, pop culture as attested to by his popular mash-up of the White Album with the Black Album and his previous collabo with a semi-famous rapper, Doctor Doom-obsessed MF Doom on The Mouse and the Mask - basically a commercial for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Their love for pop culture is referenced throughout, including "Transformer", which sounds like a Saturday morning in the eighties complete with 'toons and the ads for those 'toons and a lot of sugar, the title of the album and the duo, and well, you spot some of the others.
But this about the music. And as much as creepy songs like "Necromancer" and "The Boogie Monster" set my stomach churling, there aren't too many powerful pop gems like "Crazy", "Smiley Faces", or the honest and vulnerable storm that is "Just a Thought." Nontheless, the instrumentals at the end of the disk show just how necessary Cee-Lo's vox are to this mix.
I need some more ice coffee.
Continuing my earlier thread:
Best records so far of 2006 (I'll again try to limit this to records that were either released this year or that I just found out about this year. This would preclude either Sufjan album I bought this year, as well as that-little-album-that-could, The Beatles' 1.):
1) Danielson, Ships. I've already done a slight review / meditation a few posts down on this overlooked gem. (Why do I say it's overlooked? Well at least Gnarls Barkley and Sufjan Stevens get some radio play, as well as spots on the iTunes lists. [Full disclosure, I iTune a lot of stuff now, even though I don't own an iPod yet. However, I'm getting married soon. And if you're not very creative with gifts but have some extra cash on hand...]) I'll only add this extra bit, this album's got me wrapped around itself with its childlike melodies and complex, percussive, and often surprising orchestrations. Note, Danielson and related projects are available through Sounds Familyre Records as well as Secretly Canadian, so it should be available at your local li'l record shop. "Did I Step on Your Trumpet" and "Cast It at the Setting Sail" are available on their myspace page.
2) Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Long Walk to Freedom. Also wrapping around my head like a wet towel. I've also written about them and this album within the last few months. Many of the songs recorded here - if most or even all of them - were originally written and performed during the Apartheid era. In fact, one was written by a former - if not fully repentant at the moment - slave trader. That's just a slight observation I just made. Beyond that, I don't know Afrikaan nor any tribal language, much less South African tribal languages. I only say this because I don't do much world music. Unlike foreign-language films, there are no subtitles. But Ladysmith Black Mambazo has been in the back of my consciousness for awhile. In the mid-80's, they played a prominent role in Paul Simon's Graceland, which was all over the radio at the time. In the early nineties, Adam Again's song "Walk Between the Raindrops" addressed the murder of Headman Shabalala, one of the original members of the group. And in the late-90's, they joined with Charlie Peacock (a favorite of my formative Christian artistry years) to sing on a record produced by Steve Taylor (another favorite). And then I saw them perform Simon's "Homeless" on Leno or Letterman or whoever with Sarah McLaughlin. I iTuned the album the following day.I have friends from Kenya that would blow me away every time they sang in Swahili. It's a certain polyrhythm that seems to rise just below the surface. I'm not sure it's a pan-African thing (I've felt that same experience with other West Africans), but LBM has the same effect, only with a more diverse and dynamic vocal arrangement. And with this album at least, they have great pop songs to go along with the arrangement.
3 & 4) Mars Ill, Pro*Pain & Pirate Radio. These albums are just now starting to grow on me. The funkier sounds off of their remix BackWaterProphets made that an instant hit with me. But, as mentioned, BWP is a remix of an already superior album. As begets the independently produced and released Pirate Radio and the finally released, and aptly-titled, Pro*Pain, both albums belie a decidedly hard-rock edge that Dust had been rocking (and I remember my misgivings on it on the last DeepSpace 5 record that he had a large hand in), with a bent toward B. B. King-styled blues on Radio. But the sound is starting to grow on me. They never give into cheesy Rick Rubin-stuff nor give in completely to just Anthrax-Public Enemy-rock-out, leaving plenty of room for their filled-in but definitely independent and non-mainstream hip hop sound. Although, as they say on "Pirate Radio", "They'll never shut us down / Revolution's public now / the signal's too strong / to keep us in the underground." If you haven't checked out Mars Ill yet, I'm ashamed. I have links all over the place, because I write about these underappreciated cats all the time.
5) Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere. "Go-Go Gadget Gospel" sums it up pretty well. Cee-Lo has been known as a gospel-inflected proto-singer for the longest (why some critics seemed surprised by his pipes is beyond me. He came up with Outkast after all). Danger Mouse, the other collaborator in Gnarls, is the go-to guy in producing goofy, pop culture as attested to by his popular mash-up of the White Album with the Black Album and his previous collabo with a semi-famous rapper, Doctor Doom-obsessed MF Doom on The Mouse and the Mask - basically a commercial for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Their love for pop culture is referenced throughout, including "Transformer", which sounds like a Saturday morning in the eighties complete with 'toons and the ads for those 'toons and a lot of sugar, the title of the album and the duo, and well, you spot some of the others.But this about the music. And as much as creepy songs like "Necromancer" and "The Boogie Monster" set my stomach churling, there aren't too many powerful pop gems like "Crazy", "Smiley Faces", or the honest and vulnerable storm that is "Just a Thought." Nontheless, the instrumentals at the end of the disk show just how necessary Cee-Lo's vox are to this mix.
Friday, July 14, 2006
It's the half-way point, people
Micah of Micah's World has reminded me that, this being just past the half-way point of the year, Bests of the Year So Far lists are due. And while going over his lists on books, movies and video games, I was struck with a few observations:
1) Until recently, I've bought a lot of books this year, but have not had much of a chance to read them. Actually, I'm loving my morning reading time (all of it non-fiction) and I should have a temporary list up soon.
2) Akelah and the Bee was cute, X-Men III was fairly thrilling (and chilling), Pirates: Dead Man's Chest was a joyride - as I mentioned earlier - that I can compare somewhat palely with Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back, and The Second Chance had snappy dialogue and a great theme to complement the fact that it was directed and co-written by a personal adolescent hero of mine. Yet none of the movies released this year have excited me, surprised me, challenged me, gutted me or imbued me with joy the way that Stevie, Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, Hotel Rwanda, or Napoleon Dynamite or even Luther has. In other words, there's nothing that I'm truly excited about at this moment.
3) I don't play no video games.
Wait, does Spider Solitaire count?
1) Until recently, I've bought a lot of books this year, but have not had much of a chance to read them. Actually, I'm loving my morning reading time (all of it non-fiction) and I should have a temporary list up soon.
2) Akelah and the Bee was cute, X-Men III was fairly thrilling (and chilling), Pirates: Dead Man's Chest was a joyride - as I mentioned earlier - that I can compare somewhat palely with Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back, and The Second Chance had snappy dialogue and a great theme to complement the fact that it was directed and co-written by a personal adolescent hero of mine. Yet none of the movies released this year have excited me, surprised me, challenged me, gutted me or imbued me with joy the way that Stevie, Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, Hotel Rwanda, or Napoleon Dynamite or even Luther has. In other words, there's nothing that I'm truly excited about at this moment.
Wait, does Spider Solitaire count?
Yarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!
Superman Returns was - surprise, surprise - disappointing.
I am guessing though, that despite director Bryan Singer's claims to the contrary, he was merely settling in to do the sequel. Kind of like X-Men was little more than a long set-up for X-Men 2 - one of the better action movies of the last two decades.
And maybe like how Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was a set-up for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I'm with Jeffrey Overstreet on this one, DMC was a dark but thrilling second act. Although my butt didn't too much care for this other 2 1/2 hour slug-fest, it was an action piece that's got me wanting more moody, Empire Strikes Back-esque/carnival ride movies for the new millennium.
Here's to hoping the next Superman is sublime and the third Pirates actually fulfills the ideal of the trilogy, unlike say X-Men III, The Godfather III or Return of the Jedi. (Damn you, Ewoks!)
I am guessing though, that despite director Bryan Singer's claims to the contrary, he was merely settling in to do the sequel. Kind of like X-Men was little more than a long set-up for X-Men 2 - one of the better action movies of the last two decades.
And maybe like how Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was a set-up for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. I'm with Jeffrey Overstreet on this one, DMC was a dark but thrilling second act. Although my butt didn't too much care for this other 2 1/2 hour slug-fest, it was an action piece that's got me wanting more moody, Empire Strikes Back-esque/carnival ride movies for the new millennium.
I'm a pirate, that I be.
Here's to hoping the next Superman is sublime and the third Pirates actually fulfills the ideal of the trilogy, unlike say X-Men III, The Godfather III or Return of the Jedi. (Damn you, Ewoks!)
Monday, July 03, 2006
You got a real purty mouf dere.
She said yes.
I'm engaged.
And we're gonna marry soon (though the date isn't set yet - and it'll probably be small).
ain't we just the cutest?
ain't i just the lamest?
And I didn't even have to jump out of the woods and snag her, a la "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." That's good, 'cuz it was looking pretty bad last year.
I'm engaged.
And we're gonna marry soon (though the date isn't set yet - and it'll probably be small).
ain't we just the cutest?ain't i just the lamest?
And I didn't even have to jump out of the woods and snag her, a la "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers." That's good, 'cuz it was looking pretty bad last year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)