test
test
- Saturday, December 04, 1999 at 01:30:03 (CST)
Well, for the first time in too long, I read a book that was not part of a class assignment, just for fun. It's "The Road to Mars", by Eric Idle of Monty Python fame (and, more recently, "Suddenly Susan").
It's set in the 23rd or 24th century, where lots of people live in space, in giant, floating space colonies, and in places like Mars. It's told by a micropaleontologist, or an "hsitorian of the last 10 minutes." He has found a thesis on comedy written by a droid. The book chronicles the droid and his exploits as he writes the thesis.
The droid is Carlton, a Bowie 4.5 droid. He belongs to 2 comedians, Muscroft and Ashby. Ashby is the tall, thin, serious "straight man," while Muscroft is the wacky, crazy, zany one of the pair. Carlton cannot figure out why it is that humans like to "bark", or why certain things are funny and cause them to laugh/bark. So, he analyzes Muscroft and Ashby, unbeknownst to them. He also does a lot of comedy history, including research on a strange bunch of Brits (with one Yank) dressing in drag and producing crude animations as the Monty Python group.
The "theory of comedy" part of the book is pretty interesting. What I wasn't expecting were the intergalatic acts of terrorism, the seductions, and the psychoanalyses of the characters. It's a fairly interesting mix. Toward the end, I found it harder to put down. Not a bad piece of escapism, I guess.
Russ
- Thursday, January 27, 2000 at 17:51:02 (CST)
I finally took the time to read Brian Blair's columns. These are EXCELLENT.
May the powers-that-be please print more "Blair Necessities"!
the guy formerly known as 'loser'
- Tuesday, February 08, 2000 at 20:10:46 (CST)
First of all, whoever it is that liked my columns, thank you. There are more filed away and maybe on day I'll get industrious and add them to our new and improved page.
Secondly, I found a copy of "All's Fair-Love, War and Running for President" in a used book store the other day and picked it up. It's written by James Carville (Clinton's campaign manager) and his wife Mary Matalin (one of Bush's senior campaign people).
They go back and forth telling their experiences on the road in the '92 election and offer and interesting insight into the political process and the two men who were running for president. At times, it's quite funny and other times, it's a bit romantic but it always seems to interest me. For those of you fascinated by the mechanics of politics, this book offers a lot of insight.
Brian Bob says "Check it out."
Brian Blair of Arlington
- Friday, February 18, 2000 at 19:59:40 (CST)
Brian,
Fellow loser Sgt. Donald Alva Hallock, Jr. gave me a copy of All's Fair... a while back. I to enjoyed the dialogue between "Ole Serpanthead" (take a look at him - he should be the GI Joe Cobra Commander) and Ms. Matalin. The book serves as a very interesting peak into the head Carville - I really got the idea that he wasn't really idealistic about his politics, but he was very enthusiastic about winning.
Send me some more colums and we'll get them out there!!! Your Public demands it!
Nathan
- Wednesday, February 23, 2000 at 10:05:22 (CST)
That's peek as in a-boo not as in Matterhorn.
Nathan
- Wednesday, February 23, 2000 at 10:06:56 (CST)
I've recently developed a fondness (thanks to Pete) for Nick Hornby's books. I highly recommend "About a Boy" and "High Fidelity" (now a john Cusack movie). This guys has a level of humor and irony that I find quite pleasing. This is not really challenging reading, but it is engaging. These are the only novels I've ever read that really seem to get at relationships and dating from a very real, male perspective. I think Hornby does a decent job of getting into the male psyche.
Enjoy, should you so choose.
Nathan
- Thursday, April 13, 2000 at 11:04:33 (CDT)
Alright now, if there is one neglected post on the forum, it is the WORDS spot. When this room opened, I thought to myself, "I'll never post anything there!".
Well, here I am in England, and I've found something to post about.
I've been particularly touched by Mere Christianity, written by C.S. Lewis. It's a very powerful book, a collection of radio talks that he gave on BBC radio back in the 40's. In it, Lewis examines what it means to be a Christian, what we believe, why, what we do wrong, and so one. This read is a real test of faith, humbling at the very least. Yet, it is a fine work and I recommend it to those in a rut. I still am in one, but this has made things easier.
Evan
- Thursday, July 20, 2000 at 15:46:27 (CDT)
"I don't know nuthin about no Mexico...
Why can't you love me for who I am, where I am
You say, that's not the way it is baby
This is how I love you baby..."
hearts and bones paul simon
*****
Keep the heart and throw the bone away
Let me melt in a mush of droopy remains
Remains - the Parental Subterranean Not-Homesick Blues
Leave the skeleton on the desert floor
Let it bleach in the dry desert sun
Til it too becomes a thing of beauty
Let my heart continue beating
while my skeletal remains
dry in the Arizona sun,
Hearts and Bones.
thanks paul
- lisa
- Wednesday, August 09, 2000 at 22:30:25 (CDT)
"There are places I'll remember all my life
Though some have changed.
Some forever, not for better.
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living.
In my lfe I've loved them all.
But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compares with you.
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before;
I know I'll often stop and think about them.
In my life I love you more."
Thanks, John.
(Just a George a Ringo and an Art to go)
Russell B.
- Friday, August 11, 2000 at 16:17:13 (CDT)
Useless information from one loser to another. Good for an occasional laugh. Comments and snide remarks welcome. Apologies if this is not posted in the appropriate department. Hi, Nathan! :)
http://www.brainofbrian.com/facts.html
annonomous loser
- Tuesday, August 22, 2000 at 23:07:32 (CDT)
THE STONECUTTER
Those sudden small spaces:
places all at once
there
and no where else.
Instantly a stream, empty,
ice-fresh, then filled again--
its flexed life, succombing:
the till-then and the ever-since
colliding: purpose complete
--meaning a thousand trouts'
death.
The Stonecutter cuts. Beauty
drawn
to the architect's desire
while we admire, propose,
hold our breaths: deaths
before us falling
in miniature: fish
unnetted nor hooked.
A passed Sunday afternoon
photographed and filed--
a dash--
a swim--
its imminent news relenting.
The Stonecutter cuts: endless
the great pregnancy,
pausing only a moment--
its burden adjusted, its
beauty harsh, its design
inferred.
f(f)
- Friday, September 01, 2000 at 23:06:17 (CDT)
WHEN WELLS THE BLOOD
Forced
each drop arrives
that pleasant untruth
multiple of the multiplied:
its long-seasoned story
laboring still
through nostril and spearmint,
battlefield and insect,
spilling here, shared there,
condensed by centuries' weight
to impenetrable, cramped drops
-- solid and scarce like an angel's voice.
What is this red --
this gavel through everything
pounding:
-- speaking blood for blood
sustenance
-- blood for blood judgement
blood after blood flowing,
weighing nothing
but its own arrival.
Until
welled up in the roots,
reluctant it came flowing
into humankind
suffused with its own sweetness,
dripping the unknown that
spills into its blind circuit,
suddenly tangible:
drumbeats of the tiny heart,
burning through rat
and skunk and migratory bird,
going nowhere,
keeping its own direction.
Twisting now
in on itself to one purpose:
like a funnel
blood squeezes into a hole
for its own pleasure, planting
sweet drops in potential's
announcement,
the unmistakable
sniff
of maternity
hoping.
Ensured, with
momentum now, a gathering
and closing, hard
as stone it collects,
protects, closed
like a flower at nightfall:
red guard
of the womb.
All buffalo of a herd
know but one mother cow,
familiar scent of first drop,
that first red,
welling from the earth
with protein, with hope,
with air to carry
round, with past
to plunge forward,
hoping nothing
but eternity.
f(f)
- Saturday, September 02, 2000 at 07:11:21 (CDT)
Fans of the Bard, listen up:
I saw _Midsummer_Night's_Dream_ in Austin this last weekend, and it was amazing. It's Shakespeare in the Park, and it's being put on at Zilker (sp?) park. They're doing Midsummer and Julius Caesar on alternate weekends. Julius Caesar promises to be quite good as well.
If you're in the Austin area, or even an hour or so away, it's worth the drive. The admission is free, and the shows start at 8:00, Th, Fr, and Sat. I know they have shows on Sundays, and I assume at night, but I'm not sure. Next weekend, it will be all Julius Caesar. The week after that, both shows will be done each weekend, alternating nights. I'm not 100% sure of the schedule, but you could call and find out or get a copy of the American Statesman.
I'm partial to Midsummer, not only because it was hysterical, but also because my brother is in it. Lowell plays Flute, one of the Rude Mechanicals. And, he's the funniest thing in it. The play is directed by on of the main guys who works with the Greater Tuna plays, and has won an Emmy for direction. The whole thing has a sort of Superhero theme to it. Saying more would spoil the fun. Just go see it. It runs the rest of the month.
Enjoy
Russell Bartholomee
- Monday, September 11, 2000 at 14:09:48 (CDT)
On the plane home this weekend, I read through "Barrel Fever," a collection of humorous short stories and essays by David Sedairis. Sedairis is probably best known for his off-beat contributions to the public radio show "This American Life." Sedairis is a failed painter and performance artist who found his way into writing, which is his true calling.
He's got a new book out called "Me Talk Pretty One Day," which I believe is based on his experiences living in Paris with only rudimentary skills in French. I'm sure it's very funny, but I thought I'd read some of his other (less expensive) works before putting down $22.50 for the new hardback. So I found "Barrel Fever" at Half Price Books in Cincinnati.
Sedairis IS hilarious. Many of his stories involve dysfunctional families, and at some points I found it hard to breathe through my laughter. He includes an essay called "The Santaland Diaries", based on his part-time job as an elf at the Macy's Santaland in NYC. ("Santaland is also available as a paperback collection.) There are many different jobs done by the elves, most of them thankless and dreary. But Sedairis points out the humor in it all.
While most of the book was quite funny, there are some times when he takes things too far for my taste. Too crude, too vulgar, too much sex. So, I'm undecided about whether to pursue the new book. We'll see.
Russ
- Wednesday, September 13, 2000 at 11:35:28 (CDT)
My apologies. It's Sedaris, not Sedairis. Knew I should have written it down.
Russ
- Monday, September 18, 2000 at 10:01:23 (CDT)
The "This American Life" CD set "Liars, Sissies and Fiascos" contains some very funny audio of Sedaris performing his piece "The Drama Bug". This set is also quite good with some other non-Sedarian pieces including "Hands On a Hard Body" which is excerpted from the film audio before they found an outlet for it in film form.
Nathan
- Monday, September 18, 2000 at 11:42:14 (CDT)
test
test
- Friday, December 08, 2000 at 11:47:42 (CST)
The following is an excerpt from _Life_After_God_ by Douglas Coupland, author of _Generation_X_. I found it particularly moving:
"I peel my clothes and step into the pool beside the burbling stream, onto polished rockes, and water so clear that it seems it might not even be really there.
My skin is grey, from lack of sun, from lack of bathing. And yes, the water is so cold, this water that only yesterday was locked as ice up on the mountaintops. But the pain from the cold is a pain that does not matter to me. I strip my pants, my shirt, my tie, my underwear and they lie strewn on the gravel bar nest to my blanket.
And the water from the stream above me roars.
Oh, does it roar! Like a voice that knows only one message, one truth--never-ending, like a clapping of hands and the cheers of the citizens upon the coronation of the king, the crowds of the inauguration, cheering for hope and for that one voice that will speak to them.
Now--here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond able to love.
I walk deeper and deeper into the rushing water...The water enters my belly button and it freezes my chest, my arms, my neck. It reaches my mouth, my nose, my ears and the roar is so loud--this roar, this clapping of hands.
These hands--the hands that heal; the hands that hold; the hands we desire because they are better than desire.
I submerge myself in the pool completely. I grab my knees and I forget gravity and I float within the pool and yet, even here, I hear the roar of water, the roar of clapping hands.
These hands--the hands that care, the hands that mold; the hands that touch the lips, the lips that speak the words--the words that tell us we are whole."
Russell Bartholomee
- Sunday, January 07, 2001 at 13:25:19 (CST)
"Checking if your church got built by man
let's liquidate the physical and see what still stands
cuz if your church not built with hands
indivisible, one mind, invisible, that's right
i seen what you call the church getting chubby
in the waist, so if it ain't to your taste
have some peace, take some grace, but
let's get the innertube out religion's middle
where tradition reigns supreme &
the Spirit's second fiddle
these live their lives on nursing milk & chewing the cud
's why it's time for "eat my flesh & drink my blood
or you have no part in me," say that artfully
so these can depart from me if they cannot chart that,
see - i'm at the place where all the fakes can just fade
i live this - that's why i see thru the charade
why you try to bluff when every card gets played
you have the beautiful appearance of a whitewashed grave
build cathedrals to yourselves in your own honor
right at home in babylonna, these pious primadonnas
rich young rulers for priests & lawyers for scholars
still you can't contain my God with big books
or top dollar..."
--"Pumpfake" (part 1) by Soul-Junk
Russell Bartholomee
- Tuesday, January 09, 2001 at 13:30:57 (CST)
jcook,
This is really late, but I just read the 2 poems you posted back in September. I really like them both. You got skills.
R Bartholomee
- Tuesday, January 09, 2001 at 13:36:08 (CST)
Hey guys,
There's a very good story in the February 2001 issue of Texas Monthly titled "Love And War In Cyberspace" (http://www.texasmonthly.com/mag/issues/2001-02-01/feature2.php).
The main story is about a unique community in Houston called "Walden". This is an apartment complex that caters to the computer addicted, as each apartment is equipped with a hookup to the fastest internet connection in the world (well, at least in 1996-97) called the T-3 cable, AKA "the pipe".
What attracted my attention to this bizarre story is how it so accurately depicted the "traditional" manners (or, lack of manners) in internet communications, ie: chat rooms, e-mail lists, ICQ, and even (at one time or another) The Loser Page. You know what I'm talking about:
1) One joins a list or discussion of some type.
2) The honeymoon stage begins. All is well in discussion-about-nothing land.
3) Suddenly out of the blue, someone gets offended by somebody's typed words.
4) An all-out flame war erupts. Hopefully it dissipates somehow.
This story is certainly not about another flame war of some sort. The residents of Walden (ALL of them computer nerds to some degree; 90% of the Waldenites are male) are all connected to an ICQ specified to the apartment complex only. As offenses and wars erupt through the ICQ "misc" list, people's lives were getting PHYSICALLY involved (divorces, violence, evictions, even a suicide).
This is the first time I've read proof of extreme negativity coming from internet discussions. Obviously, very few people actually live in a physical community like Walden, but it does raise several questions in my mind:
How might the world create guidelines for internet list communications that could transcend ALL cultures? Should we just be on guard to 'police' ourselves? Should books be written and school classes be created on Internet Etiquette?
Wars, to some degree have happened one time or another on ALL lists that I've participated in. On the Chapman Stick list, someone always brings up a touchy subject related to some copyright law that the Chapmans went to court over 4 years ago against makers of a similar instrument. The WORST I've ever seen was a list called Church Bass. It is a list for bass players who often play in a worship setting. Sounds innocent, right? Well, if you want to start flame wars, get a bunch of religious Christians from different church backgrounds in a room (or chatroom) together and watch the 'fun'.
Thankfully, all of the "disagreements" on the Loser Page have not developed into anything serious. I credit that to everyone's friendship, faith, and all around maturity and intellect. I would really like to know everyone's viewpoint on the above subject and if you think it needs world wide attention.
Thanks for enduring this long post in one of the least popular posting sections.
Brian Baggett
- Tuesday, January 30, 2001 at 16:33:33 (CST)
I just read the article Brian spoke of (he included the URL). It's an interesting read.
I think that we police ourselves pretty well on these "pages". Certainly tempers have flared at times, but they flare in real life, too. When words are on the page or the screen and not spoken face-to-face, they lose some of the meaning we give them. And, sometimes, they pick up meanings we didn't intend.
Maybe the "Golden Rule" should apply to e-communication as well as to other parts of life. If there are arbitrary and unchangeable "rules", people will break them just to break them. But if people treat each other with a little respect and humanity, things should usually work thmeselves out. That's the general hope, anyway.
As Brian said, the geniune friendship and concern that we have "offline" helps things go smoothly online.
Russ
- Friday, February 09, 2001 at 15:19:58 (CST)
Brian, interesting article.
My only comments are that unlike the community in the article we have a foundation in our friendships that are deeper than our online community. Relationships have to have depth before they can develop and I'm not sure how much depth your average online community has. I would hesitate to call us an online community - Instead I would say that we are a community that is also online.
Nathan
- Sunday, February 11, 2001 at 17:16:44 (CST)
I had an interesting gig tonight.
My friend Ken Snow (sax player, HSU graduate) put the gig together so I didn't know what it was until I got there. Ken said bring your bass, Real Book and be at ACU's Shore Art gallery before 7pm.
It turned out to be the Black Tulip coffee house deal. As requested by one Dr. C. Willerton (Russ & Evan's dad) I even got a walking bass solo during his read of a poem called "Dog".
I can now go on record as the only musician to have gigged with every male Willerton in Abilene.
Brian Baggett
- Saturday, April 28, 2001 at 00:43:26 (CDT)
Lest anyone wander over here after reading recent posts to
the forum, we're talking MUSICAL gigs here.....
Sorry, I felt the need to clairfy that.
Carry on.
Russ
- Monday, April 30, 2001 at 10:04:58 (CDT)
Sorry Russ (& Ev). I didn't think that "gig" had any other meaning.
I was about to write "every Willerton" until I realised you had a mom & a sister.
giggin' boy Baggett
- Monday, April 30, 2001 at 12:01:58 (CDT)
gig (n.) gig
1. a light, two-wheeled one-horse carriage.
2. Naut. a light boat rowed with four, six, or eight long oars. a boat reserved for the use of the captain of a ship.
3. something that whirls.
4. Also called"gig mill."a roller containing teasels, used for raising nap on a fabric.
5. Obs. whirligig (def. 5).
6. to ride in a gig.
7. to raise the nap on (a fabric).
8. a device, commonly four hooks secured back to back, for dragging through a school of fish to hook them through the body.
9. a spearlike device with a long, thick handle, used for spearing fish and frogs.
10. to catch or spear (a fish or frog) with a gig.
11. to catch fish or frogs with a gig.
12. an official report of a minor infraction of regulations, as in school or the army; a demerit.
13. a punishment for a minor infraction of rules.
14. to give a gig to or punish with a gig.
15. a single professional engagement, usually of short duration, as of jazz or rock musicians.
16. any job, esp. one of short or uncertain duration: Example: a teaching gig out west somewhere.
17. to work as a musician, esp. in a single engagement: Example: He gigged with some of the biggest names in the business.
Nathan and Webster
- Monday, April 30, 2001 at 13:43:59 (CDT)
OK,
I actually played professional music engagements with Evan & Dr. Willerton.
Russ & I hunted frogs with spears.
Brian Baggett
- Monday, April 30, 2001 at 14:42:02 (CDT)
just so long as you didn't raise the nap on each other's fabric or go somewhere in a light, two wheeled one-horse carriage.
Nathan
- Monday, April 30, 2001 at 16:26:38 (CDT)
I hereby gig myself for gigging the word "gig". I confess that I tried to get jiggy with said gig, but failed.
Shame upon me.
PS--Brian's a really good shot with a spear; amphibians beware.
Russ
- Monday, April 30, 2001 at 16:59:12 (CDT)
The soft wolf tread
Thru Emerald Forest
He was lookin' to make a bed
There in the spindly thicket
Softly did he tread
The soft wolf tread
He sure was starved
And thru his silver coat
His ribs shown sharply carved
The hand that feeds was pickin' weeds
And he sure looked starved
Up comes Hood, he's beautiful
As a sirloin steak
To a pit bull chained up
It's good to see
Such and old friend again
The soft wolf said "Dear Hood...
What brings you to this neck of the woods?
In your scarlet cape and your basket full of grapes
What lures you into the woods?"
The soft wolf tread the clearing
And he's nervously tugging on his earring
He talked "How good, such and old friend again
Such an old friend again
Such an old friend again"
And then he spun a twisted tale
About a child who cried his name
So many times that even when he yelled
No one ever came
--"Soft Wolf Tread"
by Grant Lee Buffalo
Russell Bartholomee
- Thursday, May 03, 2001 at 12:18:05 (CDT)
This may be controversial, but, for my money, Shakespeare is a pretty good writer.
Jack Handy
- Friday, May 11, 2001 at 11:15:05 (CDT)
test
tester
- Monday, May 21, 2001 at 23:18:06 (CDT)
The other day on the KERA noon talkshow, Ben Stein was the guest. All I knew of him was that he was in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and that now he's on Comedy Central's "Win Ben Stein's Money". (He said they really do take money out of his paycheck if he loses.)
Actually, he's something of a Renaissance man. He's trained as an economist (like his dad) and a lawyer. He was voted valedictorian at Yale Law by fellow students. He wrote speeches for Nixon and Ford. He's taught for Pepperdine Law School. His break in "Bueller" came through a contact he made while talking about his idea for a sequel to "Rebel Without a Cause." He's written screenplays. He's written articles for everyone from _Brill's Content_ and _American Spectator_ to _Playboy_. (This is what they said on the radio.)
Maybe you knew all this, but I was surprised to find it out.
Russ W
- Monday, June 11, 2001 at 10:50:24 (CDT)
To follow up on Ben Stein:
I understand in addition to writing speeches, he also served as a member of an advisory team to a pres. or two. (Can't recall which ones)
Also, I actually taped the end credits of the win Ben Stein's money once, and Ben gets a set salery, and puts up a "bonus" each show, of which the winnings are taken out of. So it is his money, but maybe not so pressing. In any event, a hell of an idea.
Rob Eby
- Tuesday, June 12, 2001 at 08:29:44 (CDT)
I've long been a fan of Mr. Stein. He was on the stage at the close of the Republican National Convention, and I don't think that it was in a comedy central capacity. He was up there shaking hands with George and Laura, Gerald and Betty, and George and Bar.
Altogether a renaissance man.
Nathan
- Tuesday, June 12, 2001 at 09:04:28 (CDT)
Okay Russell,
I've been looking for some statement from neiman marcus to dispel this most enduring of urban legends for some time. I can't find it on their web-site. If you could track down the exact url you reference in your post I'd be much obliged.
I do remember hearing about this story in the early eighties.
Nathan
- Wednesday, June 13, 2001 at 08:52:50 (CDT)
Please disregard the above post. It is now in intake where it belongs.
Nathan
- Wednesday, June 13, 2001 at 08:55:27 (CDT)
Ben Stein: P.C.F.A.R.
pretty cool for a republican
lisa
lisa
- Thursday, June 14, 2001 at 12:08:06 (CDT)
Wow!
I hope I one day am labeled PCFAR.
(Though in one sense, I am pretty far from being PC ;) )
Rob Eby
- Friday, June 15, 2001 at 10:18:42 (CDT)
Russ-
Glad to hear that you appreciate the talent that is Francine Reed. It was indeed an honor to speak to her because she's one of those voices that blows me away.
She said that later this month she has another solo album coming out, so, I'm going to keep an eye out for that. I asked her when she planned to tour solo up my way and she laughed, "My record company is broke, so, I can't tour too far from home." That's too bad. I'd love to sit through an evening of her doing her thing.
In the encore, the background singers and Lyle did a gospel tune acappella that allowed each of them to take a solo turn. Amazing and moving is all I can say. It was worth the price of admission by itself.
Of course, Francine did her duet with Lyle, "What Do You Do", which led in to her solo performance of "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues."
Once again, people, don't miss this show.
b e blair
- Monday, July 16, 2001 at 19:21:52 (CDT)
I am the loser-friend of a loser-friend- the rippling effect of loserdom cannot be underestimated. In response to the post on Nietzsche: one can hardly go wrong with a good dose of F.N., provided he is chased down with a good dose of Soren Kierkegaard, just to make sure you do not find your belly in a state of spititual indigestion.
At any rate, this is indeed a superb book, but Zarathrustra -in its "flamboyant" style is much more powerful. F.N. is hard enough to understand. He is cryptic anyway. So to read his more cryptic works seems to bring you closer to knowing what he was trying to say. Perhaps the way that he tries to bring accross his points are as important as what he says if you want to try to understand F.N.
Just my opinion which, because I am only a loser-friend of a loser-friend (and like the clone of a clone may not bear much resemblance to the clone), may not account for much. Adieu.
F.N. +S.K. = O.K.
- Monday, August 06, 2001 at 11:26:07 (CDT)
Somehow, Robert got one of my CDs (I think Kim Moon bought it for him during my gig on homecoming weekend) and we've been in touch ever since. Here's the link to his newly formed theatre group in St. Louis:
http://www.mhtheatre.com/
He's used WARFARE as backing music to some scene changes.
Baggett
- Thursday, August 30, 2001 at 17:29:45 (CDT)
This was a poem read by Robert Hass on Fresh Air after Sep. 11. It speaks to me in the words I cannot find for myself. I post it here for all of you:
Were I not frail and half broken inside, I wouldn't be thinking of them who are like me, half broken inside. I would not climb the cemetery hill by the church to get rid of my self-pity. Crazy Sophies, Michaels who lose every battle, self-destructive Agathas lie under crosses with their dates of birth and death. And who is going to express them, their mumblings, weepings, hopes, tears of humiliation in hospital muck and the smell of urine with their weak and contorted limbs and eternity close by? Improper, indecent, like a dollhouse crushed by wheels, like an elephant trampling a beetle, an ocean drowning an island. Our stupidity and childishness do nothing to set us for the sobriety of last things. They had no time to grasp anything of their individual lives, any principium individuacionis(ph), nor do I grasp it. And what can I do, enclosed all my life in a nutshell, trying in vain to become something completely different from what I was? Thus, we go down into the earth, my fellow parishioners, with the hope that the trumpet of judgment will call us by our names. Instead of eternity, greenness and the movement of clouds, they rise then thousands of Sophies, Michaels, Matthews, Marias, Agathas, Bartholomews, so that at last they know why and for what reason.
Czeslaw Milosz
posted by lisa
- Tuesday, October 09, 2001 at 12:45:33 (CDT)
thanks Lisa.
Nathan
- Tuesday, October 09, 2001 at 17:04:42 (CDT)
EVAN IS GAY!
Stratcat
- Thursday, December 06, 2001 at 19:10:50 (CST)
Just kidding
NO
- Thursday, December 06, 2001 at 19:11:16 (CST)
Now we are EVEN !!!!
Essence of EBONY
- Thursday, December 06, 2001 at 19:13:39 (CST)
Forgive the person who wrote that, he obviously doesn't value his life.
Evan
- Thursday, December 06, 2001 at 19:21:48 (CST)
Evan's gay alright, gay like a fox.
Keith L.
- Friday, December 07, 2001 at 08:28:25 (CST)
Evan must have a secret lover...whoever wrote that, that is.
Wes M
- Friday, December 07, 2001 at 10:42:24 (CST)
I will always be a loser and there truly isn't anything I can do to change it and I truly have no wish to change it. I always wanted to be that cool guy in high school, the one every guy wants to be friends with and the one the girls fight over but my destiny was that of a man with few friends and no women. But I learned something in the three years I've been in the army and that is, being a loser is fine. The friends I had in high school are still my best friends and I beleive they always will be. The girls people decribe as perfect aren't looking for that cool guy but for a loser, a nerd because we don't go out of are way to impress everyone and we never put others down. A sergent I know from the army had a name for us "THE GOOD PEOPLE", the ones who are slim and few. I have always been called a loser but I have always been a winner in my freinds eyes as they also are to me. OH YEAH HALLOCK, NICE PICTURE! KEEP THIS TO YOURSELF! IT'S ME WHITTON. HI!
a loser for life but a winner non the less
- Saturday, December 22, 2001 at 07:13:12 (CST)
I came across this excerpt from Daniel Boorstin's book _The_Image_ when preparing for my capstone exams. I quote at some length:
"...Our expectations are extravagant in the precise dictionary sense of the word--'going beyond the limits of reason or moderation.' They are excessive.
When we pick up our newspaper at breakfast we expect--we even demand--that it bring us momentous events since the night before. We turn on the car radio as we drive to work and expect 'news' to have occurred since the morning newspaper went to press. Returning in the evening, we expect our house not only to shelter us, to keep us warm in winter and cool in summer, but to relax us, to dignify us, to encompass us with soft music and interesting hobbies, to be a playground, a theater, and a bar. We expect our two-week vacation to be romantic, exotic, cheap, and effortless. We expect a faraway atmosphere if we go to a nearby place; and we expect everything to be relaxing, sanitary, and Americanized if we go to a faraway place. We expect new heroes every season, a literary masterpiece every month, a dramatic spectacular every week, a rare sensation every night. We expect everybody to feel free to disagree, yet we expect everybody to be loyal, not to rock the boat or take the Fifth Amendment. We expect everybody to believe deeply in his religion, yet not think less of others for not believing. We expect our nation to be strong and great and vast and varied and prepared for every challenge; yet we expect our "national purpose" to be clear and simple, something that gives direction to the lives of [over] two hundred million people and yet can be bought in paperback at the corner drugstore for a dollar.
We expect anything and everything. We expect the contradictory and the impossible. We expect compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competitive. We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for 'excellence,' to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy. We expect to eat and stay thin, to be constantly on the move and ever more neighborly, to go to a 'church of our choice' and yet feel its guiding power over us, to revere God and to be God.
Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer..."
Talk amongst yourselves.
RB
- Monday, March 04, 2002 at 12:40:17 (CST)
Once again we demonstrate that Boorstin is one of the most profound thinkers in modern America.
Thanks, Russell
Nathan
- Monday, March 04, 2002 at 16:18:13 (CST)
I'll take Matt Calhoun over Boorstin any day.
Jay
- Tuesday, March 05, 2002 at 07:59:53 (CST)
Hmm. I've heard Boorstein say some interesting things, but that wasn't it.
In general his points may have merit, but when phrased within such aggrandizing speech it seems best left to the back cover of pulp fiction. (insert a few ALL CAPS and punctuation! and you'll have it.) Perhaps I would receive it better within its own context. I must respectfully disagree with Nathan. Cleverly crafted phrases does not make one profound.
lisa
- Tuesday, March 05, 2002 at 08:40:28 (CST)
LISA,
THAT'S BOORSTIN!!!!, NOT BOORSTEIN!!!!!!!
AND YOU COULDN'T BE MORE WRONGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Daniel J. Boorstin
- Tuesday, March 05, 2002 at 09:52:30 (CST)
You can put your borscht in my stein any day,
Danny-boy.
anonymous fan
- Tuesday, March 05, 2002 at 11:39:26 (CST)
I'm not really sure why my name was invoked in this context....
matt c.
- Tuesday, March 05, 2002 at 19:01:39 (CST)
Matt,
Jay just thinks you're a profound thinker. Of course, he drinks...
RB
- Tuesday, March 05, 2002 at 22:12:46 (CST)
Perhaps my praise is justified by the fact that I've read his work...
And I would posit that a carefully crafted phrase can demonstrably bring to light a profundity of thought and intellect. To wit I think you can argue that being a profound thinker is not so much evidenced by the thinking of profound thoughts as by the ability to express them intelligently. But then this point was amply argued by Mr. Boorstin in his work _The_Discoverers_, when he makes his point that discovery is not completed in the act of going or finding. It is instead fulfilled in the act of returning and reporting.
Nathan
- Tuesday, March 05, 2002 at 23:18:09 (CST)
Upon rereading the above it seems "a bit snippy." That was not intended. I have simply read many of Mr. Boorstin's volumes (evidenced by reviews above) and in general find his line of thought compelling and incredibly well reasoned.
Nathan
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 09:24:02 (CST)
i dunno that i don't agree with Lisa about the pulp fictionality of this guy's comments. he's got some interesting points to make, but some of his brilliant little aphorisms don't even make sense. i mean, come on. for example: "We expect...to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy." what exactly does that mean? who knows? but it sounds good. kinda.
i also think he's generalizing about America in a way that i find alarmingly simplistic. upper-middle-to-upperclass Americana (you know, apple pie, baseball games, 2.5 kids in the suburbs) seems to be the America he's speaking of, as i'm not ready to believe that the majority of his dichotomies have even occurred to the many citizens of this country who don't have the economic freedom and basic free time to sit around and worry whether the US is powerful or merciful enough, whether or not the latest literary offering is masterful enough, etc.
(i tried to make that sentence longer, but failed miserably. thank the powers that be.)
julie
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 11:13:05 (CST)
Julie (and Lisa),
I think you raise some valid points. I will say that, as Lisa pondered, the quote makes more sense in the context of the rest of the book (which I highly recommend). The quote in question is from the introduction; the author makes his case (quite well) in the following chapters. Especially enlightening is his analysis of the business of news reporting. I won't go into it here, but it makes you highly question the relevance and accuracy of the news you watch/read.
In reference to one specific question you raised, Julie:
""We expect...to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy." what exactly does that mean? who knows?"
What came to my mind as I read that was Bush campaigning as the education president. Didn't he actually say something like "Our children isn't reading good enough?" (I don't want to misquote the president here. But it was something like that).
That would be an illiterate appeal for literacy that many in this country applaud.
Russell B.
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 12:25:23 (CST)
I agree with Julie: the above excerpt only reflects mid-high income America. It doesn't fit with the high percentage of lower income people.
...but a decent excerpt none the less.
Baggett
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 13:39:27 (CST)
Perhaps it would help to remember that Boorstin published the above in 1962. His discussion and analysis of "pseudoevents" as he terms them have held up rather well in the ensuing forty years. He makes a few predictions that come out wrong, but a good number are almost prophetic.
For the sake of argument I would say that middle to upper class America is the America that matters. They are the ones who are decision makers, voters, property owners, elected officials, newsmakers, and even newswatchers. UNDERSTAND, I am not saying that this is good or just.
Nathan
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 14:02:06 (CST)
yes, i can see how a context would be helpful for understanding/making sense of the excerpt. i'm not familiar with Boorstin, so my impression is limited to that given by the selection alone.
nate, i disagree with you muchly about Middle America being the only America that matters. yes, they are often the only policy makers, simply because of economic factors. however, they aren't the only voters (and where they are, major vote reform is/should be taking place), the only newsmakers, nor the only newswatchers. note the huge increases in the hispanic vote over recent years...this reflects partially the rise of the hispanic middle class, but also a rise in the awareness of hispanic voters as to the difference their voice can make. this sort of thing is only increasing over time (and if it's not, it should be, and definitely should not be ignored as "not mattering.").
in my opinion, much of the time, the MEDIA adopts the generalization that i disagreed with in Boorstin's quotation, and chooses to ignore positive news/actions/etc. that involves people that don't fit the mold.
(a f'rinstance...every year here in austin, there's a march held at the capitol protesting the death penalty. there may or may not be a tiny mention of this in the paper. and if there is, it's not on the front page, nor even the front page of the "metro and state" section. the protesters are generally a minority of (newsmaking) white upper-middle class liberals, but composed primarily of people of color of all sorts of races/economic classes. one would think in texas, austin especially, this would be a hugely newsworthy event. not so in actuality, for some reason.)
julie
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 14:21:27 (CST)
Julie,
Actually, the death penalty protest you mentioned not being newsworthy is pretty much exactly Boorstin's point in the book. He argues that a majority of front page or top of the hour news is comprised of pseudo-events. The front page might have a 5 column fluff piece something like "The President considers the possibility of future summit meeting with China." In other words, nothing has happened, so we speculate for 5 columns that something might happen. A real protest that might have real meaning or generate intelligent discussion -- but that will not sell papers -- is buried.
Russell B.
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 16:10:29 (CST)
that is interesting, russell. it's amazing how stuff like this goes on all the time and is non-reported by the major media. kinda depressing, actually, when you really stop and think about it. things like this are why i refused to even bother with thinking about politics at all until recently. and then i went and began noticing...and it all just makes me feel so disillusioned.
oops...if i don't stop now i'll bring the discussion down to my level. i just got back from a disappointing visit to the municipal court building, where i found out i DO indeed have to pay $$$$ in old parking violation tickets that i thought i'd taken care of a year ago. *sigh* so i'm kinda feeling downtrodden and broke.
on another note, anyone read Chomsky's _911_ yet? i just got a copy, haven't read it yet, wonder what sort of things people thought/have heard about it...?
julie
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 16:22:40 (CST)
Julie,
You have exactly proved the point that I was making. A march with citizens expressing their views doesn't get coverage, but a carefully controlled press conference by those in power does.
As to the response on voters, ideally that shouldn't be class based, but I would bet you two dozen Krispy Kream doughnuts (delivered to San Antonio - hot) that statistically a much higher percentage of the middle to upper classes vote as compared with lower classes.
I think this would be a good book for us all to read reflect on and discuss. Any takers?
Nathan
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 16:30:46 (CST)
Nate, why would i want Krispy Kremes that were delivered hot to san antonio?
from what i understand, voter turnout in the lower to middle classes is improving greatly all the time...but maybe i'm just repeating my mistakes from the first nader rally i attended...letting the excitement make me more optimistic than is warranted...
anyhow, i'm about to delve into _911,_ i'd love to read, reflect and discuss.
julie
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 18:35:20 (CST)
Nathan,
Since I have to read, reflect and be prepared to discuss Boorstin's book at great length in upcoming exams, I would be happy to be included in a discussion in this forum.
I'm glad the posting of that excerpt proved to be discussion-generating. That was the point. And I have enjoyed everyone's comment thus far. Except for the borscht in stein thing. That was just kind of icky. Maybe there are other portions of the excerpt (besides "illiterate pleas for literacy") that we could kick around. I am especially interested in this group's take on the following:
"We expect everybody to feel free to disagree, yet we expect everybody to be loyal, not to rock the boat or take the Fifth Amendment. We expect everybody to believe deeply in his religion, yet not think less of others for not believing."
Especially in light of the past year's events.
Russell B.
- Wednesday, March 06, 2002 at 21:43:34 (CST)
"Deep Thoughts"...with Brian Baggett
You know, I'd really like to spend my spare time writing sit-coms for network television. I'm probably not a very good writer, but I thought my first project titled "The Boy, his Bear, and a Gigolo" (which would be a spin-off from Spielberg & Kubrick's A.I.) could go something like this:
BOY: "All I want to do is find my Mommy"
GIGOLO: "Don't worry kid. Stick with me. I can find your Mommy. Because sooner or later ALL women find ME...and I KNOW WOMEN"
BEAR: "Be careful...I could break"
I think that would be pretty funny.
BB
- Monday, March 11, 2002 at 08:44:40 (CST)
More sit-com ideas...
A few years ago I had another idea for a sit-com. My friend Larry Killian (whom many of you know) was living in a halfway-house called the "180 House". Larry met these 3 friends there and they all decided to become roommates and rent a place together. Oh man...
One of Larry's roommates was this 20 something year old woman named "Bambi" or "Tootsie" or something like that who was trying to get off drugs and had spent much of her time as a dancer at some club. Then there was a 20-30 year old guy who was halfway retarded, but could function pretty well in society, as long as he had fried chicken on Friday nights and pizza on Saturday nights. Then there was this older guy (45-50?) who seemed like the only one who had his act together...until he went nut-zoid on everyone one evening and they had to throw him out of the house. I'm not making any of this up.
I thought of embellishing on these characters and placing them on a dairy farm - you know, a place where they were learning skills in order to get back into society. I'd call it "Little Halfway House on the Dairy".
I think that would be pretty funny.
Baggett
- Monday, March 11, 2002 at 09:28:19 (CST)
Baggett --
Go for it! I'm laughing at just the previews!
Scott
- Monday, March 11, 2002 at 11:06:41 (CST)
Brian,
I think you should go for it. At least you could come up with some good short stories or something. It also sounds like good material for an avant-garde rock "concept" album.
Russ W
- Monday, March 11, 2002 at 11:08:17 (CST)
Or,
You could do a suite for the stick a la Sans-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals" or Tchaik's "Peter and the Wolf". OR, of Giles Giles & Fripp's "The Saga of Rodney Toady."
Russ W
- Monday, March 11, 2002 at 11:10:46 (CST)
Before I die, I plan to create a sit-com based on my experiences at Isaiah 58 Ministries. Since Jesus and "ministry" are usually subjects (and words) avoided at all costs by network executives, I may have to take a neutral stance on this subject. Perhaps the setting could be just a general "homeless shelter", or worse...a government agency. The purpose of the series would NOT be to poke fun at the poor, but rather to raise awareness of the reality of poverty with a real tongue-in-cheek wackiness. Much like "Taxi".
The characters would all be based on real-life people I've known. There would, of course, be the main characters, then a steady revolving door of "minor" characters much like it is here at IS 58. The minor characters are what keep the audience coming back.
They would be as follows: (main characters)
ANDY SANCHEZ: (based on myself and several co-workers) race: Hispanic. Andy is the neutral-focal point of the series which most (but not all) of the story lines bounce off from - much like Judd Hirch's character on "Taxi" (hey, who didn't like that show?). He is divorced, in his mid 30's, relates to street people very well due to his childhood as he was raised by a single mom in poverty. He becomes like a loving "father-figure" to most of his "clients" - although sometimes he'd rather kick all of their butts.
BERTINA CAMPBELL: (based on some of my co-workers) race: black or white. An overweight, muumuu wearing, mothering office keeper whose head stays in the clouds and always thinks "everything is just fine" even when her own world is falling apart. She is married to a wise cracking, self-employed lawn care worker.
MS. GRETTA FINCH: (based on several of my volunteers) race: white. A widowed senior citizen who spends her time volunteering at the "shelter". She is a loving person, yet at first she has a difficult time relating to the "clients" since she worked hard all of her life and grew up in the depression. She's equipped with a southern (Georgian) drawl and always delivering some half-witted Southern aphorism (ex: "Back home in Valdosta they use to say when you'd die before you go to heaven you have to stop in Atlanta"). Wacky. Imagine that red-haired waitress in Mel's Diner on "Alice".
MR. STAN REEVES: (based on some of the 'powers-that-be') race: white. A tie & jacket wearing board member who ultimately has a caring heart for the poor, but is so removed from them that his decisions do not always reflect the overall mission of the shelter. He can usually be a class-act jerk, but not 100% of the time.
BILLY RAY BRAZELL: (based on a real guy by the same name, but who never actually worked with me) race: black. An elderly thin man with a lot of character and a punch line for everything Bertina does. He volunteers at the shelter and usually does fix-it maintenance.
(minor characters)
ADOLPHO MUSOLINI, JR. (based on an overweight homeless Mexican guy named Maximo) race: Italian decent. This 300 pound, bulldog-looking, intimidating demeanor of a human has lived on the streets of this fictional city for over 20 years. Adolpho believes it is everyone's duty to hlp him because he's homeless. The whole town knows him, especially law enforcement and jailers. He's a comedian within his circumstances - referring to collecting cans as "his business" that he's the CEO of, etc. Deep down this guy is a big sentimental cream-puff.
JIM DREW: (based on one of the many transients I worked with named David "Super Dave" Prue). Race: white. Jim doesn't speak much. Yet this tall, thin Viet Nam vet has many quirks (or perhaps a catch-phrase) that make him memorable. (ie: whenever he tells a story of significant unimportance, he always gets up and swiftly walks away after the climax of the story is delivered - you just have to witness this. It's funny).
SONNY "REV" HANCOCK: (based on a couple of guys I know) race: any. Rev is a drunken street preacher. Enough said.
Somebody take this idea and go for it. Maybe we can split the royalties. I still don't know what to name it.
Baggett
- Monday, March 11, 2002 at 11:41:45 (CST)
Baggett,
My cousin Jeff Martin (who wrote for Letterman and the Simpsons, created the Baby Blues tv cartoon, and gave Drew Carey his first tv job, and whose wife used to produce Frasier) currently develops new sitcoms for Disney. He and his wife have a show on the air on the WB right now called Maybe It's Me. Anyway, he might be interested in something like that. I could put you in touch if you want.
Russell B.
- Monday, March 11, 2002 at 16:24:47 (CST)
And you should call the show "The Least of These."
RB
- Monday, March 11, 2002 at 16:25:44 (CST)
Brian,
I want to tell you how cool your idea is. I think you really are on to a great idea.
Nathan
- Tuesday, March 12, 2002 at 08:25:35 (CST)
Guys, Thanks for the encouragement.
I've never took a serious stab at writing anything fictional. So any 'pointers' (Willerton?, Blair?) would help.
The above posts are actually just a bunch of thoughts I slammed down a couple of nights ago. Maybe I'll put more thought and 'professionalism' into it, then look up your cousin, Russell. What do I have to lose? I can always stick to my day job.
Baggett
- Tuesday, March 12, 2002 at 11:19:14 (CST)
Peter sent me the below article. in some ways it fits our group (and others we're a part of) and in some ways it doesn't.
***************
In My Tribe;
October 14, 2001
By ETHAN WATTERS
It may be true that 'never marrieds' are saving themselves for something better. They may also be saving the institution of marriage while they're at it.
You may be like me: between the ages of 25 and 39,
single, a college-educated city dweller. If so, you may have also had the unpleasant experience of discovering that you have been identified (by the U.S. Census Bureau, no less) as one of the fastest-growing groups in America -- the ''never marrieds.'' In less than 30 years, the number of never-marrieds has more than doubled, apparently pushing back the median age of marriage to the oldest it has been in our country's history -- about 25 years for women
and 27 for men.
As if the connotation of ''never married'' weren't negative
enough, the vilification of our group has been swift and
shrill. These statistics prove a ''titanic loss of family
values,'' according to The Washington Times. An article in
Time magazine asked whether ''picky'' women were
''denying themselves and society the benefits of marriage'' and
in the process kicking off ''an outbreak of 'Sex and the City'
promiscuity.'' In a study on marriage conducted at Rutgers
University, researchers say the ''social glue'' of the
family is at stake, adding ominously that ''crime rates .
are highly correlated with a large percentage of unmarried young males.''
Although I never planned it, I can tell you how I became a
never-married. Thirteen years ago, I moved to San
Francisco for what I assumed was a brief transition period
between college and marriage. The problem was, I wasn't just
looking for an appropriate spouse. To use the language
of the Rutgers researchers, I was ''soul-mate searching.''
Like 94 percent of never-marrieds from 20 to 29, I, too,
agree with the statement ''When you marry, you want
your spouse to be your soul mate first and foremost.'' This
über-romantic view is something new. In a 1965 survey,
fully three out of four college women said they'd marry a
man they didn't love if he fit their criteria in every
other way. I discovered along with my friends that
finding that soul mate wasn't easy. Girlfriends came and went,
as did jobs and apartments. The constant in my life -- by
default, not by plan -- became a loose group of friends.
After a few years, that group's membership and routines
began to solidify. We met weekly for dinner at a
neighborhood restaurant. We traveled together, moved
one another's furniture, painted one another's apartments,
cheered one another on at sporting events and open-mike
nights. One day I discovered that the transition period I
thought I was living wasn't a transition period at all. Something real and important had grown there. I belonged to
an urban tribe.
I use the word ''tribe'' quite literally here: this is a tight group, with unspoken roles and hierarchies, whose members think of each other as ''us'' and the rest of the world as ''them.'' This bond is clearest in times of trouble. After earthquakes (or the recent terrorist
strikes), my instinct to huddle with and protect my
group is no different from what I'd feel for my family.
Once I identified this in my own life, I began to see
tribes everywhere I looked: a house of ex-sorority
women in Philadelphia, a team of ultimate-frisbee players in
Boston and groups of musicians in Austin, Tex. Cities, I've
come to believe, aren't emotional wastelands where fragile
individuals with arrested development mope around
self-indulgently searching for true love. There are rich
landscapes filled with urban tribes.
So what does it mean that we've quietly added the tribe
years as a developmental stage to adulthood? Because
our friends in the tribe hold us responsible for our actions, I
doubt it will mean a wild swing toward promiscuity or
crime. Tribal behavior does not prove a loss of ''family
values.'' It is a fresh expression of them.
It is true, though, that marriage and the tribe are at
odds. As many ex-girlfriends will ruefully tell you,
loyalty to the tribe can wreak havoc on romantic
relationships. Not surprisingly, marriage usually
signals the beginning of the end of tribal membership. From
inside the group, marriage can seem like a risky gambit. When
members of our tribe choose to get married, the rest
of us talk about them with grave concern, as if they've
joined a religion that requires them to live in a guarded
compound.
But we also know that the urban tribe can't exist forever.
Those of us who have entered our mid-30's find
ourselves feeling vaguely as if we're living in the latter
episodes of ''Seinfeld'' or ''Friends,'' as if the plot lines
of our lives have begun to wear thin.
So, although tribe membership may delay marriage, that
is where most of us are still heading. And it turns out
there may be some good news when we get there. Divorce rates
have leveled off. Tim Heaton, a sociologist at Brigham
Young University, says he believes he knows why. In a paper
to be published next year, he argues that it is because
people are getting married later.
Could it be that we who have been biding our time in
happy tribes are now actually grown up enough to understand
what we need in a mate? What a fantastic twist -- we
''never marrieds'' may end up revitalizing the very institution
we've supposedly been undermining.
And there's another dynamic worth considering. Those
of us who find it so hard to leave our tribes will not choose
marriage blithely, as if it is the inevitable next step in
our lives, the way middle-class high-school kids
choose college. When we go to the altar, we will be
sacrificing something precious. In that sacrifice, we may begin to
learn to treat our marriages with the reverence they need
to survive.
Ethan Watters is a writer living in San
Francisco.
Nathan
- Monday, March 18, 2002 at 14:09:43 (CST)
Brian,
Another resource for you might be Jack Boyd (of ACU music appreciation fame). He got his stories about "Cedar Gap" (basically Abilene) published. He also wrote that musical with Dr. George based on Cedar Gap. While you might not want to publish or write a musical, he could give you some ideas.
Russ W
- Monday, March 18, 2002 at 17:18:25 (CST)
Nathan,
I found that article to be quite fascinating. This has an impact on society and "how things are done" in a big way. Think about what this means for Singles Ministries at churches, for marketing and advertising, maybe even publishing a magazine geared strictly toward this segment of society. Just interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Scott
- Wednesday, March 20, 2002 at 13:25:01 (CST)
Thanks for the advice Russ. Unfortunately, I've never had too much respect for Jack Boyd. I always found him slightly arrogant - as evident in this March '99 AR-N letter to the editor about a 12 year old violin soloist with the Abilene Philharmonic : http://www.reporternews.com/1999/opinion/letters0302.html
About 5 people including myself wrote back in rebuke. Therefore (regretably) I may have "burned a bridge".
...come to think of it, I've never had ANY bridges toward Jack Boyd.
Baggett
- Wednesday, March 20, 2002 at 15:15:37 (CST)
Baggett,
That's a pretty harsh letter Boyd wrote. I never met the man, but his words make him sound awfully stuck up. He and Wynton Marsalis should get together and go bowling.
RB
- Wednesday, March 20, 2002 at 16:37:36 (CST)
Well, that's quite a letter from Jack Boyd. I hadn't seen it before. (There's a letter from Ed George earlier on that same page.) I never said he wasn't opinionated; should we expect any less from someone who taught music appreciation for years and years?
I can see how that letter would leave a bad impression. But I was fortunate to have good interactions with him. I recorded a few installments of his "Encore" music apprec. program that used to run for a bit on KACU. I don't know that he would hold a grudge over a letter from 3 years ago, but who knows.
Anyway, for your project, I like the idea of some kind of spoken-word/instrumental music combo; very theatrical and avant-garde. But that's just me.
Russ W
- Wednesday, March 20, 2002 at 21:22:42 (CST)
oh yea...
Then there was the time J. Boyd said I looked like a 'bag lady' on the air at KACU during a pledge drive back in '93. True.
I've forgiven him for it. I just don't trust him.
Bag lady, err, Baggett
- Thursday, March 21, 2002 at 10:15:54 (CST)
Brian,
Well, the legend of Jack Boyd continues to grow. I don't know what to say to that last one.
And, I take back what I said about an avant garde music-spoken word piece. It's your idea, and you have stories that you want to tell. Focus on the stories and the rest will figure itself out.
To start, I guess you could write one of the stories from your point of view, without changing any names, and then go back and see what you think of it. Maybe later on you could write it from a particular character's point of view.
Russ W
- Thursday, March 21, 2002 at 17:32:57 (CST)
For you parents out there who have sons (Jay, Russell B.), my husband would like to recommend "Raising Boys," by Dr. James Dobson. I've read some of it and it has a lot of good information in it, specifically how we have to realize that boys and girls are different biologically and emotionally, and we have to recognize those differences in order to understand why little boys do the things they do.
I haven't read the entire book yet, so I'm not sure what I think of it yet. And there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of love for Dr. Dobson in this group, so do with this information what you will. As I said, Jeff felt it was a good parenting resource.
Mariah
- Wednesday, March 27, 2002 at 09:54:22 (CST)
Mariah,
For Jay's sake, I will offer as minor correction. It's called "Bringing Up Boys." I got it as a Christmas present from my wife, but I have not read it yet. When I finish my classes this spring, that's the first one I'll read. I'll let you know what I think.
RB
- Wednesday, March 27, 2002 at 10:30:23 (CST)
RB,
Your're right. Sorry about that. When I typed that, I knew it didn't seem right, but I didn't have the book in front of me. Thanks!
Mariah
- Thursday, March 28, 2002 at 08:55:51 (CST)
the book mentioned might be valuable, but i have no respect for Dobson at all. in fact, a few years ago the co founders of dobson's focus on the family bit publicly apologized for having ever been involved, proclaiming the original mission had been hijacked into hate mongering, and grown so devisive as to be unchristian, and declared dobson totally without integrity. at some point, this guy said, dobson lost it and the ends justify, etc., to the point his old buddy was unrecognizable. i cant remember the dude's name, but it circulated the globe and left dobson et al scrambling. i can probably run that info down if someone (please dont) calls me on the source. this would have been in 1997, my 15th semester at acu. not dissin the book; maybe good fruit can fall from ill trees.
cookie
- Friday, March 29, 2002 at 01:23:09 (CST)
cookie,
I'll take your word for it on DObson. I know nothing at all about the man. And I nothing about the book, except that I got it as a present. I do intend to read it; I'll let you know if it seems to fit the description you read about.
RB
- Saturday, March 30, 2002 at 23:04:19 (CST)
cookie,
Don't know if this is what you are refering to, but came across this on a Google search:
Gil Alexander-Moegerle, James Dobson's War on America, 1987, p. 42.
This is actually a citation in a paper on a site.
According to the article on the site, this guy was some sort of high ranking dude in Focus on the Family, but got upset and left.
The website is www.elroy.net/ehr/focus.html
I seem to remember reading an early (1980's) Dobson devo type book, and being mildly impressed with it, but I haven't read anything of his lately.
RB --
I suppose the best advice I ever heard was that every new parent should read a dog training handbook first. The 3 keys are immediate response to a wrong action, have their attention before you discipline them, and "hit" them just hard enough to get their attention, remembering that it is never too early to start training them.
rob eby
- Wednesday, May 29, 2002 at 14:14:20 (CDT)
Rob,
Thanks for the ffod for thought. I would edit the last line just a hair. There's no such thing as "spoiling" a baby up to 6 months old. They are incapable of doing anything that needs correction until they can crawl/roll to stuff. Even then, the only discipline that makes sense is prevention of harm. In other words, no hitting, unless they're trying to suck on the outlet. When Ian was about 12 months, he bagan to do things wrong on purpose. That's when we started correcting. I wouldn't suggest that 12 months is universal, but it was right with him, and he's a very obedient boy. Anyway, I guess it can be too early to train them. But you should start AS SOON as it is feasible.
RB
- Friday, May 31, 2002 at 17:36:15 (CDT)
like an infinite ache
like some long sorrowful note now long
forgotten:
the memory of a woman
i never knew.
but how i knew her.
knew like a nocturnal flower knows
to close at dusk, knew like the wind
to send through the woods howling,
scattering seeds like a sheet
ruffled and spread out new each spring.
how a man knows what knowledge
cannot know. how a man yearns
where yearning cannot rest, like
the flailing arms of a drowning man
forever trapped in Nietzsche's infinite return.
like an infinite ache
the memory of a woman i never knew
and the heap of myself blowing through her leaves.
f9f0
- Thursday, November 07, 2002 at 03:44:37 (CST)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter #5)
Is now "for sale" in a pre-order form on all the online book sites, and is scheduled for release on June 21. The Barnes and Nobles site has some excerpts, if you care. The new book is over 250,000 words, compared to 190,000 for Goblet of Fire.
Rob Eby
- Friday, January 24, 2003 at 09:22:17 (CST)
not to mention, amazon.co.uk is offering it for half-price, which plus their cheapest shipping isn't really that much for the cool UK version...and i think amazon.com is offering at least some of a discount(it's probably what, a $25 book? and for $18, that's not bad!).
julie
- Saturday, January 25, 2003 at 13:28:32 (CST)
hey history / civ / war buffs:
RESISTANCE, REBELLION, AND DEATH, by albert camus (translated by justin o'brien) is terrific. chosen by the author the year before his death, the book is comprised of 23 pieces concerning everything political.
i am particularly impressed with the first section entitled LETTERS TO A GERMAN FRIEND that analyzes the french reaction to wwII. it catalogues the french (and european) hesitancy to take up arms to their ultimate confidence and strong perserverance toward assured victory. the letter is written to a former german friend who, in the vain of nietzsche, proclaims camus unfaithful to their shared disbelief in any ultimate aim of humanity, therefore unfaithful to the grandour that could be europe by force. these letters are the best example of purely humanist (and oh so purely french in a deightful way) logic for justice and ethical standards ive come across. written as letters, the prose are familiar and easy to read, the logic compelling, and the tone sincere. in places reminded me of LIVING IN TRUTH by havel, only more philosophical, poetic, etc.
"with hopeless hope we became more patient than the executioners, more numerous than the bullets. . . ."
first letter:
"What your victory could not penetrate, your defeat will bring to an end. But at least, before we become indifferent to each other, I want to leave you a clear idea of what neither peace nor war has taught you to see in the destiny of my country. . . .For it is not much to be able to do violence when you have been preparing for it for years and when violence is more natural to you than thinking."
second letter:
"For three years you have brought night to our towns and to our hearts. For three years we have been developing in the dark the thought which now emerges fully armed to face you."
third (dodging the german accusation that camus was falling back on "the age-old propoganda", firmly rooting himself in humanist waters):
"I shall not fall back on the Christian tradition. . . .you. . .posing as defenders of Rome, you were not afraid to give Christ the kind of publicity he began to be so accustomed to the day he received the kiss that marked him for torture."
fourth (july 44) begins:
"Now the moment of your defeat is approaching. I am writing you from a city known throughout the world which is now preparing against you a celebration of freedom."
(and ends):
"Because you scorned such faith in mankind, you are the men who, by the thousands, are going to die soliatry. Now I can say farewell to you."
good stuff.
jlc
- Wednesday, January 29, 2003 at 00:27:12 (CST)
This is a great piece that Newsweek ran a couple of weeks ago. It's Anna Quindlen, on the current climate towards free speech. I know she tends to be way out on the liberal side of things, but I think she's got a great take on this one.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/899483.asp
Russ W
- Wednesday, April 30, 2003 at 14:26:14 (CDT)
Read the article. I find it interesting that people think "free speech" means that there can't be repercussions for what is freely said. If a businessman says he hates minorities, the repercussion is that we all stop supporting his business and it closes down. He is free to say it but it doesn't mean that people are not free to react to it. That would also be the end of free speech.
Whether or not one agrees with the war, you can't use a backlash of people not supporting those who oppose it as oppressive of free speech. It is democracy in action.
I STILL don't know what I think about this war and have struggled the whole time with the issues. But I find it funny that those who oppose it and get their movies boycotted or their CD's not purchased, etc. claim that their free speech is violated. It is not. Boycotting IS free speech in action.
OK. I'll get off my soapbox and go home!
Scott F.
- Wednesday, April 30, 2003 at 17:18:11 (CDT)
scott, excellent. the freedom of speech is protected against encroachments of the government. if the government did not censor what happened, then their freedoms were not violated. amazing how little people actually know about our government, our freedoms, etc.
jlc
- Friday, May 30, 2003 at 09:56:54 (CDT)
waltman, what was the name of that pocket-book of merton's? any interest in reviewing it here?
jlc
- Tuesday, June 03, 2003 at 22:00:51 (CDT)
I'm sure that I'm not the only Harry Potter enthusiast on the loserpage; I have now read through the latest installment, and I love it! It's everything that one might expect: great characterizations, unexpected plot twists, a suspenseful buildup to the conclusion.... Rowling continues to impress....
matt c.
- Sunday, June 22, 2003 at 14:21:53 (CDT)
how long did it take you, matt? i noticed it's only a chapter longer, but it's the same *size* as the 4th, and in 11.5 font, rather than 12 point! anyhow, i've been informed that my has been "dispatched" from amazon.co.uk, so i'm not sure when it'll get here. dangit.
i may have to weaken and slink to book people to get the american version (which i'll need anyway, to complete my bookshelf, right? see? i NEED it! now!).
julie
- Monday, June 23, 2003 at 08:46:22 (CDT)
Hey Julie,
I swallowed it whole in about 8 hours. It's pretty long, but the prose is smooth, so it went by quicly. So why did you order the brit version rather than the American; are they that different?
matt c.
- Monday, June 23, 2003 at 13:48:53 (CDT)
it's peter's fault. he brought me the first three in brit hardback way back when...and i'd already gotten myself the american versions. and then i had to get the 4th in both versions. and so on...
no, they're not different in the least other than spectacularly different design and the occasional "lorry" vs. "truck" and "jumper" vs. "sweater." my favorite difference: the american kids exclaim "COOL!" or "AWESOME!" when something excites them. the brits exclaim "BRILLIANT!" and "LOVELY!"
and also, since i was preordering so long ago, ordering from amazon.co.uk was way cheaper, even with postage than even the discounts amazon.com was giving.
now i'm regretting not having preordered from the US, though. i did get to hold a copy for a bit yesterday, but it didn't assuage the hunger.
julie
- Monday, June 23, 2003 at 15:23:25 (CDT)
Okay, I've now re-read the latest Harry Potter novel. (I'm truly living up to my "loser" moniker.) I think I've decided what "literary" fantasy novels are good for: they inspire susceptible readers toward a set of values which have largely become alien in our contemporary society: nobility. Not the sneering, superior arrogance associated with blue-bloodedness, but decency, dignity, "pride" in the good sense, doing "what is right instead of what is easy" (to quote the fourth novel in the series). This is what I've always taken away from reading and re-reading Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, and Lewis' Space Trilogy and Narnia series, and King's and Straub's Talisman and Black House. Even if such values are not specifically invoked as "Christian," the heroism of ordinary people stretching and growing and suffering toward extraordinary acts of kindness and dignity.
I've also decided that although I love the HP novel, it has produced some strong feelings of depression in me, especially after the second time through the book. Harry experiences a nasty trauma in the story, and I found myself affected by it. Well, not so much by the trauma itself, but by the skill with which Rowling penetrates the irrationally selfish rage which snaps to life in the wake of such things. Somehow the story managed to scrape the surface off some old scars of my own and forced me to reassess how well, which is to say, how maturely, I've dealt with my own crap, traumas I've suffered as well as those I've caused. It's been a peculiar few days for me as I've tried to wrap my mind around why I should be so affected. Not especially pleasant.
Well, that's the mark of a good book, or of good music, or of good anything: even if it doesn't make us "feel good," it changes us somehow, or it shows us, if even for an instant, "something better."
matt c.
- Tuesday, June 24, 2003 at 12:13:45 (CDT)
Well said, Matt. Thank you.
Russ W
- Tuesday, June 24, 2003 at 14:04:22 (CDT)
I say old chap, I do believe you've hit on something. Shall we call it "catharsis?"
bob
- Tuesday, June 24, 2003 at 14:44:09 (CDT)
*man* i hope my copy's sitting in my mailbox when i get home today. nice work, matt.
julie
- Tuesday, June 24, 2003 at 16:45:24 (CDT)
Thanks for the kind words. I thought as I was writing them that they might sound a little silly, and I wondered how my fellow loserfriend consumers of fantasy fiction might respond.
Bob, "catharsis" might just be what I experienced, although I hesitate to use such a high-falutin' label for a fantasy novel.... The story in question does have "tragic" elements, and Rowling beckons us into both witnessing and sharing in Harry's painful experience. But when anyone says "catharsis" in reference to a modern work of literature (textual, musical, visual, etc.), someone like Stephen Spielberg, with his graceless grasping at his audience's tears as he beats them over the head with his message hammer, springs to mind.
"Catharsis" reminds me of something else too: Nietzsche, in his essay "The Antichrist," says that Greeks had the right idea about feelings of pity and empathy: that they are dangerous and best gotten rid of with a "purgative" (which, in Greek, is "catharsis"). The audience burned off these dangerous feelings while watching ancient tragedy. I don't really know where I'm going with this line of thought. Guess I'll sign off for now.
matt c.
- Tuesday, June 24, 2003 at 21:29:23 (CDT)
If you're looking for used books online, I've had good luck with Amazon's "Marketplace" for used books, half.com, and alibris.com.
I boycotted Amazon for a long time because they really screwed up an order I had, but I got over it when I started needing more books and not having lots of money to buy them. Alibris sells a fair amount of books via Amazon's marketplace.
Sorry if I'm telling you something you already knew.
Russ W
- Thursday, June 26, 2003 at 14:17:38 (CDT)
JUST FINISHED! holy cow! cathartic is right! but no more comments now. gotta gig i gotta be at in an hour and i haven't done ANYTHING all day but read HP V on the porch...how worthless i am! heh.
will post actual thoughts on the matter later.
julie
- Saturday, June 28, 2003 at 20:42:14 (CDT)
HARRY POTTER SPOILERS AHEAD, READ AT YOUR OWN PERIL!!!!
...you have been warned! turn back now or forever hold your peace!...
JULIE'S HP THOUGHTS:
in short, i LOVED IT!!! HPatOotP is the most well-written, most well-characterized of the series so far. i'm quite impressed with rowling's ability to bump each book up a reading level as harry gets older. and i wish they'd book on getting those movies made (that may be a pipe dream, i know), because i simply adore the actors who play ron and hermione, and i really really really want them to continue in the movies the way they have in my imagination! about the "significant death": i was a little frustrated at the fact that sirius seemed to have been built up just to be knocked down...i didn't feel ENOUGH for him...although that could just be me not caring for the character, not a problem with rowling. i was entranced and annoyed by the series of false alarms..hagrid...hermione...ron...and i do feel that the death of one of those characters would have touched me more, however, i can't imagine the series without any one of those three, so it's all good. i know intellectually that sirius is supposed to be harry's only real father figure (not his only male role model, however), and that the blow to harry was staggering. i just wasn't convinced, emotionally.
HOWEVER, i can't wait to have time to read it all again, b/c i whizzed through in short order, and i'm sure i missed things or just haven't gotten to digest properly. definitely calls for a leisurely re-read. the cathartic bit (that matt was talking about) didn't hit me as much as it did matt, but there at the end i was inhaling the book, and the last four chapters, especially, are what i want to peruse at a much slower pace.
julie
- Tuesday, July 01, 2003 at 11:41:35 (CDT)
chicago, i have a favor to ask and think it would benefit everyone. as you know, i hope to enroll in graduate new testament studies next fall. what books would you recommend i read in the next 12 months? i am thinking of a number of categories, like a) books i will have to read as they are standard first year books, b) books that have especially influenced your thinking, etc. perhaps a few on church history, few theological, few inspirational, and maybe a few from outside new testament studies altogether that you think every graduate student should read. if you could post a list, perhaps we could begin discussions on them.
jlc
- Monday, July 21, 2003 at 20:46:10 (CDT)
hey jlc, the long pause in my response is b/c I am ruminating.... I'll post something more substantive soon. I like the discussion idea!
matt c.
- Wednesday, July 23, 2003 at 11:01:40 (CDT)
Okay, Jeff, here are some ideas.
In the "basics" category, a few "introductions to the New Testament" are commonly assigned. It's good to get several points of view. Werner Georg Kummel has written one, as has Norm Perrin and Dennis Duling. Also, Helmut Koester. A classic in the New Testament Theology is Rudolf Bultmann's two-volume *Theology of the New Testament.* A good intro to the manuscript history of the NT is Bruce Metzger's *Text of the New Testament*.
Also, basic culture texts: Richard Saller & Peter Garnsey, *The Roman Empire*, John Collins, *Between Athens and Jerusalem* and *The Apocalyptic Imagination*. Martin Hengel also wrote a really interesting (rather long) book on *Judaism and Hellenism*. Walter Burkert's book on *Greek Religion* kicks ass. Also check out Chris Faraone's *Ancient Greek Love Magic* and Fritz Graf's *Magic in Antiquity*. There's a new book on Greco-Roman culture by Hans-Josef Klauck, I've not read it, but I hear it's outstanding. A. A. Long also has a book on philosophy called *Hellenistic Philosophy*.
For Paul, E. P. Sanders' *Paul and Palestinian Judaism* revolutionized the way that NT scholarship thinks about Paul and the Torah. For the Gospels, Chris Tuckett wrote a book on Q, it's very good -- which is to say, MUCH better than most of the crap written on the subject.
Hopefully this'll help get you started....
matt c.
- Saturday, July 26, 2003 at 12:39:57 (CDT)
please, literistas, musicologists, politicos, have a look at the newest, grandest 'zine on the internet! started by Hayden, the lead singer of my illustrious band, Trouble Down South, the High Hat will delight you; enthrall you; entrance you; or at least keep you from being too incredibly bored in the next half-hour or so.
give it a gander!
and keep it bookmarked, coz i think i'll be somehow in it next issue. i think maybe.
www.thehighhat.com
julie
- Wednesday, August 06, 2003 at 17:39:15 (CDT)
"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer."
Dave Barry
- Wednesday, August 13, 2003 at 22:16:58 (CDT)
six pack of shiner
box of garden herb triscuts
what was i thinking?
drink, pee, drink, pee, drink
the old saying is quite true
you only rent it
the silver bullet
won't slow me down. that's what the
television says
beer haikus
- Thursday, August 14, 2003 at 04:30:57 (CDT)
Forgiveness
Under the trees,
under the sky, dried
leaves descending like rain,
their twisting deter-
mined by a genteel force,
by the Wind
that freed them to
be something else: some, now,
the scourge of schoolchildren charged
with their collection, brittle lessons
of responsibility; others transformed
into secret sanctuaries, great storehouses
of buried nuts. Each leaf a path,
each path infinite in its singularity,
a thousand uncertainties muted as they land.
Something was said. Perhaps
something was lost. And anyway
leaves fall all the time – deaf
to their own chatter, indifferent
to human indifference.
Whoever you are, please, listen again:
your debts are forgiven, your
future uncertain still.
jlc
- Monday, October 27, 2003 at 23:14:25 (CST)
i have set my sights anew. more specifically, i am toying with a new idea for a massive project that might be akin to a synthesis of rilke and milton.
specifically, i am going to try a massive prose-poem retelling the supernarrative of humankind's attempts at communication with the divine. i know i am less than equipped for the task. but i keep admiring rilke's ability to capture the essence of a single moment (with its sensory impact as well as its metaphysical weight) as well as milton's ability to render through tedious poetic prose his meta-narrative that, in his day as well as in our own, begs for a new muse.
though it sounds lofty and pretentious, i have no illusions as to my ability vis a vis theirs. it is more of a project for my own understanding than to impact the nations, thank god. more of a determination to spend my allotted hours on this earth toward the sublime rather than indulging my hyper-need for leizure experience which comes so naturally for me. your imput, as always, will be much apreciated. the first few lines, i think, go like this:
Perhaps once, together, we lived in a garden. Perhaps you were there, walking beside, sharing your cool water and plucked berries. Perhaps, without shame or lament, we spoke of the wind, named it wind and went on, with open mouths, together feeling for it to be sure we had named the same thing.
Perhaps we had not yet learned to smile and, kneeling beside your loud river, unable to hear, our lips lifted a new way, silently, as if to signal some feeling, so pervasive a feeling (in your garden) nothing more was needed. A smile. That’s all. The waters rushed on and we, content under its spray, together spoke without speaking.
jlc
- Tuesday, October 28, 2003 at 01:27:09 (CST)
That's beautiful.
RB
- Thursday, October 30, 2003 at 16:52:18 (CST)
That's beautiful.
RB
- Thursday, October 30, 2003 at 16:52:28 (CST)
"I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."
Arnold Schwarzenegger
- Tuesday, December 02, 2003 at 13:37:21 (CST)
Anyone here read The Da Vinci Code yet? I found it fascinating and a much quicker, lighter read than I had anticipated. Pretty controversial ideas in there...looking for some feedback.
Bianco
- Saturday, March 06, 2004 at 14:01:50 (CST)
I read it Jeff. I thought it was a delightful bit conspriracy theory brain candy. If you enjoyed it, but thought it wasn't challenging enough. Go pick up Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose or Foucault's Pendelum. (my suggestion is Name_ first).
I've always thought the whole Merovingian posit was interesting. (Well not always - I don't remember wondering whether Mary Magdelene had carried Christ's child as a toddler. - Maybe I did - I've been told I was a fairly bright child.)
And I dig Masonic, Templar, and other pseudo-history, as well.
Nathan
- Monday, March 08, 2004 at 17:13:01 (CST)
test
test
- Monday, March 08, 2004 at 18:01:47 (CST)
I recently read The Da Vinci Code and found it interesting. While I do not want to go on and on about it, I feel like I went full circle with the book. There has been alot said about how this book is dangerous for Christians and damages faith. While I see the dangers, I think it can be a healthy thing. I enjoyed the theories and while you take what you can on faith, there IS alot that is up in the air as far as being proven. The church has had many influences and been molded for different reasons. When it gets down to it, and the place the author really took me in revealing alot of possibilities, is that there are certain things that I truly believe and that are pivotal to my faith. This book helped to clarify those things to me and point out the things that I don't know, but which my faith doesn't depend on.
So maybe this post is rambling and maybe it belongs in the faith section, but I recommend the book because besides being a fast-paced enjoyable book with some interesting (though sometimes questionable) history, it has caused a strengthening of my own faith.
I hope to read more about the topic, perhaps the books suggested by Nathan.
troy
- Friday, May 07, 2004 at 17:16:56 (CDT)
Top 10 listings you won't find in the ACU Today 'Exxperiences' section:
10) Education Graduate [student name here] currently works as the principal of Jackson Elementary in downtown Denver, CO and was recently placed on administrative leave after her creation of the 'Beat and Don't Tell' program.
9) Successful Sing Song choreographer [student name here] has choreographed several well-known Broadway musicals. In addition to staging a few MTV award ceremonies she has recently choreographed a Super Bowl Halftime show featuring the sister of M. Jackson.
8) Piano performance major [student name here] has recently taken a job playing Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer' ad nausium through a nasally sounding bull horn while driving an ice cream truck as he tries to pay off "these damn student loans".
7) [student name here] is the founder of 'The Rainbow Alliance Court of His and Her Most Highness' in Portland, OR. If you have to ask you don't want to know.
6) [student name here] of Ogden, UT was recently married. His first, second and third wives approve of their new family member.
5) [student name here] has recently been nominated 'Inmate of the month' by Leavenworth, KS prison authorities.
4) [student name here], class of 1991, lives in his parent's basement and is the manager of 'Intergalactic Trading Cards, Comics and Collectables' which recently hosted an autograph session with Jeremy Bulloch (you know, Boba Fett from 'Star Wars' fame??). He has yet to kiss a girl.
3) [student name here] is the president of Wells Fargo Bank's Ft. Worth division, serves on the board for Habitat for Humanity and a local homeless mission, has a beautiful wife, 4 excellent kids, lives in a big house, drives a late model SUV, involved in several high yield investments that you probably wouldn't know anything about, and is an all around bad ass.
2) Bible graduate [student name here] has created his own church, The Ascension of the Blessed Holy Moly Cosmos of Greater Awakenings, located in the isolated foothills near Ft. Davis, TX. All are welcome, especially if you are young, female and directionless.
1) [student name here] is trying to fade away into relative obscurity. Please leave him the hell alone.
Baggett
- Monday, May 31, 2004 at 22:01:02 (CDT)
Well done, Brian. Very well done.
Russ W
- Tuesday, June 01, 2004 at 21:49:17 (CDT)
Thanks, Brian.
-Nathan
Nathan
- Friday, June 04, 2004 at 10:03:17 (CDT)
LISALisalisaisasaa. it would be some work printing it out and stuff, but id be a winner with the inlaws if i could get that chocolate tort with the raspberry sauce recipe. please, lisa. pretty please.
AND NOW ANNOUNCING LISA'S FAMOUS CHOCOLATE TORT WITH HOMEMADE RASPBERRY SAUCE:
jlc
- Monday, August 09, 2004 at 09:58:35 (CDT)
Cookie,
Check out the intake section, and when you are ready for tips, call or email me.
oh, and p.s
lisa
- Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at 22:19:39 (CDT)
---the raspberry sauce is notably more difficult than it sounds.
lisa
- Tuesday, August 10, 2004 at 22:22:56 (CDT)
hey reese, while in your father's modern poetry class, he had us read an elegy by someone for someone (oh this is bad). i thought it was by auden about another poet who had just died. it is anthologized in the book your dad requires, and there is one particular line that has stuck with me:
(not lined correctly)
Everyday they die among us
those who were doing us some good.
do you remember which poem i am thinking of?
jlc
- Friday, August 13, 2004 at 08:59:04 (CDT)
Poetry? Like, whatever! Go see my new movie, Legally Blonde 3, Lawyers in Heat! I show some skin in order to keep my feeble franchise alive.
Reese
- Friday, August 13, 2004 at 10:45:05 (CDT)
thanks for the skin, reese.
jlc
- Friday, August 13, 2004 at 13:33:28 (CDT)
jlc,
http://www.poets.org/poems/poems.cfm?prmID=1389
In Memory of Sigmund Freud, by W.H. Auden
Your memory serves you well. (and Google)
Russ W
- Friday, August 13, 2004 at 14:55:45 (CDT)
Thanks for the poem, guys.
Nathan
- Friday, August 13, 2004 at 17:04:03 (CDT)
hot damn, friends and editors, ive got another experimental masterpiece (haha) brewing. might stay up all night to finish the scaffolding of a bizarre little short story. what could help:
anyone who has ever had a really spiritual experience with or reaction to paintings: if you could maybe recall that experience or if anyone has ever had any original insights to paintings / painters id love for you to share it with me. this short story is set totally in the kimbell museum where many of us have spent a lot of time. and if anyone wants to comment on their experiences with the following exhibits, that would be great:
george de la tour
the kimbell monet exhibit that had the same subjects painted 3 times while monet was in a boat (anyone remember?)
mattisse / picasso
for example, i react to, say, monet with what i might describe as a passive prefreudian awe, maybe. for me a monet is purely emotive and captures a moment with all of the emotions of the viewer (or rather the point of view of the paintings) while picasso, that psychological spinster, requires an active, cognitive reflection as one is forced to delve inward to the dissected psychological state of modern man. neither were truly representational in a mereological transitivity sense, but each did represent something: monet emotion, often evoking nostalgia, and picasso representing the emptiness or confusion of modern man, at least in his cubism (i really dig his blue period, too, but have never seen them in person).
help?
also, since george de la tour was exhibited at the kimbell, i was trying to come up with something unique to say about him. i am leaning toward comparing the silence of reflection his paintings seem to embody with that of rodin's thinker, or maybe a less obvious sculture of a more erotic tone. any ideas?
jlc
- Thursday, September 09, 2004 at 23:43:24 (CDT)
Jeff,
I don't know if this is what you're looking for...
Both Angela & I had an extreme reaction (spiritual, I guess) to a painting we stumbled across in Houston's Museum of Fine Arts about 4 years ago.
"Suffer Little Children..." (1884) by Fritz Von Uhde slapped us dumbfounded, I suppose. The original (almost 3M X 1.5M) depicts Jesus in what looks like a 'modern day' (1800's) peasant school house. He is surrounded by poverty-looking kids while their shy parents stand humbly in the background. Jesus looks so inviting, and comforting.
I like art and all, but never have I wanted to stare at 1 piece for such a long time. It seemed so...un-religious...while placed in the blatently religious section. I could actually see myself purchasing this work if I had the $, and if it were for sale.
The story behind it's initial reception is even better. Von Uhde, an obscure sidenote in art history, was highly criticized by the religious people and clergy of his day. People were offended that their savior was depicted with ragamuffin, dirty children who ran their streets. I believe Von Uhde avoided Jesus as his subject from then on.
This painting really 'spoke' to Angela & I in our arena of life as well as the way we planned to live. A year later we returned to HMFA to find that the painting was on loan somewhere with no expected return date. We finally had the bright idea to look for a print on the internet. Unfortunately there are about 8 paintings in art history with the same name. We managed to find only 1 small print of the Von Uhde which we proudly display in our house today.
Words still can't describe...
Baggett
- Friday, September 10, 2004 at 10:08:02 (CDT)
Fritz von Uhde - Lasset die Kindlein
zu mir kommen
(Click image to enlarge)
Brian, I believe this is the painting.
Nathan
- Friday, September 10, 2004 at 11:59:37 (CDT)
thanks a lot brian (and nat for displaying it). ive never heard of it before. great painting and thanks for the bio.
jlc
- Friday, September 10, 2004 at 12:10:36 (CDT)
that's it. The original is much brighter, less gloomy.
Baggett
- Friday, September 10, 2004 at 12:32:29 (CDT)
I haven't had anything but typical experiences with art. Of course, some paintings or exhibits I've found cooler than others.
Some years ago my sister in law, Alyssa (a graphic designer and artist), was planning a trip to Paris with her mom/my mother in law. Her conversation was about scheduling, logistics, etc., but Alyssa said she wanted to be able to spend 2 hours in front of a painting in a museum if she felt like it. I've watched plays and movies for 2 hours or more at a time, but never a painting.
jlc, I haven't forgotten about what you wrote; will read soon
Russ W
- Friday, September 10, 2004 at 13:33:10 (CDT)
The prez debate last week brought up a topic I found myself obsessed with over the last 2 months or so: North Korea.
So far I have 2 suggestioned readings on NK. First is a 120 page document (found on line) called "The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps" by David Hawk.
http://www.hrnk.org/TheHiddenGulag-press.pdf
This is not a typical non-fic, but rather a report conducted by Hawk, an educated expert on communist prisons throughout the world. The report is mostly first hand interviews with over 20 former NK prisoners who escaped and or fled as well as former prison guards. There are about 20 pages of satellite photos of these camps at the end of the doc. Suggested quick read: pgs.62-63 (on the pdf) of detainee #24.
Second, "In North Korea" by Nanchu, a female american of Chinese nationality. Nanchu toured NK with her Chinese credentials (since Chinese are the only foreigners allowed to visit - under heavy supervision). Her detailed eye witness to daily life in NK brought up repressed fears of her upbringing under Mao's rule.
I've also recently became facinated with this Christian site dedicated to finding ways to send missionaries into NK and surrounding Chinese border: http://www.nkmissions.com/
Baggett
- Saturday, October 02, 2004 at 16:04:09 (CDT)
Confessions of a Confessor
I admit to admitting
-- that's all: abasement
the only language I
remember anymore.
But don't be fooled. I
feel none of it and
of my failures
less than nothing.
The space between
confession
and sentiment
the distance between stars:
the oceanographer
who never learned to swim,
the cartographer who never left
the town of his birth.
The words sweat
from my mouth like ever-
escaping drops gathering
and rushing down
to the gutter of
acknowledged facts,
quickly lost to
the drain.
I would like to feel
the feelings of my
heart, and never
to think of them again.
I would like to love. Also,
I would like to pray, to
to catch the scent of true silence, to
taste God, to hear salvation
coming. Where does one look,
what wrench, a phillips or a
saw, which shoes can lead me there?
Which atlas at last will guide
this stupid man to his
subterranean city where --
collected somewhere in its
lost and found, deep in
some neglected cellar --
sits his other agent, long ago
abandoned and left for dead,
the one who doesn't
think like a fat newspaper.
jlc
- Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 14:29:52 (CDT)
hurrah, jlc. nice work.
RW
- Tuesday, October 12, 2004 at 20:30:50 (CDT)
The Graveyard Waitress
It is not
what she envisioned, this city,
this life of blackened windows. Outside
it is cold, is getting colder, and the
darkness hangs over her world like an empty
regret laughing, laughing.
She carries exhaust fumes in her hair, they
stick to her lungs, pound in her head
like a persistent dull honking.
She coughs, wheezes, blows her nose
and isn't sure whether
it's the dirty air
or the cigarettes she began smoking
to stay awake.
Hometown clothes
look stupid here and no longer fit.
Her mirror, shrunken with so much
fried food, stares back at her,
indifferent to her suffering.
Not one drunk
at three in the morning
gives one shit whether she came
to study medicine or to learn
the guitar, they smack her ass
just the same, stiff her
just the same, make crude
propositions, then rise, stumble,
leave to go to bed.
And when, her hands shaking with
so much coffee, she has finished
rolling her silverware, has
refilled the sticky syrup, brewed
coffee ten, twenty, a thousand thousand
times, she sits, exhausted, to count
her ones, her change, hoping in her apron
to find a warm coat -- or at least
a pair of work shoes that won't hurt
with so much standing.
Outside it is cold, is getting colder.
Bundled like a poor present for muggers, her tips
tucked deep in her left sock, she hurries
down the dark streets and
clings to her purse, the purse
her mother sent her now
housing photographs of home.
jlc
- Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 15:03:58 (CDT)
Dang, Jeff! Keep it up.
Russ W
- Thursday, October 14, 2004 at 21:32:14 (CDT)
Farewell with and Invitation
slender as a filament
voice of a Senator
poor to the point of sweat
adaptable as the sea
-- so long nothing is required
forever stumbling over the last load
of fermented wheat and rotten grapes
sheered with the inexhaustible scissors
of sad formalities that make
the world go round
obstinate, opinionated, forehead
of hard clay dried out
and wrinkling from the persistent sun
and so much hard living:
for you, the ones who've left
disappointed, thank you: I've made notes
of all my sins; for you who have
yet to arrive, look here, for your own
good: not a road in the world doesn't
expect me to walk by one day, not a cemetary
nor stone.
Did I mention, one day, I will gather all
our misfortune, reap it like fresh fruit, for a poem
and say that I've learned?
Many nights you will lie in our bed
alone
while I converse with dead authors, the ones
you've never read, and then, absentmindedly,
in the morning of your sadness I will come back
to our love, full of wealth and new hope.
And maps, maps. With the smile you haven't
yet learn to distrust, I will point to latitudes
that so far have eluded me, to serpentine
coastlines, to fjords and prairies that know me
by name, and just then what you knew
all along will slowly rise in you
like sad, unrushed bread.
But if,
deep within, still your legs have strength
after all my stairs, if inside the language that
alone is mine you allow yourself to wander
as in a forgotten forest, lie down and dream, if
suddenly a fraction of all the stars under which
I've lain, the banks of the rivers from which I cast
my nets fishing for life, if by chance some of the
goodness my grandparents bequeathed with so much hope
pokes through, the earth of their farms, their great poor table creaking under weight of sweet tomatoes, yellowed corn, of fresh fruit that just five minutes
before hung tanning in the sun, if just a few lines
of the poetry that has carried me through so many sorrows reaches your ears, the flowers
whose scent I alone bent
to gather, if, perhaps, some kindness I accidently
bestowed, some belly full of my last coins comes
to tell you, unaware, unconcerned of other failures,
that within me, buried deep like a seed
struggling to shed its hull, there is warmth and
implacable sweetness, if, after so many solitary naps,
the wolves of your body still
howl out for mine,
then, at that moment, you will have arrived at
the destination you alone wished
yourself into.
Outside the cafe
the sun is rising. I have finished my book and almost
these thoughts. Perhaps you've just filled my mug
with eyes the color of some faraway place. Perhaps,
as finally I pull myself toward
my borrowed bed, we will pass on the sidewalk, unaware,
as you hurry toward the sun.
jlc
- Friday, October 15, 2004 at 15:06:49 (CDT)
line breaks are off. damn wraparound.
jlc
- Friday, October 15, 2004 at 15:09:14 (CDT)
A Faithful Waiter's Love
If I begin
to weep, weep,
but not for me:
in this work, the task
I had not asked for,
there is no justice. Not
a word, not a series
of words will do.
How could one write
of such love, of such
diminishing sorrow?
I could write of
stars that failed, collapsing
under weight
of infinite
longing, compressed and
compressing much quicker
now, caught once
and for all in an infinite
diminutive
slide;
I could write
of caribou caught
in the Alaskan darkness, their
winter-weight plenty
of fat for wolves I've
heard hunting, howling
between far-north
mornings;
and somtimes, far
in the distance, a mother-
bear moaning, replete
with anxiety in her jaws,
the hope to live
up to her demands, her cubs
looking on with nothing but
happy expectation
in their eyes, as something,
anything, lay dying.
I could write
that God was napping, must
have been napping
when, approaching at
a tremendous speed,
the driver didn't see
his love, my faithful waiter's
love,
the saddest poem
I've been asked to write,
his almost-bride:
the black coat of her soon-to-be
sadness
obscurring her outline:
the darkened moon of her
beautiful, splendid bride's
body,
and, without knowing
her or her love, with no
animosity toward the past
of her regrets or the future
for which she
longed, had hoped for
all her life, the arms she
knew one day would
cuddle her into heaven,
the driver
drove on, toward home,
continued
through her past far
into her fast-approaching
end. She, now, will
have no children, she
will have no sun. The world
hangs on her mangled
body as a love
that was, that
will never quite be.
I could write
of an infinite
love, of its lasting
absence, of a skin
so sure of its
next of kin.
I could write
of loves that
didn't work,
of my own, full
of broken glass
and so many tears.
I could write of affection
unrequited, of terrors
and disappointments,
of wishes
abandoned, of hopes
nearly, nearly met -- but
not a single line would
restore the world
to the world.
And these
are easy targets
for literature. But for
life, for those left
living, to write
of that tremendous sadness,
the night of his proposal,
words will not do.
Until now
I thought
just maybe I was
a poet.
No longer. I give up
such titles. In life, in
death nothing
exists. Only
love, love.
He goes on
in the world, bussing
tables as she sleeps.
How could I, with
so many lost
tears, bear myself
against Truth
existing between a
server and
a pedestrian, presume
to cast
words on dead wounds?
And how
did he think I
had anything to say
but tears
that never could render
the life that is death, the death
he goes on repeating?
jlc
- Monday, October 18, 2004 at 05:02:38 (CDT)
I sleep in the park, Dupont Circle, to be
exact. The pidgeons like me, or at least
are undisturbed when I lay out my coat
fluff my hood as if a pillow, gather
cardboard like the forts I made
while still a child, and bid the world
farewell. Really, it’s no different
than any other couch I’ve slepped on –
you try not to make a fuss,
do your best not to disturb
those there before you (I almost
said those that belong –
but whose to say who belongs
and where?). Certainly, in this fine
park there are ruffians, the mad
and the violent, more than a few
mentally ill, perhaps an escaped
prisoner trying, like anyone else, just
to get by, but, tucked deep beneath
cardboard, warmed by both beard
and oily hair, whose to say
I don’t belong? Rarely
am I bothered. Perhaps they recognize me
and in their own malicious hearts
wish me well. In the park, there are no
names on the lease, a small fact rendering
everyone even and at last
finally at home.
jlc
- Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at 08:45:00 (CST)
The Illegal Busboy
~Para randolfo y eduardo a la Diner~
He cleans the toilets. He cleans
the floors. With a smile, a true,
earthy, ear-to-ear-smile, he sweeps,
mops, empties ashtrays, and then,
with no animousity toward others
or to the world that emptied him here,
working nights with which no one else
would have bothered, he escorts, shoulder
under shoulder,
the drunken patrons to the door.
He doesn’t think himself
a hero. Neither, does he think himself
a saint. He goes on in the world, mopping
floors dirtied by gringos with the almost
unbelievable hope
of a large wire home
– to his old mother or
to his wife and kids. He is the only
worker who talks, regularly, to
the drunks, inquires of their lives in
a broken English that never improves
with so many slurred tutors. And when
so drunk the gringos can neither
stand others nor even
themselves,
he steps out into the cold, whistles,
waves his arms, makes a great
commotion in plain sight of cops
with nothing better to do than to haul
him in, to send him packing.
For his new friends – for he counts
them as friends – he hails
a taxi (that in no way is happy
to scrape up these desultory souls)
that he urgently
waves in, papers be damned,
with a friendly, dutiful smile, the one
he always wore back home
when no one was looking
to snatch him up, to do him
or his family
an unforgivable harm.
jlc
- Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at 08:48:13 (CST)
Dearest Wife,
I have felt it now, the weight of that hard
and solitary Decision, so selfless, so naïve:
it has reached me, has traversed my insides and, pounding as if on a dull bell, painfully
still flaps its desparate wings:
where others, also pressed
against this world – a relentless place, uncon-
trollable like a herd of stallions
standing silent
then startled and suddenly stampeding – when
all others determined, at last,
to rebel, to launch out, to live for a change,
you resolved yourself
to die:
in your eleventh year, as though,
suddenly, the taste of your eleventh hour
all at once bit your tongue with so many grown-
up problems, on the floor, weeping and utterly alone,
still merely a child, you chose to mount the stairs,
straight to the top of the guillotine you thought
of you and you alone
God demanded—
and died there; and each day since
go on dying so that others,
the ones you love (whose burdens, alone, you never
quite could carry), might live.
Just like Christ, my precious wife.
Why didn’t some good angel, even a lowly
sentry, one of the legions with nothing, that day,
better to do, unsheath his mighty sword, unveil
God’s tenderness, take you up with angelic arms
and whisper:
Child, be still?
Perhaps, for a while, at certain times
it worked, all these sacrifices (after all,
there are examples); but then, emboldened
by a little success,
you stepped down from a horse-drawn carriage,
your veiled face as beautiful as a clear spring, your intentions as pure and simple as your breathless
white gown, and, once again squatting low to
assume someone else’s problems, you took on your back
the burden of yet another life, a sad wandering
soul, the very first that, no matter how hard
you pushed, grunted, screamed from exhaustion,
you couldn’t lift at all: a life
that has never done anyone, anywhere,
any damn good.
jlc
- Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at 09:11:56 (CST)
need help. there is a short fiction competition to which i wish to submit my latest story, "Sanalona Sinaloa". the initial response to the story has far exceeded any so far, but because of the experimental narrative style still came with the caviat that it would need some tidying up, something everyone is happy to do when they have more time. the deadline for submission is jan 31. i have sent the story to a dozen or so, and would feel comfortable with the sentence-by-sentence feedback of three or so. if anyone wishes to help, please email me at my new addie, rdt+++@niinet.net. no +++.
thanks again.
jlc
- Saturday, January 22, 2005 at 09:10:23 (CST)
well, quandry this. turns out the friend in dc who is the editor of an online lit journal wants to publish "Communion Relinquished" in his march edition. he is friends with all who work at the NEA, that is, where-da-money-comes-from. i have already sent the story to another place, in fact a lit journal running a contest with a $2000 prize which i probably wouldnt win, but you never know. so, you published folks, what do i do? i value the connection for obvious reasons, and the ones that might come to fruition down the line, but a) im skeptical of online mags, and b) id rather "be discovered" elsewhere. also, i allowed him to read the story over a few beers but never submitted it for publication, so he is asking me permission in an out-of-the-blue email. what gives?
shouldnt i just be flattered that anyone likes the stuff? i guess im thinking that i shouldnt be so picky, having never been published outside of acu, but i dont know. any thoughts?
jlc
- Friday, February 04, 2005 at 00:00:24 (CST)
Tell him you'll let him have it in a later edition if it doesn't get published in your newer submitted journals. If this guy understands the publishing world he won't be offended and will want you to do as well as you can.
You might want to offer him a different work for this edition.
- $0.0002
Nathan
- Friday, February 04, 2005 at 13:47:06 (CST)
I think that Nate has given you the right advice -- the rule in my discipline at least is that you submit written material to one venue at a time. You definitely don't want to have to tell a venue that you're withdrawing your story after they accept it.
You might want to check the submission guidelines for this contest. If they don't take it, then you can do whatever you want with your work.
matt c.
- Saturday, February 05, 2005 at 19:02:27 (CST)
im reading _love and life_, a varied compilation of (primarily) social and philosophical commentary collected and published posthumously by a friend and the literary agent of THOMAS MERTON. it is one of the more spectacular books ive come across in a long time. while merton is known for his mysticism, interest in zen and political activism, _love and life_ displays the depth and range of interests of merton, and demonstrates a prose style that is extraordinary. from essays examining the the diminution of relevant symbols (or the modern confusion between symbols and signs), to extraordinary insights into the concept (or lack thereof) of community on the average excessively zoned street, from romantic love in our hyperconsumer society to a thorough denouncement of the association between technology and "progress", _love and life_ has found a permanent place in my library. ive had it now for less than a week and have read several essays several times, each time thinking of particular friends whom id enjoy discussing this or that concept.
a totally new look into merton: familiar depth of spirit, but applied much more broadly to issues extremely relevant to the modern predicament. at times during th technology essay, i went several pages totally having forgotten that merton died in the sixties because he his descriptions so perfectly described (or became even that much more relevant with) the internet.
wow.
jlc
- Thursday, March 03, 2005 at 21:18:15 (CST)
didnt have it in front of me, but it is actually titled, _love and living_ not "and life".
jlc
- Friday, March 04, 2005 at 16:45:04 (CST)
probably not done. this is the third stanza of a poem i am working on, though i have discarded the first two. perhaps it will always stand alone; perhaps it will fit in to another down the line.
Be Still, my soul,
neither pensive nor proud,
settled as a wreath in the rain
of the indifferent graveyard
that already expects you.
jlc
- Thursday, March |
