Trinity Station

Oh, these sights I behold...

2011-11-30T13:20:00.000-05:00

(Song lyrics by Allen Levi. Prose by me.)

Day on the run,

Soft setting sun,

Lattice of autumn light

Fingers of God on the skies

We're well into Autumn way up here in coal country. Thanksgiving has come and gone. The vibrant leaves have turned brown and fallen, with only a few remaining to cling to the bare branches that weave an intricate black pattern when back-lit by the sunset.

There's a chill in the air. The temperature has dipped below freezing a few times already, with promises of more cold to come. The first major snowfall of the season has, surprisingly, already engulfed us and then melted within a few days.

There's a new person in our household. You may have heard about him. He arrived on a Wednesday morning, just two months ago, after twenty-eight hours of worry, stress, and sleeplessness. He was supposed to arrive on Halloween. I guess he thought it would be fun to surprise us. He started out very, very small, with a quiet little raspy voice and far more cuteness than ought to be possible.

Oh, these sights I behold

Are wonderful, true

But lullaby, baby

They don't hold a candle to you.

His tiny voice is not always so tiny any more. Sometimes he makes little talking sounds, as if he's already trying to take part in conversations. Sometimes he grunts and groans and whimpers. Sometimes he does this in his sleep. Sometimes he wails and screams as if the world has come crashing down around him and he thinks he will be left alone in the cold darkness forever. Sometimes, when he falls asleep, he makes quiet, happy sighing sounds and he breathes. Sometimes he is perfectly silent, staring at the big world around him with wide blue eyes, his mouth forming a perfect "O." It makes me wonder if he's trying to whistle, or if he's simply overawed by everything there is to see and hear.

Full moon hello,

You come and you go,

Stealing the stage from the

Stars that seem eager to shine

Oh, these sights I behold

Are wonderful, true

But lullaby, baby

They don't hold a candle to you

Sometimes, I look down at him and feel an overwhelming melancholy that is very had to explain. He reminds me that I was once a child, with fewer cares and worries. I used to spend the afternoons and evenings of this season outside, playing with my sisters, or exploring the woods alone — taking in the crisp air, the crunch and smell of dead leaves underfoot. Part of me wishes I could go back to those simple days.

He reminds me, also, that childhood is never simple. He'll grow up to face disappointment, and fear, and other children who tease him and are mean to him, and he'll probably wind up being mean to other children as well. He'll get hurt, physically and emotionally, as he grows up. I don't want that to happen, but I also know there's no real way to prevent it, because it's an inevitable part of life.

It's also not the only part of life. There's joy and beauty and love as well — after all, it's what we were made for — and I pray one day he'll know and love the God who brought him and all the other wonders of the world into being. One day he may very well be an adult with children of his own. If I give him no other legacy, I hope he at least carries with him and passes on the legacy of the faith that God, through my father and his father before him, gave to me.

It's hard to believe

But a long time ago

I was just a little boy, it's true

Who knows some day

You might be just like me

Looking down on someone like you

Mostly, though, I just look down on him and am overwhelmed with how amazing his very existence is. I marvel at his personhood, at his personality that is already starting to develop, at the way he is beginning to know and interact with us. He can't communicate with words yet, but his eyes say a lot. He looks very intelligent. Often he wrinkles up his little forehead as if he's contemplating the mysteries of the world — or perhaps how he can convince his mother to give him chocolate milk, just this one time. Every now and then, when he's asleep, he'll break into the most wonderful smile I've ever seen. Maybe he's dreaming of the day when he can have chocolate milk.

Sleepy-time boy

Peacefully dream

What must go in that little head

Nobody knows

Oh, these sights I behold

Are wonderful, true

But lullaby, baby

They don't hold a candle to you

It's the First of August

2011-08-01T21:24:00.004-04:00

I don't have anything in particular to blog about, but a blog without blogging is like a rainclouds without rain. So here are a few bullet points that I've chosen to blurb about in honor of this, the first day of August.

In Canada, today is a civic holiday. In Ireland and Scotland, it's a bank holiday. And in the Northern Territory of Australia, it's Picnic Day. (I know all of this thanks to my faithful 2011 wall calendar, which features photographs of outhouses surrounded by picturesque scenery.) But in the United States of America, we have a dearth of holidays, so there's nothing much special about the first day of August.
Smoky Chipotle Mac-n-Cheddar. Great stuff. My wife has all the details.
I enjoy writing. I particularly enjoy writing fiction. I wish I could remember that more often. I also wish that there were more hours in the day, or that I needed less sleep, or something, so that it would be easier to find regular time for writing. I wrote for a little while this evening, trying to resurrect a story called The Desert that I started (and stopped) about three years ago. I think it might be going somewhere, finally.
The week we spent with my family in Georgia (third week of July) was very good. I wish travel was less expensive and time-consuming. Visiting once or twice a year is really not often enough.
While we were in Georgia, I bought a dragon. Molded plastic, of course, not the real thing. 4.5 inches tall at the head and 7 inches long. Bright green, with flecks of gold on his scales. He sits on my desk. I think I will call him Oswald.
I've been reading P.D. James' Original Sin, a murder mystery that takes place in and around a publishing company. So far there have been two apparent suicides and one apparent murder. Slightly disconcerting, as I work for a publishing company. But it's a good read. P.D. James does know how to craft a good mystery novel.
I've also been reading Thomas Oden's Classic Christianity, which I mentioned previously here. I've made it all the way to page 169. Slow going, but very much worth the effort. Here are a few quotes that I found particularly striking, from his discussion of God's acts of creation. The third one is kind of mind-blowing.

"The sole motive of creation is God's gracious willingness to share goodness with creatures." (p.139)

"God could have freely created any world, this world or any other world, but this is the one God chose to create—not those supposedly 'better' ones our minds proudly imagine we could have invented had we been in charge. God's purpose is in fact being fulfilled precisely through the struggle and destiny of this world of freedom under accountable conditions, not those fabricated by others." (p.139)

"While affirming the distinction between eternity and time, it is still possible to affirm that the universe is from the temporal point of view 'everlasting,' in the particular sense that before it no time was and at its end there will be no time. Thus creation is rightly said to be as old as time itself, yet eternity encompasses all times. Hence eternity is not chronologically 'antecedent' to time, but, rather, time logically presupposes eternity. For there was no time 'before' creation—the 'before' implies a time, and a 'time' before time is evidently self-contradictory.
"The eternal is simultaneously present to every moment of time, including past and future time. In light of the incarnation, the now is rightly viewed as eternity manifesting itself as time." (p.142)

I guess that's about it for now. Perhaps I'll post again soon, and perhaps then I'll actually have something to say...

Irony (and a related pet peeve)

2011-07-06T21:49:00.006-04:00

The sermon from this past Sunday was about the extent of Christ's atonement. As our church is Calvinistic in its theology, the sermon came down firmly on the side of Limited Atonement — that Christ's death was intended only for the elect, and not for anyone else.

The irony came when, after the sermon, the pastor had us sing Charles Wesley's hymn, "And Can It Be?" (which happens to be my favorite hymn). Wesley, of course, was an Arminian through and through, and firmly believed that Christ's death was for all people everywhere — although, of course, the atonement would only apply to those who repented and believed in Christ. Consequently, "And Can It Be?" is a thoroughly Arminian hymn, clearly expressing the doctrine of Unlimited Atonement in the following verse:

He left his father's throne above—
So free, so infinite his grace—
Emptied himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race:
'Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Now for the pet peeve. Our church uses the Trinity Hymnal. The editors of the Trinity Hymnal, being Calvinists, couldn't allow such a blatantly Arminian verse in their hymnal. So they changed it! Instead of "And bled for Adam's helpless race" it reads "And bled for all his chosen race." In other words: Jesus died only for those people whom he chose to save, and no others. They edited the hymn to say the exact opposite of what its author believed. I find such editorial changes appalling. Were Wesley alive today, I imagine he would have a few words for the Trinity Hymnal's editors who brazenly re-wrote a line from his hymn to contradict what he believed and what he intended to say.

I sang Wesley's original words. I believe, as he did, that the Scriptures clearly teach that Jesus Christ died for all people, without exception. Anything less denies the explicit statements in Scripture that God loves the world and everyone in it, that Christ is the Savior of the whole world, and that God desires the salvation of all people (see nineteenth century Methodist theologian Thomas Ralston's discussion of applicable passages here). Every attempt I have ever heard to explain these passages in light of Limited Atonement basically amounts to "these passages don't mean what they say." As I see it, Limited Atonement is a doctrine that is logically necessary within the Calvinist belief system, but it has no true basis in Scripture. To me, at least, this calls into question the entire theological system — but that's a topic for another post (or probably a book).

Please note: I'm not expecting comments, because I rarely get them. If you do comment, please keep it civil. Discussion and disagreement are welcome. Attacks on Calvinism, Arminianism, or their adherents are not.

Why Trinity Station?

2011-07-05T21:31:00.003-04:00

A long while back, somebody asked where the name "Trinity Station" came from. I don't think I ever answered the question.

Trinity Station is the name of a space station. To the best of my recollection, I came up with the name back in the late nineties. At that point, I had plans for it to feature prominently in an expansion that I was designing for one of my favorite computer games, Escape Velocity (the most recent incarnation can be found here). I never got beyond the initial planning stages of the expansion.

The name stuck somewhere in the back of my mind, though. I've always intended to do something with it. It's featured in several universes I've created, most (but not all) of which have been forgotten.

I chose the name "Trinity Station" because I liked the way it sounded. I don't think it's an overt reference to anything (The Matrix, for instance, hadn't been released at that point).

I keep asking myself if I'm ever going to use Trinity Station (the fictional location, not the blog) in any future fiction that I create. I really ought to, considering that it's been orbiting in my brain for such a long time. Perhaps its time to dig out that old galactic map that I designed back in 2007-2008 and see if there are any stories in that universe waiting to be told.

As an aside, the name "Trinity Station" was never intended as any sort of allegorical or theological reference, although of course the very word "trinity" is rooted in theology. Of late, though, my thoughts and studies have been turning more and more toward theology, so the name of the blog may well bear more relation to its content as time goes on. We shall see.

Today's ramblings

2011-04-12T13:00:00.005-04:00

So my Script Frenzy endeavor hasn't been going so well this year. Thinking of slowing down the pace and maybe turning the idea into a novel instead.

Yesterday, in spite of that frustration and some general stress, was pretty much a good day. Temperatures soared into the mid-seventies (probably breaking the record high), and it felt like real, honest-to-goodness Spring. Thunderstorms threatened in the distance but never materialized.

I've started lugging my camera with me to work every day again. I had been in the habit for a while but got lazy and stopped. I'm slowly beginning to see pictures again. Here's one from yesterday afternoon, after the first threat of rain had passed and the sun was just starting to break through the clouds:

Today's the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, so I listened to the soundtracks from Gods and Generals, Gettysburg, and Glory. All good music, but Gettysburg hasn't aged very well. As much as I love the main theme (especially as presented in the final cue, "Reunion and Finale"), much of the rest of the score sounds dated and trite. The other two scores fare much better, with Glory probably being the best of the bunch — despite the fact that James Horner re-used one of its primary themes as a theme for the Na'vi in Avatar.

My brain's pretty worn out, so I think that's about all for today.

Fools Indeed

2011-03-31T13:21:00.002-04:00

What did the impending snowstorm say to all the unsuspecting people living in the frigid norths who were celebrating the arrival of Spring?

"April Fools!"

True story. There's a snowstorm heading our way, with up to 10 inches predicted to fall by the end of the day tomorrow. It's ridiculous.

Turning to other news, I've settled on a name for my Script Frenzy screenplay: The Callanstone. The Callanstone is a magical artifact that protects the Kingdom of Brynmor (Callan means "battle" or "rock"). Only problem is, the Callanstone is missing, and it's up to Prince Alyster to find it again before the realm is overrun by its enemies.

So there you have it. If you want to follow along as I write, drop me an email and request permission to join the readership of my fiction blog, Perchance to Write.

And with that, it's time for The Stuff of the Week!

Movie of the Week: Inception. Because it's cool and stuff. No, actually, I think I'll go with Spirited Away, because it's hard to go wrong with Hiyao Miyazaki's animation. Or maybe Winged Migration, a cool documentary about migrating birds, featuring some breathtaking aerial footage and an impressive score by Bruno Coulais.

Soundtrack of the Week: Copernicus' Star by Abel Korzeniowski. It's a very good score for an obscure animated film from Poland. I highly recommend it. Check out the samples at the composer's website, and then head over to LaLaLand Records to hear a few more samples and order your very own copy.

Disappointment of the Week: That it's supposed to snow tonight.

Excitement of the Week: I just ordered the Battlestar Galactica Season 4 and Battlestar Galactica: The Plan/Razor soundtracks by Bear McCreary. Can't wait to listen and rock out to "Apocalypse." See video.

Photo of the week: I didn't take many, but of the ones I did take, I have a couple I really like. First is from the aftermath of a recent snowstorm, taken from our back deck.

The next is a photo of the nuclear power plant across the river from my workplace. I've posted a picture of it before, but I really liked the way the steam was billowing towards the river.

But enough with the photos.

Book of the Week: Classic Christianity by Thomas C. Oden. Previously published in three volumes (The Living God, The Word of Life, Life in the Spirit), they are here collected in a single tome. Oden's stated purpose for the book is as follows:

To make no new contribution to theology
To resist the temptation to quote modern writers less schooled in the whole counsel of god than the best ancient classic exegetes
To seek quite simply to express the one mind of the believing church that has been always attentive to that apostolic teaching to which consent has been given by Christian believers everywhere.

I'm excited to read it, although at 800+ pages I imagine it will take quite a while to finish. What I've read so far is very good.

Novel of the Week: Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. I'm only a couple of chapters in but it's enjoyable. I've been on a bit of a sci-fi kick lately; I finished reading the first book in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series earlier this week. It's amazing how many ideas George Lucas stole from Asimov for use in Star Wars! After Starship Troopers I hope to start on George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones.

Well, lunch break is over and it's time to get back to work. This makes my fourth blog post this month, which is the most I've blogged in a single month since November 2008. Perhaps my blog will revive after all!

Let's do this!

2011-03-30T15:07:00.003-04:00

I decided to do Script Frenzy this year. Although I've successfully completed NaNoWriMo for the past four years, I've never finished Script Frenzy. I aim to change that this year.

So as I attempt to write a feature-length screenplay during the month of April, I'll be posting each day's writings over at Perchance to Write. It's a private blog, so if you're interested in following it, you'll need to email me so that I can add you to the list of approved readers.

I don't guarantee that anything I write there will be enjoyable or worth reading, although I'll try for something better than pure rubbish. We'll see how it goes...

First Day of Spring

2011-03-21T16:25:00.001-04:00

Technically, the second day of spring, but close enough. Yesterday was beautiful and sunny, if just a bit on the chilly side. If yesterday's temperatures were the average winter temperature in Pennsylvania, it would be a much happier season.

Then, overnight, the scenery changed to this.

Two or three inches of snow covered everything like a blanket. A heavy, wet blanket.

A picturesque, heavy, wet blanket.

Perhaps dismal would be a better word than picturesque to describe the heavy, wet blanket.

The snow thinned out a bit as I passed through the valley and headed up the mountain...

...and the landscape grew bleak, reminding me that although spring is here, winter may still have a bitter repartee or two left before it leaves for good.

At the top of the mountain, the snow blanket was thick again. The fir tree schlumped miserably under its weight.

Down in the Susquehanna valley, there was only the barest trace of snow, and I took no more pictures.

And there shall be no more death...

2011-03-17T15:05:00.001-04:00

I re-read David Bentley Hart's The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? this week and found the following section powerful and moving:

...Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation. Our faith is in a God who has come to rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin, the emptiness of waste and death, the forces - whether calculating malevolence or imbecile change - that shatter living souls; and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred. And we are not only permitted but required to believe that cosmic time as we know it, through all the immensity of its geological ages and historical epochs, is only a shadow of true time, and this world only a shadow of the fuller, richer, more substantial, more glorious creation that God intends; and to believe also that all of nature is a shattered mirror of divine beauty, still full of light, but riven by darkness....

When... we learn in Christ the nature of our first estate, and the divine destiny to which we are called, we begin to see - more clearly the more we are able to look upon the world with the eye of charity - that there is in all the things of earth a hidden glory waiting to be revealed, more radiant than a million suns, more beautiful than the most generous imagination or most ardent desire can now conceive. Or, rather, it is a glory not entirely hidden: veiled, rather, but shining in and through and upon all things. The imperishable goodness of all being does in fact show itself in all that is. It shows itself in the vast waters of the Indian ocean, and it is not hard to see when those waters are silver and azure under the midday sky, or gold and indigo in the light of the setting sun, or jet and pearl in the light of the moon, and when their smoothly surging tides break upon the shores and harmlessly recede. But it is still there even when - the doors of the sea having broken their seals - those waters become suddenly dull and opaque with gray or sallow silt and rise up to destroy and kill without will or thought or purpose or mercy. At such times, to see the goodness indwelling all creation requires a labor of vision that only a faith in Easter can sustain; but it is there, effulgent, unfading, innocent, but languishing in bondage to corruption, groaning in anticipation of a glory yet to be revealed, both a promise of the Kingdom yet to come and a portent of its beauty.

Until that final glory, however, the world remains divided between two kingdoms, where light and darkness, life and death grow up together and await the harvest. In such a world, our portion is charity, and our sustenance is faith, and so it will be until the end of days. As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but the face of his enemy. Such faith might never seem credible to someone like Ivan Karamazov, or still the disquiet of his conscience, or give him peace in place of rebellion, but neither is it a faith that his arguments can defeat: for it is a faith that set us free from optimism long ago and taught us hope instead. Now we are able to rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history's many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes - and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and he that sits upon the throne will say, "Behold, I make all things new."

You never thought this day would come...

2011-02-17T13:35:00.003-05:00

Initially I was going to write a more serious post about heroes. Then I remembered that my ~~brian~~ brain is running at about 65% capacity today, so I opted to do something I've been meaning to do for a very long time now:

Resurrect The Stuff of the Week!

Thus, without further ~~adieu~~ ado (I did that one on purpose, unlike the above), here it is.

Movie of the Week: The Adventures of Robin Hood. An Errol Flynn classic from 1938, this movie is horribly dated. I say "horribly dated" because the acting and storytelling is so far removed from what we expect from period action dramas today, not because I think it's a horrible movie. It's very funny, and often unintentionally so. Eric Wolfgang Korngold's music is dated also, but in the same way that one would say that Tchaikovsky is dated — you can tell it's from a specific era, but that certainly doesn't make it bad. One other thing: Disney very clearly drew a lot of inspiration from this version.

Soundtrack of the Week: Mr. Holland's Opus by Michael Kamen. It's a pity that Kamen died so young, because he was a talented composer. He knew how to write compelling, moving, and very accessible orchestral music. Mr. Holland's Opus is just that. "Cole's Tune" is a stunningly beautiful, lyrical melody; "Marking Homework" is a wonderful piano concerto-style piece that weaves in all sorts of references to classical music (Beethoven's 5th Symphony and Grieg's "In The Hall of the Mountain King" both make cameo appearances), and the finale, "An American Symphony," is a wonderful, triumphant orchestral-rock blending of the score's major themes. I have yet to be able to listen to this track without getting tears in my eyes. If you can find the original soundtrack CD (the one that contains Kamen's score, not the song album), definitely go for it. An alternative option would be to pick up Kamen's The New Moon in the Old Moon's Arms, a 40-minute tone poem inspired by the Ancient Pueblo Peoples (Anasazi) of the American Southwest. It's well worth the purchase, and it includes a 17-minute version of the "American Symphony" from Mr. Holland's Opus.

Novel of the Week: I'm reading The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett, and while it's a mostly enjoyable fantasy novel, I don't think it's quite Novel of the Week material. It runs into several fantasy cliches, such as the innately talented young man who has daddy issues as a result of his mother's death and consequently heads off into the wide and scary world to find out how to kill the demons who come out at night and kill the humans. There's also the restless young woman with mommy issues who realizes that that her lifelong dream of getting married and making tons of babies won't be all it's cracked up to be and consequently finds the inner strength to defy her mother and convention and become a talented ~~but~~ Healer (and yes, like the hero, she had an innate talent all along). Give the heroes a few modern ideas about God, the Universe, and Everything, make a few thinly-veiled jabs at divine providence, and add a tribe of noble-yet-barbaric desert warriors (who are not always so noble after all, and who have religious sects who will kill each other over disputes about which level of hell certain demons reside in, oh, and they're repressive to women too)... perhaps you get the idea. Oh, and they have mines that produce metals, coal, and salt, all at once. I should add the caveat that I have not finished the book yet, so there may be some surprises that will change my mind. But right now I'm not sure I'll pick up the sequel (which is available) or the threequel (which is not yet published) to see where the story finally ends up.

TV Show of the Week: The Wire. It's been on my Netflix list for a while, and I finally got around to watching it. I'm about halfway through the first season, and it's pretty captivating stuff. Very well-drawn characters who are at once sympathetic and repulsive (some more so than others) in stuck in ridiculously difficult and complicated situations. I really like the slow-burn storytelling; I much prefer TV shows that follow a season-long story arc to ones that are primarily episodic. It's a crime show, so it's full of cops, robbers, drugs, violence, profanity, sex, and nudity, most of which make sense in context, although sometimes they go overboard — so if you make a point of avoiding any or all of those elements, this is a show that you should avoid. At the same time, it feels like the real world — and although the part world that these characters are stuck in is not the same part of the world that I'm in, it's not all that far away. If you want to read a good review, try this one. It's one of the reasons I first took an interest in the show.

Wine of the Week: Campo Viejo Rioja Crianza (2007 vintage). I'm not a wine expert, or snob, or aficionado, so I can't really tell you much about it. But I like it.

Good News of the Week: We have a piano (thanks to a family in our church) and the piano tuner is coming Monday!

Related Bad News of the Week: Piano tuners are stinking expensive and, unfortunately, quite necessary.

Related Good News of the Week: This. I've already ordered it. I'm a little bummed that it won't be here until early- to mid-March (it was originally slated for release this week), but that will give me some time to get my fingers in a little better shape. I don't imagine most of those pieces are going to be easy.

Well, that's it for now. Let me know if you read this; it may determine whether this blog is raised back to life or succumbs to a fatal lack of care and dies the death.

The Internet is making me dumb

2010-10-05T22:09:00.003-04:00

One of the reasons I haven't been keeping up with the blog is that I've been having difficulty writing in just about any form. The period spanning the past year or two have been particularly trying. Every time I sit down to write, or to plot out a story, or to continue working on a story I've started previously, my brain feels dead and empty.

Part of the problem is laziness and procrastination. If I find I'm having difficulty writing, I stop trying to write and I do something else instead... which means I usually don't get any writing done that day. The more I don't write or work creatively, the more I try to avoid doing it, because I know it's going to be tough. Consequently, the writing and generally creative portions of my brain are, no doubt, sadly out of shape.

Another part of the problem is the Internet. Or, rather, my constant access to it, and the ease with which I allow myself to be distracted by it. It's a problem I first noticed in college, where I had instant, 24-hour Internet access for the first time. I quickly trained myself to check my email constantly, and was always ready to look up new information and follow new links whenever something interesting caught my eye. Ten years later, these habits have become firmly entrenched.

I have no doubt that the Internet is making me dumber, in the sense that it drains my creativity and is an ever-present distraction. There are plenty of legitimate uses for it (blogging, I think, is one of them, because if I hadn't started writing this blog post, I wouldn't have written anything at all today), and I'm not certain that I'm ready to toss out my wireless DSL router just yet.

But I've got to make a conscious, continuous effort to stay offline for a set amount of time every day, and to use at least some of that time to re-train my creative muscles.

We'll see how it goes...

Excellent video

2010-09-15T20:38:00.002-04:00

An excellent video in which Jeffrey Overstreet discusses storytelling.

Encounter 10: Jeffrey Overstreet on the how of storytelling from International Arts Movement on Vimeo.

I don't quite know where to start in responding to this, so for now, I'll just say this: Wow. I need to watch that again.

December 8, 1979

2010-05-04T21:56:00.000-04:00

December 8, 1979 is an important date in my history, even though I wasn’t born until later in the following year. On that date, three students at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky grabbed their guitars and, with the help of a friend and his recording equipment, recorded a 40-minute tape of their favorite songs.

One of those men was my father, and he wrote some of the songs they recorded.

My dad’s copy of the tape (the master may still exist somewhere, but nobody seems to know for sure) is still on the bookshelf at my mom’s house. The songs have all been digitized, and some of the tape hiss removed. I listen to them every now and then.

Vocal recordings are like photographs, in a way, in that they capture a moment in time and preserve it for as long as they exist. Unlike a picture, a recording isn’t a single instant that’s been frozen onto a page; it’s a sequence of time that’s been capture, a sequence imprinted with someone’s voice, a sequence that can be repeated, a moment that can be re-experienced.

My dad had a really good voice. It lowered over the years, but in ‘79 it was a high, clear tenor. Whether singing, talking, laughing, or preaching, its familiar sound was always (and probably always will be) one of my favorite things to hear.

Many of the songs on the recording are ones that he sang again and again throughout my childhood and teenage years. We all loved it when he’d bring out the guitar and we could join in the singing. We sang John Denver songs, and songs by the Pat Terry Group (a late 70’s/early 80’s Christian group from Georgia), but mostly songs that my dad had written.

I still know all of them by heart.

I’ll put aside this body,
And every earthly thing I’ve known
And I will fly to Jesus
To stand with him before the throne
Where he’ll change me into glory
And transform my filthy rags
Into a robe of righteousness
So the Father won’t see my sin.

“The Last Chorus” by Phil Wiley

Thoughts on Language

2010-04-25T16:10:00.002-04:00

Several years ago, I developed the belief that the use of strong language (cursing, vulgarity and obscenity) was not necessarily wrong, as long as it was not profanity (cursing God or using his name irreverently). Pretty soon that belief had developed to the point that I thought such language was generally okay. After all, the Apostle Paul used some pretty offensive language, at times, in his epistles. For that matter, God frequently used some pretty strong (and graphically offensive) language when speaking through his prophets. Since there are these examples in the Bible, and there’s no definite Scriptural command explicitly forbidding the use of such language, it must be okay. After all, they’re only words.

Then I grew up.

It seems so obvious to me now that I’m not sure how I missed it, but words have meanings. Words are not “just” words, because their meanings give them power. Vulgar, obscene, and curse words, by definition, mean vulgar and obscene things that are patently offensive and demeaning.

James speaks of the power of words when he says that the tongue “is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” A little later he says “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.”

While there are probably many things to which James is referring here besides the use of strong language, what he says is certainly applicable to that topic. Elsewhere the Bible refers to the tongue’s power, which obviously flows from its ability to form words, and instructs us not to say anything unwholesome, but “only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”

Does this mean that Christians are never to use strong language? I probably wouldn’t go that far. It does mean that Christians cannot be cavalier with what they say; they cannot make the argument that “they’re just words.” It means that we have to weigh the necessity of using such language and ask whether it will really be helpful to the people who hear it. It means that I have to realize that such language is bound to be offensive or hurtful to someone, whether or not that is the intended result.

The real question here, as with so many things in life, is one of love. A Christian’s words -- my words -- should reflect above all a love for God and for other people. Strong language rarely does that, and often does the opposite.

A wise man, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, once wrote that the tongue has the power of life and death. I need to remember that.

Almost Nine Months

2010-01-26T22:32:00.002-05:00

It's been almost nine months since I posted anything here, probably because of Facebook. It's so much quicker to post a link or a quick thought or "status" on Facebook than it is to actually write a blog post. Perhaps an argument could be made that Facebook leads to laziness.

Anyway, I'm thinking about reviving the blog. An outlet for writing is a good thing, even if it has a tiny audience. And writing more regularly is a good thing. So I reckon I'll give it a shot.

I don't have a whole lot to say at the moment. It's late, I have a headache boring through my left temple and squeezing the nerves at the base of my skull and behind my eye. That makes me all sorts of grumpy.

But it's not all bad. I took a look at Martin Luther's original "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" music and jotted down a quick arrangement that fit within a time signature and extended a couple of lines to fit the common version of the lyrics. The original is a whole lot more fun than the way it is usually sung these days, although it's probably a little too rambunctious for some folks.

And I've been spending time lately thinking about/outlining/plotting/brainstorming revisions for my NaNoWriMo '09 novel. If things go well with the re-writing process, I might actually let people read this one.

We shall see...

Desktop Symphony

2009-05-14T10:30:00.000-04:00

I wrote this post back in September '08 and for some reason never posted it.

I'm here at work marveling at the technology that allows me to listen to Shostakovich's 7th Symphony ("Leningrad") with such brilliant clarity in a room that would be a bit small for performing even a string quartet.

But more than that, I'm marveling at the brilliance of Shostakovich's music, and the brilliance of the God who invented music and gave us the ability to create it.

From time to time I should sit down and write in more depth about the music I listen to. Unfortunately, I usually blog when I'm at work, which is not a time when I have the time to write in depth. So instead I limit myself to quick thoughts and snippets of ideas.

On the subject of music, if you're looking for a soundtrack to add to your collection, I suggest Elliot Goldenthal's fabulous score for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. Epic, brooding, cacophonous, mournful, bombastic, tender... all these things and more. It's one of my favorite scores.

Return of The Wileyman

2009-04-15T20:22:00.002-04:00

More bloggage is forthcoming. The author of this blog regrets his negligence in keeping it updated, and hopes that he will be able to retain at least a few loyal readers if he picks it up again soon...

Lament

2009-02-26T10:11:00.003-05:00

I've added a brief, simple piano piece to my Myspace Music page. I wrote it sometime in 2007 (I think). It's called "Lament."

The Destroyer - Production Stills

2009-02-24T14:30:00.012-05:00

(pictures cross-posted from Facebook)

The Destroyer is still in post-production. I'd guess that the color correction and visual effects are mostly complete, which means that we're mostly done except for final editing tweaks, sound effects, and scoring... in other words, not yet quite close to being done. But the movie is coming together nicely, and it's exciting to see it take shape.

Here we see Leona, the main character, and Lastora, a Mirovian who befriended her, approaching Lastora's home as night falls. Night really was falling when we shot this -- it was the last shot of the first day of shooting -- and consequently the lighting isn't all that great.

The Oracle interrogates Leona, before proving yet again that Oracles are never helpful. I didn't do a great job framing this shot, but everyone gave good performances in this scene.

Leona and Lastora gaze out over the Mirovian landscape as they try to find a way to send Leona back home. One of my favorite shots, and one of my favorite locations in the movie. (We shot it at Dowdell's Knob in F.D. Roosevelt State Park.)

The enigmatic Sorceress, whose goal seems to be preventing anyone and everyone from accomplishing their goals. This shot is the conclusion of a brief exchange between Lastora and the Sorceress, and is another of my favorite shots in the movie (in spite of the backlighting).

Wizard sat alone on a seat of stone...

Carrie shot this one, since obviously I couldn't, and did a nice job of it too. My acting, on the other hand, left quite a bit to be desired...

Edited to add: The more I look at this shot, the more I think it's really good. Great job, Babe!

Look! An Idiot!

2009-01-14T15:35:00.003-05:00

Or, Christmas Day, long journeys, movie-making, and other sundry updates on the life of me.

(The title of the post, btw, is a line from the movie Mirrormask, which I highly recommend.)

----------------------

We celebrated Christmas Day with the Fam (my wife's side), and had a pleasant, relaxing, and peaceful day. Perhaps anticlimactic after the efforts and celebrations leading up to the day itself (see previous post), but also appropriate for commemorating the birth of the Prince of Peace.

A trip down South to visit my family followed. We got off to a late start (10:30-ish) on the 26th, and arrived in the early morning hours of the 27th. Passed the time talking, and listening to music, and reading [i]Inkheart[/i] (Carrie read; I listened and drove). And plotting the story for a movie I wanted to make with my sisters.

I'd meant to make one during our summer visit, but for lack of a script, the opportunity was lost. After we arrived and enjoyed our family Christmas celebrations, I spent a couple of days writing the script, based on our outline. A few new characters showed up, and a few plot twists twisted.

It's the story of Leona, a nine-year-old girl who is transported to another world where the people believe that she is The Destroyer -- one whose coming, foretold in ancient prophecies, will bring doom to the entire world. (Setting it in another world allowed us to get away with having everybody in the movie wear a cloak, which is cool because cloaks look really cool on screen. And we love cloaks. Oh, and it lets us use magic, too.)

We shot the movie over two days. The sun shone bright from a near-cloudless sky on the first, which gave us some beautiful location shooting. We shot a couple of scenes on a mountaintop just before sunset, and the lighting was perfect (the shots weren't quite perfect, as I was limited to slightly less than 180 degrees for camera placement, due to the parking lot and picnic area right next to where we were shooting.)

(That was also the place where a family came off the hiking trail and saw us all wearing our cloaks -- yes, cloaks -- and called out, "Hey, are y'all from the Twilight movie?" I throttled them all with my mind.)

The second day of shooting, unfortunately, dawned gray and moist. The scenes we shot in the morning worked all right, since they were mostly set out in the woods. A nice rainstorm in the early afternoon had me doubting whether we would be able to finish, as it was the last day before Carrie and I were to head home. But someone (I forget who) suggested that we drive off in search of a place with no rain. So we did, and found a place that worked, and finished the climax and all the other scenes that needed to be shot just before we ran out of light. Well, except for a couple of brief shots that still needs to be filmed. But those can be managed later.

We're now back home (more on the adventure of getting there in a later post) and I'm deep into the post-production phase -- all the stuff that's long and tedious and not nearly as fun as the shooting itself (editing is fun, actually, but the other stuff can be taxing). I've got a rough cut of the movie edited together, and am starting to explore digital color grading and digital special effects (I don't need many, but a few could help immensely). Then comes the sound editing, and the music, which will take a while. But when it's all done, the result should be 20-minute, fairly coherent fantasy movie that I hope will be enjoyable in spite of its many flaws.

More later, maybe even a still or two from the movie. But now, I have to go to the Post Office.

Brief Reflection on December

2009-01-14T13:08:00.001-05:00

I started the month of December on a high note, having just come off the adrenaline rush of NaNoWriMo. That high note quickly turned into driving ostinato as Christmas and its attending busyness came hurtling toward me at an impossible speed. There was a wedding song to arrange and accompany, a church Christmas program to prepare (including a last-minute song to arrange and perform), travel plans to finalize... nothing terribly abnormal, really, but all concentrated into one month, culminating in an explosion of activity on and around Christmas Day.

Exhausting. Draining. But fitting. For at Christmas, we celebrate the birth of a King. We add our praises and jubilation and revelry to that of the mother and father, the shepherds, the angels, the great company of men and women throughout the centuries who have done so and will continue to do so along with the vast company of heaven for all eternity. Celebration is a tiring thing. Revelry is draining. But it is also rewarding, and kings are glad when their people rejoice.

THE END!

2008-11-28T15:46:00.004-05:00

50,428 words. 28 days.

Big smile.

Lingering over a celebratory shot of Laphroaig.

General feeling of "Wow."

Cheers!

edited to add: And nice celebratory sushi for dinner! (Green tea, rising sun, tako salad appetizer, eel, yellowtail, mackerel, black dragon roll, dynamite roll, and a mango mochi and a strawberry mochi for dessert.)

My bosses are cool...

2008-11-25T14:19:00.004-05:00

Because I now have a shiny new iMac to use at work.

Third time's the charm

2008-11-24T11:21:00.003-05:00

The charm of suffocation, that is.

I've been here twice before...

Oh, the horror.

The Writing Life

2008-11-19T13:40:00.005-05:00

My second annual NaNoWriMo adventure is going well. Sorry for the lack of bloggage, but noveling has been stealing most of my writing energies.

And my other energies as well, actually. It's amazing how much my caffeine cravings have gone up during the past few weeks.You know those Starbucks Doubleshot cans you can buy in four-packs at Walmart? Those are the awesomeness these days. As are the usual daily cup of robust Irish Breakfast tea at breakfast.

I really haven't been staying up ridiculously late, as I had to do last year. But staying up just a little bit later than normal, on a regular basis, takes its toll. Guess I'm not as young as I used to be.

But the writing process is going really well. My minimal outline is keeping me on track, plot and character wise. There have only been a few days where I ran into total writer's block, and that was usually because I procrastinated. Getting past the halfway point on Monday felt great. I imagine it'll feel even better crossing 30,000 tonight. Something else that feels great? Killing off major characters. I iced the second one last night. Now I totally understand why Joss Whedon does it every five minutes. *Evil laugh.*

But you didn't come here to read about my evil glee, did you? No, I'll bet you came here for the Stuff of the Week.

Movie of the Week: It's National Novel Writing Month... do you really think I had time to watch a movie?

Soundtrack of the Week: That's more like it. I've been listening to a lot of those to spur me on my writing journey. I just got two in the mail yesterday: Dinotopia and Cleopatra, both by Trevor Jones. I give them both high recommendations. You won't find them for a decent price in the US, but you can order them from Mr. Jones's official site. Even though with shipping from the UK, I got the two of them together for a price comparable to what you might pay for a pair of CDs at Barnes & Noble or FYE.

I'll also throw out another recommendation for Jones's Thirteen Days, which I've mentioned here before.

Awesomeness of the Week: The Arturia Analog Factory Experience. It's a software synthesizer that comes with a very cool 32-key controller keyboard that is specifically designed to control all aspects of the software. Why it's cool? It's an easy-to-use program that runs on Arturia's synthesis engine and contains 3,500 presets from seven of Arturia's Classic Synth emulators (the minimoog, the Moog Modular, the CS-80, the ARP 2600, the Prophet 5, the Prophet VS, and the Jupiter-8). The individual versions of these emulators retail for about $200 each; the Analog Factory Experience retails for just under $300. And although it doesn't allow for the insane level of control that the individual synth emulators do, its learning curve is much less steep. Which, for someone like me who doesn't have currently have the time to learn the ins and outs of an exact virtual replica of a classic analog synthesizer, is excellent. I had been considering getting Arturia's CS-80V for a long time, but was a bit daunted by the insane amount of controls (just click on the picture and be blown away by the number of virtual knobs, buttons, and sliders). The Analog Factory Experience takes away the daunting factor while giving access to a host of classic synth sounds. The CS-80, btw, is what synth maestro Vangelis used almost exclusively to create the Blade Runner soundtrack, which is why I've been wanting it for so long. If I were prone to bouts of squeeing, this definitely would be squee-worthy.

Thought of the Week: Today marks the third anniversary of my marriage to my wife, who also happens to be my favorite person ever. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In retrospect, it was an even better idea than I realized.

That was probably a shorter Stuff of the Week than you would have liked, dear readers, but it'll have to suffice for the present.

And now, back to work. And later, writing.

Themes of Battlestar Galactica

2008-11-06T14:25:00.003-05:00

I stumbled across Bear McCreary's blog today, and he has a series of five (so far) posts discussing the various themes that he's composed for the series.

Very interesting reading if your a soundtrack fan, a BSG fan, or both!

Beware of spoilers.

Themes of Battlestar Galactica, Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V

A Capella John Williams, etc.

2008-11-03T12:22:00.004-05:00

Saw this today, thought it was worth sharing.

In other news, I've gotten off to a good start on my NaNoWriMo novel. It helps having an outline ahead of time, even if it's not very detailed. I've got a pretty clear idea of what should happen when, and all that sort of thing. The characters aren't as well defined as I'd like, but that's what the rest of the month is for!

Also, if you want to hear the arrangement of "Men of Fenwick" (the Fenwickian National Anthem) that I did for ICS's production of The Mouse That Roared, I've posted it on my MySpace page. I had a lot of fun working on it. The lyrics follow, and the music makes more sense with them:

Men of Fenwick, in the hollow,
Do you hear the rushing billow
Wave on wave, that surging follow
Battle's distant sound?

'Tis the sound of the French foe-men
France's spearmen, France's bowmen.
Be they knights, or hinds, or yeomen,
They shall bite the ground!

Loose the folds asunder,
Flag we conquer under!
The placid sky,
Now bright on high,
Shall loose its bolt of thunder!

Men of Fenwick, young and hoary,
Do you seek a name in story?
Strike for home, Pinot, and glory,
Freedom, God, and right!

I made a lolcat

2008-10-24T14:50:00.002-04:00

Autumn Colors

2008-10-16T15:53:00.002-04:00

The clouds were amazing this morning as we left for work.

The wind picked up early this afternoon, and I thought we were going to have a storm. But we just got leaves across the road.

I took this picture, and the previous one, out in front of the new Shepherd Press building.

Autumn on the Susquehanna.

Musical adventures

2008-10-09T13:58:00.001-04:00

I decided to create a Myspace Music profile and share a couple of pieces that I've been working on. My idea is to create an CD of electronic music with a cautiously optimistic, epic, apocalyptic vibe. If all goes well, I might look into getting the CD pressed.

The working title of the CD is "Doomsday Clock," although that'll probably change. I wrote a rough version of "Minutes to Midnight" sometime in 2006, and finally revisited and revised it last night. "Twilight" I wrote this past Saturday. Hopefully, there'll be more to come.

Feedback is welcome!

October

2008-10-01T12:20:00.001-04:00

The first day of October opened with a fitting mixture of rain and sun, light and shadow. October is a month of contradictions. The beauty of autumn leaves foreshadows their death. The refreshing chill in the air signals the coming of biting cold.

It is a month of happy days and dark memories, of joy and pain. Really, though, that's what all of life is. Beauty and ugliness, comedy and tragedy, summer and winter.

After October come the dying days of fall, and winter sets in. But, as always, spring will come, heralding the advent of that final, glorious Spring when all will be made right again...

Song of the Day

2008-10-01T10:06:00.003-04:00

"Mary In A Martha's World"
by Allen Levi

This sunset, I am watching
Makes me think of all the ones that passed me by
Because this world around my feet has somehow trapped me
And I rarely turn my face to see the sky
Slow down, slow down,
Slow down, slow down
You are like some little kid spinning round and round and round
But you'll lose your sense of balance if you twirl
It's hard to be a Mary, in a Martha's world

And somewhere in the stillness of the moment
I think that I can hear a gentle voice
I find a hundred reasons for my motion
But I realize its really just my choice
Slow down, slow down,
Slow down, slow down
You are like some little kid spinning round and round and round
But you'll lose your sense of balance in that twirl
It's hard to be a Mary, in a Martha's world

And the pace that I have chosen suits me poorly
But I've come to believe it's how it's got to be
How many are the sunsets I've not noticed
And the miracles I simply failed to see
Slow down, slow down...

So sunset, do not go too quickly
Let the moment linger, let it last
Please do not be guilty of my error
Do not let the magic go so fast
Slow down, slow down,
Slow down, slow down
You are like some little kid spinning round and round and round
But you'll lose your sense of balance in that twirl
It's hard to be a Mary, in this Martha's world

Lord let me be like Mary in this Martha's world

Beauty smiles, passing into memory...

2008-09-26T13:36:00.003-04:00

I was going to post something but I didn't like what I had written, so instead I give you this post by Jeff Berryman.

Excerpt:

I have always enjoyed teaching acting. There’s always a small voice in the back of my head wondering about the whole notion of memesis, the old Greek idea of imitation, and the various means by which we approach according to the ideas of the day. How best to mimic the action of the human being, so that it’s presence on a stage becomes a force, a mirror with intention, almost Disney-like, from which we beg wisdom, or at least input. “Who is the fairest? What is the meaning of ‘fairest’? Show us the good and the bad, and who we were, are, and might be.” So men and women, young and old, they climb onto the boards with words heavy in their mouths and hearts and they proclaim the state of the race as best the playwright and director see it.

But behind and before all those $60-$100 moments (Far more if it’s TV and film) there are the days when the actor struggles alone....

Ron Paul on McCain

2008-09-19T11:14:00.000-04:00

Videos and more

2008-09-18T09:47:00.003-04:00

The video I mentioned in the last post? It's here. It's a promo I made for a newly-released book entitled A Proverbs Driven Life by Anthony Selvaggio.

Speaking of videos, here's another one. I didn't make it. But it's funny.

That's all for now. Don't forget, tomorrow is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Late nights and early mornings

2008-09-12T11:25:00.001-04:00

Stayed up until 2:00am working on a promo video last night. Haven't stayed up that late in a long time. Surprisingly we were still able to leave for work nearly on time this morning. Once the video gets final approval I'll post the link.

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Dreamed about college the other night. Lauren and I had to go back to PHC and take 20th-Century Russia. Dr. Sanders was telling us which books we needed for the class; I discovered that one of them, a well-regarded exhaustive history of Russia, also existed in a free on-line edition. I was telling her and the rest of the class about it; she wanted to see it, so I showed it to her. Then I saw why it was free and online. It was an old edition. Published in 1956.

"Oh," I said. "That's probably not going to cover much of the topics you want to deal with in this class."

Dr. Sanders shook her head, a haughty smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"No," she said. "Probably not."

-------------------

Ran across the following in one of my notebooks. I don't know when or why I wrote it:

"Not so fast," said the wolf.

But it was too late. In one swift movement, the adventurer snatched the sack of gold and leaped off of the cliff.

"There goes my gold," the wolf said, and sauntered back toward the forest in search of a nice warm rabbit for dinner.

When the wolf entered the forest, he first noticed a strange scent in the air. Then he heard a soft rustle in the leaves ahead of him, but he saw nothing.

A twig snapped.

Meanwhile, the adventurer realized that his clever plan would soon fail without immediate alteration. He dropped the sack of gold and rotated his body into a head-first dive moments before he hit the water. The shock of impact and sudden immersion in cold, salty water nearly paralyzed him.

Preparation

2008-09-08T16:00:00.000-04:00

Now that it's September, it's time to start gearing up for National Novel-Writing Month. Last year's NaNoWriMo did not go as smoothly as I had hoped - something about not really starting to write in earnest until the third week of the month - but I still finished about four hours before the deadline.

The more I think about the story I wrote, I'm not terribly happy with it, although I'm proud of the accomplishment. I'd like to go into it better prepared, this time around. Like maybe with an actual outline, and some idea of how it's supposed to end. That would help.

So between now and November 1st, I hope to come up with a well-defined plot, and outline, and some good ideas for who the principle characters are.

And if it goes well, I just might contemplate entering next year's 3-Day Novel Contest.

And I thought writing a novel in one month was crazy...

Kerri Strug Vaults!

2008-08-20T16:15:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I've sat down and written on this blog. I apologize to my faithful readers (if any of them are left). For the last couple of months I really haven't had anything to say that I felt like I could say here.

It's been an even longer time since I've sat down and watched the Olympics. I think I watched a bit of the 2000 summer games, but 1996 was the big year of Olympic watching. The games were held in Atlanta, a scant hour-and-a-half from my childhood home. That made things pretty exciting, even though Atlanta is the last place you want to be when the Olympics are being held there. Why? Traffic. If you've ever driven in Atlanta during rush hour, and then you multiply that by a factor of huge, you know what I'm talking about. Very Bad Times.

So we all stayed at home and watched the Olympics on TV. Mainly we watched gymnastics, because my sisters thought it was cool, and I thought it was cool, and I had a major crush on Dominique Moceanu. What can I say? I was 15.

That was the year that the US women's gymnastic team won the gold medal, with the climax coming as Kerri Strug stuck her second vault landing on a broken ankle. That was the Olympic Moment that NBC played over and over and over again, in slow motion, at every commercial break for the rest of the games.

Just the other night, we got to see Kerri Strug's vault once more, this time narrated by Morgan Freeman (or someone who sounds just like him) in a Visa commercial. I knew I couldn't make it through the Olympics without seeing Kerri Strug vault at least once, and I was not disappointed.

Now, on to other things...

Namely, the STUFF OF THE WEEK!

Movie of the Week: The Dark Knight. Really, the movie of the summer. As Jeffrey Overstreet said, "...I had that rare feeling watching this movie that I’m seeing something that I will end up watching many, many times in the future, to appreciate it more and more." I appreciated that no explanation was offered for The Joker's evil, because none was needed. As Jan Batchler mentioned, "Evil... doesn't need a cause. It doesn't need a reason. Evil... is a choice."

Soundtrack of the Week: Michael Collins by Elliot Goldenthal. It's complex, with a Celtic flair. Goldenthal is one of my favorite composers these days (I highly recommend his score for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), and this is one worth having.

CD of the Week: Unearthed by ES Posthumus. It's fun, epic-sounding music that's good for driving or creating an energetic mood. I'd probably categorize it as cinematic orchestral rock, as it's a little too repetitive to really call it classical. Good fun, though.

Olympic Moments of the Week: Nastia Liukin winning the women's all-around gymnastics gold. She deserved it. Jonathan Horton nailing his high bar routine to win a silver medal. Dara Torres' impressive performance in the women's swimming competitions.

Olympic Bummer of the Week: There've been a few. Alicia Sacramone's perplexing defeat on the vault final. Sasha Artemov falling off of the pommel horse in that event final. Fabian Hambuechen falling off of the high bar.

Olympic Face of the Week: Shawn Johnson with her incredibly big eyes after winning gold on the balance beam.

Olympic Monster of the Week: Michael Phelps. They should start calling him the Beast of Beijing.

Beautiful Music of the Week: "On Earth As It Is In Heaven" from Ennio Morricone's score for The Mission. It's breathtaking, and has been known to bring tears to my eyes.

Well, that's all I have for now. It wasn't anything too spectacular, but hopefully it'll be the spark that gets me back in the blogging more frequently groove.

Until next time, then...

BOM BOM BOM BOM
Dunn da dunn da dunn dunn dunn dunn
Dunn dada dun dun dunn dada dun dun
Dunn dada dun dun dunn...

KERRI STRUG VAULTS!

[commercial break]

Dussst!

2008-07-29T13:56:00.003-04:00

This game is much more crazy fun than it has any right to be. Maybe it's because of the mad combinations of stone and metal and gunpowder and fire and magma and gas and water and ice and wind.

Oh, and nitroglycerin.

Time is a Whirlwind

2008-07-24T13:11:00.003-04:00

Song of the day, by Allen Levi.

Excerpt:

The children grow, seems before our eyes
The days drag on, sometimes, the years fly by
Don't believe I'd change it if I could
No, no, no, no,
I'm telling you life is good

Time's a whirlwind, that's where we find us
Year's begun, now is behind us
Nice to know someone is in control
As we are growing old...

Bears

2008-06-27T15:11:00.003-04:00

Saw these guys yesterday:

Sushi in the air

2008-06-19T12:31:00.006-04:00

Much to my surprise and delight, my brother-in-law called on Monday and invited us to go out to the restaurant known as Katana for sushi with a group of friends on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, the plans for Tuesday fell through, but everybody was able to reschedule for tonight! So, as you can imagine, my mouth has been watering for sushi all day.

Below is what I wrote to one of my friends who is part of tonight's sushi group:

Thinking about Sushi and Katana made me imagine what it might be like if I were a samurai in feudal Japan. I imagine that I would be loved as a defender of the people, and that they would flock to give me delicious sushi whenever they heard I was passing by. If that were the case, I might have been seen thus, brandishing my katana, thanking the people for giving me sushi, and promising to defend them from evil and oppression, with the grand and lofty Mount Fuji in the background:

A diversion!

2008-06-12T16:04:00.002-04:00

Apparently you don't have to be too highly educated to understand the writings on my blog:

However, only a certain class of people are able to comprehend the Book of Thomas:

So if you've been following the Book of Thomas, feel good about yourself today!

Song of the Day

2008-06-03T13:36:00.002-04:00

In the time of my confession, in the hour of my deepest need
When the pool of tears beneath my feet flood every newborn seed
There's a dyin' voice within me reaching out somewhere,
Toiling in the danger and in the morals of despair.

Don't have the inclination to look back on any mistake,
Like Cain, I now behold this chain of events that I must break.
In the fury of the moment I can see the Master's hand
In every leaf that trembles, and in every grain of sand.

Oh, the flowers of indulgence and the weeds of yesteryear,
Like criminals, they have choked the breath of conscience and good cheer.
The sun beat down upon the steps of time to light the way
To ease the pain of idleness and the memory of decay.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

I have gone from rags to riches in the sorrow of the night
In the violence of a summer's dream, in the chill of a wintry light,
In the bitter dance of loneliness fading into space,
In the broken mirror of innocence on each forgotten face.

I hear the ancient footsteps like the motion of the sea
Sometimes I turn, there's someone there, other times it's only me.
I am hanging in the balance of a perfect finished plan
Like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand.

"Every Grain of Sand," Bob Dylan

(performed by Emmylou Harris on Wrecking Ball)

Another Book of Thomas update

2008-06-02T14:37:00.002-04:00

In case anybody missed it, I posted another chapter of the Book of Thomas on Thursday. I hope to write one or two more this week.

Concrete, Bruises, and Sunburn

2008-05-28T15:30:00.001-04:00

Memorial Day found me at the home of my grandparents-in-law (on my wife's mother's side), heavily involved in the construction of a new sidewalk. Emphasis on "heavily," as I mostly shoveled gravel and sand into five-gallon buckets, which I then dumped (along with concrete mix) into the concrete mixer. Over, and over, and over again. Gravel is heavy. Sand is heavier. I have a nice 2-inch-diameter bruise on my inner right forearm to show for it. I also have a not-insignificant sunburn on my arms. They have a nice new sidewalk, which is a very good thing, because their old sidewalk wasn't so very safe.

You have a new chapter of The Book of Thomas. Not because of anything to do with Memorial Day, but because I felt creative during my lunch break.

And what's more, at long last, you have a STUFF OF THE WEEK!

Movie of the Week: LA Confidential. One of my favorites. If you haven't seen it, it's a dirty, gritty police drama set in 1950s Los Angeles. Murder, prostitution, drugs, corruption, redemption - you name it, it's there. It also boasts an excellent script, and excellent performances by Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, and a pre-Gladiator Russell Crowe.

Other Movie of the Week: Iron Man. In some ways, it's as much of a sci-fi movie as a superhero movie, and that works in its favor. The script doesn't work so much in its favor in the third act, but Robert Downey Jr does... easily one of the best superhero performances in a while. Gwyneth Paltrow also does a great job with her character, and their chemistry works quite well. I hope Terrence Howard gets more to do in the second film, and that they have a better bad guy, and a better third act. Overall, though, it's a much better movie than the disappointments of X-Men: The Last Stand and Spider-man 3 and the sluggish Superman Returns.

Movie Not of the Week: The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I enjoyed it better than the first movie, because I was expecting it to stay pretty far away from faithfulness to the book. In that regard, it was a decent fantasy-war film, with some exciting action and nice scenery. The main characters, generally speaking, were kind of dumb, especially Peter (who was also a jerk), and Caspian (who was wishy-washy and a bit of a jerk). Dialogue? Not so great. Castle assault? Cool, but unnecessary. Couldn't help but think, "Didn't I see this in The Lord of the Rings? when Miraz's army was approaching Aslan's How. Speaking of Aslan's How, Edmund had a nice moment (one of several) when he smashed the White Witch and told Peter off without trying to steal the scene. Peter, on the other hand, always seemed to be trying to steal the scene, and unfortunately came off as a jerk most of the time. (I didn't like Peter. You may have noticed.) I don't have much else to say about it at the moment, other than that it's a pretty poor adaptation.

Soundtrack of the Week: Heavy Metal by Elmer Bernstein. Some have described this score as Bernstein's Star Wars, and I'd probably agree. As far as I can tell, the movie's not really worth seeing, but the music is very much worth listening to. Lots of rousing action pieces throughout, especially tracks 2-6 with the heroic "Den's Theme." Track 9, "Getting Bombed," is another fantastic action piece. "Robot Love" is a sweeping, classic love theme. The highlight of the CD, though, is the collection of tracks 17-23 that are built around the soaring "Taarna's Theme;" I particularly like the ominous reference to the Dies Irae in "My Whips/Taarna Escapes Pit."

CD of the Week: El Greco by Vangelis. If you like Vangelis, you'll like this; if not, you won't. It's more in line with his film score work than his earlier, prog-rock styles. Nothing hugely outstanding, but I enjoy it.

TV Show of the Week: Heroes. Just finished watching Season 1 last night, and I enjoyed it a good bit. It doesn't have the gravitas of Battlestar Galactica or the emotional impact of, say, a Whedon show, but the writing is generally decent. The characters tend to stand around talking a bit too much, especially when they're in dire straits, and there are so many characters that very few are given the chance to develop beyond 1.5 or 2 dimensions. But the show's got a great coolness factor, and in spite of the obvious X-Men influences, it remains unique enough that it doesn't fall into rip-off territory. I've heard that the second season wasn't so great, so here's hoping they can bring season three back up to par.

Book of the Week: No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. Wish I'd read it before seeing the movie.

Quote of the Week: From the above book: "People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they dont deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things. I dont recall that I ever give the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me. But he did."

And now I have to go. My destiny is calling...

And yet...

2008-05-27T13:55:00.003-04:00

Andrew Sullivan has a post up today that sums up, in a lot of ways, where I am with regards to Obama's candidacy. Excerpt:

"His candidacy is about renewing what America means to the world and to itself. It is about a collective cultural healing - especially on race. It is about representing the next generation and America's less domineering but more inspiring place among nations. It is about transparency in government. It is about getting past this brutal cultural polarization for a while. It is about putting reason back into our discourse after the emotional manipulation of the Morris-Rove era. It is about ending torture, restoring Constitutional balance, and adding the power of words, of great words, to restore hope again."

I see much potential good coming out of an Obama presidency. On foreign policy, he makes a lot more sense than the current administration, and I'm hopeful that as President he'll do his best to put an end to the rabid partisanship that's plagued our government for so long. Perhaps he can even bring us out of the fear- and doom-laden mindset that has driven us ever since 9/11.

The Plot Thickens

2008-05-21T16:08:00.002-04:00

Three updates to The Book of Thomas in two days! I'm pretty sure that's a record.

Chapter XXI is up now. And in Chapter XXII (due soon), something dark really is coming. (It decided to stay out of Chapters XX and XXI, because it didn't think the stage had been set properly yet. Dark Things can be frustrating when they develop minds of their own.)

Book of Thomas update

2008-05-20T15:14:00.004-04:00

Chapter XIX of The Book of Thomas the Georgian has been posted, and Chapter XX should be up this evening.

Edit: Chapter XX is now up.

Something dark is coming...

Prince Caspian reviews, etc.

2008-05-16T09:12:00.004-04:00

Prince Caspian is in the theaters, and I'm prepared to be disappointed. Here are some links to reviews and other articles.

A review by Stephen Greydanus, and a related article entitled "Eye Candy and vague faith in Narnia."

Peter Chattaway's review at Christianity Today Movies.

Devin Brown's wish list for Prince Caspian, also at CT Movies.

And here's Eric Snider's rant about the film's rating (thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet for the link).

Edit: Here's another review from the San Francisco Chronicle. He makes some good points about what makes a movie epic, and then has this great take on the centaurs:

Of course, there are centaurs. That's something. They're fighting with the good guys, and they're very serious, these centaurs, as if they're overcompensating for being attached to a horse's backside. Who could blame them?

A pro-life argument against Obama

2008-05-16T08:44:00.002-04:00

Since I posted this the other day, I figured I'd post this link from the National Catholic Register.

The United States was founded on the rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and Americans have spent the past two centuries since trying to live up to those founding principles. First came disagreements over the pursuit of happiness — religious and economic liberty. Then, over slavery. Today’s big battle is over the most important right: the right to life.

Obama’s votes and official positions deny the right to life to three categories of human beings: the unborn, the “accidentally” born and, at least in one case, the adult “unfit.”

Later on in the article, Obama is quoted:

“Whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a child, a 9-month old child that was delivered to term,” he said. “That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place.”

How could Obama be so opposed to the right to life? He may have let slip one reason at a March Town Hall meeting in Pennsylvania.

“Look, I’ve got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old,” Obama said. “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

That, at least, is one place where I completely and utterly disagree with Mr. Obama. Essentially, he's saying that if his daughters make a mistake, he wants to protect them from the consequences... even if doing so requires the destruction of a helpless, innocent life. That's a horrible price for the convenience of avoiding consequences.

I like Obama. I think could make a good President. I want to support him. But as long as he continues to support America's war against the unborn, the sacrifice of innocent blood on the altar of convenience, I cannot support him.

Abortion is evil, and Obama's defense of it is just as heinous as President Bush's defense of unjust war and torture.

Springtime is here

2008-05-14T13:25:00.001-04:00

Well, Spring is finally here. In spite of a few days here and there where the temperature dips into the mid-50s during the day and the mid-30s at night, it's generally been pleasant in the 60s and 70s. Just about everything has turned green (of things that are supposed to turn green, that is... my face is still a nice healthy flesh-color), and the green has inspired me to take pictures!

This past Sunday, we went to the home of my parents-in-law for lunch. After lunch, we took a walk, and I took pictures. It was cloudy, cool, and windy; Friday and Saturday were wet, but Sunday stayed dry. There were some impressive clouds, which you can see in the first two pictures.

A farm road on the mountain across from and above their house.

The fields and mountains beyond their house (which is behind and to the left of where I was standing).

A Red-wing Blackbird not far from where I took the previous picture.

A cat. Duh.

Another cat, having fun. Or an itchy head. These pictures were taken only a few seconds apart.

I took the next two pictures on Tuesday.

This is an orchard I drive past every day on my way to and from work; I took this one in the afternoon, on the way home. If you click on the picture you can see the moon right at the very top.

This mountain overlooks the building that will begin housing the company I work for sometime this summer. It also overlooks the river and the nuclear power plant; at some point, I'll go up to the overlook and take pictures from there.

I took this last picture this morning, on the way to work. The deer was standing right beside the road; it ran as I approached, but I slowed down, and it stopped. I stopped, whipped out my camera, and took a few pictures before it ran off into the trees. This one is by far the best, and it's the reason I carry my camera with me every day.

Sorry I haven't written anything lately. I'll try to soon. I might even work up another Stuff of the Week post... I've put it off far too long.

Until then, go see Iron Man if you haven't already, and buy a copy of Vangelis' CD entitled El Greco.

A pro-life argument for supporting Obama

2008-05-07T12:49:00.002-04:00

Doug Kmiec writes here.

Excerpt:

This much I know:

If it’s a choice between giving a boost to the work of my fellow parishioners who week after week in thinly-funded, crisis pregnancy centers, open their minds and their hearts and often their homes to pregnant women (and Obama has spoken approvingly of faith-based efforts) and a Supreme Court Justice to be named later who may or may not toss the issue back to the states, I think I know which course is more effectively choosing life.

A Sad Day

2008-04-25T12:28:00.001-04:00

On March 31, the day we moved into our new house, my faithful Roadrunner died. Or, to be more precise, her transmission died. I knew it was coming - I had known since last summer - but I wasn't entirely ready for it to happen.

I bought Roadrunner in the Fall of 1999. A 1987 Chevrolet Caprice Classic with a 4.3 V6 under the hood, she served me well for eight and a half years and approximately 100,000 miles. She had right around 227,200 on her when I drove her last, many of them acquired on the long drive between Northern Virginia and Central Georgia and the longer drive between Northeast Pennsylvania and Central Georgia. She never once stranded me beside the road, never once hit another car, and somehow always managed to get me out of the snow when I was sure I had gotten her stuck.

Roadrunner always handled extremely well, and was a pleasure to drive. I learned many things from her, including that it is indeed possible to park a boat-sized car in a compact car only parking garage. I drove her in 14 states, got two speeding tickets and one parking ticket, and coaxed her to about 100 miles per hour a couple of times on I-85 near the Georgia/Alabama border (even though her speedometer only went up to 80).

Many of my friends have ridden in Roadrunner. A handful of them were allowed to drive her. The last thing my dad and I ever did together was change her sparkplugs just before I left for my sophomore year of college.

My girlfriend, who later became my wife, spent a lot of time with me in that car. We made the trip between Georgia and Virginia and Pennsylvania a few times in her, and once took the long, hot drive out to Indiana for a wedding one summer. We took her to a wedding in Atmore, Alabama one December, and drove across the border into Florida so we could say we had been there together. That particular trip turned out to be fateful, as we both decided then that we couldn't live without each other. Five months later, we took another drive together where I asked a certain question and was given a certain answer, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But on March 31 of this year, Roadrunner's transmission died. I decided, with regret, that I could no longer continue to spend money on maintaining her, so we left her parked outside our old house once we moved.

A couple of weeks later, I borrowed a truck. Under cover of darkness, Carrie and I removed the seats and all of our belongings from that large trunk in which Bro and I once hauled off an unsuspecting Drunken Piper.

The following Monday, I made arrangements to have Roadrunner removed. Yesterday, it happened.

The truck arrived, and in short order she was on the back.

They drove away...

And that was the last time I ever saw her.

Happy Earth Day!

2008-04-22T15:58:00.003-04:00

In honor of Earth Day '08, I have decided to share with you a picture of earth.

And another picture I took on this particularly nice spring day:

I may, unfortunately, have a sad picture or two in the next few days.

BSG Interview

2008-04-21T16:01:00.002-04:00

Links to a very interesting three-part interview with Battlestar Galactica creators Ron Moore and David Eick. It explores the legal, social, economic and political ideas raised by the show.

Part 1
Parts 2 & 3

Shop for atonal rapping cowboys at Walmart!

2008-04-17T11:53:00.003-04:00

I just listened to the most unwanted song in the world!

From the composer's notes:

The most unwanted music is over 25 minutes long, veers wildly between loud and quiet sections, between fast and slow tempos, and features timbres of extremely high and low pitch, with each dichotomy presented in abrupt transition. The most unwanted orchestra was determined to be large, and features the accordion and bagpipe (which tie at 13% as the most unwanted instrument), banjo, flute, tuba, harp, organ, synthesizer (the only instrument that appears in both the most wanted and most unwanted ensembles). An operatic soprano raps and sings atonal music, advertising jingles, political slogans, and "elevator" music, and a children's choir sings jingles and holiday songs. The most unwanted subjects for lyrics are cowboys and holidays, and the most unwanted listening circumstances are involuntary exposure to commericals and elevator music. Therefore, it can be shown that if there is no covariance—someone who dislikes bagpipes is as likely to hate elevator music as someone who despises the organ, for example—fewer than 200 individuals of the world's total population would enjoy this piece.

You can read about and listen to it here. I laughed out loud.

Are you an angry renter?

2008-04-16T11:06:00.001-04:00

AngryRenter.com

I was tagged

2008-04-15T21:48:00.002-04:00

With this meme that's been making the rounds:

"The Rules:
Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!)
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people."

So, here it is:

At the end of Broad Street it ran right down to the water's edge, where there was a small wooden wharf. Toby led us to the very edge of this and there stood whining, looking out on the dark current beyond.

"We are out of luck," said Holmes.

Excerpted from The Sign of Four by Arthur Conan Doyle, as found in The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

Since I'm supposed to tag, I'll tag Erendis, because she always has interesting books lying around. And Glim. And Xtqz. And the Keith formerly known as Sylvanus, if he's into this sort of thing. And anybody who reads this blog but hasn't commented in a while.

I rock

2008-04-14T08:49:00.000-04:00

Which Battlestar Galactica Character Are You?

More on Battlestar Galactica. Created by BuddyTV

Ron Paul is the Man

2008-03-26T13:13:00.001-04:00

Andrew Sullivan explains why.

"For all his quirks, and for all his unseemly past associations, Ron Paul had some serious view about the gravity of the situation and a philosophy that was once called conservative and is now smeared as nuts. History will be far kinder to him that today's chattering classes."

Vangelis

2008-03-26T11:47:00.004-04:00

A friend recently asked me for a CD recommendation. He was interested in exploring the music of Vangelis and wondered if he should go with the Blade Runner soundtrack or a compilation entitled Themes. The following was my recommendation:

You can't go wrong with Themes. It has several good tracks from Blade Runner, although it's missing the phenomenal "Main Titles." I don't own the official retail Blade Runner CD, for the reasons you mentioned, particularly the bits of dialog superimposed over the music. If you can get a hold of the "Gongo Edition" of Blade Runner, it's overall a pretty good CD that has a lot of the music unmarred by dialog, although the sound quality on a few tracks leaves something to be desired.

Back to Themes, though...

I borrowed Themes repeatedly from my local library when I first encountered Vangelis back in the late 90s, and it's safe to say that it was the CD that got me hooked. Here's my rundown of the tracks:

"End Titles from Blade Runner" is an excellent, darkly energetic track with a repeated, sinking melody that is one of my all-time favorite Vangelis compositions.

"Main Theme from Missing" is very different. Simple, melodic, beautiful and mournful, with lush strings coming in later on.

"L'Enfant" is another simple melody with a repeated, pulsing synth note underneath, similar to "Titles" from Chariots of Fire, but more playful.

"Hymn" is another Vangelis classic, melodic and beautiful. It's the music used for the race in Scotland where Eric Liddell's character first appears in Chariots of Fire.

"Chung Kuo" and "The Tao of Love" I haven't listened to in a long while, so I can't really comment.

"Theme from Antarctica" - Another of my favorites. Icy, reverberating percussion, a quiet but pulsating bass, supporting a melody that is soon joined by brass and strings and timpani underneath. I especially love the timpani that kicks in at 5:47.

"Love Theme from Blade Runner" - sappy saxophone and synths. Probably one of the sappiest love themes ever composed. But, it's sci-fi noir, and it works.

"Opening Titles from The Bounty" - another dark piece, driven by a slow, insistent bass synth and echoing percussion. Full of foreboding.

"Closing Titles from The Bounty" - A bit more generic-sounding to me, at least at the outset. The brass and strings come in and fill it out a bit better towards the end, but overall I think it drags... perhaps because it seems better suited for end titles to almost anything but a period sailing adventure movie.

"Memories of Green" - another seletion from the Blade Runner CD, it opens with various computer bleeps and a wandering detuned piano. The minor-key melody kicks in around 1:20, still on the detuned piano and with various machine sounds in the background.

"La Petite Fille de la Mer" - a nice little underwater dance in 3/4 time, with a chime melody accompanied by guitar and strings. I haven't listened to it in a long time (I mostly listen to music at work, and it's on my home computer), but I like it.

"Five Circles" - from the Chariots of Fire CD but not actually used in the movie, a contemplatively peaceful yet majestic piece for synth brass. It really starts soaring around halfway through, then slowly drifts away during the last minute and a half or so.

"Chariots of Fire" - Vangelis' best-known (and most overused) composition to date, it remains a classic with its initial upward-reaching horn call and pulsing bass, followed by the instantly recognizable percussion and soaring piano theme.

More quick stuff

2008-03-20T17:10:00.000-04:00

Was gonna post this last week, but forgot to finish it. But here it is.

Good news: we got a house! We're signing the lease on Saturday.

Bad news: We have to pack and move by April 1.

Good NPR Story: Examining the Origins of America's "Founding Faith"

Good Editorial: Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal' by David Mamet

Good Movie Trailer: Wall*E, trailer 3 - I think I'm looking forward to this even more than The Dark Knight.

Thought for the day

2008-03-19T15:01:00.005-04:00

"....self-righteousness is often the hallmark of each and every "movement," whether religious or secular, and whether for the unborn, for peace, for those on death row, for animal welfare, for the environment, etc., etc."

~from a review of Frank Schaeffer's autobiographical Crazy for God byJim Forrest

Dirt Beneath The Nails

2008-03-07T13:15:00.001-05:00

Song of the day.

See this God among the people
No halo on his head
He made his money working wood
He lived on common bread
The kingdom that he showed to us
Was truth and grace unveiled
The way of love and sacrifice
And dirt beneath the nails

Many were the miracles
He did with just a word
If he'd spoken out of Heaven
I suppose he could be heard
But instead he lived among us
And he showed us very well
The way of love and sacrifice
And dirt beneath the nails

How could he be a little boy
Who played the neighborhood?
A carpenter who feels the sting
Of the splinters from the wood?
This holy God who made the worlds
Now lives as holy Man
Not afraid to take our shame
Or dirt upon his hands

How could he write in the temple sand
To turn a crowd away?
Or make a ball of mud
To give a blind man the light of day?
Or make a storm of the temple trade
Or still the tempest gale?
Not at all, not at all, not at all
Without dirt beneath his nails

A darkened hill he walked upon
A bloody battered fool
He'll deal with death despite the doubts
And the shouts of ridicule
See him lay his bleeding back
To capture us from Hell
To pay a debt he did not owe
Our dirt beneath those nails

He was just a little boy
Who played the neighborhood
More than a carpenter
With splinters from the wood
To give us joy he tasted grief
And he took a friend's betrayal
These hands that brought the dead to life
Died slow beneath those nails
Died slow beneath my nails

See the One among the angels
With a crown upon his head
Hear the woman saying
"He is risen from the dead!"
The power of love to give us life
Is certain to prevail
Because the God of goodness
Lived with dirt beneath the nails

There was love beneath those nails...

-Allen Levi (from his CD "We Have Seen Him")

Vertigo...

2008-03-07T11:02:00.004-05:00

I would like to take this moment to say that if you are a fan of U2 and have not yet seen U2 3D, you are crazy.

Ramblings on Beauty

2008-03-06T13:41:00.002-05:00

Jeffrey Overstreet yesterday linked to a series of posts by author, playwright, actor, pastor (and fellow Act One alumnus) Jeff Berryman. I've copied the links here:

Beauty
Beauty is Relationship
Beauty is Order
Beauty is Tension
Beauty and Race

Beauty is one of the things that makes this life worth living. Perhaps one could say that beauty is THE thing that makes life worth living, because beauty and God are so closely connected that the one would be impossible without the other.

Beauty in art, in movies, in music, in people, in the earth and sky and sea and the vast expanse of space - these are the things that move me. A soaring orchestra, a mournful violin, a sleeping baby (shout-out to little man Wags!), a quiet creek in the forest, big white miles-high clouds... the hundreds of geese that flew overhead as I was driving to work this morning, one huge V with at least a dozen smaller interconnected Vs, all moving and flowing together, merging and changing shape while retaining the same overall form and structure - order and tension in action - and I felt something inside and I had to say it. I don't remember the exact words, but I said out loud something along the lines of "That's amazing, and beautiful!" and I was amazed at the incredible wisdom and skill and craftsmanship of God the Supreme Artist.

Today is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the sky is deep blue. Spring is just a few weeks away, and with it comes Easter, the day when we celebrate one of history's most beautiful events.

Beauty is what inspires me. Beauty is what I want to share with others. When I take a photograph (something I haven't done often enough lately), it's because I want others to see something beautiful. When I make music, I want others to hear the beauty that I'm a part of.

Music. I've been remembering lately what it is to own the piano as my instrument - not in the sense of possession, but in an organic sense of command and response and oneness that is hard to describe but incredible to experience. To paraphrase Eric Liddell from Chariots of Fire: "...God made me a pianist, and when I perform, I feel His pleasure."

I've also been struck more than once lately by the importance of prayer. It first hit me a month ago when I wrote this post; it struck me again today, in a different way, when thinking about beauty. God is the author of beauty; if my goal is to share beauty with others, I need to seek His face constantly. I need to pray for wisdom and insight, asking Him to open my eyes even more to the beauty around me, and to give me the ability to share it with others.

That's my rambling for the day. It's helped me to think about all these things; hopefully, it'll help you too.

The Curse of the Standard Bearers

2008-03-05T11:36:00.002-05:00

I ran across a series of three articles today by Norm Wakefield of Elijah Ministries that I thought was worth reading, entitled "The Curse of the Standard Bearers: When Idolatry Masquerades as Love."

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Excerpt from Part 3:

God knows the intentions and motives of the heart (Heb. 4:12-13). We're the ones who don't see ourselves clearly. That's why God often uses situations to reveal what He sees. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "I hear that divisions exist among you; and in part I believe it. For there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you" (1 Cor. 11:18-19). From these verses and their context, we can deduce that one of the reasons God does not bring people to see issues or interpret Scripture the same in a family, church, or community is for the purpose of making it evident who is a Standard Bearer and who is a True Image Bearer. God could easily bring everyone to the same mind on issues if He wished. The divisive issue in the Corinthian church was head coverings for women. Paul's point was this: the division is necessary to reveal who is motivated by love, the glory of God, and the benefit of others rather than selfish gain (1 Cor. 10:31-33). How can one tell who has been accepted by God? It isn't by where one stands on a given issue.

House search update

2008-03-03T15:29:00.002-05:00

We turned one down place on Sunday - we looked at it on Thursday, and the landlord kept pressuring us to make a decision, and we weren't ready to say yes. We could have made it work, as it was a nice and well-maintained house with plenty of room, but it was in a dark and depressing part of town, and we really didn't like being pressured to decide. I'm mailing an application for another today, which happens to be one that we would really like to move into. The owners seem to be nice and conscientious people, and it's a good bit larger (and nicer) than our current place. We're still looking at other places, in case this one doesn't work out, but we're praying that it will.

Expect more updates as they become available...

Stuff of the Quick

2008-02-27T11:20:00.000-05:00

Still searching for a new place to live. Called a bunch of people last night, found two half-doubles that sound somewhat promising. Going to look at one tomorrow evening, and one on Saturday. If y'all want to pray that we find a good place that's right for us, I certainly wouldn't mind.

I originally didn't think I'd have time for a Stuff of the Week post, so I was going to do an abbreviated version. Hence the title of this post. But now I've changed my mind, so here you go!

Movie of the Week: I'm pretty sure I saw a movie. Don't remember what, though.

Soundtrack of the Week: 3:10 to Yuma by Marco Beltrami. Good, entertaining Western score reminiscent of Ennio Morricone's spaghetti westerns but is still fresh and new. I've also been listening to the Firefly soundtrack all week, though, and it's really good. Which leads me to state that Firefly is the best TV show of all time (Battlestar is better in the sense that it actually lasted, but the characters on Firefly are so much better - and the show itself, as my wife puts it, inspires creativity).

Sporking of Firefly, I've started writing some Firefly music. A while back I had the idea of writing a soundtrack of sorts to accompany the Serenity: Those Left Behind graphic novel, and this past week I started working on it. I've finished writing the first two parts of one suite, entitled "Stupid/Hey, Sailor/Among the Dead." Started writing the third part last night, and am having a lot of fun with it - GarageBand and its optional Jam Packs come have some amazing-sounding instruments.

Food of the Week: Beerburgers, made with Guinness. Tasty, juicy goodness.

Silly Nostalgic Hobby of the Week: Buying old Generation 1 Transformers on eBay so that they can sit on the shelf above my desk and inspire me to greatness. So far I've won Bumblebee, Cosmos, and Camshaft, and I'm watching auctions for Dirge, Thrust, Ramjet, Starscream, Skids, and of course Optimus Prime and Megatron. Unfortunately, many of them will probably wind up out of my price range. :(

CD of the Week: Wrecking Ball by Emmylou Harris. Produced by Daniel Lanois (I recommended his CD, Shine, here), this CD is mostly covers of songs by other artists, but they're all good songs and she interprets them well. Favorites include the title track (written by Neil Young), "Deeper Well" (co-written by Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, and Dave Olney), and "Every Grain of Sand" (by Bob Dylan).

Pictures of the Week: The following two, made by me (click on the pictures to see them in their full-size glory):

Youtube of the Week: This one in which a three-year-old girl describes one of my favorite movies (thanks to Jeffrey Overstreet for the link):

And I reckon that's all for now. Have fun, stay out of trouble, relax more often, and keep in touch.

Snow Daze

2008-02-14T13:45:00.000-05:00

We've had a good bit of winter weather recently. Some ice and snow on Friday night, and then REALLY STINKING COLD temperatures (windchill around -20 degrees Farenheit) for a day or two.

Monday night, after the wind had died down, I went outside to scrape the snow and ice off of the big car so I could move it to the opposite side of the street in preparation for the snowstorm that was supposed to come on Tuesday. The air temperature was probably around 10 degrees or so. At one point, I bent over the windshield to scrape at the ice and felt a sudden sharp pressure on my left eye. I jerked back and realized that I had come very close to poking my eye out on the antenna. As it was, my contact lens instantly froze to the tip of the antenna - I was glad that it was a contact lens, and not my cornea. So I went back in the house and put on my glasses.

Tuesday, as predicted, we had a snowstorm. I left work at 1:20 in order to get home before the worst part of the storm arrived. School was canceled on Wednesday, so Carrie got the day off. I went in to work for a few hours after the roads had thawed a bit.

Today the sun came out, and as I look out the window here at work I can see it sparkling on the icy tree branches outside. It's days like today that I tell myself to start carrying my camera with me again.

But STUFF OF THE WEEK is waiting to happen, so I won't keep you waiting.

Movie of the Week: No Country For Old Men. No question. It's dark, and violent, and gory, and bleakly nihilistic, but it's an amazing film. The direction, cinematography, acting, characters, storytelling... all top-notch. I left the theater with an incredible feeling that I can only describe as "Wow." The only better 2007 movie that I've seen is The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and No Country For Old Men is a very close second.

Other Movies of the Week: Lady In the Water. Not a bad movie. I was expecting it to be quite dumb, but Mr. Shyamalan surprised me. Lots of good stuff - the theme that a story can save the world, I liked, and I never am not amazed by Paul Giamatti's acting. Didn't so much like it that M. Night cast himself as the "Vessel" whose writings would change the world - just a little arrogant, IMO. And the plot twist felt a little gimmicky, and the mythology didn't always make sense - it never quite decided if it wanted to be a children's tale, or a grownup's.

Pitch Black. If you've never heard of it, it's a good little sci-fi horror flick starring Vin Diesel and Rhada Mitchell. It spawned a sequel called The Chronicles of Riddick - you might remember the trailers that played before one of the Lord of the Rings movies - that was an overblown galactic epic thing that really didn't fit too well with the universe that had been established in the first movie. But Pitch Black is worth seeing. Occasionally bloody-nasty, and with a few unfortunate one-liners, but worth seeing. Rhada Mitchell is very good as Carolyn Fry, the pilot of passenger transport ship that crash-lands on a desert world inhabited by flesh-eating monsters, and Vin Diesel plays a murderous convict (Riddick) who was being transported on her ship. Their interaction is what makes the film. The ending is the other thing that makes it good.

Bummer of the Week: Our landlord has to go back to his country (somewhere in Latin America) and consequently is selling the house we're living in. So we have to find another apartment or house to move into by April.

CD of the Week: Living Water by John Michael Talbot - he's a singing monk, so that's cool, and he writes good music, which is also cool. He plays the guitar very well, and the songs have orchestral accompaniment as well. His "Kyrie," accompanied by chamber orchestra, is particularly good, as is "Living Water." I'd recommend it - it's more contemplative than a lot of Christian music I've heard, and the orchestra provides an interesting touch. I'd recommend it.

Good News of the Week: The Writer's Strike is over! Battlestar Galactica lives on! And it looks like Dollhouse will be happening this fall!

Other Stuff of the Week: I'm sure it's there, but I don't remember it. Although the Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 comics continue to be interesting - anybody have a guess as to the identity of Twilight? I'm guessing he'll turn out to be Riley, but I'm not putting to much weight on that yet. And the reveal on the last page of Angel: After the Fall #3 was totally unexpected in a majorly good way. But enough of that - I have work to do.

Catch y'all later...

Would somebody please save Britney Spears?

2008-02-06T14:00:00.000-05:00

I've had that thought more than once lately, as reports of the pop star's unhappy life keep forcing their way into my consciousness. I'm not a huge fan of celebrity news; I don't go out of my way to find out who's dating who, or divorcing who, or gone a drunken rampage. At the same time, it's not too hard to find out those things without really meaning to.

Hence, my desire for somebody to save Britney Spears. I'm sure that I'm not the only here with similar thoughts.

It just struck me today, though - if somebody's in need of saving, and I know it but do nothing about it, what kind of person does that make me? Proverbs 24:11-12 comes to mind:

Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.

If you say, "But we knew nothing about this,"
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?

Seems that Britney would fall into the category of those staggering toward slaughter. And that means it's my responsibility to save her.

That certainly does not mean that I'm about to fly out to Cali and try to save her in person. That conversation would go really well.

Me: Excuse me, Mr. Britney's Security Guard, can I see Ms. Spears? I'm here to save her.

Mr. Britney's Security Guard: What? Who are you?

Me: I'm here to save Britney!

Mr. Britney's Security Guard: Get lost.

Me: But...

Mr. Britney's Security Guard sits on me until the police arrive. I wind up in the Special Jail for Creepy Celebrity Stalkers.

Obviously that's not the best way to go about saving an imploding celebrity.

But if I believe in a God of power and might, a God of love and wisdom, who cares for all of His creation - if I believe that this same God uses the prayers of His people to effect powerful change in His world - if I believe that this same God is in the business of salvation, and indeed desires that none should perish - then why, in His name, am I not pleading with Him to save Britney Spears?

If I really believe in the Love that I proclaim - the love of God, and of His people, for all of humankind - then why am I not praying for every imploding celebrity I know of, every wounded person I encounter, every person I see or meet or hear of who is being led away to death?

If I really believe, why am I not interceding daily on behalf of these people? Why am I not praying for the salvation of the whole world?

Cocktail of the Week

2008-02-05T20:22:00.000-05:00

Twue Wuv's Kiss

1 shot gin
1 shot Chambord liqueur
1 shot pomegranate juice/pomegranate martini mix
1/3 shot creme de cassis
1/3 shot Pernod

Still a work in progress, but it's pretty good so far.

Bombs Away!

2008-02-05T13:14:00.000-05:00

Except there are no bombs, because they would cause needless destruction.

Looks like I've completely recovered from my sinus cold. Managed to get - and get rid of - a migraine yesterday. The getting rid of involved about 30 minutes in an increasingly cold shower, three glasses of cold water, and 30 more minutes of shivering. Not so pleasant. But not nearly as bad as having a migraine all afternoon and evening.

No more of that, though; there are far more important things to write about. For, after a long hiatus, STUFF OF THE WEEK has finally returned!

Movie of the Week: Rescue Dawn. Christian Bale's finest performance to date? Couldn't tell you, 'cause I haven't seen all of his performances. But he was good. It's really too bad this movie didn't make it into the Oscar race at all, because Bale was that good. Steve Zahn was that good, too, and in another year (one not occupied by Daniel Day-Lewis and Javier Bardem), I'll bet both of them could have walked away with statues. It's a good POW movie, sobering and sad and funny and uplifting all at the same time. I was actually glad that they kept things at a PG-13 level and didn't feel the need to make things all shockingly gruesome (To End All Wars, anyone?). This one definitely gets a recommendation.

Soundtrack of the Week: Gods and Generals by John Frizzell and Randy Edelman. It's a much better score than the one Edelman wrote for Gettysburg (which was, conversely, a much better movie). It's a very good war soundtrack, and a very good listen.

CD of the Week: Songs from the Labyrinth, in which Sting performs songs by Renaissance songwriter and lutenist John Dowland. I bought it on a whim and was glad I did. Sting's rock star voice seems a little out of place singing Renassaince music, but I didn't find that to be a huge detraction.

Quote of the Week: "We're down. We have landed safely. Yes, through a hailstorm of fire, once more, we have achieved landfall in spite of all the obstacles of the heavens. We are delivered. We must kiss the ground. Yes, I say, the ground, the holy ground we must, uh, kiss." Said by Wash in the unpublished Serenity tie-in novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, now available for download. I've just read the prologue, but it sounds like the author captured the characters' voices pretty well. Not sure how well the 'Verse translates into book form, but if you've been craving you some Firefly, this could be just the thing. (Thanks to Whedonesque for the link).

Software of the Week: Adobe Photoshop Elements. Lots of bang for a fraction of Photoshop CS3's cost. Even less cost if you get it bundled with the Hardware of the Week.

Hardware of the Week: Computer hardware, that is. Wacom's Bamboo Fun Tablet is a low-cost but powerful image editing tool that comes bundled with Photoshop Elements and Corel Painter Essentials. If you've ever wanted to do graphics or photo editing on your computer, but can't afford the full versions of Photoshop or Painter, this is a smart way to go. Highly recommended, if it interests you.

Article of the Week: The Challenge of Cultural Influence by John Steel. It's long, but well worth reading. Thanks to Barbara Nicolosi for the link.

And that's all for now.

There Will Be Blood, Part Deux

2008-02-01T11:47:00.000-05:00

Or, rather, I AM NOT DYING.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that the nurse I talked to said that the cause of the bleeding was probably just irritation brought on by the sinus cold, the cold weather, and the dry heat indoors.

Perhaps I should have mentioned also that I am fairly certain that the nurse got the impression that I was bleeding a bit more profusely than I actually was.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that the light-headedness I experienced directly after talking with said nurse was probably caused by lack of sleep, hunger, and a tendency to feel symptoms when they are suggested by someone else (for instance, I tend to feel sick at my stomach when somebody else in the house has a stomach illness).

Perhaps I should have stated clearly that I am fine now. I am not and was not bleeding to death through the nose. That statement was hyperbole, which I have been known to use from time to time.

Perhaps I should say that I appreciate the concern that has been expressed. Perhaps I should also say that there is no longer need for concern.

Besides, I couldn't go to the doctor today if I wanted to. Because, ice storm.

Which means I can't go to work today. :-D

Bye now.

There Will Be Blood

2008-01-31T14:40:00.000-05:00

Or, rather, there was blood.

*Nasty Alert*

Two weeks ago, I came down with a sinus cold. It went away after one week, then came back with a vengeance last Saturday. I slept most of the afternoon - I, the one who never naps - and all of that night. Sunday was a little better.

Then came Monday. I didn't have much stuffiness that morning, but I was still draining gunk into the back of my throat. So, when I went outside to start the car, I spat out a huge wad of nasty. It landed in a bright red splatter on the white, frozen snow, and I thought to myself, "There's a lot of blood in that."

I kept spitting and blowing my nose throughout the day, and every time I did so, there was blood. Mixed in with the gunk, of course, but unmistakable in its bright red bloodiness. I was mildly concerned, but that sort of thing has happened a few times before when I've had a bad head cold, and it's usually gone away after a day.

Not this time. Tuesday morning the blood was as thick as ever, and continued to be thick and nasty throughout the day. I began to be concerned, as it did not really show any sign of letting up.

That evening I irrigated my nose with one of those saline nasal irrigation solutions. Couldn't tell if it helped or not at first, but by the time I went to bed the blood seemed to have lessened. We prayed that my nose would stop bleeding.

I woke up before 3:00am to the sound of a car alarm. After ten or fifteen minutes of trying to fall back asleep while the alarm continued its incessant blaring, I got up and stumbled to the living room to call the police. The alarm kept going for about ten more minutes as I fumbled with the phone book trying to find the number for the police department - didn't want to call 911 since it was a noise complaint, not an emergency. Then, just as I found the number, the alarm stopped. I mumbled a phrase of frustration, got a drink of water, and went back to bed.

Then 4:00am came, and I was awakened again - this time by the feeling of liquid pooling in my nostril. Got up, went to bathroom. Nosebleed. Curses. Twenty minutes trying to stop nosebleed. Back to bed. Taste of blood in throat. Not much sleep. Grumpy.

Wednesday morning. Spat blood. No gunk, just thick dark red blood. Nasty. Was grossed out. Tired. Worried. Tasted blood every time I swallowed. Prayed again at breakfast. Wife worried too.

Got to work. More spitting. Yuck. Gack. Called insurance company's nurse line from work. Explained symptoms. Nurse expressed concern.

She: "Are you feeling dizzy at all?"

Me: "No."

She: "If you begin to feel dizzy or lightheaded, have shortness of breath, or racing heartbeat, you should call 911 immediately."

Me: "Okay."

She: "I'm concerned. You should call your doctor in the next 24 hours. If you begin to notice any of the symptoms I mentioned, or if you begin to feel blood running down the back of your throat, you should go to the emergency room or call 911 immediately."

Me: "Right."

She: "Are you going to call your doctor?"

Me: "Yes."

She: "Good."

Hung up. Immediately began feeling lightheaded.Went in bathroom, spat more blood. Blew more blood from nose. Grossed out again. Called doctor. Appointment for Friday, 1:30pm, sorry, can't take you any sooner.

Hung up. Great. Bleeding to death through my nose and they don't give a Clark Gable.

At lunch, stopped feeling dizzy. Drank lots of water. Bleeding started to subside.

Got home at 5:00pm. Very little blood. Felt well enough to go eat with friends at friend's house. Came home afterwards, horrendously exhausted but otherwise feeling well. No more blood.

Went to bed. Thanked God for stopping the bleeding. Slept. Worried a little that it might start up again.

Woke up this morning. No blood (at least, none where it's not supposed to be). Called and cancelled tomorrow's doctor's appointment. Felt happy.

THE END

The next President

2008-01-28T08:57:00.000-05:00

I'm voting for Ron Paul, but I'd bet money that Barack Obama is the next President of the United States.

RIP, Heath Ledger

2008-01-23T08:22:00.001-05:00

I was shocked and saddened to learn of Heath Ledger's death this morning. Be sure to keep his family in your prayers.

Jeffrey Overstreet has some good things to say here.

Book of Thomas

2008-01-23T08:17:00.000-05:00

Just a heads up: Last night I posted Chapter XVIII of The Book of Thomas.

Enjoy!

Update

2008-01-21T14:05:00.000-05:00

So here I am, typing away, trying to keep my fingers from freezing off. It is pretty darn frigid here in this decidedly Northern state - the kind of frigid that makes me want to hightail it back to my native Georgia. But I hear they got snow over the weekend there too, so I guess it's just cold all over the place this month.

Had a little run-in with the DMV this past week that, through no fault of my own, led to the registration on our new car being suspended. If all goes according to plan, everything should be cleared up in the next day or two, but until then I'm stuck driving my trusty twenty-one-year-old Roadrunner. Being a Georgia native itself, it does not like the cold weather any more than I do. I wasn't entirely sure that it would start in the nine-degree air temperature this morning, but it pulled through. I love that car. If only it got better gas mileage...

Oh, something else... you know that other blog that I have, the one written in King James English? I actually posted another chapter. I know it's been over a year, and I apologize. But The Book of Thomas the Georgian lives again!

Once again, I don't have time for the Stuff of the Week. I apologize to all who are looking forward to the next installment; I'll try to have one up soon. Or approximately soon. But for now, I must go. My life of crime is calling. Or is that a siren?

The End of the World

2008-01-16T12:54:00.000-05:00

A friend on a web forum that I visit from time to time linked to an audio file and said "Imagine the world ending in slow motion to this."

Go here and click on "AdagioForStrings.mp3" and imagine the end of the world while you listen to it. Pretty breathtaking, no?

Then, on a completely unrelated topic (except that this too involves media on the Internet), check out this video from YouTube:

[Edit] Disclaimer: Please note that in linking to "AdagioForStrings" above, I am in no way endorsing or otherwise indicating support for the web site on which the audio file is hosted. [/Edit]

Now that was a good article

2008-01-14T11:05:00.000-05:00

David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, gets it right in his article, "A Plea To Evangelicals."

His conclusion:

[...]the mission of the church is to be Christ's faithful people, and to do its core work of preaching, teaching and serving our neighbors. If it is true (as we boldly believe) that the church is the central location for the work God is doing to redeem the world, then our focus should be on the church's work, not the state's. As one aspect of our God-inspired love for our neighbor, we can ask the state and its leaders to do justice, protect life and advance the common good. We can do this in many quite constructive ways, from scholarly work to declarations of principles to activism on specific issues.

But we dare not identify the work of any state, any political party or any politician with the work of God or the task of the church. Every time we do so we end up embarrassing ourselves, enraging the neighbors we are called to love, deepening the culture wars and damaging our own mission.

The Way of Love

2008-01-04T14:36:00.001-05:00

Use careful words
Help flowers grow
Be sure to feed the birds
When the winter comes
Take joy in stars
That shine above
Seek Jesus, and keep your feet
On the way of love

Have giving hands
Wear smiling eyes
Reach out to help the ones
Who are weak and small
Live here below
With hope above
Seek Jesus, and keep your feet
On the way of love

Quick to forgive
Do always be
Be thankful that Heaven comes
Through the hand of Grace
Read books and think
Love rainy days
Seek Jesus, and keep your feet
On the way of love

~Allen Levi

Notes on a Fridge (on a Spaceship)

2008-01-04T12:22:00.000-05:00

Ran across these via Whedonesque - refrigerator notes written by the crew of Serenity. Some are downright hilarious.

Volume 1

Volume 2

Happy New Year!

2008-01-03T14:39:00.000-05:00

Had a good Christmas break with the family down South. All too short, but good.

I keep meaning to write up a longer post with Stuff of the Week (and possibly Stuff of the Year), but so far I haven't done that yet. Obviously. Maybe over the weekend if I have some time.

And before I go, I'd like to raise a toast to the success of Ron Paul's Presidential campaign.

HOBBITSES!!!!

2007-12-18T12:02:00.000-05:00

It's official.

Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema have finally made nice.

The Hobbit is on its way to becoming a movie.

Geeks of the world, rejoice!

Speaking of the WGA strike...

2007-12-18T11:47:00.000-05:00

Jan Batchler linked to this very good essay by Robert Elisburg over at The Huffington Post.

Well worth the read. And it raises a question that I've dismissed before: Could the WGA strike be the thing that brings down Hollywood as we know it?

Elisburg raises the point that if the strike isn't resolved by June, the Screen Actors Guild will also go on strike. The SAG, by the way, just recently pledged its solidarity with the WGA. If the SAG does strike in June, Hollywood will have no choice but to shut down completely - without writers and actors, they won't really be able to make anything at all. Which could mean, as Elisburg says near the end of his piece, that the balance of power will shift away from the studios to the creators. And that could be a very good thing.

If it came to that, though, there would be a whole lot of bad before the good. So I hope, for the sakes of everyone involved, it gets resolved soon.

Hulu

2007-12-18T11:03:00.000-05:00

Sent this to the feedback email address over at Hulu.com a few minutes ago:

Ran across your site this morning and thought it would be a good way to catch up on all the shows I've missed lately. I've been wanting to watch Bones and Prison Break, and the third season of Battlestar Galactica (especially that one since it's not out on DVD yet).

Unfortunately, since these shows' writers aren't paid for their shows when distributed via the internet, I can't in good conscience take advantage of your site. When the AMPTP resolves its differences with the WGA and agrees to pay the writers a fair share of the profits from the web content that they create, I'll be happy to try out hulu.com. But not before.

I need to start writing to the studio heads soon. Not that it will probably do any good, but if they know people aren't going to pay for internet content (in my case, TV shows on iTunes or places like Hulu.com) for which the writers aren't receiving a fair wage, maybe they'll start to realize that they're being just a little too greedy.

Maybe.

Might be more effective if everybody who sides with the WGA would boycott movies and TV until this whole thing is resolved.

I am willing

2007-12-10T10:24:00.000-05:00

Amazing how the Word of God can become so familiar that you barely hear it, and then all of a sudden it hits you out of the blue and you meet the Son of God and tremble in awe and wonder at his mercy and power.

Happened to me on Friday as I listened to this passage, and then again yesterday as I read it while celebrating Holy Communion:

When he came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, "Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean."

Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" Immediately he was cured of his leprosy. (Matt. 8:1-3)

I am that leper. Jesus touched me and made me clean, able to enter the presence of Almighty God.

And that is amazing.

Te Deum

2007-12-07T10:38:00.000-05:00

WE praise thee, O God;
We acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee,
The Father everlasting.
To thee all Angels cry aloud,
The Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world
Doth acknowledge thee, the Father of an infinite Majesty;
Thine honourable, true, and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man,
Thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants,
Whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy Saints in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save thy people, and bless thine heritage.
Govern them, and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnify thee;
And we worship thy Name, ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in thee.
O Lord, in thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

From the Book of Common Prayer

Overheard at the Post Office

2007-12-05T15:58:00.002-05:00

*telephone rings*

Trish, the postal clerk, answers.

Trish: Watts Hollowton Post Office, Trish speaking.... I'm sorry your mail wasn't delivered, may I have your address please?.... Chippewa Lane? We don't have a Chippewa Lane here.... yes.... Can I have your zip code please?.... Oh, you want the Danielsville Post Office, this is the Watts Hollowton Post Office.... no.... no, we don't have your mail here.... yes, this is the Post Office, but this is.... no, your mail is at the Danielsville Post Office, this is Watts Hollowton.... yes, you dialed 555-3942.... no, this is the Watts Hollowton Post Office.... what do you mean, the social security?.... No, this is the Post Office, not the Social Security office.... This is the Watts Hollowton Post Office.... no, this is not the telephone company, this is the Post Office.... no, you want Danielsville.... all right, thank you.... goodbye.

Gotta love callers like that.

Songs of the Day

2007-12-05T12:38:00.000-05:00

Have I ever said that Simon and Garfunkel made some incredible music back in the day? I just listened to their "Best Of" album again today. It's been a while, and I was struck today by their lyrical and musical skill. Some of my favorites:

"Cecilia" - the harmonies are amazing, and the melody is quite catchy. The lyrics could be considered questionable, although I subscribe to the theory that the song is addressed to Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music.

"The Boxer" - what can I say? Musical storytelling at its finest.

"The Sound of Silence" - the first Simon and Garfunkel song I ever heard, and the lyrics always conjure the same atmosphere and images that first struck me years ago.

"My Little Town" - I've loved this one from the first time I heard the opening piano line.

"A Hazy Shade of Winter" - again with the mood and images.

Satire can be good for you

2007-12-04T12:35:00.000-05:00

I'm not always a big fan of satire. A lot of times it becomes so cutting that I don't think it does much good for anybody but the people who agree with it anyway. But I ran across the following today, and it hit home - as a former pharisee, it's all too easy to adopt this attitude.

There are more at this site, if you're interested, although I didn't like very many of them.

What I've been up to

2007-12-04T12:21:00.000-05:00

I imagine, dear readers, that you have by now noticed that I do not, in my profile, conceal the fact that I lead a life of crime. I embarked upon my criminal journey just over two years ago after settling in Coal Mountain; it was at that time that I first read the famous words of the famous Criminal Mastermind, Billy "The Goat" Gosworth: "Crime is the wave of the future." These words have been a constant inspiration to me ever since, and I have aspired to follow in good old Billy's footsteps on the path to Criminal Mastermind-ness.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I picked up this morning's copy of the Coal Mountain Telegraph-Inquisitor and saw the bold headline, "In Pursuit of The Wileyman: Intrepid Reporter Chronicles the Meteoric Rise of Coal Mountain's Most Elusive Criminal Mastermind: A continuing series by investigative journalist J. R. Kowalski."

My initial surprise came at their sensational language. My second surprise came at their use of a second colon. My third surprise came when I realized that my dreams had come true, and that I was recognized in the public eye as a Criminal Mastermind.

In celebration, I have decided to republish this and any subsequent installments in the "In Pursuit of The Wileyman" series here on my very own blog.

But first, a word of reassurance: I have not become careless. Through careful planning, strategic misdirection, and deft sleight-of-hand, I have managed to lead Mr. Kowalski (I assume he's a Mr.) and, more importantly, the local and not-so-local law enforcement agencies down a treacherous path of their own making, such that they will never find or apprehend me. That being said, nearly all of the detail presented in Mr. Kowalski's piece have basis in actual fact.

I will post the article as soon as I have the chance. Stay tuned!

With tired eyes, tired minds, tired souls, we slept

2007-11-30T20:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I did it.

Just moments ago I submitted everything I've written in the past 30 days to the NaNoWriMo web site and had my word count validated. The final count: 50,365.

It's hard to believe I actually made it. Just over a week ago, I only had only managed to write 13,800 words. That means I wrote 36,565 words in about nine days.

That's a lot of words.

It's also not a lot of sleep. I'm so exhausted that if somebody said something mean to me right now, I'd probably break down and cry like a baby. A tall, dark, and very manly baby.

But it's not just about me. I'm sure I'm not the only NaNoWriMo writer who felt like it was hopeless coming into the last days. But we did it.

As a hero of mine once said, we've done the impossible.

And that makes us mighty.

Goodnight, everybody.

Fight On!

2007-11-30T10:32:00.000-05:00

I was reading a recent issue of World Magazine when I came across an ad for the book Fight On! A collection of stories about those who have persevered through hardship and danger by Dr. Samuel C. Gipp, Th,D.

I'm sure that the advertisement was not intended to be funny. But after reading their descriptions of some of the stories, I couldn't help but laugh:

"A lone US soldier takes on the whole German Army."

"A helpless sailor fist fights with sharks as they attack him."

"A soldier amputates his own arm while holding four prisoners at bay."

"A prospector takes on two grizzlies at one time, one of them bare handed, and wins!"

I can't decide which is my favorite. I get great mental images of the sailor fist fighting with sharks, though, and I can't help but wonder what the other grizzly had in its hands.

Smells like an apocalypse

2007-11-29T13:11:00.000-05:00

(Warning: This blog post contains potential SPOILERS for Angel: After the Fall)

I could also have titled this post, "Alas, poor Wesley," or "Gunn? Noooo!" But I already knew about Gunn being all vampish, and I kind of had this feeling that the one about Wesley was ripping off something some famous writer had written once upon a time. Can't put my finger on it, though...

Anyway. I read Angel: After the Fall #1 last night. Good stuff. Much, much darker than Buffy: Season 8, but that's what you'd expect. There was some downright gruesome imagery going on, especially in the last few frames, so I don't recommend it for squeamish readers.

Plotwise, I'm still not quite sure. Sending LA to hell was a great idea. Having Wesley come back as a result of his Wolfram & Hart contract caught me by surprise, and I think I like it. Turning Gunn... well, I expected it. Still not thrilled, though. And I'm really bugged that Angel's still hanging out at Wolfram & Hart, even if the place is dead.

I'm hoping this issue was a big damn setup for epic greatness. It definitely has that feeling. One hugely positive thing: it took Angel back to his roots. One vampire with a soul trying to help the helpless and fighting evil wherever he can.

And with LA stuck in hell, there's gonna be evil to fight pretty much everywhere.

And with that, we turn now to the STUFF OF THE WEEK!

Movie of the Week: The Fountain. Didn't like it. Intriguing, but very unsatisfying. Good acting, though, by Jackman and Weisz.

Soundtrack of the Week: Halo 3 by Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori. Very good. I bought it Monday and have listened to it at least three times since then. I was very happy that they got to use a real orchestra this time, instead of relying on samples; that was the main reason I never bought the soundtracks for the first two installments.

Comic of the Week: Angel: After the Fall #1. Duh.

Stupid Person of the Week: Me. I've stayed up past midnight for the past three nights trying to finish this insane novel writing thing. Just over seven thousand words to go. I think I'm gonna make it. And then I'm going to sleep.

Wife of the Week: Mine, because she's putting up with my crazy hours and general writerliness. She's amazing.

Wish of the Week: That there was a Starbucks or at least a decent locally-owned coffee shop here in the benighted city of Coal Mountain. Because I so would have gotten a huge warm caffeinated beverage on my way to work this morning.

State of Mind of the Week: Generally positive. Excited, even. But really stinking tired.

And that's all, folks. Wish me wakefulness.

Oh, except for mentioning the rumor I heard that Christian Bale has been cast as John Connor in the upcoming Terminator: Salvation. My skepticism meter for that movie just went down a really large number of... meter points?

Stay on target...

2007-11-28T11:56:00.000-05:00

Bumped my word count up to 38,413 last night. My official stats are available on my NaNoWriMo profile, if anyone's interested. Sorry I don't have an excerpt posted.

I've stayed up past midnight writing for the past two nights. Only three days and 11,587 words to go until the deadline.

The bad news is that even thought I've been able to keep my word count rising steadily since Sunday, I've been feeling like I'm in a rut, plot-wise. The good news is that I stumbled across a new and exciting plot twist last night that has been developing in my mind ever since--and when that happens, it makes it much easier to write. It's also good news because the plot twist takes my story back in the direction that it was originally going and places it squarely in sci-fi territory, which is where I had wanted it to be all along.

Three more days, people. Three more days.

So I'm trying for a free XBox 360....

2007-11-27T14:55:00.000-05:00

Yep. All the info is here.

If you, dear reader, were to click on that link and sign up for one of their offers (I signed up for coffee), then it would count as a referral on my account. And if I were to collect twelve referrals, they would give me a free XBox 360.

Anybody interested?

Almost there! Almost there!

2007-11-26T14:20:00.000-05:00

Only five days of writing left before the end of National Novel Writing Month 2007.

I have to write approximately 20,800 words during that time in order to reach the goal of 50,000 by 11:59:59pm on November 30.

That's actually a lot more doable than it might sound. It translates to 4160 words per day.

Thanksgiving Break was huge. Going into Thanksgiving Day, I had written a grand total of 13,800 words since the beginning of the month (that's an abysmal 657 words per day, on average). Something happened over the next couple of days, though. I think it was sometime on Friday, while I was holed up in the library, that the characters really came to life, and I did about 5000 words that afternoon. I wrote at home on Saturday afternoon and evening, and put down about 8000 words, then another 2000 last night. If I can maintain that pace--and I think I can--I should be able to finish on time.

So wish me luck. Wish Carrie luck too, because it's going to be a crazy week. But I'm ready for it. Nothing helps to summon the Muse so much as a looming deadline.