Original Energy

January 7, 2011

2011-01-07T17:19:00.001-06:00

"Whatever returns from oblivion, returns to find a voice."

- Louise Gluck, from "The Wild Iris"

January 3, 2011

2011-01-03T20:36:00.006-06:00

A list of the 74 books I read in 2010. I meant to read 75 but when I had finished up what I had believed was the 75th I discovered that I had counted one of my books twice. No big deal, I didn't expect to read as many books as I did, but still a little disappointing.

All the books are rated from 1-10. 1 being awful, 5 being not good but not too terrible either, 7 being good and any number higher than 7 means I loved it.

Pretty soon, I'll write a post about my favorite books from last year.

1. Junot Diaz. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. 9

2. Malcom Gladwell. What the Dog Saw. Non-fiction. 9

3. Christopher Seitz. Figured Out. Non-fiction - theology. 3

4. Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games. Fiction - Sci-Fi/Fantasy. 7

5. Suzanne Collins. Catching Fire. Fiction - Sci-Fi/Fantasy 6.5

6. David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day. Memoir - Hilarity. 8.5

7. Bernhard Schlink. The Reader. Fiction.8.5

8. Mark Haddon. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Fiction. 7.5

9. Wendell Berry. Standing by Words. Non-fiction - Essays. 8

10. Cormac McCarthy. No Country for Old Men. Fiction. 9

11. - 17. C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia. Fiction - Children. 7

18. C.S. Lewis. The Great Divorce. Fiction. 7.5

19. C.S. Lewis. Out of the Silent Planet. Fiction - Sci- Fi. 7

20. C.S. Lewis. Perelandra. Fiction - Sci-Fi. 8

21. C.S. Lewis. Till We Have Faces. Fiction.10

22. Ronald Takaki. A Different Mirror. Non-fiction-History. 8.5

23. Patricia Raybon. My First White Friend. Memoir. 7

24. A.J. Jacobs. The Know-It-All. Memoir. 8

25. Mary Doria Russell. The Sparrow. Fiction - Sci-Fi, Theological.7

26. W.S. Merwin. The Shadow of Sirius. The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 9

27. Geraldine Brooks. March. The 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. 6

28. H.G. Wells. War of the Worlds. Fiction - Classic. 7.5

29. J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Fiction. 10

30. Jhumpa Lahiri. Interpreter of Maladies. The 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. 8.5

31. Philip Schultz. Failure. One of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 10

32. Rae Armantrout. Versed. The 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 6

33. Richard Russo. Empire Falls. The 2002 Pulitzer prize winner for fiction. 9

34. Jon Krakauer. Into the Wild. Non-fiction - biography. 7.5

35. Stephen Lawhead. Hood. Fiction - Fantasy. 6.5

36. Norman Ollestad. Crazy for the Storm. Memoir - Survival. 7

37. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A Coney Island of the Mind. Poetry. 9

38. William Young. The Shack. Fiction - Theology. 2

39. Francis Fukuyama. Our Posthuman Future. Non-fiction - Bioethics. 8

40. Robert Hass. Time and Materials. One of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 7

41. Erich Maria Remarque. All Quiet on the Western Front. Fiction - Classic. 9.5

42. David Benioff. City of Thieves. Fiction. 8.5

43. C.K. Williams. Repair. The 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 9

44. T.S. Eliot. The Waste Land and Other Poems. Poetry. 6

45. Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, Richard Lannon. A General Theory of Love. Psychology - Relationships. 9

46. Lisa Genova. Still Alice. Fiction. 10

47. Howard Dully. My Lobotomy. Memoir - Survival. 7

48. Harry Schaumburg. False Intimacy. Theology. 2

49. Claudia Emerson. Late Wife. The 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 7.5

50. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World. Fiction - Fantasy. 10.

51. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: The Great Hunt. Fiction - Fantasy. 10

52. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: The Dragon Reborn. Fiction - Fantasy.10

53. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: The Shadow Rising. Fiction - Fantasy. 10

54. David Sedaris. When You are Engulfed in Flames. Non-Fiction - Biography. 7

55. Debbie Hindle and Marta Smith.Personality Development: A Psychoanalytic Perspective. Non-Fiction - Psychology. 8

56. Alice Sebold. The Lovely Bones. Fiction. 8

57. Cormac McCarthy. The Road. Fiction. 9

58. Italo Calvino. Invisible Cities. Fiction. 9.5

59. Markus Zusak. The Book Thief. Fiction. 7.5

60. Christopher Paolini. Eragon. Fiction - Fantasy. 8

61. Brandon Sanderson. The Stormlight Archive: The Way of Kings. Fiction - Fantasy.10

62. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: Towers of Midnight. Fiction - Fantasy. 10

63. Mary Doria Russell. The Children of God. Fiction - Sci-fi. 7

64. J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Fiction - Fantasy. 8

65. Cormac McCarthy. All the Pretty Horses. Fiction 8

66. Kurt Vonnegut. A Man Without a Country. 6

67. Henri Nouwen. Return of the Prodigal Son. Theology. 5

68. Stephen Dunn. Different Hours. 2001 Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry. 6.5

69. Elizabeth Strout. Olive Kitteridge. 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction. 10

70. David Wallin. Attachment in Psychotherapy. Non-fiction - Psychology. 9

71. John Twelve Hawks. The Traveler. Fiction - Sci-fi. 6.5

72. Stephen Crane. The Red Badge of Courage. Fiction - Classic. 8

73. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Starting from San Francisco. Poetry. 8.5

74. Ted Kooser. Delights and Shadows. 2005 Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry. 9

WikiLeaks and The Matrix

2010-11-27T18:43:00.006-06:00

If you haven't heard, WikiLeaks is the stirrer of shit storms. I vaguely heard about some documents or something about Iraq, but their most recent threat is to release a bunch more super secret stuff about U.S. relations with other nations. Over Thanksgiving, U.S. officials visited the countries that are supposed to be the most unhappy with these revelations, which include possibilities the U.S. backed a rebellion in Turkey (we're supposed to allies) and say nasty things about Russian politicians (the actual word used was "unflattering"). Seems like people are pretty pissed about this.

The director of WikiLeaks is Julian Assange, who's been arrested for computer hacking. And he has a codename: Mendax. With him releasing all these secrets, he's gotta be making some enemies. Like the kind of enemies who send ninjas to your home, or snipe you from inside a hotel room in a tall building as you drive to work. In fact, there is an Interpol warrant out for his arrest. And Wikipedia said "he is constantly on the move" which sounds suspiciously like, "he doesn't sleep in the same bed twice."

Sounds like something from The Matrix. All the good guys had codenames: Morpheus, Neo, Trinity, etc. They all wore dark colored suits and had stylish hair. They were all hackers. They all had warrants out for their arrest (I think in the beginning of The Matrix, Neo was looking at an article on an Interpol arrest warrant for Morpheus...)...stuff like that.

I'm not the first person to make the connection either. Here's an article from July of this year.

If this is all true and Mendax is our savior from the Matrix (and WikiLeaks is Zion), then that means he can fly. And dodge bullets. And fight agents (read: ninjas). He's got the right job, the right clothes and the right look. All he needs to do to convince me the Matrix is real is fly over my apartment in Capitol Hill.

October 31, 2010

2010-10-31T14:00:00.001-05:00

"For me writing has always felt like praying, even when I wasn't writing prayers, as I was often enough. You feel that you are with someone. I feel I am with you now, whatever that can mean, considering that you're only a little fellow now and when you're a man you might find these letters of no interest. Or they might never reach you, for any of a number of reasons. Well, but how deeply I regret any sadness you have suffered and how grateful I am in anticipation of any good you have enjoyed. That is to say, I pray for you."

- Marilynne Robinson. Gilead

October 27, 2010

2010-10-27T20:43:00.005-05:00

God Map project for Theology 1. The quotes are sections of poems from Whitman, Thomas, Plath, Schultz, Ferlinghetti, Hopkins, Hass, and one or two others. All poetry that has affected the way I see God and myself.

October 31, 2010

2010-10-24T21:30:00.007-05:00

The next 10:

52. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: The Dragon Reborn. Fiction - Fantasy. I've already talked about The Wheel of Time a million times so I won't do it again. 10

53. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: The Shadow Rising. Fiction - Fantasy. 10

54. David Sedaris. When You are Engulfed in Flames. Non-Fiction - Biography. Not as good as the Me Talk Pretty One Day, but still good. 7

55. Debbie Hindle and Marta Smith. Personality Development: A Psychoanalytic Perspective. Non-Fiction - Psychology. One of the texts for Psychopathology at Mars Hill. Enjoyed it, though. 8

56. Alice Sebold. The Lovely Bones. Fiction. 8

57. Cormac McCarthy. The Road. Fiction. 9

58. Italo Calvino. Invisible Cities. Fiction. Premise: Marco Polo tells Kublai Khan stories of the cities he has visited in his travels. The cities are as unique as they are imaginative. Calvino is a wonderful storyteller. I'm surprised more people don't know about this book. 9.5

59. Markus Zusak. The Book Thief. Fiction. Set in the second world war and told from the perspective of Death (you know, the Grim Reaper?). It's pretty good, but I saw it on a list of books that were the best of the last decade. I don't know if it deserves that much praise, but still good nonetheless. 7.5

60. Christopher Paolini. Eragon. Fiction - Fantasy. I read this in undergrad but I thought, hey, why not read it again? The movie blows by the way. 8

61. Brandon Sanderson. The Stormlight Archive: The Way of Kings. Fiction - Fantasy. This is the guy who is compiling the last three Wheel of Time books (since Robert Jordan is dead). This book just released this month and is the first in a series of ten. And it is good. Sanderson spent a whole decade building this world and the characters in it. Think about that. A decade working on a book. He created a world where hurricane-type storms regularly roll over the earth. As a result, grass retreats into the soil, cities are built against mountain ranges, and men worship a God called Stormfather.Fascinating work, especially where he explores leadership and the courage that makes men sacrifice for others. 10

October 9, 2010

2010-10-09T15:22:00.003-05:00

The hard drive on my computer failed. Yeah...stupid HP. I swear, next time, if I have the dollars, I'm buying a Mac. But hey, I have it all under warranty (thanks to my mom, who insisted I have a 3 year warranty when I thought it totally unnecessary. Turns out PC's like to break. Who knew?) so my computer will have a brand new hard drive in a couple weeks.

I've read a few books since my last post but I don't know where I'm at. 60 or more. Looks like I'm gonna hit 75 books by the end of this year pretty easy.

One of the books I read recently was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It's a beautiful book if you can make it past the first chapter (if you've read it, you know what I mean). There is a dream-like, otherworldly quality to it that weaves in and out of the tragedy and beauty of lives shattered and remade by the death of Susie Salmon.

Another is The Road by Cormac McCarthy, the 2007 Pulitzer winner for fiction. I can confidently call myself a devoted fan, having read two of his books. Although I think No Country for Old Men was better.

I read an article about these trapped miners in Chile. 33 guys trapped under the earth for over 2 months. They just now reached them with a drill and are working on getting them out without any safety issues. They think they can have them out in a few more days if all goes well. I can't even imagine what that would be like. I'm a tad claustrophobic and being in a cave is like being in a tiny box. So by this time I would be foaming at the mouth. But hey, super glad they are getting these guys out. It's an emotional story for them and their families.

In a few more weeks, the 13th Wheel of Time hits the shelves. On November 2nd, bright and early in the morning, I will be waiting for the doors of the downtown Barnes and Noble to open. Then I will rush in, snatch the book off the shelf, buy it and probably alarm the sleepy-eyed employee who sells it to me. I imagine myself looking like an energetic squirrel holding a nut, hoping up and down on all four paws. Drooling a little. Then scampering off to my tree.

My only complaint about the Wheel of Time series are the illustrations on the cover. Please, oh please could you make it less embarrassing to be seen reading it in public?

Reading week is coming up. Where I will spend all my free time working on the four research papers due in November. Fuck.

I saw the God of Carnage last night. It's a play that won an award for awesomeness. It's hilarious. If you are in Seattle, I recommend seeing it.

That's all for now.

September 15, 2010

2010-09-15T22:17:00.005-05:00

Warning: this is a super long post. My bad.

Last night I completed my 50th book this year. Fuck. Yeah.

I have a rating system. Whenever I read a book, I put a number beside it: 1-10. 1 means it is the worst piece of shit I've ever read. 5 means it sucks but I'm not mad about it. 7 means it's good. And 10 is a gold star.

Here is a list of all the books I've read this year, in the order I read them, with a short amount of information for each, including my rating.

1. Junot Diaz. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. Fantastic exploration of one young man's search for love and sex and his surprise at what he finds at the end. 9

2. Malcom Gladwell. What the Dog Saw. Non-fiction. If this guys writes it, you should read it. 9

3. Christopher Seitz. Figured Out. Theology - Typology. Boooorrrrinnngggg. 3

4. Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games. Fiction - Children. This series is worth your read but much of this sort of story has been done many, many times before. 7

5. Suzanne Collins. Catching Fire. Fiction - Children. 6.5

6. David Sedaris. Me Talk Pretty One Day. Memoir - Hilarity. I laughed a lot. There is a short chapter on this turd Sedaris tried to flush down the toilet that KILLS me. 8.5

7. Bernhard Schlink. The Reader. Fiction. My God this book will depress you. It's good but my God...8.5

8. Mark Haddon. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time. Fiction. 7.5

9. Wendell Berry. Standing by Words. Non-fiction - Essays. My first book from Berry did not disappoint. Several essays about poetry too. In case you don't know he's a God in some circles. 8

10. Cormac McCarthy. No Country for Old Men. Fiction - Haunting. Holy shit this man knows how to create tension in a novel. If you liked the movie, you will love the book and appreciate the Coen brothers on a whole new level. 9

11. - 17. C.S. Lewis. The Chronicles of Narnia. Fiction - Children. If you don't recognize this series, you are dumb. 7

18. C.S. Lewis. The Great Divorce. Fiction - Theological. 7.5

19. C.S. Lewis. Out of the Silent Planet. Fiction - Sci- Fi. Part of his lesser known Space Trilogy. 7

20. C.S. Lewis. Perelandra. Fiction - Sci-Fi. One of my favorite Lewis novels of all time. 8

21. C.S. Lewis. Till We Have Faces. Fiction. BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR. Few books have ever brought me to the brink of tears. This one did. So achingly beautiful.10

22. Ronald Takaki. A Different Mirror. History. An unpleasant read to say the least. But that's why its so good. All about our nation's history of oppression towards the "other." 8.5

23. Patricia Raybon. My First White Friend. Memoir. 7

24. A.J. Jacobs. The Know-It-All. Memoir - Hilarity. Jacobs tries to read the whole Encyclopedia Brittanica. A herculean task and plenty of laughs along the way. 8

25. Mary Doria Russell. The Sparrow. Fiction - Sci-Fi, Theological. This book poses the question, Where is God in the midst of relentless tragedy? 7

26. W.S. Merwin. The Shadow of Sirius. The 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. Fantastic. 9

27. Geraldine Brooks. March. The 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. Did NOT deserve this award. Book gets good at the end, almost redeems itself and squeaks out a 6.

28. H.G. Wells. War of the Worlds. Fiction - Classic. 7.5

29. J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Fiction - Fucking awesome. I've already read this before but what the hell. Don't judge...10

30. Jhumpa Lahiri. Interpreter of Maladies. The 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction. Heartbreaking stories but well composed. 8.5

31. Philip Schultz. Failure. The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 2008 had 2 Pulitzer winners for poetry. A rare occurrence. And the other one wasn't half as good as this. Failure brought me to tears. The author shares his journey through loneliness, insane asylums, suicide and his love of dogs. Best book of poetry this year. 10

32. Rae Armantrout. Versed. The 2010 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. Strange shit, guys. Sort of worth a read...sort of... but not worth a Pulitzer. 6

33. Richard Russo. Empire Falls. The 2002 Pulitzer prize winner for fiction. Totally surprised me how much I loved this book. The best part is the characters. Russo has a keen eye for the heartbeat of each one of them. 9

34. Jon Krakauer. Into the Wild. Biography - Survival. 7.5

35. Stephen Lawhead. Hood. Fiction - Fantasy. I used to read this guy when I was young and loved some of his earlier stuff. Not so much this one. 6.5

36. Norman Ollestad. Crazy for the Storm. Memoir - Survival. 7

37. Lawrence Ferlinghetti. A Coney Island of the Mind. Poetry. 9

38. William Young. The Shack. Fiction - Theology. Ughhh...just ughhh. I hated this book. I have no idea why it is so popular. 2

39. Francis Fukuyama. Our Posthuman Future. Non-fiction - Bioethics. 8

40. Robert Hass. Time and Materials. The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. Not as good as the other winner from this year but still some bright spots. 7

41. Erich Maria Remarque. All Quiet on the Western Front. Fiction - Classic. How have I never read this before? Well deserved status as a classic on the psychological impact of war on the soldiers who fight it. 9.5

42. David Benioff. City of Thieves. Fiction. 8.5

43. C.K. Williams. Repair. The 2000 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 9

44. T.S. Eliot. The Waste Land and Other Poems. Poetry. I tried to like him, I really did. But aside from a few poems, in my opinion, he tries to hard. 6

45. Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, Richard Lannon. A General Theory of Love. Psychology - Relationships. Reveals the structure of the human mind, how love affects everything and why therapy works. 9

46. Lisa Genova. Still Alice. Fiction. You should read this book not for the plot or the characters but for the way Genova pulls you into the mind of someone who suffers from Alzheimer's. Watch out though, its sad. 10

47. Howard Dully. My Lobotomy. Memoir - Survival. 7

48. Harry Schaumburg. False Intimacy. Theology - Crap. Just don't read it. 2

49. Claudia Emerson. Late Wife. The 2006 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry. 7.5

50. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World. Fiction - Fantasy. Ahem. May I have your attention: These are the best books in the world. If you have not read them, you have not lived. I read the whole series last year and now I'm reading through them again. That's right, they're that fucking amazing. If were up to me I would give them all Pulitzers and then never give out another Pulitzer ever again. 10. 10. 10. 10.

51. Robert Jordan. The Wheel of Time: The Great Hunt. Fiction - Fantasy. I miscounted. I've read 51. 10, of course.

That's all for now. I plan to hit 65 by the end of the year. Maybe 70. We'll see.

September 9, 2010

2010-09-09T19:48:00.002-05:00

I'm all moved into my new place on Capitol Hill. It's a small (not too small) 2 bedroom on Summit. A few blocks from lots of things I love: beer, coffee, parks, bookstores, restaurants, Mars Hill, downtown and friends. It's pretty sweet.

But I don't have internet. Or cable. Or a tv. So it's quiet. Disturbingly so. Jon, one of my roommates, observed that it felt like we were living in a hotel.

That's odd, if you think about it.

That not having cable or internet can so dislocate you, you no longer feel home.... If that's what we have made home to be, then perhaps we were never there.

Whenever I was lonely, depressed or anxious, the tv was right there. Waiting to comfort me with people and voices and comedy and drama. Now that I don't have it, I have to sit with it. All the uncomfortable feelings well up and my shut off valve is gone.

Yesterday we met with the apartment manager, a 99 year old Italian man. Gino. He has lived in the apartment below us for 34 years. Thirty-four years. Ninety-nine years old. Sounds even more impressive when you spell it out.

Born in Denver, he was raised in Europe before he made his way back to the states and finally, Seattle.

He told us how Capitol Hill used to be a much nicer place to live. We heard stories about how the apartment across the street used to be a whore house and police set up cameras in the trees outside his window. He watched them climb over the fence and haul people out in handcuffs.

He told us about his cats. He has had 5 cats in his lifetime. He showed us a picture of two of them, huge balls of puffy fur, held in both arms by a smiling, brown haired Gino. Jon remarked, "Those look like raccoons."

He talked about his love for Family Guy. He muted it on the television behind us as we came into his apartment and sat down. He never misses a show and loves the nearly demonic baby, Stewie.

I think what struck me equally as much as Gino's personality and warmth was my discomfort. I wanted to turn around and watch Family Guy. I was anxious, without any cause I knew of.

I think I have so grown used to dividing my attention to other, less worthwhile things, that I easily miss what is right in front of me. The silence allows me to discover that again and instead of drowning my discomfort (and, ultimately, myself) in distractions, I can learn to listen.

That's about it. I'm gonna get back to my coffee now.

August 21, 2010

2010-08-21T14:43:00.004-05:00

Ever finished a book, flipped to the last page, closed it, set it on the desk in front of you and felt like you were waking from a dream? Still Alice is that sort of book. I finished it at Cugini's Cafe this morning, the hour I spent reading oblivious to my surroundings, pulled so far into the book I felt the raw tension of a life steadily pulled apart by Alzheimer's. I felt almost a part of the story, as lost in Alice's mind as she was, gripping the pages I turned, tense without knowing why. I left after the last paragraph, full of Alice's pain and loss, holding back tears. I was so struck with this powerful story I struggled to focus on driving home.

Still Alice is a remarkable look into how Alzheimer's ravages the mind and the relationships it effects. Out of the 45 books I've read this year, it reaches what so few of the others have: perfection.

August 17, 2010

2010-08-17T12:38:00.002-05:00

Check out this link to Everynone. They make fascinating videos about ordinary things. "Words" and "Moments" are especially good.

August 14, 2010

2010-08-15T00:57:00.003-05:00

Definition of a bad day:

August 13, 2010

2010-08-13T20:37:00.008-05:00

Lawrence Ferlinghetti - A Coney Island of the Mind

Ferlinghetti was recommended to me by a friend and after reading a few of his poems, I wonder how I've never heard of him. Coney Island has been translated into several languages and sold over a million copies, which is unheard of for poets. Granted, it took 50 something years to pull it off, but it's still an accomplishment.

The book is split up into 3 sections, each quite different:

1. A Coney Island of the Mind. This is the one I'll talk about the most
2. Oral Messages. These are meant to spoken out loud and accompanied by jazz.
3. Poems from Pictures of the Gone World

In Coney Island, Ferlinghetti is at his best. It brims with a sexuality almost adolescent, undiscovered. His characters, never named, and barely described, are drawn to this vision of sex that is juvenile and full of wonder, but contained within: broken promises and unrelenting disappointment.

All of his poems have numbers, no titles, and 2 is significant for its description of Ferlinghetti's dystopic sexuality.

The poem takes place at the sea, with sailors bound for American shores in an ancient Athenian ship. They sail with purpose of destination, making for the promise of "demi-democracy," a play on words (frequent in this poem), probably referring to demi-god. They are beset with temptations and obstacles, as if they plow through a sea meant to obstruct their journey. Most tellingly, they pass near "patriotic maidens" who "ran along the shores/wailing after us/and while we lashed ourselves to masts/and stopt our ears with chewing gum."

If you ever read the Odyssey, you'll remember that Odysseus passes within sight of the island of the Sirens and commands his men to lash him to the mast while they stop up their ears and ignore his cries for release. If heard, the Siren song is irresistible and it lures men to seek them, driving their ships on the rocks and drowning. Odysseus, while lashed to his mast, cries desperately to be released so he may go to them, but his sailors don't hear him or the Siren's song and sail on, avoiding destruction.

What you see in this poem is the clash of the ancient and modern world, the old and the young. There is chaos to it. Cows are flying through the air "chanting Athenian anthems," discus throwers are reading Walden and "heliocopters from Helios" are "dropping free railway tickets." Random stuff. But sailing through it all, this ship bears on, reaching American shores where they "looked at each other/with a mild surprise/silent upon a peak/in Darien." Darien, I believe, refers to an affluent town in Connecticut, close to New York. Otherwise, I don't know the significance of it.

The end of the poem is quite anti climatic. "Mild surprise" and silence are hardly the reactions you would expect from sailors who have labored to reach these shores. The poem builds in intensity, rising in pitch but it drops suddenly, chopping the emotion away like suddenly waking from a dream. What is even more curious is Darien has no mountains. The elevation is nearly sea level. Ferlinghetti, intentionally or not, has drawn a perfect picture of the sexuality he describes, even, laments.

In many of the poems in Coney Island, sexuality is coupled with loss, sadness and even devastation. The end of 24 says, "still we laugh/and still we run/and still we throw ourselves/upon love's boats/but it is deeper/and much later/than we think/and all goes down/and our lovebuoys fail us/And we drink and drown." For Ferlinghetti, sex leaves us only with a broken promise. What it promises, is hard to describe, yet we all know. Transcendence. Happiness. Love. If you remember your youth, you remember the wonder of the opposite sex, of their bodies, of the pleasure you could feel. In Coney Island, wonder is what draws us to sex, the rocks we dash our lives upon, our broken-hearted despair, the sea we drown in.

With these broken promises is a lost innocence. In 26, he describes a "sensual phosphorescence/my youth delighted in" but which is "like a land of dreams...thru which desire/looks and cries." Ferlinghetti longs for a return to the sexual wonder of his youth, yet describes sex as an ultimately depressing pursuit. But still, against all reason, he longs and returns to the rocks.

After reading Coney Island I felt both a sadness and a certainty that Ferlinghetti speaks the truth. We have lost more than our innocence, but also our hope. We never long for sex alone. It represents more than the longing of our bodies but the longing of our souls to connect and love and hold. Sex fails us as certainly as we seek to have it.

What makes Ferlinghetti's poetry so beautiful is his honesty. In the Odyssey, the Siren's appealed not to Odysseus' physical longing, but his longing for truth. They sing to him,

"Come hither, as thou farest, renowned Odysseus, great glory of the Achaeans; stay thy ship that thou mayest listen to the voice of us two. For never yet has any man rowed past this isle in his black ship until he has heard the sweet voice from our lips. Nay, he has joy of it, and goes his way a wiser man."

Ferlinghetti's poetry becomes its own island of the Sirens, the Coney Island of the Mind, calling us to the rocks, where we wreck our ship upon the rocks, "drink and drown."

August 11, 2010

2010-08-11T00:28:00.003-05:00

"When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?"

- C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

2010-08-09T22:23:00.003-05:00

I intend to read all of these by August 30th.

August 9, 2010

2010-08-09T21:19:00.004-05:00

I'm slogging my way through William Young's The Shack and Francis Fukuyama's Our Posthuman Future. There is no end in sight.

Young started out interesting, gripping even, and then he hit a wall: religion. As soon as the book shifted into a dialogue between him and the Trinity it got downright boring, and even embarrassingly simple-minded. In The Shack, God is a black woman called Papa, Jesus is a middle-eastern man in his thirties and the Holy Spirit is Sarayu (an Asian woman, I think). They are all smiley, talky, laughy with each other...makes me want to throw up. Not because it paints an inaccurate picture of God, but because it's just bad writing. Which is such a switch from the first half. This book has sold millions of copies... I expected something different.

It's super disappointing. I want to throw it, but its required reading for Theology in the fall...and I'm not a quitter. Well, sometimes I am, but not this time.

As for Fukuyama, the book is good but it hits a snag when he starts talking philosophy, which he isn't good at. He tries to create philosophical grounds for an ethics based on human nature. I agree there is a human nature, but it's a tough subject to argue and Fukuyama is not a philosopher. So I wish he would stick to the real purpose of the book: telling us why science is gonna suck us all into a black hole.

August 5, 2010

2010-08-05T18:42:00.004-05:00

15

Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet is like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of day
performing entrechats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be

For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap

And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence

- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

July 25, 2010

2010-07-24T01:23:00.006-05:00

Richard Russo's Empire Falls is the well-deserved recipient of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. I, at first, wasn't looking forward to reading a 500 page novel about a small town in Maine. You can usually find me in the Fiction, Science section of the library, flipping through books with planets and spaceships on the cover. Or, if it is more of the Lord of the Rings type, orcs and elves and swords. A story about a small town in Maine doesn't fire up the imagination.

But Russo won me over and I was surprised to find myself gripping the paperback with both hands, leaning into the pages and watching Miles Roby's life slowly unfold.

What I discovered that is best about Russo is his ability to pencil in the details of his characters. He creates a fuzzy outline and steadily, fills it with color. What a character appears to be in the beginning is not always what they are in the end. And along the way, some of them even shock you.

There is Miles Roby, 42 year old manager of the Empire Grill, a struggling restaurant in a dying town. The question the book poses is, Why is Miles Roby still here, living in Empire Falls? He has the intelligence to realize his dream of becoming a professor (he never finished college, having rushed home to take care of his dying mother) but doesn't. He stays, marries a woman he doesn't love who eventually cheats on him, and lives a dissatisfying life. He has a tendency to be far too nice and people take advantage of him. Russo gives the impression that Miles is a weak, impotent man but towards the end, Miles surprises me and reveals himself to be a stronger man than I supposed.

Francine Whiting, owns half the town and for the last 20 years, has strung Miles along on the promise that she will turn over ownership of the Empire Grill to him. Why she tortures him with half hopes is a mystery Russo explores through Miles' memories of the past.

Janine Roby is the fiance of Walt Comeau (Owner of the local fitness center, who obnoxiously calls himself the Silver Fox) and soon to be ex-wife of Miles Roby. A somewhat self-absorbed woman, she struggles with her infidelity but rationalizes it away and ignores the growing reality that Walt is not all he appears to be.

Walt Comeau is, in fact, not as wealthy as he makes himself appear and is 60 years old, not 50 as he leads Janine to believe. His obnoxious personality is half entertaining and half maddening, which is something that creeps into several of Russo's characters. He has a habit of showing up to the Empire Grill and taunting Miles into arm wrestling him.

Max Roby is Miles' father and the ultimate narcissist. He is another half entertaining, half maddening personality. He pursues whatever he wants with such reckless abandonment for himself and others it's astounding. He consistently abandoned his wife to handle the bills and raise their sons, leaving for months at a time to paint houses on the coast. And now as a 70 year old man, his habits are the same. His primary passions being beer and money to buy beer. I can do no justice to the fascinating character Russo creates in Max Roby, except by saying this man is almost worth the read himself.

Finally, there is Christina (called Tick), Miles' daughter. Tick is one of Miles' few remaining passions in life. A high schooler, she has the regular struggles of a teenager dealing with sex, high school drama and love until John Voss shows up. What happens with him changes Empire Falls for good.

There are a dozen other characters I could mention but I just wanted to hit a few so I could cover the plot in its most basic form.

Russo manages to craft a way of speaking for each character that fits their personality so well. When they speak, you believe it is them speaking and when they act you believe that is exactly what that sort of person would do. It's a trick a lot of writers try but so few nail as well as Russo. And it's what makes a boring town like Empire Falls one the best reads of 2010 thus far.

2010-07-19T15:27:00.005-05:00

Rae Armantrout's Versed reminds me more of Pascal's Pensees then it does any poetry I know (of course, there are so many different types of poetry, who is to say what is and isn't?). Her poetry is punctuated by endings and beginnings. Pauses in the actual framework. They are sharp intercisions into the poem, chopping it up into bits, making it both devourable and tough. Some pieces I understand, some I don't. The ones I do sometimes feel connected to the rest, but rather they often feel more like a puzzle. Figuring out one piece does not make the poem understood as a whole.

It is not that Armantrout's poetry is bad, rather it seems academic, like Derrida's philosophy or Freud's psychology. I wonder if it is meant for me.

This causes me to linger between irritation and intrigue. I'm drawn in by the puzzle, by the need to struggle out the meaning. But I'm also repulsed by the incoherence. The rambling memories and thoughts, the lack of a true center from which the poem orients itself.

The problem is I'm not getting a whole poem to relate to. I'm getting pieces, and maybe that is the poem, the pieces, but it makes for a disconcerting, almost anxiety-induced read. I check the poems I like almost half heartedly, uncertain whether I like them or just part of them. And then often the ones I like I have no explanation for why. I am picking and choosing what I keep and reject but what makes that choosing hard is the lack of a coherent poem to choose. I want something packaged and whole and Armantrout offers nothing of the kind. And when I am both drawn in and repulsed, it messes with my interior world. Armantrout says it well in Help:

A space
"inside"

can't bear
to be un-

interrupted

I mark it:

"I" "I" "I"

You can see Armantrout's poetry is disconcerting in its structure and words. Even the break between "un-" and "interrupted" is meant to be daunting.

The disconcerting nature of Armantrout's poetry is not only what it produces, but what it reveals. It doesn't create incoherence as much as it reveals it.

Armantrout's poetry is as fragmented as we are. And when I read it, my true state surfaces. It is similar to sitting quietly in a chair and not doing, saying or thinking anything. I dare you to try it. Within 5 minutes you will be uncomfortable. Within 10, anxiety or depression or anger may surface and you will want something to do. I can barely make it to 15.

When I push away all the activity and business that keeps my mind occupied, I find myself alarmingly unstable. I am not as whole as I thought. Armantrout calls this "space 'inside:'"

"I" "I" "I"

There isn't one "I," there are several. Maybe these represent the id, ego and superego. Whatever they are, they are fragmented and divided. Like her poetry. Like myself.

What is disconcerting about her poetry is what is disconcerting about myself. Not at all the parts work together, not all the parts make sense. I've discovered this in therapy, in practicum at Mars Hill, in silence, in poetry, in reflection.... I am not whole. There isn't a well put together anything. The question for me is then, What do I do with what I discover?

As I was reading Armantrout's poetry I realized I was rejecting and accepting poems similar to the way I reject and accept myself. I throw out the unpleasant parts and leave what is best and presentable. But what I am really left with is even more fragmented than before. Because just as Armantrout's poetry is incomplete without the breaks, pauses, and confusion, so am I without my own.

It would be nice if life were like Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, but it is more like the chaos and disconnect of Versed, where Armantrout's poetry lacks a center to revolve around as we are eternally searching for one in ourselves.

July 16, 2010

2010-07-16T19:09:00.001-05:00

My Dog

His large black body lies on his bed across the room,
under the French doors, where he used to sleep, watching me.
The vet said to cover him with a blanket, but I can't.

Two hours ago he moaned loudly and let go of his life.
My wife dreamed of his death in Paris but didn't tell me.
I drove home from the airport imagining him at the door,

tail wagging. He introduced me to my wife in a dog run,
stood proudly beside me at our wedding, handsome
in a red bow tie. He faced wherever I was, sat staring out

the window if I was away. If you haven't loved a dog
you'll find it hard to believe he knew it was time to die
but wanted to wait two weeks for me to come home.

I'll spread his ashes at the beach where we walked nearly
every day for twelve years, this gentle creature following me
the mile and a half to the breakers and then back to our car.

Philip Schultz

A sad, but beautiful poem.

July 11, 2010

2010-07-12T01:31:00.001-05:00

Just finished the 7th Harry Potter for the 2nd time. Just as good as the 1st. Can't wait for November.

July 8, 2010

2010-07-08T18:53:00.003-05:00

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

- T.S. Eliot

July 8, 2010

2010-07-08T16:24:00.003-05:00

Summertime means lots of reading. I've read 27 books this year so far. I'll finish 28 and 29 by tonight and 30 probably by Sunday. My summer goal is to read 20 books in the next 2 months, including articles and books for classes in the fall semester. That might sound super nerdy...It is.

I don't know what my total at the end of the year will be but it will certainly far surpass last years total of 39. Part of that goal is to read the Pulitzer winners for Fiction and Poetry in the last 10 years. I've read 1 of the winners for poetry and 3 of the winners for fiction and I'll finish another tonight.

The 2006 winner for fiction was Geraldine Brooks' March, an almost boring read for the first 200 pages but which leaps in intensity in the last 80. I'm not convinced it deserved a Pulitzer, but it turned out to be a thoughtful read, if not the most entertaining.

Mr. March, the main character, joins the Union side of the civil war as a chaplain, leaving his wife and four girls at home. Initially a highly idealistic man, the war shatters his optimism and his body, leaving him wracked with disease and broken hope. Where the book becomes interesting is when those ideals collide with the reality of war and the evil it produces. March watches friends die and feels the weight of his cowardice. You can almost feel his soul crack under the weight as the champion of equality and conscience we see in the first part of the book is lost forever.

March is almost frustrating at first but then flares into life when March's world falls apart. It's a worthwhile read for the emotion of the last third, if for nothing else. And hey, if it won a Pulitzer, I think most people would disagree with me that it wasn't all I hoped it would be. So maybe you should check it out.

The other Pulitzer I'm presently in the middle of is Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. And it's gooooodddd. More on that some other day.

June 9, 2010

2010-06-09T15:27:00.002-05:00

"The water gleamed, the sky burned with gold, but all was rich and dim, and his eyes fed upon it undazzled and unaching. The very names of green and gold, which he used perforce in describing the scene, are too harsh for the tenderness, the muted iridescence, of that warm, maternal, delicately gorgeous world. It was mild to look upon as evening, warm like summer noon, gentle and winning like early dawn. It was altogether pleasurable. He sighed."

- C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

June 8, 2010

2010-06-08T20:57:00.005-05:00

"I felt sure that the creature was what we call 'good,' but I wasn't sure whether I liked 'goodness' as much as I had supposed. This is a very terrible experience. As long as what you are afraid of is something evil, you may still hope that the good may come to your rescue. But suppose you struggle through to the good and find that it also is dreadful? How if food itself turns out to be the very thing you can't eat, and home the very place you can't live, and your very comforter the person who makes you uncomfortable? Then, indeed, there is no rescue possible: the last card has been played. For a second or two I was nearly in that condition. Here at last was a bit of that world from beyond the world, which I had always supposed that I loved and desired, breaking through and appearing to my senses: and I didn't like it, I wanted it to go away. I wanted every possible distance, gulf, curtain, blanket and barrier to be placed between it and me. But I did not fall quite into the gulf. Oddly enough my very sense of helplessness saved me and steadied me. For now I was quite obviously 'drawn in.' The struggle was over. The next decision did not lie with me."

- C.S. Lewis, Perelandra

June 7, 2010

2010-06-07T17:02:00.004-05:00

Thoughts on poetry.

I've loved poetry since discovering Walt Whitman freshman year of my undergrad. Since then, I've branched out a bit and have slowly made my way into more modern works.

My favorite poets are all dead. Walt Whitman died in 1892, Gerard Manley Hopkins died a few years before, Dylan Thomas in 1953, and Sylvia Plath ten years later.

But I decided to try out some poetry from people who are still alive. I figure the best place to start is with the Pulitzer Prize winners.

One of my goals for this year is to have read (or at least bought) all of the last ten years of Pulitzer Prize winners for poetry. And fiction, too, of which I have already read two: the 2000 and 2008 winners.

Last week I bought the 2010 Poetry winner from Powell's in Portland: Versed by Rae Armantrout. I haven't read much of Versed yet but what I have glanced through is exceedingly weird and sporadic.

One of the blurbs for Versed says her poetry is "like a string of prize chess moves..." and is a "poetics that not only centres its position in its uncertainty but insists that uncertainty remain at the centre of any position."

Earlier this year I picked up my first book of essays from Wendell Berry, titled Standing by Words. He has a more traditional view of poetry, one which I think Armantrout's eschews. Berry believes poetry should flow around a narrative but another blurb for Versed says Armantrout "has always aimed at knowing life by isolating it from narrative." For Berry, this makes poetry personal and musing but the musing doesn't touch on the deeper things of the soul or the philosophies of life. According to him, poetry is about truth. And he isn't talking about truth as a rigid, "This is right. This is wrong" sort of category, but rather the truth that revolves around a story. It's personal but explores what binds us all together. Of the virtues and ethics of a life lived well.

I think Berry would say poetry that centers itself in uncertainty cannot show us truth, which defeats its central purpose. He isn't saying poetry that explores the personal is useless (it can be very useful for the person who composes it) but rather that it can teach us little or nothing.

Whitman's poetry nearly always has a character, a flow, a connection from one life to the next. His 60 page poem, Song of Myself, is in many places pages and pages of descriptions of the people he meets and what it reveals about his identity and the world he enters.

The 2009 winner for poetry was W.S. Merwin's The Shadow of Sirius. It too is more modern than Whitman or Thomas, but has an energy in the words that stretch and bend and reach for truth and revelation. He is seeking, not merely brooding. This seems to be the difference between Armantrout and Merwin so far.

But something else Berry believes is that real poetry isn't easy reading.

Whitman has a simplicity to his words that lays lightly over the thick reality of love, sexuality and identity. Merwin uses words like "light" and "dark" to explore memories and what they say about death and eternity. Thomas creates puzzles, using words like "worm" and "maggot" to explore the themes of time, death, resurrection and purpose. All of these are complex, demanding you to sit quietly and take a closer look.

Armantrout's poetry, while erratic, probably has a purpose to it, if I will sit quietly and let it speak to me, I may discover what it is.

Berry has a fantastic quote here that depicts well why I love poetry:

"There are, it seems, two muses: the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought." This is the muse of form. It may be then that form serves us best when it works as an obstruction, to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings."

Poetry is work, in a way a novel can never be. I wonder if where it blocks it does not also invite? Extending an invitation to life and uncertainty and as Berry calls it, our own "real work."

June 7, 2010

2010-06-07T12:46:00.002-05:00

Week four of p90x.

Last week was a disaster. I did about 3 of the exercises I was supposed to do and none of the rest. So I am doing an extra week in this phase and then taking next week as the rest week.

If you don't know what p90x looks like, I'll give you a quick rundown.

Basically, there are 3 workout phases. Each one is a month and in each month there are 3 weeks of exercises and 1 week of rest. Each phase is different but the 1st phase (the one I'm in) looks like this:

Week 1-3:
Day 1: Chest and Back, Ab Ripper X
Day 2: Plyometrics
Day 3: Shoulders and Arms, Ab Ripper X
Day 4: Yoga
Day 5: Legs and Back, Ab Ripper X
Day 6: Kenpo
Day 7: Rest or stretch

Week 4 (rest week):
Day 1: Yoga
Day 2: Core Synergistics
Day 3: Kenpo
Day 4: Stretch
Day 5: Core Synergistics
Day 6: Yoga
Day 7: Rest or stretch

It's a tough program. Whats most tough about it isn't the workouts as much as it is the amount of time and energy p90x consumes. You're spending about an hour and a half a day exercising. Which is fine if you don't have much going on. But its real easy to let life get in the way and forget your goals. As I discovered last week.

The hardest workout is Plyometrics. You jump for an hour. It's kinda fun but the first time I did it I had a lot of trouble walking the next day. The longest is Yoga and even though I've done a lot of Yoga in my life, this is by far the hardest session. The easiest and funnest is Kenpo. Lots of kicks and punches and blocks. The stretching part is actually a full hour long session. I haven't done it yet, since by the 7th day I'm really looking forward to being lazy.

So I'm on week four, adding an extra week to this phase. My goal is to do the whole week of exercises, plus add in one extra session of Kenpo (today or Wednesday) and an extra session of Yoga. We'll see how that goes.

At the end of the rest week I'll post my before pictures and then pictures for the end of phase 1.

June 6, 2010

2010-06-06T02:07:00.005-05:00

Its been like a month since I last posted and all I got is podcasts.

I drive a lot and music gets old so I'm always looking for a podcast to take with me on the road. I figure instead of wasting my time listening to music, I can listen to a podcast and learn something. Most of them are about philosophy or history, so if that isn't your cup of tea then this post will mean nothing to you.

Here are my favorites:

The History of Rome. 103 podcasts and I've listened to every one of them. You can tell Mike Duncan is a nerd by his voice, but he knows his shit and this is my favorite podcast by far. To the left is an image of the column of Marcus Aurelius (the guy from Gladiator) chronicling his years as emperor. I've included a link to Duncan's website where you will find this same image. Click on it and you can zoom in close to see all the minute details. Fascinating.

12 Byzantine Rulers. Equally impressive podcast as the previous. The creator, Lars Brownworth, samples a 1000 years of Byzantine history (an often ignored and little known piece of time) through 12 notable emperors.

Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. Carlin has a highly melodramatic read of history. I just finished 3 episodes on the Punic wars between Rome and Carthage. I've listened to a description of these wars from Mike Duncan and another from iTunes U (can't remember what university it was from) and neither brought it to life with such vivid intensity as Carlin.

The History Network. If you search The History Network on iTunes, you'll find one on Ancient Warfare and another simply subtitled as Military. Both are good, but I've listened to more from the Military podcast. In it, you'll find episodes on the Battle of Quatre Bras, the Maginot Line, the Russian Japanese War and the Siege of Constantinople (which Brownworth did a better job of describing in his episode in 12 Byzantine Rulers). Pretty much anything you want to know about military history, they cover.

Philosophy: The Classics. If you're looking for a brief overview of many of the major philosophical works in history, this is a great place to start. Nigel Warburton is the creator and author of a book by the same name. I was a bit disappointed when I bought the book and found he covers every chapter of the book in his podcasts, but they're good nonetheless. He covers works from Aristotle, Plato, Kierkegaard, Spinoza, Hume, Locke, Descartes and a few others.

Philosophy Bites. This podcast was created by Warburton as well but covers a broad range of topics from the perspective of philosophers. For example: Nietzsche on Art and Truth, Derrida on Forgiveness and Sartre's Existentialism.

Stuff You Should Know: Probably the best production of any of the podcasts listed here, it features a random collection of topics and has MANY subcategories with podcasts of their own, from Stuff You Missed in History Class (my favorite) to Stuff Mom Never Told You. Some topics covered are: Will the Moon Save Humanity? Bar Kokhba vs. the Romans, How the Taiping Rebellion Worked and Was There Really an Atlantis? If you are looking for information on a topic, chances are they have covered it to some degree. I've included a link to How Stuff Works, the guys who produce these podcasts.

The podcast section of iTunes is absolutely wonderful. I sometimes get giddy seeing all the things I can learn. There is a podcast for nearly everything and it's worth your time to take a look.

May 18, 2010

2010-05-18T18:33:00.002-05:00

If you follow me on Google, you may have already seen these links. But if you don't, then you haven't seen these links. And they should be seen.

INHABITAT is in the top four of my most favorite blogs. Right behind a theological blog from the perspective of a Reformed Calvinist; Ads of the World, a blog with advertisements from around the world; and the lady friends', which is always fun cause she loves fashion, clothing, design and cute things (like #2 pencils and old medicine bottles).

Anyway, INHABITAT is fascinating. Every time I check out a new post from them, I am in awe with what people can do with technology and design. INHABITAT''s slogan is "design will save the world" so their posts feature an innovative approach to our environmental problems.

I'll let the links speak for themselves:

Scientists figure out how spiders spin their webs and are working on a way to replicate this process. The spider web material is 5 times stronger than steel....Holy shit.

Body powered electronics. Imagine using your body to charge your cell phone...

Middle eastern nations transforming their deserts into farmland.

Lamp, puzzle toy combo. Say whattttt???

A "skin" is being developed for buildings that can regulate temperature and such, dramatically reducing energy needs.

I could post links to probably dozens more but you can visit the site and see more of this fantastic website for yourself.

May 10, 2010

2010-05-10T22:53:00.003-05:00

Note

Remember how the naked soul
comes to language and at once knows
loss and distance and believing

then for a time it will not run
with its old freedom
like a light innocent of measure
but will hearken to how
one story becomes another
and will try to tell where
they have emerged from
and where they are heading
as though they were its own legend
running before the words and beyond them
naked and never looking back

through the noise of questions

-W.S. Merwin

A poem from his collection, The Shadow of Sirius, which won a Pulitzer.

April 24, 2010

2010-04-24T02:17:00.002-05:00

A.J. Jacobs in his book, The Know-it-All, talks about the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the entry on cats.

"My God, these Scotsmen were not cat people. The poor feline species inspires several hundred words of venomous prose. To give you an idea:

"'Of all domestic animals, the character of the cat is the most equivocal and suspicious. He is kept, not for any amiable qualities, but purely with a view to banish rats, mice, and other noxious animals from our houses....Constantly bent upon theft and rapine, they are full of cunning and dissimulation; they conceal all their designs; seize every opportunity of doing mischief, and then fly from punishment...In a word, the cat is totally destitute of friendship.'

"Wait, there's more. The cat is overly 'amorous' (that is, horny), 'torments' his prey, and generally 'delights in destroying all kinds of weak animals indifferently.' Cats often pretend to sleep when in 'reality they are meditating mischief.' Oh, and cat mothers 'devour their offspring.'"

I laughed so hard. I had to share this on my blog.

April 21, 2010

2010-04-21T23:01:00.004-05:00

Hilarity:

The most useless website in the world.

This one makes a pretty bold claim as to which dinosaur is the best. Personally, I prefer the raptor.

Here's another which basically says "Barack Obama..." and then throws in a random sentence. Like this: "Barack Obama thought you could use some chocolate." Or this: "Barack Obama folded your laundry." Yeah, shit like that. Just click on the page and it will cycle through a new one.

And finally, a classic where I come from: The Peter Pan Guy. You can even see pictures of his marriage to Tinkerbell. Totally normal.

August 21, 2010

2010-04-21T21:50:00.002-05:00

My favorite band, Blindside, has a new album coming out on August 10, 2010. It has been FIVE years since their last one, The Great Depression. Unless you count their EP, The Black Rose (and I don't). It also reunites them with Howard Benson, who produced Silence (one of the best albums ever made) and About a Burning Fire.

I'm super excited about this. But I have high expectations.

Other new releases this year: Fleet Foxes, Radiohead, Of Montreal and Sufjan Stevens.

April 20, 2010

2010-04-21T00:55:00.003-05:00

My roommate, Johnny, and I have a contest going: see who can read the most books this year. We are both taking a C.S. Lewis class this summer semester and have to read 13 of his books (yeah, for one class). So I'll hit 25 books by the end of June, easy. I'm at 14 right now and I think he's at 13.

There are a few rules: the book has to be over a 100 pages and a certain number of the books we read have to be something other than fiction. Like theology, history, poetry, etc. The purpose isn't just to read a ton of books but to learn something along the way.

If you're looking for a book to read, the two most interesting ones thus far are Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw and David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day. You can't go wrong with either of these.

I'll post a list of completed books once I've reached 20. That will probably happen mid-May.

April 16, 2010

2010-04-17T00:16:00.002-05:00

With all the news on Iceland's volcanic eruption and China's earthquake, I had no idea the president of Poland and so many other national leaders had perished in a plane wreck.

Check out this video of two guys distracting an NHL team.

I expected a reaction from most if not all the Christian bloggers I follow on Jennifer Knapp coming out. But only two commented on it and all the more conservative bloggers were completely silent. Totally surprised.

And now back to my last paper for this semester which I should totally have started on by now.

April 13, 2010

2010-04-13T23:53:00.004-05:00

Remember Jennifer Knapp? She's coming out with a new cd....and she's coming out of the closet. I'm just waiting for the Christian blogosphere to EXPLODE. So far, I haven't seen a single post.

April 12, 2010

2010-04-12T14:39:00.002-05:00

"One of the uses of poetry is to reveal and articulate and make and preserve the necessary connections between the domestic and the wild. It is one of the ways we may, with hope of return, get out of our minds (our own and other people's) into the world of creatures, forms and powers that we did not make."

- Wendell Berry in Poetry and Place, an essay from Standing By Words, page 193.

April 8, 2010

2010-04-08T15:55:00.004-05:00

A few excellent excerpts from an essay by Wendell Berry on consumerism and how it affects society. Worth your time.

"When mind predominates by the satanic principles of rebellion and division, then the individual is 'liberated''; all of his or her wants and wishes are made equal to any other wants and wishes and assume the status of legitimate values or goals. The usefulness of this state of affairs to an economy based on consumption is obvious....For the present economy to thrive or even survive, it is necessary for the great majority of the people to have exorbitant or inordinate wants, to expect to get what they want, and to feel that they have a 'right' to get it....this remorseless wanting cannot be confined to the 'marketplace'; it is a general disorder, not anarchic but chaotic.

"All this, of course, lies between the bridegroom and the bride. The economy 'grows' upon the destruction of marriages, families, and households - the physical pursuit of sexual fantasy being one of the recognized driving forces of the market....

"What it does immediately is pull down and shatter the hierarchies both of creatures and of values, and this cannot happen without producing a state of profound disorder...If all the kinds were equal, all places would be in dispute, to be contended for....

"Nothing is then worth as much as what may replace it: spouse or household or public building or work of art or farm or wilderness....any given thing is the first of a series of increasingly better things....Though this process of rebellion and division will always claim the goals of personal liberation and self-fulfillment, its ultimate value is money value and its ultimate power is police power."

- Poetry and Place, pgs 179-181

April 7, 2010

2010-04-07T15:34:00.002-05:00

Movies I will see:

May 7: Iron Man 2

May 14: Robin Hood

May 28: Prince of Persia (might suck)

Movies I will not see:

April 22, 2010: Oceans. A documentary. Another Planet Earth knock off.

May 14: Just Wright. Queen Latifah. Not interested.

April 2, 2010

2010-04-02T16:51:00.004-05:00

Obama lectures Beck and Limbaugh on their "rancor."

"The rancor is 'troublesome,' he said, but he acknowledged it's also a recurring phenomenon."

I agree President Obama. The rancor must be stopped.

Duhhh duhhh. Duh duh duh duhhhh duh. Duh duh duh duhhhh duh. Duh duh duh duhhhhhhhhhh.

April 2, 2010

2010-04-02T15:45:00.005-05:00

Some interesting developments in the Israeli military in tank warfare. It's called the "Trophy" system and can intercept missiles (like anti-tank rockets) before they hit. It gives the Israeli's a significant advantage against organizations like the Hezbollah. Yay war...

The Republican National Committee and the decline in funding from donors as a result of their most recent sex scandal. Hopefully this doesn't shove any donors into the Tea Party, which, if you don't know, is made up of the politically dispossessed from this last election (I'm sure there are other reasons equally bitchy). God forbid the RNC's presidential nomination be a moderate like John McCain. We certainly wouldn't want to build bridges would we?

Vehicle of choice: Cheetah.

HELL YES.

Also doubles as a security system for your home.

Paper Tongues is awesome. I know, I know. People use the adjective "awesome" way too often to describe way too many things. Clothes, movies, music, people, concerts, etc. But seriously. It fits this time.

I swear.

Check them out on Lala and if you don't love them...I can never love you.

April 1, 2010

2010-04-01T15:59:00.000-05:00

April Fools. The Russian version.

March 31, 2010

2010-03-31T14:34:00.002-05:00

Paper Tongues - Trinity. It's not a video, just the song on YouTube, but it's still incredible. I found this band yesterday and I am HOOKED.

March 30, 2010

2010-03-30T18:55:00.005-05:00

Links you'll probably glance over and never click on:

Scientists have figured out a way to screw with our moral judgments. Or you could get drunk like every other irresponsible adult and achieve the same results.

Porn is good?

How to be Intimidating.

Here's one from Awkward Family Photos. Notice the mom...

Coffee advertisements from Ads of the World. This first one is from Nescafe, who seems to have figured out they have the shittiest coffee on the planet cause they're using sex to sell it (as opposed to relying on good coffee).

Never heard of ecoffee but Seattle's all about the environmentally friendly brew.

March 25, 2010

2010-03-25T17:06:00.003-05:00

Weave in, My Hardy Life

Weave in, weave in, my hardy life,
Weave yet a soldier strong and full for great campaigns to
come,
Weave in red blood, weave sinews in like ropes, the senses,
sight weave in,
Weave lasting sure, weave day and night the weft, the warp,
incessant weave, tire not,
(We know not what the use O life, nor know the aim, the
end, nor really aught we know,
But know the work, the need goes on and shall go on, the
death-envelop'd march of peace as well as war goes on,)
For great campaigns of peace the same the wiry threads to
weave,
We know not why or what, yet weave, forever weave.

Walt Whitman

March 24, 2010

2010-03-24T17:04:00.003-05:00

Bucket list:

My own library, with floor to ceiling books. Sections on philosophy, theology, psychology, poetry, sci-fi, classics, and contemporary works

A masters degree (or two)

Possible a PhD

Marriage and a couple kids. But I want a boy first

A job I love

Backpacking mileage of over 500 miles: Pacific Crest Trail, Appalachian Trail, etc

Vacationed in Hawaii

....Italy

....Greece

....Alaska

Half-marathon

Own a small home

Motorcycle

The Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain

Black belt (or equivalent) in one of the following: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Aikido, Krav Maga, Kung Fu

Learn how to ice skate or rollerblade

Write good poetry

Skydiving

Bungee jumping

See the Aurora Borealis

....the Grand Canyon

....every national park in California

Times Square on News Year Day

The Louvre in Paris

The Great Wall in China

Statue of Liberty in New York

Explore a deserted island

March 24, 2010

2010-03-24T16:45:00.002-05:00

"The [American advertisers] are always telling us that the success of modern commerce depends on creating an atmosphere, on manufacturing a mentality, on assuming a point of view. In short, they insist that their commerce is not merely commercial, or even economic or political, but purely psychological. I hope they will go on saying it; for then some day everybody may suddenly see that it is true.
For the success of big shops and such things really is psychology...or, in other words, nightmare. It is not real and, therefore, not reliable."

- The Outline of Sanity. G.K. Chesterton

March 24, 2010

2010-03-24T14:39:00.002-05:00

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Percy Bysshe Shelley

March 19, 2010

2010-03-20T01:02:00.002-05:00

Dislike:

1. Lines

2. Crowds

3. Crowded beaches

4. Theme parks (that are crowded)

5. Long waits

6. Being interrupted

7. Hummers

8. Range Rovers

9. Jellyfish

10. Deep water

11. Country music

12. Rap

13. Movies that try too hard to be artsy

14. People that try too hard to be artsy

15. Cats (but not kittens)

16. Sarah Palin (God I can't stand her...no seriously, something needs to be done. The media needs to declare that Palin is too stupid to be on television and then decide to never report anything about her ever again. I am not kidding. Stay in Alaska, Palin)

17. Energetic Calvinists (The world could do with less over zealous Piper disciples)

18. People who suck musically but don't know it and want to show you ALL these "songs" they wrote (Speaking of, did you know Kevin Costner has a band?)

19. Steven Seagal

20. Chuck Norris (But only because he's a shitty actor)

21. Jar Jar Binks

22. Horses

23. The religious right

24. The liberal left

25. Actors

March 18, 2010

2010-03-18T14:58:00.003-05:00

The Los Angeles Times review on the front cover of the book calls this "A formally beautiful, disturbing and finally morally devastating novel. From the first page, [The Reader] ensnares both heart and mind." All except for it being "beautiful" the reviewer is right.

I read most of the book this morning. It definitely ensnares the heart and mind. But it's captivating because the heart and mind are so deeply troubled.

Nowhere in Schlink's book is there a hero or hope. The tragedy of lost innocence permeates the entire novel and remains unrealized by the victim, Michael Berg. His life has become irrevocably damaged as a result. A marriage to another woman fails and Michael becomes alienated from his daughter. He becomes emotionless and unfeeling, unable to maintain relationships with women, unable to love or care for others.

By the end of the novel, I have no hope for Michael because he never faces what was done to him or the affect it has on his life. He accepts it like he seems to accept everything. Blankly.

"The tectonic layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nevertheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear. Maybe I did write our story to be free of it, even if I never can be."

I recommend this book, with hesitation, because it will depress you. But the understanding Schlink brings to the human heart and what pain can do to our lives is incredible. A captivating read, but a sobering one too.

March 17, 2010

2010-03-17T21:12:00.000-05:00

Moose Drool Ale. Pretty good.

March 17, 2010

2010-03-17T21:05:00.004-05:00

Hipstamatic makes everything look better: Piano at Goodwill. Price? 9.99

March 16, 2010

2010-03-16T20:48:00.011-05:00

Manolith has a post about a teacher who is in trouble for running a fight club in LA.

The Christian in me says this is wrong. But the violent, angry pagan loves it. At least, the idea of it. If given the opportunity, would I really beat the shit out of another human being?

Maybe.

But would I want them to beat the shit out of me?

Absolutely not. No sir.

Probably wouldn't do it. Even if I knew I would never lose. But I can't say the idea isn't intriguing. If you've ever seen the movie and you are a male, you know what I mean. You have two reactions: repulsion and fascination.

Obviously the movie gets way out of hand with the anarchy stuff but it's right on about our culture. The culture of men pampered, desperate, alone and hopeless. Men who don't know what they want because they don't know who they are. So they let someone else tell them what they want. Advertising, the corporate world, religion, other men.

Here are some quotes not from the movie but from Chuck Palahniuk's original book:

"And I wasn't the only slave to my nesting instinct. The people I know who used to sit in the bathroom with pornography, now they sit in the bathroom with their IKEA furniture catalogue."

"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."

"All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction. You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need."

"We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression."

In Palahniuk's world, fight club "turns the volume down." The shouting dies. You stop trying to be perfect, to have perfect things. You stop listening to all the voices shouting for you to "Be!" We are advised to "de-evolve", even as the men in Fight Club seem to transcend.

I feel like this is the part where Christian Barry says something spiritual and tosses some scripture in there to make us all feel more connected to God and each other. But I recognize the hopelessness, I know the voices that shout for me to be more, always more. I know the struggle to be a man, the whole time not even knowing what the hell a man actually is.

Does God offer us an answer to this?

I think he does...I think so. The answer obviously isn't to "de-evolve" to the point where we are violent and numb, disconnected and at the same time, one common lump of men who have stopped trying to have an identity and have thus lost it entirely.

The answer is, in the spirit of Dan Allender (my professor) to war. Not in the physically violent sense but internally and on behalf of others. And to war is to love.

Augustine said to love God and do what you want. Christ said to love God first and others second. One of the reasons we must love is because love is an impossibility. To love is the best act of all other acts and all goodness comes from love. It requires the most of us, the heart of us, the best of us.

The men in Fight Club are hopeless because they have no purpose and without purpose you lose your soul. But God remedies that by calling us to love and so in loving not to transcend our humanity but to become truly human for the first time.

Palahniuk says it best: "I just don't want to die without a few scars."

March 16, 2010

2010-03-16T20:29:00.003-05:00

"This is true glory and renown, when God
Looking on th' Earth, with approbation marks
The just man..."

From John Milton's Paradise Regained, found in Wendell Berry's essay on Poetry and Place.

When God sees a just man (or woman), what does he see? What is it that makes a person just?

March 13, 2010

2010-03-14T00:16:00.003-06:00

David Sedaris is a funny man. Similar to Anne Lamott and Donald Miller: self-deprecating humor, witty remarks, insatiable curiosity and an underlying tenderness beneath it all.

I'm reading his Me Talk Pretty One Day. One chapter in particular had me rolling. Big Boy. It's 3 pages and it's about poop. If that sort of thing interests you, then this book is for you.

He's also gay. You might think its odd I mention that. And yeah, it probably is. But that's one of the reasons I picked up the book (besides the fact that everyone raves about David Sedaris). I wanted to know what he thought about life growing up gay. How it was different from mine. I wanted to know what he thought about God, his parents, and the world.

What I've found out so far comes down to these few things:

- his father was never proud of him
- his family is really weird
- he fell ass backwards into writing and has made a career of it
- his life feels less funny than sad

On that last point....it's a feeling I get throughout the book when Sedaris writes about his father or his relationships or his jobs. His self-deprecation is different from Miller and Lamott. They don't seem to believe those things about themselves, or, if they do, laugh them off. Sedaris, though, I think he believes things about himself that make me sad for him. Not that the book is a total downer just that its a little sad.

So far though, I've loved it. Sedaris has a new fan. His books will be lining my shelves.

March 12, 2010

2010-03-12T23:26:00.010-06:00

This post was inspired by my roommate Johnny, whose post was inspired by our friend Ashlee.

I want to be here:

Or here:

Or here:

Doing this:

Wearing this:

Eating this:

March 11, 2010

2010-03-11T12:39:00.004-06:00

Google Reader now has Play, where you browse interesting articles, photos, videos, etc from the web. You can click "Share" "Like" or "Star" and if anyone is following your profile on Reader, they can find all the things you "Share." It doesn't seem that "Like" or "Star" have any important functions...and the whole Play thing is sort of confusing because following a person on Play is different than subscribing to their blog.

I'm still trying to figure this out but if you go to your Google Reader page near the top left you will see a section called "People You Follow" right under "All Items" which lists all your blog updates. Under "People You Follow" you can look at all your friends "Shared" items, your "Shared" items, add people to follow, etc.

Adding someone to follow is complicated and dumb. You can only add them if they are already one of your gchat/gmail contacts. Which, yes, we get it Google you want to rule the world, starting by destroying Facebook.

Once you jump through the stupid bullshit hoops, Play is ok. Something I really like about it is you can go to one of your subscribed blogs, click on "Feed Settings" and at the very bottom you can view it in Play mode, which allows you to "Share" a blog post you like instead of reposting a link to it on a blog post of your own.

Some of my shared items: video of a jetpack (does anyone else nearly wet their pants with excitement at the possibility of owning one of these in the near future?); a post from Al Mohler on the link between abortion and African-Americans; and super cool engagement photos taken UNDER WATER.

If you, like I, think everything I love is interesting and neat then you can follow me by adding my email to gchat or your gmail contacts. Which is: barry.biceps@gmail.com.

March 10, 2010

2010-03-11T01:07:00.002-06:00

Polar bear chases man. Cute

Something a little more sobering: 1 in 6 Americans have herpes. And this doesn't include all the other STDs floating around like AIDS and such.

There is a new Tron movie coming out and it actually looks good. I don't know who the actor is but (and I say this in the most heterosexual way possible) I'm attracted to him. I could see us together.

John Krasinkski may be playing the role of Captain America. I think Captain America might be the dumbest comic book creation ever. All he does is carry a shield and wear an American flag all over his body. He has no superpowers. What's the appeal?

March 9, 2010

2010-03-09T22:43:00.002-06:00

If I could be anywhere right now, I would be in the mountains. Rainier or the Olympics. On the trail, surrounded by trees. Just hiking. No place to be for weeks.

I'd bring friends. Whitman, Thomas, Thoreau, Hopkins and Plath.

No music, TV, internet, facebook, phone calls, text messages, cars, schedules, agendas, papers, assignments or readings.

Complete solitude and rest

March 9, 2010

2010-03-09T22:23:00.003-06:00

My reading goal for this year is pretty light: 25. I can't see myself finishing any more than that with grad school and 30 hours of work.

What I've completed so far:

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao : Junot Diaz
What the Dog Saw : Malcolm Gladwell
Figured Out : Christopher Seitz
The Hunger Games : Suzanne Collins

What I'm working on:

Catching Fire : Suzanne Collins
Standing by Words : Wendell Berry
Rome and Jerusalem : Martin Goodman
Plan B : Anne Lamott
Bird By Bird: Anne Lamott
Spiritual Theology : Simon Chan
Auschwitz : Laurence Rees

I have a bad habit of starting a book, reading 60 to a 100 pages, dropping it and picking up another. I went through my library and counted every book I haven't finished.

A total of 30.

I think I have commitment issues.

February 23, 2010

2010-02-24T01:41:00.004-06:00

Thoughts:

I finished Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw. I'll post my thoughts on it later.

Currently, I'm knee deep into this book: Figured Out by Christopher Seitz. It's a book review for one of my MDiv classes. My professor made a SERIOUS error in judgment when she assigned this book to first years. It's way academic and I'm way over my head. Eight page paper on it due Tuesday.

You should pick up Switchfoot's Hello Hurricane.

What's up with curling? Someone explain the appeal.

I like Sarah Palin less and less. And I didn't really like her all that much before. She just won't stop talking...

Links:

Artwork made from staples. Found it through BOOOOOOM.

Ragamuffin Soul posted links to some of his favorite blogs. Messy Canvas is one of them. Here are two links to her posts. In the first, she makes His and Hers coffee cozies. In the second (which is also featured on Ragamuffin Soul), she makes stuffed animals for her little girls based on her daughters drawing. I can't explain why, but I found this last post beautifully creative and wonderful.

February 21, 2010

2010-02-21T20:19:00.006-06:00

A beautiful day in Seattle. A visit to a United Methodist Church where we heard a sermon on "Embracing your Sexuality." Then to Pike Place Market for chowder, where everyone and their dog was out enjoying the afternoon sun. After chowder, we explored Pioneer Square: Elliot Bay Book Company, Caffe Umbria (so-so hot chocolate), and a glass shop with glassblowers in the back (last picture). Last stop was at Red Mill for a burger.

February 21, 2010

2010-02-21T20:10:00.001-06:00

Seattle Graffiti : Near Pike Place Market

February 20, 2010

2010-02-20T10:59:00.000-06:00

February 17, 2010

2010-02-17T12:39:00.001-06:00

February 16, 2010

2010-02-16T21:05:00.006-06:00

"Touch her high,
touch her low.

If you can't touch her hard,
you better not start."

A song about hand jobs at Quest Cafe's open mic night. Sung by a man in his late fifties with a shiny, sequin black jacket, white hat with feather and black rim, silver tie, white shirt (not pictured). Must be straight from Louisiana. Seattle has all types.

February 16, 2010

2010-02-16T20:33:00.004-06:00

A link to a fellow MHGS student's blog, Josh Longbrake. A source of excellent photography. This time, of my favorite and most fascinating professor, Dan Allender.

Here is a quote (sort of) I strung together from my class with Allender, Marriage and Family:

"Follow the track of contempt. It will always lead you to their core idolatry. Contempt is a way of protecting false gods who we know cannot bear scrutiny. You will encounter my contempt when you expose my fear."

I think I can attribute my fascination with counseling largely to Dan Allender's incredible lectures. And speaking of fascination with counseling...I'm considering dropping out of the MDiv program and getting into counseling psychology instead.

It's a big move but the more I consider it, the more I like where my life could lead. No decisions yet, but the plan is to decide by the first week of March...

Nervous grin

February 13, 2010

2010-02-13T11:44:00.003-06:00

Seattle traffic enforcement. Called "The Interceptor III". Whenever I see these vehicles, it makes getting a ticket kinda cute and adorable.

February 11, 2010

2010-02-11T16:42:00.002-06:00

I have more than 70 blogs on Google Reader. How many I have exactly I don't know cause I lost interest in counting them all after 70. But I keep up with these the most:

BOOOOOOOM features a lot of artistic stuff. Stuff I can't make or understand. But they're cool to look at. This time, it's paper sculptures of birds, which are fascinating and beautiful.

The Sartorialist. All about fashion, which is interesting because its a completely different world than my own. But sometimes the people photographed come off looking like tools. Like this skinny looking gangsta. What a douche.

Thelongbrake dot com. A MDiv student here at Mars Hill.

10 Million Words

Between Two Worlds. I am always stirring up trouble on this blog. JT would be surprised to know I endorse it.

Manolith.

There are others but most of the rest are the personal blogs of friends I know. Which I won't list here.

February 11, 2010

2010-02-11T16:32:00.005-06:00

Seattle graffiti : U District

February 9, 2010

2010-02-09T15:25:00.011-06:00

In Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, there is a chapter on plot. Lamott says, "Plot grows out of character... [it is] what people will up and do in spite of everything that tells them they shouldn't, everything that tells them that they should sit quietly on the couch and practice their Lamaze, or call their therapist, or eat until the urge to do that thing passes" (54, 55). Lamott warns against imposing plot on your characters. She says not to worry about the plot; that resolves itself when you know your characters.

Plot, then, is a history. It’s what you have done that shapes who you are into what you will choose to do. Which brings up a lot of questions for me.

What have I done? Are there patterns I can trace here and into tomorrow?

Can I deviate from this course?

And, what is my plot? What am I consistently choosing to do?

I’ve heard of a plot-driven novel and a character-driven novel. An example of a plot-driven novel (and shitty writing) is Ted DeKker. All his books end with an epic battle between good and evil. The only book of his I have kept is Blink because I like the main characters.

An example of a character-driven novel is The Wheel of Time series. I know, I know. I rave on and on about these books. But if you were inside my mind and could see how much I love some of the characters from those books you would understand. Robert Jordan is a god at creating believable people. I love Rand, Mat, and Min the most. From book 1 to book 12, you watch Rand grow from a scared, timid boy into a suffering, burdened man. You literally feel Rand change through the pages. It’s some of the best writing I’ve ever read. And it’s because I love those characters.

This got me to thinking about how I was raised at home and in church: Values were imposed. In Sunday school I was told not to have sex, to love God, to talk to other people about Christ, and to read my bible. I remember my mother threatening to kick me out of the house if I ever got a girl pregnant. Most of my religious education revolved around a lot of No’s.

Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy said the Beautitudes were not about a list of things to do but about becoming the kind of person who could do them. This is character-driven living. The plot isn’t the purpose. We are why there is a purpose.

When I think of how I was raised, it was a plot-driven method. Morality was imposed instead of nurtured. I was told what to do, but rarely how to do it or why (unless you consider threats a “why”). The purpose was the plot and the rest of us were just along for the ride.

If you’re a Calvinist, you’re probably cool with this. But I am not so I need something a little more engaging (and dare I say, intelligent?).

I think God is telling a story through us. The plot evolves as we do. It isn’t that we are more important than the plot but rather that God loves the characters in the story more than he loves how the story evolves.Or, maybe a better way of putting it: God loves the way the story evolves because he loves the characters in the story.

As I was reading Lamott, I wondered what story God was writing in me. When I am sad, I don’t think the story will turn out well. But when my soul is quiet, I can feel a pattern unfolding in my life and I know God will wrap all the good and ugly into a story bright and beautiful. And I think it will be a good book.

February 9, 2010

2010-02-09T15:17:00.004-06:00

Cherry Street Cafe on 1st. Couple blocks from Mars Hill. Kinda has a Mediterranean style to the interior. And the coffee is good.

February 6, 2010

2010-02-07T01:17:00.006-06:00

Me and Dan, first time in Seattle for our interview at Mars Hill. Which we rocked.

Dan, me, Brett Aplin, Nathan Lowry. At Toby's wedding. I miss those guys.

When I had a beard. God, it was epic. But it felt terrible in the heat. Like a dead rat super glued to my neck.

February 6, 2010

2010-02-05T20:40:00.006-06:00

What a depressing book. Diaz is a talented writer, I'll give him that. But boy does the book end badly for Oscar.

About half of the book isn't even about Oscar. It's about his family history. The narrator is Yunior, a friend Oscar meets in college. He traces the path of Oscar's demise and the history that leads up to it, all the way back to his grandparents.

It's all about fuku. Fuku is a curse laid down upon Oscar's grandfather for denying the then Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo access to his wife and daughter. He was thrown in prison for more than a decade then killed as Trujillo was being overthrown. His wife was pushed in front of a truck and one of his daughters drowned, along with other tragedies. Yunior says Oscar's grandfather brought fuku upon his family by defying Trujillo, who some believed had god like powers to impose his terrifying will on the people of the Dominican Republic. The result was a broken family, riddled with tragedy.

Diaz creates a likable character in Oscar but Yunior (who I believe is a thinly shaded representation of Diaz) tells the story with a sense of doom. Yunior is always alluding to this great future tragedy.

Oscar's fuku is he's overweight, socially incompetent, and a sci-fi nerd. (And by sci-fi nerd I don't mean my type of sci-fi nerd who occasionally enjoys an orc and an elf battling it out in the forest. I mean that's ALL he reads. I mean he even TALKS like the characters from those books.)

Oscar's one purpose in life from puberty to the grave is to get laid. Which his fuku complicates. The whole story of Oscar is one failure after another to get the woman he's fallen in love with. He seems doomed to die a virgin.

If that's all this novel was about then I would have tossed it when I first started reading. But its more than Oscar trying to get laid. He's alone and suffering. All he wants is someone to share life with, but he's frustrated at every attempt. Oscar feels like he is collapsing in on himself, like some internal gravity is sucking into him into his own personal black hole. Life, for Oscar, gradually spirals further and further into his own dark abyss.

I won't tell you how it ends, except that he does die and its really sad. But I will tell you that Diaz creates a terrifying world. He creates characters whose one hunger is to devour the person next to them. In Diaz's world, Oscar is the solitary virgin and everyone else is sex-crazed and starving. It isn't just Oscar who is collapsing in on himself.

So I recommend the book. Sort of. It won a Pulitzer so its a safe bet you'll like it. As long as you're ok with a depressing read, go for it.

February 3, 2010

2010-02-03T15:49:00.007-06:00

LOST theories:

Jacob's enemy may be Esau. Like from the Bible. I could be reading into this way too much but some verses from the Biblical story might help explain things(I'm reading from the KJV):

Genesis 25: 27. Says Esau was a "cunning hunter", which could explain the smoke monster; and Jacob dwelt in tents, which could explain why all his followers live very plainly.

Genesis 27: 39, 40. Jacob's nemesis (who I'll call Dr. Evil from now on) said he wanted to "go home." In chapter 27, Jacob has stolen Esau's blessing from his father Isaac by deceiving him into thinking he was Esau. When Esau arrives to receive his blessing, he finds it has already been given and is in agony. His father's blessing gives Jacob lordship over Esau.

In verse 39 and 40, Isaac says to Esau, "Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above; and by the sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck."

Couple thoughts from these verses:

- The smoke monster was called the Island's security system, emanating from the temple and even being summoned by Ben. Does this mean that Dr. Evil served Jacob through Ben and the Others?

- This could explain why Dr. Evil wants to "go home" if his dwelling is the "fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above:" He has no home.

- Dr. Evil (in the body of John Locke) says to Richard, "Nice to see you without your chains on," reminiscent of the last part of verse 40 which says that Esau shall "break [Jacob's] yoke from off [his] neck."

In verse 41, Esau declares his intent to kill Jacob but is unsuccessful. In LOST, Dr. Evil also declares his intent to kill Jacob but has to find a "loophole" in order to do it. Meaning, he is powerless to kill Jacob himself.

Genesis 28:4. "And give thee the blessing of Abraham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that mayest inherit the land wherein thou are a stranger..." Reminds me of Ben leading the Other's to wipe out the DHARMA Initiative group and then take their place on the Island, living in their houses.

Jacob and Dr. Evil seem to be competing for something. Or betting on something. I think the Island is like a casino for them to place bets on the goodness of humanity. And so far it seems that Jacob has been losing his bets for centuries.

The Others seem to be Jacob's servants. But this brings up a lot of questions about Jacob's supposed goodness since it was the Others who wiped out the DHARMA Initiative group and the Others, led by Ben Linus, who have killed and terrorized the Oceanic survivors.

Ok, so if it is true that LOST is recreating the Jacob and Esau story in some form, then why this competition between the two? Could it be reminiscent of the competition that Jacob and Esau had for Isaac's affection? Otherwise, the competition doesn't make any sense, at least as a recreation of the biblical narrative. I wouldn't expect LOST to be completely faithful to the story but if this is about Jacob and Esau then I would expect a father figure to show up in a few episodes or the revelation they are brothers.

How does the DHARMA Initiative fit into this theory?

Is Dr. Evil powerless to kill Jacob because he has been cursed to be Jacob's servant or is it for some other, yet unknown, reason?

Is Jacob really dead?

I would say the way LOST is progressing lends a lot of weight to the Purgatory theory (I know the LOST creators have already said this isn't true). If it isn't purgatory, then it is definitely some sort of playground with Jacob and Dr. Evil acting as demi-gods over the inhabitants.

My last thoughts are on Jack. I think something is up with him. He's too perfect. I heard a theory that Jack might be one of the Others. I don't know about that but I think it's possible that Jack is hiding something. LOST has, until recently, always positioned Locke as the anti-Jack and now that Locke is gone, its Sawyer. In every good story, there is a villain and a hero and they are always pitted against each other. Who is the villain and who is the hero? I think there will be a showdown between Jack and Sawyer and Jack's secret will be revealed. Which I will explain in a moment. But first....

.....I think Jacob is the Island. Ben, in an early episode faced the smoke monster, lived and said he saw into the soul of the Island and it was beautiful. But later we learn he actually saw a bright light and that was what he saw the soul of the Island through. I believe this bright light protected him and reappears in the season six premiere when one of the men Jacob summons creates a circle of sand to protect himself from the smoke monster. The smoke monster runs up against it and a small light appears, shining down onto his head. He still dies because the smoke monster finds a way around it but I think those bright lights are the same and they are Jacob (which is why I question whether Jacob is actually dead).

There are two realities now. In the one where the Oceanic flight does not crash, the Island is under water, "dead" and caused by Jack's bomb. In the one where the flight does crash, Jacob is killed by Ben. In both realities, Jacob, as the Island, is dead and it all happens in the same episode.

In the flight crash reality, Jack gets everyone together to detonate the bomb, even though the plan is originally hatched by Daniel Faraday. And he also brings everyone back to the Island, resulting in Ben killing Jacob, even though bringing everyone back was originally Ben's plan, not Jacks. So Jack is behind the scenes of both deaths. Earning him my suspicions.

My wildest theory yet (and what I believe to be Jack's secret) is that Jack is Dr. Evil/the Smoke Monster/Esau. Christian Shepherd, his father, represents Isaac, who Jack is always trying to earn the respect of. This would fit with Jack trying to destroy Jacob/the Island, who receives Isaac/Christian's blessing but Esau/Jack does not. And if this is true, then perhaps LOST will reveal that Jack has a brother? We already know that Claire is his half-sister so maybe there is another sibling.

One final thing: Jack's tattoo on his left shoulder. One of the Others translates it to mean, "He walks amongst us but is not one of us."

I rest my case.

February 3, 2010

2010-02-02T16:32:00.004-06:00

Marriage and Family at Mars Hill Grad School with Dan Allender/Steve Call.

Theology of Spiritual Formation with Chelle Stearns.

February 2, 2010

2010-02-02T15:52:00.002-06:00

Manolith. A blog for men. Here are a few posts/links from it:

Kanye West vs. John Mayer. Who's the biggest douche?

Eight Greatest Jon Stewart Pwnages.

The Twelve Most Insane Things You Can Buy on the Internet

It's a pretty witty blog and, I would argue, worth your perusing.

February 2, 2010

2010-02-01T18:47:00.005-06:00

Some recent posts from Albert Mohler. I usually disagree with Mohler but I find him to be an incredibly intelligent source for the conservative Christian worldview.

Mohler on the loss of the authority of parents in society.

Mohler on marriage.

The Rev. Albert Mohler, a leading figure in the fight against gay marriage, says that in light of Lawrence, he understands Boies’ line of attack. But he told TIME that marriage is different. It is “the central institution of human society.” “The problem with that argument is that the current case has to do with marriage, not merely with the right to engage in certain sexual acts,” says Mohler, who is the longtime president of the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville, Ky. “There are more than ample grounds to argue that the sustenance of marriage is necessary for the flourishing of human culture. Thus, anything that damages marriage or subverts its place in society is deleterious in its effects. Throughout history, societies have regulated marriage with this danger in mind, recognizing in marriage the privileged status granted to the heterosexual union as the best context for procreation and the raising of children — functions understood to be vital to the society’s well-being. The argument put forth by Boies would mean the effective deregulation of marriage, since his arguments already presented in court could be proposed by any number of others, including those representing polygamists.”

Mohler is right about societies regulating marriage but doesn't define what those societies thought marriage actually was. Marriage today is different from marriage has been before. But I can't elaborate any further on this because then I would have to cite sources. And I don't care to do that at all.

January 28, 2010

2010-01-28T20:11:00.004-06:00

Pretty flipping amazing beer. A 2700 year old Turkish recipe. Tastes like heaven

January 26, 2010

2010-01-26T14:26:00.002-06:00

Near the corner of Western and Wall, just up the street from MHGS. It's a Mitsubishi...Lancer?

January 24, 2010

2010-01-25T22:13:00.007-06:00

I bought these books for eight bucks at Goodwill.

Full Sail Wassail. A dark, bitter beer from The Matador.

The sign should say "Shilshole"

January 23, 2010

2010-01-23T22:58:00.001-06:00

Got this in a package today. Back home, I had these origami "urban birds" taped on my wall, along with pictures, quotes and three giant words cut out of foam board. I thought I was artistic. Then I came to Mars Hill where everyone is either a writer, poet, painter, photographer, designer or musician. All I do is fold birds. But that's ok, I'll keep folding my animals. Meanwhile, I'll work on my writing with a little help from Anne Lamott, the other part of the package.

January 22, 2010

2010-01-22T22:20:00.000-06:00

Visit BOOOOOOOM! It's my new favorite blog and its probably yours too. You just don't know it yet. Under MUSIC! you'll find a link to Ok Go's This too Shall Pass music video. Under PROJECTS! you will find forts. And under PHOTOS! you will find photos.

January 22, 2010

2010-01-22T11:53:00.001-06:00

Rosie Thomas : Seattle : Freemont Abbey

January 21, 2010

2010-01-21T17:05:00.003-06:00

PostRank Analytics has release their top blogs of 2009. They are ranked by Most Engagement, Most Influential, and Biggest Mover and Shaker. They are ranked according to their group, of which there are 14, with everything from Entertainment to Art to Religion to Technology. If it interests you and you want to know more about it, chances are, PostRank has a link to it.

Here are some of the blogs I'm adding to my Google Reader:

Beer News

Wine Library

The Sartorialist. A design blog. I'm trying to get my mind inside this world. They definitely have eye-catching photography, I'll give em that. This blog won all three categories.

ListVerse. PostRank put this under "history." I might throw it under "random."

decor8. On Interior decorating.

Asylum

The Big Picture. Another winner of all three categories.

Tattoosday

Threadless

Gadling. On travel.

Alie Edwards. On scrapbooking.

rooted. On poetry. Won all three categories.

Ads of the World

Stonch's Beer Blog

The Half-Dipper. On tea.

Smitten Kitchen

COTE DE TEXAS

Manolith

Tough Tips. For iPhones.

BOOOOOOOOM!. I'm already in love with this one.

Moleskinerie

ALRIGHT. I'm done. I'll look over some of these blogs and post which ones I think are deserving of my attention.

January 21, 2010

2010-01-21T16:40:00.001-06:00

Me and you are going to get to know each other real well.

At Mars Hill, you are not only a reader but are being read. A book you pick up, peruse and put down may seem like only an object, but your interaction with it gives it freedom to interact with you. Sacred Listening is one of the texts for Theology of Spiritual Formation. It has four "movements" composed of units and each unit has 7 exercises for 7 days of the week. Each movement has a different number of units, but the first has eight, the second has eleven, the third has two and the fourth has four. We are only required to complete the first movement but that alone is eight weeks, one exercise each day, each exercise an hour to an hour and a half. Then we write a paper on it. So, needless to say, I will be spending a lot of time with this book in hand.

The spiritual exercises are a modified (for Protestants) version of Ignatius Loyola's, the founder of the Jesuits, alive in the 16th century. The first four chapters introduce you to Ignatius and also to the content of the book and how to "make the exercises". As I read through them I caught glimpses of therapy and theology mingled together. They require deep introspection and prayer. You also journal the experience, tracking your thoughts, emotions, and responses. And then once a week you meet with a partner to listen and hear from each other what you've discovered.

An hour a day for eight weeks is a huge time commitment. To complete the exercises I would have to commit another 17 weeks to the process. But I'm optimistic. What I've read so far has been enlightening; not because of the content but because of the process the exercises require you to go through. It looks promising. In eight weeks I could be finishing up a paper and looking back on these two months as some of the more formative in my life.

January 19, 2010

2010-01-19T19:22:00.004-06:00

New Car!

A few posts from other blogs, linked here:

Al Mohler proves, yet again, why the religious right can't enter the conversation on the environment. I tenuously admit that perhaps some have turned environmentalism into a pseudo religion. Maybe. But, rarely, if ever, do leaders of the religious right actually discuss what ails our planet and our moral obligation to it.

Tim Challies is reading every book on the New York Times Bestsellers List for 2010. I am SUCH a fan of this, although he can be irritatingly conservative about EVERYTHING. From his glowing review of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue, to his disdain for anything critical of American history in The Imperial Cruise, Challies provides an interesting review of what he thinks makes a book great - or not. Whether you agree with him or not, his project is fascinating.

Modern art tattoos from ck/ck.

We always hear news on the devastation in Africa. Whether it is AIDS, governmental corruption, wars, child soldiers, lack of clean water or all the above it seems Africa is powerless to heal. Here is an article from Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed on Swaziland, a country you may not have heard of (warning: it's a bit of a downer).

On the subject of AIDS, I had a wicked dream last night where me and my friend Dan were captured by the Russian military, sprayed with the disease and let loose to create an epidemic in America (in my dream, it was spread by physical proximity, not sexual contact). Instead of running, we got guns and fought back. Dream ends with us being rescued by Japan.

Holiday Inn. Rolling out the strangest ideas.

Avatar. The most visually mind-blowing movie I've ever seen.

And finally, a quote: "Fortune favors the bold."

January 12, 2010

2010-01-12T16:00:00.004-06:00

Sometimes when I drink coffee I get excited about stuff. Sharing time.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao : Junot Diaz. Not a novel for the timid. Diaz enjoys shocking, bold statements: At times graphic descriptions of sexuality. The language itself is harsh, intentionally uncultured (or othercultured), language of the street, interspersed with Spanish exclamations (often an authority figure rebuking a child) but all highly balanced and intelligent and (to end this long description) readable. All in all, a refreshing read.

Ok Go : Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.
First three tracks:
1. WTF?
2. This Too Shall Pass
3. All is Not Lost
I bought this yesterday so I haven't had a chance to listen to the entire album, but thus far it's impressive and energetic. And seems to be about hope, if the first three songs are any indication of the rest of the album.

A haircut.

January 12, 2010

2010-01-12T02:08:00.008-06:00

Memories:

1st picture: Murfreesboro, Tn: 2008
2nd picture: Yellowstone National Park: Summer 2006: Noah (foreground) created a game where every body part was a whirling, twirling object in a gauntlet. There were dark, mysterious tunnels; spinning, hacking blades; and large, swinging boulders. So much fun.
3rd picture: Yellowstone National Park: Summer 2006: Chris and Arielle. Two good friends I haven't seen in years.
4th picture: Another Yellowstone: Cromer, Petronela, Faith (not shown) and I at a campsite in the backcountry, on our way to Fairy Land.
5th picture: Nashville, Tn: 2008(?): At an Invisible Children event, Displace Me. We are playing a game of Buck-Buck. I'm on the bottom row, third from the front.

January 11, 2010

2010-01-11T16:48:00.003-06:00

Today I received my 2nd and 3rd papers with comments about choppy and unconnected paragraphs. Lies.

In other news, link to a blog that posts artistic photos, designs, and quotes. Enjoy

January 10, 2010

2010-01-11T01:12:00.004-06:00

I heard Conan O Brien is getting the shaft. I haven't watched his show since he switched to an earlier time.

A friend and I explored Bainbridge Island today. We took a ferry from Seattle mainland. We ate breakfast at Pegasus Coffee and I had eggs with spinach and it was good. We walked along Winslow Way, a strip of shops and cute stores. Later in the afternoon, lunch at Fay Bainbridge State Park followed by ice cream at Mora's.

I saw my first hockey game Friday night. Seattle Thunderbirds, last in the league. There was a fight so it made up for the loss.

No luck on buying a car yet.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz. Pulitzer Prize winner from 2008. Good writing. Follows a recent trend in fiction in eliminating quotation marks around speech. It flows better, I think.

Would it be terribly pretentious to read all of the last decades Pulitzer Prize winners in fiction?

I've read the winner from 2001 (The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) but the winner from 2005 is Marilynne Robinson's Gilead. I read her novel Home this year and hated it. Slow, tedious and uneventful.

I once heard a well-known Christian writer say every Christian should read a book on logic. I bought one. Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking. In my undergrad I took a logic course and found that advanced logic can actually be quite difficult. It gets mathematical.

In Tully's Coffee in downtown Ballard I found origami dragons and gorillas. Really intricate, tiny folds. The best I can do is a crane and I need the book for it. I've tried a T-Rex but his jaw always ends up looking like a fork.

STILL haven't seen Avatar! It's now the 2nd highest grossing movie ever. Right behind Titanic and both are directed by James Cameron.

Jack and Coke is a relaxing drink.

January 2, 2010

2010-01-02T01:36:00.006-06:00

A list of the 39 books I read this year, starting with my top five. The rest are in no particular order.

1. Surprised by Hope : N.T. Wright. A genuine gift from God at a time when I really needed to know God cared. One of the first books I read this year and none of the rest even came close.

2. The Wheel of Time, books 1-12 : Robert Jordan. Loved, loved, loved this series.

3. Daily Life in Ancient Rome : Florence Dupont. FASCINATING account of the Romans before Augustus.

4. A Million Miles in a Thousand Years : Donald Miller. Perhaps better than Blue Like Jazz. And that should say it all.

5. I and Thou : Martin Buber. Required reading for Interpersonal Foundations at Mars Hill. But still great.

The Brothers Karamazov : Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

The Count of Monte Cristo : Alexandre Dumas.

Home : Marilynne Robinson. Nothing happens in this book. Super boring.

The Hitler of History : John Lukacs.

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor : Anthony Everitt.

Resident Aliens : Stanley Hauerwas

To Be Told : Dan Allender. Mars Hill required reading. But very good.

Jewish Spirituality : Rabbi Kushner. I read this in disgust. It was just....dumb. I threw it away after I was done. WORST book of the year.

How to Win Friends and Influence People : Dale Carnegie.

Advanced Backpacking : Karen Berger.

GloboChrist: The Great Commission Takes a Postmodern Turn : Carl Raschke. Liked the first half of the book, hated the last half.

Through Painted Deserts : Donald Miller.

The Stand : Stephen King.

Philosophy: The Classics : Nigel Warburton.

Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo : Socrates.

A Confession : Leo Tolstoy.

The Earth is Enough : Harry Middleton.

The Subtle Knife : Phillip Pullman. The best in the His Dark Materials series. But that isn't saying much.

The Amber Spyglass : Phillip Pullman. Pullman is not a good writer. I don't know why he is so popular.

Meditation with Meister Eckhart : Matthew Fox.

Martin Buber's I and Thou : Kenneth Paul Kramer.

Dawn : Elie Wiesel.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay : Michael Chabon.

January 1, 2010

2010-01-01T14:33:00.001-06:00

A friend told me that what you do on the first day of the year is what you will be doing the rest of the year. So far, I went to bed at 2 am (slightly inebriated), woke at 11 am, watched the last part of the Outback bowl, ate tomato soup and received an expensive water bill. Please let the rest of my year be more exciting than that.

In other news, my insurance company is giving me almost $12,000 for my wrecked car. I've been looking at Mazda 3's and Scion tC's. I hope to find a car for not much more than ten and be able to throw a thousand into an emergency fund.

I finished 39 books this year. I'll post a complete list later.

School starts monday.................................................................................

December 28, 2009

2009-12-28T18:06:00.004-06:00

A movie coming out in 2010 from Christopher Nolan (director of The Dark Knight).

It's almost 2010 and I have a few more books to go to reach my goal. After Thursday I have new reading goals under a couple categories:

Historical: Rome and Jerusalem. Martin Goodman

Theological: Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology. Pui-lan Kwok

Study of Evil: The Lucifer Principle. Howard Bloom

Personal Growth: Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking. Dennis Q. McInerny

Fiction: The Nice and the Good. Iris Murdoch

Poetry: As always I will be reading poetry from Dylan Thomas and Walt Whitman

For Christmas, one of my roommates bought me What the Dog Saw by Malcom Gladwell. I don't have a category for that but I'll be reading it too.

Besides whatever Mars Hill makes me read, I'll be working on these for the next month or two.

After I picked up Dan from the airport we (plus Jon) went to Pike Place market. One of the restaurants on Post Alley has amazing chowder. Soooo good. That plus Special Reserve coffee from Starbucks made my day.

December 19, 2009

2009-12-19T02:34:00.004-06:00

Every December, some of the blogs I follow start posting their top books of the year. I love to hear what people are reading. Most of the blogs that post those lists are theological so sometimes it feels like an advertisement for their brand of God but usually it's fascinating to hear what fascinates others.

For instance, I never would have guessed Albert Mohler would be so well read. But his list from last year included more history than theology. I heard he has one the largest private libraries in the world and reads 100 books a year. That's 2 a week. That's a part time job.

When I am closer to the end of December I'll post my list too.

December 17, 2009

2009-12-17T15:32:00.006-06:00

I stopped by Caffe Fiore today, grabbing a coffee and a black donut with pinkish drizzle. Tasted girly.

With coffee in hand, I drove to Golden Gardens and sat on a bench to read. The sky is cloudy but you can still see the snow-capped Olympic Mountains across the Sound. The sun is a hazy light yellow blur in the sky.

Two old ladies walk by, one in a wheelchair, the other pushing. They grin at me as they pass. I grin back and we all say hello to each other with laughter in our voices.

When my hands get cold, I put away my book and walk along the beach.

A woman walks her dog. It is a beautiful German Shepherd with alert, intelligent eyes. She unleashes him and tosses a stick alongside the pressing waves.

A flock of ducks wander in the grass beside the path. I creep up on them from behind but every time I step the flock surges forward until I stand in the center of a semi-circle bending away from me. I get too close and a dozen or so take to the air, landing 20 or 30 feet away. I keep walking and whenever I get close they climb into the air clumsily, wings beating furiously, necks strained forward into yellow, beaked arrows. An old man watches from the path.

Planes fly low over the park on their way to Seattle-Tacoma airport.

Boats travel through. Some are cargo ships with huge metal containers. Others have sails.

On my way back, a man parks his car and walks toward the beach with a plastic zip-lock bag. He scoops sand into it, walks back to his car and leaves.

I found a 100 year old copy of The House of the Dead by Fyodor Dostoevsky a couple days ago. It is so old, the spelling of his name is different. $2.99 at Value Village.

Tonight, me and a few friends are going to Pegasus Pizza on Alkali beach. Tom's Special is one amazing pizza. The only thing that comes close is the Chicago style I had in Detroit.

I have a rental car. Kia Spectra. Drives nice and has an aux input for my ipod. I should know in a day or so how much State Farm is going to give me for my crash.

December 16, 2009

2009-12-16T19:51:00.003-06:00

I'm making progress through my list of books to read before the end of this year. I've read two this week and should add a third by the end of tonight or tomorrow morning.

I visited the Green Lake branch of the Seattle Public Library. I was looking for the last in Phillip Pullman's series His Dark Materials. I found that, and I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. You may remember the movie it was based on.

Opening up the book to the first page I found this engaging beginning:

"On those cloudy days, Robert Nevellie was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back."

Doesn't that freak you out a little? Draw you in? Widen your eyes?

December 15, 2009

2009-12-15T14:36:00.012-06:00

We bought a Christmas tree today. The original plan was to go cut one down but we lost motivation this morning and bought one instead. The guy cut us a good deal too. Originally 60, we got it for 40. It is now in the corner of our house overlooking the sound and the Olympic Mts beyond. We aren't completely finished with decorations, but here is what we got so far.

On a much sadder note, my car got totaled. Saturday night, Dan was driving to a movie when a guy hit him at a stop sign then drove away. Dan is fine. All the airbags deployed to protect his face. Shook up a bit but that's all.

They haven't found the driver and I guess they probably wont. My insurance just called and told me the body shop said its a total loss. So they will be sending a guy out there to see how much of a check I get for a new car. Pray I don't get screwed.

The good thing is I get a rental car for a few days. And since this falls under the uninsured motorist category, the deductible is 200 instead of 500. All good news. Except for the actual accident...yeah.

Here is the damage:

I have other news but I think these two pieces are big enough for now. Oh yeah, I turn 24 in two days. I keep forgetting.

You know, it is starting to feel like Christmas. The last two or three Christmas' were not all that great. But right now, I can see it being a good Christmas this year. Maybe it's the smell of the tree in our living room or the lights decorating the stairs...I don't know but it feels promising.

December 13, 2009

2009-12-14T00:50:00.003-06:00

One of the most interesting days I've had since moving to Seattle:

A fellow MHGS student had her 30th at The Chapel in Queen Anne. It's located near one of my favorite coffee shops, Bauhaus. The building looks like an old church with steps leading up to a columned entrance and double doors. A guy at the door checked our ID's and charged a 3 dollar cover to get in.

Mirrors run the length of the wall to the right and arched windows the wall to the left. The bar is at the very back and tables are lined up beneath the mirrors. In the center of the room is a square, black box about 5 feet high. On top of it, a man in black underwear, black hat and black shoes dancing with a hula hoop to techno music.

On the tables are condoms inside a thick paper tri-fold. Open the tri-fold and there are instructions for using the condom. With pictures. Alongside that, there was a pamphlet titled, "Play Fair" or something. It told the story of a convent where all the nuns were getting STD's....had a section on rimming....

The first 5 or 10 minutes I was between shock and laughter. I couldn't believe I had stumbled into this club. Even the birthday girl didn't know what this place was like. I immediately remembered Christ being with the prostitutes, the Samaritan woman, the tax collectors, the fishermen. All the low or reviled of society. While I didn't reach out to anyone there in a "Christian" sort of way, I did wonder what God wanted for the man dancing on the box, the people servings drinks, and me, laughing awkwardly at my table. What would it have been like to have present in that room and invited Christ to be present with me?

December 12, 2009

2009-12-12T22:03:00.002-06:00

1st semester of grad school: done.

The heater in our house broke and we are suffering.

Almost every house in our neighborhood has Christmas lights up except us. The traffic on our street has picked up considerably. People are driving through looking at the lights.

I looked for a Christmas tree yesterday. They're all too expensive but I found an alternative. At the REI superstore, you can buy a 10 dollar "pass" or something to a location where you can cut down your own Christmas tree.

I am so excited about January: loan check.

Now this semester is over I can read whatever I want until January 4th. Some of the books I plan to read: The Subtle Knife by Phillip Pullman; The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon; Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton; The Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen and maybe the new Donald Miller book.

During the break, I'm going to do winter stuff.

I haven't been to Pike Place Market since the interview in February so I want to visit there too.

I turn 24 Thursday. A friend and I are doing something all day Sunday. It's a mystery so naturally I'm in turmoil.

Leaving to watch Zombieland at a 3 dollar movie theater... Wait. Scratch that. Me and Dan just decided to stay at the house and read. Nerds, I know.