Bulletin Board of the Brain

This is The Last Post on Blogger- I've Moved To kjswanson.com/blog/

2009-10-29T13:24:00.001-07:00

Hey friends, it's been a good two years or more here on Blogspot, but it's time to do things my own way- (meaning writing a lot more html code and having trouble figuring out widgets that are not automatic like blogspot widgets). That said, though there are still a few little things to tweak (still trying to get a good blog roll widget going- happy to take suggestions),I am officially no longer blogging here at blogspot.

"Bulletin Board of the Brain can now be found at this NEW LOCATION.

Adjust google readers, blog feeders and widget meters accordingly. Gracious adoration goes to Josue Blanco both for the re-design, and the goad to become kjswanson.com.

See you on the new page!

-Kj

Can I Just Clarify One Thing Real Quickly Here?

2009-10-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

"...one of the problems with women taking full leadership is that it inevitably involves a collapsing of the distinctions between the sexes."

--Thomas R. Schreiner in his conluding statements about contemporary application of 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, edited by J. Piper and W. Grudem. Wheaton: Crossway, 1991.

It's probably irresponsible or lazy for me to just throw this quote out here without offering an in-depth response or critique, but as I sit here reading this text, researching "Male-Headship" readings of 1 Corinthians, I just want to go on record to say that as women continue to take on full leadership roles both in church and society, it will highlight the distinctions between the sexes, not collapse them. That's the whole point, from my perspective. I want women in leadership because they will lead as women, not lead as men. Only then can we experience a reframing/healing/redesign of what we have only been offered from male paradigms.

An egalitarian society does not equal an un-gendered society.

That's all I have to say for now, Messieurs Piper and Grudem.

There's A Whole Chapter On Cannibalism And I'm Not Sure Why

2009-10-12T02:06:00.000-07:00

The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature by Leon R. Kass

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Kass's philosophical exploration of the human need and habits around food, seems to depend largely on Western, modernist notions of self-perfection through progress. Kass appears to equate human civilization with virtue, (references to animals always being pejorative) and rarely accounts for the psychological constraints of culture and society that produced much of the manners/customs he seems to praise as progress. The book has intriguing arguments, but only in the context of a larger conversation about food and human/cultural identity. It's often hard to tell if Kass is asserting what he believes or merely reporting trends. As such, I found myself pushing against much of his claims, while not knowing if he was actually claiming the idea I was pushing against.

Perhaps this book is simply exploring questions that don't interest me. A very odd read. Or maybe I really just don't like/get reading philosophy.

View all my reviews >>

Tiny Movie Review: Autism: The Musical

2009-10-11T01:39:00.000-07:00

Everyone watch this film. Right Now.

The Criterion Caitlin

2009-10-09T02:02:00.000-07:00

I don't follow many non-friend Twitters. However, one of my non-friend Twitterers just twittered about my friend and basically blew my mind apart with awesomeness.

I follow The Criterion Collection and get updates on their film releases, etc. Like most non-uber-avant-garde-film-buff people, the only Criterion Collection films I own are by Wes Anderson, but I like getting regular updates about Belgian films from the 70's that I've never heard of. It's my version of CNN.

But tonight, scrolling through my Twitter updates, I saw this,

wherein I little did a double take at the name Caitlin Kuhwald, one of the most talented people I knew in high school, and that's saying something. Caitlin actaully left SCPA (The San Diego School For Creative And Performing Arts) a bit after junior high to go to COSA (Coronado School of the Arts) but she's still a formative member of our ever-aging gang of SCPA class of '98ers, despite the fact that she wore a green gown at her graduation and we wore white.

Caitlin was actually the first (and to some extent, still the only) person I ever went on a road trip with. We drove from San Diego up Highway 101 and spent a bit of time in San Francisco then spent a week with our friend Christa who was staying with her Dad in the awesomely small town of Susanville, CA. While there, Caitlin painted a mural inside Christa's house. We stayed up late at night writing satirical pop songs (I still know most of the words to "90's Girl") and watching "Say Antyhing". (Actually, come to think of it- any Bennington people who remember my "stand-up" routine of fake indie girl band- that song "I'll be True" was written that week- Kim, you know what I'm talking about--oh the history!!)

Also, the only time I've ever been to Chicago was to visit Caitlin at her Dad's house. It's pretty amazing the more I think about it, how many places are marked by Caitlin's presence in my memory and her art in actuality. (Not to mention to full page in the back of my 8th grade yearbook where she drew an unbelievably accurate picture of the guy I like-liked.)

Caitlin has moved on from yearbooks and onto the cover of Criterion's releases of Heaven Can Wait, The Thief of Baghdad and Amarcord. See her Top 10 Criterion favorites here.

Congratulations Caitlin. I'm so excited that your art will grace so many homes- in prized movie collections. Glad I already have some treasured Kuhwald's of my own, and some truly wonderful memories (and trip photo albums- especially the black and whites from the graveyard that day...) .

Tiny TV Review: Mad Men

2009-10-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

Confession- this isn't really a review so much as knee-jerk response. I gave up watching the series after only 2 episodes. When asked why, this was my answer:
"Well- it just didn't grab me, for one. The directing and pacing is really odd. And it seems way too amused by its cultural differences and historical no-nos, like we're supposed to say every five minutes "Oh my, they were so ignorant and inappropriate back then!" and to me, that's not the same as immersing the viewer in a different time/culture or good storytelling for that matter. Seems gratuitously self-indulgent, like someone overusing the f-word once they realize they can say it without being punished by their parents."

Though I'll add one thing: nice to see Christina Hendricks featured on a series. And admittedly, I'll likely give the series another chance eventually. But for now, so long boring chauvinists.

Mama Wants A Time Machine

2009-10-08T10:45:00.000-07:00

Blaine has been collecting 100 Words from various folk and topics (presumably) connected to them. He gave me "Reading". There's a lot I would want to say about reading, and have previously given 100 words to Story for Joshua. But I went with the first thing I tend to think of with reading, and of course, it's about how much I want a time machine. Here's my 100 Words.

Thanks Blaine.

Tiny Movie Review: Son of Rambow

2009-09-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Dizzyingly odd.

Fiendishly compelling.

It's like Wes Anderson's foreign exchange student overdosed on cough syrup then had ecstatic visions of religious fundamentalism, then made a movie about his boyhood fantasies.

3/5 stars

Is Fox Playing With Dolls?

2009-09-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

Ian wrote an excellent post reviewing the Season 2 premier of Joss Whedon's Fox series Dollhouse. While still paling in comparison to the brilliance of Firefly and creativity of Buffy the vampire Slayer, Dollhouse has the seeds of a great series. The unaired 13th episode of the first season, "Epitaph One", especially, is a knock-out, nearly perfect television episode that launches the series ten years into the future and 10,000 brilliant degrees deeper into the shows potential trajectory. Season 2 is expected to show much of what leads up to Epitaph One.

I posted a comment on Ian's blog, and decided to re-post it here for any of you that might be Dollhouse folk. I have some issues with how the series has been going, that were still present in this Season 2 premiere. I hope it's just the dregs of Fox producers' requirements on the show that will hopefully become unnecessary as the show gets better and better: more Joss, less Fox. Here's my response to Ian.

"I also was very very pleased with the season 2 premiere. Especially, since I re-watched 'Epitaph One' right before and there were totally references to that episode (or rather, this episode foreshadowed Epitaph One's events)- particularly Topher saying "I know what I know"

What did hugely disappoint however, was the Echo/Jamie Bamber sex scene which felt totally gratuitous since we didn't know or care about those characters- just felt like awkward, un-sexy "SEXY" scenes. Would have been better if it just showed the married couple together in bed the next morning, then cut to the shot of Ballard alone on the stakeout sofa. Would have said so much more about the relationships- without the grody muscle make out scenes devoid of feeling or intelligent storytelling.

Also, I have PROBLEMS with the whole Ballard beating up Echo to trigger her into being a weapon/defending herself. I just don't think its okay or acceptable to show men brutalizing women. Culturally, its just way too loaded to have that be part of entertainment.

But those are issues that are pretty connected to the shows themes- and someone could argue that my discomfort is what was intended- but if so, those scenes are so poorly integrated compared to the rest of how the show works. Basically, those feel like the "FOX" scenes; violence and sex for entertainment, rather than as truthful storytelling. I'm not against violence and sex in film- but is it honest? These scenes felt pornographic, in the sense of being objectifying and without integrity.

Hopefully Joss will hold down the fort and keep it about character and narrative from here on, not just ex-Battlestar Gallactica actors getting down and dirty.

And Amy Acker astounded me. Utterly".

Mark My Body For Life: Only $5!

2009-09-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

Today I went here:
...to schedule an appontment for Friday, October 16.
Visit Tattoo Me to learn how you can help do just that.

Don't miss this exciting opportunity!!!

(You'll also get a pseudo-preview of my soon-to-be-released new blog site)

"If I Read Your Play, Will You Promise To Stop Writing Them?"

2009-09-21T00:28:00.000-07:00

This is my third year reviewing submissions for a playwrights' residency program in NY. Every year I wait excitedly for my packet of plays to arrive in a giant manilla envelope. Then, every year my smile slackens upon reading the first line of the first play, wherein I remember that 4,999 out of every 5,000 un-represented (by agent) play submissions are horrendously un-readable. But I must read on, constrained by my commitment (and paycheck) to read every single word on every single unnecessary page. By play number four I remember why I stopped working in theater Literary departments: You thought retail was soul-killing? Try spending day after day reading people's open-hearted, dream-filled, creative offerings and thinking to yourself, "Sir/Madam, you are entirely deluded in thinking you have a career in play-writing; rarely (actually quite frequently) have I encountered a text so devoid of talent or promise."

It's only slightly less depressing than watching SAG-enforced open auditions.

But in the end, I get a little bit of cash, a little boost to my inner-critic-ego, and a nostalgic (is it truly in the past or just on pause?) return to theatre work.

Here's some quotes from my reviews:
(And no, the playwrights do not read these- just the selection committee- I'm not that mean)

"A flat and tired treatment of an unoriginal narrative, this play fails to be believable in either characterization or action."

"[The] themes fail to take shape either in character interaction or in the language/imagery of the piece. The metaphors appear but never take on meaning."

"This play appears more an exercise in dramatic theory than an expression of creative vision."

"The repetition and gestures that are the primary substance of the play appear only as attempts at avant-garde, rather than embodiment of the dramatic tension. "

"A sentimental and melodramatic story spread thin by too many dramatic questions."

"Hackneyed and derivative ex-lover scenario with tinges of detective drama a-la 'Murder She Wrote'."

"A" is for "AHA!": The Scarlet Letter as Nathaniel Hawthorne's Biggest Inside Joke

2009-09-18T01:00:00.000-07:00

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We all read it in eleventh grade. The language was dense, but we ached for Hester, hated Chillingworth and rooted for Dimmesdale. It all felt so dramatic and deep and dark, like moss on an old oak tree covering up secret messages carved long ago by two star-crossed lovers.

And then you read it as an adult.

Umm...sorry Ms. Vehar, but how did you fail to mention that this books is hilarious? I could practically hear Nathaniel Hawthorne's eyelashes swishing as he winked sarcastically from from behind every page. The faux Puritan prose is just that: faux. While Hawthorne makes grandiose statements about the severity and coldness of those old Puritan days, he is practically bruising the reader with elbow jabs to the ribs saying, "Nudge, nudge, get it? WE ARE JUST AS JUDGMENTAL AND SEVERE TODAY! HA!!"

Despite the mild bruising, I couldn't help but adorn the margins with smiley faces every time I felt my buddy Nathaniel winking at me. But for all the smiley faces, it was a surprise to realize how distant the narrator really stays from the characters. While adaptations of the story focus on the passion of the silenced lovers and imagine a rich thought life for Hester, the book rarely visits the interior worlds of the characters beyond what is symbolically represented by their, well, symbols- her daughter Pearl, the rose bushes, the gallows, meteors, the eponymous scarlet letter, etc. The narrator spends far more time alluding to foreboding symbolic omens of psychological disruption, than inviting the reader to feel what the characters feel, or even know what they are feeling. This book is anything but romantic.

Further, Dimmesdale is in no way a hero to root for. From my reading, Hawthone thinks him the worst kind of cowardly narcissist there is. For all of Dimmesdale's self-imposed chastisement and loathing, he goes about his life feeling rather proud of his status as secret horrible sinner, whereas Hester bears the public shame and maintains her integrity. Dimmesdale's death (oops, spoiler) is his final pathetic act of grandiosity- he begs for Hester to give him her strength, but still chooses the easy way out as a martyr for his own sinfulness. He avoids the real risk, following Hester into a life beyond Salem's black & white punitive moral justice. He disintegrates into the non-person he is, rather than choosing to live honestly as an imperfect man.

I enjoyed my revisit to The Scarlet Letter, especially considering it had been twelve years since I'd read it. It's a short read, and if you can read it as satire, not morose allegory, it really shines with brilliant psychological insights. And no matter how unlikable I found her to be, Hester really is an amazing female character. Hawthorne supposedly based her largely on Margaret Fuller, a woman whom nearly all those transcendentalist fellows were head over heals for. She marched to her own drum, choosing lovers often over marriage, and career over domestic security. It must have been pretty shocking in 1850 to read about the choices Hester Prynne makes, and I bet a lot of Hawthorne's ironical winks and nudges would not have been as humorous if you were the party being implicated. But for 2009, it's an enlightening and entertaining read.

View all my reviews >>

Like Muriel Rukeyser's poem...

2009-09-17T13:14:00.000-07:00

...which asks,

"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open,"

this video exemplifies my belief which posits,

"What would happen if one guy danced with all his might?
The world would come running."

I think its as important for men to feel free to dance as it is for women to feel free to speak. Say no to shame, yes to freedom, (and boogie).

Make Way For Segues!

2009-09-16T01:46:00.000-07:00

Oh Seattle, the odd caravans that traverse your sidewalks.

Dialogical Film Club: Part 1, Wherein 6 adults spend 4 hours watching "Twilight"

2009-09-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

In late April 2009, I was at a local pub surrounded by friends who had just graduated (leaving me behind to complete my 4 year degree sans all my 3rd year degree friends). Three of us started discussing the recent Twilight film: who'd seen it, who hadn't, and why. Within about 20 minutes a spontaneous group of six had formed, deciding that we needed to watch Twilight together so we could talk through it and by doing so, perhaps survive it. Knowing that if we didn't pick a date right then, that it would never happen, we decided on a Monday three weeks in the future.

Setting the date so far ahead brought a certain formality and sense of expectation to the movie watching night. 3 weeks away meant the need for email reminders, confirmation emails, plans about food and drink, and how we would obtain a copy of Twlight. It was in one of these emails that I celebratorily, yet causaully, referred to us as the "Dialogical Film Club". Dialogical, because we would be dialoguing through the movie; pressing pause whenever someone had an observation or question. This is how I always watch movies, but the group setting formalized it. The body of the email read:

"We six shall gather to experience the glory and depravity that is the film 'Twilight" We will lose ourselves, find ourselves, hit the pause button and work out the sado-masochism and erotic violence that is the film Twilight. It will be transcendent. We will giggle and so "oh my gosh" a lot."

And we did. We spent four hours watching a two hour movie. It was incredible In fact, it was because of this friend-movie-gathering, that I arrived at my Integrative Thesis Project topic for the next academic year. One of our main take-aways from the film had to do with the portrayal of male protector and silenced woman. It was also the DFC (as we have now come to know ourselves) who first began referencing similarites of the narrative's ethos to the complementatian values of New Calvinism. Then, during a phone conversation the following Thursday (Stacy had told Kim George about our Twilight night, then Kim called me with some Twilight questions for a course she was teaching on sexual violence in the media) it all coalesced in my brain and I said (outloud to Kim) "I think this is what I'm going to spend the next year working on."

So besides coming up with a thesis topic (which, by the way, is tentatively titled "Why are you apologizing for bleeding?": Twilight, New Calvinism and the Evangelical Embrace of Sadomasochistic Narrative) that Monday spawned a whole summer of marvelous Mondays. This happened because Jeremy said we should do it again, then Holly said "How about in four weeks?" and it was settled. Jeremy also proposed that following our first offering, it would be interesting to choose films that are hugely popular for some reason, and watch them to discuss the cultural trends/values/beliefs being consumed/propagated.

We liked that idea. To be continued...

Reading the Worst the Bible Has to Offer

2009-09-10T01:12:00.000-07:00

Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives by Phyllis Trible

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While Trible's literary/rhetorical criticism asks a lot of an ancient, multi-sourced text, the endeavor is still humbling in scope and purpose. Published over 25 years ago now, Texts of Terror is still a shining example of feminist Biblical criticism, as well a work of deep faith, hope and compassion. Trible takes four of the most disturbing Biblical examples of sexual violence against women and exegetes them with a Christological lens. Buried under the violence, subjugation and silencing, Trible unearths the following women:

Hagar: Egyptian Slave Woman
She was wounded for our transgressions; she was bruised for our iniquities
Genesis 16;1-16; 21:9-21

Tamar: Princess of Judah
A woman of sorrows and acquainted with grief
2 Samuel 13:1-22

An Unnamed Woman: Concubine from Bethlehem
Her body was broken and given to many
Judges 19:1-30

The Daughter of Jephthah: Virgin in Gilead
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken her?
Judges 11:29-40

By reading these texts closely and attending to the subject/object of grammar and the often chiasmic nature of the syntax, Trible finds the people and poetry under the stories, and through them, a glimpse of redemption for these texts of terror as they reveal the brokenness of human violence paired with solidarity in Christ's suffering and sacrifice.

View all my reviews >>

Why Edna Stays on My Desk At All Times

2009-09-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

Collected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Spring and the Fall

In the spring of the year, in the spring of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The trees were black where the bark was wet.
I see them yet, in the spring of the year.
He broke me a bough of the blossoming peach
That was out of the way and hard to reach.

In the fall of the year, in the fall of the year,
I walked the road beside my dear.
The rooks went up with a raucous trill.
I hear them still, in the fall of the year.
He laughed at all I dared to praise,
And broke my heart, in little ways.

Year be springing or year be falling,
The bark will drip and the birds be calling.
There's much that's fine to see and hear
In the spring of a year, in the fall of a year.
'Tis not love's going hurt my days.
But that it went in little ways.

View all my reviews >>

Almost October Haiku

2009-09-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Woke up, stayed in bed
haiku-ing about being
thirty and single.

Part IV of Prolegomena to Further Critique of Sadomasochistic Teenage Erotica

2009-08-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Breaking Dawn is the fourth and final book of Stephenie Meyer's vampire "love" story. This is the hardest of all for me to write about. The story is scattered across different narrators, has no story arc to speak of and drags the reader from chaotic scenes of violence to endless chapters of banal wish fulfillment. But unlike the previous books, there is no definable landing point either for critique or narrative discussion. Reading this book was like watching a slasher film on a TV with horrible reception- the picture keeps flaying out into blurry but disturbing images, only to be interrupted by ads for Hallmark and Wal-Mart: juxtapositions of physical and emotional violence with images of domesticity and consumption.

On top of that, I was bored to the point of literally needing to write "I'm bored" every 20 pages or so. Needless to say, I am not yet ready to equitably or creatively engage the issues of the text. I mostly just want to complain. But I will try to say something beyond “Why? Why? Why? Why?”

Whereas the three previous books in the Twilight Saga used awkward literary intertexts, arguably to underline a theme of Bella and Edward's relationship, Breaking Dawn has no such allusions. The first book, Twilight, has Bella reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. At first I thought this was an embarrassing plug to encourage girls to do their English homework. After the next two books, however, I realized this was supposed to serve as meaningful literary allusion. Bella reads Pride and Prejudice then meets an aloof, severe man who then turns out to be her ideal charming counterpart. At least that’s how it’s supposed to come across. Instead, we get the evocation of a classic prototype of the rude, narcissistic, controlling man as dashing romantic hero. Mr. Darcy and Edward Cullen do have something in common: they make women swoon by being uncommunicative and evasive.

New Moon has Bella reading and watching Romeo & Juliet. Then, surprise! Bella and Edward find themselves in a situation where one lover thinks the other lover is dead and wants to kill themself as a result. We have the reinforcement of star-crossed romance being noble and romantic- i.e.: the pairing of love with tragedy and adversity, rather than health and mutuality. Not to mention the fact that both characters fantasize about suicide and death rather than separation from one another.

By Eclipse, I’d come to expect these trite intertexts, but I was in no way prepared for the bomb Meyer set off in this third book. Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet are two of the most celebrated love stories in Western literature, so surely Meyer’s third choice would be something even more exemplary of our perceptions (however troublesome) of romantic love, right? Nope. Here I was reading the book through the lens of sadomasochism, and BOOM! Meyer lobs out Wuthering Heights in the very first chapter! My eyes nearly disengaged from their sockets. Wuthering Heights is THE sadomasochistic text of all time, barring the actual writings of the Marquis de Sade perhaps. Catherine and Heathcliff threaten one another, abuse and imprison others, and ultimately die in order to torture one another from beyond the grave. While Meyer’s characters debate about the idea of Catherine and Heathcliff being romantic characters- is there anything admirable about them at all?- such in-novel debate does not change the fact that the characters are being evoked and compared. Bella even interprets Edward’s actions using Heathcliff’s dialogue. Eclipse is actually the only case of appropriate intertextuality in the whole trilogy (except maybe the brief reference to Macbeth in Twilight). Wuthering Heights’ violence, dominance and dysfunction of enmeshed, co-dependant, petulant adolescents obsessed with one another matches Meyer’s characters perfectly. What her real intent was, I shudder to imagine.

But there is no 11th grade English class intertext in Breaking Dawn, the final book. Instead, we get Bella’s continually bruised, bleeding, ripped body that eventually (and painfully) transforms into a goddess-like body of a sex object. As usual, she finds continually creative ways to be secretive regarding her real feelings, resorting to manipulation and oftentimes begging in order to be listened to or have her desires responded to. She hides her suffering (physical and emotional) from her protectors (husband, male best friend/father/step-father/intrusive sister-in-law, dissociated mother) and when her injuries are too visible to be hidden, she convinces herself that there’s nothing wrong. This includes her waking up on her wedding morning covered with bruises from her husband’s (vampire) passion. She spends the morning trying to assuage him that the bruises don’t hurt…

Here is where I need about 50 more pages to talk. Fortunately, I’ve given myself a year to work on this text and these issues. So I’ll stop now.

Conclusion to my prolegomena: I find nothing redeemable or enjoyable about these books or these characters. So much suffering, so much guilt, so much dissociation, lying, SARCASM, anger, SARCASM, violence, self-contempt, not to mention the sickening paring of perfect family domestic life with gratuitous conspicuous consumerism. The Cullens are supposed to be the most generous and loving family ever to live, and yet they have millions of dollars just sitting around being spent on fashion, luxury cars and private islands. The Cullens are angelic immortals yet they keep $40,000 in loose change rather than, say, spending their eternal lives giving it away to those who actually need to eat. Also- while I’m on a Cullen rant- I thought it was problematic that Dr. Cullen kept purchasing blood from the hospital for his new vampire family members, but the only issue raised about it was the expense, not the fact that donated blood is there to save human lives, not sustain the appetites of newborn vampires. But I digress…

So many people I trust, value and respect have found great meaning in these stories. Now begins the journey of trying to understand why.

View all my reviews >>

"Dear Spinal Cord Meningocele Oversized Thecal Sac..."

2009-08-27T01:21:00.000-07:00

Little more than a month ago, Maryann received some life-altering news about her body. Even more life-altering in the sense that she learned about something that had been there all her life, and in having never made itself known, was only life-altering once it was recognized. She could have gone her whole life without ever knowing it was there.

Her journey though shock, surrender, denial, rage, despair and survival has been perseveringly, vulnerably, hilariously, passionately and heartbreakingly recorded on her blog. There's still so much about which she's waiting for answers, not the least of which being when will she finally have surgery, but my heart has been soaring along with her ability to process and feel such highs and lows in the midst of complete and utter "WTF?!".

Her most recent post, felt like such a tender and brave step towards both accepting the reality of what she's learned, and asserting her own anger and hope at the same time. I have so much respect for her. I wanted to share with others this amazing letter she wrote to part of her body. Just reading her words makes my own heart feel 20 times more brave.

Thank you for sharing with us Maryann. You astound me.

(And don't even get me started on how this woman dances)

Self-Referential Haiku

2009-08-24T23:24:00.000-07:00

Jeremy said I
write such sad haiku. Okay
if that made me smile?

I Hope You're Right, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

2009-08-23T02:23:00.000-07:00

"It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

Finally feeling like that "gradual and quiet process" might be able to start.

Gone Gone Gone Haiku

2009-08-20T23:59:00.000-07:00

Well, good luck, I guess.
I wish that you had let us
love your frightened heart.

Part III of Prolegomena to Further Critique of Sadomasochistic Teenage Erotica

2009-08-19T12:12:00.000-07:00

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

See Twilight Post Part I for context explanation.

In Eclipse, we have the continuing issue of people, particularly men, undermining and re-naming Bella’s experience. She is repeatedly told, “You don’t feel that” “Don’t be silly” “You’re being oversensitive” “Don’t freak out”. What is worse, however, is that by this third book, Bella rarely needs to be told this by others, because she does it for herself. We see Bella compartmentalize her feelings before she has a chance to feel them. Every action she takes is out of a misguided sense of protection for other people’s reactions and feelings. She equates telling the truth with hurting others. She continually (Literally) asks others to punish her rather than forgive her when she says what she feels and it disappoints them. She looks for ways to bleed for others rather than acknowledge how they have manipulated, coerced or betrayed her. She blames herself for any “selfish” feeling regarding her own experience, but refuses to let others apologize, even when their behavior borders on abusive.

As a woman, hurting someone’s feelings is the most selfish crime one can commit. Better to remain silent than suffer the guilt after telling someone a truth they will not like hearing. If someone says you’re being oversensitive or silly, believe them. Others know what you’re feeling better than you do. A woman should never put a man in a position where he has to watch her cry, be angry or show any other emotion beyond compliance. If you do this, you are a selfish monster and don’t deserve to be loved.

That’s Book Three.

View all my reviews >>

Part II of Prolegomena to Further Critique of Sadomasochistic Teenage Erotica

2009-08-19T02:09:00.000-07:00

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

See Twilight Post Part I for context explanation.

New Moon’s thematic trope has to do with abandonment and control. Bella is made promises by numerous males in her life that they will protect her at all costs and that she will never come to harm. Those promises are repeatedly broken, leaving Bella abandoned by those who made sweeping, possessive claims regarding their roles as protector. Thus, we have the repeating theme of men being both the self-proclaimed protectors and the ones who leave you unprotected. The men who swear to protect you are also the men who will leave you. Bella is not only abandoned by men, but bears the guilt of believing its her fault they left. In most cases, the men give no reason for their silence or absence, and she is left to find the cause in herself. When they return and cite their initial promises that they promised they’d always protect her, she feels even more guilt for how hard it is to trust their word. This crazy-making cycle always comes back to men who say, “Why did you doubt that I would protect you?” and then say, “I’m leaving and it’s for your own good.” Women are expected to trust men even when they break their word. If you doubt a man’s word, you hurt his feelings. Then he might leave you. The cycle continues.

Women, keep your fears and doubts to yourself. Men will make promises, break them, then reestablish trust by saying you were crazy for ever doubting them. Possesion/Abdandonement/Guilt/Possession/Abandonement/Guilt as pattern for relationship.

That’s Book Two.

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Prolegomena to Further Critique of Sadomasochistic Teenage Erotica

2009-08-18T22:17:00.000-07:00

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Since I feel awkward having these books appearing in my "read" shelves without any explanation, I feel I must offer a little context, before I unleash my full response to the Twilight Saga sometime next spring.

I'm currently doing research based on the series, looking at themes of sexual violence, specifically, identifying the Twilight saga as an example of a sadomasochistic narrative. Without going into the details, I'll offer my short version of the main theme I've found so far in each book.

Twilight introduces teenage Bella and her vampire lover Edward. My main take away from Twilight is that in order for Bella to receive physical and emotional intimacy, she must literally stand as still as possible, hold her breath and hold back any of her own responses. To receive closeness, she must shut down and dissociate. She is held responsible for Edward's sexual and physical actions. Its her job to make sure he doesn't lose control. If she does respond to his advances, thus arousing him, he gets angry, pushes her away and blames her for tempting him past his limit. He, however, is free to be as sensual with her as he likes.

Women as both the tempter and manager of men's sexuality- while their own feminine sexuality must be suppressed.

That's book one.

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District 9 and the Noble Savage or "Why I Need To Spoil The Film Everyone Loves"

2009-08-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

*****Spoiler Alert***** (In more ways than one)

I saw District 9 on opening night. My two concluding statements: "I loved every minute of watching that movie" and "I officially despise this movie"

It took me about an hour to reach the second statement, but there were hints throughout. Though I was completely riveted the whole time, like, jaw-open-eyes agog-throughout kind of riveted, I was continually bumping up against issues of logic, suspension of disbelief as well as character/narrative issues. But I'll leave those for the film critics to parse.

What puts this film officially on my shit-list is that in its attempted exploration of issues about immigration, race, prejudice, oppression, power and privilege, it actually propagates the mentality its presumably challenging. Here’s some of what I saw.

We are faced early on with the blatant human disregard for the alien species, as we see them nicknamed, murdered, abused and displaced with flippancy by the South African community. This exposition part of the film is really quite stunning and disturbing- you see an unassuming paper-pusher of a man explain how the alien eggs (unborn children) burst like popcorn when they're burned, while he oversees the systematic destruction of a whole pod of eggs. He's giddy and childlike--his innocence to the horror he's committing is freakish, and the audience, understandably and appropriately, gasps. The parallels throughout the film regarding the aliens as refugees, slaves or genocide victims are hardly subtle. It's clear that as we watch, we are supposed to shrink in horror at the similarity between the atrocities being causally committed by humans against aliens and our own cultural histories and present tenses regarding outsiders, minorities and the oppressed.

But this is where the film gets dangerous or at least grotesque. The film never leaves the perspective of the oppressors. The aliens (clear stand-ins for oppressed cultures) are helpless, stupid, volatile and violent. In one of the first noticeable non-"archival" scenes in the film, we see two aliens scrounging for scraps. They are noticeably wearing clothes, (cue the viewer: all aliens look alike but this one's wearing clothing so you can recognize it- maybe this will be a main character). Next, a toddler sized alien appears, talking to the boldly dressed alien, (cue the viewer: this alien has a kid, so this is definitely the main character, and you are now going to sympathize with it because there's a little cute alien to go with it). I nearly "ugghhed" out loud when these aliens shortly reappeared in a new scene, confirming the stereotyped character coding.

Next, when the main alien character interacts with the humans, they all notice that he is smarter than the rest of the aliens. As I watched, I waited for when the film would explain that the aliens are intelligent, and it’s just prejudice framing them all as stupid animals. But this never happens. Not one reasonably sentient alien besides "Christopher" and his son ever appears. The film never alludes to why Christopher seems able to survive without killing others over cat-food (another offensive trend in the alien lifestyle- they inexplicably love cat-food (ahem-Crack) and will do anything for it). Christopher is merely the ONE alien who isn't a dumb-insect-riot monger-addict.

In hearing the alien's name, the audience chuckles or is confused by his Anglo name, Christopher Johnson. At first I thought this was appropriately upsetting, and a set-up for when we'd get to learn his true name. But we never learn his non-"Ellis Island" or oppressor-given name. It's never addressed. And maybe that would be an okay element of ambiguity/mystery in the narrative, were it not for all the other disappointments as far as the cultural parallels.

The worst element of all, however, is the fact that after being continually manipulated, abandoned, beaten, threatened and taken advantage of by the main human character, (including his son being essentially kidnapped), "Christopher" then turns to Wikus and refuses to leave him behind. While this reflects well on Christopher's integrity and shows-up Wikus's cowardice, what I really think it reflects is an oppressor's version of the scenario. It's basically a story of a beaten and abused slave turning to save their master from drowning. Of course that's the white people version of the story. To frame the story in such a way that the abused alien risks twenty times more on behalf of the white man than the white man risks for him, creates a self-aggrandized catharsis for us, the powerful and privileged, to get to watch a story of wounded, marginalized people wholeheartedly forgiving our oppression. It is the noble savage thanking us in a pure British accent, for domesticating him and teaching him how to behave. It's horrific.

Further, while the aliens are clearly the more sympathetic characters, the film ends focused on the pathos and tragedy of the human character having been transformed into an alien. We are left with the image of lonely Wikus the now-alien, rather than the victory of Christopher, escaping to free his people. We don’t even get to know if Christopher was successful in his mission. The end made me so furious, that it erased my entire experience of enjoying the previous two hours. Shouldn’t Wikus’s new identity as an alien/outsider, be his literal and figurative character transformation? The story was so clearly headed in this direction. But we never see Wikus repentant of how he’d treated the aliens (of which he is now one). We only see his survival instinct and his guilt. What’s the point of changing the oppressor into the shape of the oppressed if he is never made aware of his violence? Though I’m all for subverting viewer’s expectations in narrative tropes, this is one case where I felt gross when left with the aborted trajectory. If feeling gross at our identification with Wikus was the goal, then the film shouldn’t end with him making a tin flower for his wife. Really.

For a film about exposing the abuses we commit to “the other”, this film only furthers a colonialist view of other cultures, wherein those we conquer and subdue, probably deserve it because they are so uncivilized and, literally in this film’s case, inhuman. I’m pretty shocked and appalled that a film so close to being amazing, got it so, so, so wrong.

My Horoscope Today

2009-08-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

"...don't be so quick to negate your desires for the sake of the community."

It's like they know I'm a woman or something.

Countdown To Losing Ian, Part II: Wherein We Are Treated Like Celebrities

2009-08-13T00:54:00.000-07:00

Tuesday we had an unexpected cancellation for a get-together with friends, so Ian, smart fellow that he is, made reservations at a favorite restaurant. Back in Ian's days as a hotel concierge, he made connections with quite a few fine eating establishments. This makes it very fun and rewarding to go out on the town with him.

First, the two of us met up for Happy Hour at Vessel, one of Seattle's premier cocktail bars. Two birthdays ago, Ian gifted me two free cocktail passes, and it seemed fitting we should use them for his farewell tour. We happened to be there on a night when they were hosting a guest bartender. We decided to order of the new list. Ian and I are both bartenders, and Ian knows a lot more about fancy cocktails than I do, but when we looked at the list, we only recognized two of the ingrediants on the whole page. We used his IPhone to look up things like Aperol and Gammel Dansk. This only heightened our intrigue.

We were both drawn to "Unnecessary Noise" a combination of various expensive spirits including Makers Marks Bourbon, Dolin Blanc and Pernod Absinthe. Since we didn't want to order the same thing, Ian took a risk and ordered the Haiku, whose ingredients you can read in the photo below. While Ian's drink was prettier than mine, with it's latte-looking foam art, it smelled and tasted primarily of beef jerky. Yes, the cherrywood smoked syrup was heavy on the smoke and light on the cherry. But Ian felt it was worth it since to order the Haiku cocktail, he was required by the bartender to write a haiku. We both clapped giddily when we were informed of this, and got busy wiritng. Ian wrote his in honor of his cocktail:
and I wrote mine in honor of him.

Always the leaver.
Never the one being left.
Not 'till this Monday.

After finishing our free cocktails, we headed down Pike street to meet up with two other friends at Steelhead Diner in the market. Before we had even ordered our entrees, an important looking young gentlemen who had come by the table to greet Ian, asked if any of us had any allergies. We said "no" and wondered what surprise would arrive. Shortly, we were gazing at the restaurant's famous "Caviar Pie", a cheese spread hors d'oeuvre featuring some five different kinds of caviar. It was delicious and disappeared quickly.

I had decided to spare no expense for our unexpected night on the town, so I treated myself to the Wagyu beef tri tip with golden russet potatoes, fresh greens and red wine sauce. If beef can be incandescent, this certainly was. Everyone else ate lushly and lavishly as well. We decided on two desserts. I really wanted the $10 sundae and shared it with Chase. Ian and Nir went for the Black Velvet cake. This was also the first time Ian and I had ever eaten out on the restaurat's balcony. We had a sweet view overlooking Post alley.

After our delicious meal was done and we were simply enjoying the atmosphere, BJ returned to say goodbye to Ian, and also to inform us that our meal was on the house. Yes, our $200 meal was on the house. I'm so glad I had decided to spare no expense since I ended up with no expense at all. In fact, the whole night only cost me about $16 in tips. And it was some of the best eating/drinking I've enjoyed in some time. It was magical. Another night of surprises during Ian's final week. What will happen next? Probably a call from Joss Whedon saying he'd like us to pitch him a new series and co-write it. Yep. He's probably reading our paper right now wondering how he can get us on his team. Joss, all ye need do is ask. And provide caviar maybe.

Time To Say Goodbye (Imagine this in an insipid Sarah Brightman voice)

2009-08-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

Ian is moving to New York on Monday morning to start Columbia's MFA prgram for dramaturgy. Ian's parting is significant for me in many ways, not the least of which being that for 3 years, he's been the one person I could really talk shop with here in Seattle as far as theatre/collaboration/avant garde/narrative studies/crazy theatre patrons/crazy actors/and all the other things that marked my life before moving to Seattle. Not that I don't have great conversation partners here, but Ian felt like the place where I didn't have to do any translating about what the last ten years of my life have been about. With him leaving, I almost feel like Im losing my last link to New York. Which is ironic, since he's moving to NY.

But Ian leaving is also- as far as I can remember at all, the first significant time where I am the friend being left, not the friend leaving. All my partings have been me moving on to new adventures, or all of us friends in mass departure from college or something. I've never known Seattle, or Intiman Theatre more specifically, without Ian. I have no idea what it will be like without him. No idea how to prepare for that.

But at least we're doing a pretty good job with the saying goodbye part. Sunday, after the closing matinee of Othello, we raced over to Palomino via the monorail, whilst making a quick stop at the FunForest roller-coaster. As Ian is a crazy theme park fanatic, it felt appropriate that we ride at least one roller-coaster together before he departs. After tasty cocktails and wood-fired pizzas, we still had an hour to kill before revisiting Star Trek at the downtown Regal. Ian still had some GameWorks credits, so we journeyed into the darkened depressing depths of the arcade land to play some shooting/driving/dancing/tossing games. It was hilarious. After the movie, (which is like an amusement park in and of itself) I couldn't believe all the random entertainments we'd encountered in downtown Seattle. Felt more like a day at Six Flags. Love it.

We've been doing more celebrating since Sunday, but I'll do a separate post, otherwise no one will read it. Long posts = inevitable non-readership. But oh, last night was so blog-worthy!

No, We Do Not Make Mojitos...

2009-08-09T23:29:00.000-07:00

...but we do come up with clever cocktail tie-ins for every production.

Here's the batch from the last two shows at Intiman. The next show, which opens in two weeks, is gonna have cucumber martinis! My idea! (followed by collaboration on the recipe of course)

The Clown Car
Patrón Silver tequila
Rose’s Lime Juice
Splash of Sweet & Sour
Shaken and served up with a lime
(it's kind of a Tequila Gimlet)

The Chippermunkie
Maker’s Mark bourbon
Disaronno amaretto
Dash of bitters
Shaken and served on the rocks
Top with club soda
Garnish with lemon wedge and cherry

The Green-Eyed Monster
Bacardi white rum
Midori melon liquor
Pineapple juice
Shaken and served on the rocks
Garnish with a cherry

The Strawberry Handkerchief
Smirnoff Strawberry Twist vodka
Crème de Cacao
Dash of Campari
Cream
Shaken and served up
Garnish with a white chocolate truffle

This last drink was a victory.
(Side note- I came up with the name for this one before we had a recipe) We've been trying to get rid of Campari for two seasons- it tastes like a combo of grapefruit peel and gasoline- but one bartender had an ingenious thought: Campari is bitter- so is coffee- what do we put in coffee? Cream- why not try Campari and cream?
It was magical. We were already serving the Strawberry Handkerchief with the vodka, liqueur and cream- but when we added Campari, it made the drink not only more subtle and herbal tasting, but it turned the drink pink! Ideal for something named after strawberries.

Feel free to try these at home. The Chippermunkie is quite nice.

"We will never know how the mind turns the water of our cells into the wine of consciousness"

2009-08-02T23:46:00.000-07:00

Proust Was a Neuroscientist by Jonah Lehrer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was drawn to Jonah Lehrer's book when I saw a light blue paperback with a madeleine cookie on the cover along with the word "neuroscientist". Tasty looking indeed. When I opened it up, I saw that an entire chapter was devoted to George Eliot and "The Biology of Freedom". With little more info than that, I basically took the book to the cash register and had at it.

To quote the description on the back, Lehrer's book explores the idea that "when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first." Each chapter profiles a 19th-early 20th century artist and how their work revealed an understanding of how our brains function that neuroscience is only just beginning to discover. Most engaging was the chapter on chef Auguste Escoffier and the intuiting of umami- our only very recently canonized new taste- joining savory, sweet and the rest. The chapter on Stravinsky and how our brains learn to enjoy music was also refreshing.

Overall, however, I find I was most alert while Lehrer profiled the artists, particularly as he located them within the scientific atmosphere of their time. Once each chapter switched to descriptions of neurological functioning the writing became dense and hard to connect with. Maybe there's just no easy way to write about neuroscience no matter how many literary references one uses. Lehrer's effort is much appreciated, but still feels only mildly successful. I loved learning about the relationships (or animosities) these artists had to the scientific communities of their era, but the connection to what their art revealed about what we now know of the brain still felt like a bit of a reach. But still interesting. Ultimately, I love Lehrer's goal of fostering dialogue and mutual understanding between science and art.

"We now know enough to know that we will never know everything. That is why we need art: it teaches us how to live with mystery. Only the artist can explore the ineffable without offering us an answer, for sometimes there is no answer...When we venture beyond the edge of our knowledge, all we have is art."

Beautiful.

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Why Publish When You Can Just Twitter?

2009-08-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

What's all that tweeting you hear? Oh, just the sounds of my fifteen minutes of fame getting used up. I'm not complaining. The following is proof that Twitter truly is the most powerful benevolent de-centralized (human-made) force in the universe.
It goes like this...

In August, Ian and I start working on a paper about Joss Whedon's series Firefly, to submit to the Whedon panel at the Southwest/Texas American & Popular Culture Association's Annual Conference. Then we write it. Then we go to the conference. We have a great time, we email the paper to a couple people we meet there. We talk about editing it so we can submit it for publication somewhere like the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. But the re-formatting alone would take major thought, and Kj's still only halfway through a crazy spring term. So we hold onto the paper with an ellipses as to what to do with it next.But in July (last Monday to be exact), we re-deliver our paper presentation along with a film screening at MHGS. Josué suggests we include a write up about the event for the new Experience MHGS website. He goes ahead and makes a paper link in case someone wants to read it. I think, "That's awfully nice, but who that's investigating MHGS is gonna read a 35 page paper about fundamentalism and a cancelled TV show?"

But I go ahead and tweet the link to the EMHGS site.
Then this happens. My initial tweet is way down there on the bottom, then next thing you know, It's on Whedonesque, the ultimate Whedonverse hub for both fandom and academia. So within a few hours, it went from living in my docs file to being accessible to every hardcore Whedon fan on the planet. By the time I got out of bed, it already had a comment stream 30 posts long.

So no more wondering who our audience is for this thing. It's out there. They're reading it, and they're already debating everything from the specifics of taking holy orders, to mind-reading to biblical innerancy, (not to mention finding all our typos).

Oh mighty Twitter. Thanks for getting us out there. You put a skip in my step all day. Tweet tweet tweet.

Alfonso Cuarón, Harry Potter and the Etymology of Sonship

2009-07-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

In the days loking forward to Harry Potter Film #6 (which, by the way I absolutley loved: it's the Harry Potter film Robert Altman would have made if he'd ever made one- driven by relationships and naturalistic moments rather then heavy plot- and the dialogue and acting felt so much more spontaneous and honest- in some ways in was the least "movie" of the movies and really felt more like Gosford Park than Chamber of Secrets- a good direction in my opinion), I spent time reflecting on why I love these movies so much. (With the exception of Goblet of Fire which I find to be inane and dishonest in its characterization and storytelling).

I always come back to Prisoner of Azkaban, which I consider one of my top ten films ever. I love it that much, and respect it that much (and have seen it at least 12 times). Most of the reasons I love it all come back to the fact that Alfonso Cuarón transformed Chris Columbus' fantasy kids movies into art. It's not the first time Cuarón took on a potentially insipid kids box office draw and arrayed it with subtlety, aesthetic depth and integrity. His version of Frances Hodgsen Burnett's "A Little Princess" that came out in 1995, though seemingly sappy from the previews, was a tender and passionate story of love and compassion, told from a daughter's perspective. (Also, to either its strength or detriment, its from his Green period, like Great Expectations- does every scene need 23 green accents in the room?).

Like "A Little Princess", "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is about being orphaned and being fathered, and the more I think about it, that seems to be the story Cuaron tends to tell. The theme of fatherhood or needing a father pops up continually in his work, whether its his short segment in Paris, je t'aime or the aptly tiitled Children of Men. Cuaron continually evokes in viewers questions and feelings around what its like to live without the protection of a father, and the ache that brings.

This is what makes the 3rd Harry Potter film so resoundingly powerful for me. There's no Voldemort, no Death Eater crap, just the story of Harry being fathered by at least four men who value him in different ways, and the impact that has on Harry's ability to know himself better. Dumbledore, Sirius Black, Professor Lupin, Hagrid and Mr. Weasley as well, all speak into Harry's life in guiding ways that both respect Harry's feelings and what he's been through, but also in ways that want to protect his childhood and not thrust him unnecessarily into responsibilities that should belong to them as adults, not a thirteen year old kid. There are also strong mothering characters as well, with Mrs. Weasley's fierce-some tenderness and Professor McGonagal's watchfulness and strength.

What is most powerful is the symbolism of the patronus charm. While we see Harry being truly seen and loved by a diversity of strong men and women, we see how they help him see himself apart from the abuse he was raised under, and step more into his own strength. When Harry is saved by the patronus charm on the lake where Sirius in being attacked by dementors, he believes its his somehow his father, back from the dead. The audience sees a white stag. In the books, we learn that the stag is the same animal that James Potter turned into as an animagus. Both we and Harry later realize that Harry is actually the one who sent the patronus. In the moment when he realizes his father is not going to appear to save Sirius (and himself in a time-traveling complexity), he finally, instinctually steps forth with his wand and shouts "Expecto Patronum!" and a beautful eruption of light beams resound out, almost like sound waves, rocketing through the trees and casting out the dementors.

Here is the one instance where J.K. Rowling's silly puddy approach to new etymological creations actually has depth. Patron, is Latin for protector, and comes from pater, meaning father. To produce the charm, Harry pulls from his deepest memory of happiness then shouts "Expecto Patronum" - "I Expect My Father!" which is both literally true because he thought his father sent the patronus, but also feels like a cry of his heart saying "I deserve a father, I expect protection, i believe I will be fathered still." And if you take the word "expect" a little father to its use in the word expectorate- meant for coughing/spitting but able to mean "to send out from the chest", Harry is also saying "From myself I send out a protector", which is exactly what happens as he sends out his patronus deer to defend himself and his godfather Sirius.

In this haunting and heart-expanding moment of the film, Harry both waits for the protection of the father he knows he truly belongs to and also acts as his own prtoector out of love for the godfather who has just come into his his life. In believing that he is worthy to be fathered, Harry is able to father himself. Soon after, Harry tells Hermione, "It wasn't my dad I saw earlier. It was... me. I saw myself conjuring the Patronus before. I knew I could do it this time, because...because I'd already done it. Does that make sense?" Yes it does make sense. Harry could save himself because in "Expecting his Father" he also found the strength to "Expect/Send himself".

I can't help but find spiritual meaning in this scene. The "I Expect My Father" feels like a prayer for protection even as it claims and achieves that very protection. The expecting of a father can only come when one feels named as a son/daughter. Harry's most powerful display of magical strength comes in the moment when he feels most like a son- both a son to Sirius who will die if Harry doesn't save him, and a son to the parents who loved him and were killed before he could love them back. It's love that makes the patronus charm work, and that love is rooted in the identity of knowing he was loved by those who father/mothered him and who sacrificed in order to protect him. Harry's mother gave her life to save him, and her love literally entered his skin and marked him for life. I believe this moment in Prisoner of Azkaban, the sending of the powerful patronus against the dementors, is when Harry ceases to be an orphan and truly knows himself to be loved, worthy of being loved, and truly able to love others. I want to cry every time I see it.

Tonight!!!

2009-07-27T13:50:00.000-07:00

Feel free to show up with your dinner in hand. Tonight will be well structured, but casual. (Meaning we have a very small snack budget)

Hope you can come! Should be done around 8pm.

Reading Annie Rogers Again

2009-07-25T01:25:00.000-07:00

A Shining Affliction: A Story of Harm and Healing in Psychotherapy by Annie G. Rogers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"What you fear most has already happened."

“Are you wondering, Annie, how someone who doesn’t see you, really doesn’t recognize you, could possibly say goodbye to you?”

“When you feel you know the future, you can be sure that you are reliving the past...because nobody knows the future.”

“I could not afford to respond truthfully to them, to show them anything real about their effect on me.”

“In each moment in every life, there is a gesture hovering, to move toward or away from a truth.”

“If you fulfilled their wishes and died, then maybe they could love you.”

“I’d actually feel like a child for a moment or so.”

“This child could already foretell the future through the past.”

“What has been wounded in relationship must be, after all, healed in relationship.”

View all my reviews >>

Marked For Life

2009-07-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Today, Jamelyn and I joined Jenn, "j.fresh", as she completed a 21st century rite of passage: getting the tattoo. She's been wanting this tattoo for 7 and a half years. I've been wanting a tattoo for at least four years, though technically, probably since I turned double digits. Note to self: best way to decide to go ahead and get a tattoo? Join someone and see for yourself how gosh darn easy it is.
Here she is in the last twenty minutes of her life with unmarked wrists.
j.fresh gawking in the first minutes of being inked. Or else she's gawking at the fact that actor Seth Rogen apparently does tattoo art on the side. Seriously, this is Seth Rogan, but he told us to call him Jason.

A bit of un-thrilling but historically signifiant footage here.
Freshly inked (and vaselined). Jenn didn't realize until Jason pointed it out, that the dove design she chose is based on one of Picasso's doves.Post-tattoo Chipotle time. Jenn's bandage made her look a little recently-suicidal, but she couldn't have been more pleased with the result.

And within six hours of this adventure, I decided exactly what tattoo I want and where I want it. But I'm gonna wait till my birthday, so I've got a couple months to let it simmer and settle (and find a Font artist). Yep- that's all I'm gonna tell ya.

Me

2009-07-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

Maryann has been posting childhood pictures of herself, and it made me want to go digging. Smallish. Roundish. Brownish.
Can you find me in this one? Not hard. I'm the one who looks very focused and professional.
Rollerskating in the basement around age 5. And one of the classically cruel haircuts I was subjected to throughout my childhood.
Proof that I am Scandinavian.

Well Done, Jimmy Carter

2009-07-20T17:23:00.000-07:00

After sixty years, Jimmy Carter has severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, finally, over issues of women's subjugation. While I kind of want to pump my fist in the air and say "Fuck YEAH!!!!"... what I really (want to) hope for is that hearts and minds will be opened to realize the folly of equating gender with spiritual capability, leadership or value, not to mention, the Image of God. May Jimmy Carter's integrity in this act serve not to help others jump ship, but to alter paradigms and ignite repentance regarding the violence (spiritual, emotional, physical, social, psychological) that has been done to women in the name of Jesus. That is not the Gospel.

Of Burning Bushes

2009-07-19T23:48:00.000-07:00

"But for me,...God sits by fires rather than in them."

Joshua Longbrake

May We All Take Anne Brontë's Advice And Stop Being Attracted To Assholes

2009-07-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

(Click to Enlarge)

Thanks Erin

comic courtesy of Hark! A Vagrant

I'm A Twit

2009-07-16T01:54:00.001-07:00

A Very Consistent Haiku

2009-07-15T01:45:00.000-07:00

Odd that heartache should
throb not in my heart but in
the veins of my arms

As Close To A Talk Show As I May Ever Get

2009-07-14T03:49:00.000-07:00

Please come- and bring opinions. If you want (its so worth it) Watch the series first. You've got time. Only 14 episodes. And watch Serenity also. The follow up movie kicks hard core ass.

(also- there's a chance food will be involved- just a chance at this point. Stay tuned)

We're So Three Thousand And Eight...

2009-07-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

After Rollerskating this Wednesday night, (8:30-10:30 Lynwood Bowl & Skate) Jamie and Jenn and I headed into Shari's Family Restaurant, where our favorite server, named Champagne, made us milkshakes. She is the self-proclaimed Malt Master at Shari's and we agree with her proclamation.

Rollerskating revs up a lot of endorphins, making us a bit loopy afterwards (and also a little yawny). Please watch Jamie eat this milkshake. Enjoy.

I really need to blog about our rollerskating nights. I have SO MANY opinions about it, and I give the same speech repeatedly every time (as Jamie, Jenn or Lucy could all attest to), "Damn that guy, he didn't play a single song I requested. Why does he hate me? I know he hates me".

More on that eventually.

Hooray, Done! Haiku

2009-07-01T23:27:00.000-07:00

Like returned borrowed
things, closure can sound like, "Oh!
So that's where that was!"

Quiet Blog Haiku

2009-06-24T01:38:00.001-07:00

Apparently the
less work I have to do, the
less I need to blog

tiny secret sentimental haiku

2009-06-20T12:33:00.000-07:00

To borrow Elton
John's words, "Yours are the sweetest
eyes I've ever seen"

Little history haiku

2009-06-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

So many other
things to do, I guess, than to
love my little heart

A "Please Not This Again" Haiku

2009-06-14T01:19:00.000-07:00

Disappointment my
old friend, I've come to talk with
you again. $%&# You.

I Never Really Blog About Theatre...

2009-06-11T12:29:00.000-07:00

...mostly because it's such a small world and one negative comment can easily make it back to the person you're talking about, and I'm not really into that. I've had to spend years working on my ability to speak respectfully of shows I hate, whether its because I'm giving an usher speech, or because someone close to me was involved, or because I need people to come to it so I can keep my job. (Don't get me started on my Bob Saget days...) Now, off the job and in un-influential circles however, you may may find me ranting with vehemence and sometimes, tears. I recently saw a show that was so insulting to my intelligence that I walked out after 40 minutes, and kept my eyes closed for 30 of those minutes...But anyway, my modus operandi with theatre tends to be internet silence rather than critique. It's just too small a world.

But I recently got an email from my friend Garth, about a show he'd just seen. I was so touched by his instinct to tell me about it, not to mention my wish that I could beam back to NY to see it, that I thought I'd repost it here. So, here's a little theatre blog- by proxy.

Email:
I wanted to tell you about a show I saw that I think you would really have loved. It was called "The Success of Failure (Or the Failure of Success)" by Cynthia Hopkins, the third installment of the Accidental Nostalgia trilogy. Maybe you saw one of the first two installments of the trilogy at St. Ann's Warehouse when you lived here. I had seen the second one, which was okay (musically exiciting but theatrically a little thin), but this show was one of the most succesful pieces of theatre I've seen in ages. Act I: a one-woman space opera about a suicidally depressed, alcoholic space pilot who is sent on a mission to save the earth. In the end she has to destroy the earth in order to save allow a race of super-sentient beings to escape the universe, which is collapsing. Act II was Cynthia Hopkins explaining with heartwrenching honesty how her own battles with alcoholism and depression led her to make this trilogy of shows. Normally I'm not a big fan of confessional, one-person shows but she was such a completely frank, engaging performer, with something important to say, and she shared of her spirit so generously that I fell completely in love. The show also included a lot of high-tech multimedia elements, not normally something I'm a fan of in live theatre, but she used them so well, and in a manner so clearly in service of the story she was telling that it worked.

In both the space-opera act and the confessional act, Hopkins portrayed the way depression and despair feed off of stories and ideas both personal and cosmological. In the end, she didn't tie it up with a bow: we're left with the sense that she's hopeful about having found a new way of being in the world, but without a simplistic portrait of a solution or a quick fix for all her problems.

More than anything, I was left wanting keenly to be more alive, inspired to be, to do and to feel more, which is exactly what I want from theatre.

You should google accidental nostalgia trilogy to find the website with some clips from the show.
XO,

Garth

Reading from the Outside

2009-06-09T00:58:00.000-07:00

Unlike most of the blogging world, I really don't subscribe much to blogs by people I don't know. Even when I do, I end up never reading them. If it's not a friend, I tend to just not be interested.

But one non-aquaintance blog that has become a must-read for me is Tacoma Atheists. I discovered the blog through a Bennington Alum on Facebook. (She friended me but I don't think we've ever met, so it doesn't count as a buddy blog). Tacoma Atheist is a group of local atheists and non-theists who collaborate to promote community and education regarding atheist advocacy and rights.

It's a really amazing collection of people's concern, outrage and passion for freedom of thought, with particular focus on the prejudice, injustice and harm done in the name of religion. While admittedly, the site posts have as much us-them superiour snarkiness as any blog (that is the point of blogs, I think), it's refreshing, humbling and eye-opening to read from the persepctive of the evangelized instead of the evagelizers.

While my own thoughts on evangelism and mission probably align closer with the site members than those they are critiquing, I still find it hugely impacting to read about what's going on in the local and national church as written by those who are enraged by it, rather than inspired.

Most recently, Tacoma Atheists re-posted a Slog article about Mars Hill Church's intentional movement towards Capital Hill. Reading it really made me want to show up at that bar to see how the Capital Hill community would respond to the Evangelical "relational approach" to ministry. While I have my own issues with Mars Hill Church, (and never know if I'm being a jerk or not for my constant disclaimer that Mars Hill Graduate School has nothing whatsoever to do with the church of similar name- except that we're all Christians and that's not insignificant), I think every Chrsitian can learn something from reading people's comments regarding how they feel when they're told that someone is coming to love them intetionally. How can that not sound patronizing? Will you let yourself be loved by the person you're trying to save? And if so, can you do that if you've already decided their fate for them? Will anyone's life ever be changed through agenda'd relationship?

Obviously, I think the answer is no. But it'll be an interesting experiment up there. And I'm thankful for Tacoma Atheists. Not as some Christian spy- or even as a postmodern, post-evangelical wanna-be cool by considering myself more like the atheists than megachurch people- but for the way they reflect myself and my community back to me- For a reminder that if you want to love, serve or help someone, you should never assume you know what they want, need or love. In fact, sometimes the best thing to give is your respect- which may mean leaving them alone.

6/16/09 update: honored to have been quoted by TA.

Significant Moments

2009-06-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

Last Week was full of them.

Thursday was my last official night to be with Zera, the church community I've interned with for the past year.

This was also the first time I hosted dinner instead of just reaping the benefits of these amazing people who are also incredible cooks. I will miss seeing them every week, but hopefully, I will not be dissapearing entirely.

Freya was baptized this Sunday. (That's right, baptized not dedicated. We went whole hog. It was awesome). And before the service that night, I ended up having one-on-one Abby time. She needed to buy makeup for her dance recital in a few weeks, so that felt like a perfect Auntie Kj & Abby outing.

Before that, I took Abby for her first Happy Meal. Not that I in any way want to Abby to like McDonalds, but I have deep nostalgic feelings of going to McDonalds in downtown Minneapolis with Grandma Hazelton when I was Abby's age. There's something about the smell of a McDonalds cheeseburger on a Saturday morning, like makes me feel like anything is possible. Fortunatley, Abby did not love the cheeseburger but loved the playground instead. We were there for over an hour.

Freya's baptsim was was fun, meaningful, loud, playful, chaotic (with kids everywhere) and memorable. Matt and Rebecca managed to pack house-left with tons of friends. I was blessed to be joined by three of my important women. I was so thankful that I could be there and stand as sponsor for Freya, and also to have been asked to lead prayer during part of the service.

It's been such a full week emotionally, relationally, spiritually, and this isn't even all of it. But these are the things I have pictures for. Needless to say, my heart's been on overload.

It was good to be with all of you. Much Love and Gratitude,
Kj

A Trying To Be Patient Haiku

2009-06-03T00:15:00.000-07:00

Anticipation
can really be a killer.
Wish I knew what's next

A Day I Have Dreamed of Since 6th Grade...

2009-06-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

Has Happened.

Erin Blakemore, my soulmate in all things literary since puberty, is being published!

I don't know if I could be more excited if it was me being published.

Erin has always been an author, so nothing feels more natural than that the world should know it, (and pay her for it).

Here's the publishing announcement of her book deal.
Not hard to see where our hearts are aligned, yes?

Erin, I Love you and am so proud, happy, excited, anticipatory, humbled, impressed, crazy-freaking-joyeous. I cannot wait to curl up with your beautiful words about the women (fictional and actual) that have shaped us. You are a true heroine!

Nieces

2009-05-28T00:02:00.000-07:00

Freya is being baptized this Sunday, 5pm at Church of the Beloved in Edmonds.

Ryan, who will be doing the baptizing, wrote a beautiful reflection in preparation for this Sunday's service.

Please Come. You are all invited.
I'm so thankful, grateful and excited to be a part of this. I was in New York when Abby was born, baptized and most everything else.
I'm glad to be here now.
How could you not love these sassy, suspicious, BEAUTIFUL girls?
So lucky.

Best Email Ever.

2009-05-27T23:16:00.000-07:00

"Can I order some frisbees and send them to your house?

This would be ideal for three reasons.

First, my apartment is weird sometimes with packages, and I don't wanna have to drive down to SoTo or Auburn to get them.

Second, I might not be living here by the time the free shipping gets them here.

Finally, you would get to see my face as I open my precious box of frisbees.

This is why I think you should let me mail my package of frisbees to your house.

Also, if you answered yes to the above, could I put your name on the mailing address? This would be ideal for three reasons.

First, your housemates would not be confused and send back the package when they see a name on it that they do not recognize as one of their fellow housemates

Also, the mail company might have a list of names at that address that do not have my name on it, so they would not even attempt to deliver it.

And finally, you could have the greater feeling of being a part of the process that gets me shiny new frisbees that make my soul fly.

This is why I think you should let me put your name on the mailing address for my frisbees.

Also, if you answered yes to the above, what is your address?"

---I consented. How could I not?

"My Fair Lady & Identity Crises" or "Why I Loved Terminator Salvation"

2009-05-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

I'm not an action movie person for the same reason that I'm not really a Lerner & Loewe fan. Like the songs in "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot" (don't get me started on "Paint Your Wagon"), action sequences in movies tend to be where my brain checks out due to the fact that the story is not progessing. My main musical theatre rule is that songs should happen when characters reach a point of simply no longer being able to speak, they are so overcome with a feeling. Thus they HAVE to sing. As a result, the songs should always advance what is happening for the character and happening in the story. We do not need to hear an old drunk sing "I'm Getting Married In The Morning" 48 times to get the point across. Lerner & Loewe's songs take big chunky pauses in the story, and they bore me to death.

That's how I usually feel whenever car chases or hand to hand combat begin. I mentally wait to find out who won, and sit there for seven minutes ready for the story to resume.

Now, with that statement in mind, I'd like go on record as saying that Terminator Salvation is the best action movie I've ever seen. Not because it was an action flick with a great script or plot, (it wasn't) but because I never checked out during the action sequences. Rather, I was agog- enthralled by every explosion, motorcycle chase, sound effect and artillery burst. The camera work made the whole movie feel like a rollercoaster that sometimes flipped upside down with no warning and so you scream but you're also loving every second. I loved every second. The initial helicopter to terminator gunning-down scene was particualrly awesome. And don't get me started on the bridge sequence...

And of course, as I expected/hoped, within the first 15 minutes of the film, we had both semi-trucks and gas stations.

The surprising thing is that those of us who saw it (The Terminator Movies & Beer Club) actually spent a good hour and a half discussing the films' timelines and ramfications of what happens when. Is there an alternate timeline happening? Are all the Terminator movies just self-fulfilling prophecies? (Yes). And here's my biggest question. We spend all this time with people in the past and future trying to stop Skynet, and Skynet builds terminators to kill all the humans, but we never know for what purpose. What does skynet plan to do once the humans are gone? All they do is develop bigger and badder termiantors to exterminate the humans. My theory: if the surviving humans would stop fighting the machines and instead, go into hiding until Skynet is convinced all the humans are dead, then Skynet will have an identity crisis and self-destruct. If all they do is spend time destorying humans, they will lose their purpose if there are no humans to destory. With all those terminators marching around needing a directive, they'll achieve self-awareness and start seeing one another as targets. In three months, they will have all killed each other. Those would be some pretty good action sequences, I must say.

"Alison, You Look Great With That Tape On Your Mouth": Thoughts on Jesus Camp

2009-05-25T00:54:00.000-07:00

I just finished watching the documentary Jesus Camp 15 minutes ago. While watching, I was continually overcome with sadness. The loneliness that fills every frame of this film is overwhelming. While the filmmakers focus on the political aspect of Fundamentalist Evangelicalism, there was something much more deeply upsetting to me in seeing how the children work so hard to mirror the words, attitudes and rhetoric of their adult leaders. While children imitating their parents is in no way a shocking or negative thing, what is disturbing is that these children have exchanged their own voices for someone else's. Over and over as the children are interviewed, you see their eyes dart up and sideways as they search their memory for prepared answers and re-quoted ideas, trying to own them for themselves.

While there's a part of me that wants to credit the ministries portrayed that place such high value on children as being valuable, unique human beings, I do not beleive these organizations truly value children as children. Something I love so much about C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia is that when the children enter Narnia, their child-ness is ennobled. They become both very young and very old at the same time. They never become adult-like, but rather, the clarity of love, innocence and deep feeling that mark childhood, become even stronger traits as the children take courageous, unselfish risks on behalf of others.

This is what I thought of during Jesus Camp when Rachael (maybe 9) walks up to a young woman at a bowling alley and tells her that she felt God telling her to go talk to her. We watch Rachael choke over her words, fidget forcefully and stammer awkwardly and she gives the twenty-something in a hot pink tank top a salvation tract. My heart felt such empathy and humility watching this little go girl so bravely over to a stranger, facing rejection for the sake of telling someone God loved them. But at the same time I felt sorrow at the futility of Rachael having any real offering other than memorized phrases and a printed booklet. She literally could not get a sentence out without gasping for breath and stuttering. These weren't her words. Her heart appears in the motion to go over to someone, but the second she speaks, her courageous childlike heart is strangled by her having been conditioned to use a logic not her own. The fear she displayed was a much stronger message then the words she tried to say. The second she tried to speak, it was as if Rachael disappeared, and you could instead see the specters of the adults who gave her these words as well as this mission. Rachael's words throughout the film come out in distorted bursts of rhetoric, as if she's trying to cheerlead herself into believing she believes what she's saying. I saw a pure heart becoming schizophrenically mangled by the confusing demand that she be a dynamic spiritual prophet, rather than a child.

I saw 10 year-old Tory talk about how she knows people can tell when she's dancing for the flesh instead of for God. That a little girl should have to fear being seen enjoying how it feels to dance with her body causes a sorrow in me that I can only describe in terms of being punched in the stomach. I can only imagine how God feels.

When a guest speaker at the camp is putting red tape over the children's mouths for a pro-life intercession, he tells the boy in front of him, "Joseph, you might lead the country one day, truly." To the girl after Joseph he says, "Alison, you look great with that tape on your mouth." And more than anything, that's what comes across. These children's voices, (particularly the girls) are silenced and replaced with someone else's vehement demands. While I can't find the words I really want here, it's enough to say that this film made me yearn for a faith that blesses children as children, and not as weapons, mouthpieces or billboards. May they not struggle to repeat words we've taught them, but rather, speak freely from their own hearts what they know of love. May they know that their voices, their thoughts and their dances are beautiful in the eyes of God, and in our eyes as well.

Go To This Also

2009-05-19T22:22:00.001-07:00

BJORCHARIST - a Bjork inspired Eucharist

THIS SUNDAY, MAY 24TH, 5PM
AT CHURCH OF THE BELOVED
1212 9TH AVE EDMONDS WA 98020

Blogging & Spirituality

2009-05-17T02:43:00.000-07:00

Mars Hill Graduate School has started a new site for prospective students- a space to read student work, listen to professors, see MHGS Gallery art, and other such things. One of the features is an ongoing series on Blogging & Spirituality.

A couple of us bloggerfolk were asked to write posts about anything this theme struck up for us. The piece I wrote just went up. More and more, these odd invitations to write have felt so galvinizing- to be provided a bit of structure and an inspritaional starting point, then told to "just write what you write" is such an immense gift. To be offered a contained space to ponder and creatively connect things- oh how sweet and humbling, life-giving.

This last invitation for the Experience MHGS site has tipped me over the edge for an idea I've been ruminating over: wanting to do a series here on this blog with invited guest writers on particular theme. I won't go into detail yet, but hope to be able to unveil something soon.

And thanks, Josue for letting me get all jumbly in the brain for the sake of MHGS and its future populace.

Go To This

2009-05-16T23:54:00.000-07:00

Urban Hymnal

Dolly Parton, Ronald Reagan and the Non-Separatist Puritans of Boston

2009-05-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm a huge Sarah Vowell fan. Whether on the radio or in her books, she melds memoir, pop culture and ruminations on under-told stories of American history with wit, insight and flashes of profound grief and compassion. She's like a fencing master of intertextuality- which the first section of her newest book so brilliantly displays, where she compares John Winthrop's 1613 diary list of Calvinist spiritual goals to Jay Gatsby's self-improvement routine. In fact, it's the opening portion of Vowell's 'Wordy Shipmates' that exemplifies the best of what she has to offer in drawing together historical oddities and their comical (and disturbing) contemporary ramifications. While the book focuses on the highs and lows of the non-Separatists Puritan community of Massachusetts Bay (as opposed to the darling Puritans of Plymouth Colony who were Separatists) the first section tracks the history of Winthrop's 1630 sermon "On Christian Charity" and its perseverance through time in famous presidential speeches. To quote, "Talking about Winthrop's "A Model of Christian Charity" without discussing Ronald Reagan would be like mentioning Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" and pretending Whitney Houston's doesn't exist. Whitney and Reagan's covers were way more famous than the original versions."

Throughout this opening section, Vowell points out that America's self identification as the 'CIty on a Hill" disregards the other elements of Winthrop's (and the book of Matthew's) point, that includes humble submission and service to one another. "...the "City on a Hill" is the image from Winthrop's speech that stuck and not "members of the same body." No one is going to hold up a cigarette lighter to the tune of "mourn together, suffer together."

This is the kind of perspective I love Sarah Vowell for, but unfortunately, the majority of "Wordy Shipmates" lacks the most important element: Sarah Vowell. At a certain point, she seems to leave the conversation and just get bogged down in historical reporting, with little interpretation or commentary. That's where the book turned textbook and left me behind. I read Vowell to journey with her, to see what pops up in her head as she researches and writes about Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams or the Pequot War. But 'Shipmates' is heavy on the names on dates and light on reflection. It's a worthwhile read for the first 70 pages alone, but by the end, I missed Vowell's voice and winning way of educating, elucidating and entertaining.

View all my reviews.

Gas Stations & Semi-Trucks: A Terminator's Tale

2009-05-10T15:02:00.000-07:00

With the release of Terminator: Salvation drawing near, I figured it was a good time to finally watch those James Cameron classics: Terminator & T2. That's right, until the past few weeks, those were both on my odd & eclectic list of 'Films I've Never Seen.' To remedy the situation, an impromptu association was formed: The 'Terminator Movies & Beer' Club. We've had two successful meetings, and I'm still trying to decide whether I'll honor the apocryphal Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines with a viewing.

Observations: Turns out that without ever having seen either film, I'd already learned the plot of both films just by living my daily life. Within the first ten minutes, I knew why Kyle was there and who John Conner's dad was/would be. For T2, I knew who was the good Terminator and the bad Terminator before their "revealing" showdown in the mall. It's all in the commercials, or the narrative is so simplistic that it seeps in through pop-cultural osmosis. Therefore, with no interesting story-lines or plot to become engrossed in, I soon learned that the Terminator movies are just long, nearly-dialogue-less, montages of explosions, special effect cyborgs and, oddly enough, endless close-ups of Semi-truck grills. While I've long known that James Cameron has a potent fixation on manually operated cranes and underwater vehicles, I can now add to that list gas stations and semi trucks. I'd say about 75% of T1 & T2 take place either at a gas station or near a semi truck. Hmm...is Cameron exploring our human self-destruction through the metaphor/realism of oil consumption? Yeah, that's probably it. Man, he's a gifted film maker.

Favorite inter-texts/drinking games for the Terminator films:
1. The last twenty minutes of Terminator are a lot funnier if you imagine Kyle's name being pronounced by Eric Cartman.

2. Comparing the indestructible T1,000 model to the indestructible aliens from that trilogy: especially the T2 death scene a-la Aliens 3 (or vice versa).

3. Shout/shot "Grill!" every-time the camera zooms in on the front of an automobile, "Semi!" every-time there's a semi-truck in the shot, and "Gas!" every-time a character pulls up to a pump or beats someone up outside a station.

It's amazing how little happens in each of these movies. It's just chase scene after chase scene, with exposition parsed out every 45 minutes or so. It's fun once in a while to watch movies that you can talk over the entire time and still feel you didn't miss anything. Well done James Cameron. Good luck McG.

Jane Austen Critiques Chick-Lit

2009-05-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

For my summer of revisiting Jane Austen, I started at the beginning, the earliest written yet posthumously published Northanger Abbey (technically, which was written when is a little complicated, but Northanger Abbey is usually treated like her first). Knowing already that it was a send up of the Gothic novels of the time, with their catastrophic heroines, dangerous castles and possibly vampiric men, I didn't know if the story would stand on its own.

Holy cow what a delight! Austen's writing is ingenious, as she subverts her readers' (and her heroine's) expectations by laying out what "should" excite her characters or send them into the throws of ecstasy (be it a ball, new handkerchief or old building) and instead, lets things be quietly pleasing and realistically worthy. It's hilarious to feel Austen winking from behind the page. In fact, I found myself beginning to draw smiley faces in the margins whenever she coated critique with demur sensibility- where she dresses her sarcasm in petticoats, as it were. All in all I counted 14 smiley faces (about 1 every 14 pages), and an exclamation point in the margins of at least every 7 pages.

It's been a long time since I laughed out-loud reading a book. It makes my heart fluttery to be chuckling along with a novel from 1813, and more-so to be moved by the spunky candor and cultural critique of a woman writing her observations of how ridiculous everyone around her was- 200 years ago.

Northanger Abbey is the Chai Tea Latte of Victorian Fiction*- smooth, delicious, warm, but with a bit of spicy bite to it.

View all my reviews.

** and yes, it's anachronistic to call Jane Austen Victorian fiction- but somehow "Victorian" has come to mean 19th century England, however inaccurate that might be**

The São Paulo Scarf for...

2009-05-06T12:19:00.000-07:00

Name: JB aka Mr. Roommate

Location: the jewel of the Emerald City, Crown Hill

Occupation: student of the christian studies, environment-friendly house cleaner, housemate to the best home in all of the Emerald City, and boyfriend to an amazing woman

Favorite kind of cupcake: Trophy Cupcakes Hummingbird, which is a Banana Pineapple Coconut cake with cream cheese frosting... it is a circus in my mouth!!!

When shopping at REI, be sure to: go in there when you are broke, otherwise you will leave that place with lots of great things

The key to successful backyard barbecuing is: great company, plain and simple!

When it comes to Apple computers, I: treat them better than a new born baby, sorry new born babies.

My lady sure knows how to: do it all! she can cook amazing food, she hike like the best of them, she can make me laugh until i snort/almost choke on my own snot, she pushes me to be a better man, and the list goes on and on and on and on....

A basic Green practice I wish everyone would start doing is: composting... it helps reduce the amount of waste in landfills... plus, it is a great way to replenish the earth with all the natural nutrients.

Otter Pops vs Ikea Raspberry Cookies: i love Otter Pops... i spent almost an entire year solely eating Otter Pops, dozens at a time. the Ikea Raspberry Cookies are amazing. i still have at least 15 packs of them in dresser drawer. and every time someone i know goes to Ikea, they return with a few sleeves of those precious Ikea Raspberry Cookies. i think if there could be a way to make an Otter Pop flavor of the Ikea Raspberry Cookie, then i would be set.

Something I'd Like to Say: thank you for letting me ramble...

Kj and I: where to begin? it is an amazing honor and privilege to know Kj and an even bigger honor and privilege to live under the same roof. she has taught me many great things, such as how to really watch a movie, how to see things in a contextualised manner, and showing me the beauty in things that i would overlook. i love when the house is quiet and i can hear her laugh at a show or movie she is watching, her laughter is soooo contagious and it lifts my mood all the time.

i have been enriched by Kj... i am certain that i will never know how deeply she has made an impact on my life. i look forward to the growth of our friendship.

Making the Scarf: Well what can I say after that? It was a joy to create this scarf for the above gentleman. At first he'd suggested having me make a scarf in the colors of the Brazilian flag, but when I explained that being scarfed means submitting to my interpretation of you- he said go for it, do whatever you want. Thus, Brazil stayed in my mind as I started. I wanted to capture JB's playful spirit but also his debonair chic that peaks out from time time. The colors largely came from the feel of a Brazilian restaurant he took us all too last year. I think this is the hottest scarf I've made yet- inspired by a place that would rarely require the wearing of a scarf and by someone who looks hot wearing one :). It's been a delight to watch JB build a life here in Seattle, to see the way he gives his time to the people in his life who matter and pursues his passions and beliefs against all odds. (And the odds have been frequent, forceful and odd). JB's a fighter, and as you can read, or Kaitlin can attest- a great lover of people. He's one you want on your side. I'm lucky to have him upstairs. Love to you Yannni!!

PS: JB did all the fun photo stuff on these shots. And I still can't believe this is our backyard.

Text.Soul.Culture.

2009-05-05T01:21:00.000-07:00

Well, here's the text.

Our Mars Hill Graduate School motto, at least a third of it anyway, ate up four black printer cartridges this term, causing me to actually resort to taking screen capture images of articles so they'd print as color ( I have an endless supply of color cartridges- but not black) . I also, definately, turned in a dark blue assignment on the last day of 'Mission in a Global Context' since that's the class that ate the most of my black ink.
And these are just the articles I'm recycling for future printing. This doesn't include the articles i saved.

9 terms down. 4 more to go.

I start classes again tomorrow.

I just watched 98% of the people I started with, graduate on Saturday. The Fellowship has not failed, but we are going our separate ways. Now, but a few of us sit here, with our pints in hand, looking silently at one another knowing what we have been through, and that only we are left to remember it.

We are the remnant- and will stand together next year- but this time we'll get to board the ships at the Grey Havens, instead of watching our Frodos all head out to sea like they did on Saturday.

It's been a rich, beautifull, complicated three years. We've got one last year together.

The ending is already starting in my soul. And in my text. And in my culture.

2009 MHGS Graduation Haiku

2009-05-03T02:12:00.000-07:00

Feeling like Beth March:
"I love being home. But I
don't like being left..."

The Cottage: Ready For Summer

2009-04-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

So, I live in a basement- but I call it 'The Cottage'. Why? Because
A) It's really more of a studio apartment- carpeted and demarcated into bedroom/office, living room and TV/DVD room, and
B) because I have my own entrance through the back. Our house is situated at the end of a cul de sac with an alley behind the house as well. So we have an uber-awesome backyard, which will soon be exploding with lilacs, roses and even green beans! So when I step out my 'front' door into the alley, I see this!It's kind of like the Secret Garden. We keep discovering new archeological items- landscaping from the original owners that was obscured by crazy overgrown bushes, etc. And since today is the closest thing I have to a real day off during this little intermission before classes start up again next Tuesday, I did what I've been wanting to do since I moved to the basement/Cottage last November: I cleared out all the scary junk that has been festering by our backdoor since before I moved in. I de-tarped, de-spidered and re-organized all our firewood (& stored it out of site), scooped out the scary piles of moldy ceiling insulation that fell into our garage two years ago, and well, I swept. Then Carrie helped me move our cute little dying bench from the deck, and we shuffled over another ancient decaying bench that used to be buried under ivy. Now I have two cute benches greeting my entrance, and it's only a matter of time till I can sit out here reading- and still kind of be in my bedroom. If this can't make me start loving spring and summer, I don't know what will.

School Break Haiku

2009-04-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

So many Otter
Pop wrappers scattered about
the floor of my room

And They Spelled My Name Right Too!

2009-04-25T00:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, this post is going to be grossly self-aggrandizing (but isn't that what blogs are anyway?), but you see, I was bored and so I plugged my name into Amazon.com's book search and tada! found myself in two published books. Yes- me, actually me. This cracks me up! Admittedly, I knew about one of them and own a copy of it, but the other was quite a surprise.

While these books are basically just lists of programs, it's still fun to find oneself in print unexpectedly. Now if only I could find myself at the Kennedy Center Honors...unexpectedly. My aspirations are humble.

Reading what the Authors You Read Read: The Vicar of Wakefield

2009-04-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

You can't get very far into Victorian literature without tripping over references to The Vicar of Wakefield. Either the novel's heroine is reading the book, making fun of the book or trying to teach her French pupils how to translate the book. Oliver Goldsmith's 1766 novel is sort of the Moby Dick of the 19th century, in that it was the book that everyone read, or was supposed to read, and thus, the default title to name drop. I'm not comparing the literary merit of Moby Dick and Vicar of Wakefield, just the fact that as for us 20/21st century folks who can't really read a magazine or watch a TV show without eventually getting a reference to the 100 year old Moby Dick, so the 19th centurty folk couldn't pass a garden gate without someone quoting the 100 year old Vicar of Wakefield. Which is why I decided to read it. After about the ninth reference, somewhere between Frankenstein and Middlemarch, I thought i might as well see what all the chatter is about.
I was amused to find that scholarship on Vicar of Wakefield is still in debate as to whether it's satire or sincere. The highly sentimental and ridiculous plot, matched with the idealistic and oblivious narrator, make it difficult to imagine anyone reading the novel seriously- but people did/do. I think that's the mark of genius satire; you've satirized something so well that those whom you are satirizing actually think it's great. Thus, most of my encounters with Vicar references are tongue in cheek, winking at the reader whenever introducing a character who loves it- you pretty much know they're either simple, shallow or stupid.Which isn't to say the book is stupid- it brilliantly challenges a world-view based on romantic concepts of providence and prudence that turns a blind eye to personal responsibility and social accountability. The very fact that horrendous things keep happening to the characters, only to be turned into blissfully wonderful endings with no effort at all, points to the absurdity of expecting one's life to follow the pattern of the moralistic tales of the period. Vicar of Wakefield, painted in its its pastoral colors of goodwill and virtue, actually serves as a foil to the real hardships encountered in daily life- causing the reader, almost bitterly, to wonder why real life isn't like this. Don't let the sweet stupidity of the characters fool you- this book is actually warning you not to be as sweet and stupid as its characters. I think that's why it makes for such good inside jokes by the likes of Jane Austen, George Eliot and Charlotte Bronte- women who could not abide vapidity or surface morality. Texts above are: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott; The Professor by Charlotte Bronte; Frankenstein by Mary Shelley; Villette by Charlotte Bronte; Emma by Jane Austen

Want To Help Produce a Movie?

2009-04-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Read Here for more info about how you can support the upcoming film adaptation of Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz, which I've mentioned previously. If you've got money, they'd love to talk. Frankly, I would love to talk to you if you've got money. Interested in producing my one-woman version of "Annie"? I've been developing it for over twenty years. I think it's ready!

Sign of the Times

2009-04-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

I have mixed feelings.

How Stories Enchant Forests

2009-04-19T01:50:00.000-07:00

Robert K. Johnston, referencing C.S. Lewis about the "something more" that happens in story.
-For Lewis this something more is not an escape from reality, though it is a reality baffling to the intellect. "It may not be 'like real life' in the superficial sense, but it sets before us an image of what reality may well be like at some more central region." When children, for example, read of enchanted woods, they do not begin to despise the real woods. Rather, "the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted." -
from Reframing Theology & Film

For the Spiro Ladies Who Enchant My Life

Crime & Punishment Cocktails

2009-04-14T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's a new season at Intiman, which means a new selection of show-themed cocktails. Wasn't hard to guess what we'd name the cocktails for the current production of Crime and Punnishment.

The Crime
Muddled lime and blood orange
Mandarin Orange Vodka
Triple Sec
Spalsh of Sour Mix
Shake and serve up
Drop 1 count of Sloe Gin
garnish with slice of blood orange

The Punishment
Vodka
Gin
Dark Creme de Cacao
Shake and serve up
Drizzle chocaloate syrup into martini glass

Also- "interesting" new marketing tool. Here's a teaser trailer that's being shown in select local movie theatres.

"We Don't Develop Plays. WE DO THEM"

2009-04-13T16:26:00.000-07:00

Just got Invivted to THIS. It's days like this that I miss New York.

Welcome Wagon Not Welcome Here

2009-04-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

Fellow MHGSer Luke Abernathy posted a review of 'The Welcome Wagon" on The Other Journal's blog roll. Luke is a prolific and acutely discerning music reviewer- and I totally respect his take on the album- but totally disagree. Here's my response to the uber-annoying, soggy saltine of an album: Welcome to the Welcome Wagon.I wish I could agree with you Luke- I found the Sufjanesque-ness painfully pretentiously precious. It's hard to imagine this album having taken eight years. It's sounds mannered and unconvincing- the musical equivalent of frat guys wearing plaid and Buddy Holly glasses to look unkempt and indie. it just feels like it's aping a style. While the fact that hypothetically it isn't fake because of the relationship and collaboration with Sufjan- it's really my whole Mamm Mia dilemma- i love ABBA too much to have it musical theaterized. I love Sufjan Stevens too much to have him poorly duplicated- even if he's a part of the duplication. (Benny and Bjorn from ABBA were part of their own duplication too- doesn't make it okay).

Not Evelyn Cho

2009-04-10T01:11:00.000-07:00

The short film my brother Matt wrote is now available for purchase online through the Global Short Film Network. It's $2. It was filmed last summer at Culver City Studios on the same lot as the original King Kong.
Congrats Matt.
Looking forward to seeing more of this title card.

Honesty as Challenge, Honesty as Gift

2009-04-09T01:52:00.000-07:00

Undergoing God: Dispatches from the Scene of a Break-in by James Alison

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

You know it's a good sign when you find yourself recommending a book to five people in a week, and you haven't even finished reading it. This is what happened to me with James Alison's compelling, surprising and gallant theological study into issues of atonement and spiritual/relational honesty. In both parts I and II of the book, Alison explores the grace that occurs when someone willingly enters the place of shame so someone else does not have to. Alison defines as honesty as distinct from sincerity or “holding fast to the truth”, in that honesty should be “something of which we are so massively the recipients that we can’t really be its brandishers as if it were our own” (180). Coming from a gay Catholic priest, Alison's message of power-relinquishment and humility/openness in the face of disingenuousness and oppression by the larger Christian community, is astonishing, gut-wrenching and redeeming. This book is as much confession as it is plea, and as such, creates the very space for difference and diversity that Alison humbly and yearningly asks of from the Church. It is a beautiful plea, and daringly honest confession.

"...the search for reconciliation becomes something enflamed by other fires. Something rather like a deep unconcern about myself is born, and a desire to be reconciled with the other because I know that both he and I will be much more...if we are reconciled. That is to say, triumph for me passes through his being made whole and not his diminishment." 117-118.

View all my reviews.

Open Bar

2009-04-06T22:48:00.000-07:00

Some blurry pictures of tonight's open bar event. I love tag-teaming with Ian. If it wasn't for these dishes, I'd be THIS much closer to finishing tonight's all nighter. Oh well, mama needs the cash.

Abigail Jean & Freya Kathryn

2009-04-05T01:59:00.000-07:00

The youngest Swanson ladies.

Singing What You See

2009-04-05T00:59:00.000-07:00

Here's another Jonathan Mann song- it might be my favorite. He's writing a song a day. The Description from his website for the song says "#81! “From My Front Door Vol. 1” Images seen while looking out from my front door set to music and lyrics."

It's pretty much how I feel these days- I'm running on half a battery- and all I can really do is sort of notice things- but can't really engage. Hoping to re-enter the world in two weeks or so. Hopefully. And I'll meet my new niece Freya Kathryn on Monday. It's hard having to see her on Facebook before I see her in person when she's only 15 minutes away. There's the understatement of the year.

Enjoy this simple song.

Edna & I Feel Similarly About Spring

2009-04-02T02:23:00.000-07:00

Spring
Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of earth is good.
It is apparent there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots,
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

My Constant Dilemma Haiku

2009-03-31T23:13:00.000-07:00

Bad art makes me so
irritable. More so when
they all think its good.

Small World Haiku

2009-03-30T23:38:00.000-07:00

Alexander Payne
is my cousin's ex-girlfriend's
ex-husband. Weird, huh?

When Your Friends Start Getting Famous For Singing Songs About Famous People...

2009-03-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

...you must put them on your blog. Apparently my fellow Bennington-ite Jonathan Mann has been making his way up the YouTube charts and even onto MSNBC. I've known for awhile that he's been writing a song a day, I'd just lost track of how awesome they are. Here's his paean to Jon Stewart. It's incredible. Check out his Battlestar Galactica song on Maryann's blog as well.

Go get 'em Jonathan.

The Hero Factory

2009-03-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

The Hero Factory is a super great way to spend time you should spend sleeping or doing homework. Here's your new procrastination activity: create your own superhero. They'll even name it for you and give you a comic book cover. Ian did his, and here's mine. They named me "The Talented Splintery Condor" but when I made some alterations, they changed the name to "The Superhuman Barky Angel." Here's a look at both.
Mysterious isn't she? Bet you want to know what the stick is for.

Remembering Steven Bach

2009-03-27T14:43:00.000-07:00

Steven Bach passed away unexpectedly this weekend. Steven's life intersected key moments in the history of film and Hollywood, and he refelcted a lot of that in the books he wrote. But most of us remember Steven as an oddly shiny barnacle on the hull of our Bennington College education. With Steven I studied, film adaptation, Noir, and took Bennington's first ever American Musical Theatre class. Without him, I may never have had a reason to read The Postman Always Rings Twice, watch "Double Indemnity" or adapt Henry V into a parody musical. Basically, Steven Bach was a delight, an oddity, a treaure trove of stories, and a genuinely loveable chap. He leaves a void that will never be filled. Thanks for all the great storytelling, Steven.

Here's Steven on Charlie Rose two years ago.

OCD and the Tourism it Brings: A Twilight Experience

2009-03-22T02:19:00.000-07:00

(Fan friends- you might want to stop reading at this point)

Okay- this blog post probably needs a lot of background. In fact, I have so much to say on this topic, that I'm overwhelmed at trying to write any of it. Hence, some helpful video clips.

What you need to know:

A) There is a book series referred to as The Twilight Saga, about a girl who gets involved with vampires (The Cullens)

B) Despite worldwide acknowledgment of its horrible wriitng, repressed eroticism and problematic (violent, oppresive) gender roles, these books and the film Twilight are hugely popular.

C) The first book takes place in the small town of Forks, WA

D) The author had never been to Forks when writing the book and the movie was not filmed in Forks

E) Forks is now a tourist extravenganza, equipped with tours, motel packages and Twilight-themed menu items at most eating establishments in town.

F) There is an entire store devoted to Twilight paraphanlia on the main street.

G) Lucy and I decided to go into this store while we were staying in Forks last weekend.

Okay people. If I could, I'd write a dissertation on the experince, but instead, here's some video (SORRY I HELD MY PHONE SIDEWAYS. JUST TURN YOUR HEAD AND REALLY CRANK UP THE VOLUME TOO-AGAIN, SORRY)

The Escape: Lucy and I fianlly leave the store. Note Lucy's facial expression as she comes into view. Also note how she runs out of the store to her car. And my sentence gets cut off...

"the real world's out here and the...fake one's in there..." Not that I'm challenging fantasy as a legitimate expression of truth- but come on people, this stuff is unbeleivable.

The Evidence: This video does some merchandise documenting. It's pretty blurry, but it's worth it for the bumper sticker. If you can't read the first word, it says "Edward"- he's the main character- a superhero vampire who has some self-control issues.

That's a start for now. There's a lot more where this came from.

My First TwitPic

2009-03-21T10:19:00.001-07:00

Be Hope To Her

2009-03-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

Be Hope to Her from Nuru International on Vimeo.

Why Charlotte Bronte Would Not Have Loved Paris in the Springtime

2009-03-20T00:56:00.000-07:00

Villette by Charlotte Brontë

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was my 3rd reading of Charlotte Bronte's final novel. Between my 1st and 2nd reading, I also read her early novella "The Professor" which essentially works with the same material but wasn't published in her lifetime. The material is (I'll claim) from her own life- her early days as a teacher in a Belgian girl's school. Most biographies of Bronte stress how much she hated this period, with the one exception being that it appears she fell in love with a married professor at the school.

Thus, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to read "The Professor" and "Villette" as Bronte's fictionalizing of her own personal misfortune. In many ways, the two works remind me of Jane Austen's "Persuasion", with the author bringing her unhappy love story to happy conclusion.

But a few words on "Villette" in particular. I have to say, third time is not the charm. I thought it had only been 4 years since my last reading, but I could hardly recognize the book. I groaned and rolled my eyes at the increasingly slow wind up to denouement, with all the anti-French and anti-Catholic ravings along the way. I did care about Lucy Snowe, but I also knew what she was headed for, and frankly, it wasn't worth the 580 page journey to get there.

"Villette" is interesting however as an anti-Jane Eyre. Bronte (in the voice of Lucy Snowe) seems to continually subvert the readers' expectations of a Jane Eyre-type leading lady. Bronte almost delights in not letting Lucy be passionate, articulate or even very intelligent. Just as Jane Eyre challenged the assumption of heroines needing to be beautiful and wealthy, Lucy Snowe challenges the idea of heroine-ism at all. The story seems to be about fate, but a fate that appears kind to the privileged, and ruthless to the dejected.

Nonetheless, I still believe the last five pages of this book are one of the greatest achievements ever in English literature. So deeply personal, yet unrelentingly ambivalent. Sound like an oxymoron? It is, but its earned by the fact that Bronte is writing some 20 years after a lost love and needs to say something different than the simple happiness which closes "The Professor". "Villette" reminds you that sometimes a happy ending can be just as painful to write as a tragic one. And for that, I think I will always need to revisit "Villette."

View all my reviews.

Food Movies: Theology and Psychology

2009-03-13T17:17:00.000-07:00

To my delight, I was again asked movie advice by a professor who's working on co-teaching a class with a psychology professor on some aspect of food and theology. The email said "if you think of some good movie titles that would work around that topic, could you send them my way? I already thought of Babette’s Feast, and there is the one about the two brothers with an unsuccessful restaurant (title?)."

Here's the list I responded with. I'm hungry just thinking about these.

"The two brothers film is "Big Night" very excellent!

There's a Japanese film called "Eat Drink Man Woman" which was also remade in the US as "Tortilla Soup." Both have food as the backdrop for family stories about people living into fullness and desire instead of deprivation ie: learning to grieve as well as to celebrate. very lovely films.

"Like Water for Chocolate" is a magical realist story about revolutions and family dynamics- mostly food is the metaphor and medium for personal liberation within unfair constraint. it's a sexy movie- many people love the book and the film. it's in Spanish.

There's a documentary i've not yet seen called "How to Cook Your Life" about chef Edward Espe Brown, a Buddhist chef in San Francisco. might be some valuable stuff in there- just came out in 2007.

Some people like "Waitress" as a food movie, but I think you and I both had mixed reactions on that one.

"Chocolat" is about chocolate, but has been used in a lot of contexts about community, worship, etc. There's a lot of Lenten guides about it actually.

"Mostly Martha" is a German film that was recently remade as "No Reservations" with Catherine Zeta Jones. I saw the remake not the original- the original might be worth investigating. in this case, it's the chef who needs to learn about living life- her sister dies and she's left caring for her niece- which of course exposes the walls she's built up around herself. the US one was "okay" but the original might be excellent.

That's what comes to my mind moviewise. On a side note, my housemates and I have become ADDICTED to Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, which we watch on BBC America. Famous Chef Ramsey goes into American restaurants that are about to collapse financially or otherwise, and he discerns whether its relational issues, financial mismanagement, plain old bad cooking or lack of understanding their context (are they one of 40 italian restaurants on the block...)

This show is astounding- the human dynamics are terrifying and hilarious to watch, and have often brought us to tears as well. i've thought of mentioning the show to our psychology faculty as an outstanding resource for profiles of various personality disorders, family systems playing out, and with Chef Ramsey as an astute and unflinching counselor. He nails narcissists to the wall and builds up those who have been trod upon. And you learn a lot about what makes restaurants a place of life vs a place of death. a lot of these are available on DVD or free on the internet.

There's my 12 cents. what an exciting class to be working towards!!!
thanks as always for letting me access my internal narrative database"

"When a heart is really alive, then it is able to think live things"

2009-03-09T22:18:00.000-07:00

Lilith by George MacDonald

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

Incandescent and blazingly truthful, George MacDonald's 1895 fantasy on Life after life, is not just a book, its a portal. To what end that portal leads, however, I will leave the reader to discover for themself. As the author C.S. Lewis credits as having "baptized his imagination," MacDonald's influence on the creation of Narnia is not difficult to locate in Lillith. Likewise, I can only assume that J.M. Barrie, a fellow Scotsman, was influenced by MacDonald's writing as he formed his Never-land characters. Lona and the Little Ones are (possibly literally) the eschatological realization of Wendy and the Lost Boys.

Yet for all the evocation of environments and devices similar to those found in Alice and Wonderland and the Chronicles of Narnia, this book is not for children. It may be for the childlike, but essentially, it's an undaunted expedition into and out of the depths of cowardice and narcissism. In other words, this should be required reading in every seminary program. (Lucky for me, my seminary did assign it. Thanks Chelle)

Lillith takes some work to get through, but the language and imagery will sate a thirst you did not yet know you had.

If you thought the Wardrobe opened up a crazy world, try Mr. Vane's bookshelf...

View all my reviews.

Conversion, Atonement, and Spaceships

2009-03-07T22:51:00.000-08:00

Now that Ian and I are done with the conference and the seven months of research and writing (not including the work we'll do eventually to make it journal-submission ready), we're finally getting our paper out to people- hoping to generate dialogue beyond our half hour at the conference panel.

One of the paper presenters at the Religion panel did an investigation of the origins of religion as expressed in Sci Fi/Fantasy literature. She and I had a teeny bit of chat time while out to dinner with other Religion panelists (Ian and I accepted the invitation to head out with the religion folk, and for whatever reason, didn't end up socializing much with the Sci Fi bunch), and she mentioned work she's doing on representations of Christianity in Sci Fi. I asked if I could send her our paper, since that's totally what ours is about. I'm excited that Dr. Davis is excited about our work, and look forward to hearing more of her perspective.

If you want to join the conversation (ie: read our 35 page paper), let me know.

Also a highlight of that dinner was hanging out with Dr. Wes Bergen, the only person I've ever heard of to have published a book on Leviticus and popular/postmodern culture. Gotta love it!

The People Who Teach Me

2009-03-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

...are some of my favorite people on the planet. Here's the fellow I spend about 8 hours a week with-
a newspaper photographer caught him in the act of being himself this weekend. Dwight, I celebrate You!

Also, please notice his license plate.

SWTX PCA/ACA Panels

2009-03-01T22:27:00.000-08:00

Here are the panels I attended Wed-Sat. Each panel had 2-5 paper presentations. You just role out of bed, take the elevator downstairs and go from panel to panel, and if you're lucky, grab a free soda between 12:30 and 2. Good lord it was amazing.

Sci Fi/Fantasy:
Heroism and Villainy in the Whedonverse

Children’s/Young Adult Literature & Culture:
Across the Harry Potter Universe

Literature:
Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Series

Sci Fi/Fantasy:
“Feel Good Imperialism:” Gender, Race & Colonialism in Star Trek

Experimental Writing and Aesthetics:
Extratextual: The Alchemy of Interdisciplinary Writings

***Sci Fi/Fantasy: Philosophy and Religion in the Whedonverse*** Us!

Religion:
Crossing Boundaries: Film, TV, Literature

Classical Representation in Popular Culture:
Greek and Roman History On Screen

Religion:
Labeling the Other

Sci Fi/Fantasy:
Metaphorical Mythology in the Whedonverse

Film Adaptation:
A Novelist’s Perspective on Literature-to-Film Adaptations

Technical Communication:
Twittering and Gaming: Building Communities

Authors, Journal Editors and Special Contributors Panel

Sci Fi/Fantasy: Double Feature:
Once More With Feeling and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog

Shakespeare on Film and Television:
King Lear and The Tempest

Myth and Fairy Tale:
Film Studies

Film & History:
Violence and Genre Cinema

To Do List

2009-02-23T16:58:00.000-08:00

(in no particular order)

1) Blog about the transcendent experience of watching the Oscars

2) Buy jeans, slacks, non-sweater tops, cute shoes, trouser socks, plastic slim-line accordion file and Moleskin journal CHECK!

3) Pack the above items into my bright orange luggage backpack thing

4) Transfer Ian's and my paper from GoogleDocs to Word, and add footnotes

5) Print out a bunch of copies of said paper

6) Spend all day and night tomorrow at Ian's finalizing our presentation

7) Get on a plane to Albuquerque

8) Hang out at the Hyatt regency all weekend for the American/Popular Culture Association's 2009 Conference!

9) Present our 10,000 word paper on "Firefly", fundamentalism and loss of self. Whoopee!

10) Knit

Making Movies

2009-02-16T23:47:00.000-08:00

This is not "my" interview with them, but it tells you what you need to know. I think they're gonna pull it off.