I don't really have time for this...

...because technically there are people here. So technically I'm supposed to be on. Technically I'm supposed to to be introducing myself and getting names and generally being that missionary chick. However, in actuality, I'm blogging and listening to the Lumineers. Funny, all the people in my life, from my family in Virginia to my friends in Texas, are falling in love with this band at the same time. Leads one to believe I'd probably love them too, if I had the time and the internet access to learn more songs than the one they play on the radio. But, for the record, I really, really, really, really like Ho Hey. Because of reasons.
Finally got to read The Fault in Our Stars, couple of friends pitched in and got it for me for my birthday. If you haven't read it yet, all I can say is that you utterly have to. It doesn't get better than John Green, and I'm of the opinion it's his best yet.
Erm, what else is there? Oh! Wreck-It Ralph. Seen it twice since it came out on dvd, and I neither am nor do I live with the one of us who actually paid money to buy it, which probably says something about how much I like this movie. Pixar's best in a while, in my opinion. But, settle an argument for me: was Hero's Duty supposed to be based on Halo? 'Cause I totally think it was supposed to be based on Halo. Definitely.
And, while I can't think of anything outside of that, I have successfully created a media post. O.o

excited and also terrified

because I'm leaving home tomorrow.  And I'm trying to take a break from my to-do list to feel things, because nothing is going to be real unless I've felt it. So I'm over-the-moon excited, because I'm going to be meeting new people and doing things. Serving God. And I'm excited because I get to go on an adventure, with only God for company. And I'm excited because I get to, I hope, do a little bit of self-reinventing. I say I hope, because somehow I always get into a new situation and just wind up being the same person, but that might just be because I am me, no matter what. What I do want to be is taken seriously. I want to be able to have equal-level conversations and express my thoughts and my opinions and do more than smile and nod and laugh. I want to be more confident. And I want to be, well, I do want to be nice, because I'm naturally a nice person; this world could use a little more general decency and friendliness. But I don't want to be the sort of person that adults whom I would like to treat me as an adult can write off with a high-five and a "You're so polite." Because I'm more than just polite. Actually, I can be very un-polite, very mean and very cynical and very biting when the situation allows for it. It's not something I'm proud of. Mostly, I want to be a person. Not a bad goal, I guess. That word, person, means more to me than the dictionary definition. It's hard to explain.
Also, I'm really, really, really going to miss my sister. And brothers. And Mom and Dad. This is going to be hard.
On a lighter note, my Airplane Entertainment (since this always reverts to an entertainment blog sooner or later) consists of multiple things. Writing or Journaling, supposedly. I always fail at that part. Working on getting through my current Charles Dickens project, Hard Times (which I should probably add to my Classics Club list, as if it needed more Dickens). What'll be playing on my iPod (on my new earbuds, those pretty Macbeth ones? They actually work really great) is likely a combination of the obligatory Athlete-Mumford and Sons-Snow Patrol stuff, along with some new (well, new to me) Fleet Foxes, and fueling my newfound love of The Beatles. Yes, I'm a little late to the party. But I actually do love them, they make me happy; it's not something I'm doing because it's cool. (For more information on my music-liking psychosis, see this post).
But now I need to go set up a Skype account and blog on other websites and spend iTunes cards. Hopefully, I'll be back before long.

An Unexpected Journey

Note: This is not a play on words, for once, I am actually talking about the Hobbit.

Firstly, I've discovered that I never want to go to another movie I actually care about at any showing BESIDES the midnight premier. Ever again. Because for years, I've been damaging my blood pressure over the fact that people sit stoically and unaffected in a theater, mindlessly consuming a masterpiece as if it was the world's job to entertain them, and leave without so much as putting their hands together a few times in honor of cast, writer, director, producer, or whatever a 'best boy' is. These people spent years of their lives and long, agonizing, sleepless nights into making the movie you just spent two hours watching, the least you could do is clap, right? (Can you tell I've got a pet peeve?). The midnight premier, however, is an entirely different story. People, like, care. Not only did they clap AFTER the movie, they clapped when the lights went down and the commercials started. They clapped at the opening credits. And they clapped, lo and behold, during the movie too. And cheered. And hooted. And so on. Whenever there was a particularly great scene. So, no more. If I don't make it opening night, I might just wait for the DVD from now on.

On the topic of the movie itself, I was completely blown away. It's difficult to find anything else to say. Peter Jackson and the lot have done it again, as far as I'm concerned. It was well imagined, well cast, and so on. Visually, it lived up to the expectations of viewers looking for the same level of excellence as the previous films. The writing was tight, picking up and cutting off (oh, that cliff hanger) at exactly the right points. The first film fills the role of setting the scene for the trilogy. Major characters, major conflict, enough character development to get things rolling. For readers of the book, it left off just before one would expect the introduction of Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt). I'm a little befuddled, and I'm sure I'm not the only one, over the decision to make three movies of one book. With that kind of pacing, The Lord of the Rings series could've taken up about ten movies (maybe then Tom Bombadil would've been welcome. Yes, I'm still sore about that.). I've heard it said that they wanted to give themselves the space to work artistically. Whether it was that or money, I guess, depends on how good the other two turn out.

"brighter, fresher color"

As an old (and third-generation) fan of Tolkein's works, and having read The Hobbit three times, I'd say it made the cut as far as faithfulness to the original. There were deviations from the original, but they were nice deviations. Sylvester McCoy's Radagast the Brown (nipped from Fellowship of the Ring, unless I'm mistaken) had heart and humor (though that might just be my love of hedgehogs talking). It's hard to say, after the first movie of a trilogy, whether the addition of Azog the white orc and the Necromancer was a good decision in the long run, but it was an understandable one, at least. It was a simple book, a kids' book. And as much as I would've loved to see this movie be simple and kid-friendly (and maybe with something less than a PG-13 rating), in order to be on caliber with the first three movies, it needed more conflict.
And there was some of the innocence and simplicity of the book, at least in comparison with the Lord of the Rings movie. A brighter, fresher color scheme, a lighter musical score, and altogether more light; plus everybody looked younger. Not sure how they managed it, when it's been ten years since Fellowship, but all the returning characters looked believably younger. Even Gollum (Andy Serkis) was a lighter, more likable character, as evidenced by the scattered bouts of laughter during the Riddles in the Dark scene, which may or may not've been the best part of the entire movie; and Ian McKellan returning as Gandalf made it all worth while.

As for dwarves, there were an awful lot of them. Far too many for each one to get a memorable character. There were moments when one would show up in a scene, and my thought was, "Alright, now they're just making this up, 'cause I know he wasn't there before." As for the ones that did get developed, you've got Thorin. Thorin has to be taller than the lot, and more intense. I'm not sold on Richard Armitage's performance yet (maybe I just need to watch it again), because in my mind, he was less tall and intense, more eye-candy and irritable. On the topic of eye candy, one wonders if he and Kili (Aiden Turner) exist to satisfy the Aragorn-and-Legolas corner of the market. Then you've got Bombur, who's usually stuffing something in his mouth. When he's not breaking furniture. It's okay, though. They've got two more movies to work on Dwarves. And then there's Bofur. Bofur, top, third-from-the-left, pretty blue eyes, funny hat, big smile. Just in that picture, he stands out, doesn't he? He stood out in the movie, too, just about stole the show. He was a little more down-to-earth, a little more complex. He had a scene, one-on-one with Bilbo, that I won't go into detail on for the sake of spoilers, but it was a spectacular performance. My favorite dwarf, hands down, and maybe my favorite character. And I swear to you, I didn't notice for a second that it was James Nesbitt. If I'd ever known he was in the movie, which I'm sure I must've, I'd forgotten it entirely, and I didn't notice it. I loved him in the dual title role of Steven Moffet's Jekyll miniseries. Jekyll stole your heart and Hyde was utterly despicable. It's got to say something about his acting (or maybe just the make-up department) that I've loved his work before, but didn't recognize him.

When I say he almost stole the show, I do only mean almost. Because it was almost impossible to watch anybody else when Bilbo was on the screen. And not in the way of the gaggle of girls who sat in front of us (and I quote, "I don't even really want to see this movie. I'm just here for Martin Freeman." Further eavesdropping confirmed that they were Sherlock fans.) I'm with Peter Jackson in the opinion that he was the only choice for Bilbo. The slightly bumbling, big-hearted everyman who's yet do discover his real strength. It's Freeman's niche, but that didn't make it repetive or predictable. It was an absolutely gorgeous performance. I've still got goosebumps.

There's much to look forward to, with this series. Characters and relationships, conflicts, villains. It'll be a treat to see more of the Necromancer than a growling shadow and more of Smaug than a tail, an eye, or a nostril (Benedict Cumberbatch, in both cases). I'm a little worried, of course; will it feel anything but belaboured by the third movie? But I'm on my toes for next Christmas, nonetheless.

The Classics Club

I've been meaning to do this for a while, never seem to have the time. But I'm leaving in three weeks, and I want to have it done by then.
For anybody who doesn't know, The Classics Club is, well, here's a handy little quote from their blog: "The Classics Club is a club created to inspire people to read and blog about classic books. There’s no time limit to join and you’re most welcome, as long as you’re willing to sign up to read and write on your blog about 50+ classic books in at most five years. The perk is that, not only will you have read 50+ incredible (or at the very least thought-provoking) works in five years, you’ll get to do it along with all of these people."
So, essentially, five years, fifty books, with reviews posted here, my personal blog. I think I can do that. Five years is a really freaking long time from now, and I have no idea at all where I'll be or what I'll be doing in five years, but I'm game for trying.
I'm mostly doing this to make sure I keep reading. Because the next nine months are going to be really busy for me, and it might be easy to let things like that, things that are so important to me, die away. I want to keep me, and the things I do in in my me time. I want to keep my eyes on the eventual college-bound, "High School English Teacher" goal. This'll be good for that.
Technically speaking, I should do about ten books this year. I might not have that kind of time. I'm gonna shoot for a minimum of three, and if I have to play catch-up when I finally come home (wherever home is by then), so be it. Que sera sera.
I like the idea of signing up to be a part of something bigger than just me (didn't mean for that to sound deep); it'll keep me accountable, to a degree. Make sure I ACTUALLY do this reading thing. That sounds nice. Better than just posting a reading list here all by my onesie and trying to keep up with it. My one hesitation, though, about joining the official Classics Club is that it's a community. Lots of bloggers talking to each other, sharing a love of the classics. This sounds awesome. However, I'm already not sure I'm even going to have time to keep up with my personal blogs, social networking, etc. I don't know how often I'll have access to the internet. Or a computer. It's all a little unpredictable. So, as much fun as featured posts and weekly group round-ups and read-a-thons sound, I really don't think I'll be able to be an active, participating member of this community. I feel really bad about that. But I think I'd rather go for it and try my best rather than not try at all. Hopefully my efforts will be met with understanding. Don't know how it'll go, but worth a shot, right?
Here's hoping! Official entry post/list to follow. :)

Stuff and Things

Hi, all. Rather than having bunches of posts about various things I've watched, seen, read, or listened to, I'm gonna try and clear it all away in one post. Will try to keep it from being too terribly long. Here goes.
~~Harry Potter. Finally watched ALL the movies. Yes, I know, I'm severely behind the times. Not sure what I have to say about them, beyond that I enjoyed every single second of it. And that Snape might be the single most heart-wrenching, provocative character ever. Period. And express my general what-the-heck-ness about that whole Ron-and-Hermione thing. I can't be the only one, can I? Maybe this just shows my ignorance, and maybe I should shut up and read the books before I make judgments (and, really, I'm meaning to. You know, whenever I have a spare MONTH just lying around); but I would've rather seen Harry and Hermione.
~~Doctor Who. As in, is back. Season seven. *explodes*
For the sake of sparing you spoilers in case you haven't seen it, I won't go into particulars (except that, when it comes to Angels Take Manhattan, have a couple hundred boxes of tissues at the ready). Actually, this might have to be a post of its own. Merp. :/
~~Sherlock. In case you didn't know, season two has been added to the Netflix streaming library (so no more waiting around at the bottom of waiting lists for the dvds to be free). Very convenient for any American fans out there who have not already used proxies or piracy to watch it online. Anybody who was patient enough to wait ten months. Person I am describing, if you actually exist, I salute you.
~~Ophelia. Young adult novel by Lisa Klein. Can be found here (Amazon). It's a retelling of the story of Hamlet, from, predictably, Ophelia's point of view. I love some of the grey areas it clears up, for all that it took quite a few drastic liberties; and Ophelia is a much more sympathetic character in this version, which is nice. Plus, it's got an utterly gorgeous ending, visually and story-wise, that was absolutely worth reading the entire novel. Again, spoilers. Read the book.
~~Hugo. As in, finally watched. Picked it up at the library (Oh my. A library system that has dvds. O brave new world!). Gorgeous plot, gorgeous casting, gorgeous score, great cinematography. I'm utterly in love. And it's steampunk! Why wasn't I told that it was steampunk?
~~Jeeves and Wooster. The Granada, Hugh-Laurie-and-Stephen-Fry version. Also a library find. You know how sometimes, you read a book and you've got these pictures of the characters in your head, and then you watch the movie and they just get it completely wrong? Well, this isn't one of those times. Hugh Laurie IS Bertie Wooster (which is kind of crazy when you think of him as House. Could you get a more polar opposite?). And Hugh Laurie, then 31, reminds me decidedly of another tall, skinny, blue-eyed British 30-something. Wildly ironic, because he played this person's dad on another tv series, Fortysomething. Funny how things work out.
~~The Graveyard Book. Neil Gaiman. Yes, I know, again, behind the times. But I can't not mention it, because I absolutely loved it. You know how sometimes a book becomes a part of the way you think? This one's going to stick with me for a while. Favorite quotes:
“Bod said, 'I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want,' he said, and then he paused and he thought. 'I want everything.”
And:
“He would go somewhere no one knew him, and he would sit in a library all day and read books and listen to people breathing.”
I feel like that sometimes. I don't want to deal with people, I just want to go e near people and feel like a person.
~~Once Upon a Time. The ABC series. Only mildly entertaining, yet strangely addictive. Curse you, mediocre television, for worming inside my head and not letting me go. Stuck watching season 1 on Netflix because we're not caught up enough to watch season 2 on live tv. *shakes fists*
~~Babel. As in, the new Mumford & Sons cd. I've read mixed reviews on it, seen it accused of being disingenuous, and I'll concede that they've found something that works and stuck to it with their second album, and that the album version of Below My Feet is nowhere near as good as the version that leaked a few months ago; but their music is every bit as good, and the emotions feel every bit as true, in Babel as they did in Sigh No More. The massive sales numbers alone tell you that this band's still got it.  But don't let me decide for you, check out my youtube playlist of the cd. For Those Below and Reminder being my favorite songs, with Babel and I Will Wait tied for second.
And, last but not least...
~~Elementary. First off, let me just say...

 

I am ashamed.

I just knew I should've waited until I saw it to say anything about it. I should've guessed I'd wind up eating humble pie. Johnny Lee Miller brings this sort of manic, puppy-dog, I-need-you-to-like-me energy to the title character, to the point that he's almost unrecognizable (and definitely nothing at all like Cumberbatch's version). I don't love the Watson (not because of gender or race, but because of some other things they changed). But I do like the show. It will, at the very least, tide me over until Sherlock comes back. But, un-canon as it (unarguably) is, I really...rather...like it. It's...cute. Incredibly cute. Come on, that last scene? Watson's a Mets fan? And the Elvis Costello, Watching-The-Detectives outro? Utterly adorable. And funny. Sherlock (the tv show), for all that it's worlds better, is almost never funny. As much as it pains me to say it, I was wrong. And I'm quite looking forward to episode two. :)

Aaaand, I think that's it. Forgive the mile-long post!

Dark Knight Rises OR How to Get a Literature Nerd to Watch A Superhero Movie

I meant to write this quite a long time ago. As in, day we came home from the movie theater. Turns out, that didn't happen, but oh well.

I'm not usually a fan of superhero movies. Didn't like Hulk. The Spiderman saga got old after the first movie, avoided Iron Man just because Robert Downey Jr. Neither Captain America nor Thor had plots. Yet to see the Avengers, but, with the exception of Loki, I'm not all that interested. Any that I've missed just didn't even hit my radar.
It's been different with the Batman trilogy, a bit. There's a level of emotional complexity that caught my attention. And,  Heath Ledger's Joker was nothing short of inspired. But, even knowing that, when we went to the theater the other night, I would've rather seen Brave. Love a Pixar, me. But the siblings wanted to see Dark Knight Rises, and I'm usually up for anything.
So here's the thought process:
Sat about ten rows ahead of Mum and Dad and Riley with the two older siblings, the really excited ones, clapped for The Hobbit trailer, even though I'd seen it, much to their embarrassment. Looper looks really good, as does Red Dawn. Wow, is that Josh from Drake and Josh? He got older. The Expendables 2. Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stalone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the same movie? Yikes. Then, finally, the movie came on.
Christian Bale has a lisp. You can't hear it, but you can see it, especially because for half the movie, his mouth is the only thing you can see. And I'd half-expected to spend the entire movie stuck on that fact.
And then, Tom Hardy. Is that Tom Hardy? He can't be Tom Hardy. His voice sounds really funny. Oh, my. That is Tom Hardy. Is there such a thing as a better actor than Tom Hardy? I don't think they exist.
So there I am, mildly entertained. Ann Hatheway was such an obvious choice for Cat Woman, but still utterly perfect. Neat little love triangle, her, Batman, and the other chick.
And then it hits me. The French Revolution. This movie is the French Revolution. Lower-to-middle class taking back their town from the corrupt, decadent upper class. Gorgeous historical allusions, lots of socio-political implications for our own time, Vive la Revolution, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and all that. It was a bold move for a movie to make right now, and a classy one for a movie to make ever. The history buff in me was enjoying herself.
The literature nerd in me had just read A Tale of Two Cities.
So in the end (avoiding specifics for the sake of spoilers), by that graveside, with that reading, and the, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known," I almost exploded. Actually, I started clapping, again to Anne and Andrew's embarrassment, but whatever.
And then the movie's over and, as usual, nobody besides my family claps. Seriously, it's like people just think they're entitled to this excellent piece of art that so many artists spent years of their lives perfecting. Whatever.
And then we get out of the theater and I'm grinning and babbling and "But, Daddy, that was Sydney Carton's last soliloquoy from Tale of Two Cities, that thing that they read there at the end, I can show you, I've got the book in the car," faster than either of my parents felt like keeping up with. I did actually have the book in the car, by the way. And I proceded to read the last page aloud. 
So, gorgeous movie, on acting and writing and casting and special effects and all of that; but that ending? THAT, Hollywood, is how you get a Literature Nerd to Love a Superhero Movie.
Also, for the record, I saw that No-THIS-is-the-real-bad-guy twist coming a good five minutes before anybody else. Just saying. ;)

Sad Songs

Check it! In honor of Owl City's new record, releasing tomorrow, here, for your listening pleasure, is Adam Young's Tumblr, on which three of the most recent posts are demos of brand-spanking-new (i.e., newer than the new record) Owl City songs. Also, Adam Young is writing sad songs. Whyyy is he writing sad songs?

Elementary (my dear Watson?)

I've been trying to avoid weighing in on this topic, but it just. keeps. getting. worse. So, um, because I don't want to actually say bad things about this obviously flawed idea, I'mma give you the resources to let you, well, form your own opinions. So here, without further ado, I give you CBS's soon-to-come "original" series, Elementary, coming this Fall. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I think that's the, well, the most prime example, though this first one and this latest one are pretty, erm, telling, also. Though,I guess it could surprise us and be lovely. Anything's possible, and all that. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.
And, THAT is about all I have to say on the subject.

 Well, that and (throwing diplomacy to the wind)....

So I Finally Watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy...

Last night, after the family went to bed. Not how I wanted to do it, I wanted everyone (especially Andrew!) to be able to see it.
But then the movie went and got itself rated R, and for good reason, too. The language was vile, and the bedroom scenes were, though skip-able, uncomfortably and un-family-friendly-ly explicit. I suppose, anything to get viewers, but I don't see the purpose of making the movie worse than the book.  Not that there wasn't . . . stuff, in the book, but it went mostly unstated; and stating the unstated really cheapens the affect.
So I watched it all by my onesie, bore the language, and skipped the gratuitous love scenes.
The main complaint I've seen about the movie is that it's unbelievably difficult to follow. I'm sure that people who have made this complaint would be surprised to learn that it was much, much simpler than the book. It was put in chronological order, several sub-plots and back-stories were shortened or cut all-together, and some minor characters, though having a place of honor in the book, were marginalized. The movie was much less . . . subtle, than the book; which is, I guess, okay. Four-hundred page book to two-ish hour movie, there's going to be some slicing and dicing. It's okay, as long as you hang on to what really matters, which, for the most part, they did.
On the topic of subtlety, two things about the movie really impressed me. One: They never showed Ann's face. George Smiley's lovely, enigmatic Ann, his idealized, idolized, adulterous wife; who keeps him from ever being really, completely rational: the movie very intentionally never showed her face.
Two: The possibility that Bill Haydon and Jim Prideaux had ever been more than best friends went completely unspoken. In the book, in order for it to exist at all, it had to be hinted at in somewhat-specific terms: in the movie, the possibility was there without ever parting with a little bit of delightful ambiguity.
One thing that was handled really well was the atmosphere. Atmosphere was one of the biggest and best parts of the book, and the movie captured it thoroughly. Ugly, nondescript buildings; dark little back rooms absolutely choked with cigarette smoke, gentlemen in expensive, seventies-era suits and leather gloves, drippy gray London afternoons,  sad, sporadic piano music. It was perfect.
Casting, more than anything, is make-or-break with book-to-movie, and in this case, was fantastic. I thought Toby Jones as slimy Percy Alleline would be over-the-top (think: The Dream Lord), but it wasn't. After loving Tom Hardy's Heathcliff in a Masterpiece Classics Wuthering Heights, I did not expect to like his Ricki Tarr, but I did. Loved it, actually, it was like watching a completely different actor, which is impressive. Gary Oldman played George Smiley as cold and reserved and thoroughly competent, but still with the tired and hurting undercurrents from the book. And Colin Firth as the suave, charming, down-to-earth Bill Haydon was nothing short of inspired.
The same kind of inspired the casting of Benedict Cumberbatch for Peter Guillam could have been, if Guillam's character hadn't been, well, shrunk. In the book, he has a couple of really great scenes, scenes where his complexity really comes through. He drives a sports car, and he's young and dashing, which becomes something that Smiley envies. And yet, under the cool exterior he's tortured. He's hitting a bit of a mid-life crises, and he's scared, and he's doubting himself and questioning his actions. And his Camilla, many years his junior and probably not being faithful to him, keeps him distracted and injured. But no. His scenes were trimmed back and scaled down, his part was simplified, and his all-pervading girlfriend was replaced with a one-scene boyfriend. Not that that's the part that bothered me the worst, it wasn't just that I don't want to see my favorite actor play gay. If that was the character, if that was the challenge, then so be it. But that wasn't the character. Mr. Cumberbatch was thoroughly capable of making Guillam everything he was in the book, but I don't think he was given the chance. And depth in characterization is one thing that this movie could not afford to sacrifice. Or maybe I'm just grouchy because my favorite character in the book was not as cool in the movie.


I liked the movie, don't get me wrong, I really did. It was well-done and entertaining and enjoyable and very "grown-up," to quote one of the stars. But, I have to say it, I liked the book a whole lot better.
And I think I'm gonna go start reading the sequel.

How to Listen to Music

Thank you, Adam Young, for saying something I've been trying to say for ages.
In case you don't know, Adam Young is the mind and the talent and the heart behind the beauty that is Owl City (maybe an acquired taste, but I'm getting to that...). He's a very talented musician and lyricist, and incidentally a great blogger.
And in a post last month (this post, actually), he hit on something that's been bugging me for a while.
I get a little neurotic about the music I listen to. Actually, I'm downright self-conscious. I'm really bad about getting into a band on my own, usually I just steal from someone in my family, or occasionally a similarly-minded friend. And when I do discover a band I like, I'm petrified to own up to it. I feel like I have to learn absolutely everything about a band before I admit to liking them, and I'm scared that if I admit to liking them, somebody will have beat me to it, or know something about the band or the music that I don't know and I wind up looking stupid. And if I do discover something on my own, I share it everywhere, try to get my parents and siblings into it, anything I can do; I guess just because I want somebody to tell me that it really is good and it's not just me and it's okay that I like it.
This has been harder here lately, as it would seem that my tastes in music aren't lining up with my families as often as they used to. Mumford and Sons gets on everybody's nerves, Snow Patrol is "dramatic and annoying," come to find out, nobody can take The Feeling seriously because, "But...he's gay!!" and Fleet Foxes (which I listen to more because they're pretty and relaxing than because I actually adore them), well, I haven't been brave enough to play them in front of anyone yet.
Are you staying with me here? General theme=being brave enough to like what I like without caring what other people think. And here's where Adam Young comes in:
"Sometimes people ask me what’s on my iPod that I consider a “guilty pleasure” and I never know how to respond because what I listen to is what I enjoy and I don’t care about deciding something I like is “awkward or uncool” because of who or what it associates me with by default. The whole idea of having a “guilty pleasure” musically has always been weird to me. Why should I feel guilty about liking something I genuinely enjoy?"

I read this, and in my head, it's just like "click!" Okay. I get it now. Thank you, Mr. Young, for making sense.
And all that to say, well, read his blog post. And you know, check out the rest of the blog while you're there. Good stuff. :)

Feeling Successful

Partly because I managed to finish The Importance of Being Earnest. And once I turned it on, the entire family that had been refusing to let me watch it slowly trickled in and sat, spellbound, staring at the television and trembling before the might of Oscar Wilde's wit. But anyway.
Mostly I'm feeling successful, and a bit accomplished, because my sister just came to me to ask for something to read. And after starting for my room to tear through my shelves in search of something ("Something modern!" she says) that the picky miss would take, I remembered: Oh yeah! I finally did it! Broke down and cataloged my library! So I went to my laptop instead, read off titles until I found one that was satisfactory, noted the makeshift call-number, proudly lead her to my bookcase, and made her watch while I put my hand directly to the book she wanted.
Epic win.

~Collected Thoughts~

~The Adventures of Tintin. Which we watched as a family Friday evening. And which was fantastic. I mean, really? You put Steven Moffat, Stephen Spielberg, and Peter Jackson working on the same movie, how in the world is the end result going to be anything but fantastic? And the voice cast, too: there are an incredible number of familiar names on that list. And it was hilarious and very well written, with some very Indiana-Jones-style action and really really great characters. And....well, I won't dwell on it in great detail, but it was definitely worth watching and I highly recommend it.
~Through the Looking Glass. As in, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I read it for the first time earlier this week, and enjoyed it even more than the first one. It makes a bit more sense (if sense is ever a word that can apply to Lewis Carroll) and has a character I adore that I didn't even realize existed. The White Knight=<3
~The Importance of Being Earnest. The 1952 movie version. I've got it on my Netflix queue, and I want very much to finish it, but nobody ever lets me. I'm convinced I'll only get to watch it in five-minute increments when nobody else is in charge of the remote.
~I have a new lovely little friend. For extremely cheap at the Dollar Deals (Like Dollar Tree, only cooler) in town, I got a little pink box I can stick my iPod in and plug it into that lets me turn my iPod into an alarm clock, which is extremely convenient.
~I love liking the same kinds of music as my brother. Because whenever he gets up the gumption (or happens to have pocket money to spare), if I pitch in a bit, he buys music I like but don't feel like buying. Like a thirty-two track cd of Athlete singles. I liiiike Athlete singles. :)
~I really. Really. Really. Really wanna see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's meant to be coming within the next couple of weeks, but I'm getting incredibly impatient.
~And. Erm. I think that's it. Ttfn!

The Finishing of Unfinished Things

I hate having more than one book going at a time. It feels suspiciously like unfinished business, things hanging over me. Unfortunately, it seems to always happen to me. Especially here lately, when I have far more good intentions than I have time. So very recently, I was reading, if you count schoolwork, four separate books at the same time. Last night, however, I finished the last one of four. In that they were finished, they are:
~Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, by John LeCarre. You may remember, from this post dated January 2. Well, anyway, I finally got it back, and managed to finish it.
As much as I hate to admit it, I'm either not old enough or just plain not smart enough for John LeCarre. Tinker Tailor was published in '74, so I'm hoping it's the latter. Either way, I had a hard time keeping up, and a number of pop culture references and what I'm sure must've been jokes sailed over my head. That aside, it was a fantastic book. It's a different kind of spy novel, no car chases or explosions here. Most of the "spying" happens in back rooms and nondescript hotels, and consists of poring over files and papers years old, instead of back-handsprings through laser grids and using laughable gadgets. The plot is slow to get going, but once it finally comes to a point, it's impossible to put down. What kept me reading through the dry spells, though, was the characters. It takes an outrageous amount of focus to keep all the names straight (Wait a minute, which one's Percy again?), but those characters that do actually get developed are great. George Smiley is a hugely endearing little man, and Peter Guillam is impossible to not sympathize with, and so on and so forth down the line. My favorite thing is that each of the characters exists on more than one level. On the surface is the level that's dealing with the plot, rooting out the mole in the midst of their ranks; that's where the excitement and the conflict and the action happens. But running beneath that, for each of them, like a completely separate train of thought in the background, they have their personal struggles. They've each built this wall between their professional and their private lives, but they each struggle to fulfill their tasks with their personal lives screaming for their attention. Smiley, whose wife, everyone knows, is cheating on him; Guillam, for whom middle age is sneaking up fast, and who finds himself far more attached to his much-younger-than-himself girlfriend than he's used to; even little Bill Roach, dealing with the guilt of his parent's divorce. So we get this sense of their all being real people; and of the real story happening beneath the surface.
On a side note, I'm hugely looking forward to getting to see the movie. It's well (very well) cast, all around; and I've heard good things about it. Except for the fact that I'm furious that they took my favorite character, Peter Guillam, took away the thing that he's actually struggling with (his dear, enigmatic Camilla) and turned her into a . . . boyfriend. Not only am I mad about what that will do to the story, I Do Not want to see my favorite actor in that sort of roll.
~A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Yes, like, "It was the best of times..." School assignment, or I never would've read it, believe me. Bit of a confession, I've always hated Charles Dickens. I've never managed to actually finish one of his novels. Seriously, I got halfway through Oliver Twist, halfway through The Pickwick Papers, halfway through A Christmas Carol. So I was sort of behind the eight ball starting A Tale of Two Cities. However, I figured out what I've been doing wrong. I've been trying to read them to myself. Staring at a page, his style felt dry and dull and weighty to me. Then I met the love of my life, Librivox.org. Tagling: "acoustical liberation of books in the public domain." A gentleman, name of Paul Adams, I believe, recorded A Tale of Two Cities. Lifting the words off the page that way, bringing them to life (with a lovely accent and excellent expression, besides) let me experience it in a different way, and helped me appreciate the beauty of Dickens' language and word choice. And it let me keep my sanity by having something to do with my hands while I read, erm, listened. In this case, knitting (which you can appreciate the irony of if you've read the book). And, completely to my surprise, I loved it. I had the house to myself one night, and got through the majority of the book, and found myself cheering and crying and laughing and, well, I loved it. (and really need to go write the character analysis and five-page essay that are both due Friday).
~Where She Went, by Gayle Forman. Sequel to If I Stay, which I read several months ago. I loved the first book, I don't hesitate to say that Gayle Forman is the most talented author out there right now. In a world slowly being eaten up by a score of Stephanie Meyers and Lauren Conrads, Gayle Forman's writing, her actual prose, might as well be Shakespeare. However, I wasn't looking forward to Where She Went. It was a sequel, and rather a needless one, or so I thought. If I Stay was heartbreaking, and to tell the next leg of the story, I felt, absolutely ruined the self-sufficient beauty that was If I Stay. I actually wrote, on my to-do list, the day I picked up Where She Went from the library, "Pick up useless sequel. Ugh."
I was proved wrong, though. Where She Went is beautiful by its own right, and the direction it takes the story that If I Stay started really was worth the telling. It's sad and sweet and not easy to read at all, but has a fantastic ending. There's a vast amount of foul language, though, so I don't recommend it to anyone under fifteen or sixteen, frankly.
~And last, but Certainly Not Least, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Whenever I hear that a book is somebody's favorite, I want to read it. And someone whose tastes I, usually, respect, lists Catcher in the Rye as the one book, above all others, that changed their life. So I got pretty excited about this one. I finally managed to pick up an old, beat-up copy at the second-hand bookstore I frequent. I don't entirely know what I was expecting. I hoped to enjoy it, I guess; reading the Wikipedia article about the book seemed to think that it was all about teenage rebellion, which is, kind of whatever; I don't even know. What I wasn't expecting was for the book to have an effect on my life.
It was slow-going. It's from the point of view of a teenage boy, and written as you would imagine a teenage boy would write his memoirs. The swearing alone made it hard for me to keep on, and there's some pretty shocking content. I got through it, though, although it took me almost two months to do it. It's downright depressing, at points, but I found myself identifying with the main character, Holden Caulfield, a lot more than I'd like to admit. Equal parts lost and stuck, frustrated with the present and no ideas for the future, disgusted with most of the humanity, with the way humanity works, and unable to picture a future that doesn't involve a solitary cabin in the woods (or a cottage by the sea, in my case). And the desperation Holden felt was starting to get me down. Then day before yesterday, I came to the two portions that are, I think the whole point of the book.
The first one comes when Holden is sneaking a midnight visit with his little sister Phoebe, one of few human beings he isn't disgusted with. She's confronting him with the fact that he doesn't like anything, doesn't want to be anything, demanding that he tell her one thing that he thinks is worth living for. Trying to make him find a point to existence. Pretty smart for a little kid. And after thinking for a good long while, he replies,
"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? ...I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in a big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over a cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."
Weeding through what's figurative, and what's nonsense, there, I think what he's saying is that he wants to do something that really matters. He wants to help people who there's nobody else around to help.
The second part that I felt was speaking directly to me, I realized when I went searching in the book for the quote, is about four pages long and doesn't lend itself to being abridged, so I won't try to quote it here. Basically, Holden receives some very wise advice from a very wise person. Advice about finding his place in the world, and what to do when he found it. Advice I can, I think, apply to my own life in some way. So, I wound up enjoying (and getting more out of) Catcher in the Rye than I'd hoped.

So I'm feeling pretty accomplished. You know, like, maybe trying to finish all the other half-finished projects in my life. Ehh, maybe tomorrow.

Good Christian B****es

...if you'll pardon my French. It is, in fairness, the title of a television series, not a personal sentiment.
Well, sort of the title of a television series. It's the title of a novel, by one Miss Kim Gatlin, which I have not read, my library does not have, and I am therefore not able to give any kind of commentary on, positive or negative.
It is NOT the title of the ABC drama based on aforementioned novel. Originally, the series was to be titled identical to the novel, but "Christians" made enough of a stir that ABC backed down. After toying with the idea of "Good Christian Belles," they settled, ambiguously, on "GCB."
This was several months ago. Just a couple of days ago, the pilot of this already-scandalous series aired. Not being much of a tv watcher (at least, not current, American television), it didn't hit my radar.
One friend on Facebook, about a day ago, posted a status reading, "Cleavage makes your cross hang straight." At the time I took it for quaint colloquialism or social commentary. I didn't realize that it was one of a couple of marketing catchphrases for the show (others being "Just remember that the higher the hair, the closer to heaven;" "I'm a devout Christian, and I think wearing Christine Dior is divine," and "I like gossiping with you because it's the only time I know you're not gossiping about me.")
The series comes to us from the people who gave us Sex and the the City and the writer of Steel Magnolias: which may or may not be a pretty dead giveaway of what to expect. Here (youtube) you can find the extended trailer. And while I don't usually recommend reading youtube comments, these are a pretty good sampling of reactions to the show. Christians saying "how dare they?" a handful of the more bitter elsewise saying "Finally, somebody's making fun of Christians," and a sensible middle-of-the-road saying, "People, don't get your panties in a bunch," "It's just television, and not particularly good television at that," and "Isn't Blake dreamy?"
Frankly, I'm with that last group. Okay, not so much on the Blake part, but the rest of it, yah. It's television, and ABC drama, which (I am sorry) means it sucks. Or is going to suck. Or something like that. Mildly Entertaining and Mind-Numbing is basically the best it can hope for on a scale of Desperate Housewives to Good Entertainment.
The title isn't a barefaced insult, it's a colloquialism. And I quote: "Good Christian Bitches' has been a term used for a certain Texas cultural subset for over 30 years, since I was in high school. The moment I first saw the title, I knew who it was about, where it took place and how the characters behaved. It's not about faith, it's about a current meme in which the subscribers use their faith (and a lot of other things like money) as a yardstick and a weapon and look, to the rest of us, decidedly un-Christian. If you don't understand the title, give the show a shot: you might be pleasantly surprised (and even recognize a couple of ladies from your PTA or church)." Courtesy, imdb message boards for the series. Full post, with replies, here.
And even were it not an already-standing figure of speech, oftentimes the "good," "Christian" belles of the Deep South can be, frankly, well, let's just say that the term is not entirely undeserved. I've never seen that part of Dallas (look here for an idea of the Dallas I've seen), but I've met my fair share of these belles. Ladies who might actually say, "I feel certain the Good Lord wants me to have a new fur coat," (~GCB character Gigi Stopper). I live in the part of the country where "Christianity" gets used as a means of ignoring or abusing anything we don't like or understand, where God must surely be white and republican, and so forth.
My Christianity, my God, is the most important thing in the world to me. I'm completely His, my life is entirely devoted to doing His will, I trust Him implicitly and love Him more than anything else. Period. I know that, sometimes, with the unpopular opinions I express on this blog, it may not sound like it. I'm a bit liberal in my thinking to fit into the expectations of a quote-on-quote Christian, but isn't that kind of the point? Bear with me.
Yes, my God is the most important thing to me. Yes, it makes me squeamish to see the way the title of this television show, the ladies on this television show, and so on, making "Christians" look bad. Yes, the title is offensive. Yes, their behavior, and in the name of Christ, no less, makes me uncomfortable. Yes, it's a melodramatic caricature. But what is the purpose of a caricature? Not to create flaws that aren't there, but to play them up in the name of satire. In this case, in the name of social commentary and prime-time television.
Yes, I'm bothered by these things. No, I won't watch the show. But to my fellow Christians saying that GCB is blasphemy or hate-speech and asking why it's okay to say Good Christian Bitches, but heaven help us if we say anything about the (insert other religion here, usually, predictably, Muslims); maybe. Maybe, for once, One Million Moms is barking up the right tree, maybe this is going to grieve the heart of God. Maybe. Do I think censorship, boycotting ABC (I mean, people, stop watchin AFV to get at GCB?), and harassing companies who advertise during the show is the correct way to respond? No. Do I have slightly less respect for the Home School Legal Defense Association after seeing their appeal to facebook followers to participate in such a campaign of boycotting and harassment? Indeed.
But what I'm really, actually, actively saying here is this: Maybe we shouldn't have let it come to this. Not "Christians should be more involved in legislation" or "God wants America to be a theocracy," stuff. Oh my, no. More like, if we'd been doing our job and deserving our name, living up to the example and the work Christ left us, it would never have come to this. In short, if we don't want to be called b*****s, we shouldn't have acted like b*****s in the first place.

Vincent van Gogh: Painted With Words OR When Did This Blog Become About Reviewing Things?

No, seriously, I don't know, but I keep watching movies, and I keep wanting to say something about them, and the best place to do that is this blog, which has so narrow a readership I needn't fear scaring readers away by talking about things that don't interest them. Yes, I know, my opinion doesn't actually matter. But I get a kick out of writing these things, and I'm sure as anything not going to post them to Facebook.

Painted With Words was another youtube find (six fifteen-minute videos this time), another BBC film I'd heard good things about and wanted to see for myself.
It consists of really well-played drama, interspersed with informational narration from one Mr. Alan Yentob, who was also instrumental in piecing the film together.
When I say piecing together, I mean it quite literally. The movie was made up entirely of real letters, mostly between Vincent and his younger brother Theo. It also used the actual testimonies of people who knew the artist. I can neither fathom nor appreciate the amount of work that must have gone into this project! To assemble all of that information, to painstakingly go through it and piece it together into a script and a screenplay? It's absolutely incredible. But it's so wonderful to know, as you're watching the movie, that it has absolute truth. This isn't opinion. No one has had the opportunity to color or distort or manipulate things to bend a viewer's opinion of the life of the biographee (a word my word processor tells me is incorrect but the dictionary assures me actually exists). And at moments, throughout the film, when one feels as though something were too good, or to bad, to be entirely true, there's a sort of comfort in knowing that it is.
It was a great performance, acting wise, on all fronts; but especially from the gentleman in the title role. To take a real person, and to bring him so completely alive, until the viewer feels as though they might just reach through the screen and touch it; well, it is doubtless the mark of talent. Actors are often praised for being moving, for evoking sympathy from the audience, but this went a step further. What I felt was not sympathy, but compassion. An absolutely irrational wish that I could have been born a hundred and fifty years ago, just to have had a chance to make some difference in the life of this mad, hurting, terrifically lonesome artist. As acting, this steps beyond talent to genius.
Visually, the movie is stunning. I could tell, almost, that filmmakers were trying to make their viewers see things as Vincent must have; trying to express the beauty he found in nature.
Also worth mentioning, in the field of things visual, that some of the asides from the narrator (which gave facts and information about the events of van Gogh's life) were filmed in the actual locations spoken of. An art supply store or a bar the artist frequented, a house he lived in! It had a sort of way tying it all together, the past and the present.
And there's something to be said about a movie that makes you want to learn things. As I watched, I found myself infuriated by not recognizing the names of other artists mentioned in passing, as contemporaries of van Gogh or influences on his style. I wished I already knew every name of every painter, and could connect the name in my head with style, with principal works, with biographical data even! And while I may not act on this infuriation (i.e. making a study of every famous painter ever), there's something to be said for the fact that Painted with Words made me want to.
About the man himself, Vincent van Gogh strikes me as, over all, incredibly unlucky. I never knew, before tonight, that he tried and failed both to enter the church and to go into missionary work before deciding to be a painter. Unlucky in love, unlucky in relationships, terrifically unlucky in how ill-received his work was. But more than that, it seems to me that he just had too much passion to get on well in the normal world. I can't imagine anyone I've ever known, myself very much included, to have the capability of ever feeling anything a half, a quarter, as deeply as van Gogh did. We see this in his work, and, through this movie, in his letters; to quote his brother (somewhere towards the end of the movie), "Life weighed so heavily on him."
Throughout the movie van Gogh speaks of the obligation, the duty even, that he feels to make something of his talent, to leave something to the world, as a way of saying thank you. Almost ironic, when you look at how very little the world ever did for him; and yet...apparently he didn't see it that way.
I don't often cry during movies; and, as these things go, Painted with Words wouldn't be classified as a tearjerker. I sobbed, though; less at the end, when the artist died, than about three-quarters of the way through. There was a bit of monologue from his younger brother Theo about Vincent's sad state of mental health, given while he was perusing Vincent's most recent paintings. Hearing the person who loved and knew Vincent the best talk about how troubled and hurting he was, while looking at the fantastic beauty of his paintings; I didn't start really crying until it came to Starry Night.
The quote that maybe sums it all up best comes, not from Painted with Words, but, unsurprisingly, Doctor Who (and, whatever you do, do NOT watch the last ten minutes of Vincent and the Doctor immediately after finishing Painted with Words, unless you are alone, with plenty of tissues, and actually enjoy crying), "Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all...He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world, no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind [van Gogh] was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived."

If you want to watch the movie, which you really should, you can find a youtube playlist for it here, and in case the playlist goes down ('cause there's nothing I hate more than a broken link), the first video is here.
As for my favorite parts, or favorite quotes, well, really, just watch the whole thing, and you'll understand why I can't pick favorites.

A Must-See Movie; and One to Avoid at All Costs

So here lately, I've been saving up a movie or something to watch on Friday night after I go to bed. Earlier this week, I stumbled across one on youtube that I've been wanting to see for some time, popped it into my watch-later, and waited rather impatiently.
This movie was the 2004 BBC drama entitled simply, Hawking.
Now, to a member of my family watching this, it may appear that I have happened upon a rather unlikely fixation with the scientist, as I rather mysteriously added a documentary (Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking) to our Netflix instant queue earlier this month. Thing is, it was rather a series of unfortunate events. I thought that the one (Into the Universe) was the other (Hawking), and so added it by mistake. Imagine my surprise when what I saw bizarre animations of what aliens might look like instead of the emotional biography I was expecting.
Well, anyway, Hawking was the one I was looking for, and I've just finished it (in nine ten-minute parts, thank you uploading limits) on youtube.
All I can say is wow. There's such a story there, a story I never knew existed; and it's so very beautifully told in this little documentary. It's a love story, and a success story, and it was so very worth ninety minutes of my life. I don't want to hold cheap the events of this amazing man's life by pretending to understand them or trying to explain them, so all I can really say is, well, wow.
The movie itself was extremely well-done; well cast and very well acted (which was to be expected); and maybe what impressed me most was how very tastefully it was done. Sometimes with things like this, television or movies that depict physical disability, the effect is . . . uncomfortable. Makes the viewer uncomfortable, embarrassed for the actor or the person portrayed, squeamish. You know the feeling I'm talking about, when you can't help but look away from the screen for a moment because you can't bear to watch. But this? This wasn't. Hawking showed faithfully the physical condition of Mr. Hawking, but did so in a dignified and beautiful and very human manner, and did not fall to discomfiting the viewer to make a point.
All the same, it is a very hard movie to watch. It is solemn, and saddening to watch a healthy young man have a progressively harder and harder time with day-to-day tasks, and yet there are moments of such joy, and such beauty, and such success that it doesn't feel like a sad movie. Brought to mind is a quote from Doctor Who, which can really be applied to any life, but seems especially apropos in this situation, "The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things; but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant."
Some links for your enjoyment:
Watch the movie starting here.
See my favorite bits here and here.
And a quote, the very end of the movie, that really sums it all up: "I believe in the possible. I believe, small though we are, insignificant though we may be, we can reach a full understanding of the universe. You were right, when you said you felt small, looking up at all that out there. We are very very small, but we are profoundly capable of very very big things."



And in other news, if anyone ever tries to make you watch the relatively recent Christian movie Cutback, chances are they want you dead. For some reason. Insurance money, perhaps? At the very least, I would question their loyalty to you as a friend. Because this movie is something that I, who pride myself on being at least a relatively decent person, would not wish this movie on my worst enemy. Perhaps it's cruel of me to say, but the acting was physically painful, the story has been told three-million times over (a few of these times being somewhat more enjoyable than this particular one), the title was a sad attempt at a pun or a metaphor or something, and overall, it was just one of those Christian movies that make us all look like idiots. I mean, really. The only people who watch these movies, with their rebellious teenagers, their struggling marriages, their weepy salvation scenes, and the way everything is hunky-dory the minute you pray that stupid prayer, are Christians themselves! The only people who take these movies seriously are Christians themselves. So, then, what is the point of making another misguided-bad-boy-lead-to-Christ-by-the-cute-perky-church-girl-from-school movie when there are enough of them already? The ones that exist aren't doing the unsaved much good, so please, Please, stop inflicting this over-used drivel on the world!
And as if all of that wasn't enough, everybody was really, really good looking. The main character was decidedly Zac Efron-esque, the love interest was drop-dead gorgeous, with perfect, curly red hair and a pixie-ish nose, the mum was super-skinny and trendy, the youth pastor had long blond hair, big blue eyes, and a surfer-boy tan. Because the way to lead people to the love and mercy of Jesus Christ is to convince them that Christians are all really, really good-looking.
Lord, have mercy on us. Is this what we're doing to the message of the cross?

Crazy Things My Youth Pastor Says

Really, this could be a blog all in and of itself, as I am sure I could get an amen on from any one of several people.
Last night, though, was something.
The discussion was revolving slowly around the topics of the Holy Spirit, discernment, being on our guard against evil spirits, eisegesis vs. exegesis, and the Bereans of Acts 17. This lead to discussing Joel Osteen, American Family Radio, and other people in the world of pseudo- and "American" Christianity whose theology is askew. Which lead, in turn, to other things we have to be careful of, to check for biblical correctness. Namely, music.
Now, yeah, I'll buy that. There are "Christian" bands whose lyrics are theologically incorrect, I've been bothered by them before.
But then my youth pastor pointed a finger at one of my favorite worship bands, Unhindered. A lyric in one of their songs says, "Father will you come, open up our eyes, fill us with Your heart, renew us with Your life. Consume us with Your majesty."
According to my youth pastor, these lyrics are unbiblical. Yes, cue head-spinning, blinking, re-reading sentence, re-reading lyrics. That was my reaction too. Apparantly, it is invoking the wrong member of the triune Godhead. it is asking the "Father" to fulfill the duties of the "Holy Spirit" (eye-opening/illuminating, filling/indwelling, spiritual renewal). Yes. Okay. Technically correct. But it's a song, people! It's a work of art! And if we're going to be dogmatic about it, I suppose it should be
"Father, in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, would you send Your Holy Spirit to (illuminate/indwell/renew)."
Yeah. By this point, we've thrown meter, rhyme, and rhythm out the window.

But wait, it gets better. He went on to say, "And then we've got secular music. We've all listened to it, with its, just, the completely meaningless, *well, I went to the grocery store* or *driving in my car* stuff, and..."
There was more hemming and hawwing and tiptoeing around his point, but, basically, if music isn't about God, it is inherently meaningless. Unless, of course, it's inherently evil (which, I'll admit, happens more frequently than I'd wish).
As someone who listens to an awful lot of music, much of it not technically "Christian" in nature, it was incredibly difficult not to at least roll my eyes at this statement.
I mean, I'm sorry, but this simply isn't true!! I mean, they're just not! Yeah, there's some meaningless fluff out there (...And I was like, baby...), but there are some, technically secular, artists and musicians whose lyrics are plenty meaningful. Lori Mckenna and Athlete are the only ones that come immediately to mind, but that's just because I'm weird and don't get out much. I'm sure there are others. These people sing about the lives they lead, about the things that happen to them, about life and love and family and relationships and emotions. And yeah, if they're not in a relationship with Christ, these things have not the fullness of Love and Truth and Meaning that a life with Christ can have; but that doesn't mean that they are inherently meaningless. It's human life! It's the human condition! It's the achingly, heart-breakingly, ecstatically beautiful imperfection of everything it means to be alive! To make my point:
~It's about those little near-misses in life that mean everything: "Take all your chances while you can. You never know when they'll pass you by. Like a sum the mathematician cannot solve; Like me trying my hardest to explain. It's all about your cries and kisses, those first steps that I can't calculate..." Athlete, Chances.
It's about searching for meaning and purpose and direction in life: "I would like to think our paths are straight. Disconnected from choices we make. That there is no reason why it can't be like you said. One day, it's gonna happen. I don't know when I'll be on your street. One day, it's gonna happen, and you're gonna be swept off your feet." Athlete, Streetmap
~It's about losing somebody you love: "25 to 10, another day begins. I can't believe that you slipped away. I'm sure this can't be really happening. It seemed like time just stopped when my head dropped. Just come back for one day, 'cause there's so much I never got to say. Just come back for one day, so I can remember your face. . . And maybe, one day, I'll see you again, but until then, I'll see you in the morning." Athlete, Lay Your Head (See also: Lori McKenna, Never Die Young or Still Down Here; Athlete, It's Not Your Fault).
~It's about living life simply: "No diamonds in our bathtub rings, peanut butter on everything. No thrills, no fuss; perfectly us, unglamorous." Lori Mckenna, Unglamorous
(See also: Lori Mckenna, The Most)
It's about how much they love their kids: "There's a rule me and my little boy have
You've got to say 'I love you' before you close your eyes. Then he can dream himself to sleep and I can pray or cry. One thing I have taught him well is to never wonder why. Why wonder why?" Lori McKenna, Mars
"I'm not letting go just yet, though everything is telling me to. It's not the way I am made, oh. With you I never lose. . . First fight, first fall, first speak-and-spell; You've got me wrapped around your finger. First love, first kiss, you'll never ever know just how fragile it is." Athlete, With You I Never Lose (See also, Athlete, Corner of My Baby's Eye, or Wires)
It's about the simplicity of childhood: "Before you met me, I was a fairy princess. I caught frogs and called them prince and made myself the queen. And before you knew me, I traveled 'round the world, and i slept in castles, and fell in love, because I was taught to dream. I found mayonnaise bottles and poked holes on top to capture Tinkerbell; and they were just fireflies to the untrained eye, but I could always tell..." Lori Mckenna, Fireflies
"He can play all by himself for many hours. I have never seen a kid who's so content
There is nothing from the outside that can touch him, cos he's just learning how to be alone with one. I saw you smiling; And i need my vehicles and animals, and i will be alright. Take me back to nineteen seventy nine so i can find my open eyes." Athlete, Vehicles and Animals

And then there's Witness to Your Life and Mr. Sunshine and The Awkward Goodbye and Rubik's Cube and Light the Way and Black Swan and OH. MY. GOODNESS!!!!!
These emotions, these people, these things that they create, are not automatically invalid because they are not, technically, about the God who created them!!! Didn't the God who created people, create the emotions that they feel and the things that happen to them? And those emotions do not become void if the God of Heaven is not the Lord of their lives!
I love my youth pastor to pieces anyway ("Bless his heart," as they say here in the South), but sometimes I hear his opinions and I wonder how we can possibly be from the same species.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

As promised, full write up or the epicness that was finishing the eight-part series conclusion in one emotionally draining afternoon.
We've been watching this show as a family for upwards of six months. Six months, people. I'm not sure whether that seems like a forever's worth of the same thing every night, or a fantastically short amount of time to have sped through seven seasons. Back when seasons were more than six or twelve episodes long.
As difficult as it is to admit, I'm a trekkie. Can't get away from it, and this? This is the one that really did it. You don't exactly have to be die-hard to get into Enterprise (I mean, really people. Trip Tucker?), which is the first series we watched, then there was a brief stint with Voyager (we found it, well, annoying), and there have been others over the years, but this one is the one I've really fallen in love with.
It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, though.
There's the acting, which, compared to a lot of other Star Trek stuff I've seen, is really, actually, good. It's really good. And really good acting goes far with me.
The writing is top-notch too, which is a huge contributor. There were a couple of really clever decisions made early on that allowed it to stay really good for really long. I mean, Enterprise got rubbish around season three. DS9 made it seven seasons and held my attention to the end.
There were several major story arcs, and countless minor ones, that were developed by turns throughout the series; all of which were cleverly woven together near the very end, so that everything terminated satisfactorily at the same time.
A similar trick was used with the characters: there is no one protagonist. Seriously, you could chase yourself around in circles for hours saying, "It's him! No, it's her! No, it's got to be him." And that's the thing, it's all of them. There were eight or nine "protagonists," all equally well-developed, all equally well-rounded.
Setting the series on a space station rather than a starship did wonders for the character development. Allowing the characters to be more stationary, keeping them in one place, together, for an extended period of time, living something vaguely like "normal" life gave opportunity to make the characters deeper and more complex. We really watched each individual, and all of their relationships, change and develop naturally over time.
So with a variety of plot-lines and characters to choose from, a great setting play them in, and the endless adaptability and repeatability of the science-fiction genre, it really could've gone on forever; which made it all the more admirable that they ended it when they did. To stop something at a show at the right time, even when you could've milked another couple seasons out out of it at least, is one of the most honorable things a series can do in my book. Second, maybe, to killing the main character.
DS9 also had one of the single-best (perhaps the very best) instances of an unresolved-sexual-tension, will-they-or-won't-they relationship of ALL time. If it's second to any at all, it would be Mulder and Scully on the X-Files. The recipe is simple: set up the perfect couple, get viewers emotionally invested, cruelly wrench viewer's heart out at every given opportunity, repeat as necessary. Such a plot device is sure to keep viewers (especially female viewers, especially female viewers within a certain age bracket) coming back for more no matter how awful the show is, or what other junk the writers try to shove at you. I mean, seriously, I don't think I ever had any other reason for reading Nancy Drew books than to see if Ned was ever going to break down and propose. How much more so when the rest of the show is actually really good.
Meet Doctor Bashir and Lieutenant (I think?) Jadzia (at least, at first) Dax. The relationship is introduced in, literally, the very first episode of the very first season. We, or at least I, fall in love with the couple from square one. We watch each character grow and develop; watch them fall more and more in love with each other, fume as other; one-episode love interests crop up for one or the other of them. Standard stuff? Well, at first. Then they marry the girl off to another guy, and then they kill her off, and they still managed to get themselves out of it in time for a declaration and a kiss in the turbo-lift on the second-to-last episode of the seventh season. Talk about dragging it out!

So needless to say I have enjoyed this series immensely, and then today we had to go and finish it. The conclusion came in eight parts, the last of which was a two-hour special, so it took essentially the entire day, but we managed it. I'm wishing now we hadn't. It was sort of that Day-after-Christmas let-down, or turning the last page of a really great book. Cool, but slightly depressing.




.....so we turned around and watched the first episode of Stargate: SG1................

Hm. Seems like forever since I've gotten to my blog. I always manage to talk myself out of it. I've done it about thirty times, always the same thing. I'll be attempting to do school, my mind will wander from my pointless Spanish exercises, I find myself bored half-to tears. In search of something to temporarily alleviate the boredom, I will make up my mind to blog. I will then realize that I am currently logged in to my Other Google Account, the one hooked up to my youtube account; and that I am currently using my youtube account to play my fantastically long Athlete playlist on loop; and that I might, actually, die if I turn off the music. I consider trying to find the email address that allows me to post to my blog remotely, realize I can't find it without logging into the account or getting up and finding the notebook I wrote it down in, so Igive up on that idea. I then decide that I do not want to blog after all.


You guys? School really is awful right now. Spanish has been boring since square one, Physics is failing to hold my attention like chemistry did (and the experiments are 78% more pointless), and Geometry is, well, geometry. Points and arcs and angles and line segments and calculating things. Even English has failed me. It's been fantastic this far, but I'm . . . just . . . bored! I'm mired halfway through Wuthering Heights (which under normal circumstances I probably would've enjoyed immensely), I'm supposed to be starting A Severe Mercy tomorrow, and I still have a five-page essay due on If Emma Was So Clever, Why Didn't She Realize That She Was A Dim-Witted Moron; or something like that (My English teacher/curriculum's idea, not mine).
I think I'm discovering what senioritis feels like. I can't focus worth anything. I don't WANT to be doing this anymore. I'm sick of it, and I wish I was anywhere else. I feel lazy and slow and my head feels thick and I can't stay on topic. I have an astronomical deficit of care, and it's really interfering with my whole "finish well" outlook on life.
But Anyway.

In other news, well, what other news is there? Oh! I got my desk. It's lovely and off-white and antique-ey and has lovely brass handles and scrolled legs and lots of drawer space and I love it.
I got my trip to the Friends-of-the-Local-Library book sale this month, which is always a delight and a pleasure. Paper-back classics at twenty-five cents a pop, can't argue with that. To my even greater delight, I managed to fit The Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World (plus two other Aldous Huxley novels I'd never heard of), Teh Silmarillion, Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Paradise Lost, Emma, Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jane Eyre, The Canterbury Tales, Peter Pan, The Merchent of Venice, and more on my little, already-overflowing bookshelf. A successful trip, I'd say, for all the shocking lack of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
My little brother turned thirteen, and consequently got a facebook account. I'm feeling positively ancient.
Reese got on an airplane and left the country to study at a Bible college in South America. I miss her terribly already, but she's right where God wants her and I know she's going to have lots of fantastic adventures.
Mr. John's crazy-person scheme of making the youth group read through the Bible in ninety days. Which works out to about eighteen chapters a day. Which has been utterly miserable. Reading the Bible shouldn't feel this much like a chore, and I'm getting next to nothing out of it (though reading half of Proverbs, all of Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon, and part of Isaiah in one day was, shall I say, interesting).
Athlete. As in, British pop/alternative (or something like that) band, which is delightful and wonderful and addictive. Quite the drug. It gets me through my school work. And pretty much anything else unpleasant I find myself having to do. Their lyrics are clever and their music is enthralling, if you like good music, if you have a brain, if you are currently breathing/have a pulse, go to youtube and look these guys up. They're fantastic. :)
John Keats's Ode to a Nightingale. In love with it, accidentally memorizing it, doodling it everywhere. Yeah.

We finished Star Trek: Deep Space Nine tonight. Which is rather more epic than it sounds. But it is rather epic enough that to deal with it fully, I would need to go on for some time, and this post is already alarmingly long. So I'll cover that in another post. So, yeah. Great to be blogging again. Thanks for reading, have a great day, etc, etc.
~Ella

Collected Thoughts of a Long Day

~I hate mini-blinds. Pure, simple, unadulterated hatred. I hate dusting them, I hate that they exist, I hate them.

~I found a forty-some-song-long Athlete playlist on Youtube. Which made the cleaning of the mini-blinds slightly more bearable.

~The oldoldold Star Trek (Think: Captain Kirk) is Severely Sexist. Like, enough to bug even me, which is hard. I'm no die-hard feminist by any means.

~This. Ageanalyzer, you plug in a blog URL and it tells you the "age" of the blogger. Apparently, I blog like a 36-50 year-old woman. Woohoo.

~And lastly, even though I seriously try to avoid fannish-things here (I know, I fail pretty often) because nobody really cares, it's January sixth. Twelfth night. Which, according to some, is Sherlock Holmes' "birthday." So, the attempt to resist the temptation has failed, here you go:

221B

Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die:
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game’s afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet, for all our fears–
Only those things the heart believes are true.
A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street:
A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five.

– Vincent Starrett