Okay. I know, I'm a bad person, it's been entirely too long since I've been on. Is it lame to say that life has just been Too Insane here lately?
So, umm, I'm going to actually be logging off my blogger. It'll be a while before I'm back on, but hopefully I'll be able to come back with a vengeance and be my old blogging self.
Here's to a week (two tops) of doing whatever the homeschool equivalent of cramming for finals is.
Love always,
Me
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Saturday, April 28, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, April 16, 2012
......I might've just gotten my first rejection letter.
Okay, I did just get my first rejection letter.
From a magazine I sent a story (funny, I don't even remember which story) to a couple months ago.
"...We appreciate that you think enough of...to want your work to appear in our pages, and we reviewed your submission respectfully and with care but decided not to accept your work for publication..."
It's funny, my little brother is asking me to explain to him why this is a good thing, and I can't entirely explain it, but it definitely, definitely is.
May it be the first of many. Meep!
Okay, I did just get my first rejection letter.
From a magazine I sent a story (funny, I don't even remember which story) to a couple months ago.
"...We appreciate that you think enough of...to want your work to appear in our pages, and we reviewed your submission respectfully and with care but decided not to accept your work for publication..."
It's funny, my little brother is asking me to explain to him why this is a good thing, and I can't entirely explain it, but it definitely, definitely is.
May it be the first of many. Meep!
Saturday, April 14, 2012
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. :)
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. :)
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
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.
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.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Today was a good day. Sundays, lately, aren't always, with the people-drama and such; but today was good.
First was, obviously, church. Helped Mum with stuff, hung around with preschoolers, chatted with people I haven't talked to in a while, snagged a few minutes to talk to my bestie about, of all things, the Hunger Games, among other things. The worship set was utterly fantastic. Our God Saves, Psalms 3 set to music, How He Loves, and Chris Tomlin's Our God. I adore Our God; it's one of the ones we sang over and over again in Dallas, and listening and worshiping to it this morning, for a moment I was back there, on campus in Garden Valley. I'd forgotten how much I miss it. After worship, I sort of ditched on sermon and helped Mum in Worship Arts Ministry (WAM for short) instead. Which consisted of listening to/helping with the first-fourth graders work on their part for Children of God, yes the Third Day song, yes it's going to be incredibly cute, with the worship leader; watching them have a blast free-worshiping to irritating kids music, grape-vining around in a circle with some of the youngest members of the dance group, and leading the whole group in a rehash of their hip-hop project however many months ago, MaryMary's Shackles. And then, I swear, it was the cutest thing ever. Mum asked the class the question "Why is God worthy of our praise?"
You had the standard Sunday-school answers (He made us, He died on the cross for us, etc.), and then you had first-fourth grade boys. I love first-fourth grade boys. Just a sampling:
"God is stronger than two light-sabers.""
"God is bigger than twenty tractors."
"God is stronger than the big guy with the mohawk on Ben 10."
After church we came home, ate lunch (quickly), and then left. To go on a social visit. Confession: I didn't want to go. Nothing against the people, it was a relatively new family from church that I've been wanting badly to get to know better; but it meant being "on" as Mum would put it. Dad couldn't understand it for the life of him, but for me, as much as I like some people, nine times out of ten I will get out of a social situation if I can. I'm no good at it, and I feel like I get locked out of my own head, and I turn into this annoying person with nothing useful to say, and I never ever know what to do with myself, and it's just . . . ugh. And after a particularly trying week of school, today I just wanted to curl up on the couch and nap.
.....I had so. Much. Fun. I couldn't believe how comfortable I felt, or how easy it came. They have teenagers, two girls a bit younger than me and a guy my age; which was part of why I was so nervous (I'm not good with people my own age I haven't known since forever), but it was kind of . . .perfect. We (me, Andrew and Anne, and the three of them) were all piled into their living room, with the adults on the other end of the house, and there was Mario Party and Man Vs. Wild and Prince of Egypt and, of all things, the yuck documentary Food, Inc. Seriously, it's nasty. Don't watch it if you ever want to enjoy food again. Which is exactly what I said earlier to (okay, I'm going to have to come up with blog-names for these people); and within thirty seconds it was playing. And, I don't know, I guess I just don't act like that much of a kid very often; but it was uncomplicated and kind of perfect.
The youngest girl is almost fourteen and hugely fun. It's her I was already friends with, as we have a love for dance ministry in common. The older girl is quieter, more introverted, and I think we have more in common, but because of that, we have a hard time getting to know each other. And, wonder of wonders, I think I might, kind of, have a friend...who's a guy. Or at least, a male acquaintance, near my own age, whom I can hold a three-word conversation with without stupidity. How weird is that?
I also discovered a very bad habit of mine. Well, I've known I had it, I just didn't realize how dangerous it has the potential to be. And that habit is, I tend to mirror accents. Not intentionally, certainly not to be rude, I just . . .do it. Which is really bad when your hosts are from a Spanish-speaking country. -_-
First was, obviously, church. Helped Mum with stuff, hung around with preschoolers, chatted with people I haven't talked to in a while, snagged a few minutes to talk to my bestie about, of all things, the Hunger Games, among other things. The worship set was utterly fantastic. Our God Saves, Psalms 3 set to music, How He Loves, and Chris Tomlin's Our God. I adore Our God; it's one of the ones we sang over and over again in Dallas, and listening and worshiping to it this morning, for a moment I was back there, on campus in Garden Valley. I'd forgotten how much I miss it. After worship, I sort of ditched on sermon and helped Mum in Worship Arts Ministry (WAM for short) instead. Which consisted of listening to/helping with the first-fourth graders work on their part for Children of God, yes the Third Day song, yes it's going to be incredibly cute, with the worship leader; watching them have a blast free-worshiping to irritating kids music, grape-vining around in a circle with some of the youngest members of the dance group, and leading the whole group in a rehash of their hip-hop project however many months ago, MaryMary's Shackles. And then, I swear, it was the cutest thing ever. Mum asked the class the question "Why is God worthy of our praise?"
You had the standard Sunday-school answers (He made us, He died on the cross for us, etc.), and then you had first-fourth grade boys. I love first-fourth grade boys. Just a sampling:
"God is stronger than two light-sabers.""
"God is bigger than twenty tractors."
"God is stronger than the big guy with the mohawk on Ben 10."
After church we came home, ate lunch (quickly), and then left. To go on a social visit. Confession: I didn't want to go. Nothing against the people, it was a relatively new family from church that I've been wanting badly to get to know better; but it meant being "on" as Mum would put it. Dad couldn't understand it for the life of him, but for me, as much as I like some people, nine times out of ten I will get out of a social situation if I can. I'm no good at it, and I feel like I get locked out of my own head, and I turn into this annoying person with nothing useful to say, and I never ever know what to do with myself, and it's just . . . ugh. And after a particularly trying week of school, today I just wanted to curl up on the couch and nap.
.....I had so. Much. Fun. I couldn't believe how comfortable I felt, or how easy it came. They have teenagers, two girls a bit younger than me and a guy my age; which was part of why I was so nervous (I'm not good with people my own age I haven't known since forever), but it was kind of . . .perfect. We (me, Andrew and Anne, and the three of them) were all piled into their living room, with the adults on the other end of the house, and there was Mario Party and Man Vs. Wild and Prince of Egypt and, of all things, the yuck documentary Food, Inc. Seriously, it's nasty. Don't watch it if you ever want to enjoy food again. Which is exactly what I said earlier to (okay, I'm going to have to come up with blog-names for these people); and within thirty seconds it was playing. And, I don't know, I guess I just don't act like that much of a kid very often; but it was uncomplicated and kind of perfect.
The youngest girl is almost fourteen and hugely fun. It's her I was already friends with, as we have a love for dance ministry in common. The older girl is quieter, more introverted, and I think we have more in common, but because of that, we have a hard time getting to know each other. And, wonder of wonders, I think I might, kind of, have a friend...who's a guy. Or at least, a male acquaintance, near my own age, whom I can hold a three-word conversation with without stupidity. How weird is that?
I also discovered a very bad habit of mine. Well, I've known I had it, I just didn't realize how dangerous it has the potential to be. And that habit is, I tend to mirror accents. Not intentionally, certainly not to be rude, I just . . .do it. Which is really bad when your hosts are from a Spanish-speaking country. -_-
~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!
~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!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
I Can Write a Personal Post, No, Really
Remember when this blog used to be about me? Like, what I'm doing, what I've done, what I'm going to do?
Yeah, me neither. But I think that's, technically, what I set out to do when I started this blog. Back before it was about books and movies and stuffs. I think I can still do that, though I'm not quite sure. Here goes, I guess.
It occurred to me, the other day, that I'm deliriously happy right now. Which is kind of strange, because I don't often feel all that happy. Sometimes I think I'm downright miserable. But I'm waking up every morning with a great big grin on my face, because I'm in love with my lovely little bedroom, and there's only about ten steps between me and my first cup of coffee. I love saying good morning to my parents and pouring a bowl of cereal and sweet-talking my precious kitty. I'm actually enjoying the whole eighteen-pages-a-day Bible reading thing; and as much as I complain, and as stir-crazy as it makes me sometimes, I really love how much I get to devote myself to my studies right now. And I feel like I've gotten over the hump, a bit, as far as frustration goes. I'm actually making headway in Spanish, and I feel like I'm understanding it a lot more than I used to. Ever since I switched from some obscure textbook to Khan Academy, online, Geometry has gotten a lot more tolerable. I conquered a really big giant by getting through A Tale of Two Cities in English, and it makes me feel ten feet tall that I actually enjoyed it. I like making a giant cup of Earl Grey to get me through the afternoon, I like popping my head out of my sunroom-turned-schoolroom to scavenge for something to eat and dragging it back to my workstation. I like school.
My Little Podunk County, as frustrating as it can be and as much of a pit of sinking sand as it feels like sometimes, is really, really, really gorgeous in Springtime.
I'm actually making headway in my writing. I feel like I'm perched right on the edge of actually getting better at it, of being able to write the way I want to.
Last Saturday night, I had the house to myself. I'm eighteen years old. I didn't have social plans on a Saturday night, I opted out to having dinner with a family at church with my parents and siblings. Instead, I stayed home, ate soup, listened to my audiobook for A Tale of Two Cities, and knitted. On a weekend night, I sat at home and knitted. It was one of those reevaluate-your-life moments. So I reevaluated, and I decided....I really don't have a problem with it.
And as terrifying as it feels to be eighteen, and to have to worry about the fact that I have to actually make decisions, that the rest of my life isn't going to plan itself or be planned for me, that there are things called money and banks and *gasp* insurance, and I'm eventually going to have to worry about for myself, as hard as I try to feel scared, instead I keep on getting . . . excited. I can't help but feel like there's this adventure ahead for me, and I get to pick it. I can do whatever I decide I want to do. I mean, I'm going to be wise about it, and it's still completely infuriating that no matter how many times I ask for a sign, God isn't giving me one. But I'm still ... really, really excited.
There! Hahaha! I have succeeded. Personal post.
Yeah, me neither. But I think that's, technically, what I set out to do when I started this blog. Back before it was about books and movies and stuffs. I think I can still do that, though I'm not quite sure. Here goes, I guess.
It occurred to me, the other day, that I'm deliriously happy right now. Which is kind of strange, because I don't often feel all that happy. Sometimes I think I'm downright miserable. But I'm waking up every morning with a great big grin on my face, because I'm in love with my lovely little bedroom, and there's only about ten steps between me and my first cup of coffee. I love saying good morning to my parents and pouring a bowl of cereal and sweet-talking my precious kitty. I'm actually enjoying the whole eighteen-pages-a-day Bible reading thing; and as much as I complain, and as stir-crazy as it makes me sometimes, I really love how much I get to devote myself to my studies right now. And I feel like I've gotten over the hump, a bit, as far as frustration goes. I'm actually making headway in Spanish, and I feel like I'm understanding it a lot more than I used to. Ever since I switched from some obscure textbook to Khan Academy, online, Geometry has gotten a lot more tolerable. I conquered a really big giant by getting through A Tale of Two Cities in English, and it makes me feel ten feet tall that I actually enjoyed it. I like making a giant cup of Earl Grey to get me through the afternoon, I like popping my head out of my sunroom-turned-schoolroom to scavenge for something to eat and dragging it back to my workstation. I like school.
My Little Podunk County, as frustrating as it can be and as much of a pit of sinking sand as it feels like sometimes, is really, really, really gorgeous in Springtime.
I'm actually making headway in my writing. I feel like I'm perched right on the edge of actually getting better at it, of being able to write the way I want to.
Last Saturday night, I had the house to myself. I'm eighteen years old. I didn't have social plans on a Saturday night, I opted out to having dinner with a family at church with my parents and siblings. Instead, I stayed home, ate soup, listened to my audiobook for A Tale of Two Cities, and knitted. On a weekend night, I sat at home and knitted. It was one of those reevaluate-your-life moments. So I reevaluated, and I decided....I really don't have a problem with it.
And as terrifying as it feels to be eighteen, and to have to worry about the fact that I have to actually make decisions, that the rest of my life isn't going to plan itself or be planned for me, that there are things called money and banks and *gasp* insurance, and I'm eventually going to have to worry about for myself, as hard as I try to feel scared, instead I keep on getting . . . excited. I can't help but feel like there's this adventure ahead for me, and I get to pick it. I can do whatever I decide I want to do. I mean, I'm going to be wise about it, and it's still completely infuriating that no matter how many times I ask for a sign, God isn't giving me one. But I'm still ... really, really excited.
There! Hahaha! I have succeeded. Personal post.
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.
~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.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
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.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
We Interrupt This Program...
Alternate title was Public Service Announcement, I couldn't make up my mind which sounded better.
Anyway, I've found a way to solve the "I want to blog, but I'm logged into the wrong youtube account, and I want to actually be able to use my youtube," issue.
I'm going to "invite" the other "me" to be a writer on this blog. In short, some posts will come titled as from "Cerinthe" instead of from "Ella."
No, I don't have split personalities. No, I haven't been hacked. No, I don't have a very strange friend impersonating me in half my blog posts.
Same old girl, just a different name.
And hopefully that should cut down on my frustration level a little bit.
Au revoir!
Anyway, I've found a way to solve the "I want to blog, but I'm logged into the wrong youtube account, and I want to actually be able to use my youtube," issue.
I'm going to "invite" the other "me" to be a writer on this blog. In short, some posts will come titled as from "Cerinthe" instead of from "Ella."
No, I don't have split personalities. No, I haven't been hacked. No, I don't have a very strange friend impersonating me in half my blog posts.
Same old girl, just a different name.
And hopefully that should cut down on my frustration level a little bit.
Au revoir!
To Love an Artist
So I watched that movie about Vincent van Gogh; and consequently realized that he lived in the Victorian era.
Which would be the same time that my dearling little main character Katie, the one in the Sherlock Holmes story, would have walked the earth.
They were on the same planet at the same time. Ergo, they might, potentially, have met.
I decided to run with it, because I like Vincent van Gogh, as a person, a heck of a lot better than Sherlock Holmes. And it would, admittedly, be nice to see what my Katie would do in a situation with someone who is free of Sherlock's, well, shall we say, emotional constipation.
I started working on what I thought was going to be a bit of a character study, or something like that; short and cursory, to get a feel for how these two (my fictional character and a historical figure I like/respect/admire) would interact.
It turned into a 1600 word short story. With a plot. And stuff.
And the scariest part is, I actually like it. I hate it when I like stuff I write. There's that whole "murder your darlings" thing, and whatnot.
So anyway, if you'd like to read the story, entitled "To Love an Artist," you can find it on my inkpop profile. I wouldn't suggest spending much time over there, or (heaven forbid) reading anything else I have up, but I'd like to share this one with you guys and sixteen hundred words is a bit overkill for a blog post. So anyway, without further ado, To Love an Artist.
Which would be the same time that my dearling little main character Katie, the one in the Sherlock Holmes story, would have walked the earth.
They were on the same planet at the same time. Ergo, they might, potentially, have met.
I decided to run with it, because I like Vincent van Gogh, as a person, a heck of a lot better than Sherlock Holmes. And it would, admittedly, be nice to see what my Katie would do in a situation with someone who is free of Sherlock's, well, shall we say, emotional constipation.
I started working on what I thought was going to be a bit of a character study, or something like that; short and cursory, to get a feel for how these two (my fictional character and a historical figure I like/respect/admire) would interact.
It turned into a 1600 word short story. With a plot. And stuff.
And the scariest part is, I actually like it. I hate it when I like stuff I write. There's that whole "murder your darlings" thing, and whatnot.
So anyway, if you'd like to read the story, entitled "To Love an Artist," you can find it on my inkpop profile. I wouldn't suggest spending much time over there, or (heaven forbid) reading anything else I have up, but I'd like to share this one with you guys and sixteen hundred words is a bit overkill for a blog post. So anyway, without further ado, To Love an Artist.
~Before Tomorrow~
"Before tomorrow, we must find out
What we hold and what we've lost...
Any day now, I'll write the words down,
Turn the page and start again.
And we will take it one step at a time,
And now I'm right behind you.
I'm not holding you back."
~Athlete
And while I can't figure out how to make the lyrics apply (though I probably could if I thought about it long enough), I very much liked the title.
The time 'before tomorrow' is growing, to put it lightly, short.
Tomorrow, of course, marking the day I will have spent eighteen years (or 6,575 days, or, well, you get the picture) on this little blue marble.
And while I'm trying not to be melodramatic about it, it does feel, well, significant. For a long time now, every birthday has just taken me deeper into being a 'teenager.' Now, this one is just going to propel me right on out of it.
I'm a legal adult tomorrow.
I certainly won't feel like an adult tomorrow.
I know, from past experience, that I won't feel any different tomorrow than I do today.
But closing the door on technical childhood,
with all of the reaches (and infinite possibilities) of adulthood in front of me.
I'm trying to be scared, but I think I'm way too excited. Because it is a world of infinite possibility, and that makes me feel like a giddy little kid in a candy store.
It's funny, this far, it's felt like my "childhood" or whatever, those first eighteen years and grade school and so on, were absolutely everything, and as far as I could see; but come to think of it, that makes up such a small percentage of the average lifetime. There's way more ahead of me, than there is behind me; which for some reason is funny to think about.
But anyway. Thanks for putting up with my melodrama. And, I think that's about it. G'night, e'erbody.
What we hold and what we've lost...
Any day now, I'll write the words down,
Turn the page and start again.
And we will take it one step at a time,
And now I'm right behind you.
I'm not holding you back."
~Athlete
And while I can't figure out how to make the lyrics apply (though I probably could if I thought about it long enough), I very much liked the title.
The time 'before tomorrow' is growing, to put it lightly, short.
Tomorrow, of course, marking the day I will have spent eighteen years (or 6,575 days, or, well, you get the picture) on this little blue marble.
And while I'm trying not to be melodramatic about it, it does feel, well, significant. For a long time now, every birthday has just taken me deeper into being a 'teenager.' Now, this one is just going to propel me right on out of it.
I'm a legal adult tomorrow.
I certainly won't feel like an adult tomorrow.
I know, from past experience, that I won't feel any different tomorrow than I do today.
But closing the door on technical childhood,
with all of the reaches (and infinite possibilities) of adulthood in front of me.
I'm trying to be scared, but I think I'm way too excited. Because it is a world of infinite possibility, and that makes me feel like a giddy little kid in a candy store.
It's funny, this far, it's felt like my "childhood" or whatever, those first eighteen years and grade school and so on, were absolutely everything, and as far as I could see; but come to think of it, that makes up such a small percentage of the average lifetime. There's way more ahead of me, than there is behind me; which for some reason is funny to think about.
But anyway. Thanks for putting up with my melodrama. And, I think that's about it. G'night, e'erbody.
Friday, February 17, 2012
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.
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.
So I just caught my parents (they thought they were being sneaky) making a midnight cookie raid on the kitchen . . .
In fairness, they caught me awake at half-past twelve watching a drama/documentary about the life and work of Vincent van Gogh.
I guess it's best to let the subject drop, huh?
And, speaking of Vincent van Gogh, review to follow shortly (when I manage to stop sobbing).
In fairness, they caught me awake at half-past twelve watching a drama/documentary about the life and work of Vincent van Gogh.
I guess it's best to let the subject drop, huh?
And, speaking of Vincent van Gogh, review to follow shortly (when I manage to stop sobbing).
Monday, February 13, 2012
Things That Happen
This is a prime example. These. Things. Just. Happen to me!
So here I am, minding my own business, trying to do a bit of research for my story. Google image search for train stations in the 1800s, which lead me to a Google image search for Euston Station, London. And on that Google image search for Euston Station London, was this:
http://www.pandarooms.com/UK/Greater+London/Bethnal+Green-hotels.html
A link. To a website. With pages upon pages of hotels, hostels, and apartments in London.
Viola! I waste twenty minutes drooling over, yes, cool apartments, but moreso, how epicly amazing it would be to just be there.
At this rate, I'm never going to get any work done.
So here I am, minding my own business, trying to do a bit of research for my story. Google image search for train stations in the 1800s, which lead me to a Google image search for Euston Station, London. And on that Google image search for Euston Station London, was this:
http://www.pandarooms.com/UK/Greater+London/Bethnal+Green-hotels.html
A link. To a website. With pages upon pages of hotels, hostels, and apartments in London.
Viola! I waste twenty minutes drooling over, yes, cool apartments, but moreso, how epicly amazing it would be to just be there.
At this rate, I'm never going to get any work done.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Waiting Tables, Eczema, and Valentines Day
Really, there's little point to go beyond the title. That pretty much sums it up.
We just got home from the church, where me, Andrew, and the rest of the youth group were waiting tables for the church Valentine's Banquet. Which was passably fun, though I'm not looking for a career in hospitality. Also, somewhat awkward, though it would have been more-so had I not wound up waiting on my own family. But giggling in the corner with the youth group and dressing in matched black bottoms, white tops outfits, scarfing down spaghetti and cheesecake when it was the kitchen help's turn to eat.
However, I tend to think that I was actually more stressed out than I felt (possibly due to some interpersonal awkardness I'm hoping passes soon), because *drumroll please* my eczema started acting up!! Which is usually a dead give-away, even to myself, that there's something not quite right in my psyche. Stress triggers eczema, 2 + 2 = 4, Ella's hands start bleeding. Woohoo.
And, yeah, woohoo Valentines Day. I don't have the energy for an actual rant right now, but pointless commercial holiday, making single people feel miserable and not-single people obligated to spend money on mass-produced tokens of cheap affection, or else risk the the wrath of their significant other. Vomit-worthy levels of pink in the stores, conversation hearts that get dumber every year, and kiddies exchanging cardstock valentines based on their favorite cartoon characters. Doesn't that just sound like fun?
We just got home from the church, where me, Andrew, and the rest of the youth group were waiting tables for the church Valentine's Banquet. Which was passably fun, though I'm not looking for a career in hospitality. Also, somewhat awkward, though it would have been more-so had I not wound up waiting on my own family. But giggling in the corner with the youth group and dressing in matched black bottoms, white tops outfits, scarfing down spaghetti and cheesecake when it was the kitchen help's turn to eat.
However, I tend to think that I was actually more stressed out than I felt (possibly due to some interpersonal awkardness I'm hoping passes soon), because *drumroll please* my eczema started acting up!! Which is usually a dead give-away, even to myself, that there's something not quite right in my psyche. Stress triggers eczema, 2 + 2 = 4, Ella's hands start bleeding. Woohoo.
And, yeah, woohoo Valentines Day. I don't have the energy for an actual rant right now, but pointless commercial holiday, making single people feel miserable and not-single people obligated to spend money on mass-produced tokens of cheap affection, or else risk the the wrath of their significant other. Vomit-worthy levels of pink in the stores, conversation hearts that get dumber every year, and kiddies exchanging cardstock valentines based on their favorite cartoon characters. Doesn't that just sound like fun?
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?
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?
Thursday, February 9, 2012
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
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
Sunday, February 5, 2012
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................
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