Exercises in Gentle Contempt

Anyone out there?

2010-07-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

If anyone is out there, and wondering where I've gone, the answer is ... I've gone away.

I might reinstate this blog at some point, but I don't think I will in the immediate future.

In general news, I'm moving to Newfoundland with my family to start a PhD in September, and that will probably occupy my time and attention for the foreseeable future. Just thought you might want to know.

You can find me on twitter @paulsmoffett or friend me on facebook if you want to know what's up in my life, or you can read my on-topic comics blog over at http://introtocomics.blogspot.com

The difference between Superman and Batman

2009-03-05T08:44:00.000-08:00

via Every. Issue. Ever.

10 Ways Smallville could become good

2009-02-03T21:50:00.000-08:00

1. Give up on Clark and Lana. Give up forever. Repeat after me: nobody is invested in this relationship.
2. Have Clark fall in love with Lois. LOIS.
3. Unrequited. UNREQUITED!
4. Make Clark wear glasses. All the time.
5. More people telling Clark: “You're Super. Man.”
6. Put Ma back on the farm.
7. Is it too late to start 5 years earlier?
8. Flights.
9. Tights.
10. Just end already.

Well hi there.

2009-02-01T22:10:00.000-08:00

It's been a while. But I'm still here, and all is well. Mostly.

Life with full time school, a full time daughter, and a job working with youth ministry at the church that can be as full time as I let it is being a little difficult to juggle.

Fortunately, I've known how to juggle since I was 14 years old.

The only side project I've really been giving any attention to lately is Thpam (which if you haven't you should definitely check out, updates on Fridays). I've even been letting Weirdos of Winnipeg slip.

But here's what's going on with me as a scholar:

I'm taking two courses this term, one on Critical Theory, focused on Identity Theory, in which I'm hoping to write a major paper on theories of secret identities, and my other class is a film course on Modernism in the Media, focusing mostly on reporter films from the 30s. I'm kinda hoping to write a paper on the Fleicher Superman cartoons (after all, Clark Kent is a reporter).

I'm trying to organize my thoughts and start real work on a thesis--which is tricky to say the least. But (among other things) I'm making an Amazon wishlist of biliographical sources, which I'll link to soon. Then if you are interested, you can see what kind of books I'm using to write my thesis. Once I start actually writing it, that is.

THPAM!

2009-01-01T17:39:00.000-08:00

Today my brother James and I launched our brand new webcomic! Check it out!

THPAM!

A Christmas Post

2008-12-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Christmas isn't about giving. It's about receiving.

I've heard many a sermon, not to mention a Christmas Special, about the season of giving. Charles Dickens may be the one who really popularized the idea of Christmas as the season of giving. I heard an (otherwise fairly good) sermon on Sunday that ended by saying: "If we know that giving makes us happier at Christmastime, we should know that we can be happier all year by giving."

I also heard a study on CBC radio that said there is now scientific evidence that giving makes the giver happier. We give, and it makes us feel good.

But Christmas isn't the season of giving. It's the season of getting.

Have you ever gotten a present from someone you didn't know very well, or didn't like very much? A present that was so much better than what you'd gotten them that you didn't really know how to react? Did it make you grateful, or embarrassed? How do you respond when someone you didn't get anything for gives you the best present of the year?

Christmas is about that kind of receiving. On Christmas we remember that we have received from God, not only all of creation, and not only our own life, not only the promise of peace on earth and goodwill among people, but the gift of the incarnation--God With Us. As we remember the birth of Christ we remember also the life, the teaching, the death, the resurrection. God has given us a gift beyond measure, so far beyond our ability to reciprocate that we must be only receivers, not givers.

Merry Christmas
Thanks be to God

How to Write A Major Paper: The Paul Method

2008-12-11T17:47:00.000-08:00

Read the assignment instructions carefully
Re-read the instructions
Have you written anything else for this professor? If so, read the comments from that paper.
Choose your topic
Choose an appropriate number of sources. Make sure you use some current sources. Check JSTOR or some other academic database for online access to current journals.
You need a break. Watch TV, or even better, download an episode of your favourite TV show onto your computer
Make an outline
You need a break. Go for a walk
That outline doesn't look any good. Rewrite it
Re-read the assignment instructions
Write your first paragraph
That looks great! You're on a roll!
Update your facebook status to tell everybody about your great success so far at writing this paper
That first paragraph sucks. Rewrite it
You need a break. Surf the internet for awhile
Write steadily for 20 minutes
You're doing great! This is an easy paper to write!
How many pages?
Three! Awesome! That's practically done!
Wait. How long does this paper have to be again?
Re-read the assignment instructions
THAT long!?!?
Panic
You need a break. Go buy some junk food, and eat it while staring at a blank page
Write a paragraph
That paragraph sucks. Delete it.
Update your facebook status to show that your previous enthusiasm is waning
Re-read one of your sources
Stare at a blank screen
You need a break. Watch another episode of True Blood
Okay. Focus.
Man, it's late. You'd better get to bed
Next day: re-read what you have so far
Update your facebook status
Write for 20 solid minutes
Wow! You're amazing!
Update your facebook status
You've earned a break. Surf the net for awhile
Update your facebook status
Re-read the assignment instructions
Re-read what you have so far
Check the time
CRAP! The paper is due first thing tomorrow, and you're only halfway done!
Panic
Update your facebook status
Write steadily for 20 minutes
Re-read what you have so far
... I guess it makes sense if you move THAT part over HERE
Now just add a conclusion
Conclusion...
Stare at your paper
Update your facebook status
Re-state your introduction
Go to bed
Wake up
Shoot! You need a bibliography!
Panic
Assemble and write your bibliography
Print your paper, and hand it in
Update your facebook status

Bobby McFerrin and a crowd sing Ave Maria

2008-12-08T14:08:00.000-08:00

Via Ironic Catholic

A slightly abbreviated version of my sermon for the first of Advent

2008-12-03T00:48:00.000-08:00

We have a rule in my house.

We don't start preparing for Christmas until the First of Advent. No Christmas carols, no decorations, not even any eggnog.

I made this rule up myself—though sometimes Jan has to keep me from buying eggnog—because I can't wait for Christmas.

Growing up, my family were never much for waiting. We didn't open our presents on Christmas morning, we opened them whenever my oldest sister decided to start opening hers. Which, since she's lived away from home, has usually been the minute she walks in the door. As I kid could never keep myself from eating all the chocolates in my advent calendar, all at once. I was the kind of kid who tried to find my presents and open them even earlier, and to be honest I still do that. When I get birthday presents in the mail, I always open them right away—even if they say “Do not open until your birthday”.

But a few years ago, after I started to fall in love with the Anglican church and its liturgy, I started to realize that Christmas, like Easter, is too important to rush into. Advent, like Lent, is a fast period that lets us get ready for the feast that ends it.

For four weeks all of creation holds its breath. Waiting.

Tomorrow is Advent. Tomorrow I get to start waiting. One of the beauties of the Church Year is that the church, in its wisdom, knows about the need to prepare.

Advent is a time of preparation, a time of renewal, a time of waiting. It is, like Lent, a time of penitence, and though it is a time of hope, it is also, a time of mourning—for even the most hopeful future means the loss of the present. In advent we do not only prepare for this coming Christmas—getting ourselves ready, decorating and buying presents, counting down the days until the party, and we do not only celebrate the first coming of Christ—putting ourselves in the mindset of the Jews under Roman rule, yearning for a long-promised Messiah who would at last set things right, waiting with breathless anticipation with Mary and Joseph, and Zechariah and Elizabeth, who knew that the time was at hand, but didn't know what to expect, and who could scarcely allow themselves to believe it—we also celebrate—we also prepare ourselves for the second coming of Christ. And though we look with hope toward the world to come, the new heaven and the new earth, we are also looking forward to death, and to the end of this earth. In advent we are waiting for the coming of the apocalypse.

In advent we wait. We wait for the master to return and set all things right, but what will we do if when the master returns, we aren't ready? What if when the master returns to set all things right, we are still wrong?

In the aftermath of World War One, the London Times wrote to several eminent English thinkers asking for essays on the topic: “What's wrong with the world?”

G.K. Chesteron responded:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely Yours,

G.K. Chesterton.

In our Gospel reading for today—as we enter Advent—Jesus talks about the end of the world. His imagery is not particularly reassuring. Jesus says:

"In those days, after that suffering,

the sun will be darkened,: and the moon will not give its light,
and the stars will be falling from heaven,: and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

The “suffering” that Jesus mentions here is the apocalypse he has been speaking of just before this passage begins. Jesus warns of wars and rumours of wars, of desolation and sacrilege, of false Christs and false prophets, and trouble such as has not been seen from the beginning of the creation. Jerusalem will be destroyed. Jesus gives his disciples a warning that should be especially poignant to Winnipeggers: “Pray that it may not happen in winter”.

There are two possible errors that arise from Apocalyptic passages like these—prophetic passages that gives us signs of the end of the age.

The laundromat across the street from my building has a tv that is often set to a Christian tv network, and the show that airs some show I don't know the title of, but the thrust of the show is to use news items to predict the end of the world. With a newspaper in one hand and a Bible in the other. they draw connections between current events and the books of Revelation or Daniel or Ezekiel. The goal of this show, and others like it, and countless books since even before Jesus' first coming—is to pinpoint the exact moment of the end of the world. It is about putting God on a schedule—or more charitably, trying to understand God's schedule.

But Jesus explicitly says that we don't know when the time will come:

“But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

“You do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow”

So attempts to pinpoint the exact date and time of the second coming are futile, and the more literally we take this text the more literally we must take Jesus' extortions that no one knows about the day and hour.

The other error is complacency. To dismiss these apocalyptic messages as irrelevant to our world, as purely symbolic. To act as though this life were all that matters—were all that exists. To behave as though this world in its current incarnation were eternal. To live without hope, and without fear.

But Jesus tells us, in verse 23, just before our reading for this evening: “But take heed; I have told you all things beforehand”. And at the end of our gospel reading he says:

Therefore, keep awake-- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

The King James translates “keep awake” as “Watch”. Eugene Peterson translates it as: “Keep a sharp lookout”.

Jesus does give us signs that we may recognize. He gives us something to wait for. And he gives us instructions.

The two errors have both the same result—and ultimately the same goal. The desire to pinpoint the exact moment of Christ's return and the desire to deny the possibility of that return are both attempts to avoid the responsibility of waiting.

When I was in high school my parents would sometimes go out for an evening, and leave me with a list of chores to do before they came home. There were two basic ways the evening might go for me.

If they told me they would be home by 10:00, I would goof off, read, watch tv, until about 9:30, then frantically try to do all the chores before they got home.

If they didn't tell me when they would be home, I would try to guess, and then do the chores at the last possible moment.

Of course, what I should have done, was finish the chores immediately, and make sure that no matter when my parents came home I would be ready for them. And what is it that God demands of us? What does Jesus command us to do so that when he returns we will be ready for him?

Watch. Stay awake. Keep a sharp look out. Wait. Wait actively.

This kind waiting is harder than it sounds. For two thousand years we have been awake, and waiting. Longer. The reading from Isaiah already sounds like someone tired of waiting.

Like our reading from Isaiah, we feel sometimes that we live in a disenchanted world—a world devoid of God's presence.

And even though our inquities, like the wind, carry us away, and even though we may recognize, like G.K. Chesterton, that we are what is wrong with the world, we wait in hope. For when Christmas comes, when the Messiah comes, when Jesus Christ comes to us to make all things right, he will make us right also.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Beckett according to Sesame Street

2008-11-27T12:30:00.000-08:00

Asplosions!

2008-11-05T09:36:00.000-08:00

There was a bomb threat at U of M yesterday. My bus pulled in and I saw about 10 police cars, and the English buildings were all empty.

I wonder whether someone said "Obama" and it sounded like "I'llbombya". Because there wasn't really a bomb.

In other news, there was an explosion in my class yesterday--of the emotional kind.

Basically it went like this:
Him: "All texts come to us through an interpretive frame"
Her: "Not always."

Which lead to: Personal attacks. Recriminations. Tears.

Crazy

Stuff, things, and junk like that

2008-10-30T08:41:00.000-07:00

I recently submitted an application for a SSHRC grant. For Canadian arts students, SSHRC is like a holy grail. It's a giant $17,000 grant that everybody applies for an few people actually get. But it's possible to get it.

It's important not to get one's hopes up too high, but on the off chance that I got this grant it would mean that I wouldn't have to work this summer--I could just work on my thesis instead. It would mean that the money I've been saving for tuition could either go toward my PhD in two years or could go toward something else. Like, say, a car.

It's quite the prospect.

In other news, yesterday I finished my last small assignment for the year. I managed to get them all done relatively early, so now all I need to focus on until Christmas are two major papers and two major projects. And my thesis.

For my Bibliography major project, I'm thinking of doing a comparative study of the history of early print culture and the history of early comic book print culture. Should be fun, unorthodox, and enlightening.

I have no freaking idea what I'll do for my final project in my other course.

It's my blog as word art!

2008-10-22T11:46:00.001-07:00

Click to make it big, and to make your own!

I like how "Meaning" is off by itself.

Via Jan who was via Annemarie

Hwaet! Zounds! Harrow!

2008-09-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

Japes for Owre Tymes features a translation of newspaper comics into Middle English. I particularly like this, which adds a moral gloss to Family Circus.

Let me 'splain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.

2008-09-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

For those of you too lazy to read comments, Steph commented in response to my last post and pointed out that it was Saussure, not Derrida who said that language was arbitrary. So here's your linguistics/literary theory lesson of the day.

Ferdinand de Saussure is called the father of linguistics. He argues that language is arbitrary. Saussure talks about what he calls "signs".

For Saussure, the word "tree" (for example), is a sign that consists of two parts, inseparable from each other, like the two sides of a piece of paper. A sign is made up of a signified and a signifier.

In the case of the word "tree", the signifier is the sound of the word. The signified is the idea of tree that comes with the sound.

The important part, for Saussure, is that there is no inherent connection between the signified and the signifier. It's arbitrary. Saussure didn't think that meant anything profound about meaning, he just wanted to point out that the sounds we make have no inherent connection to the real world objects they describe.

Then Lacan says: no, the signifier isn't the idea of "tree", it's other words. "Tree" has a meaning to me only because "bush", and "shrub", and "forest", and "cat" and "city" also have meaning and I can compare those words to each other. Lacan calls it the "signifying chain".

Then along comes Derrida, who says that language is constructed, and uses the term "deconstruction" to describe his approach to philosophy. Derrida says, in a nutshell, that written words do not stand for spoken words, which do not stand for thoughts, which do not stand for platonic ideas, which do not stand for metaphysical realities. Language, literature, it's all a semantic game. Texts have no particular meaning, because words have no particular meaning. Interpretation is endless, and there's no such thing as "truth".

And Derrida leads to English grad students who can't have a conversation without reminding everyone that the words we are using have no ultimate meaning, and that there is no meaning in texts. That everything can be a "text", and that you don't have to be able to read in order to "read".

And I say: Bah. Because language may be contextual but we exist in a context together, and if we want to, we can actually understand each other. If we want to.

Searle said: "Derrida gives bullshit a bad name"

2008-09-23T15:02:00.000-07:00

Okay. Listen.

I know you think Derrida is the coolest. I know that deconstruction blew your mind.

Fine. Language is arbitrary and as a result meaning is contextual.

But you live in the same context as I do, and arbitrary or not we've all agreed together as speakers of this language to attempt to understand each other. Can we move on?

Thanks.

Give me Liberte or give me death!

2008-09-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, seriously, Liberte yogourt is by far the best thing ever.

Seriously. No exaggeration at all. It is a million times better than anything else in the universe.

Classes

2008-09-11T19:16:00.000-07:00

Classes began this week.

I'm taking two courses this semester, which is still considered Full Time, because of the amount of work expected in those courses and the other work (researching and writing a thesis, for example) that goes with being a grad student.

Both of these courses (like virtually all graduate courses) are seminars, which means that instead of the professor telling us everything about book history, the professor assigns books which everyone reads and then we have a lively, three-hour-long guided discussion. Typically each student leads at least one of these discussions, which means that on your day to lead a seminar you need to really know the text so that you can ask all the important questions.

My first class is Bibliography, taught by my advisor. Bibliography, for those who don't know, is basically the study of books as objects. I took a course a lot like this at CMU, called "History of the Book" (Hot-B).

This class happens in the back of the library, in by far the nicest classroom I've ever seen at U of M. The chairs are all cushy, with wheels, and the arms move up and down.

It's going to be an interesting class, in both good ways and maybe bad ways too. I'm very interested in the way the material, physical object of a book affects the way we think about things, so that will be cool. But the first class we had a discussion that to me felt more like "Man, kids don't write letters anymore" than anything academically worthwhile. Which was a little frustrating.

The prof, is brilliant, friendly, encouraging and gentle. And maybe that keeps him from saying "No, you're wrong and dumb." Or maybe not, we'll see.

My second class, is called "Writing the City", and it's a Canadian Lit course about cities and the way they get portrayed in literature, and how that affects the way they are in the world. It is going to be an fascinating class, if a little unorthodox.

The professor is a semi-famous Winnipeg author (famous enough that Jan, working in the library had heard of him, not so famous that I had). He's hairy and witty and full of stories about Winnipeg.

For instance, I learned on Wednesday that the first mayor of Winnipeg was the founder of Harlequin books, the largest publishing label to this day. Who knew?

One of the assignments for that class is to take a walk around an area of Winnipeg, and then write about it.

Neat.

There's no such thing

2008-09-10T15:21:00.000-07:00

The most important thing about school--maybe about life--is finding the free lunches.

If you're a graduate student at the University of Manitoba there are free lunches provided almost every day of the first week of classes.

Now I only have classes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays this semester, so it might not be worth going all the way to the University just for the sake of lunch.

Or is it? A bus ticket costs $2.25, so a trip to the University and back would run me $4.50. That's not bad for a lunch.

But there is a catch.

On Tuesday I attended a "Welcome to New Graduate Students" event hosted by the Faculty of Graduate Studies. I attended this, let's be honest, solely because of the promise of Pizza. The event started at 12 noon, and I had my first class of the year at 1pm. I figured I should have time to eat. Right?

You'd think so. But before pizza is served, we have to listen to 5 speakers. The Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies promises that each of these 5 speakers would have a time limit of 5 minutes each. Now I have a minor in Math, so I am able to quickly calculate that the speaking should be done by 12:25. Still enough time for me to eat and make it to my class.

Oh, says the Dean, I forgot, the first speaker doesn't have any time limit. So here he is to explain part of the University webpage.

But the wireless isn't working.

Hmm.

Techs are called, the speaker tries to improvise (and walks away from the microphone, so that I can't hear a word he's saying).

The Dean says this never would have happened on a Mac.

Meager laughs.

Finally the web guy gives up, and we move on.

But the Dean, of course has to introduce each speaker. And spend a little bit of time in witty banter.

The clock is ticking.

At 12:45, the last speaker is finally finished. Pizza, I think!

The Dean comes up to the microphone, as the pizza is brought in.

"The only thing between you and your pizza" he says "is PRIZES! I hope everyone kept their raffle tickets!"

I sigh, and head off to my three hour class, with an empty stomach and a mournful spirit.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

Meet and Greet, Wine and Cheese

2008-09-06T08:19:00.000-07:00

On Friday the University of Manitoba Grad program had their welcome back wine and cheese meet and greet.

I got my official Grad Student day-planner. I met with my professors. I drank some wine. And I'll be back for classes on Tuesday.

Mother and child

2008-08-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Here is my beautiful wife with my beautiful daughter.

It's a Girl!

2008-08-23T15:35:00.001-07:00

Meet my newborn daughter, Guinevere Cathryn:

Jan is still in the hospital and I'm just home to pick up some stuff, but you'll hear and see more soon!

My library shows look like this:

2008-08-21T14:27:00.000-07:00

Today I performed the last of the three clown shows I was hired to do for Summer Reading at the Library.

With a few variations and room for improvisation, my basic show looked like this:

I burst into the room once the kids are all settled. I nervously start to talk, then am overcome with shyness.

Then I have an idea.

From my trunk I pull a long rope, which I tie between two chairs, as a tight rope. I stand on one chair and nervously reach one foot out onto the rope .... but I am too afraid.

Then I have an idea.

I move the chairs slightly closer to one another, so that the rope is slack enough that it touches the ground when I walk on it. And I do--wobbling appropriately. The crowd cheers.

Then I tell a simplified version of Moby Dick, complete with balloon-animal white whale.

I balance a balloon on my nose.

I make a balloon elephant and tell a few elephant jokes (what did tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming over the hill? "Here come the elephants")

Then I tell the story of the three little pigs, complete with juggling-ball pigs and balloon-animal wolf.

Take a bow, and say goodbye.

Still no Baby

2008-08-18T18:09:00.001-07:00

In case anyone is wondering.

What's cooking?

2008-08-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

I've been cooking lately.

For my birthday Jan gave me Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess (and she thought she was SOOO funny). So I made a ricotta cheesecake as my birthday cake, served with fresh strawberries:

Next we have a butter chicken pizza:

Which is essentially butter chicken in a thicker-than-usual sauce on a homemade hybrid of pizza dough and naan bread. It was an enormous success, and was inspired by our friend James, who likes to sprinkle curry powder on his pizza.

Some friends I know through the internet were having a cooking challenge themed on chocolate, so I decided to make chocolate-orange-shrimp, an idea I got from a cookbook Aaron had when he lived at CMU (and probably still has?). The chocolate is, of course, unsweetened, and goes very well with the spicy shrimp, adding a smoky, bitter, nuttyness.

Sage and squash risotto

And before that I made an almond cake iced with whipped cream and blueberries, which I brought to a going-away party for our church's pastoral associate Kirsten.

Changes

2008-08-13T11:43:00.000-07:00

Inspired partly by Laura, partly by the vast changes that are about to come upon me, and partly by the deep state of stagnation and inactivity that has befallen this blog, I am changing things. This is stage one. There may be further stages.

I am also making an amendment to the general purpose of this blog. Although I will still post about other things from time to time, I'm going to try to make the main focus of this blog LIFE in GRAD SCHOOL. Kind of like the Furnace of Doubt.

I hab a code

2008-06-10T20:34:00.000-07:00

It's not a stuffy nose cold.
It's a sore throat an coughy cold.

It seems to me that my throat has been sore for weeks, but it is actually only a few days. Hopefully I am on my way to health.

That is all.

Poetry for a rainy day

2008-06-09T16:00:00.000-07:00

Rubber Boots
by Roo Borson

In Ontario, in autumn
black and limp, with shining curves,
they are the only footwear for the fields
All year they have lain in
fishy heaps at the back of closets
and now halls and entryways
are lined with them, pair by pair,
dripping onto newspaper,
upright, leaning drunkenly together, or toppled,
helpless as dull black beetles,
their legs in the air.
I remember the morning
Jane fell in love, in San Francisco,
with a pair,
glazed, brilliant as lemons
in the shop window.
But what shines in a wild pacific storm
would leak within minutes
when the world turns to mud
and sucks at the heels
in Elora or Owen Sound.
A gash is an unhappy thing,
especially in black rubber,
when boots are cheap:
the kind thing is to carve
the toes like jack-o'-lanterns
and let them leer
unexpectedly in hallways.
Nothing mourns like a boot
for its lost mate.
You must fill it with water,
and flowers.
Unlike other shoes,
they never smell of possession.
They have mapped the sodden marsh,
trod on ice.
You step into them,
sound and seamless,
with a double pair of thick socks.
You enter the Ark.

What? Amparo was here and I missed her AGAIN!?

2008-05-15T20:47:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

It was originally written in Italian, but since I don't read Italian it has been kindly translated into English. It's quite good so far.

There is a (minor) character named "Amparo", which since it is Italian I assume is pronounced something like "Am-PAH-roh". But every time I read it I pronounce it in my head as "AMP-a-ROO".

Good News, and More Good News

2008-05-07T14:10:00.000-07:00

I got a letter in the mail yesterday from the University of Manitoba, with a list of M.A. courses I can choose from for next year. And then I looked up my U of M online account, and found that my official status is now written as "Grad Student, M.A.", where it used to say "Special Student, Extended Education". So it looks like I'm still accepted.

Now I need to decide how many courses I'm going to take next year. I need to take a total of 18 credit hours complete a Master's, which means six courses. I had originally planned to take most of my coursework sooner rather than later, but since we're going to have a brand new baby in September, maybe it's better to do a lighter course load at first. But on the other hand, Jan will be home at first, so maybe it's better to do heavier coursework early, before she goes back to work at the liberry. Decisions, decisions.

In other news, I went off to a job interview today, for a place that installs and repairs swimming pools. They're looking for someone to work full time, but only for the summer, which seems just about perfect. The interview consisted basically of him telling me about the job, asking if I had any questions, and then asking if I could be in by 8am tomorrow morning. To which I said that I could. So I am officially employed, and expect 40+ hours a week. Woohoo!

More on Clowning

2008-04-04T11:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I performed at the third of four libraries I'm booked for this Spring Break.

My library shows have included juggling and general buffoonary, as well as two stories: The Three Little Pigs, and Moby Dick.

Lots of fun, and I think it has gone better every time. Only one more to go.

Have Clown Shoes, Will Juggle

2008-03-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

To supplement my income, I've been looking for some work as a clown.

This coming week I'm doing some shows for the Winnipeg Public Library, which I'm very excited about, and I've printed business cards to hand out both there and at a clowning supply shop here in Winnipeg. Finally, I've got a new website designed to drum up a little business.

Check it out!

Palm Sunday

2008-03-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

My favourite time of the year is about to begin.

All of Lent is really a preparation for Easter. Starting with Ash Wednesday, we begin the slow walk toward the cross. This year Jan and I spent Ash Wednesday at Holy Trinity Church in Winnipeg, because we were flying in the evening, and St. Margaret's didn't have a morning service. So we spent most of the day with ashen crosses on our foreheads, reminding each other, and maybe other people who saw us of the eventual imminence of the cross--of God's death, and of our own eventual death: "remember, O man/woman that dust you are and to dust you will return".

Throughout Lent we prepare ourselves for Easter, by penitence and fasting, by confession and absolution. We give things up. Part of the effect of this is to increase the anticipation of the feast season of Easter. We count down the days until our fast is ended.

This Sunday was Palm Sunday, and the journey to Golgatha has begun in earnest. On Palm Sunday we celebrate Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He comes into the city with cheers and the waving of palm leaves. We commemorate this with palm leaves and palm crosses. The crosses are made from the palm leaves--Jesus' death is made by the instruments of his triumph. And the crowd chanting hosanna is the same crowd that will soon be chanting "crucify".

After Palm Sunday the palm leaves are burned and the ashes are saved to be used in next year's Ash Wednesday.

At the evening service, we had a service of the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. The service revolved around Haydn's instrumental piece, which was played by a string quartet. The seven last words are:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).
Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise (Luke 23:43).
Woman, behold your son: behold your mother (John 19:26-27).
Eli Eli lema sabachthani? ("My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?", Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34).
I thirst (John 19:28).
It is finished (John 19:30).
Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (Luke 23:46).

Each bible reading was followed by a movement from Haydn's piece, and three of them were then followed by a meditation from the pulpit.

David spoke about "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do". For most of our lives we do not know what we are doing. In our ignorance, we are active--as the mob was active in its ignorance crucifying Jesus; and Jesus, though knowing, was passive.

Bonnie spoke on "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Christ wails into the darkness--a literal darkness as an eclipse covers the earth, and an existential darkness like the original chaos. All hope of dawn is on a cross.

And finally David spoke on "It is finished." In creation God saw on the sixth day all that he had made, and saw that it was finished. It was finished, but it was not over. The work was finished, and God rested. So on Friday Jesus' work is finished, and on Saturday he rests. The first creation is finished on Friday. Whatever we were doing in our ignorance is finished on Friday. On Saturday all of creation rests, awaiting the new creation on Sunday morning.

Amen.

Dear Paul,

2008-02-15T15:24:00.000-08:00

I am delighted to inform you that the Department of English has completed the review of University of Manitoba Graduate applicants for September 2008 entry and has forwarded your application to the Faculty of Graduate Studies recommending acceptance to the Masters program in English.

Blah blah blah. Other stuff.

Best wishes,
The Graduate Chair of U of M.

That seems about right.

2008-01-19T21:53:00.000-08:00

Victory!

2008-01-09T18:55:00.000-08:00

I have tried before, but always failed. Sometimes it seemed like it was going to succeed, but in the end there was only disappointment. Sometimes it was obvious from the beginning that it was a failure. But this time, I had high hopes and they have been realized!

I made ginger ale. I made it myself, from water and yeast and sugar and ginger, and it tastes good and is fizzy. It is a complete and overwhelming success! Huzzah!

Disturbing

2007-12-19T16:03:00.000-08:00

The newest Tickle-me-Elmo doll has secret moves. In order to advertise this doll without giving away the secret, Fisher-Price has decided to make probably the most disturbing, obscene commercial I have ever seen. Enjoy!

Barmizvah Brothers

2007-12-17T13:42:00.000-08:00

The Barmitzvah Brothers, from Guelf Ontario, are neither Jewish nor are they related. But don't hold that against them. The trio's newest album, Let's Express our Motives, is "An Album of Under-appreciated Jobs", and features songs like "Bookbinder", "Library Page", "Thrift Store Owner" and my favourite of the moment, "Piano Tuner".

He's there on a bicycle
And there on his feet
You can see his wide bell out there on the street,
he claims its not a business but a dedication:
fifteen years and gratification.

Always a musician, he played the clarinet,
But working on the Steinways is the best that it gets

The Grand Spinnets the old uprights
it doesn't seem to attract young men, but eventually it might

You can keep a piano going two hundred years
if you use the right touch
he says he'll never retire, it's just not his style,
He just likes his job too much
Because it can't be taught, no it can't be taught,
Practice not training,
Just you go and ask him, he loves to tell you, and he'll start explaining:

There's fewer young men in tuning
you don't make your money right away.
Most are musicians having hard times
who need something to do with their day

The Grand Spinnets the old uprights
it doesn't seem to attract young men, but eventually it might

basic a440 then an octave down in relationship with that combination of tunes to make a good sound, up a fifth, down a fourth a circle of fifths and an octave, when you get it balanced in fourths and fifths you take thirds and sixths and you've got it, make sure it's balanced the rest of the octaves from up high down to down low, all you need is to count the beats and you can tune a piano

His mother told him he should consider
a job where he would use his ears.
His perfect pitch for working on the ivories
and he didn't think of it again for years,
but later he was able to see himself in the role his mother had once described
so he read as many books as he could gather and worked for free where he could try.

To do before Friday

2007-12-17T13:35:00.000-08:00

~~Figure out what to do with Perelandra~~

Clean the house
Tidy living room
Clean bathroom
Clean kitchen
Clean bedroom
~~Finish laundry~~
~~Do dishes~~

Pack

~~Finish buying presents~~

~~Write a book review~~

~~Renew driver's licence and health card~~

~~Tie up all loose ends re: Youth~~

~~Order academic transcripts~~

Patience

2007-12-17T12:34:00.000-08:00

It is Advent, and has been for three weeks now.

I have a very strict policy about Advent and Christmas. I don't allow myself to start counting down for Christmas until Advent begins. We don't decorate our apartment until the First of Advent, and even though it is one of the greatest pleasures of my life, I don't buy any eggnog until then either.

But once the first of Advent comes around, the decorations come out, the Christmas music starts playing and the eggnog starts flowing.

Advent, like Lent, is a period of waiting, of preparation. It is a time of repentance and of penitence. We make ourselves ready for the feast, and patiently count down the days.

David Widdicombe, the Rector of St. Margaret's gave a few sermons on patience recently. He talked about our tendency to call for patience in others mostly when we have lost our own. He talked about patience not only as a virtue, but as one of God's defining characteristics.

In the creation, God made space and time for creatures unlike himself. And this is the meaning of patience--making space and time for others. And now, in advent is, we have a time to practice patience. Not only to practice in the sense of rehearse, but to practice in the sense of to act out.

And although I am tempted to ask when my patience will finally be rewarded, when I can stop being patient, that is of course an impatient attitude. So I strive once again for patience as I make my way to Christmas.

Happy Advent

Is it just me...

2007-11-21T12:11:00.000-08:00

... or has youtube changed their code to make the interface more obnoxious? Particularly with embedded videos, which can now no longer back up, and which seem to spaz out if I click anywhere before it has completely finished downloading.

Also:
Hi. I'm still alive. I've learned to knit (or am learning). Currently I'm making a toque big enough for a beach ball, because that's how big our circular needles are.

Thanksgiving

2007-10-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking lately about thankfulness and entitlement. It's not exactly a new insight, but you can't have both at the same time.

You can't feel entitled and simultaneously thankful. And that may have something to do with why rights language bothers me.

It's not that I don't think human rights are worth fighting for, and protecting. I do. I think that what gets called "human rights", really are inalienable and ought to be granted in full to all human beings. But I also think that it's a philosophically dangerous road, because a mentality of rights is incompatible with a mentality of gratefulness or thankfulness. Yet thankfulness is one of the prerequisites of happiness. I'm sure you have experienced as much as I have that you are happier when you are thankful than when you get something you deserved anyway. A life of thankfulness is a better life in most ways than a life of entitlement.

We hear so much, whether from a materialist-consumer-driven economy or from a rights-focussed-individualist politic, about what we deserve. But the questions that don't often get asked (or at least I don't often hear them asked) are: why? why do I deserve anything?

Have I done anything to earn even my existence? Then on what grounds do I deserve even that? And if I don't deserve life itself: if even my life is a gift, than what can I deserve within that life? What rights do I have, except what has been granted to me, through no desert of my own? And how can I possibly respond or react to this situation except to give thanks?

I don't post on my blog

2007-10-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

Obviously

Ouch

2007-08-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

The Schmidt Sting Pain Index is a scale of the relative pain produced by stings from various hymenoptera (wasps, bees, ants, etc). On a scale from 0 to 4 entomologist Justin O. Schmidt rated 78 species of hymenoptera. Below is a sample provided via everyone's favourite pedia, wikipedia.

* 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
* 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
* 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
* 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
* 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine WC Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
* 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
* 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
* 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of Hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
* 4.0 Pepsis wasp: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath (if you get stung by one you might as well lie down and scream).
* 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch nail in your heel.

In case you're curious, I'm fairly certain it was a hive of paper wasps that stung me many times as a child and triggered my ... er... let's call it aversion to hymenoptera.

Drive-By Posting

2007-07-31T13:55:00.000-07:00

Recent highlights of my life include:

-Both of Jan's sisters have new sons, Lorinda and Chris' son Samuel was born March 3rd and Susan and Chris' son Damien was born on June 24th.
-Great camping trip with Kinsey and Amanda in Bird's Hill
-Great impromptu trip to Saskatoon to see the newest of the aforementioned nephews
-Great canoe trip with the youth from St. Margaret's in Lake of the Woods
-My sister Cathy is coming to Winnipeg on Thursday

I hope to post more, and in more detail soon, but I have resolved to feel no guilt if I don't.

Conspiracy Theory Day

2007-06-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

I think that the movement toward debit cards and away from cash is a deliberate attack on the poor. The poor, more than any other people, rely on cash, in the form of change (particularly SPARE change). As fewer and fewer people carry cash, casual charity decreases also. That applies for canvassers, who knock on people's doors in support of charity, and who once might have gotten a dollar from a house in which there is now no cash. It applies for buskers and panhandlers, who depend on the casual generosity of strangers for their subsistance.

Interac is clearly a plot against the poor.

Pathetic

2007-06-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

My maternal grandfather wrote a four or five page letter to my mother every week from the time she moved out until the time his Parkinson's got too bad for him to do it anymore. For about thirty years he wrote her single every week.

I can't even write on my blog.

I love the internet

2007-06-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

The White Stripes are coming to Winnipeg. Maybe that's why I've been humming this song for the past week:

Then I was walking home from work last night, and I started, for reasons I cannot explain, to sing "Get Back". So I got home, and watched this:

.

Then I found myself humming again, and so I just finished watching:

My every musical whim is instantly satisfied.

Conspiracy Theory Day

2007-06-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

You may have heard that the Beatles put pro-drug messages in their song lyrics. The truth is, they often snuck pro-classical music messages.

Get Bach
I want to hold your Handel
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Mozart's Club Band
Ludwig (von Beethoven) in the Sky with Diamonds

... to name just a few of the most obvious.

Goodbye Iowa

2007-05-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend of the 11th in Iowa City at my oldest sister's convocation. Jill graduated with a PhD in Women's Studies. The graduation was long and not terribly interesting in itself, but it was pretty cool to see my big sister become a doctor. Jill and her partner India hosted a big party later in the day, full of food, drink and good conversation.

Cathy and Freda were there too, and so were my parents. The best part of the trip was spending time with my family, and I left promising both Cathy and Jill that I would do better at keeping in touch with them in the future. And now I've put it into writing. So I'd better actually do it.

Job Talk

2007-05-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

So far I have two jobs for the summer, both in the evenings.

The first, canvassing for the Wilderness Committee as part of their grassroots education campaign, seems like nice enough work. It involves knocking on doors, which I got very used to last year as an enumerator for Statistics Canada, and telling people about the Wilderness Committee. Not too tough.

The second job is something completely new for me: manual labour. I'm laying brick for a small business here in Winnipeg. It's strictly inlayed brick, driveways and walkways not walls and houses. I've worked one three-hour shift so far, and it was both very satisfying and very tiring. There's something very rewarding about being able to see the fruits of my labour, and I don't remember the last time I slept as well or as soundly.

I also applied for a job with Golder, which sometimes hires students for the summer. They don't know yet if they need any help, but if they do, they say I'll be the first one they call.

What do you think?

2007-05-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'm worried that our cat Perelandra is bored. She's mostly a very good cat, very affectionate, and cuddly, and so far I've taught her to jump through a hoop and to sit, and I'm working on roll over. But we're away from home so much of the day that I'm afraid she's lonely and bored. So we've been considering a second cat.

Pros:

If one cat is good, a second could be even better
Perelandra no longer bored and lonely
Possibly no longer bored and lonely= slightly less destructive/less inclined to suddenly go crazy-go-nuts and attack us

Cons:

What if the second cat is a jerk?
Finding someone to take care of one cat when we go out of town is one thing, but to find someone to take care of two cats might be harder
The price of buying it
The price of more food and more litter
What if the new cat won't share a litterbox with Perelandra? Second litter box? Put it where?

Return of the Paul

2007-05-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

I fail at recounting Holy Week at St. Margaret's this year. It was good. But it was so long ago now, that it seems futile to go back and blog about it. So I haven't been blogging about anything, because in the back of my head I've been thinking that I will come back and blog about Holy Week. And then I don't.

So I officially give up. But happily Holy Week will come again next year.

Life here is good, though now that school is done I have to find a job, which is daunting, despite the encouragement of many--especially my sister Cathy. Cathy thinks I should get a job workign for Golder, and/or for the Wildnerness Committee, and/or some paid clowning gigs. I'll let you know which/if any of those work out.

In other news, the St. Margaret's youth had our Guy's Night on May 4th, and it was an unqualified success. We spent as much on that night as on four or five other nights, but I think it was worth it (as a one-time deal). Our youth group has tended to be quite girl-heavy, so it was nice to have such a good turn out of guys, including several friends. We went paintballing, ate ice cream and chips and pizza, ran around the church in the dark like crazy people, and played GameCube late into the night. Lots of fun.

Sorry to leave you hanging

2007-04-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

School has been rather all-absorbing lately. I promise to tell the end of the story (of Holy Week) soon. Let me spoil the ending, though. Jesus is ALIVE!

Here's a poem in the mean time:

Easter Wings

Lord, Who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poore:
With Thee
O let me rise,
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day Thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My tender age in sorrow did beginne;
And still with sicknesses and shame
Thou didst so punish sinne,
That I became
Most thinne.
With Thee
Let me combine,
And feel this day Thy victorie;
For, if I imp my wing on Thine,
Affliction shall advance the flight in me.

George Herbert

Clone Wars

2007-04-07T10:17:00.000-07:00

Donald Phillips, The Bishop of Rupert's Land, is responsible for overseeing about 50-100 churches. This year he was at St. Margaret's for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday morning (in the congregation) and both Easter Vigils. Last year he was at our Maundy Thursday service, Good Friday and both Vigils also.

Aren't there any other churches that might like him to visit them? I don't know. Jan's theory is that, like Santa Claus, the Bishop has a number of clones whom he can send out to help him in his work. We think that the person sitting in the congregation on Good Friday was the real bishop, but all the others are just clones.

Good Friday

2007-04-06T14:48:00.000-07:00

When the Good Friday service begins, the cross is still shrouded and the alter is still stripped. The clergy and lay-readers are still dressed in black.

The service itself, which centered heavily upon the choir, who sang beautifully both American folk songs and pieces from Bach's B Minor mass, including a beautiful aria sung by up-and-coming opera singer Sandra Peters, was moving and sad, beautiful and touching. Interspersed with the choir music, David gave a series of reflections on Jesus' death.

What liturgical Christians need to remember, said David, is that it is not enough to recite the creed. You need a personal relationship with Christ. Do you want to see Jesus? Do you want to look in his face? It is not an easy face to look upon, this time of year. It is a face of suffering and pain. But what we need, if we want to be followers of Christ, is not an explanation, not a theory, not a theology. We need to be in the garden with Christ. We need to walk with him to the cross. And that is what the liturgy provides for us. Through the litugy we are there. We pray with Jesus in the garden, and like his disciples we fall asleep. We abandon him and we deny him, but we are still welcome at the foot of the cross. We witness his suffering and we mourn with the disciples. And we walk with Joseph of Aramethia to the new tomb, and we help to lay Jesus down.

And we wait.

Maundy Thursday

2007-04-05T20:34:00.000-07:00

Easter is the holiest time in the Christian year. Easter isn't just a day, it's a season. Starting with Palm Sunday, no service in a Liturgical church ends. All of Holy Week is really one long service, and today was Maundy Thursday.

Maundy Thursday, the comemoration of the Last Supper, and of Jesus washing his disciples' feet, is one of the most moving services in all of the church year. The Bishop of Rupert's Land was at St. Margaret's again this year, and after we read the Gospel telling how Jesus washed his disciples feet and heard a sermon on why Peter didn't want his feet washed--why a salvation that means God serving us is beyond our acceptance, since it means that we can't earn our salvation--the Bishop called members of the congregation who so chose to let him wash their feet.

When the service was all over, the clergy and all the lay-readers took off their albs surpicles and stoles, leaving only a black cassock underneath. They left the bread and the wine on the alter and left it all behind. Like Peter who abandoned and denied Christ, they abandoned their office and they left the body of Christ. Solomnly they walked to the back of the church, and slowly the lights of the sanctuary were turned off. One by one.

In the darkness, a cantor sang Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; by night as well, but I find no rest.
Yet you are the Holy One, enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
Our forefathers put their trust in you; they trusted, and you delivered them.
They cried out to you and were delivered; they trusted in you and were not put to shame.
But as for me, I am a worm and no man, scorned by all and despised by the people.
All who see me laugh me to scorn; they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying,
"He trusted in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, if he delights in him."
Yet you are he who took me out of the womb, and kept me safe upon my mother's breast.
I have been entrusted to you ever since I was born; you were my God when I was still in my mother's womb.
Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.
Many young bulls encircle me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me.
They open wide their jaws at me, like a ravening and a roaring lion.
I am poured out like water;all my bones are out of joint; my heart within my breast is melting wax.
My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.
Packs of dogs close me in,and gangs of evildoers circle around me; they pierce my hands and my feet; I can count all my bones.
They stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them; they cast lots for my clothing.
Be not far away, O LORD; you are my strength; hasten to help me.
Save me from the sword, my life from the power of the dog.
Save me from the lion's mouth, my wretched body from the horns of wild bulls.
I will declare your Name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.
Praise the LORD, you that fear him; stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel; all you of Jacob's line, give glory.

The black-clad figures walked back up, and piece by piece stripped the alter, and a black shroud was placed over the cross. In the dark and the quiet, we got up and left the church.

We know what will happen next. We feel uneasy and unrestful. And we wait.

Holy Week

2007-04-05T11:41:00.000-07:00

Today was Maundy Thursday. Holy Week has officially begun.

Really it started last Sunday, with Palm Sunday. Our Sunday morning service included children waving palm branches, prancing around the church in excitement.

Palm Sunday is always bitter-sweet. Jesus enters Jerusalem in triumph. The crowd cheers, they wave palm branches, they lay branches and cloaks on the ground for Jesus' colt to ride on, like Sir Walter Raleigh laying his coat in the mud for Queen Elizabeth to step on. Jesus is Lord and King. When people tell him to quiet the crowd he responds "If these were silent, the stones would cry out!" And the people aren't silent. They shout "Hosanna!" They shout "The King!"

But we can never quite forget that the next time we see a crowd shouting at Jesus they are shouting "Crucify him!" How many people were in both of those crowds?

So we celebrate, but when we are done we burn the palm leaves, and save the ashes. We save them for almost a year, until next Ash Wednesday, when the priest spreads them on our foreheads in the shape of a cross and says "Remember O man (or woman) that dust thou art and to dust wilt thou return."

Palm Sunday is always bitter-sweet.

In the evening we celebrated Passion Sunday. A string quartet played Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ, and our rector David Widdicombe offered a series of meditations on those last words.

Jesus says "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." This doesn't mean "They don't know, so they shouldn't be held responsible." The ignorance is not the excuse. It's more like someone saying "Forgive them for they robbed my house". "They know not what they do" is why they need forgiveness, not why they deserve it. We are forgiven freely by the grace and love of the suffering God--the God who suffers on our behalf. We don't know what we are doing, but we are forgiven.

Amen.

There must be more then this provincial life

2007-04-03T19:26:00.000-07:00

I made a flippant (do I make any other kind?) comment on Claw of the Conciliator's blog in which I said something like "Disney's morality is almost completely incompatible with Christianity". It was a response to an article he was quoting that said something about "Disney-brand “Judeo-Christian morality,”. Claw commented that Disney isn't about Judeo-Christian morality but about believing in yourself, and I meant to agree, but went overboard.

Anactoria asked in the comments "Hey Paul, how are Disney stories incompatible with Christianity exactly?" and rather than hijack Claw's comments completely, I though I would answer her in a blog post of my own.

If you want more background for some reason, check out this post and the comments to it.

Disney's morality tends strongly towards secular-humanism-lite-plus-occasional-new-age.

Beauty and the Beast, to use your example, Anactoria. is drawn from a fairy tale, yes. The version of the fairy tale I'm most familiar with goes like this:

A rich merchant lived in the city, with his daughters, one of whom was Beauty, but he lost his wealth, and he and his daughters (whose suitors no longer wanted to marry them) had to live in the country. One day, he heard that a ship of his had returned. He went back to the city. His other daughters asked for jewelry and dresses, but Beauty wanted only a rose.

Beauty's father, lost in a forest and caught in a storm, finds shelter in the Beast's palace. As he leaves, he plucks a rose to bring back to Beauty, offending his unseen host, who denouncing him as a thief, tells him he must now die. The father begs to be allowed to see his daughters again: the Beast says that he can go if he promises to send the first living thing he meets on his property back to the Beast. The man agrees, assuming that the first thing he sees will be his cat, but Beauty runs to meet him, and he sees her first. Beauty journeys to the Beast's castle convinced she will be killed, but instead she is made mistress of the enchanted palace, and the Beast asks her to be his wife. She says she can be his friend, and will stay with him forever, but not as his wife, asking only to return to her home for a week to say farewell to her father. Her sisters entice her to stay beyond the allotted week, and she returns belatedly to the castle, finding the Beast lying near death from distress at her failure to return. She begs him to live, so that he may be her husband, and by this act the Beast is transformed into a handsome prince. After Beauty returns to the palace, her family comes to live with her. (very slightly altered from the wikipedia on Beauty and the Beast)

Now this pre-Disney version is about all kinds of things. It's a children's story, but it's multi-layered and profound. It's about female sexual maturity (the girl leaves her father for a man who seems beastly at first, but who she eventually becomes attracted to), it's about the redemptive power of love (the beast is becomes human because he is loved), it's about both the importance keeping promises (Beauty breaker her promise to the Beast has disastrous consequences) and the danger of making promises (the father has to sacrifice his daughter because he is bound by a promise), it's about self-sacrifice (Beauty gives of herself to save her father), and it's about deceptive appearances (Beast looks ugly but beneath it is good). I'm probably forgetting some stuff, but you get the idea. This is all just to say that just because it's a children's story doesn't mean the morality has to be watered down.

Disney's version maintains the deceptive-appearances angle (sort of, I'll get into that). Gaston is handsome but evil, the Beast is ugly but good. But let's look closer, and especially let's look at what Disney has added to the story and what they've taken away.

Belle starts the movie by complaining about her provincial life. She's bored. Like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, like Pocahontas, like Mulan, like Aladdin, Belle is unhappy with her life among the commoners. She wants excitement, and (like the other characters) she finds it, because she's special.

In the fairy tale the spell is broken when she agrees to marry him. In the Disney version it's when she says she loves him. What's the difference? In one it's about the redemptive power of love a committed and self-sacrificing love, and in the other it's about the power of love with no strings and no risks.

Christianity is a religion in which sinners are ransomed from the fall. Judaism is a religion in which a just God blesses a people with the Law, so they can live rightly with him and be a light to all nations. "Judeo-Christian" morality emphasises self-sacrifice and the existence of a truth beyond human understanding but which is made access able to us by grace. It emphasises love as an action instead of only a feeling, and it emphasises that what you do matters.

Disney morality emphasises that the truth is found within oneself, that love is like a light switch that fixes things without and risk or sacrifice.

Via Diedre

2007-04-03T10:46:00.000-07:00

create your own visited countries map

Now squishied so it can all fit!

Black is so passe

2007-04-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

So I've had enough of the blackness of my blog. It's not a dramatic change to move to blue, but it feels like time for it.

Seder

2007-04-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

Jan and I hosted a Seder supper on Friday, and (if I say so myself) it was a smashing success.

I wish we could have invited more people, but even as it was our apartment was a little full, our finances were a little strained, and the food was only just enough.

Still, though, it was great to have a party with some of our friends, to spend all week cooking and preparing, to have people in our home, looking through our books. Adding the service of a Seder to the party just made it that much better, in my opinion, and I think this will become a Moffett tradition.

The menu was:
A hot spinich salad with raisins and pine nuts
Chicken soup with homemade matzo/chicken balls
Roast potatoes and carrots
Green beans
Stuffed lamb
Haroset (a fruity, nutty dish kinda like a chutney in concept, more of a condament than a dish)
Matzo bread

Next time I'll double the potatoes, the lamb, and the stuffing, and add more green beans. I don't think anyone went home hungry, but there sure weren't many leftovers.

The liturgy of the Seder involves (among other things) filling your wine glass at four different occasions, and that might be part of why as the supper went on it became progressively less solumn and more joyful, with more jokes and silliness. It seems very appropriate to me, as we celebrate the move from slavery in Egypt to freedom, to become more joyous throughout the night. It also occurred to me that slaves cannot drink four glasses of wine with a meal.

This post is very rambling, but the point is: our seder was great.
Next year in Jerusalem.

What's Up?

2007-03-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

So in answer to the questions I get from people who I had no idea read my blog, and also in answer to my friends who are curious:

It turns out I need another part-year of pre-MA studies. It's extremely disappointing and discouraging, but there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm trying to look on the bright side, so here it is:
* This means another year in Winnipeg. We are so involved at St. Margaret's, and so happy with our involvement, that I'm in no hurry to leave the city.
* I don't need to be full time next year, so I might take advantage of this opportunity to take a few courses that always looked interesting but that I didn't have time for. Like etymology, and Chaucer.
* After a year at U of M I don't know very many profs, and those I do know I don't know all that well. One more year gives me more chance to make an informed decision about a faculty advisor.

In other news, Jan and I are hosting a Seder Supper in our home on Friday. If I have any Jewish readers they will no doubt wish to point out that Passover isn't until Tuesday. I know. But try inviting people to a dinner starting at 8pm on Tuesday night that includes four glasses of wine. So we're having it on Friday, demonstrating again that Christians may talk the talk of ritual, but when the rubber meets the road we don't walk the walk.

Okay seriously, it is one of the tenents of Christianity that mercy triumphs over judgement and grace superceeds the law. That means that while we follow the law, we aren't bound to it.

It is a big feast, with as many people (or slightly more) as our apartment can hold. I wish we could have invited more people, but we really are pushing it already. We haven't heard back from everybody yet, but if every invited person comes, it will make 13--the same number as Jesus' last supper.

But I hope ours goes better for us than his did for him.

A sedar supper, for those who don't know, is the ritual meal of passover. It is the meal Jesus was eating in the upper room with his disciples. It is both a feast and a service, and every part of the meal has ritual significance. We've been running ourselves like mad trying to get everything ready--buying groceries (including Kosher Wine), cleaning the house, checking with our invided guests. Now it's Thursday and all Jan and I need to do is finish cleaning, buy some more wine, buy ground almonds (no flour is used during passover), buy more matzah bread, buy the lamb (bone out, but keep the bone), prepare all the food we can ahead of time, run through the liturgy together to make sure we know it, and to get a sense of the timing, figure out seating, find two white candles, clear our home of leaven, and we'll be good to go.

Unless I've forgotten something.

The Problem of Pain in the DC Universe

2007-03-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking lately about Superman and the Problem of Pain in the DC Universe.

Since Superman's inception he has gotten progressively more powerful. In his very first incarnation, Superman was able to lift a car over his head, run at great speeds, leap 1/8 of a mile, and had skin so tough it could not be pierced by anything short of an exploding artillery shell.

As time passed, he got stronger, tougher, faster, gained the ability to fly, x-ray vision, heat vision, super hearing, super breath, etc.

Superman's powers expanded as his enemies became more viscious, as his stories became more epic, and as writers got, frankly, a little carried away. But as Superman became more powerful, it forced the DC Universe to cope more and more with the theological problem of pain.

If Superman has super speed and super hearing, then how--within the fictional DC Universe of which Superman is the preeminant hero--can the ordinary citizens explain any suffering? How can Superman justify going on a date with Lois? How, within the DC Universe, does any crime or any natural disaster, or any accident ever hurt anyone? How does anyone die of any cause other than old age?

As Superman becomes more powerful, it becomes more and more difficult for the writers to avoid the problem of pain.

Apparently, writer Kurt Busiek has been thinking along the same lines. Busiek, who made a name for himself with Astro City, is quite simply one of the best writers of superhero stories out there today. He writes superheros as legends, uses their iconic status to tell fables that are often disarmingly moving. In the February issue of Superman he tells a simple story whose predictable ending, does not make it any less powerful. As Gabriel Mckee at sfgospel says "we can pretty much see where the story is headed from the beginning, but this foreknowledge simply fills it with the power of fable and parable. This story does everything that a Superman story should do, using the character's iconic status to tell a moving story about power and faith." An old woman in Metropolis becomes convinced that Superman is an angel, God's agent who comes when she prays. Superman's super hearing means that he can hear her prayers, and can respond. It's a story that needed to be told, and that deals surprisingly well with the theology of suffering. Again, I'll quote Gabriel Mckee: "If you buy only one Superman comic this year, make sure it's this one. "

Thanks to Elliot for pointing it out to me.

America is getting stupider

2007-03-02T17:08:00.000-08:00

Remember when "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" debuted, and there was a general cry of dismay that the questions were too easy? No? Maybe that was just me.

Anyway, the newest of the stupid game shows spawned by the abhomination that is Deal or No Deal (I hate Howie Mandel) is Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

As one might expect from the title, the questions are (ostensibly) drawn from grade 1-5 textbooks in various subjects. And the contestants are apparently drawn from the bottom of a lake, where they have been held for just long enough to suffer perminant brain damage.

The biggest problem with it, really, is not even the relative easiness of the questions. The biggest problem is that in a half hour episode, the contestants answer about four questions. The rest of the time is filled with stalling, and transparently manipulative attempts to raise the level of tension.

Bah. Give me Jeopardy!

There's no such THING as coincidence

2007-02-27T14:36:00.000-08:00

If Elliot from Claw of the Conciliator shaved off his goatee, he would look a lot like Elliot from Rob and Elliot.

Coincidence?

Bible Quiz

2007-02-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

You are 74% Scripture literate!

You are a Pseudo-Bible scholar. Good job, apparently you actually read the good book every once in a while.

The Adult Bible Quiz
Create a Quiz

As Elliot said, it's more about obscure biblical trivia than useful knowledge. Still kinda fun, though.

Self Doubt

2007-02-21T09:19:00.000-08:00

So a few weeks ago I applied to the Master's of English program at U of M.

I didn't even apply anywhere else, mainly because Jan and I want to stay at St. Margaret's for at least a few more years, and that would be hard to do if we leave Winnipeg.

Since I was accepted into the pre-master's program, it seems that my chances of being accepted into the Master's program are quite good. I mean, unless my grades last term had plummited (and they haven't, they've significantly improved) why would they reject me now?

But still I'm afraid that somehow they've found out that I'm not really smart enough to be a graduate student. So every day I anxiously check the mail, and so far there has been no response.

...

Do you think that's a bad sign? They would tell me if I was rejected, right?

Time-Wasty

2007-02-19T12:22:00.000-08:00

Via Elliot

It works like this: "The bolded books are books I've read (and even enjoyed) ... italicized books I would like to read, books with crosses are on my shelf and asterisked books I've never heard of. The books that are striked out I am unlikely ever to read. The books listed here that haven't felt the touch of my cursor and remain unedited I could care less or more about on any given day.

I imagine the books on this list were selected for their best-seller status or something like that."

1. ~~The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)~~
2. †Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. †To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. †The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. †The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. †The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. †Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. *Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. †Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. ~~Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)~~
13. †Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. †Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. †Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. †The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. †The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. †Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. †Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. †The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. †The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. †Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. ~~The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)~~
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. *The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. *The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. †The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. *I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. ~~The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)~~
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. †Bible
46. †Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. *She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. †A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. †Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. †The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. †Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. *The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. †Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davies) (read it, but HATED it)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) (Read parts of it)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. †Les Miserables (Hugo) (also read it in French)
70. †The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery (Own it in French, don't think I've ever read it in English)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. ~~The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)~~
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. *A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. †Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. *Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. †Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. ~~In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)~~
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. †The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. *The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. *A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. *The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Copycat

2007-02-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

Diedre posted about the strange searches that lead to her blog, and I thought I'd do the same. Because I'm a big copycat.

Actual search engine searches that lead actual people to this blog:

"definitely get cured of parkinson"
"racism half breed"
"cassock albs"
"how does vergil in the aenead build on the epic tradition"
"i am the chiefest of sinner"
"lenten clown skits"
... and about a million variations on "god's gonna cut you down"

My Ticket Outta Here!

2007-02-03T16:47:00.000-08:00

Myspace Layouts

Make your own.
Via Elliot.

I can set you up with his manager, if you want...

2007-01-31T22:41:00.000-08:00

As some of you may know, Cathy's boyfriend Dylan is an artist. Quite a good one, too.

For me, one benefit of this is that Jan and I have original art decorating our apartment.

One of the things I really like about his art is that without being boring he has a distinctive style. His work is recognizably his. It doesn't look like someone trying to copy Monet or Picasso or whoever. It looks like Dylan T. Farrell. Yet each piece really is different.

It also bears looking at for a long time. I feel that it stands up to close examination. He has real talent.

I'm no art critic, and confess that I am woefully uneducated in art history and art appreciation and such. But to use a cliche, I may not know much, but I know what I like.

Forced

2007-01-31T20:50:00.000-08:00

Blogger forced me to change to the new blogger. I'm not impressed.

So ... it's been awhile.

2007-01-31T20:42:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to tell you.

The Sin of Snobbery

2007-01-10T00:16:00.000-08:00

In his work Heretics G.K. Chesterton writes of heresy:

In former days there heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled gainst them; they had rebelled against him. ... The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man' he was a church. He was the centre of the universe; it was round him that the stars swung. All the tortures torn out of forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical . But a few modern phrases have made him boast of it. He says, with a conscious laugh, 'I suppose I am very heretical,' and looks round for applause.

Heresy is still, in our own age, far too often considered something to be proud of—when to anyone who really knows the meaning of the word is should be something to be vehemently denied. But perhaps worse today is the attitude toward snobbery.

Snobbery was once understood as a manifestation of pride. Pride—which C.S. Lewis considered the most demonic (rather than animal) of sins. Sneering, dismissive pride, which considers other people as insignificant. Pride, which demeans and dismisses God's image, and God himself.

Yet I've heard many people admit to snobbery with a tone of boasting rather than of confession. I've done it myself, and far more often I've privately congratulated myself on my snobbery. Too often we consider snobbery to be evidence of good taste. Especially when it comes to art—literature, visual arts, music—snobbery is touted as evidence of refinement and judgment.

It is debatable whether aesthetic judgments are objective or subjective. I personally am inclined to believe that there really is a difference between good literature and bad literature, good music and bad music, and that the difference is more than my own taste. However, the snobbish wholesale dismissal of certain kinds of art will necessarily impoverish a person's experience. Worse, snobbery is more than dismissing bad art, it is contempt for the producers and consumers of bad art. It is an implicit denial of the value, of the humanity of some people. It is blasphemy, for it is contempt for the image of God.

I am not immune to the sin of snobbery. I don't think anyone is. But it is a sin, and when we are clearsighted enough to recognize it in ourselves we should struggle against it, ask God for help to conquer it, seek forgiveness, not boast of our sin as if it were proof of our enlightenment or our quality. It is evil, and when I succumb to it is indeed proof of my quality.

God have mercy on me, a sinner.

Scorpions on a Plane!!

2007-01-09T21:23:00.000-08:00

Life mirrors art.

How I spent my Christmas Vacation

2007-01-08T20:10:00.000-08:00

It was a good Christmas.

No, scratch that, it was a great Christmas.

Niagara Falls was warm, and kinda rainy, and weather-wise, a little depressing. There was no snow. When we arrived, my sister Cathy, her boyfriend Dylan and their daughter Freda were already there, so we got to spend some time with them. Freda has grown a whole lot since we saw her last—she looks like a small person instead of a muppet.

My brother James, his wife Janine and their three children Zara, Caleb, and Elijah, live in St. Catharine's just 10 minutes from Niagara Falls, so we got to spend quite a bit of time with them too.

Finally, my oldest sister Jill and her partner India arrived on Christmas Eve, and we spent one evening hanging out with them, playing spades, chess and boggle.

It's been a while since my whole family has been together, and even longer since we were all together while all getting along.

A few highlights of the trip:

India suggested a game of basketball, and she, Jill, James, Janine, Cathy, Dylan, Jan and I ended up playing a few three-on-three games, which was a lot more fun that I expected it to be.

Teaching both Jan and India to play chess. Jan had no trouble remembering how the pieces moved, but had trouble with the strategy. India was very strategic, but couldn't remember which piece was which. I'm sure that should tell me something about their respective characters, but I'm not sure what.

We went on a big ferris wheel with my dad, who was very nervous. It's not kind to mock him, but it is fun.

Spending New Years' Eve with Zara, Caleb and Elijah, and—after they all went to bed—with Cathy and Dylan.

We got to spend some real time with everyone, and it was, all in all, a fabulous trip. Check out Jan's Musings for more.

Return of the Moffetts

2007-01-02T17:05:00.000-08:00

We're back from Niagara. Tired but happy. Will write more soon re: adventures.

Parsnips Aplenty

2006-12-24T15:15:00.000-08:00

Jan and I are in Niagara visiting my family this Christmas. We've been here since the 21st, and we're leaving on New Years' day.

We're having a good time, with lots of great food. It's nice to see family, and so far we've spent time with my parents, with my brother James and Janine and their kids Zara, Caleb, and Elijah, and with my sister Cathy and Dylan and their daughter Freda.

Although it has all been good, one of the highlights has been Freda, who has grown an awful lot since we saw her last. She smiles and giggles, and is a cutie.

She's about to grow teeth, and instead of a teething ring, Cathy and Dylan give her a hard vegetable to bite on. She spends many a happy moment holding a parsnip and waving it about in joy.

A Day in the Life

2006-12-17T20:11:00.000-08:00

Today being Sunday, I spent much of the day at church, and much of my time not actually at church walking to and from.

This morning we taught the youth about the book of Acts, about Ethiopia, about the meaning of the word disciple and the word apostle, about St. Paul and St. Patrick, about the manner of Judas Iscariot's death, about the entymological roots of "Theophilos", and about the end of the world.

In the afternoon I spoke to my mother on the phone and watched the newest episode of Battlestar Galactica.

Then it was back to church for the evening service. I was very tired, and sadly paid not nearly enough attention to the sermon on why Santa Claus is a heretic.

My dress shoes have very little grip and the sidewalks are quite slippery, so on the walk home I got to slide a lot. The only difficult part is picking up the necesary speed without falling over. And, of cource, a rough patch can make a sudden and unexpected stop.

And now I'm home, and Jan and I are watching Pride and Prejudice (the BBC version of course, which was a Christmas gift to Jan from her sister Lorinda). Mr. Darcy will soon propose to Lizzie for the first time, so I'm going to go watch it properly, instead of only half paying attention.

Weffriddles

2006-12-13T12:00:00.000-08:00

WOOHOO!

I'm done weffriddles. Some of those were very tough, and most of them I would NEVER have gotten without Jan.

Evil Elliot

2006-12-11T10:16:00.000-08:00

I've noticed this before, but in light of Annemarie's recent layout overhaul my attention is once more drawn to blog layouts.

My blog looks a lot like Elliot's, except he is pure and good and I am dark and sinister.

Except, I suppose, in China where he is morbid, and I am clinging to my youth.

And in conclusion I wish to conclude that this is the conclusion

2006-12-11T10:13:00.000-08:00

I suck at conclusions. I've realised lately that both in academic papers and on this blog, I tend to just stop instead of coming to any logically or asthetically pleasing conclusion.

Curses!

2006-12-11T10:10:00.000-08:00

I'm on level 54 of weffriddles and I don't know what to do now. I MUST SOLVE IT!

This is all Annemarie's fault.

Sad Life

2006-12-08T20:13:00.000-08:00

I was out for a few drinks with some friends from class, and I overheard the following conversation.

English Guy:... yeah, in England Sunday is a day for family.
Shaggy Mennonite: Oh yeah. I grew up in Winkler, and it's the same there. It's a day for, like, family and for church and stuff.
EG: Not for me though. For me Sunday is just like any other day.
SM: I know what you mean. What makes Sunday different from any other day of the week?
EG: I know, yeah. It's just like any other day. Even Christmas is just like any other day.
SM: Totally. It's just like any other day.
EG: Yeah, I spent Christmas alone last year, and I'm spending it alone this year, and I don't care, because it's just another day...

And I thought to myself: What a sad existance.

Imagine a life with nothing to look forward to, when every day is just like every other. I feel more sorry for EG than I would if he said he was alone and wishing he had someone to spend Christmas with. He doesn't even know what he's missing.

And I realized how glad I am to be a Christian: to have festivals and holidays to look forward to—festivals that mean something. And I realized how glad I am that I have a small festival every single week—that every Sunday is like Christmas in miniature. And I feel very, very sorry for EG and SM.

Report

2006-12-08T09:32:00.000-08:00

Medieval Lit paper-of-doom? Check
History of Critical Theory paper? Check
History of Critical Theory Exam? Check
Hybridity and Literary Imagination paper-of-doom? Done and to be handed in today
Hybridity Exam? Two hours away
Medieval Lit Exam? Saturday the 16th
American Lit paper? Saturday the 16th
Advent ornaments made? Check
People-of-Israel poem rehearsed? Not yet
Advent Pagent? This Sunday
Various parties? All on the same day. I'm going to miss the St. Margaret's Young Adults night and and invitation to Amanda and Kinsey's place in favour of Melissa's party.

Busy-ness

2006-11-25T16:14:00.000-08:00

It's crunch time.

I have a three-page paper due on Monday, a 15 page paper due on Thursday, a five page paper due the next Tuesday, and another 15 page paper due the Wednesday. Plus a few quizzes, and once that's all done exams begin. Add to that the various youth events of December, plus teaching Sunday School, plus the several Christmas parties I have been invited to and want to attend if I can.

No blogging for a bit.

Soup II

2006-11-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

My soup turned out absolutely delicious, if I say so myself.

It turns out we didn't actually have any vegetable broth, so I made my own, by frying carrots, onion, celery and garlic in the bacon fat, then boiling the whole thing with some sage until it was tasty. Add the squash, and it's done. Simple and delicious.

We finished off all my rye bread already, so I ate it with corn chips instead (leftover from a party we went to). Bread would have been better.

Johnny Cash—God's Gonna Cut You Down

2006-11-22T07:40:00.000-08:00

Via Chris (via Youtube).

I wonder whether the various celebrities who appear in this video were actually listening to the lyrics.

Morning Confusion

2006-11-21T16:19:00.000-08:00

Our apartment is heated by hot water radiators. As anyone who has ever lived in a radiator-heated dwelling will know, sometimes they make strange noises.

Our radiators are not as bad as the radiators at CMU, but they do sometimes sound like running water.

A few days ago, our cat Perelandra peed on our floor. It was mostly our own fault—we hadn't cleaned her litter box in a few days, and there were some clothes on our floor which were obviously more appealing for her purposes. Needless to say, we now clean her litter box at least once a day, and we no longer leave any clothes on our floor. Talk about learning the hard way.

Anyway, I woke up recently to what sounded to me like someone or something peeing on the floor. Bleary-eyed and fluffy-headed, I rose, caught the cat where she was standing in our (empty) laundry hamper, and carried her out of the bedroom. Then I inspected the hamper. Dry. I smelled the floor. Nothing. I listened, and heard the peeing sound continuing, coming from our heater. I looked at the clock (5:47). I looked at the still-sleeping Jan. I went back to bed.

Soup

2006-11-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

Supper tonight will be Bacon-Squash Soup. I'm planning to basically cook a bunch of bacon, add onion, carrot, butternut squash, sage, and vegetable broth, blend and serve. I'll let you know how it turns out.

2006-11-21T09:35:00.000-08:00

I admit it

2006-11-20T19:36:00.000-08:00

I judge celebrities based on the charity they endorse on Celebrity Jeopardy.

Bread

2006-11-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

Those of you who aren't from Winnipeg may possibly are unfamiliar with Winnipeg-style rye, but trust me when I say that Winnipeg-style is the best rye bread in the world.

Foolishly, I took my expedition to buy rye flour without first looking at a recipe for rye bread. My hope had been to make Winnipeg-style rye bread, but apparently Winnipeg rye is not made with rye flour but with white flour and rye meal. So I was forced to make a different kind of light rye bread.

It was pretty good. Next time I will do better though.

That is all.

No YOU'RE a luddite.

2006-11-15T14:18:00.000-08:00

As those of you who also use it will no doubt be aware, blogger has released a new version, and really wants us all to switch over.

The new improvements include drag-and-drop templates and labels for each blog post, the necessity of signing in with a gmail account (Jan and I share a gmail account but not blogs. What do we do?), the annoying way that clicking on "comments" now leads you to the bottom of the comments instead of the top, security "improvements", so that now everytime I read blog comments, explorer tells me that the site includes both secure and unsecure items, and am I sure I really want to proceed?

Bah. Humbug. It worked fine before.

[edit to add] One of the big theoretical improvements of the new blogger is "it's a lot more reliable". Right after I made this post, all the blogs I check which were updated to the new version were inaccessable. The non-updated blogs were still accessable. Hah.

Bread

2006-11-15T14:11:00.000-08:00

Braided poppyseed egg loaf was a great success.

I made a dough that was essentially white bread plus eggs, formed it into ropes, braided the ropes and let the whole thing rise in a bread pan, so that the result fits easily into a toaster, but still has the pretty, bubbled top of a braided loaf. I brushed the loaves with more egg, then sprinkled generously with poppyseeds.

The finished product is heavier than regular white bread—but still quite fluffy and light—slightly yellow from the eggs, and tastes like poppyseeds. Good for sandwiches.

Next, an expedition to get rye flour.

It's Not Fair!

2006-11-14T17:15:00.000-08:00

The Helsinki Complaints Choir, via Neil Gaiman's blog.

The Fiction of Pastoral Care

2006-11-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

Care is a complicated thing.

Idiomatically, we talk about taking care of people—and it means meeting their particular needs. Taking care of someone physically means doing for them the things that they cannot do for themselves—whether that means bringing them chicken soup, changing their diapers, or anything in between. Emotionally or spiritually taking care of people is a little more complicated, but in general it's the same concept.

But by the definition of the word, care implies attitude as well as action. Even with physical care, it's worth asking whether care is really always the right word to use. Changing someone's bed dressings if you aren't fond of and/or concerned about them might not actually be care. Spiritually, the question seems to me even more pointed.

I don't know if you can care for someone just because it's your job. Is it actually possible to care for someone you don't know? Is it possible to provide pastoral care for someone you don't actually care about? It seems to me that genuine care requires trust that can only be built up over time—and that the attempt in many churches of institutionalising care is, in practice, a denial of care.

I have been on both the giving and the receiving end of pastoral care. In the 15 months I have worked with youth ministry, I have attempted to care for people I'd never met before. I have felt their distrust in the face of past abandonment. One former member of our youth group no longer attends because he is frustrated with getting to know new leaders every year—with new leaders who claim to care about him but who don't actually know him, didn't care for him before they were on the payroll and stop caring for him when the payroll stops. He feels that this care is insincere—that it is false. And he is right.

I don't say this to impugn the work of my predecessors. I am sure that each of them did truly try to care for the youth while they were working with them. But I know from my own experience that it isn't easy and it isn't automatic. I've often said—because I believe it is true—that last year with St. Margaret's youth was mostly prep-work, that now I'm ready to actually begin, because now I actually know them well enough that I can genuinely care about them.

And now the challenge for me is not to let them down, not to disappoint the trust I've built. Now that I can care about them, I need act out that care.

And care is a complicated thing.

Hauerwas and Do No Harm

2006-11-10T13:24:00.000-08:00

The medical concept of Do No Harm is clearly false. Doctors do harm all the time, and if they were really obligated to hold to "do no harm" they would not do anything. Even something as seemingly benign as giving someone aspirin has the potential to cause harm. Everything doctors do might harm us, and in the end it's mostly a matter of playing the odds.

Exercises in Gentle Contempt

Anyone out there?

The difference between Superman and Batman

10 Ways Smallville could become good

Well hi there.

THPAM!

A Christmas Post

How to Write A Major Paper: The Paul Method

Bobby McFerrin and a crowd sing Ave Maria

A slightly abbreviated version of my sermon for the first of Advent

Beckett according to Sesame Street

Asplosions!

Stuff, things, and junk like that

It's my blog as word art!

More posts about grad school soon. But for now...

Hwaet! Zounds! Harrow!

Let me 'splain. No. There is too much. Let me sum up.

Searle said: "Derrida gives bullshit a bad name"

Give me Liberte or give me death!

Classes

There's no such thing

Meet and Greet, Wine and Cheese

Mother and child

It's a Girl!

My library shows look like this:

Still no Baby

What's cooking?

Changes

I hab a code

Poetry for a rainy day

What? Amparo was here and I missed her AGAIN!?

Good News, and More Good News

More on Clowning

Have Clown Shoes, Will Juggle

Palm Sunday

Dear Paul,

That seems about right.

Victory!

Disturbing

Barmizvah Brothers

To do before Friday

Patience

Is it just me...

Thanksgiving

I don't post on my blog

Ouch

Drive-By Posting

Conspiracy Theory Day

Pathetic

I love the internet

Conspiracy Theory Day

Goodbye Iowa

Job Talk

What do you think?

Return of the Paul

Sorry to leave you hanging

Clone Wars

Good Friday

Maundy Thursday

Holy Week

There must be more then this provincial life

Via Diedre

Black is so passe

Seder

What's Up?

The Problem of Pain in the DC Universe

America is getting stupider

There's no such THING as coincidence

Bible Quiz

Self Doubt

Time-Wasty

Copycat

My Ticket Outta Here!

I can set you up with his manager, if you want...

Forced

So ... it's been awhile.

The Sin of Snobbery

Scorpions on a Plane!!

How I spent my Christmas Vacation

Return of the Moffetts