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Liveblogging the Anthem Glow accoustic set.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:46:00 +0000

8:14. In Emporia at the Inner Bean Coffee House. It's an actual house. As you can see. Jeremy and Samn of Anthem Glow pictured here. This picture was taken just before they launched into their classic soundcheck, an up-tempo and cheery version of Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues.

They then opened with The Killer's All These Things that I've Done, typically
cheesy, yet passionate, with a strong encouragement for the audience to join in on the I've got soul" bridge business. I am not a soldier, so, of course, joined in.

We're Going to Be Friends by The White Stripes started slow and then morphed into another Samn Wright that guy party song. Biggest applause of the three songs so far.

More and more people start filtering in. Going from just five or six to a bursting twenty in a few minutes.

Unfortunately, they are greeted with a sappy tale of love-to-be-lost, which is fortunately accompanied by a solid cover of Delicate by Damien Rice.

The story of the love lost continues with one of the few average songs in the Anthem Glow repertoire, What is Beautiful is God. Of course, an average Anthem Glow song is still . . . glowing. BAD-DUM-BUM.

Also, Amanda says something funny. And we all chuckle. That, or she just told me to say that. A little braggy.

8:33. The Euseys just walked in. I shook Evan's hand. Austin is reading this over my shoulder as I write, and patting my shoulder when I type something she agrees with.

8:37. Anthem Glow follows up the emo stylings of What is Beautiful is God with Wild Roses and Drowning in Faith, continuing the story of Samn's relationship with that girl, and also God at the same time, and how that worked out.

"Amanda returned with yet another witty comment," said Amanda. She also asked if this song was another song about that love triangle between Samn and that girl and God. It is.

8:41. During the Falling Slowly sing-along, I go up for that high note. And fail spectacularly. And intentionally.

Austin and Erin are conspiring next to me to dance together during Spider Web Waltz. I plan to thwart this plan. Bwa ha.

8:46. And now my absolute favorite Christmas song, Samn's Evergreen. Easily the highlight of the show so far. And so we cut trees down and dress them up in tinsel and strings. We ask you for a savior, you give us a baby. We asked you for a kingdom, and you gave us a mustard seed.

8:52. Aaand, break.

9:03. We're back with Wake Up by the Arcade Fire. But it's not actually them. It's Anthem Glow covering it. Which is cool. But not, like, David Bowie cool.

At 9:07, an Invisible Girl walks through the Bean. No one sees her.

And then there was the time that Amanda took over the live blogging and allowed anyone and everyone to comment.

Question 1 of live blogging take over: Commentor Jacob, is that Jake Petty?

Ben is enjoying a lovely strawberry italian cream soda.

Also, Michelle is drinking mt. dew with whip cream. no lie. she just loves it so much.

Samn and Jeremy are still singing. Samn is sweaty and about to play Orpheus.

Poll: How sweaty is Samn?
"He's really sweaty."
"I would say 7.5, 10 being the most sweaty I've seen him."
"Just right."
"On a scale of 1 to 10, he's really sweaty."
"Question, why is Jeremy not sweaty?"

Also, I am Orpheus.

The Inner Bean is very nicely decorated, mostly with snow men. I find most of the snowmen unfrightening, but there is one that rather startles me. I feel that he prematurely gave up his icy world to settle into a life on top of an old radio without thinking about what that would mean for those who would have to sit facing him while listening to Anthem Glow. He freaks everyone out who passes by. And it's not doing much for his self esteem.

Quote of the night: "Why are we both in Canada?"

Also, still singing.

2nd Poll on How Sweaty is Samn?:
"Is Samn crying?" "You can't tell because he is sweating."

Waltz Time:

On second thought, he's not so bad.

Also, We Are Like the Stars.

Good night!

9:52. After a long conversation with the Euseys, and a bit part in Like the Stars, Timothy returns to find his liveblogging taken over and improved upon. Also good night.

Just another together-when.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:34:00 +0000

This last weekend there was a Saturday. I know you may think this is a normal thing for a weekend. But you would be wrong. This was a Capital-S Saturday. You don't get those every week, let me tell you.

I got off work at three, windows down all the way home, after six hours under florescent lights, and the weather was late-May, school's out, nothing to do, call your friends, right down the list in your phone, who wants to do something, anything, outside? Some radical insurgent Spring cell got in and took down the oppressive Empire of November. If even for one day. And when oppressive empires are going' down, we are SO there.

So, I got home, and Samn and Jeremy were practicing in the basement for the acoustic set they're playing next week in Emporia. The house was getting darker, and Samn had texted me an idea that he had, a capital idea for Capital-S Saturdays in November, and so I waited with Juliet and Amanda for the rehearsal to end, hoping it wouldn't get too dark to pull this thing off.

Once they were done, Amanda left behind to sleep off a busy week, we packed up, piled in, and drove to Loose Park. Only then did we discover that we were not the only people with brilliant Saturday ideas. Some other people we didn't even know were already there, at work. And so, we doubled what they'd done, and almost fifteen of us made like it was effing Saturday, man.

This is us, after dusk, right before we left:

I'm pretty sure Samn is standing up there on the right.

At its best, the pile was taller than me. My first jump, I dove flat out, parallel to the ground and flew.

One kid, about 4 feet tall, just ran straight at the pile and disappeared, POOF, and he had to climb out of the middle.

Juliet went it with Jeremy one time. On his shoulders.

One tall guy did half a flip and went in head down, knees up, sunk right in.

Nobody told me this was what jumping in leaves was like. I would have started a long time ago.

You can't get leaves for that in the spring, and November weather is never this kind. It was like the evening was made just so for raking, like, half an acre of leaves into one pile and leaping into it.

American Beatitudes. A targum.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:00:00 +0000

(I, of course, owe much to Brian Walsh and Sylvia Keesmaat in the inspiration of this.)
Edited 11/2/2009 8:00 pm

Wake up.
Become aware.
Come alive.
Because
The Republic of God,
The United States of Heaven,
The Commonwealth of Jesus
is right here in front of you,
is right here inside you.
There is another way.

Privileged are those without hope or ability to succeed in the economic and political and (especially) religious systems of the world,
those without a college degree,
those without enough capital to start a business,
those deep in debt,
those who don't have time to get all spiritual,
those who don't go to church because they have been judged by people in churches,
those who don't understand what all this fuss is about God.
And privileged are all the people who aren't American,
who come to this county legally or illegally,
those who could never even dream of coming here.
Because they are the senators and policymakers and secretaries in this other nation.

Privileged are those who are worn out from the weight of being a cog in the machine of industry,
working 9 to 5, or 6 to 8, or midnight to 6, or a rotating shift, never see the sun,
whose benefits don't cover their medical bills
whose bosses’ bosses’ bosses, people they’ve never met, made decisions to lay them off, and now they can’t feed their family.
And privileged are the people turned into a commodity by a depersonalizing and dehumanizing image-driven society,
the teenage girls who think they have to cut calories just so to stay thin,
men who buy magazines promising to teach them to lose a gut they will never lose,
reality show contestants wanting to be famous, because being famous means being loved,
prostitutes and johns,
everyone lonely or scared of being poor or addicted or lost.
Because in this nation,
they will be comforted and given a new life
they will get to start over fresh,
and start over again,
and start over again.

Privileged are the timid and the unstrong,
the bullied and the scared,
the impotent in a world of rampant false virility,
the ones who don’t test well,
the ones who never spoke up in class.
And privileged are those unwilling or unable to work,
the ones turned lazy by entertainment funneled down their throats
the ones who never learned to be motivated themselves.
Because they are the CEOs, and they will receive the bonuses at Christmas, and the options. Their parachutes are always golden.

Privileged are those who have only ever experienced pain and oppression,
those who see injustice around every corner,
on the way out of their bosses’ offices,
in their landlord’s notices,
from the fists of their fathers or pimps or lovers,
in the systems of the federal or state government
in the systems of charity that only helps those who can help themselves,
in the lack of any system at all to help them,
those who wish they could just stop hurting for one minute a day.
Because they will see the pain and the oppression and the injustice and especially the hurt
finally stop.
And as empty as the hurt ever was, they will be filled up and over.

Privileged are those who have the easy opportunity to take advantage of someone else,
to make money,
or take power
at the expense of those without it.
And instead choose to give of themselves
to cast aside their comfort,
to not fuel someone’s slavery for the own convenience
of cheaper shoes,
a bigger television,
a better vacation.
And privileged are those who were oppressed by others and forgave,
who should have risen up and fought,
who should have sued,
who were justified to kill the men who raped their daughters,
and hugged them instead.
Because they, in return,
will be let off the hook,
be found innocent in the court of law,
will go free.
They are free.

Privileged are those without eyes to see the complexities of world,
without the understanding to read the fine-print of a mortgage document,
without the vision to depersonalize someone else's body for their own pleasure,
those unfamiliar with sex in a culture that fetishizes it,
the ones who don’t get jokes,
the gullible who get socked in the arm for looking at nothing.
Because instead of all of that,
they see and understand God.

Privileged are those who reconcile
murderers and victims' families,
landmine planters and soldiers without legs,
rapists and rape-victims,
Democrats and Republicans,
Hutus and Tutsis,
the kid who lost his fingers with the person who bought the t-shirt the kid was enslaved to make.
And privileged are those who refuse to take up arms to defend themselves,
those who stand in the way of someone else's pain, making it their own,
those who have never hostilely taken over anything,
or ordered someone to do something just because they could.
Because they will be titled:
President-on-Duty, Commanders-in-Chief.

And so, you are privileged.
When people insult you,
spit on you,
exclude you,
blog about you unfavorably,
or say all kinds of evil against you,
change their Facebook status to slight you,
invade your homeland,
laugh you out of the forum,
mock you on the Daily Show,
Fox News, or 4chan,
because you recognize this other, better nation,
because you are not a patriot anymore,
your interests abroad are deeper than American ones,
when you sympathize with killers and terrorists,
when the decisions you make for this other nation
hurt the economy of America,
when you change your life for justice,
and this inconveniences others' safety and comfort,
and especially when you forgive these very people who insult you,
rejoice and be glad!
Buck up.
Throw a party.
Someone will always persecute prophets and
people who find a third way,
and you're there among them.
So, great is your reward in
The Republic of God,
the United States of Heaven,
the Commonweath of Jesus.
You are the senators and CEOs now,
landlords and bosses.
You are the free ones.
You get to start over,
start fresh.
And you will do all these things differently.
From below,
without power or the desire to control.

And, sometimes, you will give up even this privilege.
Because,
you see God.
You have seen God.
He is here.
He is in you.

Send a heartbeat to . . .the void that cries through you? Or is it something else crying? Someone?

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:06:00 +0000

Reality doesn't match up to what I'm told it's supposed to; I don't know any evil men. I think I'm supposed to. By evil, I mean of course the sort of evil men movies premiering the week before Halloween imply are hiding in your car right now. The man with the knife. The man with in the suit in the office with floor to ceiling windows, fingers pressed to fingers. The woman who locks her foster children in the basement, you are not a person, you are a thing, you have to earn your scrap of bread, you dog. The ones who are cruel because they like it.

I read about them in the news; these kinds of evil men must exist. But how could I know them so well when I see them on the screen? "Ah, yes, that is just the sort of evil that exists, and just the sort of justice that must be mediated to stop it." So many of the resonant stories, the ones I think about for days afterward, the ones I sink down into again and again are filled with this evil, from the time I was born, from Red Riding Hood to Lord of the Rings to Boy's Life to The Eyes of the Dragon to Slumdog Millionaire to Let the Right One In, it's there, and the evil men are real, and I know them, without having met them. Cruelty and hate hide under all the rocks and in all the dark empty rooms.

But I look around me now, and I can't see any. Yes, yes, I can peek into the internet and find any number of websites dedicated to chronicling the psychopaths and the serial killers and distant politicians. The kinds of people my friend Adam says don't exist since he can't see them in person. But in my day-to-day life? Even in my excessive lazy-job-induced amount of time on the internet? I see a whole lot of hurting people. I see a whole lot of lonely people. I don't see any evil men.

And maybe I should. If there are any police officers reading right now, I imagine they would tell me that the evil men are closer than I think. That I am glad the police patrol and protect and intimidate. Otherwise, POW, right in the kisser. And if there are any people who live without very much money reading, I imagine they would tell me that the evil men are everywhere and they own everything, and keep it for themselves, and there is no way to get ahead. Even the other people without very much money will do anything to get just a little.

But even those people aren't Hannibal, aren't Goebbels, aren't Maleficent, aren't Iago. Those are selfish people, or desperate people, or angry people. But evil?

Maybe it's the opposite, then. Maybe I know only evil men. And this is why all these stories resonate. Everyone around me holds all this potential for cruelty, and have somehow, miraculously, they keep that pushed down under, letting good shine out. So when Stephen King's cruel children characters torment his normal kid characters, and then are killed for it by supernatural clown/temporal-spiders or whatever, it's not that I identify with the normal kids, it's that I see the cruel kid within myself and want it to be killed there, too.

But that's too simplistic, too. Because I do identify with the normal kid. Maybe I haven' t been bullied to that extent. Maybe I haven't been tortured. Maybe I haven't had everything taken from me. But I feel those things. I want justice for me. I want justice for other people. I've seen cruelty, and I've seen oppression, and, heck, I even have this huge weight of knowing that by typing this on a computer I am in some way affecting other people's lives ecologically and economically, people I could not even attempt to visit and get to know without continuing to contribute to the same cycles and systems. So, I'm right there, too.

So, yeah. I do not know any evil men. I do not know anyone but evil men.

But all this seems to me like it might be a pedestrian conversation. Stuff, maybe, we all know. So, there are deeper questions this idea of no evil/all evil brings up for me. Two sets of questions, actually.

First, how do atheists deal with evil in the world? I don't mean intellectually. I mean emotionally. How do the people who really, honestly, don't believe that there is anything beyond the emperical come to grip emotionally with the fact that there are really cruel people around? Also, even as a hyper-social species as we are, why should I, intellectually-justifyably, care about people who are hurting rather than just kill them off? Just because I get an endorphin release? Because my genetics dictate that 'nice' survives? Those answers seem really shallow. To treat someone as a human, and humanity enough for respect seems like a mystical concept, not an empirical one. But one that I think most people are drawn to emotionally. Maybe I just don't get ethics. But, even on the plane of ethics, most atheists I know believe there are some disposable people. Some people for whom it's ok for the gene pool to remove via natural selection. That I shouldn't care about them because we're evolving past them. In other words, not mine, "Does it make you happy you're so strange?" Does reality match up with what you're told, and what you tell?

Secondly, how should we theists (small-t) deal with all of this? I don't mean emotionally. We've got lots of good reasons to care about people and treat them well. Everyone's made in the image of God, so treat 'em good. Love your neighbor like you want to be loved. Gotcha. I mean intellectually. It seems like an awful big cop-out to say that the reason life really really sucks for a lot of people is that God lets it be so in order to allow for free will. Because life doesn't have to suck this much, does it? And why should a person who doesn't believe in God take seriously the reason that evil is in the world is that God is too big and too wonderful, and his ways are above our ways? Isn't it just simpler to say that life sucks because it was chance for it to be here, and we evolved in such an odd way as to notice it? And also, are people generally, who actually believe what I say they ought to belive actually changed for the better? Actually less cruel? Does entering the upside down kingdom turn me upside down? Or, in other words, not mine, "Is it bright where you are? Have the people changed?" Does reality match up with what I'm told, and what I tell?

My birthday party last year, and yeah, I need to post more, I know.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:06:00 +0000

It's the ancillary work you don't think about at the outset

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 04:52:00 +0000

This evening, during that crazy Mizzou game (Dear Memphis, had you ever seen a defence before?), I worked this up for the novel I'm working on (yay having a part time job to allow times for to be writing!). It's heavily based on Young's Literal Translation. I changed a couple of words here and there to stronger syonyms, modified most of the punctuation, and omited needless words (Thanks, Messrs Strunk, White!), but I did keep as much of the sweet grammar of the translation as I could. Sections of this piece will serve as chapter notation in the first half of the novel. Thought I'd share it with you, since it'll be months before I can share any of the actual work with anyone, and sharing is really motivating for me, re: artistic endevours. (By-the-by, the whole pre-Noah section of this first book is pretty much my favorite passage in the whole collection. I love the untouchable mystery of stories told through the eyes of ancient peoples about times even more ancient, times that would otherwise outside the realm of history.)

In the Beginning
(Of the Elohim's preparing the heavens, the earth)

The earth had existed waste and void,
darkness on the face of the deep,
the Spirit of the Elohim fluttering on the face of the waters.

And the Elohim says,
'Let light be.'
Light is.
The Elohim sees the light good,
separates between the light, the darkness,
calls to the light, 'Day.'
To the darkness he has called, 'Night.'
There is an evening; there is a morning --
day one.

And the Elohim says,
'Let an expanse be in the midst of the waters,
let it be separating between waters and waters.
The Elohim makes the expanse;
it separates between the waters-under-the-expanse,
the waters the expanse.
It is so:
The Elohim calls to the expanse, 'Heavens.'
There is an evening; there is a morning --
day second.

And the Elohim says,
'Let the waters-under-the-heavens
be collected unto one place.
Let the dry land be seen.'
It is so:
The Elohim calls to the dry land, `Earth.'
To the collection of the waters He has called, `Seas.'
The Elohim sees good.
The Elohim says, `Let the earth yield tender grass,
herb sowing seed,
fruit-tree (seed in itself) making fruit
on the earth.'
It is so:
the earth brings forth tender grass,
herb sowing seed
tree making fruit (seed in itself).
The Elohim sees good.
There is an evening; there is a morning --
day third.

And the Elohim says,
'Let luminaries be in the expanse of the heavens
to make a separation between the day, the night,
for signs, for seasons, for days, for years,
luminaries in the expanse of the heavens
to give light upon the earth.'
It is so:
the Elohim makes the two great luminaries,
the great luminary for the reign of the day,
the small luminary and the stars for the reign of the night.
The Elohim gives them in the expanse of the heavens
to give light upon the earth,
to reign over day, over night,
to make a separation between the light,
the darkness.
The Elohim sees good.
There is an evening; there is a morning --
day fourth.

And the Elohim says,
'Let the waters teem with the teeming-living-creature.
Fowl, let fly on the earth,
on the face of the expanse of the heavens.'
The Elohim prepares the great monsters,
every living-creature-that-is-creeping which the waters have teemed with,
every fowl-with-wing.
The Elohim sees good,
blesses them, saying,
'Be fruitful, multiply,
fill the waters in the seas.
The fowl, let multiply in the earth.'
There is an evening; there is a morning --
day fifth.

And the Elohim says,
'Let the earth bring forth the living creature,
cattle, creeping thing, beast-of-the-earth.'
It is so:
the Elohim makes the beast-of-the-earth,
the cattle, every creeping thing of the ground.
The Elohim sees good.
The Elohim says,
'Let us make human in our image, according to our likeness.
Let them rule over fish of the sea,
over fowl of the heavens, over cattle,
over all the earth,
over every creeping thing creeping on the earth.'
The Elohim prepares the human in his image;
in the image of the Elohim he prepared him,
a male and a female he prepared them.
The Elohim blesses them,
says to them, 'Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. Subdue it.
Rule over fish of the sea,
over fowl of the heavens,
over every living thing creeping upon the earth.'
The Elohim says, `Look around, I have given to you
every herb sowing seed upon the face of all the earth,
every tree, the fruit of a tree sowing seed.
To you it is for food.
And to every beast of the earth,
to every fowl of the heavens,
to every creeping thing on the earth in which breath of life,
every green herb for food:'
It is so.
The Elohim sees all that he has done very good.
There is an evening; there is a morning --
day the sixth.

The heavens, the earth are completed, all their host.
The Elohim completes by the seventh day.
His work which he has made ceases by the seventh day,
all his work which he has made.
The Elohim blesses the seventh day,
sanctifies it, for in it, he has ceased from all his work
which the Elohim had prepared for making.

Never easy.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:00:00 +0000

I've taken down two wall hangings this week. One of them is a huge orangey-red Celtic knot, faded from washing after it got all dirty and wet when the ceiling caved in. It happened a couple of years ago, and was a direct result of water pouring through the ceiling of our old place, as upstairs pipes burst during a 50 degree warm snap. At this apartment, it hung above the antique mirror from my Omi that we set above our bed like a headboard. Now the wall is white and there is a gray crack running up from the floor that someone patched once upon a time.

The other hanging I took down is the vintage British flag that hung above the computer. Next time you see one, look to see how the stripes are uneven. The red against white is shifted to the counter-clockwise side. Having one in the house, you notice things like that .Jones's parents brought it back from England in the 70s, and she gave it to us when she moved in with Eric, what with being married and all. As I took it down, I wondered why we hang it. I was careful to have Jill sew on some loops to the upper corners so we didn't have to punch holes in it. Something about respect. I wonder if we should do something to make it an art piece, rather than just a massive hanging reminder of the existence of another country; I mean, we are no great anglophiles. Maybe we should paint "Jesus is bigger" on it, and get an American flag, and do the same. Hang them on opposite walls. I doubt that will happen, true as it may be. BUt it's fun to think about it.

The wall is empty where the flag used to be, too, and you can see the boarded up door that leads to the stairs to the neighbor's place above us. There are holes in the wall, where we miscalculated the height of nails. Apparently, we've covered a lot of imperfections with decorations.

The bookshelves that cover the window in the computer room so Jill wasn't as cold when she was studying French this winter are also empty, except for a couple of straggling knick-knacks and our copy of the board game Dominion.

See, we are moving.

On Sunday afternoons, before church, our friends stop in to drop off food for after, or sit on our couch and talk. They park in our driveway, and if you've been to Jacob's Well, directions are easy. You can see the building from our kitchen window. One of the biggest reasons we moved here was to be close to that building -- brick, with Scopes-era crenelations. Sometimes, late at night, Shayne is sneaking in for late night pastor stuff, and I am taking out the trash, and when I call out to him, maybe he thinks it's God saying hello. When I'm hanging out with the youth upstairs Sunday mornings, and there is a book I want to loan one of them, or we are done early, and I want to grab a game to play, it's a quick walk back, hardly knew I was gone. We jokingly named our wi-fi network The Rectory. After church, I invite someone over. "It's right there," I say. "Come have tacos. Play a game or have a good talk." And they do.

All of this is a matter of convenience, I realize. But it has been a beneficial convenience. I've seen life spring up here and there like the surprise lilies are just now pushing up in the back yard. Lots of friendships deepened over "Come on over." I am going to miss the convenience of living "right there."

But it's more than just an amazing location. This is where we had Jill's balloon party, when the balloons came down the next day, and wandered around the house like they had minds of their own. The doorway to our bedroom is where I last saw some friends of mine happy in their relationship before it went sour, talking about the election with another couple, two players on a debate team. This is the home of "The Noodle Game." This is the house I thought we'd only get pushed out of by our first kid. This is the bathroom I get allergic to in the spring, and the closet you get your clothes out of pre-shower in the winter, believe me. This is the basement we cleaned two trash bags of dust out of. This is the front porch we played late-summer-night Settlers on. I hid under one set of stairs and on another set in a game of sardines over Christmas. This is the house I came home to when I got laid off, and the house I couldn't get to sleep in when I didn't get that youth job I wanted so much. This is the house I've felt more at home in than any other.

Yeah, I am excited about the new place, new opportunities, new location, new layout, new roommates, 9/14ths rent, where the hangings will go up, etc, etc, amen. Really, really, I am. But I'll you all about that some other time.

For now, I'm going to miss this place. Really, really, I am.

Bigger than a The Beatles reunion, tour, I kid you not.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 05:09:00 +0000

I watched the first, say, 30 episodes of Rosie O'Donnell's daytime TV show. Weird, I know. But it was funny and fresh back in the day, and she shot koosh balls at the audience, and koosh balls rule. I thought to myself at the time, "If I'm ever famous, when I'm doing the talk show circuit, I will go on Rosie's show, and be like, I saw all the first episodes of your show. I am not a poser, or whatever. Also, can I have a Koosh?"

Around the same time, watching a lot of talk shows, I noticed that people with a thing to plug had a very clear path ahead of them. Laid out by publicists and their ilk. You had to go on all these shows, and some had good interviewers (Letterman (we didher show like Jonathon Ross; it'll be HUGE)) and some had terrible interviewers (Has any guest ever gotten a full interesting sentence out in the presense of Regis Philbin?). You'd see someone on a popular morning show on Monday, and by Friday they'd pop up after midnight. I remember thinking to myself, "If I'm ever famous, I will go on the best shows first, rather than save them for last. So, for example, Leno and Letterman and especially the Today Show could wait, Imo goin' on Conan day one."

All that to say, omygosh you guys, Andy Richter's gonna be on the Tonight Show with Conan. Squee!

Rhetorical question, short hand for same rheotrical question, rhetorical answer, tell a friend.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:33:00 +0000

First posts back from long blog hiatuses are supposed to be about the events of the interim, supposed to apologize for it being so long since the last post, tell you stories about how the author thought a lot about writing, but life got in the way at first, and then the habit fell away, and you, dear readers, should be grateful that the blog has continued at all.

Whatever.

Besides one justifiable dalliance on my birthday, this blog has, I admit, lain dormant since the day I got waylaid on the way out of the cubicle row with lunch on my mind and sent to a meeting where we were told by a man with a creepily thick neck whose position in the power-structure of my brain is still "company stooge whose unintentional Simon Pegg movie quotations asked me to shill our now terminal Previa out for the company" that everyone in the room was getting laid off. Among these fine people were the company party planning committee (one woman), the only man I've ever seen actually enjoying long conversations with real estate agents mid-tech-support-call, and the guy who took more calls on average than any other tech, and who once spent 20 minutes chewing out an AOL technician who refused to allow a user the basic email functionality to receive emails that they themselves were sending from another email account because it "might be spam" (SIR, this woman is sending the email, please do your job as an email provider and allow her to get emails that she herself is sending! She is telling you that she wants to get a particular email, there is no more basic function of your job than to let her do this!), among plenty of other fine people. So, the creepy neck guy who had just waltzed in to say his little speech about the importance doing his dead wife proud by winning Village of the Year again, or whatever it was, I wasn't really paying attention, waltzed right back out to go lean over a desk in a glass-doored office next door and look important with the new execs. That morning they'd also just laid off the entire executive team, which was a nice gesture to the rest of us, I'll admit, but I'm not sure what good it actually did. Then again, I don't really care how the company does anymore. Surpisring, I know.

And that day set in motion an over-3-month ordeal of trying to collect unemployment benefits while emptying what paltry savings we had, and relying quite heavily on the kindness of strangers and friends (Thanks, friends and anonymous donors . . . theinds and thanonymous donors.) to be able to do basic things like eat food and not get kicked out of our apartment for failure to pay the rent.

This morning, we drove to the credit union and used our fancy new state-mandated-financial-institution-I-don't-really-trust-issued debit card to deposit the daily maximum in our checking account, the rest to follow via electronic transfer in "up to three business days".

So, although it was not intentional, ala my eight-month, post-teaching job search sabbatical from Halo 2, the day of bloody finally depositing the first money from the unemployment office I've been paying into for, say, 13 years, seems like a good day to get back to this blogging business. I can't promise it'll be as frequent, as I used to blog almost exclusively during the work day (while still resolving more calls on average than any other technician, I might add) but it's back.

Oh, and now I TOTALLY wish I had taken that license plate cover for the Previa. The back bumper is falling off, the front right blinker cover is shattered, and the rear end screams like a dying animal with a really high pitched, whining, moaning scream whenever you drive more than 30 MPH. Its going to just die on us someday soon unless we shell out a couple grand. Nothing signifies my confidence and belief in the fidelity of that real estate software company I used to work for than that mini-van.

Birthday Party Preparations LIVEBLOG

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:30:00 +0000

5:30. I am setting up the computer in the new location so the photo booth thing will work. Also downloaded a bunch of speed runs to show on the other monitor. Then to pick up around the house a tad and then jump full into playing with bread dough.

4:07. To-do list:

Make Middle-Eastern-style hearty lentil soup for the veggies and anti-glutenites. Should be done around 7. So, with prep time, 40 minutes to cook until soft, and then a good 20 minutes after that, start around 5:45.
Stuff and cook runzas. Also should be done cooking around 7. So, to cook 25 minutes, rise 15 minutes before cooking, and be able to be stuffed, start around 6.
Fry wontons. To be ready at 7, and fry all of them, should take a good half hour to 45 minutes. Start at 6:15.
Remember to get 2 extra selves.
Open bags of chips for cheese dip stuff.
Remember to tell everyone who can't make it to go to my new flickr feed starting at 7 to be able to see live picture updates every 30 seconds.
Bring in noise and funk.

3:16. Has beef kind and doesn't has beef kind are go.

2:52. Actually, it's time to get the cheese dip ready. Respite is off the table for now. (The saurkraut is long gone and in the runza mix, no need to freak out, cabbage-haters)

2:40. Other batch done. Eddie Izzard on the monitor. Dishes in the wash. Might have a bit of respite before I prep the lentil soup, and run the home stretch on the runzas dough.

2:05. Wonton! That's the word I was looking for. I'm making fried rice wontons. So, refrigerating the rice didn't work as well as I'd hoped; it's more mushy than I wanted, but I think it'll work out just fine as a filling. The chicken kind is wrapped and egg whited in the fridge, and the kind without any chicken awaits. Back to it, friends.

1:18. A quick peek at the two refrigerators. The first one is the downstairs. That's Jones Soda Cane Cola in the bottom left. Comes in cans now, apparently, and I know some people love cane sugar over corn syrup (and the non-fattening chemicals that sweeten, whatever those are: yikes, and wow I'm not as fat as I could be) to a degree that five years ago I could not fathom in a sweetener choice, so there those are. The Boulevard Wheat is from a few weeks ago, when a good friend of mine got good and fired for something not so much his fault, and we didn't drink any when he came over and we spent the day like eight-year-old versions of ourselves we played Mike Tyson's Punch-Out for 4 hours, but a few have trickled out over the weeks.

You may have to click on the second one to see all the pre-prepared dish ingredients sitting around in there, waiting expectantly for me to fish them out and toss them on the counter, ready to be mixed or kneaded, or cut, or drizzled, or stuffed, or sampled.

12:47. Two batches mixed and set to chill for a couple hours. (my mixing bowl didn't seem to want to hold 12-13 cups of flour). Now on to the wraps (or, I suppose, egg rolls with fried rice instead of veggies, depending on your point of view): chicken kind, and there isn't any chicken kind.

12:00.

Oh, my, yes. Food processors RULE.

11:48. So, it's cold today, and heating bills and leaky windows being what they are, the thermostat is set to 62 during the day, which is up from 58 last week, when we realized even with the both of us sitting in front of space heaters all day, it wasn't enough. But with the cooking, and the space heater at the edge of the kitchen, it's been just fine today.

11:46. Ugh, that was, like 4 hand washes. So gross looking, so delicious! The mixtures are saran wrapped (ok, off-brand plastic wrapped, which never, I mean NEVER, wants to come off the roll in a clean break) and away in the fridge. The chicken breast is cooked and ready to be shredded, which means my forearms are going to hurt tonight. WAIT! We have a wee food processor down here. Imona try that.

11:11. This batch of hamburger is done, and I've separated the three pounds into two bowls: one for the regular runzas, one for the pizza runzas. After looking at it, the bread recipie I'm making from scratch will require more fine fine timing than I thought to get the runzas out hot and on time, so I really want the stuff going inside to be standing at the ready. Stupid real life food preparation. How did The Ancients (also, most of the world alive today) do it?! Now to get all that set up and ready as the chicken for the wraps finishes cooking.

The dishwasher has been emptied, the dishes next to the sink stowed. Thanks be to Jill for getting all of that done last night while I was out carousing and living it up, er, I mean . . . at prayer group.

10:48. If you are one of the "privileged" few who have had opportunity to visit me in my job-search dungeon, you'll be familiar with the computer set up I've arranged on the kitchen counter. The orange-tinged book is the aforementioned cookbook. But, what, you may ask, is the second monitor for, recipes that require such complex machinations that you much see two pages of text simultaneously, and such? No, no, nothing so urbane. Throughout the day, I'm going to be watching various videos, DVDs, and internet phenomenon such as Look Around You: Maths.

10:25. The rice is done and off to the fridge to cool so the fried result is less gooey. The beef for the runzas (or bierrocks, as they're known in some circles) is cooking in the pan now. Although I'll be making the bread for that from scratch this afternoon, I want as much to be ready beforehand as possible.

10:12. The rice for the chicken, and not-chicken rice wraps is in the pot and boiling as dictated by our excellent Mennonite cookbook More-With-Less, an excellent gift for those of you either still tied into the consumerist Christmas lifestyle, or with relatives for whom not providing such a still-culturally-appropriate gesture of economic goodwill would cause your relationship to be otherwise strained. I will chill be pre-wrapping the rice, this morning in order to make the just-before-the-party- preparations less hectic.

9:58. I'd been thinking for a while about having a birthday party. In these latter days, with the military-birthday complex in such full stride, and the pressure on every front to celebrate in the most elaborate fashions with the most and modern methods, who doesn't wish for a most excellent celebration of his or her anniversary of emergence? And so, in the spirit of such a broad cultural phenomenon (but, may I say, not the particulars) I prepare. And all day, you, most careful RSS feed reader, and Facebook status minder, shall be kept abreast.

I know, I know, I know.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:43:00 +0000

It's been a while since I've been here. Looking for work and writing fiction, mostly, should you wonder what I've been up to. And I'm not sure how long it'll be until I get back. The other things are more important right now. If I can find a way to do all three, then I'll be here a lot. I like it, and I miss it.

But I'm back just for a moment to tell you about something just read over on a blog I read sometimes. My mouth hung open for a good ten seconds thinking about it, and then I covered it with both hands like you do when you open the wrong door in the wrong kind of movie. And while it's an interesting point the author is making, this one thing stood out above and beyond, so far above, that I can't believe the entire article wasn't just two lines:

The federal bailout we gave the other day to people who got filthy rich by giving bad mortgages to people who couldn't afford them, and then selling the mortgages to people who would never get their money back: $700 billion (850, really)
The total amount of aid the world has sent to Africa since 1960: $600 billion.

As you might expect.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:28:00 +0000

I had planned on spending the afternoon working on a blog about how the modern American capitalist system/corporate culture is really a voluntary opt-in feudalism, using specific examples from the company I work for. Instead, they laid me off. So, I'll have to get to that entry later. Such is the life of an artiste.

You know everybody sees it. Except you; you don't believe it.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:50:00 +0000

I don't think I need much commentary on this. It speaks for itself. I mean, even The Onion sees it.

http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/im_not_one_of_those_love_thy?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

The Shift.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:00:00 +0000

We had a mid-week weekend of reprieve, but autumn is back, nipping and cozying us down into blankets and scarves, but his eyes have gone steel having been so inviting. Is it even the same one? The time shift felt weighty this year, again, as late as it comes, an hour substantial. Morning feels like mornings used to, in grade school, a bright sidewalk straight up and onto the hill on Walker, where the alien walnut eggs slowly hatched day by day, and I waited for Billy (my first memorized phone number not mine, 782 not 764) and his mom at the T so we could walk together. Evenings start more sinister, and drop away winkaflash, leaving night to stalk in the wake.

Found peaking.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:51:00 +0000

I've been lost in a corn maze twice now this year. The first time was back in late September. The maze hadn't been open very long, and the corn was a good ten feet tall, maybe twelve, deep green leaves filling out right through the middle of some of the narrower paths. A machete would have been a useful accessory. It had rained earlier that day, and every now and again there was a wet intersection. But the paths were mostly firm and dry, and as yet unspoiled by people cutting through the walls. Jackets only needed to protect arms from the fresh leaf scratching.

We flat-out raced through the first maze, my second guessing costing me the win. Then we took turns being the guide for the group in the second maze, the odd configuration taking us much further than we would have needed to if we'd been willing to cheat ourselves and do checkpoints out of order. For the third, we did a team race, starting at different ends, where you had to hit all the checkpoints as a team. It felt like the sun stayed up late just for us, and the sky kept its shaded colors over the hills surrounding the valley, horizon to horizon, for what seemed like hours.

For the fourth and longest maze, we decided to just strike out on our own, winding through the two miles of paths alone. Sam dove in without consulting his map, forging ahead with the intent of getting lost and finding God out in the sea of corn. Jill went in through the exit, head down, eyes on the map, determined to find her own way. I was in a weird headspace, caught up between wanting to get lost, but not really being in the mood for it. I felt detached, the world unreal there in the long-waning light and the tall corn. Unable to concentrate hard enough to notice God, unable to ignore his presence. So I just went to do it efficiently, but breezily. Enjoy the evening. Work my way through quickly, but not worry about it. Find what I found, and let it be.

But less than 5 minutes from the entrance, I suddenly had to use the restroom, and took the shortest path back to the starting point for the mazes I could find, cutting through the end of our maze on my way. But as I came back, I got confused, and started tracing the exit path I took out on the map instead of the entrance one I took back in. And I got lost.

Not hopelessly lost, though. I kept moving away from the exit, my sense of direction was good enough for that. But where on the map I was, I had no idea. None of the intersections looked right. I kept seeing Sam from time to time, wandering steadily, but he wasn't using a map at all, so he couldn't help my find where I was exactly. And if there's one word I'd use to describe the whole experience, I'd say "relaxing."

To have no other responsibilities than to some time find my way through a maze that I know had a path that I could find. Nothing else to worry about, nothing else to think about. A single, doable, pleasant task right in front of my face. A purpose, but not a hard one. Untaxing work. That's relaxing.

Eventually, I noticed that I may have been in a particular section (the kanagroo?) a good way south from where I thought I thought I was, but it looked like if this path was that path, and that one was that, a turn here would bring me to a checkpoint. And it did.

With by bearings found, worked my way to a bridge where two paths crossed and climbed up to look around. A couple of teenagers, and a younger kid were hanging around. I thought the older ones might have been dating in that early teenage way, unsure of what to do with your bodies when you're together, somehow still living off the friendship you started the whole thing with. Attached and detached, but together.

Thunderheads lumbered along east and south of us. I felt small, like a blank face in a crowd. There were big things happening around me, great and wonderful, and all I could do was watch them happen.

I traced my way out from there, stopping once to watch the sun drop below the corn right down the center of a long straight path, finally weary of our wanderings, ready to kick us out to get to bed. As the darkness settled, a couple of buses pulled in, and kids spread through the maze, cutting between the paths, and shouting, boys stealing girls cell phones, as they do (how else at that age to be chased when you want to be?), jumping out to scare, laughing and yelling.

It was a definite foreshadowing of what it would be like when we come back, late October, the corn tired of living, ready to finally sleep. By then, the paths were wide, the leaves pushed back by so many explorers, the walls between rows thinned, sometimes so far as to be doors.

We came back with our own teenagers from church, bundled in stocking caps from our personal stash, intended to let our earlier foray inform this one. We ran the same race in the first maze, this time, the worn down corn making it hard enough to stay on the path that the first 5 people came out the wrong one maze. 4 out the wrong exit, 1 out the wrong entrance. I sent them off in teams to race the next one, but teenagers are less loyal in these situations, and some of them ended up separated, in far corners of the field, going edge to edge without finding their checkpoints, the first group coming back long after the third had done so, the sun leaving much quicker this time.

Now what? Send the kids out to get in the long maze lost themselves? No. Not a good idea. The paths were too fluid. We decided to play Sardines in the big maze. I was the first runner, so I decided to head out to the cross bridge, sit down at the bottom the stairs to one side and wait.

I had the count of 500, so I dove right in the exit, cutting through the corn to get myself hidden as quickly as possible. I knew that after a certain point southwards, I was guaranteed to be in the right maze, so I knew they could find me. But as I made my way along in the dark, through that section I'd thought I was in the previous time, I missed the bridge, and near the south edge of the field, found a crossroads to stand it, and with no idea where I was, really, other than, "south-easterly-ish," waited in the dark to be found.

So now I was lost, but not at all trying to get unlost. Only waiting for someone to find me. Trying not to scare random people as I stood there alone in the dark. The corn dry like over-bleached hair. It was less relaxing to wait, and I wasted the thinking time I had by busying my mind. Keeping it from thinking usefully. On all the subjects but the deep ones. I do that far too often: calm, relaxed, my head not engaged. I don't know why.

I waited for quite a while, walked in a circle, stepping over fallen corn stalks, kernals ground into the earth. Standing, waiting, lost but not wandering. Every now and then, the sounds of distant groups working their way through the maze. And after long enough, I decided to whistle loudly, and the main group of the guys showed up soon after, the one other crashing through the corn from the opposite direction. We waited for a while for the ladies to show up, but they eventually called and said they had quit the search So we made our way out as we could, singing Vader's theme from Empire Strikes Back, piled in the vans, drove past vast orange halogen-lit asphalt and steel industrial complexes, and had ice cream at Dairy Queen on the way home.

By-the-by, the pumpkin pie blizzard is especially good.

Remember 'remember;' it rhymes with 'November.'

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 21:31:00 +0000

Whew. That's over.

I hope.

For the last month or so, I've felt strangely detached from the hopes and yearnings and fears of a lot of the people around me. According to the news, a lot of the people in the world, that is. Crammed into a binary situation by circumstance, I took a third way and voted for a man whose name I could not even remember as I waited in line for the two and a half hours it took for the election commission to get the right voter registration books to my polling place. Who I wasn't sure I'd vote for until I'd been in that line for an hour. And I voted for that candidate mainly because another man who I respected more than any of the candidates endorsed him. A candidate who, in Jackson County, got less than twice the number of votes as there were write-ins. A candidate whom I literally know nothing about besides his name, his running mate's name, and his party. And I'm fine with that. But I was able to not vote out of fear or hope. And I'm fine with that, too. Happy even.

(I would have voted for Jesus, but I figured he's gonna take office no matter what the vote. But I came close to doing that anyway. Maybe I should have. (Thought I'd address that.))

So, last night felt weird, detached, out of body. I've voted in two presidential elections before this, and I really thought those elections mattered at the time. So, this time, to see election numbers flashing on the screen (annoyingly, and prematurely) and to not really care which way they fell was weird. I felt like a sociopath, not able to feel.

My culture says I'm supposed to care. I'm supposed to think voting is the big deal. Get out and vote. Vote vote vote. Get a coffee. Get a doughnut. Get accolades. Wear a sticker; show your patriotism. If you haven't voted, you can't complain. But voting is just one wee thing in a whole big sphere of possible political action, and while my vote didn't count anyway, I went ahead. It felt right, but I don't know if it was right or wrong. It felt good, a little subversive, but I don't know if it was worth my time. Maybe I would have been better served staying home and sleeping an extra hour and a half, been able to be more present for the youth guys I hung out with on Tuesday night. As it was, I was exhausted.

I kind of wonder if the Baldwin/Castle ticket in Jackson County had 664 votes instead of 665, what it would have changed. Maybe I could have gotten all worked up and plunked my vote into a 90k-drop bucket (either way). And then, as I always do, I wondered if I had changed my one vote, how many people also would also have changed theirs. Would me changing mine been enough to affect the cosmic unconsciousness so that others would have too? I doubt it. Same thing with economics. If I create my own little demand or supply of something, does that even have an effect? I don't know. But again, I doubt it. Is that nihilism or realism?

As far as winning goes, I kind of wanted McCain win in order to to spite the really smarmy pundits on TV, and everyone like the self-important people standing around the line at the election place yesterday, the kind of person who likes standing to the side at events, letting other people see them at the thing, but not willing to stand among the 'unwashed.' The kind of person who took running for 6th grade class president as an opportunity to make things happen. The kind of person who strongly believes in the power of volunteering to serve on boards of organizations. Also, you always get a garishly colored t-shirt, apparently. I kind of wanted Obama to win because I like when people have hope, and like when young black guys have good role models. I kind of wanted McCain to win because I think he's got a better sense of humor than Obama. I kind of wanted Obama to win because I think he would have a more policitally interesting administration. I kind of wanted McCain to win because because because. But in the end I really didn't care for most of the policies of either of the candidates. I kind of liked Mccain's more. But only just. Not enough to cast a vote.

So, I watched the Daily Show/Colbert report, saw how hard it is to be funny with short notice. Saw them call New York with 0% reporting. Saw them call the Obama win, hope in Jon Stewart's eyes, like it all finally meant something. Got ready to sleep, saw a generous and well-spoken concession, saw a triumph, cared less about Oprah, as usual. Went to sleep. Woke up.

And all that's different today is that I feel more like writing. More than I have in a month or so. Maybe longer. Like I've been under a cardboard box for a while, and now someone moved it, I can't figure how I got under there, or why I never left earlier. So, there you go. Maybe there'll be more writing. That's the impact of the election in these parts; it's over.

Now that I've chimed in on these two things, maybe the news can FINALLY talk about something else.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:38:00 +0000

The question I would have asked at last night's "town hall meeting": "Mr. Obama has said that he 'still believe[s] America is the last, best hope of Earth.' Ms. Palin has recently been quoted in saying in no uncertain terms that Mr. McCain believes, and all Americans should believe, that 'America is the greatest force for good in the world,' and has also said in the VP debate that that America is to be a 'shining city on a hill' for the world. A two-part question, then: First, do you agree or disagree with these statements now? If you disagree, how do you now see America's role in the world; and why the change? If you agree, each of you have made public claims of being Christians, why do you see America, respectively, as either a better hope for the world, or a greater force for good in the world than Jesus?"
I like capitalism, that people can ask other people for money to invest in the capital for their business, and if the business does well, that person gets some of the profit, and if it doesn't, they don't. That lets people start businesses when they otherwise couldn't. Which is good for the community at large. I like free markets for buying and selling things, letting the demand and the supply for a good set the price, and I like there being as little regulation from an outside entity on this process as possible. So, for example, if in your part of the country, there isn't much gas, I think people should be able to set a high price for it, since there's little supply. People will deal, and they'll be fine. Of course, gas is an obvious example that doesn't work that way, because the local supply and the demand are artificially controlled by several non-local outside entities. If everyone in my neighborhood decides to stop buying gas from the Quicktrip on 43rd, and goes to the 7-11 on Linwood, it's very unlikely the price will drop significantly at that Quicktrip. Not more than 10 cents, even. That's because someone up the chain is creating a different kind of demand than I and my neighbors can: a person who is buying and selling futures and options on oil to be delivered, shorting and going long. Same thing with coffee, gold, frozen orange juice conentrate (haha, but it's true), and debt even. In fact, a HUGE part of this whole "crisis" we're in right now is that people bought and sold debt. Which is weird to me. I don't know if I would ban it, but I certainly don't like it. If you make a bad investment, you should have to pay for it, says I. And let's not even get into the ability to buy and sell money itself. But this article does, much better than I could. So you should read that sometime.

All your sanity and wits, they will all vanish. I promise!

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:35:00 +0000

First they took Fortunate Son, and cut out all the "it ain't me"s. Which is asinine, I agree. The exact opposite of what the song originally said. When I first saw that commercial, I laughed out loud.

Now, today, as I was watching Tuesday's Daily Show full episode online, I found another example of the same edited song absurdity. The interspersed commercial was a new ad campaign that uses this song:

to promote a web search engine. So, an angry/silly song about a guy's girlfriend starting to act senile 60 years early, loses all references to losing one's mind, and now is just a silly viral jingle for a search engine I stopped using the minute another search engine stopped providing it more detailed results.

And now a song I liked to sing at random, partially for the absurdity, and partially because I happen to like gypsy punk, has now been co-opted into commercialism and consumerism. I'm not sure if I'm angrier at the company for slaughtering the song, or the band for letting it be slaughtered. At least John Fogerty didn't have any say in his song being used.

I'd say more here, but I don't want my prose to slip into purple.

A proposal. Decide for yourself how modest.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:24:00 +0000

My friend Julie mentioned to me last night an idea that she came up with for solving the current global financial crisis.

Jubilee.

That's right, follow in the ritual footsteps of ancient Israel and forgive everybody's debt. Maybe just mortgage debt. Maybe all the debt. Either way.

It's probably a really foolish thing to do. But then again, so is basing the strength of your currency entirely on debt.

Trying to be ordinary, trying to be radical.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 21:09:00 +0000

As you can see from this picture that I cribbed from the website, Jill and I took some of the middle school guys from church to see the third showing (total!) of the documentary The Ordinary Radicals on Tuesday night. Ben and Jake are also there, just off camera to the left.

The film uses this last summer's Jesus for President book tour as a structure for telling the larger story of the changing face of evangelicalism, frequently manifested politically. How by trying to follow Jesus, and by reading the Bible, what used to be a primarily politically right group of people is moving out of general American conservatism, but not necessarily into general American liberalism, per se, moving into a kind of third political sphere. There's more than the political stuff, but that's the easiest place to see the change. Apparently, I'm part of that shift.

For me, the film was just more encouragement to live more radically, to live more simply, to love people more, to listen to people more, to really live a whole life that tells the story of God. I hope it had the same impact on the youths I brought with me. Since we're also reading The Irresistible Revolution together, I think it might. It also had some really beautiful stories about particular people who God is using to love people. I was inspired; the people in this movie are the kinds of people I want to be.

One of the difficulties in communicating what's going on to people who are still entrenched in general American conservatism is that this new political face finds a lot of common ground of praxis with anarchists and progressives (and hippies), which can very easily look like a shift to the left. Maybe it is, some, but I think that maybe it's just shooting off in a new direction, and in our country anything that's not right looks left, and vice versa.

Zack Exley is interviewed in the film, and Jamie Moffet, the director, had him stand up to help lead the Q&A afterward. Zack said something at the end that I've been trying to think through for quite a while, actually, and finally had something to say about it. He talked about how this film helps him start bridging the gap between secular progressives and the new breed of evangelicals, that both groups have a lot of similar goals. How Creation Care, for example, has a lot of the same goals as typical secular environmental groups.

I think these kinds of partnerships can be good for everyone involved, and I would also hope that this film would also help people bridge the gap between the traditional evangelicals and the new evangelicals. I'm sad, though, because I think that this latter bridge may be a very long conversation with some people, late into the night at the kitchen table, where the traditional evangelicals are like a father hearing his daughter wants to elope with her boyfriend, and he's so angered by the mere mention of the topic, that very little actual communication will take place.

But what I wanted to say at the talkback in response to Zack, but didn't, because it was awfully late for a school night, and we had to leave, is that I don't think the goals of the new evangelicals and the secular progressives are the same. It's the praxis that's similar. Not that that's neccessarily a proble, but that distinction can be confusing for everyone involved. Maybe with the secular progressives, taking care of the poor, and resisting the consumerist empire, and non-violence, taking care of nature, & etc., are the goals. Which is why you see the progressives willing to go to pretty significant lengths to accomplish these things, put aside the US constitution, or flat-out take money from people that have more to give to those with less. For them, since these other things are the goal, nothing should get in the way.

And it's not that Christians should ignore the poor, or believe the narrative of redemptive consumerism and progress, or kill people, or destroy nature in pursuit of progress, but that these aren't the goals. God is the goal. As Zack said on Tuesday, for example, the progressives don't have anything fueling their desire for equality, no underlying reason for it, other than that it seems right. The new evangelicals think everyone is made in the image of God.

And so, as one woman named Rachel was saying at the talkback, there comes a particular tension when trying to live socially just and consumerisictly ethical as a new evangelical. She talked about how much morality was overtaking her thoughts lately, and how we can do all these good works, and without morality, we're still going to be judged by God. I wasn't sure what she meant by morality. What I wanted to say, but again, didn't have time for, was that morality is way more than sex, which is what it sounded like she might have been talking about (and something we've become completely obsessed with on all fronts as Americans/American Christians). But taking care of the poor is a moral issue. Not perpetuating slavery by buying things made by slaves is a moral decision. Loving people who hate you is a moral struggle. All through the prophets, God uses sexual morality imagery to call attention to immoral uses of power and abdication of the responsibility to care for the poor (also, idolatry).

So, when I recycle, it's because I think God's story about him loving creation is true. When I hang out with people who live on the streets, it's becaue I think that God's story about his image being in them is true. When I say I'm against war, it's because I believe God's stories about beating swords into plowshards, and not pulling up the weeds with the wheat, and turning the other cheek. But for me, God's the point, not the thing that I'm doing.

Some pictures of Minsk.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:01:00 +0000

Some places feel like home, even if you've only been there a short time. Even though I was only there for a couple years, Minsk will always be one of those places for me. I'll try not to over-romanticize it. Not tell you know green it is in the spring. How there is a park where every turn is just flowers and trees so you can get lost there. How the tramvi stops in Yanka Kupala square and you used to be able to walk to the Komarovski Market and there was Pengvin ice cream in kiwi and strawberry and mango.

Anyway, here are some pictures of home I found on English Russia today: http://englishrussia.com/?p=2052

I realize the irony.

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:01:00 +0000

Dear GreedyMortgage-Obsessed AmericanGovernment-FinancialSystem complex,

A failure to plan on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine.

I don't usually do this, but,

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 18:40:00 +0000

I don't care who you are, that's funny.

Two sides of two different coins: just simply sharing a quote from a friend. (The long way.)

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:59:00 +0000

Last night I went to Dragonfly with Sam and Jeremy M. Sam bought us a pot of green tea that came out perfect on the first try; the best green tea tastes and smells a little peppery and a little sweet, and this was just so.

We talked about the issue of AdBusters I mentioned yesterday, and about politics, and the failure of hipsterism, and played a game of Midgard and a game of Taj Mahal, and the wonderful Dragonfly people gave us each a massive cinnamon roll to take home. So you should go there because they are nice and their baked goods are delicious.

Jeremy said something provocative that was simultaneously the most cynical and the most insightful thing I'd heard all day. And in a given day, I read a lot of insightful and especially a lot of cynical things on the internet, so that's actually saying something.

But the problem is, I'm sure that posting Jeremy's comment here is going to provoke some people, because it relates to a pretty sensitive subject. But then again, it seems like most subjects have gotten pretty touchy lately.

Part of the problem, I think, is that when it comes to significant issues, our country has separated into a false polarity. "Oh!" a person says, "You disagree with me on something relating to issue X? You must disagree with me on issues O-T, as well. You're one of those P believers, eh? Well, I'm not associating with you. You can't be reasoned with."

Exacerbating the problem is that these two sides of the false polarity aren't even talking about the issues on the same plane of discourse.

Take something like environmentalism. One side argues that taking care of the world we live in is really important, and businesses and people shouldn't be able to pollute it since we all live in it. So, if you're disagreeing, you must obviously be for destroying nature for the sake of personal progress. The other side is arguing that the government shouldn't be regulating environmental issues because it's only a power play to get more control over people by feeding their fears. So if you disagree, you must be trying to increase the power and control of an already massive government.

It's all so obvious. How can anyone see anything any way different than I do?

But I think it's obvious that we shouldn't destroyed nature. It's also obvious we shouldn't pander to people for our own political ascendancy. So all those other bastards are obviously evil.

And sometimes they are, I'm sure. Just like me.

(Ok, fine, grammar Nazis: Just like I.)

So, when the issue of (and I hesitate to even mention it) abortion comes up, people get rightfully hacked off. One side's rhetoric is: "Um, that's killing someone, if you're on the other side, you're for killing innocent people for your own benefit or convenience." The other side's rhetoric is: "Um, that's someone's life already. Bringing a new person into their world would be tragic for them, and hell for that new person, too. Also, what if they were forced? If you disagree with me, you must hate people."

And so the arguments shoot off in completely different skew tangents, and those other people over there are demonized, and there's no conversation.

Of course, just like with the environment, where I'm sure there are people who think that destroying nature for progress is just fine, thank you, and I'm sure there are people who think that playing on the fears of people in regards to nature is a great way to increase the power of the government, there are very likely people who don't mind killing off innocent people to decrease the population so life is "better" for them, and there are people who don't care if kids get born to poor people who can't afford to give the kids much of a "good life," because, who cares?

Why can't you think that protecting nature can be done without government control, and that babies should be born and then taken care of by someone else if the parents can't?

Because you're not allowed to do that in our country. Our system forces you to choose. Republican or Democrat. Faith or science. Life or choice. But for all these issues, and so many more, we're mostly talking about two entirely different spheres of conversation here, not two bright and distinct points at the ends of the same line.

So, in order to get to the quote, which is the point of this post, I've got to say that I've got some strong opinions on things like abortion. I think the killing innocent humans argument is more important than the post-birth isn't so hot argument. A lot more important.

But see, right there, you're either nodding your head violently, or shaking it just as violently. What can I do?

I think that we should be taking care of all the people, born or not born. People close to us, and people far away.

And yeah, I'm still not sure how. Whether national organization or personal action is more required. If one of those should be put aside for the other one on important issues. Whether we should set up a system in which right decisions can get made, or just solve the problem with the system, no matter what the necessary process.

So, anyway, here's the provocative quote I wanted to share with you, as close as I can remember it:

"As long as people keep getting elected simply for opposing abortion, it's never going to be illegal."

Ramblings from a lunch time

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:04:00 +0000

When I started working at this job, Jill had her car, and I drove the van. And I liked to drive over the highway, go to Taco Bell for lunch, or wherever, and sit in the parking lot, listen to the radio. I like sports radio more than I like sports. Open the windows and let the air in. Or keep the windows closed, obviously, if it was winter, just let the cold creep in until it was too much, and I had to start the van and drive back, thawing on the way. If I wanted to, I could stop at Half-Price books or Borders, or whatever. One time I even spent the whole hour driving to the game store to buy a gift for a friend. Even at an easy job where you can do what you want most of the day, the ability to hop in the car and just go feels like real freedom. It's sort of how I've been conditioned. No car? No freedom. Not in a town like this, where the good buses come twice an hour.

But now that I'm riding with Adam to work, it's rare that I get a chance to just go. Most days I either stay at my computer or take the ten+ minute walk to Hy-Vee. We're down to one income with Jill being a stay-at-home-Jill these days, and when I eat out for lunch, I've given myself a budget of the price of a $2 can of soup, since that's likely what I'd get if we went grocery shopping. At Hy-vee, I can buy a really nice roll and a fifth of a pound of rare roast beef for about a buck fifty, and with some mustard that's a right fine lunch. And seeing how I'd like to lose weight, I'm fine with not having expensive options like the only slightly further Sonic.

Sometimes I spend my two bucks on drugs. A 64 oz fountain drink is a dollar nineteen. Of course, making my own sandwiches would be even cheaper. But that means keeping ingredients fresh and available, which we're not so good at. Seems like we're always either scrounging for last scraps, or throwing out food because it's gone bad from sitting around for too long.

But Adam got back from Portland yesterday, so I drove myself to work. Which meant I had options. You can eat good at Taco Bell or McDonalds for two bucks, nice and fattening, but I wasn't even in the mood to spend that, so I ate a $1.29 carrot cake Clif Bar, and given my freedom, headed to Borders with $12.87 in two-year-old gift cards.

I have said it before, and you will likely hear me say it again, but bookstores are dangerous places. It's a bit like a porn addict flipping through the underwear ads in the Sunday paper. You're still skirting the edge of realm of safety, but you've got an outside chance of going off the deep end. I'm just finishing reading Colossians Remixed again, having read Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Watchmen in between, while I'm still in the middle of A Failure of Nerve, and further back, Exclusion and Embrace, so it's not like there's a real strong temptation to empty the bank on books I don't need, but it still felt a little dangerous walking through the double doors with the name of the store engraved in the wooden handles. In the end, it's not owning books, that's dangerous. Not really. It's the potential of books. It's the hidden story, the one you discover, and no one else knows. It's getting lost in them.

Right at the front of the store there's a display of political books, and one of them is a thin biography of Sarah Palin with quotes on the front about her VP nomination. That's really fast. I wonder if it was fast-tracked or re-released. It had a 2008 copyright. I know there are people out there who write insta-non-fiction. Propose a book on current hot topic, write it in a week, sell it, propose another. But this one seemed thoroughly researched. So that's a mystery.

I headed over to the discount fiction. If I needed a copy of all three Lord of the Rings books, I could have had that for $8.97, but I'm already there, more than once, and there wasn't anything else I was interested in. And I didn't feel like a coffee table book, or a book on how to do tai chi, or a miniature zen garden, or any of the cookbooks, so I moved on to the graphic novels, looking for 1602, even though I know it was a cool $19.95.

But it wasn't even in stock for me to be able to check the sticker. I stood there and read Incredible Hulk: The End: the Last Titan. Thematically, it compares the Marvel superheros to the titans of Greek mythology. Hulk is created by the atomic age, and he is the first of the new 'titans.' This story is set in the distant future, the world destroyed, Hulk/Banner and huge cockroaches are the only living things left, and Hulk is the new Prometheus, now the last titan, left to be eaten again and again by the cockroaches, never able to die, even though Banner is trying to end their lonely lives. It's these kinds of modern takes on classically tragic stories are the reasons I like the comics and graphic novels I like (Watchmen and Sandman for example), and this Hulk story makes the link between old stories and new stories even more clear.

As I left the comics section, I got that rich, heavy feeling I get sometimes in book stores and almost always in libraries, walking through stacked rows of books, back cover to front cover packed in shelves, the feeling of so many words and ideas brimming in such a small space, the weight of possibility, the stretch of all that time: reading a book is days, unless it's tiny, and then it's at least hours. And just within my reach are a hundred books, thousands in view. And how long was a single book to write, even? A season of work, solstice to solstice? A year, maybe? And all that time is packed down and overflowing there in the bookstore. Moreso in the library, books upon books, some untouches for decades. That's gravitas, man. That vibe stuck with me for a good hour after I left.

I looked at some other stuff. There are a couple of Get Fuzzy books newer than we have in the Get Fuzzy bathroom. I almost got one, but I wanted both. so I didn't get any. I realize that thinking is bad economics, but that's how it was. In the end, I decided to get the latest issue of AdBusters, an advertisementless magazine that I cannot usually afford since it has to rely on sales for revenue, but gift cards are gift cards, and I pulled $8.95 off the card with the picture of the wrapped Christmas gift on it, even though I meant to use the one with The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe on it first, since it's only got 28 cents left. Almost without thinking, deliberate like in a Wes Anderson movie, I took the magazine off the counter, receipt tucked inside, in my hand so as I was carrying it face up, right side up. Words and time demand my respect, apparently.

This theme issue of Adbusters is the decline of the West and the rise of the East, which is manifesting in the US and China, primarily, it says. And the issue is a double issue, if you start and read it normally for us, left to right, you get the part about the west, and if you read from the end, right column to left column, it's about the east, and the stories meet in the middle, ask you to see the other perspective by jumping to the end and starting over. I'm not done reading it yet, and I'm not convinced the rise and fall business is definitely going to happen; I'm no oracle. But there was a particularly interesting quote at the end of an article on the east side by a guy named Martin Jacques: "America is utterly unprepared for a world in which it is no longer the dominant power: it has barely given any though to the question, not even in its nightmares."

And I'd have to agree, even if I'm not utterly convinced if the west is really in decline or if that's just speculation. It's like we think we're always going to epic-ly rule, and are planning accordingly. But what if the Fed can't keep messing with interest rates? What if the bottom did fall out of the dollar? What if China called in all that debt? I'm not worried about it, and I wonder if on a macro scale preparing for economic disaster brings it (or vice versa), but I also think that occasionally contemplating our west declining isn't a bad thing either. Maybe we'd be more humble.

So I drove back and sat at my desk, nestled in my cube, and helped the people who pushed it to bubble, try to help the housing market turn back again. And read my magazine. And wrote most of this.