The Felicity of Unbounded Domesticity

The Chosen

2009-06-09T19:36:00.003-05:00

A few days ago a postcard came in the mail. I glanced at it casually, expecting another local politician's plea for my vote.

"It is my pleasure to tell you that your household has been chosen to participate in a Nielsen Household survey!"

A thrill of excitement went through me. Moi? A Nielsen household? I have grown up with the knowledge that it is the Nielsen households who control the destiny of television shows. My grandmother had a subscription to TV Guide, and I learned early on that entertainment was a competitive business. Audiences could be lost in the crucial early minutes of a show, and the Nielsen ratings reflected this. I wondered what it was like to live in a Nielsen household, where you had to write down everything you watched.

"In a few days you will receive a large blue and white envelope," the postcard read. "In it you will find a brief Nielsen Household survey. This is a special opportunity for you to represent your opinion."

I waited eagerly for my large blue and white envelope to arrive. While I don't think I am ready to make the commitment it takes to be a real Nielsen household, I was quite willing to fill out a survey. I couldn't wait to tell them about how I always watch the first few minutes of 30 Rock after The Office and rarely make it through a whole episode. Or about how the ABC online episode player makes Firefox crash. Or that I would watch The Amazing Race if it didn't come on on Sunday nights. Or that the spelling bee on MPB was one of the most entertaining things I've watched on TV in months. Yes, this little postcard was my ticket to influence the entertainment world.

And finally, the survey came.

Dear reader, I'm sure you've learned by now that life is full of disappointments. The Nielsen survey was very short, and the closest I got to sharing my carefully planned answers was in the single line after, "What types of television shows do you typically watch?"

Life does, however, pleasantly surprise us at times. The Nielsen Company didn't want to know what I think about 30 Rock, but they did enclose two dollars for my trouble. Two dollars!

If anyone else would like to give me money for my opinions, just let me know.

Books read 2008

2009-02-28T10:03:00.004-06:00

I know I'm two months late with this, but just in case you like books and lists and lists of books as much as I do, here are the books I read in 2008.

January
1. The Irrational Season by Madeleine L'Engle
2. If On A Winter's Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino
3. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse (audio book)
4. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman
5. The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith (audio book)

February
6. The Interesting Narrative by Olaudah Equiano
7. The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes
8. My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
9. The Life and Destiny of Isak Dinesen by Frans Lasson and Clara Svendsen
10. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
11. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

March
12. Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson
13. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
14. On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness by Andrew Peterson
15. The Hidden Wound by Wendell Berry
16. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

April
17. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall
18. Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
19. Growing Pains: The Autobiography of Emily Carr by Emily Carr
20. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
21. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs
22. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winnifred Watson

May
23. Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

June
24. Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
25. Sweet Valley High #1: Double Love by Francine Pascal
26. Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoefer
27. Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome
28. The Beatles: The Biography by Bob Spitz (audio book)

July
29. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
30. Rural Studio: Samuel Mockbee and an Architecture of Decency by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean and Timothy Hursley

August
31. The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy
32. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
33. The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
34. What Are People For? by Wendell Berry
35. Saturday by Ian McEwan

September
36. Wayside School is Falling Down by Louis Sachar

October
37. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
38. Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo (audio book)

November
39. Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper
40. Thinking With Type by Ellen Lupton

December
41. The Case of the Smoking Chimney by Erle Stanley Gardner
42. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Gilead was easily one of my favorite books of the year. It reminded me to look for beauty all around me and to take the time to enjoy it, no matter how it came. Something as simple as a sprinkler on a sunny day can be glorious.

The Penderwicks and its sequel, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street were so charming. Rosalind, Jane, Skye and Batty Penderwick are four sisters who live with their widowed father and have active imaginations. These books reminded me so much of being younger, both in the way that I devoured them so quickly (like I used to do all the time), and in the ways I could relate to all the girls. These books have been criticized for being more innocent and old fashioned than the world is now, but I had a childhood much like this in many ways, and these books were a refreshing reminder of the best things about it.

Sailing Alone Around the Room gave me hope that I may come to like poetry someday. If you want to like poetry but struggle through it most of the time, this "best of" collection is a good place to begin.

Rural Studio documents the work that Samuel Mockbee and his architecture students at Auburn University have done in poor, rural communities in Alabama. Using salvaged materials, they design and built structures for the needy that are both usable and beautiful. To do something that helps people, is responsible with materials, and is artistically excellent—that is an exciting idea to me. I like to hear about any way to have a creative career that meets human needs and is others-focused.

Speak begins with Melinda's first day of 9th grade. Her schoolmates shun her because she called the cops on an end-of-summer party, but we don't know why she made the call until Melinda can find the strength to speak. Melinda narrates this story, and her voice, so darkly funny and honest, makes this one of the most powerful books I've read in a long time. I highly recommend it.

Mornings

2009-02-25T22:12:00.005-06:00

This morning I saw a woodpecker hammering away outside my kitchen window. Unfortunately he flew away before I could get a better picture. I am so thankful that the sun is usually out when I get up now. It makes mornings so much easier. I like to stand in the sunniest spot while I eat breakfast. That spot happens to be a rather crowded corner, so I'm sure I look funny wedged in an awkward position when the rest of the kitchen is empty. But seeing everything bathed in morning light makes even ordinary things beautiful.

Focus on the positive

2009-02-16T20:57:00.003-06:00

Spring is coming, and I am holding on until then. A few daffodils have come from nowhere in my back yard. I want some red rain boots and feel for the first time in my life that I may be able to justify owning some. I have a 5-minute walk from my car into work now, and having damp ankles all morning is most unpleasant. There, I said I wouldn't complain on this blog, and I just did. Solid or dot pattern?

Summer cooking

2008-09-04T11:35:00.007-05:00

A couple of Saturday mornings ago I woke up smiling because I had just dreamed an original episode of The Office. Most of it was pretty hazy, but the final scene stood out in perfect clarity. In it, Jim and Pam got engaged. Apparently I am looking forward to the new season. After waking I thought it was a wonderful scene, but after trying to recap the dialogue to friends, I’ve come to the conclusion that the awesomeness was all due to the Jenna Fischer, John Krasinski and Rainn Wilson in my head and not the quality of writing. The actors delivered perfectly the warm, awkward humor I have come to love. The cameraman was also right on target, zooming in to capture everyone’s reactions to awkward moments. It was a bit unnerving to realize how much the pace of the show must have become second nature to me in order to have such an accurate and thorough dream. I’ve been watching Lost on dvd this summer, and I don’t want to start having Lost dreams.

The crinkly yellow leaves that are starting to fall on the front walk tell me that summer won’t last, so I’m trying to make the most of the long days and good produce. One night last week I stayed up past my bedtime in order to make kefta and zucchini kebabs, visit a friend, eat said kebabs and make blueberry crumb bars. A pink sunset was still in the sky at 8 o’clock that night. I love summer. I will be sad to see the zucchini and blueberries go.

These meatballs—I could eat them dipped in cool yogurt-mint sauce over and over. And I did, for lunch the next two days. Sometimes cooking for one is a good thing.

I took the blueberry crumb bars to a fish fry at my church, and they were CLEANED OUT. One man even scraped the dish when I came to take it home. I’ll definitely be making these again, because I don’t feel that I got my fair share.

Smitten Kitchen has served me well: I’ve also made huevos rancheros (easy and satisfying), couscous with roasted tomatoes (more time-consuming but delicious), pasta puttanesca (I thought of Violet, Klaus and Sunny while I washed up), dead simple slaw (a hit at growth group last night), and zucchini bread (more zucchini!). I also found I can grill eggplant on a George Foreman, and I have a pot full of healthy mint in the back yard, a first for me after many summers of failed attempts.

I try to remind myself of small victories like this because the yard itself is still putting up a fight. I’m working my way around the back perimeter, clearing out everything that doesn’t have a right to be there. It’s slow going, and the mosquitoes seem to be on the side of the invasive plants. No poison ivy outbreaks or West Nile yet, for which I’m thankful.

And because bullet points are so much easier than writing a real paragraph, here are some links to things I’ve enjoyed recently:
• Cheryl Kline gave a speech about writing, using the Harry Potter books as an example.
• Pete Peterson and Andrew Peterson tell good stories well in The Rabbit Room.
• Noisetrade has lots of great albums available for free download. I started with Waterdeep and Matthew Perryman Jones.

Chair Redo

2008-08-29T16:21:00.004-05:00

Hello, internet. I have not forgotten you. Well, actually that's not true. I did forget, but only for a bit, and during that time I've been gathering stories and pictures to share. I've been working away to make my house feel more like a home. Most projects are still in progress, but I did finish recovering a chair seat and two pillows. This chair was purchased in Texas for $6 several years ago, and I had planned to use it with other citrus colors in the living room of my old place. The citrus theme never came to pass, and now the chair is in my bedroom, in close proximity to these throw pillows. Pink floral and bold orange stripes do not go together (I have a lot to learn about design, but I am confident about this much). So I took advantage of a sale at Quilt Arts and covered both in Amy Butler fabric. Notice the closet doors, which I painted white.

Next time: I dream an episode of The Office and haul more debris out of the back yard!

U stand for uptight. That's how I'm feelin.'

2008-07-17T15:47:00.004-05:00

If I had kids who were going to sing the same thing over and over I would show them this upcoming segment from Sesame Street in which Feist teaches kids to count to--you guessed it--four.

She joins a long line of musicians who've appeared on the show over the years. Altering your hit song to help children learn is a worthy cause... although I'm not sure what my generation was supposed to learn from Smokey Robinson's Sesame Street performance of "You Really Got A Hold On Me."

Does anyone else remember being mildly creeped out when they saw Smokey being chased by a giant letter U?

“The rent here may be low but I believe we have it on very hard terms.”

2008-07-07T16:19:00.004-05:00

Our neighbors aren’t meddling and trying to match us up with eligible young men, but my roommates and I have discovered that our new house doesn’t come without a price. I don’t know when the last person who cared lived in the house, but it wasn’t too recently. After I finished painting my room and bathroom I turned my attention to the yard. This photo shows the result of Thursday evening and Friday morning’s work. When our landlord said we’d be responsible for the yard, I didn’t think that would include moving 20 rusty pipes that were lying under what was probably years’ worth of sediment and leaves. I would rake off a layer, haul a pipe to the street, rake off some more, haul another pipe away, and so on. We can walk around the north side of the house without being scared now!

Last week was a hard one. Some of the things that happened sound like the back cover of a Lemony Snicket book. On Monday alone there was an unsuccessful shopping trip, a homeless fish, a small amount of bloodshed, cold waffle fries, and an unwanted guest.

By Thursday things were looking up. My boss gave me the afternoon off, which was the beginning of a beautiful weekend. It included such good things as fireworks, homemade muffins, new fabric, Atonement (finally!), and time with friends. Not to mention the sleep earned by one who has done much yard work. I finished the weekend with a sense of accomplishment and refreshment, which almost never seem to go together. We just need more three-day weekends. I want this house to be a place my roommates and I can feel at home, and where others enjoy being. After this weekend I feel a little bit closer to that goal.

Night at the library

2008-06-27T09:49:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to the library to return some books and decided to stay and read for a bit. I found an empty corner and flopped down with Walker Percy’s The Last Gentleman. A group of adults who seemed to be having a meeting were a few feet away, obscured by a bookcase. I couldn’t tell what they were saying, but when the babble of their voices dropped down to one man speaking alone I could tell from his rhythm that he was praying. “…We ask that you would bless…” jumped out clear from the murmur. I smiled and tears sprang in my eyes (as they are prone to do when one is tired). In this messed up city, it is good to know that some people are praying.

Small and white, clean and bright

2008-06-17T11:14:00.004-05:00

If I have been quiet here for the last few weeks it is because I’ve mostly been occupied with mundane domestic tasks. I’ve moved to an old house with lots of quirks. Some of these I love—the phone nook!—and some of these I don’t—the large cracks in the corners of my bedroom walls. I decided not to live with the cracks and messy paint jobs left by previous tenants, so I’ve been spending most of my free time for the last few weeks painting my bathroom and bedroom. I’m almost done now (I’ve been saying that for a while, but it’s more true now than it used to be), and I’m pleased with the result.

Most people probably wouldn’t paint colored walls in a rental home white, but I’m happier in rooms with clean white walls. I change my mind so often about colors for other things that it’s good to start with a neutral base. And there is a certain satisfaction in smoothing new paint over a dirty surface. It reminds me again that summer feels like the start of something new in many ways. It’s a good time to look up from the usual busyness and try to see where I’m headed. It’s hard to believe that we’re almost halfway through 2008. I still have a 5K to run and an empty sketchbook waiting.

I love Tom Waits.

2008-05-08T11:37:00.003-05:00

Paste has the dates and locations listed here. Anyone up for a trip to Mobile on July 2?

Sense and Sensibility drinking game

2008-04-07T14:04:00.003-05:00

Take a drink every time Margaret (called Meg in this version) runs and yells to announce the approach of a visitor.

I'm sad the Jane Austen season is over. Now to the books!

...and then I found $20.

2008-04-04T11:03:00.003-05:00

No, really! Yesterday as I was walking into the post office I found a $20 bill lying in plain view on the sidewalk. I walked past it at first. "Surely it's not a real $20 bill," I thought. "Someone else would have picked it up by now." I continued in and retrieved the mail from our box. When I came out, the bill was still there. So I picked it up and took it inside to Mr. Johnny, one of the employees. He was awarded a purple heart, so I think he is trustworthy. And I realized that I didn't even need to keep it; just finding $20 is exciting. The next time I find myself in a lagging conversation, I will tack this story onto the end of it, and all will be well.

Time for another Good Idea, Bad Idea

2008-04-02T15:00:00.003-05:00

Good Idea: getting back together with old friends to make a successful collaboration.
Bad Idea: stealing old friends in order to copy a successful collaboration.

or

Good Idea: Sixpence None the Richer is recording and touring together again.
Bad Idea: NBC is creating a spin-off of The Office, set to air after the super bowl this fall. NBC executive Ben Silverman says, "It’s very likely you will see some of those actors [from The Office] on the spin-off."

I'm sure Leigh Nash and Matt Slocum have plenty of creativity left, but I'm afraid an Office spin-off while the original is still running can only hurt both the old and new shows. I think I'll watch this to cheer myself up.

And the winner is...

2008-03-31T10:24:00.003-05:00

I'm pleased to announce that the winner of On The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness is David. How did I arrive at this, you ask? Simple: I cast lots. That is, I wrote each of the commenter's names down on sheets of paper, folded them up, shuffled them around under my desk, and drew one out at random. The lot has fallen to David. Enjoy your book!

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

2008-03-21T15:15:00.007-05:00

Andrew Peterson has long been one of my favorite songwriters, so I waited with eagerness when I heard that he was writing a book. On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness arrived in bookstores this week, and I was fortunate enough to receive an advance copy. I approached it with some nervousness; I like AP's music so much--what if his first novel wasn't very good?

I needn't have worried. Book One of The Wingfeather Saga is a delightful read, full of humor and adventure. Janner Igiby, his younger brother Tink, and little sister Leeli live with their mother and ex-pirate grandfather in a little cottage in the town of Glipwood. Glipwood and the surrounding land of Skree are occupied and controlled by the Fangs of Dang, huge lizardlike creatures who make life miserable for the inhabitants. As danger and mysterious events build, Janner struggles with the responsibility of looking out for his siblings. It isn't an easy task when the evil Fangs seem out to get the Igiby children, though they don't understand why.

I love a book that begins with a map. On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness has two maps, footnotes full of funny asides, and heaps of made-up names that will make this an excellent book for families to read aloud. There is also plenty of gross humor that boys will love; my favorite example is when the Igibys' mother makes maggotloaf. It's obvious that AP has read Tolkien, Lewis and Rowling, but this story stands on its own. Like his predecessors, Peterson has created a world that is clearly much bigger than this first story shows, and I'm looking forward to reading more.

The folks at WaterBrook Press have given me an extra copy of the book to give away. Just leave a (relevant) comment in the next week and I'll choose randomly. Haven't you always wanted a book with the subtitle: Adventure. Peril. Lost Jewels. And the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree?

Awkwardness at 6:00

2008-03-06T15:01:00.005-06:00

Yesterday after tutoring at my church I went to Kroger for a couple of items. I bought escarole for the first time ever in order to make Escarole and Orzo Soup with Meatballs. I had some time to kill while I waited for 6 o'clock. You see, 6 o'clock is the magic hour when all of the baked goods at Broad Street go on sale for 50% off. So I lingered in the new international foods section, which turned out to be a lucky thing, because I also found orzo, a rice-shaped pasta the recipe called for. It was then that I realized just what this new Kroger could mean. I'm used to substituting or skipping when a recipe calls for ingredients that can't be easily found. I'd already bought some small macaroni to use in the soup when I found the small package of orzo in the "Italian" section. "This could change the way I cook," I thought.

I went to checkout and found myself in the uncomfortable position of buying something I didn't know how to pronounce. "What is this?" said the clerk when she picked up the escarole, asking the very question I'd hoped she wouldn't. I spelled it for her and resolved to look up the pronunciation so this doesn't happen again. Thanks to Merriam-Webster, I can now speak the name of escarole with confidence.

Then it was on to Broad Street, where I was happy to see that they had a couple loaves of honey whole wheat bread left. I asked for one and had handed over my money when the employee at the next register asked the guy who was helping me, "Did you just sell a loaf of wheat bread?" He looked confused, and I looked to my right to see the customer from whom I had just taken a loaf of bread away. And wouldn't you know, it was a friend of mine. She'd asked for the last two loaves of wheat bread, but I beat her to one of them! I tried to get her to take it, but she would have none of it. "I guess you know each other?" the girl employee said, as my friend gave me a hug. After some more protestations I received my change, took my bread and headed out the door, wondering what my friend was going to eat instead. I'd just taken food away from her!

I ate my bread with the escarole and orzo soup (which was delicious, by the way) for supper. I wonder what my friend had.

I have known for a while that if I go to McDade’s at 5 o'clock there’s a good chance I’ll run into some guy friend or another on the beer aisle. Now I know that I must be careful when buying Broad Street bread at 6:00.

You, you… me! ME!

2008-02-12T16:54:00.000-06:00

Guitta tagged me, so I’m going to talk about myself for a little while.

1. My books are organized by color. I got the idea from Apartment Therapy, but I have only myself to blame. This might sound crazy to some people, and I know it’s not for everyone. But I remember things visually and I don’t have very many books in my apartment. It’s working so far, and I like the way it looks.

2. I much prefer going barefoot to wearing shoes. As long as the floor is clean and the right texture. (See number 3.)

3. I can’t stand shag carpet. CANNOT bear to come in contact with it, and thinking about it too long makes me start to feel nauseated. I know white shag rugs are hugely popular right now, but nothing could induce me. No. Ugh.

4. I think Rembrandt was amazing. Did you ever look at the Bible and start thinking, “Why are these the books in the Bible and not others?” Then you read bits of the other possibilities and think “Oh, that’s why.” It’s like that with art. After a while looking at an art history book you think, “Why are these the famous artists and paintings and not others?” Then you get a chance to see an artist like Rembrandt in a museum, with his work hung alongside his contemporaries. Then it all becomes clear. Others tried, but he achieved something they couldn’t quite get.

5. I’ve never seen A Christmas Story. This can be amusing when the person I’m talking to starts referring to it without even checking first. I nod and smile for a little while until it comes to me. “Oh, I get it,” I eventually think. “It’s from A Christmas Story.”

6. In elementary school I ate everyone else’s unwanted black jelly beans at Easter. Now I probably wouldn’t want to eat food that had been on another kid’s plate, and I don’t crave candy so much anymore.

7. When I see how I have changed my mind about things in the past—the jelly beans for example—I worry that I will change my mind about other things I hold true now. What if I decide that putting bobble headed plush cats and dogs in the back window of my car is cute? Will someone stop me, or will they let me just go down that path of tackiness?

Books Read 2007

2008-01-14T11:11:00.001-06:00

I know you've all been eagerly awaiting my annual list of books read in the past year. Now the anxious clamor can subside. Without further ado, here are the books I read in 2007:

January
1. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien (f) (reread)
2. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim (f) (recommended by Bethany)
3. Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie (f)
4. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons (f)
5. On Being Presbyterian by Sean Michael Lucas (nf)

February
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (f) (reread)
7. Dreaming in Clay by Christopher Maurer with Maria Estrella Iglesias (nf)

March
8. Dragons in the Waters by Madeleine L’Engle (f)
9. A House Like a Lotus by Madeleine L’Engle (f)
10. The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A.J. Jacobs (nf)
11. I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being A Woman by Nora Ephron (nf)
12. Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling (f) (reread)
13. Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (nf)

April
14. An Acceptable Time by Madeleine L’Engle (f)
15. Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith (f)
16. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper (f)

May
17. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (f) (reread)

June
18. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (f) (reread)
19. The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene (f)
20. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (f) (reread)
21. A Treasury of Great Mysteries Vol. 2 edited by Howard Haycraft & John Beecraft (f)
22. The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden (f)
23. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie (f) (recommended by Daniel)
24. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (f)

July
25. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (f) (recommended by Liz)
26. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (f)
27. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis (f) (reread)

August
28. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole (f)
29. Greenwitch by Susan Cooper (f)
30. Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn by Donald Spoto (nf)
31. The Grey King by Susan Cooper (f)
32. Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper (f)

September
33. The Luckiest Girl by Beverly Cleary (f) (reread)
34. Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (f)

October
35. Atonement by Ian McEwan (f) (recommended by Kari)
36. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder (nf) (recommended by Wendell and Sara)
37. Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding (f)
38. The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey (nf)

November
39. The Christian’s Great Interest by William Guthrie (nf)
40. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote (f) (reread)
41. The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien (f) (reread)
42. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (f)

December
43. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (f)
44. To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller (nf)
45. Villette by Charlotte Bronte (f)
46. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (f) (reread)
47. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman (f) (reread)
48. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (f)

You'll notice that I did not reach my goal of 50 books. I suppose I could have rushed through two more books to have them completed in time to make the list, but what would be the point of that? To meet an arbitrary deadline I've imposed on myself and miss the content of the books in the process? Instead I've resolved to read less in 2008 (which I'm chronicling at GoodReads.) I want to devote more time to making art and getting exercise, and I know that time is going to have to come from somewhere.

The Enchanted April was probably my favorite book of the year. It came at just the right time and told me truth about myself and the world while entertaining and giving hope in the dreary month of January. I wouldn't expect everyone to get as much out of it as I did, but it is certainly worthwhile, and the movie version is lovely.

Cold Comfort Farm and The Know-It-All were two of the funniest books I read all year. If you've ever read Wuthering Heights and thought, "Get a grip, people! Take a bath and get over yourselves!," Cold Comfort Farm is the book for you. The movie with Kate Beckinsale, Ian McKellan and Rufus Sewell also quite amusing. The Know-It-All is A.J. Jacobs account of his attempt to read through the Encyclopedia Brittanica. I laughed a lot, learned a little bit, and found his thoughts on Ecclesiastes interesting.

In the original version of The Hidden Staircase, I learned that Nancy Drew kept a loaded revolver under her pillow. And she had curly hair! These two facts make her a lot cooler than the 60's version of Nancy I grew up with.

A Treasury of Great Mysteries was a garage sale find that included The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. Chandler and Dashiell Hammett pioneered the hardboiled detective novel in the 20's, 30's and 40's. True to its reputation, I found the plot of The Big Sleep hard to follow, but I loved the heavy use of similes like "...he used his strength like an out-of-work chorus girl uses her last pair of stockings."

Atonement was another of the best books of the year. I still find myself thinking about it, but perhaps that's because I've been looking for a movie location near me (there isn't one).

I will always be grateful to Charlotte Bronte for giving us Jane Eyre, but Villette was hard to get through. At first I wasn't all that interested in the story or the characters, and when I did finally get hooked, the ending was crushing. SPOILER: I'd imagined M. Paul Emmanuel to look like this guy, so I had to make some adjustments in my imagination to see him as a romantic possibility.

In addition to reading less in 2008, I also want to choose books carefully and examine my motives for reading. If it's to get something checked off a "must read" list someone else has compiled, that's a bad reason. If it's to learn more about a subject I enjoy, that's a good reason. So here's to reading good books for good reasons!

Don't teach me about politics and government...

2007-11-06T08:47:00.000-06:00

...Just tell me who to vote for. Today is election day in Jackson, and I don't have a clue who to vote for in most of the elections. The candidates running for state representative and senator in my district have been bombarding my mailbox with mudslinging flyers for the last several weeks with the result that now I don't want to vote for anybody. Gee, thanks, guys. You all have exhibited bad grammar, terrible graphic design and unprofessional behavior. I will be leaving a lot of boxes unmarked when I go to the polls today. Meanwhile, dear reader, I leave you with this shocking photo evidence that Mississippi State Senatorial candidate David Blount fathered a child we've never seen on his promotional flyers.

You be the judge.

This just in: Martha Stewart is a weird-o

2007-10-31T16:48:00.000-05:00

I've long suspected that Martha might be one of those crazy pet people. You know what I'm talking about. Well, now we have proof. I will let the images speak for themselves.

Brown paper packages tied up with string

2007-10-26T10:16:00.000-05:00

Here are some things I've been enjoying lately.

Couscous and feta stuffed peppers. I made these Wednesday night. If I hadn't forgotten the salt they would have been smashing. This recipe is definitely worth making again, very colorful and healthy and comfort-foody. Tonight I'm planning to attempt pumpkin bread pudding. My mouth starts watering as I type those three words. Pumpkin. Bread. Pudding.

Martha Stewart and Carole King. How much awesomeness can you fit in one room? These two women shaped who I am today. My Sunday School teacher gave me my first Martha Stewart Living subscription when I was 14, and my life has never been the same (see couscous and feta stuffed peppers above for evidence). My best friend Paula and I used to listen to Tapestry together on vinyl when we were teenagers. I was intrigued by the fact that her hair was frizzy---and somehow that was okay.

The Office is back to half-hour episodes, which I think are stronger than the hour-long ones. I loved Daryl's song and Michael's commercial last night.

Atonement by Ian McEwan. A really absorbing novel that is so carefully paced. I could hardly stand the understated suspense of waiting for the story to unfold. The story begins in England in 1935 and moves on to Dunkirk in World War II. I won't tell you too much more because you'll enjoy it more the less you know about what is going to happen. The movie trailer looks promising too, and it's getting good reviews.

In the Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra. It was this review in The Wall Street Journal that prompted me to put this album on my Half.com wish list a while ago. When a lot of my friends got engaged and my roommate moved away, I thought, "Well, if I'm going to be sad and lonely this winter I'd better have some good music for it." And oh, boy IS IT! This album is the closest thing to perfection I've heard in a long time. I don't profess to be knowledgeable about Sinatra or music from this era (1955), but I can tell you what I hear: He embodies these songs written by others so thoroughly that you're sure he's lived it all and can tell you from experience. The melancholy is so beautifully balanced, never overwhelming. He delivers a silly line like " You had what I lack, myself / Now I even have to scratch my back myself" with so much pathos, that I give a quick smile followed by a sigh. He's so alone, and it's so beautiful! Listen to this at night in a quiet room on good speakers.

An Adventure Averted

2007-10-19T14:47:00.000-05:00

After a short storm on Wednesday afternoon I came home from work to find a tree limb pinning down a power line just outside my house. I didn't have any electricity, but that was okay with me since I was headed to my church small group for the evening. But the power was still out when I got home at 9. I thought about just going to bed early, but men were buzzing away with chainsaws right outside my window. "No way I'm going to be able to sleep through that," I thought. I weighed my options: I could escape the darkness and go to Barnes & Noble, or I could embrace it by lighting candles and settling down with a book. I thought of the Ingalls family and went for option two.

Ever since the hurricane I've been determined to keep at least a small supply of candles on hand in case of emergencies. So I dug them out from under the bed and found saucers for them all. Now--what to read? I'm in process on Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, so that was the first thing that came to mind. But Dave Ramsey by candlelight? NO! Every feeling revolts! Reading a financial book by in dim, romantic lighting is just wrong. This is an adventure, I thought. I need an adventure book. I had only to crack open The Return of the King and glance down to read, "Oathbreakers, why have you come?" and I knew I'd found my book.

I settled down to read, book turned toward a bunch of candles to catch as much light as possible. But y'all, I hadn't even finished the synopsis of the previous two volumes before I noticed a soft glow coming from next door. Hmmm. I flipped a switch and winced at the light that came on. NO again! Just when I was excited about not having power--it comes back on. I'm not sure what the moral of this story is... Enjoy the simple pleasures in life? Keep your house clean because you never know when you'll have to get around it in the dark? Try to remember you're not Caroline Ingalls?

It's so damn hot! Milk was a bad choice.

2007-10-01T15:33:00.000-05:00

I'm so ready for fall that I went ahead this weekend and made a fallish meal, even though it's still hot outside. So I had to turn up the AC and I still broke a sweat. I just couldn't wait any longer to make this recipe for Butternut Squash soup, which came from my friend Carla. I love how easy it is. And the color, which just says, "Hello, fall!" It does take the squashes (or is it butternuts? I really don't know--you so rarely hear them mentioned in conversation these days) some time to bake, so start early or else you'll be sitting down to eat supper at 9 o'clock like I did. I ate it with Ann's No-Knead Bread, which is also very easy. Are you noticing a theme here? I usually make it with whole-wheat flour, but I found that I was entirely out after I'd already started. So, white it was. I discovered I actually like wheat better. Whew.

Butternut Squash Soup

1 Tbsp. butter
1/2 c. chopped onion
1 tsp. curry powder
1 1/2 c. chicken broth
1/2 c. apple juice
1 cooked butternut squash (or 4 c. cubed)
1 c. pear or apple, peeled and chopped
1/4 tsp. salt
milk and/or sour cream (optional)

Heat the butter in a pot and saute the chopped onion until soft. Add curry powder and cook 1 minute. Add the broth, apple juice, squash, pear or apple and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Blend or mash once the ingredients are soft. Thin with milk if needed and garnish with sour cream if desired.

This is a pretty flexible recipe. This time I used water instead of chicken broth and milk, and applesauce instead of apple juice. I also added a dash of cloves, some cinnamon and some chili powder, and ground pepper just before serving. To cook the squash, I used two small ones because they're easier to cut. Just scoop out the seeds (these are good toasted as well--memories of American Indians using the whole buffalo flashed through my head at this point, when I almost threw them away) and bake somewhere around 400 degrees. Mine took about 50 minutes.

Both make good leftovers.

Ceili

2007-09-12T10:49:00.000-05:00

My cousins and I went to a ceili Saturday night. It's held every year as part of the CelticFest at the Agriculture and Forestry Museum in Jackson. We danced and watched and danced some more. The room was crowded, and I met friends I didn't know were there as I passed down the line.
Girls wore their skirts and slippers. And hoped there would be enough boys to dance with.
The gentlemen listened carefully to instructions. To tread on a lady's foot is embarrassing and painful for all concerned.
Suspenders and newsboy caps were also donned. I like to see the couples lined up like characters in a Jane Austen novel. If he asks you to dance twice, it is a compliment, since there are so many other young ladies to choose from. Just remember to hold on tight during the spins, or else you'll go flying.
Which might not be a bad thing. It's what the music makes you want to do anyway.

Regarding Henry, or The Fish Who Lived

2007-08-24T11:36:00.000-05:00

This is Henry. He’s a betta fish who came to live with me in May. Henry enjoys swimming and eating. I’m still trying to discern his taste in music. I think we can say he likes Pet Sounds, doesn’t care for Wilco and is ambivalent about the Beatles. For some time after he arrived, the theme song from Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood would run through my head every time I fed him. Yes, Henry, I will be your neighbor.

He has done well for the most part. He seems to enjoy his home in a Pier 1 candle holder, as it affords more rooms for swimming than the vase he arrived in. That is until about 3 weeks ago when I slacked off changing his water regularly. He developed a white spot on his back, stopped eating, and hung around at the bottom of the bowl. When I finally realized the effect my negligence was having I was stricken with guilt and acted quickly. I started changing some of his water every day until it was clear, hoping that he could hang on until then. I have had fish die on me before, so I tried to prepare myself for the possibility that I could walk in one day and find him floating lifelessly. It was an anxious time.

Henry joined me just in time for Summer 2007, which shall be known in the future as The Summer of Harry Potter. I finished rereading the released books, saw Order of the Phoenix in the theatre, anticipated, read and afterwards discussed The Deathly Hallows. It’s no wonder that with so much Harry on the brain I kept wanting to call Henry Harry instead. During these days when his life was hanging in the balance I thought, “I might as well have named him Harry, seeing as how all I do is wonder whether he’s going to live or die.”

Henry must come from good stock, because his immune system rallied and fought off the white spot. Now in clean water, he perked up, starting swimming around and once again greeted me with those expectant bulging eyes at mealtimes. I breathed a sigh of relief. The rescue of Henry (from myself) was a success.

He still has his off days. Sometimes he sticks pretty close to the bottom, and I start to get apprehensive. But I’m proud of him for pulling though and sticking with me. He’s The Fish Who Lived. So far.

Then we shall find out who is right…and who is dead

2007-08-02T14:33:00.000-05:00

It was tough transitioning back to everyday life after finishing The Deathly Hallows last Monday night. For a while I didn’t want to read anything else while the conclusion simmered in my head. Then I hit on the idea of C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce, which was a short but profound read that Deathly Hallows had reminded me of, and it helped me get my thoughts about it in order.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

First of all, who is right:
Thank goodness I was about Harry, Ron, Hermione, and most of the Weasleys living. I also called Mad-Eye’s death in battle and the bad guys’ downfall. I’m giving myself partial credit on Neville. At first I was disappointed that he didn’t get to take out Bellatrix, but I had been concerned all along about how exactly he was going to do that. I didn’t want him to have to cast a killing curse, so I’m really pleased at how things turned out. Mrs. Weasley was fabulous, and Neville helped kill Voldemort! I’ve loved watching him grow and mature as the books go on, and when he came out of the tunnel in the Hog’s Head I was so thrilled to see him. He was bruised and beaten, but still strong and hopeful. When Harry says, “Kill the snake,” Neville kills the snake. In front of Voldemort. How cool is that? Lets hear it for the Neville Longbottoms and Samwise Gamgees of the world; without them our heroes wouldn’t be heroes.

I’m also giving myself partial credit on Harry’s interaction with Dumbledore at the end. So I was wrong about him going through the veil to do it (although I think there are multiple ways to get to King’s Cross, and the veil is one of them), but I was sure that Harry would willingly give up his life, pass to a place beyond, and return to defeat Voldemort.

Who is dead:
Whenever the possibility that one of the twins could die crept into my head before I read the book, I banished it quickly. “No, she won’t go there,” I thought. “It would be too much. Fred living without George? George without Fred? No way. She won’t do that to us.” But she did. Yes, I was sad and shocked by little Dobby’s death (who has annoyed me since book 2—I never thought I would be sad to see him go), but when Fred died everything just stopped. I’m glad I was wrong about Percy coming back, but part of me wishes it had been him instead. What will George do without his partner?

I’m also disappointed that more didn’t happen with Draco. He remained a coward throughout, never willing to do too much either way. Perhaps the curt nod he gives Harry in the epilogue is the best he can manage. It is, after all, much better than the way his father treated Ron’s dad. But I can't help thinking that J.K. Rowling could have done more with his character.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Deathly Hallows. I never cried much, but I was on the verge of tears most of the time I wasn’t laughing, gasping or saying a shocked, “What?” to the book. It was an emotional experience, concluding this journey with Harry. My two main criticisms—the wand-conquering info was too complicated and slowed things down at the critical moment, and the epilogue was a bit too twee—don’t stop me from recognizing all that was wonderful about this book. It’s given me lots to think about regarding sacrifice and life and relationships and death and purpose, which is what a good book should do.

I frequently act as though I am not possessed of the Inner Eye, so as not to make others nervous.

2007-07-17T11:25:00.000-05:00

*Spoilers for books 1-6 below

Well, folks, we’ve just 4 days to go before we say hello to The Deathly Hallows and goodbye to Harry and his friends. So I’d like to go on record with my predictions for what will happen, realizing of course that I could be totally wrong. Let’s hope I am, because I’d hate to think I’d figured the whole thing out. Fortunately, J.K. Rowling is good at surprises. I mean, did anyone expect Voldemort to be living on the back of Quirrell’s head? Or Mad-Eye Moody to not be Mad-Eye Moody?

Harry—Even though I’ve been confident all along that Harry will be victorious and live to tell about it, for some reason I started getting a bit anxious after I saw Order of the Phoenix. Then I had a beer and reread the first chapter of the first book. It calmed me down like Holly Golightly visiting Tiffany’s. The effects of the beer have worn off, and I’m still convinced: He’s the Boy Who Lived, people! No way he’s going to die!

Ron and Hermione—They should have the same fate. Rowling hasn’t taken this much time slowly building their relationship only to have them parted in death. They’ll either die together or live together, and I think they’ll go on and be the next generation. The world must be peopled.

Neville—He’s got a score to settle with Bellatrix Lestrange. I hope he doesn’t die in the completion of it, but it’s a definite possibility. Perhaps he’ll take down Voldemort too. After all the fuss about the prophecy applying to Harry, how cool would it be to have someone the enemy overlooked creep in at the end and bring about his destruction, totally unlooked for, while he focuses his concentration on Harry? Maybe I am thinking too much of The Lord of the Rings.

The Weasley family—Bill has already been bitten by Fenrir Greyback and Mr. Weasley was attacked by the snake, which is enough hardship for them. Charlie… I hate to say it, but he seems expendable. Percy will be too prideful to accept the chance for redemption and probably die because of it (or live with the consequences, which would be even more interesting). Fred and George have a bright future ahead of them, but I’m worried about Ginny and Mrs. Weasley. They’re beloved by Harry, which isn’t a good sign, but I don’t think it necessarily spells doom either.

The teachers—Every time Rowling has told us a major character is going to die, I’ve expected it to be Hagrid, so I think he’s due. Moody will probably die in battle. It’s how he’d like to go. But someone has to run Hogwarts, so McGonagall is safe. Trelawney will make her third and final prophecy.

The baddies—Voldemort, Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange are all going down, of course. Draco, unlike Percy, will accept the opportunity for redemption, and this I’m excited about.

Is Snape good or evil? I hate this question because regardless of where his ultimate loyalties lie, Snape has done terrible things all through the series. He’s bullied, humiliated and tortured his non-Slytherin students for years. Even if his killing Dumbledore was part of an ultimate plan against Voldemort, taking human life is still wrong. If Rowling works it out that somehow this was okay, I won’t be pleased.

What else?—Harry and Voldemort will go beyond the veil (I think this is what is on the cover art). Perhaps while he’s there Harry will interact with Dumbledore (this would fit with Rowling’s statement that Dumbledore was giving her some trouble in book 7, even though he was dead) and—this makes me emotional just thinking about it—his parents.

Thoughts? Predictions of your own? This is your last chance for bragging rights!

Go ahead! They're not called don't nuts!

2007-07-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry that I tend to post about the same subject multiple times in a row, but this is just too good to pass up. In a brilliant marketing move, 7-Elevens across the country are becoming Kwik-E-Marts to promote the upcoming The Simpsons Movie. Add this to the list of things I never thought would happen: I want desperately to go to a 7-Eleven and buy junk food! Buzz Cola, Krusty-Os, donuts with sprinkles--they have it all. Well, almost all. There is no Duff beer, thanks to the movie's PG-13 rating.

It all reminds me of the Simpsons-themed party my roommate threw a few years ago. We carefully planned the food and rented the episodes, only to have it crashed by some of the people invited, who showed up late, dressed in strange costumes and bringing people we didn't know. They paraded in and ate the food, interrupting the guests who were trying to watch tv and making us all uneasy with their bizarre behavior and clothes. Needless to say, these boys weren't invited to any more parties. At the end of the evening we had learned our lesson: don't cast your pearls before swine, even if your pearls are only season 3 episodes of The Simpsons.

There don't seem to be any 7-Elevens located around me, which is perhaps for the best. I am spared the temptation to buy food I don't actually like just because it makes me laugh. It also removes the temptation I would otherwise feel to steal promotional materials like this sign:

Kwik-E-Mart Flickr photoset

D'oh!

2007-07-05T10:28:00.000-05:00

My family as Simpsons characters. Have some fun in Springfield at Simpsonsmovie.com.

Chapters

2007-07-03T16:44:00.000-05:00

Andrew Osenga called the short songs on The Morning “chapters” after vignettes in The Complete Stories of Hemingway. I don’t have enough for a single full post, so here are some mini ones.

1.6 million people can’t be wrong

Today while reading Posie, a craft blog I adore, I clicked on an Amazon link to a cookbook called My French Kitchen by Joanne Harris. Why? Because I just saw Ratatouille. Watch it and you’ll want a French kitchen too. Scanning down the page of reviews applauding the recipes, I find this interesting fact. What do 5% of customers buy after viewing My French Kitchen? Why, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, of course.

“How am I a hog and me both? How am I saved and from hell too?”

As I was driving home from work a couple of weeks ago I saw an elderly man without a shirt on. He was striding purposefully across the lawn of a neat little house. What attracted my attention was that he was also barefoot, and his khaki shorts were rolled up as far as they could decently go. I saw him again a half-hour later while I was driving to my church to help out with snacks at Vacation Bible School. This time he was loping across the baseball field, slightly hunched over, with gray hair flying. I zipped around the curve in my air-conditioned car and cast an eye at the 3 dozen chocolate-banana muffins I’d made for the VBS staff sitting in the passenger’s seat. “If I were in a Flannery O’Connor story,” I thought, “that crazy man would be an instrument of grace and break into my life to show me my smugness and self-satisfaction. Here I am freshly showered, in my nice clean car, going to volunteer at church with my homemade muffins.” I felt like Mrs. Turpin in “Revelation.” I know I’m saved, but one day even my virtues will be burned away.

Letters to the Editor, Vol. 1

Speaking of Andrew Osenga, he’s newly released an acoustic EP called Letters to the Editor, Vol. 1. All 6 songs were written and recorded in a 2-week period and inspired by stories, pictures and phrases submitted by fans. If you’ve wondered about Mr. Osenga, now’s your chance. Download the EP for free, and if you like it send him a donation as suggested.

I am making all things new

2007-06-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

This week we’ve been painting the office suite where I work. It’s in a great location with lots of cool places nearby, but the building itself is pretty dingy. I’ve been dying to paint, de-clutter, and organize ever since I came to work here three years ago. Now the time has come. When my boss said she was embarrassed to have someone important come by the office, I jumped on it. “Have you considered painting?” I asked. “I would love to paint!” she answered. “I’ll do it!” the words nearly fell over themselves in their hurry to get out of my mouth. My answer to any task that will improve the look and function of this place is “I’ll do it!” Prime and paint the ugly laminate bookcases? I’ll do it! Clean out the dark and dirty storage closet? I’ll do it! I feel like Pig Will in Richard Scarry’s book. “I will,” said Pig Will. “I won’t,” said Pig Won’t. And what happened to Pig Won’t? He got a spanking. Meanwhile this Pig Will is going to have a cool workspace.

Yesterday I woke up with a lovely Christmas song from Over the Rhine stuck in my head. I meditated on the beautiful words as I rolled Belgian Waffle on the walls and thought about making things new. “Darlin’ (Christmas is Coming)” seems very fitting right now. Sure, it’s June, but for those of us who still think of time in semesters it’s the end of an old year and the beginning of something new. Friends are moving—some to other states and some just a few blocks. I will have a different roommate in a couple of months. It’s a time of transition, and sliding creamy yellow paint over grimy walls to make them new and clean reminds me of God’s mercies that are new every morning. I love that Over the Rhine opens “Darlin’ (Christmas is Coming)” with, “So it’s been a long year / Every new day brings one more tear / Till there’s nothing left to cry.” It’s a recognition that we all still have burdens to bear, but mercy and forgiveness can still break through. Darlin’ the snow is falling / Falling like forgiveness from the sky.

Download a free MP3 of “Darlin’ (Christmas is Coming” from the generous folks of Over the Rhine. The album Snow Angels is sold out but will be re-released this fall.

Question: which is better: Macs or PCs?

2007-05-24T16:07:00.000-05:00

Answer: PCs. They are the computers employed by Dunder Mifflin Scranton.

It’s good to stay the color you are

2007-05-22T10:00:00.000-05:00

When my brother Wendell was about 4 years old he made an observation while watching a basketball game on TV. He noticed early in life that most African American players were better than most white players. According to the logic of a 4-year-old, he must have thought that trading your skin color for the ability to play better basketball was an option, but concluded that it was an option he would pass on. “It’s good to stay the color you are,” he remarked. We still laugh at this story, and the sentence has entered the family canon of frequently used phrases. I even use it when no one else will know to what I am referring. On Sunday afternoon my roommate donned her sunglasses and took off her shoes. “I’m going outside to try to get dark,” she announced. “I’ve decided to stay the color I am,” I replied.

Staying the color you are is good advice. I really have decided to give up trying to get tan this summer. Don’t get me wrong—I love being in the sun, and I don’t have a skin cancer phobia, but trying to get tan has always been a hot, headachy and unprofitable ordeal for me (except for the summers I worked at Twin Lakes). It will be much easier to let the chips fall where they may: If I get sun, fine. If not, that’s fine too. Just as going green, being energy efficient and recycling have all become cool, I predict that being white (or the color you are) will eventually come back into style. It may not be until I’m in my fifties, but when it does I’ll be ready.

As with many things that children say, “It’s good to stay the color you are,” hides a profundity beneath its funny exterior. It’s not just the paleness of my skin I need to accept, but so many other things about the way God made me and the culture and location in which he’s placed me. After my parents’ attack we got word from the Hambys that their children were praying for us. “Why does the dog bite?” 2-year-old Simeon said. And I thought then, in the midst of all the chaos, as I hovered back and forth between my parents’ hospital rooms, that Simeon had grasped the core of what was going on. Why is there evil in the world? Why does the dog bite? The effects of Adam and Eve’s sin have stretched out to touch everything, and because of their disobedience my mom’s left arm will be shorter than her right. God has been very good to us in the midst of this trouble. He’s brought my family, which was already close, even closer to each other and to him. He’s shown me that he is real and can be trusted. He made me the color I am for a reason.

Rereading Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix

2007-05-14T09:41:00.000-05:00

In preparation for the release of the final Harry Potter installment, The Deathly Hallows, this summer, I’ve been re-reading the series. After finishing The Order of the Phoenix for the third time, these are my conclusions.

J.K. Rowling knows how to end her books well. Even though this book drags at times and is need of some serious editing (I remember reading a quote where she admitted the same thing), at the end I can’t put it down and even wind up a bit teary over things that never moved me before. The more time I spend with these characters, the more I come to care about them.

For example: Neville. The “Christmas on the Closed Ward” chapter, his hard work with the DA and brave fighting at the Ministry of Magic show us that there is so much more to him than would seem. What I want from book 7—more than Voldemort’s downfall even—is for Neville to do something really cool and for Bellatrix Lestrange to die a painful death after seeing her lord destroyed. Oh dear, did I just say that? Is it okay to want revenge on a fictional character?

Harry Potter cover art

2007-03-28T11:11:00.000-05:00

The cover art for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released this morning. Some thoughts: Harry and Voldemort appear to be reaching for something; somehow I doubt it's the golden snitch. And Harry is wearing something around is neck; is it the horcrux locket? Voldemort's hands look like the grinch's. Harry is looking up, but Voldemort seems to be looking elsewhere (at Harry?). And finally, look at those bumpy shapes lining the background. If they are people, and this is the final confrontation, then my dream about spectators watching in a sports-like event may just prove to be true. Maybe you should call me Sybill Trelawney.

Operations on my sweater

2007-03-27T16:26:00.000-05:00

I don't have a digital camera, so here is a drawing to show you what I've been doing. This is the pink sweater I started knitting in autumn 2005. It sat on the needles for a year before I took it up again this winter. The inspiration came in the fall, when the weather got cooler. The determination came in January, with New Year's resolutions. And the desperation keeps me going now, even though I feel less and less like knitting the warmer the weather gets. Finishing this sweater is part of my spring cleaning. As you can see, I've done the two fronts, the back, and about a third of a sleeve. Alicia at Posie has made whole blankets in the time it's taken me to worry out this little sweater. It's not a race, I have to tell myself. At least I get to watch lots of movies!

My mom gave me a little Singer sewing machine she had when she was my age, and for some time I confess I've been a little bit afraid of it. I grew up helping her sew, but I've never attempted much on my own. But when the piles of fabric I kept buying and never sewing mounted up, I pulled out the machine from its Jadeite green case. First, something simple: two café au lait colored squares to hide my pantry items from view. Next, two flowered slipcovers for the throw pillows in my room. They actually look much better than this. Think shabby chic rather than early nineties beach house.

I think this post was inspired by Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, which I just finished reading. He includes a number of black and white drawings, with detailed explanations of what is going on in each one. My hasty Illustrator scribbles are thanks to him.

Quote of the day: "Next week [I] shall begin my operations on my hat, on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend."--Jane Austen

You can never hold back spring

2007-03-15T11:44:00.000-05:00

Tom Waits is right. You can never hold back spring. It has arrived here in Mississippi, first with a blanket of pollen, followed now (thankfully!) by much-needed rain last night. I went down on Monday afternoon in a cloud of yellow dust, conquered by a sinus headache. But pain-reliever and decongestant revived me in time to make Pad Thai and watch Out of Africa. I fell in love with the beauty of it. Now I want to slipcover everything in white, polish the dark wood until it shines, bring in fresh flowers and dress in khaki.

In which I find bargains

2007-03-05T15:03:00.001-06:00

Three new books came home with me from Jackson Prep's garage sale this weekend.

The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene

Rising Tide by John Barry

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

I also got a Gap jacket that shows no signs of wear, even if it is from Spring 2002. And Jackson Prep students have $4 more for their prom fund. Everybody wins.

The evolution of Jane Eyre

2007-03-02T17:27:00.000-06:00

Another post about Jane Eyre! When the BBC's newest adaptation of Jane Eyre came on PBS last month I missed the first half, but my kind parents taped part two for me. I watched it last night. As with all the versions I've seen, there are things to like and dislike.

It got me thinking once again about all the different versions of this classic story. A YouTube search yielded the "after the fire" scenes from four of them. In 1944 Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles choose not to discuss the cause of the fire, but to talk about Adele instead. Despite Zelah Clarke's unfortunate bed cap and bad production values (turn your speakers down when the music swells then up again to hear the dialogue), the 1983 version with Timothy Dalton might be my overall favorite. In 1996 Charlotte Gainsbourg cuts her hands on thorns while saving William Hurt. In 2006 Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson emphasize the attraction between Rochester and Jane.

Now, dear reader, I will take you on a tour of the proposal scene throughout history.

1934
A platinum blond Jane tries on earrings, and then Bertha walks downstairs and introduces herself.

1944
This one’s not too shabby. The filmmakers got the line about the string joining them right, but lookout for that flash of lightning!

1949
Charleton Heston as Rochester. Jane is pretty much a pansy.

1957
Check out Mason’s smirk when he breaks up the proposal. And Bertha is chained to the bed!

1983
The script here is closer to the book than in any other version I’ve seen.

1997
Ouch! Some are put off by the violence of Ciaran Hinds’s affections and others are turned on. What say you?

2006
I wish they’d filmed this at night, but otherwise it’s pretty good.

And that closes our tour of Jane Eyre through the years. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have. Gives one hope about the quality of modern filmmaking, doesn’t it?

28 days as a general rule are plenty

2007-02-28T09:05:00.000-06:00

A clean slate: this was the theme of Martha Stewart’s January issue. Well, we’re two full months into 2007 and I’m still working on cleaning my slate. I determined to finish books and projects underway and to do the things on my “list of things to do” before I undertook anything else. And while I haven’t followed this plan completely (there was that impulse reread of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire a couple of weeks ago), I have made some progress. Bethany, Hilary and David all have had the books I borrowed returned to them. Salvation Army received a load of cast-offs. The sweater I started knitting last fall is inching along again.

Today is the last day of February, and I’m glad of it. The Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance was right: for such a beastly month as February, twenty-eight days as a general rule are plenty. I’m ready for sunshine warm enough to enjoy outside and not just through windows. It will be a bit sad to say goodbye to scarves and my red suede shoes, but that’s a small price to pay for strawberries, Birkenstocks, skirts and fresh herbs.

On Monday night I dreamed that I was Harry Potter on the night before my final confrontation with Voldemort. Don’t ask how I knew it would happen the next day; I just did. It was evening and hundreds of people were camping out in tents on the Hogwarts grounds (which looked like the lawn surrounding Mt. Olive Presbyterian Church). They had built bonfires and there was a festive sense of expectation in the air, not unlike the Triwizard Tournament. Everyone believed that I (Harry) would be victorious—except me. I was anything but certain of it, and I felt alienated from everyone else. I peeked into the windows of the Riddle house nearby (which looked like my parents’ living room—the Riddles have the same butterfly rug, apparently), and some ghostly flashes of light told me Voldemort was at work.

I would say July 21 can’t come quickly enough, but I’m in no hurry to have this series over. And my dream didn’t make me any more confident about Harry’s chances of survival. In 2005 I dreamed that the Belhaven library accidentally put out their copies of The Half-Blood Prince a few days early, and I had a chance to read it before anyone else did. That’s two dreams about Harry Potter. Can anyone help me? I seem to have a problem.

Them kids are in a funny way

2007-02-26T16:19:00.000-06:00

It was about ten years ago that my dad took Wendell, Paula, Micah and me to hear Livingston Taylor play at the Saenger Theatre in Mobile. On Friday night Paula, Tuan and I were privileged to hear him again at the Manship Theatre in Baton Rouge. I grew up hearing Livingston and his brother James on the turntable in the background during family evenings. I remember staring at the cover of Echoes, taking in every detail down to his long pale eyelashes while I tried to figure out if this was two brothers who looked eerily alike or the same man shown twice. Record covers allow a lot more scope for visual contemplation, you know.

On Friday night Livingston took the stage in his characteristic oxford shirt, bowtie and suspenders. He is down-to-earth and approachable. He chats with fans before, during intermission and after the show. After each song he steps out of the spotlight, snaps his long frame straight and bows. His rubber face registers mock surprise when the applause continues enthusiastically, but he seems genuinely honored to be doing what he’s doing. When I’m Not as Herbal as I Ought to Be is met with (relatively) thunderous applause Liv chides the audience, “I didn’t know you liked the cheap stuff! Heck, I wore a bowtie and everything.” The audience is pretty mellow, but when a smattering of applause breaks out at the opening of his children’s song Pajamas, he grins, “That’s right—the hits just keep on coming!”

The audience is almost entirely composed of people my parents’ age. I suspect that most of them are probably liberal. “I am young and conservative,” I think. “How did I get here?” But Livingston himself is an odd mixture of northern and southern, liberal and conservative. He grew up in North Carolina and now lives in Boston. Why Wasn’t I Born Gay? makes me a bit uncomfortable, but before long he’s singing gospel songs, which probably makes other people uncomfortable. At the climax of Step by Step (But Satan has no weapon / No arrow, knife, or sword / That can take away the love / Of Jesus Christ the Lord) the audience breaks into cheers.

Here is the set list for Friday evening:
1. Life is Good
2. I’m in a Pickle
3. Letting the Whiskey Do the Talking
4. Never Lose Hope
5. North to Alaska
6. Last Alaska Moon
7. I’m Not as Herbal as I Ought to Be
8. Olympic Guitar
9. Why Wasn’t I Born Gay
10. Kitty Hawk, December, Nineteen-Three
11. There You Are Again
12. Tell Jesus (to come to my house)
13. Pajamas
Intermission
14. Heart and Soul
15. Yes
16. Answer My Prayer
17. Step by Step
18. Best of Friends
19. On and On
20. I Wish I Were a Cowboy
21. Carolina Day
22. City Lights
23. Railroad Bill
24. Our Turn to Dance
25. My Baby Don’t Mind
26. Over the Rainbow
27. Grandma’s Hands

Things are gonna get better in the bye-and-bye

2007-02-22T11:14:00.000-06:00

"When we were young," I told my cousin Anna, "and your dad used to play his bluegrass albums, I thought I would never like that kind of music. I remember thinking, 'Uncle Scott is great and all, but he's just got it wrong on this one.' And now look where we are." We were standing in line at Hal & Mal's on Saturday night, waiting to hear Old Crow Medicine Show. Anna laughed and we went inside the smoky room to slip up to the front, ready to hear some good live music. While we waited for the band to start I mentally added bluegrass to the list of the things about which I've been wrong. I'm glad to have grown into an appreciation for rural music. Perhaps a steady TV diet of The Andy Griffith Show made it inevitable.

Old Crow delivered on the good live music. I'm only peripherally familiar with them--I don't feel much ownership of artists unless I own at least one album--through a few mp3s and hearing them open for Gillian Welch at Hal & Mal's two years ago. Back then they were up-and-coming bluegrass newcomers; now they probably have more mainstream recognition than Gillian Welch does. Fiddler Ketch Secor plays with almost Chris-Thile-like intensity, and the band was loud, tight and raucous.

There's a certain dorkiness inherent in bluegrass music. I have to admit I'm surprised OCMS is as popular as they are. Mountain music has been around for a long time; is it because these boys are young and sexy that it's suddenly cool to listen to? One of the things I love about bluegrass and rural music is its acknowledgement that life is hard but still worth celebrating. This view is shared by a lot of traditional folk and Celtic songs (another love I didn't see coming). Some of these have been brought to my attention lately by the lovely Kate Rusby. Her amazing voice wraps around lyrics like, "When Jimmy talks about the wars, it's worse than death to hear him / I must go out and hide me tears, because I cannot bear him" (The Recruited Collier) and our hearts break for the girl who's lost her love to the military. In another Kate Rusby song, Drowned Lovers, William and Margaret lose their lives thanks to meddling mothers and a strong river, but the music urges us to dance.

The bluegrass tradition in general recognizes that God and the Devil are real, the world is broken, and good things come into it but more is promised after life. Dancing to a song like Drowned Lovers might seem incongruous, but a worldview that allows for beauty and pain, fun and death, music and tears lets us do that.

It felt good to be sad and lonely

2007-01-22T12:16:00.000-06:00

When winter settles in and a gray chill creeps into everything, an inevitable feeling of sadness comes with it. There are two courses of action to take when this happens. The first is to fight it. This involves things like drinking orange juice, wearing red, forcing bulbs, listening to The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, watching something funny and redemptive like Groundhog Day or Enchanted April and perhaps going for a jog if the sun shines for a few moments at a time—anything to keep gloominess at bay.

The second course is to embrace the melancholy. You accomplish this by reading something in which the characters are hopelessly flawed, like Wuthering Heights, or unhealthily introspective, like The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by eating large quantities of soup, knitting a sweater you will probably never finish, staying firmly ensconced on the sofa and by listening to sad music. I like to be prepared with music appropriate for any situation (I’m still working on this—there are gaping holes in my music collection), so I put together a little “Winter Melancholy” iTunes playlist. The links are free downloads.

Bleecker Street—Simon & Garfunkel
“The fog’s rollin’ in off the east river bank…”
Every Ship Must Sail Away—Blue Merle
This was an iTunes free download from way back.
In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning—Carly Simon
A columnist for the Wall Street Journal said that Frank Sinatra’s album by this name was his best work. I’m tempted to hunt it up on eBay.
Sketches—Daniel Lanois
This sounds like fog, clouding your thoughts and sapping your resolution.
Sho Heen—Kate Rusby
She’s from England, where it is almost always cold.
First and Last Waltz—Nickel Creek
The music sounds far away, like spring.
Old Friends—Simon & Garfunkel
“Winter companions, the old men/Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset”
Gotta Have You—The Weepies
I mean, The Weepies…
Alice—Tom Waits
Death, a frozen pond, insanity, lost love: this is winter melancholy at its best.
Holland—Sufjan Stevens
So quiet and still, like a day when it’s too cold to move.
Dou Way Robyn/Sancta Mater—Trio Mediaeval
Another free download from iTunes.
Love and Loneliness—Wendell Kimbrough
Written in Maryland, where the sun shines even less than it does in Mississippi.
Mary’s Waltz—Over the Rhine
It’s been said that OTR’s music makes sad people happy and happy people sad.
The Survivor—The Normals
Maybe it’s just because there are bare tree branches and a gray sky in the album art, but Coming to Life has always felt like a winter album to me.

And no matter how bad winter is, at least I don’t have to deal with this.

So what would go on your winter playlist?

You get so hacked, that you pay no mind to the great big sign that says oversized load.

2007-01-16T15:40:00.000-06:00

It happened while my brother and I were driving in the car. I had to spit. There was no swallowing, no other course of action to take; opening the car door and spitting was the only solution. I explained my predicament to Wendell, and at the next four-way stop I quickly opened the car door and spat on the street. Then I slid down in shame, trying to hide from the world. "I'm always so grossed out when other people do that!" I said to Wendell. "And now I'm doing it!" "Well, now you know how they feel," he said. "Next time don't be so hard on them."

This happened years ago, but I still think of it whenever I see someone spit out of his car. "You know how it feels when you just have to spit," I remind myself. There are so many situations I find myself in that I thought would never happen to me, so many things I thought I'd never do. Whenever I new one turns up I think of spitting in the car with Wendell and wish I hadn't been so critical.

For example, I'm reading Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie right now. It's a Tommy and Tuppence mystery, and they're just chatting away not so charmingly while the plot does little to advance. I was getting irritated until I discovered that this is the last book Christie wrote. It was published when she was 83. Now I see the whole thing differently and will return to it this evening with much gentler expectations. I also know now what it feels like to be so tired at the end of a 9 to 5 office job that you just want to watch TV. I used to be so disdainful of people who would only flop down in front of the TV and watch whatever is on just because it was on, but now I know why they do it. I still don't think it's a good idea, but I understand. When I told my mom this, she wisely said, "Getting older is pretty much a process of learning you were wrong to be critical of anybody about anything."

Last night I made Blackened Chicken Pizza with Yellow Tomato Salsa. It was good, but entirely too spicy--and I left off the jalapeno! The pepper jack cheese and cayenne pepper together was overpowering. I will probably make it again with half plain mozzarella and reduce the red pepper.

I also remembered another book I read last year and forgot to put on the list: The Chosen by Chaim Potok. I really enjoyed it, although My Name Is Asher Lev was more interesting to me because of the art. He was a fascinating writer.

Books Read 2006

2007-01-04T09:52:00.000-06:00

Last year one of my favorite bloggers posted a list of all the books she had read in the past year. Even though she reads much faster than I do and finished over a hundred books, I was inspired by her example and decided to try for a modest fifty. I made my goal (only just), and looking over my year’s worth of reading I see that it is a very modest list indeed, including only ten nonfiction books and a great deal of children’s literature.

January
1. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis (reread)
4. By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder (reread)
5. The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder (reread)

February
6. On The Way Home: The Diary of a Trip From South Dakota To Mansfield, Missouri, in 1894 by Laura Ingalls Wilder
7. The Moon By Night by Madeleine L’Engle
8. Aunt Jane’s Hero by Elizabeth Prentiss
9. Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
10. The Arm of the Starfish by Madeline L’Engle
11. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
12. Holes by Louis Sachar

March
13. The Young Unicorns by Madeline L’Engle
14. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
15. The Giver by Lois Lowry
16. Camilla by Madeline L’Engle
17. The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket
18. Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli
19. The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
20. Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

April
21. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

May
22. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (reread)
23. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (reread)
24. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (reread)

June
25. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder (reread)
26. A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L’Engle
27. Sideways Stories From Wayside School by Louis Sachar (reread)
28. Cheaper By The Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (reread)
29. Leaving Cold Sassy by Olive Ann Burns

July
30. A Southern Belle Primer by Marilyn Schwartz
31. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor
32. Troubling A Star by Madeline L’Engle
33. Gilbert & Sullivan and Their Victorian World by Christopher Hibbert

August
34. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
35. Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (reread)

September
36. Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit by Sean Hepburn Ferrer
37. From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
38. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
39. The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery (reread)

October
40. Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
41. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
42. Mandy by Julie Edwards

November
43. The Narnian by Alan Jacobs
44. At Home in North Branch by Arleta Richardson
45. Beauty Evolution by Bobbi Brown

December
46. Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield (reread)
47. Lord Peter by Dorthy L. Sayers (reread)
48. Holiness by Grace by Bryan Chapell
49. The End by Lemony Snicket
50. Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

Favorites
I’m not including rereads here, only books new to me.
Maniac Magee—Wrote about it here.
The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency—This was a simple and lovely little book.
A Prayer for Owen Meany—Probably my favorite book of the year.

Disappointments
I don’t usually read a book unless I’m pretty sure I’m going to like it, but sometimes I even I make a bad call.
Julie and Julia—I hesitate to put this on the list because it was an interesting idea, and I don’t regret reading it. Julie Powell turned to cooking to help sort out some of her life questions, but at the end of the year, she hadn’t come up with any really substantial or helpful conclusions.
Troubling A Star—Terrible. I liked most of Madeline L’Engle’s Austin family series until this point, but this was dreadfully boring. I wish someone had told me to skip it, since everything I needed to know was on the dust jacket synopsis.

I have no fixed plans for reading in 2007, other than my usual perpetual list. Do you have any recommendations? What did you read in 2006?

Merry Christmas from J.K. Rowling

2006-12-21T18:03:00.000-06:00

The title of Book 7 was announced today by way of a game of hangman.

Pearl Harbor Day

2006-12-07T11:36:00.000-06:00

Instead of watching a movie, I remember Pearl Harbor Day by listening to one my favorite Adventures in Odyssey episodes, "East Winds, Raining." Wendell and I grew up listening to stories featuring Mr. Whitaker (Hal Smith), Eugene and Connie, and the original set of kids. If I happen across it on the radio now I listen with interest, but I don't recognize most of the inhabitants of Odyssey anymore. The Barclay family is long gone, and no one now remembers Jack and Oscar, Curt and Lucy.

In "East Winds, Raining", Connie's Uncle Joe reflects on his experience at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Listen to it here today and in the archives later.

Nerdy as a fan club

2006-12-01T08:58:00.000-06:00

Look what I found when I googled my name (scroll 1/6 down). Andrew Osenga asked his blog readers to thank Christianity Today for their review of The Morning (listen to it here), and my note got published (sort of). And it's right above Mr. and Mrs. Osenga's!

Her lamp does not go out at night

2006-11-30T15:12:00.000-06:00

Perhaps if I had more controversial opinions this blog would generate more interest. Those bloggers who concentrate on politics and religion (or a mixture of both!) have comments by the dozen. Personal anecdotes and recipes just don’t get the heart pounding and nostrils flared, if you know what I mean. I like to keep this blog fairly lighthearted because arguing online is rarely helpful for me. I would rather talk in person about such things. I have, however, unearthed a strong opinion on a religious matter that I’m not afraid to share.

By way of Facebook I came across a group dedicated to the support of Ladies Against Feminism. Most of the articles I’ve browsed through seem to contain mostly good and true information and advice. “More Time In A Day” drew my attention because the desire to get everything done is something with which I struggle. Time management tips are always welcome, and this article contains some good ones. But this advice should raise a red flag:

Get up earlier and stay up later. This is the golden key to success for the round-the-clock homemaker! The famous Proverbs 31 wife and mother rose while it was yet night and let not her candle go out by night - meaning that she got up early and stayed up late…. By getting up earlier and staying up later, you can enjoy more time with your husband and children…. one thing’s for sure: you’ll enjoy the fruits of your labors!

Not only is this not what Proverbs 31 is telling us to do—it doesn’t even work! The author urges us to get a good night’s sleep, but how can we if we’re getting up earlier and staying up later in order to work? (Doing one or the other is great advice—but not both; that’s called “burning the candle from both ends.”) Last week I had a lot of things that needed to be done before I left for the holiday weekend, so instead of going to bed I stayed up late and worked until they were done. The next day I got up and went to work as usual. But instead of “enjoying the fruits of my labors,” I felt exhausted and had to go to bed early that night. Which I knew would happen, because I know my body needs sleep.

Proverbs 31 isn’t a list of things for women to complete in order to be virtuous. One read-through will show you it can’t all be done by any one woman. The principle here is to be hard working and diligent. But in order to work hard, our bodies need rest. Telling women the Bible says for them to get up early and stay up late to get their housework done is ridiculous. It goes against common sense and the true intent of scripture.

True or False

2006-11-15T12:51:00.000-06:00

It’s time to play a little game called True or False. Determine whether the following statements are true…or false. Correct answers and explanations follow.

1. Christmas decorations may be put up whenever you feel like it.
2. Star Anise smells divine.
3. You can never have too much Bob Caskey.
4. It’s difficult to work a 9-to-5 and bake your own bread.
5. Hancock Fabric is a great place to meet friends.
6. Nicholas Cage deserves our respect.

1. False. Although I’ve begun planning for Christmas, it is not yet time to decorate. Always decorate for the holiday closest to you on the calendar. This means Christmas decorations may be put up on the day after Thanksgiving, but not before.

2. True. I picked up a 99 cent package of star anise at an Asian grocery in Ridgeland on Saturday. I left it sitting in the car while I ran some more errands, and when I came back my car smelled like pho. Some people may not want their cars to smell like pho, but it was fine with me.

3. False. I’m counting at least 7 barn dances called by Bob Caskey that I’ve attended in the past. Then there’s the time I saw him in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, wearing red pants. I’m trying to decide whether to attend RUF’s barn dance on Friday, and I’m thinking I need a break from Bob and his friend Charles.

4. True. What with all the time needed for rising, kneading, and rising again, I found it very difficult to get a loaf of oat bread made and baked. When I saw the recipe I imagined myself coming home from work to the wonderful yeasty smell of baking bread. Of course this couldn’t happen, because I was not there to bake it for myself to smell.

5. True. Who knew that I would run into three friends at Hancock Fabric? My mental associations of the fabric store are linked to memories as a child of (what seemed like) many, many hours spent wandering among bolts of fabric while my mom flipped through pattern books—feeling my brain activity shut down out of boredom. Now I’ll have to readjust that image. Cool people hang out at Hancock Fabric.

6. False. What is he thinking?

Like the monarchs I just knew that we could fly

2006-11-02T11:55:00.000-06:00

When I was invited to a costume party two days before Halloween I immediately began casting about for costume ideas. A few easy ones were eliminated when I realized that most of my winter clothes are at my parents’ house. Martha Stewart's instructions for making butterfly wings looked easy and fun, but neither Michael's or Target yielded crepe paper of any kind. "Okay," I thought. "I'll just paint the wings on brown wrapping paper." But the wire frame I constructed couldn't support the weight of the painted paper. The wings were beautiful but not functional. Unfortunately I realized this too late in the game for the perfectionist art major in me to give up and go to the party without a costume (the perfectionist art major is a stubborn and prideful girl). I am ashamed to admit that as my friends left for the party, I refused to go and instead began rummaging around the house for some way to make the wings work. I decided to sacrifice aesthetics for functionality and duct-tape bamboo skewers to one side. With this supporting frame in place, the wings held their shape perfectly. I added ribbon arm straps and was out the door.

Now the wings are hanging on my wall, serving well as a reminder of my own sinfulness and God’s love in spite of it. It’s a beautiful and painful thing to be smacked upside the head with your sin. He turned around my plans to show off, humbling me and reminding me to be thankful for friends who will put up with me even when I’m being ridiculous. I’m much like the wings—they’re really a big mess, held together with duct tape, wire sticking out of one side and staples showing—but there’s an amazing pattern (simplified monarch butterfly) that God designed.

Since I made the wings, references to them are popping up everywhere. Yesterday another blogger wrote, "I drove by a lot of trick-or-treaters to and from Wal-Mart. My informal research seemed to show that butterflies were the “it” costume for girls this year." So I was an it girl and didn’t even know it! My dad sent me this link to a review of a Sufjan Stevens show in Philadelphia. Evidently Sufjan and his band all wore wings! You can see pictures (and read a review of the same show from someone more familiar with his work here. Some might think Stevens takes himself too seriously. Wings? Come on! These people have obviously never worn wings themselves, or they would know how much fun it is.

The air is hot in Florida

2006-10-24T11:11:00.000-05:00

It’s hard to believe that on Saturday I was on the beach making drip castles and getting sunburned, and on Monday morning I bundled into corduroy and denim, shoving my feet into brown leather shoes that have been packed away for months. I went to Florida this weekend with Paula, Leigh and Anna. We played hard, and I came back tired, refreshed and a little poorer. Paula’s aunt kindly allowed us the use of her weekend home on the bay. On Sunday morning I crept out to stand by the water and discovered that we seemed to be in the migratory path of some butterflies. When the first zoomed past my face, I didn’t think anything of it. But as I stood there looking out over the bay, dozens and dozens of orange and black butterflies flew past—all traveling parallel to the water’s edge and heading east into the sunrise. Where were they headed? I wondered. Maybe they knew that cold weather was coming. Making one last dash to the beach was the perfect way to say goodbye to summer. We drove the open Jeep on the beach, dug our toes in the sand and consumed mass quantities of seafood.

Now I’m back in Jackson, and the cool temperatures have rolled in, reminding me that it really is time to start making soup, planning holiday projects, and take up knitting again on that sweater I began this time last year. It would be embarrassing have to take it with me to my grandparents’ house at Christmas.

RELATIVE: Hey, Caroline. What are you working on?
CAROLINE: A sweater.
RELATIVE: Weren’t you working on a sweater last time you were here?
CAROLINE: Yep. Same sweater.

I don’t want that to happen, so maybe I can find the discipline to finish this one up before jumping on to something else. In my recent projects/reading/listening, here are some things I’ve found worthwhile and would like to recommend:

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.
This was a bestseller in the late 80’s. It’s the story of the friendship between two boys: the narrator, John Weelwright, and Owen Meany. Owen’s small size, “ruined” voice, dominating personality and unshakable belief that he is God’s instrument make him a fascinating character that kept me thinking about him and the story all the time I was reading the book and for days afterwards. I’m still thinking about it. If you’ve read this, I would love to talk about it. And if you haven’t, please consider it.

Cranberry Banana Oat Bread
I’ve made this twice lately. It’s that good. And easy.

Photographs and The Morning—Andrew Osenga
Fall is time for Andy O.

Barkeeper’s Friend
I saw this on Martha Stewart’s TV show. “How do you keep your stainless steel pans looking brand new?” someone asked. Martha recommended Barkeeper’s Friend and demonstrated its cleaning power on some dirty pots. “Hmmm…” I thought. I have a wonderful set of stainless steel cookware I got for Christmas last year. But one of the pots got a brown stain cooked onto it some time ago that I had never been able to get rid of. “I wonder if this stuff would work on that stain?” I thought. So I got some Barkeeper’s Friend at Wal-Mart (under $2) and put it to work against the ugly brown spot. It scrubbed away in seconds. “You are kidding me!” I exclaimed. After all that internet research, trying different methods, and just plain elbow grease, all it took was one little can of white powder. So I’m telling you this, gentle reader, to save you the trouble I went through. Barkeeper’s Friend made all my pots and pans look shiny and new! Well, there you go, folks. It’s not called the felicity of unbounded domesticity for nothing.

The DA

2006-09-26T11:05:00.000-05:00

I have to admit...this makes me a little bit giddy.

View more stills at Mugglenet.

When fall comes to central Mississippi

2006-09-19T09:47:00.000-05:00

I was glad of my green sweater this morning as I rolled the trash can to the street in the early morning chill. The plants on the back deck, still wet from yesterday’s rain, looked ready to face a new day. While all my plants receive the same amount of attention, some thrive and others languish. After each rain one plant in particular looks as if it could take over the world. It floors me when I see it, its leaves seemingly twice the size they were before. I make a Kramer-like jump and gasp, “The Healthiest Plant Ever!”

Meanwhile, my mint has died on me for the second year in a row (if anyone has any mint-growing tips, please pass them on!), and the grassy plant from Eudora Welty’s garden is in its ebb. I think of it as the phoenix plant because it dries up to almost nothing before shooting out fresh green spikes and beginning over again. The first time this happened I was alarmed. After all, it’s not every girl who has a cutting from the Welty garden. What if I killed my one plant with a pedigree? As the pattern repeated, I relaxed. I know that what it really wants is to get out of its pot and into the ground, but alas, I’m a renter and must content myself with container gardening.

I find that seasons call for different kinds of reading. Nineteenth century Russian and British novels for winter (Dostoyevsky, the Brontes, Dickens), and Lucy Maude Montgomery is well suited for spring. But autumn is harder to pinpoint. I read Walker Percy’s The Second Coming last fall, and it fit perfectly. I felt Allie’s urgency to prepare her greenhouse before cold weather settled in. This year I am reminded of the Inklings—Lewis and Tolkien understood the pleasures of a chilly tramp through woods and countryside followed by propping one’s feet up in a comfy chair with tea or pipe. So I’m bumping The Narnian and The Two Towers up on my reading list.

Back in black

2006-09-08T12:21:00.000-05:00

As I strolled up to the storefront of the Gap last night, a grin crept onto my face when I saw dear Audrey Hepburn dancing across the glass windows. At the same time I was delighted to see her, I felt a tinge of... jealousy, perhaps? Gap has no more right to appropriate her image for commercial purposes than does anyone else. If Audrey were alive, I don't know that she would tell us to shop there, and she certainly wouldn't try to persuade us that every woman needs to dress as she did. She was a firm believer in every woman finding what worked for her, and then sticking to it—though fashions will change, if you wear what is flattering, you will always be in style.

Gap is launching "the skinny black pant" this fall, and who better to show it off than Audrey Hepburn? A commercial featuring Audrey dancing out of the Parisian cafe in Funny Face onto a blank background, then back into Funny Face, is running on TV right now. Inside the store, I noticed the black pant paired with ballet flats and black turtlenecks. Audrey's clean, classic sense of style is one I've admired since the first time I saw Roman Holiday years ago. I just finished reading Audrey Hepburn, An Elegant Spirit by her son Sean Ferrer. It was a refreshing change from most Hollywood biographies; she led a simple, lovely and sad life. The book begins with her childhood in occupied Holland during World War II and ends with an account of her time working as the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) ambassador, and a gentle call to action on the part of the reader.

Audrey Hepburn continues to influences us even after her death. "After so many drive-in waitresses becoming movie stars, there has been this real drought, when along come class; somebody who actually went to school, can spell, maybe even plays the piano. She may be a wispy, thin little thing, but when you see that girl, you know you're really in the presence of something," said director Billy Wilder. After my library reading and Gap shopping, I’m thinking about two things: First, what can I do to aid those in need? If unbelievers can work to help children in poverty, how much more should Christians be moved to action. Prayer first, then maybe Blood:Water Mission as a starting place. And secondly… maybe I should get some skinny black pants.

Free Derek Webb

2006-09-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

No, this isn't a movement to get our favorite bald guitar player out of jail. Beginning today, Derek's latest album Mockingbird is available to dowload for free, in its entirety, at freederekwebb.com. Why is Derek doing this? I'll let him explain that. So what are you waiting for? Head over to freederekwebb.com right now, and while you're there spread the word. After all, it's free!

Don't mention the war!

2006-08-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

My roommate and I hosted a German girl for a few days this week. She was visiting a friend of Sarah Jo's and gamely camped out in our living room in between visits to the Bass Pro Shop, New Orleans and the local Waffle House. Kat was very cool, fascinating to listen to, and I wish I could've gotten to talk more with her. She was so cool, in fact, that my awkwardness was all the more funny in comparison.

Yesterday evening we were sitting around the dining room table talking. Somehow the topic turned to Americans' perception of European women as not shaving their legs. "Oh no!" she exclaimed. "That's not true! Some older women, perhaps, but most younger people do. See!" she said, offering her own legs as proof. We wondered how the custom came into general practice, and I mused that it was probably during World War II, when there was a nylon shortage. American women shaved their legs and drew lines down the back to fake the look of nylon stockings. Halfway though my explanation, I thought, "Oh no! Don't mention the war!" and remembered the most popular episode of the BBC's most popular sitcom: Fawlty Towers "The Germans."

Basil Fawlty, played to perfection by John Cleese, warns everyone at the inn not to mention "the war" when he hears that a party of Germans will be coming to stay. After a head injury (my memory is fuzzy on just how he got hurt—was it a falling moose head?), Basil escapes the hospital with a head bandage that makes him look even crazier than usual. He then proceeds to break his own instructions, mentioning the war at every opportunity and upsetting his guests greatly. When they ask him to stop dwelling on it, he politely reminds them that they started it. “We did not start it,” protests the German. “Yes you did, you invaded Poland,” Basil replies. He ultimately winds up goose-stepping around the dining room, finger held to his nose and long legs flailing, in the funniest impersonation of Hitler on televsion.

All this flashed through my mind while I sat at the dining room table with Kat. "Augh! The one thing you shouldn't mention to a German, and you brought it up!" I thought. The conversation moved on, and nothing else eventful happened. Was it awkward? Yes. Was it funny? Oh, yeah.

Friends? I'll give you friends!

2006-08-09T17:02:00.000-05:00

The Wonder Years is the first TV show ever to make me consider piracy. I grew up watching it with my family from beginning to end, and it holds a fond place in my heart today. I even remember watching the second episode in Clio, Alabama—my parents crying from laughing so hard at Coach Cutlip attempting to explain the facts of life to his gym class. The fans have been waiting, but Fox has yet to release The Wonder Years on DVD, and—as this article reveals—it won’t be coming out any time soon. This is due to complications with copyrights the extensive soundtrack is bound to produce.

Realistically, we can’t expect the episodes as we saw them on TV to be released on DVD without some music substitutions, but for those of us who remember songs tied directly with scenes from the show, this isn’t a satisfying solution. The Denver Post article refers to a scene my brother and I distinctly remember: Kevin climbs a tree outside Winnie’s window to look in on her after she’s been in an accident, while Bob Seger sings “We’ve Got Tonight.” Would this scene be the same without him crooning “I know it’s late/I know you’re weary/I know you’re plans don’t include me”? Certainly not! Or the summer party when it dawns on Kevin that the reason Winnie’s been acting strangely is that her parents are on the verge of splitting apart. “Are you going to Scarborough Fair?” Simon & Garfunkel softly ask, and Daniel Stern narrates, “That summer Winnie Cooper struggled to keep her head above water.” And what would The Wonder Years be without its unofficial theme song, “When A Man Loves a Woman”?

Then there are the moments that stick out in your memory, but you don’t know who was singing the song. When this happens, I turn to The Wonder Years Music Guide, as detailed a report as any OCD fan could ask for. When I think of waiting years for patched up set of episodes with replaced music, I recall a quote from Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility: "Perhaps Margaret is right. Piracy is our only option."

EDIT 1: Edited for accuracy! 8/10
EDIT 2: Watch the ending of "The Accident" on YouTube.

And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore

2006-08-01T16:31:00.000-05:00

Last night I finished reading a fascinating book about Gilbert and Sullivan, whose comic operas were all the rage in the late 19th century. William S. Gilbert wrote the libretto and Arthur Sullivan composed the music for over a dozen operettas. The best known are The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance, from which my blog title comes. I've loved Gilbert and Sullivan since I first saw a performance of Pirates at USM as a kid, so it was very interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look at life in Victorian England, particularly the business of entertaining. Gilbert's sharp wit and Sullivan's rousing scores complimented each other so well.

In 1878 Sullivan’s airs were heard everywhere, and Gilbert’s jokes were repeated like Napoleon Dynamite quotes. One of the best known comes from Captain Corcoran of the Pinafore:

CAPT. Bad language or abuse,
I never, never use,
Whatever the emergency;
Though "Bother it" I may
Occasionally say,
I never use a big, big D—
ALL. What, never?
CAPT. No, never!
ALL. What, never?
CAPT. Hardly ever!
ALL. Hardly ever swears a big, big D—
Then give three cheers, and one cheer more,
For the well-bred Captain of the Pinafore!

Gilbert & Sullivan and Their Victorian World says that “What, never?” “Hardly ever!” was repeated so much that the editor of a paper in which it appeared about a dozen times in a single issue roared at his writers that he never wanted to see that joke in print again. “What, never?” they replied. “Hardly ever,” he answered helplessly. You can hear a sample of the song at the Gilbert & Sullivan Archive.

If you get a chance to see a G&S performance, don't miss it! Meanwhile, here is a self-portrait Gilbert—who was known for his volatile temper and verbal barbs—made as a gift for a child. Each confession is signed "W.S. Gilbert."

I hate my fellow-man.
Everybody is an ass.
I am an overbearing beast.
I loathe everybody.
I love to bully.
I am an ill-tempered prig, & I glory in it.
Confound everything.
I like pinching little babies.

"Books...are like lobster shells..."

2006-07-31T11:15:00.000-05:00

"...we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development." The title quote is from Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers's The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club. I’ve been tagged by Micah.

1. One book that changed your life: The Enemy Within by Kris Lundgaard
2. One book that you've read more than once: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (what a heroine!)
3. One book you'd want on a desert island: (besides the Bible) The Lord of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. One book that made you laugh: Revenge of the Baby Sat by Bill Watterson (I know it’s a comic strip, but really—is there anything funnier than Calvin and Hobbes?)
5. One book that made you cry: Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling (I am not proud of this fact.)
6. One book that you wish had been written: Time, Dirt and Money by Olive Ann Burns (the unfinished sequel to Cold Sassy Tree. She died before it could be completed.)
7. One book that you wish had never been written: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
8. One book you're currently reading: Gilbert & Sullivan and Their Victorian World by Christopher Hibbert
9. One book you've been meaning to read: Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
10. Tag somebody: Paula

Good music comes to Jackson

2006-07-24T16:38:00.000-05:00

Matthew Perryman Jones played at Hal & Mal's Thursday night, and I was privileged to hear him and his excellent band. I was familiar with Matthew through his contributions to the Indelible Grace albums and his membership in the Square Peg Alliance, so I was excited to hear that he was coming to Jackson. Former Normals member Cason Cooley joined him on keyboard along with a (as yet unidentified) drummer and bass player. Matthew played songs from his new album Throwing Punches In The Dark, from which you can hear a few songs here. When the last notes of every song sounded, I thought, “Oh, no—keep going!” I guess it’s good to leave your audience wanting more, but it felt more like a appetizer of MPJ (is that just too Jonathan Taylor Thomas to abbreviate?) than a full meal. Derek Webb was right when he described Matthew’s voice as “mysterious and earnest.” Mysterious indeed, and it intrigued at least this listener. Does anyone else think he looks like "Jesus" in this photo? (He didn't in person.)

"When I decide to woo a woman I won't be single."

2006-07-17T00:37:00.000-05:00

Everybody's talkin' about it! David Hogue and Guitta Chaiban got married this weekend, surrounded by beautiful flowers, scrumptious food and drink, lovely hymns and—best of all—dear friends. When the Louisiana Hogues and Lebanese Chaibans meet, much fun ensues. I agree with Paula and Nathan; it was probably the most fun wedding reception I’ve ever attended. I love that we can have a worship service glorifying the Lord and thanking him for bringing these two together, and then have a party complete with Lebanese dancing.

One of my favorite moments from the night was just after David and Guitta pulled away in their limo. We were all standing around in the parking lot when someone’s car alarm started going off. In seconds, Guitta’s family were clapping on the off beat of the alarm and dancing in the parking lot. It was amazing.

I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.

2006-07-13T16:31:00.000-05:00

The Baby Name Wizard is a fun place to be if you’ve got some time to kill and have a curious mind. Type in any name, and the pink and/or blue graphs will indicate its usage per million babies as well as its overall ranking from the 1880s to the present.

I enjoy analyzing the data. What are the general trends? I’ve noticed that A names are rising in popularity. Names beginning in B remain consistent. C names for boys are on the up while names for girls are moving down. D and F names are on the downward slope. E name for both sexes were huge in the late 19th and early 20th century, and have experienced a spike upward recently. And so on and so forth.

Some names shot to the top from out of nowhere: Jason, Heather, Ethan and Jennifer—if you’re my age you probably had at least two Jennifers in your class. Some quickly fell out of favor: Barbara, Robin and…Kanye. I’m also surprised to see many names I think of only as girl names were used for boys between the 1880s and 1930s—in small numbers, mind you. But whoever heard of a boy named Doris? True to Shel Silverstein’s song, the Baby Name Wizard reports “The name SUE was not in the top 1.000 boys’ names in any decade.” Shirley for boys dropped out of the top 1,000 in the thirty years between 1930 and 1960. Paula and Tuan, I don’t know if you’ll be glad or not to know that John is at it’s lowest point ever at number 18 in 2005.

We might be surprised at some names making a comeback. Believe it or not, Hazel is on the upswing. Sonny has had a rocky history and Westley is very mysterious. Did The Princess Bride bring it out of obscurity in the 1980s? I’m pleased to note that most of my personal favorites—the ones I’m hoping to use someday—are on the low end of the popularity scale. Sure, every kid wants a spellable, pronounceable name, but who wants to be one of three Emilys in her third grade class? Maybe that's a bit reverse snobbish of me.

How does your name place? Were you named as part of a trend, or were your parents rebels?

It is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you.

2006-07-11T10:20:00.000-05:00

These are words that no girl wants to hear: "You'd be perfect for Mr. Collins." I grinned with glee when I came across these BBC Pride and Prejudice quizzes yesterday, but my face soon fell when the results were tabulated. My perfect match is MR. COLLINS? Every feeling revolts! Never mind that I have the creepy wave practiced to perfection. That doesn't mean I want someone waving at me that way. Everyone knows he's the silliest man in all of England. So what prompted the BBC to come to this conclusion? I'm afraid it was my answer to this question: What does your ideal man write in his Valentine card? I answered "He doesn't give one," because I am not a big fan of Valentine's Day (we'll save the reasons why for another post). But just because I don't like Valentine's Day doesn't mean I would like Mr. Collins!

Besides, I have another reason for believing we would not go well together. It seems I am most like Lizzie, and as she said herself, "You could not make me happy, and I am convinced I am the last woman in the world who could make you so." What a relief!

So, dear readers, what are your quiz results?

Do my Irishmen come cheaper by the dozen?

2006-06-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

I’ve discovered that part of the joy of rereading favorite childhood books based on real-life events is finding out more about the “true story.” What did Pa and Ma and Laura and Mary Ingalls really look like? The internet has made this kind of information much easier to find. Just do a Google image search and you’ll see that Pa really did have wild hair. (Ignore the Michael Landon pictures.)

Tonight I will finish Cheaper By the Dozen, another “based on a true story” book. My best friend Paula and I loved this story when we were growing up, so reading it makes me think of her. Frank and Lillian Gilbreth raise a family of 12 children, employing themselves as guinea pigs in motion study and efficiency. Mr. Gilbreth’s irrepressible sense of humor is unforgettable, and the book is still funny.

This time through, I realized just how intelligent and influential in the world of engineering both Mr. and Mrs. Gilbreth were. Google their names and you’ll find articles about their contributions to motion study. I get the idea that much of what we take for granted about how things work today is due to theirs and others work. That garbage can with a foot pedal, for example…

I found that Daniel Gilbreth, the fourth of the six sons, died at age 88 last week. Ernestine, Fred and Bob are the remaining three of The Dozen. The picture above shows them at The Shoe, their summer home in Nantucket, which was made from two lighthouses that were moved to flank another house.

I’ve been told that once you have three children, they take up all your time anyway, so why stop there?

Martha, Martha

2006-06-15T15:43:00.000-05:00

In Brian Habig’s final message at RUF Summer Conference, he read this quote from a book called Between Walden and the Whirlwind by Jean M. Fleming.

In the twenty-some years I’ve been a Christian, I’ve received instruction on and been challenged to read my Bible daily, pray without ceasing, do in-depth Bible study regularly, memorize scripture, meditate day and night, fellowship with other believers, always be ready to give an answer to the questioning unbeliever, give to missions and to the poor, work as unto the Lord, use my time judiciously, give thanks in all circumstances, serve the body using my gifts to edify others, keep a clean house as a testimony, practice gracious hospitality, submit to my husband, love and train my children, disciple other women, manage finances as a good steward, involve myself in school and community activities, develop and maintain non-Christian friendships, stimulate my mind with careful reading, improve my health through diet and exercise, color coordinate my wardrobe, watch my posture, and “simplify my life by baking my own bread.”

Those of us with perfectionist natures know just what she means. I have wondered the same thing many times (minus the husband and kids part): How in the world can I do all of this and do it well? It is easy to compare ourselves against the strengths of others and feel that we're not measuring up. Habig went on to preach on Jesus' visit to Mary and Martha's house in Luke 10. He pointed out something that I'd not thought of: how countercultural it was for Mary to sit at the rabbi's feet and learn from him. Meanwhile, Martha, who truly does believe Jesus is the Christ, is feeling the pressure to meet a standard of hospitality. But where did the pressure come from? Jesus didn't create it. It's in her own head, coming from a cultural expectation. The only thing that will make the voices of perfectionism stop, Brian Habig says, is knowing that all your doing put Jesus on the cross, and that the cloak of his righteousness is on you instead.

Listen to it here.

Slow summer

2006-06-09T12:19:00.000-05:00

It seems that most of us are taking a summer vacation from blogging. I don't have anything insightful to say, but here's an update for my faithful readers (hey, Mama!).

While I was eating my blueberries and wheat chex outside this morning, a bug fell into my cereal bowl. That was a lot to deal with so early in the morning, but I managed to fish him out and deposit him in the trash.

I've been listening to Brian Habig's RUF Summer Conference messages on the iTunes podcast, which prompted me to make a library trip for Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor. Maybe Habig is a great speaker, or maybe he just knows how to pull from the best sources—either way, I've been enjoying these.

Last night I finished A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle and started Leaving Cold Sassy, the unfinished sequel to Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. Also in progress: Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar. My brother and I read these in elementary school, and it is a relief to discover that yes, they're still funny. As long as I keep reading from the children's section, I'll make my 50 Books A Year goal easy!

Four words: Addictive Sweet Potato Burritos. I first saw this recipe on indie/Indelible Grace musician Katy Bowser's website ages ago and have been making them ever since. Beans, sweet potatoes, and whole wheat tortillas—so much fiber goodness that there's cheese on top to keep things from getting out of hand. If you make them, use less water than it calls for and let me know if you use the prepared mustard, because I don’t even know what it is.

Andrew Osenga: The Morning

2006-05-25T10:11:00.000-05:00

I've ordered my copy of The Morning. Have you?

Mother's Day

2006-05-17T09:39:00.000-05:00

My dear friends Paula and Tuan welcomed their little (or not so little, at 8 lb., 11 oz.) man-child John Atticus yesterday afternoon. He's a handsome fellow, and all the family are doing well. I made some banana bread for the occasion. Everyone give the new parents your congratulations and read this essay on babies by G.K. Chesterton.

Jane Eyre is everywhere!

2006-05-11T00:26:00.000-05:00

Did you know that no fewer than eighteen movie versions of Jane Eyre have been produced? According to IMDB, the first five were silent. A 1934 version saw Jane as a platinum blond, and in 1944 Joan Fontain and Orson Welles took on the roles of Jane and Mr. Rochester. Not much information is available about the 50's and 60's versions, but in 1970, George C. Scott played Rochester. This was followed by a BBC production in 1973.

Now, rumors abound on the discussion boards at Pemberley that this was the best version of all. However, no one seems to have actually seen it. It seems pretty sketchy to me to pin all our hopes on a BBC video from the 70's, but it has recently become available on DVD for the first time. So we shall see.

I have seen the 3 most recent versions: Franco Zeffirelli directed Charlotte Gainsbourg and William Hurt in 1996, and A&E produced a version the next year. Last night after the storm (there's nothing like ominous weather for a Bronte story) we watched the BBC's 1983 production. At first I thought "Oh, no. Four hours of atrocious sound quality and lighting design from The Young and The Restless." But Timothy Dalton and Zelah Clarke both delivered fine performances, and Jane Eyre is such an amazing story that I got caught up in it. At 4 hours, much of the dialogue is kept from the book, which makes me happy. Only occasionally did we say things like (as Jane and St. John walk by a stream), "Oh, no! We're not going to be able to hear them over the waterfall!"

Now I want to read the book again, and I'm looking forward to the new BBC adaptation currently in production. This one features Georgie Henley (Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) as young Jane. The press release mentions "the visionary John Eshton." Just who that is, I'm sure I don't know.

Out of 18 adaptations, none seems to have arisen as the accepted definitive version. All the ones I've seen have different strengths and weaknesses. Do you have a favorite? Can there be too much Jane Eyre? The senior boys who teased me when I read the novel for fun in 11th grade would say so. But they were idiots.

I'm my own grandpa

2006-05-09T00:36:00.000-05:00

Time for another New Music Tuesday! Asthmatic Kitty announced a while back that it would release the unused material from Sufjan Stevens's Illinois as The Avalanche: Outtakes and Extras from the Illinois Album! 4 of the tracks have since been leaked on the internet, and can be found various places (one is here).

I tracked them down after I saw unfamiliar track names on Sufjan's Last.fm page. Last.fm allows users to download a plugin that records music data from most media players. It catalogues everything and builds a music profile based on your listening habits. Neighbors are generated based on shared musical taste. This is a good system for finding new artists recommendations tailored to your past listening history. I started an account ages ago, didn't use it for a while, and had problems with data submission. Since I'd never liked my username (pseudonym27), I just decided to start over with a new account. It took about 400 tracks to generate neighbors, and I wondered if my old account would show up when they were created. Sure enough, pseudonym27 is HarrietVane's top neighbor. Too bad the only person with my musical taste is me.

So if you have an internet connection and listen to music on your computer, consider giving Last.fm a try.

No, no. Do not be a hero.

2006-05-05T09:51:00.000-05:00

Apple has released a new series of ads: Why you'll love a Mac. Watch them here. Some of them are a little stupid, but "Viruses" and "Restarting" made me laugh. Does anyone else think the actors look somewhat like a young Bill Gates and much younger Steve Jobs?

I have no illusions about my looks. I think my face is funny.

2006-05-04T16:42:00.000-05:00

On May 4, 1929 Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Hepburn-Ruston in Brussels, Belgium. As a child during World War II, she assisted the resistance by conducting dance benefit concerts and carrying messages. Although she dreamed of being a dancer, discouragement from teachers directed her to pursue acting. She won an Academy Award for her first starring performance in Roman Holiday and went on to make such films as Sabrina, My Fair Lady, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. After retiring from acting, she became an ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund and died in 1993. She would have been 77 today. I am celebrating our shared birthday by practicing good posture, smiling graciously, speaking 6 languages, and cracking eggs with one hand. Or trying to, anyway.

Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?

2006-05-04T11:31:00.000-05:00

In a recent survey by National Geographic, 48% of people between the ages of 18-24 surveyed couldn't locate the state of Mississippi on a map. One third of those surveyed couldn't identify Louisiana. Days after reading this, I'm still shocked. Even being smacked by a hurricane hasn't made the rest of the country aware of the South. The article goes on to outline plans to improve education in geography, but I'm not sure that's going to help. In my church's after school tutoring program I've been working with a 6th grader. One day we took a break from the times tables and played with a puzzle map of the United States. It had the different regions in colored blocks, and I thought it would be too easy for someone her age, but she had some trouble with it. I guess I shouldn't be, but I was surprised at how much she didn't know, and even more at how little she cared. As we moved on to labeling a blank map of the U.S., I uncomfortably realized how many states I was unsure of. I get confused in the Midwest, where everything is rectangular, and in the Northeast, where everything is so small and close together.

Although better education is necessary, the root of this problem of ignorance is that we just don't care. Most of us don't see the need to learn about things that (we think) don't concern us. Even as a I sat down to write this post, I had a hard time thinking of anything except myself, which brings to mind questions about the nature of blogs. It's easy to see how the worst become little shrines to self, the same way we tend to skip right to the supplication part of praying and forget the adoration, confession and thanksgiving. Ben and Caleb have been mulling over this some, and it's something I'm still thinking about. Meanwhile, I try not to begin posts with "Today I..."

In which we will never use any baking powder except Rollings Reliable

2006-04-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

Domesticity abounded last night as I devoted an entire evening to making a layer cake. At 12, I kept my family well supplied with desserts, but those days have long been gone. So it was with some excitement and trepidation that I made a careful search for a recipe with just the right balance between easy and challenging—no cake mixes, but no candy thermometers either. I finally settled on "Louella's Coconut Cake" from The Mitford Cookbook. Martha McIntosh, the editor, grew up in Mt. Olive as well, and I know she is a cook to be trusted. The whole process took about 5 hours, but before you dismiss me as completely crazy, bear in mind that this included a lot of time warming (eggs and butter to room temperature) and cooling (cake layers) and a trip to the grocery store for 8 more ounces of sour cream, as well as breaks for supper and to read The Fellowship of the Ring. The result? A gooey mound of sugar, coconut and various dairy products that will probably send us all into diabetic comas. So I plan to serve it with ice cream to cut the sweetness.

I would like you to dance (birthday)

2006-04-26T14:40:00.000-05:00

Twenty-three years ago today a legend was born. When Mr. and Mrs. Benson found a baby boy in their handbag after leaving the cloak room at a Clinton, Mississippi train station, they little knew how young Nathan—as they came to call him—would change theirs and other lives. Early exploits included watching cartoons and letting his imagination run away with him. Nathan later came to be known for roles such as “Great Uncle Bob,” “Kermit the Frog,” and “Cedric Diggory.” He now divides his time between Hinds and Belhaven, where he lives with his two roommates and a large pink bear.

New music Tuesday

2006-04-25T16:37:00.000-05:00

Nashville musician Andrew Osenga is beginning to put songs from his upcoming album The Morning on his website. Listen to After the Garden and Santa Barbara now, because they'll only be up for a few days. The Morning releases May 16 along with a re-mastered version Photographs, his first solo album after The Normals disbanded. Photographs will also have new art, which is exciting to me because I never thought the first release looked very professional. This looks great, though—and captures the flavor of the album well. I’m still digesting the new songs, but it’s exciting to hear Andy cut loose like the rock star we know he is. Makes me think of The Normals (sniff). “I miss those days…”

In which every chapter is better than the one before

2006-04-18T15:27:00.000-05:00

The quote for today comes from Andrew Osenga:

One of the greatest aches is a few moments after snapping out of a reverie. Maybe heaven is like snapping out of real life and into the reverie forever.

Goober and the art of love

2006-04-17T14:27:00.000-05:00

There's nothing like negative publicity to pique curiosity. On Thursday I read another blog in which a guy tried taking eHarmony's free personality profile, only to discover at the end that he didn't have any matches. "No matches! Are you kidding?" I thought. And then: "I wonder if I'd have any matches." A few mouse clicks later I'm filling out a personality profile. I tried to be as honest as possible, but I did use an assumed name. How embarrassing would it be to run into someone you know on a site like that! A little over an hour later, I finish the survey. When I send my final results, a bar moves dramatically along the bottom of the screen while images of happy couples embracing and an explanation of why eHarmony is superior to other matching sites flash above.

Aaaaand... I have two matches. One is from Meridian, and the other is from Jackson. What are the odds that out of all 8 million eHarmony users, my only matches live within an hour and a half of me? This seems pretty fishy to me. Over the weekend, I seem to have become more compatible, because when I checked it this morning, I had seven more matches, about half of which were from the northeast. A couple of them sound like okay guys, but some of the language makes me laugh:

Below are some of the important interests that you and Sean share:
Walking

Oh, yeah, walking is a great way to begin a relationship! I bet he breathes and eats too!

One important thing to know about eHarmony in case you're at all interested in it—I try these things out so you don't have to—is that they make no differentiation between subscribers and those on the 7-day free trial. I have no intention of subscribing, but my matches don’t know that, and I can’t communicate with them until I fork over the money. In other words, a new user could be used as “bait” to get some guy to subscribe, only to find that he still can’t communicate with her because she was only on the free trial. I tried to remedy this situation by putting “I am not a subscriber” in my profile.

So no matter how appealing Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan make an online romance look in You’ve Got Mail, I’m not going to be jumping into the world of online dating any time soon. "Goober, you were on a date—you weren't taking medicine."

Overheard

2006-04-11T14:37:00.000-05:00

Overheard at Twin Lakes last weekend:

Male Guest: Did you know that R.C. Sproul was in this week?
Female Guest: (Unimpressed) Where?
Male Guest: (With confidence) Here.
Female Guest: (Now suppressed excitement) Really?

Unnamed Chaperone: Beer is the most disgusting stuff on earth, and I don't understand why anyone would want to drink it.
Me (thinking): Mmmmmmm... beer.

Are you telling me that this sucker is nuclear?

2006-03-23T09:48:00.000-06:00

The last time I watched Back to the Future, I made an exciting discovery. "That's your mug!" my roommate exclaimed as the camera panned across Doc Brown's untidy garage. A white Pyrex mug sat on top a stack of papers just above Einstein's overloaded dish of canned dog food. She was right; I have two mugs and four teacups in the "butterfly gold" pattern Pyrex manufactured in the 60's and 70's. I bought them at a garage sale for 10 cents each. If I had any idea of getting rid of them, it was gone now. "I have Doc's mug!" I thought gleefully.

In my spare time I like to meditate on the complexities of the space-time continuum as presented in the Back to the Future trilogy. So did Derek Webb when he was my age, judging from this journal of his from 1998. Here Derek exposes what may be called a “fatal flaw” in the logic of BTTF. He begins with a recap of the opening scene in Part II, in which Marty, Doc and Jennifer travel to 2015. While there, Marty buys a sports almanac with the idea of taking the statistics back with him to 1985. When Doc discovers this, he warns Marty that the time machine was not invented for the purpose of gambling and throws away the almanac. An aged Biff retrieves it from the trash and uses the Delorean to deliver the almanac to himself in 1955. He then returns to 2015 and slinks away. When Doc, Marty and Jennifer return to 1985, they find all the changes that have taken place since 1955 Biff was empowered with the almanac (i.e. rampant wickedness). Derek continues:

doc puts together what happened...now, this is important: marty suggests that they simply go into the future and make sure old biff doesn't get the book, so that way he can't go back and give it to himself. doc then correctly points out to marty that if they go into the future of that point and time that they will be in the future of THAT POINT AND TIME. in other words, there's no point in going into the future from where they are, because in reality biff is already powerful and possesses the almanac. doc shows with a diagram how when old biff gave himself the sports almanac he altered future reality, and it skewed off into a tangent reality which he labeled "1985 alt." rather, doc and marty would have to find out when exactly young biff (from 1955) received the sports almanac, go back in time to that point, and keep him from getting it. interestingly, doc then says they'll have to let old biff (from the future) think that he succeeded in giving himself the almanac so that he'll leave with the time machine and return the vehicle to 2015.

all the pins are now in place; if i may, allow me to knock them down.

…if the rules that doc brown set up in the above scene are true, then doc and marty would have been stuck in 2015 trying to get the young jennifer and get back to 1985, and none of the rest of this could have happened…here's the problem: ...once old biff got to 1955 and successfully gave himself the almanac, there's absolutely no way that he could have gotten back to where (or i should say WHEN) he started. he would be trying to do exactly what doc brown just told marty that they couldn't do. at the point where the biff from 1955 possessed the almanac, old biff had altered future history. he created an alternate reality that would at that moment be in operation. if he tried to get back in the delorean and go back to the year 2015 where he was a poor defeated old man, he would've be able to do it. he could only go into the future of the alternate reality that he had created the moment he handed himself that book.

i hope you are beginning to see the problem... doc, marty, and jennifer would either be stranded there in the future with no transportation home, or disappear from existence altogether (a threat that we saw in the first movie with the picture that marty had of himself and his brother and sister on vacation).

It's an excellent point: once a change is made, there is no going forward to the circumstances you left. We see a positive example of this in the first movie, when Marty returns to 1985 to find his father's annoying laugh erased...from existence. Yet the point raises more questions on the nature of time travel:

Could the Delorean be classified as a sort of cloning device? Example: Marty watches himself outrace terrorists at the Twin Pines Mall. Has Marty's DNA been replicated?

And the converse: how does the process of being erased from existence occur? We see Marty's siblings slowly fade from a photograph and Marty himself begin to disappear while playing the guitar. If Marty had been erased, would not the traumatic experience of watching that happen have had further life-altering consequences on the people at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance?

And finally, why does Doc Brown look the same no matter how old or where in time he is? Has he discovered a process for halting or slowing down the aging process, which he keeps from Marty? Did he share it with Principal Strickland, who also seems not to age?

If you have any insight or ruminations on these or other time-travel questions, by all means—do share.

Maniac Magee and the kingdom of God

2006-03-15T15:58:00.000-06:00

In my library visits lately I've been sticking mostly to the children's section. It occurred to me a while back that it wouldn't be a bad idea to read more of the Newberry Medal books. Last night I finished the 1991 winner, Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli.

Jeffrey Lionel Magee is orphaned at a young age, and when he can't stand to live with his loveless aunt and uncle any longer, he runs away (literally) and begins a new life. When he runs into a new town, he quickly becomes known among the other kids, who give him the name "Maniac"; he runs like the wind and can catch anything. He becomes a legend for his ability to untie any knot, running on railway lines, knocking inside-the-park homeruns and other crazy things—like always having a book under his arm, doing dishes without being told, and his utter disregard for the division between East End and West End.

Maniac lives a reckless life. He’s constantly searching for a home, someplace to be his address. Until he finds it, he stays with a black family, an old man, the buffalo pen at the zoo, and a broken home with three white boys and a drunken father. What struck me most about Maniac’s personality, which is irresistibly appealing to most (but not all) of the people with whom he comes in contact, was his utter fearlessness. He does all these crazy things that no one else dares because he’s not afraid of the outcome. He not only sits in the yard of the most feared man in town, but knocks on his door, converses with him and comes back laughing.

“All Christians should be like this,” I thought suddenly. “Our lives should be characterized by a lack of fear.” Maniac lives and loves recklessly, knowing he has the freedom to love across differences—whether they be race, age, or socio-economic. Because of that, he stands out, and everyone wants to be with him.

This is hard for me to get my head around because I am so prone to worry. I have worried for as long as I can remember, and it’s difficult to imagine what my life would look like without any fear in it. But reading a book like this gives me something to start with. When Maniac Magee lives fearlessly, his friends fall in love with him, and his enemies become his friends.

A series of unrelated links

2006-03-06T04:45:00.000-06:00

The group of Nashville musicians I enjoy have banded together in a who-knows-how-much more organized form to become the Square Peg Alliance. Their first show together was last Wednesday; photos can be seen here.

Visit Donald Miller's website to hear him read the first chapter of his latest book To Own a Dragon to a live audience. Funny stuff.

I saw this interactive personality test on Caleb's blog and thought it would be interesting. What do you, dear readers, think of me? No, really...I want to know! It also made me think of the name game in Lemony Snicket's The Slippery Slope:

CAROLINE
Cautious
Anachronistic
Rather handy in the kitchen
Obsequious
Limited atonement (wait--wrong acrostic)
Intimidating
Nebulous
Effervescent

The words don't have to actually describe you. They don't even have to be adjectives. Try it; it's fun!

The bonus quote for today is from Leo Tolstoy: "A Frenchman is self-assured because he regards himself personally both in mind and body as irresistibly attractive to men and women."

EDIT: Here's one more. I found this awesome video of The Simpsons opening acted out by real people. The band teacher looks just like his cartoon counterpart, but Marge's hair isn't blue. Or very tall.

Even better than the Soggy Bottom Boys

2006-03-02T16:47:00.000-06:00

"This must be the fun thing for Presbyterians to do," my friend said last night as we sat waiting for Alison Krauss and Union Station to take the stage. Every few minutes, someone else we knew would amble in the balcony entrance.

Whether you're Presbyterian or not, it was a great show. Alison and the Station sounded clear and sharp, although their between-songs banter was hard to pick up from where I was sitting. Perhaps that's just as well. I know more now about near-geographically-extinct elk in Tennessee than I needed to. They played a good many songs from their latest release, Lonely Runs Both Ways, and most of the hits from past records. Jerry Douglas, perhaps the best dobro player alive today, brought down the house with a medley of tunes from his most recent record, The Best Kept Secret. Wow...that man can play.

And I don't have to tell you that Alison can sing. They ended with rollicking rendition of "Oh, Atlanta," followed by on encore of "Down to the River to Pray" and "A Living Prayer." Oh, it was lovely.

We shall meet, but we shall miss him

2006-02-27T11:12:00.000-06:00

It's just now beginning to sink in that Don Knotts is gone. When he left The Andy Griffith Show after five straight Emmy-winning seasons, it never recovered from the loss of it's funniest cast member even though it finished its run in the number one spot. In a sea of situation comedies with forced humor, TAGS stood out as a character driven comedy. We laugh at Barney, not because he told a joke, but because Barney is funny.

I was raised on The Andy Griffith Show, and a more healthy TV diet couldn't be found. The quotes are so embedded in my memory that they come unbidden in everyday life--whether it's a party with friends ("Dogs, Andy, nothing but Dogs. If you flew a quail throw this room, every woman in here would point."); checking the rearview mirror before backing out of a parking space ("Any old tramps down there?"); or remembering spelling rules ("I before E except after C, and E before N in chicken").

Thank you, Don Knotts, for working hard to keep Mayberry from becoming a regular sin town...and for keeping us laughing.

ANDY: I'd say we're better off than a lot of people. Got a roof over our heads, Aunt Bee--finest food you ever put in your mouth--Barney for a friend. Yeah, in some ways I'd say we are rich.

BARN: You see Opie, it ain't only the materialistic things in this world that makes a person rich. There's love and friendship...That can make a person rich.

Tonight in the line at the merchandise store

2006-02-23T10:59:00.000-06:00

Christ is still haunting the South. If you need a reminder of this, just go to a Wal-Mart in Mississippi on a Wednesday night. I went last night for groceries and noticed that the attendance was way down from the usual weekday crowd. "Where is everybody?" I thought. Then it dawned on me: they're at church. I'm usually there myself on Wednesdays, but Redeemer called off activities due to their missions conference this weekend. I was mulling over the significance of this when I passed the book section. I noticed that it was divided into three main areas with shiny cardboard signs above each. They were: Magazines, Romance, and Bibles.

Although Wal-Marts stock basically the same items, there is some variation with different locations. For example, the Flowood Wal-Mart has a wider selection of Asian ingredients than the Richland location. They know what sells, and if it doesn’t, they don’t keep it. So what does this mean for the magazines, romance novels and Bibles? Something tells me that's not the general reading categories in the Wal-Marts of, say, New York or Los Angeles.

The moon was bright this weekend

2006-02-14T09:40:00.000-06:00

If you’ve ever looked at a Madeleine L’Engle bibliography and thought, “The Chronicles of Narnia reading-order debate is nothing to the confusion of the Murry-O’Keefe-Austin storylines,” do not be alarmed. You are not alone. I read the “time quartet” about the Murry family (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, Many Waters and A Swiftly Tilting Planet) years ago, and decided last week that it was time to tackle the other stories. After some internet research to clear up the mystery of In What Order Do I Read Madeleine L’Engle’s Books, I bravely selected The Moon by Night and took it to the library front desk. I say bravely because I’ve chickened out of checking out this particular book before, embarrassed by the 80’s teenagers holding hands on the cover.

Yes, Madeleine L’Engle does write in the “teen fiction” genre—in The Moon by Night a 14-year-old girl is pursued by two 18-year-old guys—but she transcends it, and what would be forgettable fluff in someone else’s hands becomes something to contemplate. Especially when your pastor preaches on the very same ideas the next day.

The Moon by Night takes its title from Psalm 121:

the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.

While on a cross-country camping trip with her family, Vicky Austin meets Zachary Gray, whose background and philosophy are very different from everything she’s grown up hearing. In the course of the story, Vicky tries to reconcile the evil that is so obviously in the world—the Jewish holocaust, for example—and the Biblical promise that God will watch over his people. Anne Frank’s mother prayed this psalm, and she died in a concentration camp. So while the book is a coming of age/summer romance story, it is also a meditation on the sovereignty and goodness of God. How can a good God allow these things to happen, and how can a God who allows them be good? L’Engle doesn’t answer these questions neatly, but allows room for the eyes of faith to see things differently.

I had been mulling over these things all weekend when I sat down in the pew on Sunday evening. So I couldn’t help grinning when our pastor began his message on what psalm? 121. The sovereignty of God, huh? He went on to say that we lie when we say that there is no danger, or that we have no fears because, after all, we’re Christians. We lie when we think those problems we do have can be solved with a formula (most “Christian fiction” is particularly bad about telling us this). We also lie when we think that God doesn’t care. God is too wise to be mistaken, and too good to be unkind.

In thinking about Zachary Gray, who is probably my favorite character in The Moon by Night despite his flaws, I realized that to communicate with an unbeliever—or anyone, really—we need to be honest and quick to listen. Zachary was drawn to Vicky, even though he thought faith in God in the face of evil was absurd. Would he have kept hanging around her if, the moment he challenged her belief, she started quoting scripture that “proved” he was wrong? When I was reading, at first I thought, “Come on, Vicky. Say something. There are answers for these questions.” But now I’ve come to see that listening was one of the best things she could have done.

Movies about books

2006-02-02T11:03:00.000-06:00

Warner Brothers announced today that filming for Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix will begin next week. More big news is the casting of the role of Luna Lovegood. Evanna Lynch, of Ireland, was chosen from among 15,000 UK teenagers in an open casting call three weeks ago. She seems to be a huge Harry Potter fan, judging from the fact that she was first in line at the bookstore the day The Half Blood Prince was released. Mugglenet also reports that Tonks, Bellatrix Lestrange, Delores Umbridge and Mrs. Figg have been cast.

Disney announced yesterday that pre-production work for Prince Caspian has begun. This press release indicates that Andrew Adamson will direct again, and the four children will return. It's set for a Christmas 2007 release.

Why, he's only a great cat after all

2006-01-06T16:24:00.000-06:00

There is an excellent article posted today at ChristianityToday.com about the marketing campain selling The Chronicles of Narnia, to Christians, and what we can learn from Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. Read it here.

Rumor has it...

2005-12-01T14:37:00.000-06:00

Keep in mind that this is unconfirmed rumor, but given the fact that the members of The Normals have discussed a reunion show, I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be true. This comes from The Normals' message board:

I am lucky in the fact that I live in Normal, IL. I was going into Damon's to see one of the Cardinals playoff games and I saw one of the guys from the Normals. I am not great with their names. I think it was Mark. I was like, 'Hey. Weren't you in a band.' He was like 'yeah.' I then responded that I thought he was in The Normals. He said that he was in the band. We talked about knowing Andy's brother, Robbie, and the fact that he went to school with one of my old roommates. I then asked him if they were going to make a new CD and he said that they were. With him back in town and another guy in Peoria, IL and the other guys living in N-Vegas (aka Nashville), he said they were going to use computers and their in house studios to lay down tracks and send them over the internet to each other. They are then all going to get together to mix the CD.

And if it is true, it is rather exciting.
I'll try to write about something besides The Normals next time.

Hey Napoleon, are there ninjas even in the restroom?

2005-11-17T16:18:00.000-06:00

Why do other states have such big budgets to spend on clever advertising? Gosh!

Never question a whim (you take the fun right out of it)

2005-11-14T15:13:00.000-06:00

What goes on in the mind of a college student? This is what I often wonder as I ponder the mystery of my own brain on November 1, 1999. What shaped the inner workings of my thoughts to make me think that not going to a free Waterdeep concert with The Normals would be a good idea? These bands' albums have since come to mean so much to me that when I remember my chance to see them live--a chance I probably gave up to do something silly like homework (I was a first-semester freshman)--I can only sigh and shake my head at this, the biggest musical regret of my life. I console myself with the thought that we will all be in Heaven, and that that will be free as well.

First ya make a roux

2005-11-02T11:03:00.000-06:00

On Monday night I made gumbo on my own for the first time and decided to give Tony Chachere's Instant Roux a try. There are so many interesting and mysterious mixes in the Lousiana, Mexican and Asian sections of Wal-Mart. I am always tempted by them and simultaneously skeptical and disapproving. A mix can't be as good as the old time-tested methods, can it? I tell myself not to become dependent on them; they're just for this season of life while I work full time. I'm sure if I were married with lots of children I would have much more time for cooking.

But Tony lured me in (look how cute he was), and I followed the recipe on the back of the container. It didn't call for any okra, however, and that is essential to good gumbo. Fortunately this was proportioned just right to add about half a bag of frozen okra. I thought it all turned out rather well. Next time I will probably add more onion and celery. It made a lot--–so much that I had to split it between two pots halfway through. Now we have hot gumbo for lunch instead of cold lunchmeat sandwiches.

I just tell you what I heard

2005-10-27T15:07:00.000-05:00

My favourite musical family (yes, even better than the Von Trapp Family Singers) is the Webbs of Nashville. They have TWO new albums due in December. (I know what I'll be asking for.) Song clips and a couple of recent bootleg shows from Derek's album Mockingbird are here for your listening pleasure. The single "Grace Upon Grace" from Sandra McCracken's hymn cd, The Builder and the Architect is available now from Indelible Grace. Part of me starts to roll my eyes at another hymn album, but then I remember that this is Sandra we're talking about.

It's going to be good.

The fair is a smorgasbord

2005-10-20T15:34:00.000-05:00

In twenty-four years I’d never been to the Mississippi state fair. This year I went twice. Oh, the humanity! It’s like a Flannery O’Connor story brought to life.

Why should the church be any different?

2005-10-19T14:46:00.000-05:00

This article about Redeemer is from ByFaith, the new magazine of the PCA. It came out a while ago, but I just noticed that it quotes my friend Tara at the end. It even has a dramatic, contemplative picture of our pastor.

Harold and Alberta and Bill and Judy

2005-10-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

This is about two children who call their parents by their first names. I finished reading Bridge to Terebithia for the first time yesterday. I thought for years that I’d read it before, but I believe for some reason I was thinking of A Door in the Wall. I was also sure the title had an ‘n’ in it–Terebinthia–and was shocked to discover that it did not! This quote from author Katherine Paterson made me feel better:

I thought I'd made up "Terabithia". I realized when the book was nearly done, that there is an island in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis called Terebinthia. I'm sure I borrowed that unconsciously, but, then, so would Leslie who loved the Chronicles of Narnia. And, by the way, Lewis got Terebinthia from the Biblical terebinth tree, so it wasn't original with him either.

Leslie Burke, who names the magical land she and her friend Jesse Aarons rule as king and queen, calls her parents “Bill and Judy.” Ms. Paterson’s, Leslie’s and my imagination have all been informed by the Chronicles of Narnia.

But with the approach of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe movie, Philip Pullman is once again spitting his vitriolic comments. He calls the chronicles "a peevish blend of racist, misogynistic and reactionary prejudice" in this BBC news article. I wrote a paper in college defending the chronicles against some of his specific criticisms, but honestly, it’s very tiresome to try to argue with someone so obviously without a sense of humour or healthy perspective. Pullman doesn’t give much reason for his comments in this article, but I had to laugh at some of the remarks from readers below it. One says that Lewis was derisive toward “vegetarianism and liberal education.” He’s referring to the beginning of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader:

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can't tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none. He didn't call his Father and Mother "Father" and "Mother," but Harold and Alberta. They were very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and teetotalers and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on beds and the windows were always open.

Does it not seem very insecure to let that be offensive to you? Just listen to the man and you can tell he probably liked his beer and sausages. So what? If you want to be a vegetarian, go for it! Don’t let C.S. Lewis stop you. And when you read the Chronicles of Narnia, remember that he was a middle-aged university professor in England in the 1950’s. Smile over his personal preferences if you don’t share them, sit back, and enjoy the story.

And the livin' is easy

2005-06-26T18:30:00.000-05:00

Ah! summer reading. It really is the ideal hot weather pastime; all the activity is in our minds and imaginations, leaving us free to wander without breaking a sweat. Here are some of the books I’ve finished recently:

Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot
by Elisabeth Elliot
I must confess that I’ve struggled with the story of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot since reading Passion and Purity for the first time when I was a teenager. I think I’m beginning to come around, but it’s been slow going; I’m still convinced we should view their story as the exception, rather than the rule, of how to go about a romantic relationship.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
by J.K. Rowling
Or Harry Potter and the Overemotional Trauma. Harry pitches temper tantrums and acts like the teenager he is. It’s understandable, but I hope he grows out of it in The Half Blood Prince.

Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
by Donald Miller
This is certainly not a perfect book, but I enjoyed it immensely. Donald Miller writes in a conversational style that some find annoying (I did, at times), but by the end we feel as if we are friends. There’s good stuff here.

The Grim Grotto
by Lemony Snicket
Mr. Snicket’s dry humor is so refreshing. I laugh and gasp with horror all through these books.

The Making of Pride and Prejudice
by Sue Birtwistle and Susie Conklin
Chapter 9 is entirely devoted to an interview with Colin Firth.

Pigs Have Wings
by P.G. Wodehouse
“It’s pig-stealing time in Shropshire,” and Wodehouse makes the idle rich of England amusing as usual.

In progress:
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
by Lynne Truss
Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road
by Tim Keller

What have you been reading?

The ants are welcome company

2005-06-23T08:10:00.000-05:00

Derek Webb played at First Pres Friday night, and I infiltrated the youth group to attend. It was exciting to hear two new songs: "Mockingbird" and "Rich Young Ruler." Someone uploaded recent bootlegs of these from a show in Decatur, AL. You can hear them here. It was a very small show, and the audience was polite and attentive, if rather quiet. I wanted to hoop and holler more, especially when Derek plugged The Normals - Cason Cooley was his backup man - but mine is not a voice well-equipped for instigating crowd enthusiasm, and I wimped out.

I did, however, kill a roach afterwards. It was careening around the aisle beneath out feet, and I thought, "This won't do." So I took off my flip-flop and smacked it. Roaches are not welcome company.