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

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)

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

"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

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

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

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

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

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...

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?

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)

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

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

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.