Janet’s Undead Thread v3.0
533 responses to “Janet’s Undead Thread v3.0”
-
This is an interesting thread.
-
You’re trying to start another undead thread!
-
Now this may hold some promise of controversy.
-
You’ll notice that some of the old links list has appeared. The way TypePad does this requires that I do them one at a time, and I only got started last night (spent most of the time figuring out how).
This empty post, btw, is a side effect of the import process, which I forgot to delete until Janet had already happened upon it. You’ll notice the archive is now several months longer. This is a very tiresome process–takes twenty minutes or so to move a couple of months’ worth of posts. -
I never thought importing posts/links was such a hassle. My continued prayers, Sir.
-
I just thought that you were making a profound comment of the vapidity of one particular moment of time (March 17, 2010, 9:15:15), and I was impressed by your ability to convey your message without using a single word.
AMDG -
Yeah, I was thinking on the way to work that I ought to use this style of writing more often.
-
The import process itself, strictly speaking, is not time-consuming. It’s getting ready for it that takes a while. TypePad can only import what’s on Blogger’s front page, and Blogger will only display up to 1mb of data on its front page. Depending on the number and length of posts, amount of graphics, etc. that seems to be running about 8-10 weeks worth of posts. So I have to import, note the last post imported, log in to Blogger, delete all the posts that were included in the last import, then import. The time-consuming part is the deletion–there’s no way to delete multiple posts, and deleting each one takes four or five mouse clicks, and possibly some scrolling (when the post is long, because the “do you really want to..” button is at the bottom). Adds up when you have 50 posts to delete.
I’m not deleting from lightondarkwater.com, btw, but from lightondarkwater.blogspot.com, which in the normal run of things nobody saw. -
Just checked lightondarkwater.blogspot.com. Not the easiest thing to read.
-
Nope, it’s not supposed to be at this point. Normally it would look exactly like lightondarkwater.com/blog, which was a copy of lightondarkwater.blogspot.com anyway until Blogger turned off my ability to perform that copy operation, thus precipitating the hurried move here, but TypePad’s import process requires changing the Blogger blog to a skeletal template which results in a simple document it can import.
Since you asked…:-) -
We now have a new undead thread. It’s not really an orphan thread, comments without a post, like the other two, just an empty post with comments. It’s appropriate because once again Janet happened to be there when it appeared (it’s a side effect, presumably an error, of the Blogger import process). I couldn’t figure out a good way to get any kind of indicator of new comments present on the old Halo/Echo thread, and it occurred to me that this would do the job.
So have at it…. -
Oh happy day!
AMDG -
Now that I know what these things are for, I’m going to join in.
I’m not quick enough to be the first anything. Or to notice things like empty posts.
Well, many of my own posts are kind of empty, but that’s a different matter. -
By the way, Mac, did you know that when you click on “Home” at the top of the page, it gives you an error message?
-
You did it wrong, Robert. When you click on the button, you have to click your heels three times and say, “There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.”
AMDG -
Thanks, Robert, I didn’t know that. I know what’s causing it but I don’t know if I can fix it.
-
I mean, in a more straightforward way than the heel-clicking method.
-
“I know what’s causing it but I don’t know if I can fix it.” It’s the flying monkeys, isn’t it?
AMDG -
Was. They’re vanquished now.
-
Dang. And I was practicing the heel clicking. Now it isn’t necessary.
-
You never know when a little heel clicking might come in handy. And while you’re waiting, you better get yourself some ruby slippers.
AMDG -
How do you know I don’t have some?
-
Please send a picture.
AMDG -
🙂
-
They are invisible.
-
🙂 🙂
-
Well, I know you have a lot of work to do on the blog, but at least it seems to be functioning well.
AMDG -
We’re going to have to get used to this “next” thing, though.
AMDG -
Maybe I should switch the comment order to be most-recent-first? I know that option is available but it’s probably all or none. It would be nice to have these threads m-r-f, but most of the time the post comments are better in most-recent-last order. Though if they get very long that won’t be true.
I do still plan to change the appearance somewhat but haven’t had time to mess with it for a couple of weeks. -
It would be really nice if you could only have this one m-r-f, but I guess TypePad just didn’t foresee undead threads. 🙂
I like all the threads in that order, but I think I’m in a distinct minority. You’re right, though, any long thread is going to have this moving-to-the-next-screen issue.
AMDG -
Anyway, I think my main point was, the blog currently feels homey enough that I don’t feel dispossessed anymore.
AMDG -
That’s good. It’s not quite there for me yet, but a lot better than it was at first.
-
I wish the font for “Light On Dark Water” were different. Something more, I don’t know, seraffy? More archaic?
-
Yeah, I’m not crazy about that, though maybe for slightly different reasons. Departing very far from a few standard fonts on the web is a treacherous business. Might need a graphic instead. Actually I want to do a graphic banner with a photo, but haven’t had a chance to experiment yet.
-
Mac, I sent an e-mail to your gmail account. I can’t remember whether you said you read that account very often.
-
Yes, that’s my main email acct, and I just saw and replied to your message. Thanks.
-
I just switched the comment order to descending. I’m not sure this is any better, as you still have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to make a new comment. I can put more comments per page, to lessen the need for ‘next/previous’, but then it’s more scrolling.
-
I think that must have been Becca flying back from VA.
AMDG -
Becca must be a very wonderful girl.
-
The wonders never cease!
AMDG -
I just noticed how far back the archives go. Looks like some progress.
AMDG -
Does anyone have a clue how I could open a bank account in the USA? I tried googling, eg, ‘bank Southbend’ but the kind of banks that came up didn’t seem to be the sort that give you a cheque book and a maestro card. I need to give Dan a dollar cheque and I am moving to Southbend in the autumn, so it seemed like a good idea to open a bank account there.
-
South Bend, IN? Are you going to teach at Notre Dame?
AMDG -
I tried googling ‘Southbend Indiana’ and then I did get some normal ‘cheque book and maestro’ card banks. Then I went to the ‘contact us’ page and tried filling in a combox with a request to open an account. But I couldn’t fill in all the fields – eg, the number of ‘digits’ in our postcodes isn’t the same as the number in your zipcodes. And so it wouldn’t post the email.
-
“…normal ‘cheque book and maestro’ card…”
There’s your problem. We don’t have cheques here. Or maestro cards, either. 🙂
No, seriously, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m sure this would all be quite simple (well, more simple) if you could just walk in. If you want to email me maybe I can somehow facilitate this deal with DN. (A check for a dollar?!?) -
Re the archives: yes, I do another chunk every few days or so. I’m somewhat frustrated by how much there is to do–not only the actual old blog, but a lot of non-blog stuff at the old address. For instance, the 1st two years or so of SNJs were not blog posts. Turning them into blog posts was one of the things I never did last year during the SNJ hiatus. I’m trying to just keep plodding and do one thing at a time.
-
I have taken down some telephone numbers of American banks. I am going to call them. It may be easy for me to open an account. If I succeed, then it will be easy to buy the icon from Dan. It should be easy anyhow.
-
I phoned some banks and it was impossible to start a bank account over the phone or by email. So I gave up and I’m sending the money by Western Union.
-
Francesca,
Did you answer Mac’s question? If you are teaching at Notre Dame, I have two sons there. Also, I applied for the same job! -
Maclin, thank you for offering to help with paying Dan. I am organizing it through Western Union.
-
I think you may be right about that.
AMDG -
I really hate it when you get a coke in a can and it has obviously spent a lot of time in the presence of someone who smokes.
AMDG -
You mean the can or the contents? Obviously the latter would be worse. But I wouldn’t have thought an aluminum can would retain a smell to that degree.
I loved coke-type soft drinks when I was a kid, and I guess up into my 20s somewhere, but I almost completely lost my taste for them later. Now and then in really hot weather about half of one hits the spot. -
“I really hate it when…”
Oh gag -
The can. It’s like it has a layer of something on the top that smells like the worst part of cigarette smoke. I think it might be nicotine.
I was just talking to Bill this morning about how I loved cokes in heavy glass bottles–really cold.
AMDG -
This is what’s been going on here today:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2362926,00.asp
Though ours aren’t rebooting constantly, they just restart once and then are pretty much crippled. -
Fortunately my machine escaped, even though I have McAfee installed–for some reason it’s failed to get updates since late Feb., a happy malfunction.
-
Paul – I just happened to look at your blog. I clicked on your name. I thought you had taken it down. The Third Order Norbertines you mention must be Marianne’s outfit. It seems like a real sign of hope there.
Do you know anything about the plagiarism case in Leuven? I only heard about it yesterday, probably because I was offline at the time. I know the philosopher concerned. I can’t get over his having been so foolish. He must have counted on most academics being too lazy to read other people’s books. But he didn’t reckon on academics having supersonic hearsight when it comes to their own writing, and its being copied. For me, with all plagiarism, there is an ultimate mystery about how they thought they could get away with it. It may be the most mysterious crime there is. -
“supersonic hearsight” That’s a great phrase.
A while back I ran across something I’d written that had been copied/pasted directly into someone else’s blog, and although there was an attribution at the end it wasn’t obvious at first glance that it wasn’t the blogger’s own work. I didn’t instantly recognize it, and before the recognition actually kicked in, several sentences in, I was having a very odd deja-vu-ish sensation. -
I hope this wasn’t me. If I do anything like that, let me know.
-
No, it wasn’t you, Robert. I’ve forgotten now–it was something distributist-related. I didn’t really mind, since the attribution was there.
-
That’s from the Jennings & Darbyshire books. They are prep school boys, and when they are up to anything, their Maths master, Mr Painter (I think) hears is with his supersonic hearsight.
-
Please pray for people in our area. There have been something like 30 tornadoes sighted today. Over ten inches of rain and 8 more expected tonight. People being evacuated from trailers because they are floating. A fire engine on a rescue mission was swamped and turned over.
We have been south of most of the storms, although there is water sitting all over the yard, and I don’t know if we will be able to get to church tomorrow.
AMDG -
I’m sorry–meant to say 9 tornadoes in 30 hours. 🙂
AMDG -
!!! Am praying, Miss Janet!!!
-
Just spotted Francesca’s note from 22 April. I know some of the people involved, but I don’t know anything about the plagiarism case that isn’t in the public domain (they were trying to keep it fairly quiet, but it got into the newspapers somehow). Hilariously, one of the newspapers added a picture to their online coverage of the story – the first picture you get in google images if you search for the man’s name +philosopher, but not the same man at all!
I stopped blogging at the beginning of last Advent, for a variety of reasons, but decided to return to it this Easter. Having decided which, I haven’t actually found the time to write anything for the blog for the last fortnight … -
I just learned that a friend’s mother has been diagnosed with cancer. If y’all could please pray for them, it would be most appreciated.
-
Certainly. Do they know yet how bad it is?
-
Stage Two. She’ll be have an operation on June 3, if I understood correctly.
Thank you for your prayers. -
Could be a lot worse then, right? I mean, as far as the prognosis is concerned.
-
Could be. sigh
-
Look who owns the sidewalks in Newport Beach.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31287701&l=26b6d10083&id=1413619572
AMDG -
I didn’t think he travelled that much.
-
wow
http://bettyduffy.blogspot.com/2010/05/two-shall-become-one.html
I tried this before but it never appeared.
AMDG -
Wow indeed.
-
Well, that’s weird, I seem to have had a comment disappear, too. So, I repeat:
wow indeed. -
Another nice album cover:
http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/284/119/570/11957017/600×600.jpg
Very nostalgic if you’re of the right age to have been the little boy in that picture, and moreover had a fascination with airplanes that lasted well into adolescence. -
Yeah, I like that one. Obviously, girls can fly by themselves but boys need airplanes.
AMDG -
Ha! Nice shot–it took me a second to figure out what you meant.
-
This is what Janet is talking about–I had posted a link to it last week or so:
http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/292/119/835/11983533/600×600.jpg -
How can you not laugh?
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65M57Z20100623
It would be different if someone had been hurt, of course. -
Do you Americans know what ‘fair-traded’ means? I had it in my book, the copy-editor took it out, I put it back in, and now I find the copy editor took it back out again. Is the term incomprehensible to you? Do you know what ‘fair-traded chocolate chip cookies are’?
-
I’ve heard the term but am not totally sure what it means. Something “alternative”, I think? 🙂 It seems to have something to do with getting fair prices to the original producers of something, like coffee–I’m pretty sure I’ve seen references to fair-trade coffee.
-
Yes, Francesca, if it means to you what it means to Maclin I am familiar with that term except here we just say “trade” and not “traded.”
AMDG -
You know, Mr. Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister. Presbyterians are ordained to a specific ministry and he was ordained to television ministry.
AMDG -
I hate to be cynical, but don’t you think that this is a cynical comment on Mel Gibson?
AMDG -
Didn’t cross my mind, but I suppose it’s possible.
-
One thing that’s amusing about Facebook is the unintended juxtapositions. Today “Karen likes Jesus Christ is our Savior and George W. Bush.”
AMDG -
That brings forth images of left-wing apoplexy.
-
A new form of bird flu, I guess.
AMDG -
A while back there was a discussion of Woodstock. Looking at pictures now, I can’t help wishing I’d been there.
-
LOL. Yeah, I’m pretty sure Maclin would like to be there, too.
AMDG -
Well, Paul, if I have time later I’ll try to find you some stories by people who were miserable at Woodstock.
I just googled “i was miserable at woodstock” and got this:
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1994-08-14/news/9408110463_1_woodstock-festival-woodstock-nostalgia-25th-anniversary -
Oh, I see, I missed that “pictures” was a link–I was looking at it in the comments list I see when I’m logged in to my TypePad account, which doesn’t show links. Thanks, Janet–I was wondering about your verb tense. Yeah, I think I’ll go there tonight, in a manner of speaking.
-
Oh that Woodstock! No, no – I meant …
-
Sure wouldn’t have guessed that was South Africa.
-
Perhaps this one is more in line with Mac’s feelings?
I’ve been listening to the Radio Kalahari Orkes (to the extent that’s possible by internet from Western Europe), and one very sad song (anthologized on “Beginner’s Guide to South Africa”) is about somebody being shot “in a backstreet in Woodstock” – so I went exploring. -
What is that? Glass from a smashed car window?
-
Yes.
-
SA seems to bear some resemblances to the US.
-
About 20 years ago, we had a friend from Germany who was attending the University of Memphis. One morning she went out to her car and there was no glass left in her car. Whoever had broken the glass had cleaned it up and taken it away. They had even broken the glass out of her sunglasses that were sitting on the dashboard.
AMDG -
As an outsider to both, I’ve often thought the similarities are remarkable.
This and this could so easily be scenes from Westerns.
This style of mega-revivalism is something I can’t readily imagine anywhere but South Africa or the U.S.
Plus South African rugby teams have cheerleaders, of all things. The list could go on and on.
Even “apartheid” is just Dutch for “segregation” – but having the segregationists running the country throughout the Cold War clearly did make a big difference. -
I didn’t watch all of the longer ones but those are indeed striking in their resemblance to American stuff.
I always had the impression that apartheid was somewhat harder-edged than our segregation, but that may just be my bias. I suppose the situation in SA was different in that the black population was way larger than the white (I think–right?). And so perhaps there was a greater element of fear on the white side…I’ve never really thought about it. -
Well, the Pass Laws were pretty draconian (banning blacks from permanent settlement outside their “tribal homeland” – effectively a reservation – and making them carry a permit at all times when residing in “white” territory to work in the mines, or the farms, or the factories), but a lot of the rest of apartheid wouldn’t have looked much different from segregation.
The real difference is that the equivalent of Birmingham’s “segregationist resistance” weren’t making a last stand in the 1960s, but were running the country and entrenching themselves throughout the establishment by means of a secret “fraternity”. Which as I said, makes a very big difference indeed. -
I guess things like the Pass Laws etc. are what gave me that impression. Our segregation was not quite so codified in law as that, especially outside the south.
I’m trying to imagine George Wallace as president in the Cold War…does not compute…though it’s not totally inconceivable that it could have happened. -
It would have to be a Wallace who’d convinced enough northern Democrats that the most sensible solution to urban unemployment, illegal immigration and racial violence would be to prohibit southern blacks from moving to northern cities, then made segregation federal policy and secretly staffed the FBI with Klansmen.
As you say – it doesn’t compute. There are some obvious differences, as well as some intriguing similarities.
One of the things I wonder is how much of the similarity is due to similar circumstances and constraints, and how much to the “elect nation” and “providential purpose” ideology of Puritan Anglo-Dutch colonial settlement. I’m supposed to be reviewing this book for the Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, so it’s a little on my mind. -
Of course in order to appeal as he did to conservative but not segregationist voters outside the South, Wallace had to drop his advocacy of segregation and just talk about preserving law and order etc., which under the circumstances was a legitimate and not intrinsically racist concern. So I suppose that points up the difference even more. Also, our whole legal environment after the Civil War and whichever constitutional amendment followed it was totally different: the sorts of things you mention would not have been conceivable within our constitutional framework, and no viable politician could have advocated them and remained so.
-
Jeff Woodward has a new blog (really new–3 days). You might want to check it out.
http://successiorerum.blogspot.com/
AMDG -
Took me a sec to place the name, because Thursday Night Gumbo had gotten so quiet that I hadn’t checked it for a while. I’m sure this will be good, though I don’t have time to read right now.
-
Amusing album cover of the day:
http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/288/120/423/12042341/300×300.jpg -
Just made the first bruschetta of the season. God is good.
I’ve been too busy to check in lately, but think of y’all often and hope you are well. -
…mmm…bruschetta…(in Homer Simpson voice)
Good to hear from you, Dave. Funny, I was thinking about you this morning. Hope you’re doing well, and the busy-ness is the good kind. -
Yes, good to see you Dave.
AMDG -
Oh, some good, some not so. Oh well.
I did attend a lovely wedding at Notre Dame last weekend. Zowie, what a beautiful campus and basilica. -
Yeah, I could say the same (about the two kinds of busy-ness). Best wishes to your Notre Dame newlyweds.
-
I was thinking of Dave just exactly this morning.
-
That was clearly taken from the passenger’s side.
I think I need to rescue that duck from the company he’s keeping.
AMDG -
I’m not so sure. That pattern on the windshield in the upper left (whatever it means) is something you sometimes see in the area of the rear-view mirror. Photographer could be holding the camera up and in front of the steering wheel.
-
Thanks y’all. It’s good to hear from you too. (Mac and Janet, I’ve adopted the plural second person address, but it is new to me still and certain situations don’t feel right – would you have written y’all twice in that first sentence?)
Another good busy: We worked hard Saturday and got a lot accomplished making Sunday especially nice. Pam made a wonderful lemon mousse and I three batches of bruschetta. With such abundance, we invited several neighbors over to share it. Eventually, teenagers joined us and our own teens. It was easy, summery, and joyous. Deo gratias.
For foodies and geeks: batch 1) hybrid tomatoes and genovese basil – good but worst of the day, 2) heirloom tomatoes and genovese – definitely better, and 3) yellow and green tomatoes with lime basil – wow was it fun and it looked great, tasted pretty good too. Also, I figured out how to do the crostini much better than before. -
I don’t think I’d ever say “y’all” after thanks. I would have just said, “Thank you,” and maybe used y’all the second time.
AMDG -
I’m pretty sure I’ve said “thanks, y’all”.
That sounds like a great evening. As for my cooking, my ego in relation to that field of endeavor took a hit from Craig Burrell the other day–scroll down to the “Master of the culinary art” post:
http://cburrell.wordpress.com/ -
I appreciate the advice though I can’t figure out how to put it to good use.
Craig’s post was pretty darn funny. I may be a foodie (Francesca’s convinced, I’m not quite), but I despise the notion of “plating up” at home, even for a fancy meal. It is just too pretentious. -
OK Dave, Just NEVER use y’all in the singular and you can’t go too far wrong.
AMDG -
Thank you, Captain Obvious. Having a distinguishing plural second person is the reason I’ve taken it on.
Still, it IS comforting to know that I won’t be too far wrong; I rarely hope for more that. -
Well, that was certainly charitable.
-
I’m thinking that when I get off work tomorrow, I should get in the car and drive north until I find someplace cool.
AMDG -
A friend on FB linked to this article about the 20 worst-paying college degrees:
http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/110196/20-worst-paying-college-degrees-in-2010?mod=edu-continuing_education
Interesting that almost all the things that have any lasting value are on this list.
AMDG -
There’s a Dilbert cartoon where a devil offers him a choice between being paid well for meaningless work, or paid badly for meaningful work, and he responds “Wow, they both sound better than the deal I’ve got now!”
-
Not at all surprising, alas.
Re driving north–you’d probably have to go quite a ways, wouldn’t you? -
I’m afraid I’d have to go to Canada and since it takes more than a driver’s license these days, I’m doomed to failure.
Paul-That’s almost too true to be funny.
AMDG -
hahahaha
-
Sorry Janet. My attempts at good natured humor sometime misfire.
-
That’s ok, Dave, I was in a more-or-less ill-natured mood.
AMDG -
If it’s like a community fridge, does that mean the old stuff is getting bad and smelly?
AMDG -
It’s like the outside of a community fridge. No telling what’s inside.
I think the bulletin-board-like use of the old one was aided by the fact that with Haloscan you saw the first 8 or 10 words of each comment in the Recent list. So that got you started and you instinctively wanted to read the rest. -
“Memphis, the second-hottest city this summer, has had 72 days above normal so far. Normally high temperatures range from 88.5 in June to 92 in July, with a record 111 set in 1918. But so far it has spent all but six days (and those days were in July) above normal.”
But today’s not quite so bad.
AMDG
AMDG -
Nights & mornings have gotten more pleasant here, too.
-
I want to go!
-
Life was so much better when everything was black and white.
AMDG -
“I want to go!” Yeah, that was my immediate reaction, too. But it would require time travel.
-
Yeah, so?
-
well, let me know when you’re going, so I can come along. That’s Disneyland, by the way.
-
Yes, I saw the kid with the mouse ears.
I plan to go in 1962. You’re welcome to come.
AMDG -
Did you know that 1962 would be the last year you could see the Moonliner, or was that just a lucky shot?
-
No! I just pulled that date out of thin air. And I was originally going to say 1955, so how weird is that?
AMDG -
Well…quite weird. I’m trying to think what year I would pick. Anything after ’58 would be ok, I guess. ’62 is good–early teens–I was pretty happy then.
-
On September 11, 2002, a young man for whom I had provided daycare for several years, was found dead from an overdose of drugs and alcohol. It was his 29th birthday.
The next day, one of my children called me to say that she had watched one of her friends die after he took Ecstasy the previous weekend.
The next week, I got an email about a young man who had played on my son’s soccer team. He had died in an “accident.” It wasn’t an automobile accident.
In October, a young woman who had been a friend of my kids since she was about 7 rolled over in bed and found her husband of two months dead. Later, they found a bottle of pills in their driveway.
I spent the rest of that year very angry, and when I think about this, it makes me very angry and very sad–and this is what I think about on 9/11.
So, if you have a minute, you might offer up a prayer for Ricky, Alex, Gabe and Jim and their families today.
AMDG -
I had an odd dream last night, Mac, in which you figured. I dreamed that you were running a study and had recruited me and Janet and a few others as subjects. We had to buy and drink a certain brank of orange juice (‘Alex’ brand, which I don’t think exists) for a period of two years, and we had to report to you how much of it we were drinking.
In my dream I was at the grocery store buying the juice (it comes in a rather plain yellow carton). I also happened to find a small seasoned roast for just $1.99, and I was very happy about that.
Make of this what you will. -
‘brank’ = ‘brand’
-
Hmmm. For the past two weeks I’ve been irritated with myself for forgetting to buy orange juice every time I go to the store. You know, Maclin, usually in these studies they provide you with whatever you are supposed to be consuming. I’ll be watching the mail.
AMDG -
I’m surprised y’all have never heard of Alex Orange Juice. But then we knew we had an image problem, so maybe never having heard of it is better. Alex will be knocking on your door late one night to deliver the samples.
-
Yikes is right. I’ll get my own orange juice, thanks.
-
Alex doesn’t like it when people drop out of his studies. For one thing, you can forget being reimbursed for your purchase. For another, he won’t want to give you the antidote.
-
Today is a good date–10/01/10.
AMDG -
Ampersand Day! (binary 100110 = ASCII “&”)
I can hardly wait till 10/10/10. -
Because we’ll all have stars in our eyes.
-
Well, will we be able to see each other?
-
Well, I don’t mean “we” I mean will we be able to see those around us?
-
Wait! Shouldn’t we have the stars today?
-
No, 101010 = “*”. I don’t know about the vision thing–have to wait to find out, I guess.
Too bad we missed (or at least I did) 1/1/1000, etc. Now we have to wait till 1/1/10000 to have a year that’s all ones and zeros including the century. -
Janet, you’ll be pleased to know that my odometer has mysteriously started working again, so I may yet see the 200,000 mile rollover. But my joy will be diminished by the fact that it won’t be real, because by now it’s off by thousands, and in fact the car has probably already passed 200,000 actual miles. (That’s 321868.8 km.)
-
Still, it will be fun to watch it turn over. We are getting pretty close to 350K, I think. Half a million doesn’t seem so far away.
AMDG -
Who knew that I had this latent scientist hidden within me all these years. DNA–who could make up something like that?
AMDG -
Yeah, it’s just mind-boggling. Jesse works on genome-related stuff, which I don’t comprehend at all. He pointed me to a book which I would really like to read but of course don’t have time to…along with all the physics-cosmology stuff I wish I could read.
-
Looking better all the time.
AMDG -
Rain, rain, rain, and flogs all over the road on the way home tonight.
AMDG -
Poor flog!
-
I looked at weather.com just now to see if we might hope for a bit more rain to supplement the inch or so we had on Sunday. According to them, it’s raining heavily here. They must have some really sensitive instruments.
-
Please pray for the repose of the soul of Marc Berquist. He was one of the founders of Thomas Aquinas College, husband, father of a large family and much loved.
AMDG -
My first thought was “better I should ask him to pray for me.” But I have prayed for him.
Berquist is probably a Swedish name. Was he cradle or convert? -
I think he was always Catholic. He went to Catholic schools including a minor seminary. The bio says he had 6 kids. I couldn’t remember. The youngest, Richard, graduated with Becca. She said that there were some really smart students in her classes and some of them liked to show off how smart they were at the expense of the weaker students. Richard, who was surely the smartest of them all and who lived in a home where his mother and 5 siblings had graduated from the program, was always trying to help the other students and bring them out. That, to me, says a lot about his dad.
AMDG -
Just realized that he died of the feast of All Souls.
AMDG -
I know that’s a Star Wars guy, but it reminds me of that Twilight Zone.
As for the first one, don’t make me want to go there.
AMDG -
You don’t feel sorry for that poor little storm trooper? I do. He looks so lost.
-
FYI, I’m having computer problems. May not be online till tomorrow (Sunday) sometime.
-
Was it somebody on this blog that recommended Watchmen?
AMDG -
Well, I thought it was Ryan, too, but he says he’s never seen it.
AMDG -
Odd, my comment appeared twice, so I deleted one, and now both are gone. TypePad malfunction. Anyway, what it said was that I thought at first it was Ryan but checked & I think that was something else that he recommended.
-
Ok, what Ryan recommended was Sandman. He had a link to a sample chapter which was quite interesting and well-done but a little disturbing–it involved some Aleister Crowley types and a sort of demon.
-
Well, one of them was there at one time because I responded to it.
AMDG -
I’d just like to say–my cousin has given birth to her first baby (boy)!!!
spinster aunt jumping up and down
And now, back to the regular scheduled programming. -
Congratulations & best wishes to all. Perhaps the baby will be almost as handsome and engaging as my grandson.
-
Congratulations, spinster aunt!
AMDG -
“We build a strong ‘magnetic bottle’ around where we produce the antihydrogen [atoms] and, if they’re not moving too quickly, they are trapped…”
Seems like you would not want to make the antimatter mad by trapping it.
I can see a movie coming: pound of antimatter created, stolen by evil persons, squad of action heroes ordered to retrieve it, ending with one of them physically forcing, with superhuman strength, the lid of the container down on the antimatter trying to escape. -
This evening on the way home we listened to an interview with JR Shute and Pat Rakes, who have a fish conservatory in Knoxville (my name for it). They have 600 tanks where they raise endangered fresh-water fish found in the streams and rivers of the Smoky Mountains, and then try to reintroduce them into the wild. At the end of the interview they were talking about other endangered species like the Spring Pygmy Sunfish in Alabama. How cool is that?
AMDG -
Extremely.
-
I had seen the headline for that story a couple of times (Google News, probably) but not read it. I assumed it was some natural phenomenon that made them slightly reddish. I didn’t realize they’re RED.
-
I know. It looks like red ink. The hives look nasty, but I’d like to see the bees glowing at night.
AMDG -
I find it very strange that some people apparently expect insects to be wiser than people. What do they think beer traps do?
-
Some sort of nature-is-always-right mysticism at work there or something? I’ve had weird conversations with people who seem to believe that the human taste for food that isn’t good for us is all a matter of conditioning. In our old homeschooling group there was a family that was fanatical about Eating Right. At gatherings where there was food their children would be like locusts on potato chips etc.
-
Oh, we had one of those, too! I’ve seen their kids stuffing their pockets with junk of the snack table, and once after Mass, I saw their son furtively sitting in a chair in the hallway with two donuts.
And, of course, the desire for unhealthy food was obviously present even before the Fall–right before it, in fact.
AMDG -
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101202/sc_nm/us_arsenic_bacteria
I’m not posting this for the article, but for the pictures. There’s a slide-show if you scroll down.
AMDG -
Mono Lake is a strange place. Some of those pictures would do for the cover of an old-school sci-fi novel.
-
Right, that’s what I was thinking. Did you know about it before?
AMDG -
Yes, I had read something or other sometime or other about it.
-
There is a really good Good King Wenceslas at 8 minutes. I heard it last night.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wfww4#segments -
That’s a pretty interesting playlist. And Talkington is a pretty funny name for a radio person. I just started playing it but I don’t think I can listen to it here at work–too attention-demanding.
-
To me, the woman singing Good King W sounds just like that female country singer you once recommended. I have once of her CDs on account of the recommendation, but can’t remember her name, or find the CD in the packing chaos of my flat. I was really surprised to hear it was a Swedish singer – I was sure it would be that American.
-
It was Patty Griffin I thought it sounded like.
-
Ok, I listened to it while eating lunch. It is very good. I’d never heard of her, and indeed she does sound very American, which shouldn’t surprise me too much, as Scandinavia has a thriving pop music scene, with much of the singing in very natural-sounding English.
Interestingly, it’s not even a Christmas album. At least the titles don’t sound like it. This link may take you to the album:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Sofie-Livebrant-From-Here-To-Here-MP3-Download/12023738.html -
This morning on the way to work, we saw a white van with a sign that said, “Complaint line,” along with a telephone number. Bill was wondering if, when you called, you could choose what kind of listener you would get, for example, “Press 1 for a nice motherly sort of person,” “Press 2 for an ex-marine who will tell you quit feeling sorry for yourself and suck it up,” “Press 3 for a person whose life is so miserable it will make you feel ashamed of whining.”
AMDG -
I think a service like that might be a money-maker.
-
I just heard an absolutely wonderful article on the Nashville Dominicans on All Things Considered. It was 100% positive and respectful. You can listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=131753494&m=132266050
The text and pictures are here:
http://www.npr.org/2010/12/22/131753494/for-these-young-nuns-habits-are-the-new-radical
AMDG -
There was an episode of Oprah a few weeks ago which similarly featured a group of nuns. Actually I think it was the second time they’d been on. “Similarly” meaning similarly positive. I had never seen Oprah before–had to record it because it comes on in the daytime.
Here’s a segment. It isn’t the same one I saw–must be the previous one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25sp-bEo6ng -
Oh, I was thinking there would be a YouTube, and when I looked, there wasn’t. I was so disappointed.
AMDG -
I’ve seen the first one.
AMDG -
Am I the last one to notice that Francesca’s book was published in November? It gets a long and positive review in the February issue of First Things.
Congratulations, Francesca! -
All I have in my office is 9 copies of that book and Dan’s ‘divine mercy’ icon. I had ten copies but thinned them down by giving one to my TA.
-
Congratulations, Francesca.
AMDG -
No, you’re not the last, Craig, because you just told me. I had no idea. Congratulations, Francesca. I will buy a copy and hope I’m able to understand it.
By the way, I asked for and received DB Hart’s Beauty of the Infinite for Christmas. Glancing through it, I’m afraid it’s going to be over my head. -
Either or both of yous could have one if you want. I don’t know nine people to give it to! It is not difficult, I think. It is a commentary on Scripture and doesn’t have lots of stuff about Schelling and Heidegger and whatnot.
-
Oh, I’d like to contribute my mite to the furtherance of good books. I remember you mentioning off and on that you were working on a book about 1 Samuel. I will have to look in the Bible just to know what 1 Samuel is all about.
“doesn’t have lots of stuff about Schelling and Heidegger and whatnot” Heh. Yes, that’s the problem I have with a lot of philosophical/theological/literary writing like Hart’s: it’s not usually that I can’t follow the author’s ideas, once I understand them, but that I don’t know the ideas of the thinkers with whom he is conversing. -
It’s a shame, because David H’s popular book, which is called something like the Atheist Delusion, is extremely good but not in the same dimensions as The Beauty of the Infinite.
With that commentary series, I was very disappointed that they won’t include the Bible text before each stretch of comment. I can’t imagine anyone patiently reading it alongside a Bible, but that’s what you have to do to make any sense of it. -
Want one anyone I know? I only need four or five for my family and I have nine.
-
I wouldn’t mind a copy, Francesca. I’m planning to reread 1 Samuel with the children soon. And I rashly promised my wife I wouldn’t buy any more books for a while.
-
‘The Beauty of the Infinite’ was mostly (way) over my head; the only section I really “got” was the one analyzing postmodernism/deconstruction, but that was very good indeed. His collection of essays, ‘In the Aftermath,’ is very good also, and contains the outstanding “Christ and Nothing,” which alone is worth the price of the book.
-
Paul – send me your address. My email (if you want to send it privately) is …
-
Thanks Francesca! (Although you could have said “message me on Facebook”, rather than put your email address up for all to see; or am I just over-cautious in that regard?)
-
I thought about that, too. I can edit that out if you want me to, Francesca, now that Paul has it.
-
You can take it away if you think that’s best Mac. I thought of saying ‘message me on fb’ with my habitual esprit d’escalier, ie after I posted.
-
Penelope and her parents:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=32032212&l=8760c638e8&id=1413619572
Her mom, Rachel, is my daughter.
AMDG -
Gorgeous photo, Janet! What beautiful girls you have!
-
Date notation gets me every time: I saw the posts down below as 12/03/2010 and I thought, “Wow! this page goes all the way back to March!”
-
Thanks, Louise!
AMDG -
I kind of like to do mailings because I can listen to music on YouTube while I stick on labels. This is my favorite Emmylou Harris song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD3aboxk1M4&feature=related
AMDG -
I’m not in a position to listen to it now, but I see that’s one of her earlier albums. I’m actually not all that familiar with those–aside from a few singles, I think I started with Roses In the Snow, ca. 1980.
-
I’d never heard Roses in the Snow before. That’s kind of sad. Of course, Boulder to Birmingham is sad, too.
AMDG -
Actually I didn’t remember that particular song that well–I was thinking of the album, of which the highlight for me was Wayfaring Stranger. Though I haven’t listened to it for a long time.
-
Well, of course I always like that.
AMDG -
This is worthwhile if only for his description of the acting in “The Fountainhead.”
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/04/the-trouble-with-ayn-rand
AMDG -
That’s great. I’m surprised there are no comments. You know what happened when I criticized Rand, and I saw the same thing at the New Criterion, when Theodore Dalrymple did.
I have not seen a single movie by Terence Malick. I’ll have to remedy that.
I’m tempted to watch The Fountainhead just for grins, but I probably shouldn’t waste the time. -
Did you watch the trailer for that movie? I’m ready to go see it anytime, but it doesn’t open until the end of May.
AMDG -
No. Maybe later.
-
My friend Fr. Dennis’s FB status:
A message for Easter from Doctor Who: “Just this once, everyone gets to live.”
Happy Easter, everyone!
AMDG -
Funny coincidence: I was just thinking that sometime today I might watch the first episode of the new Dr. Who series, which I recorded last night (I hope). I suppose he was referring to it.
Happy Easter! -
A song for those of us who live on the banks of the Mississippi.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSz6X5NMXnM
AMDG -
You know, the odd thing about watching this video is that when I see it, I think, “He sings just like Joaquin Phoenix.”
AMDG -
I didn’t even make the Phoenix/Cash connection. He did do a good job in that movie so you’d think, combined with the unusual name, the association would stick in my mind.
My favorite line in that song is “Looks like we’ll be blessed with a little more rain.” -
That’s a great one, too. I haven’t listened to Randy Newman for many years.
-
I love that song. I’ve been thinking about it a lot because I’ve been thinking about going to Louisiana.
AMDG -
The notes he sings with the words ‘Louisiana’ are beautiful. Randy Newman can be a bit maudlin, but I think he is an excellent song writer. It’s the humour. Even the boring left wing songs about America are mitigated by the wit: ‘In America you get food to eat. Don’t have to run through the jungle and mess up your feet’.
-
“Ain’t no lions and tigers, ain’t no mamba snake–
just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake.”
I’ve never thought of him as maudlin! Rather, a somewhat bitter ironist and humorist. Sail Away is the album I know best. Maybe I missed the maudlin songs. -
AREA 51
From an interview on “Fresh Air” with the author of a book about Area 51:
“The UFO craze began in the summer of 1947. Several months later, the G2 intelligence, which was the Army intelligence corps at the time, spent an enormous amount of time and treasure seeking out two former Third Reich aerospace designers named Walter and Reimar Horten who had allegedly created [a] flying disc. … American intelligence agents fanned out across Europe seeking the Horton (sic) brothers to find out if, in fact, they had made this flying disc.
“The idea behind it remains, why? Why were they looking for a flying disc? And conspiracy theorists have had their hands on this declassified file for over a decade now, and they say it proves that this flying disc came from outer space. If you read the documents, the takeaway that I found fascinating was that at the end of it, the Army admits finding the Horten brothers, and that the Horten brothers admitted their contact with the Russians and that’s where the file ends. Everything after that is classified.”
I find this very suspicious.
AMDG -
Pay no attention. The Hortens are notoriously flaky branch of the family. Can’t even spell their name right.
-
I’d like to pose a ‘communion of the saints’ question. It’s safe of course to ask canonized saints for their prayers. How about praying to others who have passed away, say a family member who died in childhood, mixed with heavier doses of more typical prayer? I could research this question but figured folks here would have good advice readily at hand.
I love Randy Newman’s songs, btw. His voice alone – I’m laughing within two measures. I can tolerate occasional maudlin too; the world’s a cold, cold place and I’d rather err a bit maudlin. He’s got a very cynical/wordly side though that is very unappealing. -
There’s nothing wrong with asking those people to pray for you. Whenever I have to go in the hospital, I ask Paul’s mother to pray for me. It’s probably a good idea to be praying for their souls at the same time.
The only error is in presuming that they are in Heaven which leads to our not praying for them. Of course, if you bring in the whole outside of time and space issue, you can really go crazy thinking about this. 😉
AMDG -
I’ve always thought that was eminently appropriate, though as Janet says with the qualification that we can’t assume they’re in heaven. There’s sort of an implicit “If this is possible…” preface.
-
This is sorta making me want to dig out the Randy Newman albums. I wonder if I would like 12 Songs now–I was pretty indifferent to it at the time.
-
Thanks. That was my hunch.
-
I frequently get irritated about what Google chooses and doesn’t choose to put on their homepage, but if you haven’t seen today’s, you really ought to look at/listen to/play with it.
AMDG -
Funny: I was thinking on the way to work (not sure what the preceding train of thought was) that nobody had used this thread for a while. And when I was online at home earlier I saw the Google thing (Google is my startup page) I thought “I’ll have to mention that on the blog.” Haven’t had time to play with it yet, though.
Btw I have started checking the blog from home every morning because spam often appears overnight. Today, for the first time, a Russian porn spam comment appeared. I don’t know if anybody saw it before I removed it. There seem to be an awful lot of those in the spam catcher. I don’t know why this one got through.
I suspect that even someone who wants to find porn would be making a big mistake to click on one of those links. Probably makes your machine part of some Russian crime syndicate’s botnet or something. -
It’s just been three weeks, but I was thinking when I wrote earlier that I needed to make more use of this thread.
AMDG -
If you go to YouTube and search for “les paul google” you can hear a number of fairly elaborate recordings made with the Les Paul doodle (Stairway to Heaven, India’s national antheme…).
-
You can play notes on the numbers!
AMDG -
Maybe we could drill a reeeaallly deep hole underneath him.
AMDG -
That headline stumped me completely.
-
I like the way the URL reads: “Motley Crue takes Poison”. [remainder of comment self-censored]
-
I just really don’t like the idea of snakes in my kitchen.
AMDG -
Christians…so narrow-minded.
-
Well, it didn’t offer me any fruit, but then we didn’t give it much of a chance. Hey! I guess that means that if Bill and I had been in the garden everything would have been okay.
AMDG -
Or if Eve had been in her kitchen, maybe she never would have stopped to listen.
-
I would hate to think that there were kitchens in Paradise.
AMDG -
I really love this picture. Not sure if it will be accessible to others, as it’s on eMusic. I wish I could see it without the text. It doesn’t look like a lost soul to me, though maybe a somewhat melancholy one. The music, btw, is just pretty ordinary-sounding techno.
-
Okay, that does it. Sometime before my vacation is over, I’m going some place with a dock.
AMDG -
I have water, but unfortunately no dock.
-
Yeah, it is a dreary thought.
-
So you can’t sit on the dock of the Bay.
AMDG -
As you can see, I have restored the search function and the box of links to stuff on this site, including the links to the Undead threads, in which we see the benefit of the latest-first ordering of the comments. To get to the end of this thread, you have to click through multiple pages. However, clicking on the user’s name in a Recent Comments entry should take you directly to that comment. Let’s see if it works with this thread…
-
Yes, it does.
-
That raccoon is so vibrant compared to the rest of the page.
AMDG -
Yeah, part of the reason I put him there is to provide a bit of color. I don’t want it to be all somber and moody.:-)
-
Right. You wouldn’t want it to be relentlessly serious and humourless.
AMDG -
Always a big problem for me. I really think that raccoon has a somewhat unseemly air of levity about him.
-
He’s just wishing he could levitate. It would be a lot easier on his belly.
AMDG -
Unfortunately, youhave to click all the way to the end to find the bit where it tells you how not to have to do that…
-
Oh Janet, that was awful 🙂
-
Thanks!
-
I didn’t see those italics until just now–I read that comment last night in the control panel of the blog, which drops all formatting. I’m laughing.
-
That makes me so happy I’m floating on air!
AMDG -
Temple of the Holy Ghost?
AMDG -
I think so. Amy Welborn used to have it on her blog. Actually I was just experimenting–that wasn’t supposed to appear on the live blog. And now it doesn’t.
-
I saw a racoon like the one in the picture, except very large, outside the theology building one evening this week.
-
They’re cute, aren’t they? And very adaptable to civilization. I’m a little surprised that they haven’t been bred as pets. I don’t know how many generations that sort of thing takes.
I wish I could pick last-first or first-first order for individual comment threads. It takes a while to get to the end of this one. Maybe I should start a new one. -
‘Cute’ was not the word that occurred to me. What occurred to me was that I hope my cats don’t run into one of these fellas!
-
Yeah, that would probably be a pretty uneven match. I don’t think a coon would attack a cat, though–they don’t seem to be especially aggressive, and a cat probably wouldn’t look like food. Maybe a dispute over food or something.
-
Raccoons can be extremely aggressive, but unless you have food or mess with them in some way, they wouldn’t mess with you. The reason that we took our cat in off the street was that she was competing with raccoons for for and getting beat up.
AMDG -
Could they be trained as guard creatures?
-
I don’t think attempts to domesticate them have proven very successful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raccoon#As_pets
I seem to remember my brother the animal lover telling me that they’re ok up to a certain age but then get wild. I wonder if a concerted effort over many generations could breed a domestic variant. -
My daughter, who worked in animal rehab, says that even if you raise a raccoon and it bonds with you, it will still bite you and pull out your hair.
AMDG -
“The only animal to be found rabid in the state since 1963 is the bat. In 1999, two bats, one from Marshall County and one from Rankin County, tested positive for rabies. In 2001, four bats were positive for rabies.
Rabid raccoons from Alabama are the cause of Mississippi’s greatest threat. In 1997 in Mobile County, Alabama reported the first rabid raccoon close to the Mississippi border.
Thanks a lot, Maclin. -
“the state” in the first line being Mississippi.
AMDG -
Hmmph. You Mississippi people, always trying to deflect attention from your own failings by pointing to ours.
“Rabid raccoons from Alabama are Mississippi’s greatest threat.” That sounds sort of funny in isolation. -
Christian Louboutin Marketing is a footwear plotter who launched his in a alphabetize of high-end women’s shoes in France in 1991. Red-lacquered soles that do away with up with thanksgiving his ignature.The conspirator’s declared end is to “convey more a darbies down evident look vital, mind-boggling, to upon lone more duration with a concluded her legs look as non-specific as she can.” 0ur Louboutin UK Shoes Online Confine offers Reasonably Jimmy Choo Shoes, Boots, Pumps, Sandals and others to you. Our End is to present up all of you the whiz-bang woman.
-
Wow – there’s spam, and then there’s spam spam spam spam spam spam spam spam.
-
It’s actually pretty typical, unfortunately–what’s unusual is that the spam catcher missed it. If not for it, I would have to close comments on posts after a few days or so. It catches several dozen of these every day. It isn’t as spamful now as when you posted your comment because I removed all the links.
-
Spam is good for you. Monty Python
-
Did you notice that Paul’s comment has the right number of ‘spam’s to fit the MP tune?
-
More like a chant, really.
-
Yes I was commenting on Paul’s comment.
-
Just so anybody knows: this is now page 7 of the comments (you can adapt the url to get here faster).
-
Even better: if you click on the commentor’s name in the recent comments list, it’ll take you straight to that comment. If not for that I think I’d start a new thread, although since most people probably don’t know that maybe I should anyway.
-
These Innocent Mission Christmas songs are on FB. I cannot figure out how to share them (ie, I hit share three times and not a long happened).
http://soundcloud.com/the-innocence-mission/sets/7-christmas-songs -
Those are beautiful. I’ll see if I can make them go on fb. This reminds me, I’ve been forgetting to listen to the Christmas is Happening songs.
-
Ok, I posted them on fb and now you should be able to just hit the share button on that. I think.
-
I couldn’t find the share button. I did it though, inspired by your post. I just copied the link in.
-
some of the Christmas is happening songs are forgettable. Others are good, and I always like the pictures.
-
I’ll catch up with them in a little while. The pictures are sometimes rather odd–there have been a few that just seemed abstract, although not ugly.
-
There’s a very nice on on ‘Christmas is happening today (17 Dec)
-
Very nice indeed.
-
Today’s is really good, too.
-
“The splendour of our task [raising children] may be measured in terms of the Holy Innocents–killed because Herod feared ‘that any one of them might be Christ.
‘Any child might be Christ! The fear of Herod is the fear of every tyrant, the hope of every Christian, and the most significant fact in the modern world.’”
—Caryll Houselander
CH had a great devotion to the Holy Innocents. I wish I had the book in which she talked about this (I think it was in her letters.) because whenever I try to explain it to someone, it comes out all mush.
AMDG -
Oh yeah, today is their day. I had forgotten, but I was thinking about them off and on Monday and Tuesday when our 19-month-old grandson was here. “the most significant fact”…hmm…it would be interesting to hear what else she has to say about that.
-
Alright, Southerners: This evening I will be going to a restaurant which, based on the menu, seems to specialize in Southern fare: jambalaya, bayou stew, blackened this-and-that, collard greens, and so forth. I’ve never had any food from that part of the country. Is there something I should be sure to try, to get a taste of the real thing?
-
Some of the stuff on that menu is risible. “Southern Fried Chicken & Waffle–Served with a scotch-bonet-corriander-lime syrup and gravy.”?? I need the Gmail laughter emoticon for that. A lot of it doesn’t seem particularly Southern in any large sense, just coastal Louisiana–which is good food, but not at all characteristic of the rest of the South. A lot of classic old-fashioned Southern food is poor people’s food, to a great degree, and not especially appetizing, in a boil-it-to-pieces tradition that I think has roots in the British Isles.
“Blackened” was a big fad ten or fifteen (twenty?) years ago. Not sure if it’s authentic Cajun or just the creation of a New Orleans chef. It results in a really hot, really salty crust on the fish. I sorta like it but it’s not my favorite thing. And of course salmon are not native anywhere near here.
Of the things on there that do seem fairly authentic (no scotch-bonet etc. silliness), the jambalaya sounds the best to me. Basically it’s just stuff thrown together with rice, but it can be really good. Almost as good as gumbo. I’m surprised there’s no gumbo, but poor gumbo is a crushing disappointment, so maybe just as well.
Also, “collared greens” is pretty funny. Were they hard to catch, I wonder? -
And do not get excited about collard greens. I won’t go as far as to tell you to avoid them, but I don’t think many people are enthusiastic about them. I would say they’re like turnip greens but not as good–and I don’t care much for turnip greens–but you probably haven’t had turnip greens, either.
-
Collared greens–that’s pretty funny.
I was going to suggest the jambalaya, too. I hope that it isn’t fancied up.
AMDG -
Okay, I just looked at the menu. Vegetarian Jambalya! Save us.
AMDG -
Oxymoron. I didn’t think it was even worth commenting on, but for Craig’s sake it’s good that you mentioned it.
-
Well, many thanks for that advice! When you’re stuck in the middle of a big city, it can be hard to know what’s authentic and what’s not. “Collared greens” is funny. I’ll probably try the jambalaya.
-
After that breakfast you will need something!
AMDG -
Indeed.
-
It turned out to be a moot point: when I arrived, everyone else had ordered the sample-everything-on-the-menu option, so I free-loaded. I did try the jambalaya, and it was good. (Whether it would be up to authentic standards, I cannot say, but I doubt it.)
I also liked the fried chicken; I had two pieces, figuring that if I had a heart attack, I was at dining with twenty doctors and would probably receive good medical care.
They served us a strange sort of wafer, something between a hard taco and a cracker. I don’t know what that was. Pretty tasteless. I was disappointed not to get any collard (or collared) greens — perhaps I just didn’t know what I was looking at.
I’d sure like to come down there someday and try the real thing. -
I don’t know what that cracker thingie might have been. I hate to say it, but if you came down here in search of interesting food, you really would want to go to New Orleans. We have good seafood here on the coast, and it’s usually possible to find excellent barbecue, but in general I don’t know that there’s a lot to get excited about in real old-time southern cooking. I don’t think of fried chicken as especially southern anymore. But I really like it. Rarely have it, though. When I want to eat something fried, which is frequent, I usually want it to be fish or shrimp.
The jambalaya was probably good by anybody’s standards, judging by the pride the restaurant seems to take in its offerings. It’s sort of hard to ruin jambalaya, assuming you have the minimum ingredients and don’t burn it or something, though it can certainly be better or worse. -
Well, you are welcome to stay with us if you do come.
People here talk about a mess of collard greens. If you saw them they looked like a mess of collard greens.
AMDG -
Thanks very much. I don’t know when, or if, I’ll have occasion to come visiting, but you can bet I’d like to meet you if I do.
I almost went to New Orleans once. I had a ticket and a suitcase. Then there was a hurricane, or something. -
If you click on “Subscribe to this blog’s feed” it takes you to a page with a lot of html.
AMDG -
That stuff is the feed. It’s just a thing you can turn on or off in TypePad, if I remember correctly. I don’t really know how it’s supposed to behave.
-
Weird.
-
I believe I’ll go a step further and just not eat any vegetables at all.
-
Our primary is Tuesday. I have had 4 phone calls about the election in the past 2 hours. I’m about ready to shoot the phone.
AMDG, I hope. -
Now I am going to go eat some raw vegetables. I love to live dangerously.
AMDG -
Next thing we know you’ll be jumping over cars on a motorcycle.
Ours is Tuesday, too. Romney has been all over the place, phone and mail, with really simple-minded attacks, short and nasty. Santorum much less, and less nasty. -
When I was in college in Dallas in the early 80’s one of the cafeteria’s regular veggie offerings was boiled spinach. I’ve always liked spinach but this stuff tasted a little odd, like it was charred or smoked or something (The running joke was that it was boiled in bong water.)
It was only many years later that I found out that it was not, in fact, spinach but greens. -
“Smoky” is a pretty good description of the flavor, really, as compared to spinach. And that even fits the colors, in a way: greens are not as pure bright green as spinach, there’s sort of a brownish tinge.
-
I am sitting next my bedroom window trying to write something. I looked out of the window and what I saw was Spring–really green, green, blossomy spring. I can’t believe it. For the 62nd time I have survived the winter–not that it took much to survive this one.
AMDG -
We don’t really get that definite arrival here. It’s sort of a blurry transition. More things get more green, more flowers appear. The azaleas are running wild. Congratulations on getting through the winter.
-
And I miss having four definite seasons. Although the gardening columnist in the local paper insists that we have six, they aren’t very distinct.
-
I would definitely miss that. I wonder what it would be like to go to Australia after the summer and have spring and summer over again.
AMDG -
Okay, here we go.
AMDG -
Well, it’s election day in Mississippi and whatever happens I won’t get 15 robo-calls today, so that is cause for rejoicing.
One of these days, I’m going to have to learn the address of my blog.
AMDG -
Or tomorrow, I mean. My voice mail will probably be full of them when I get home.
AMDG -
We’ve had 4 today, which is better than the 11 yesterday.
You’ll be able to click on a link to your blog from my sidebar if I can get myself together to update it. -
Well, I will look forward to that, and I’m sure everyone else will too.
AMDG -
I know, of course, that you have to remove this spam, but I, for one, will be unhappy to see, “cheap jewellry on Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band” go, so I’m immemorializing it.
AMDG -
Yes, I removed it before I even saw your comment. When I see that stuff I’m possessed by a rage to destroy it as quickly as possible. I’m not sure why it ticks me off so badly but it’s a good thing I can’t get at the perpetrators.
-
I think Google must have really good spam filters. Of course, it’s early days yet. And then, that’s why it’s such a pain post a comment.
AMDG -
Actually TypePad’s is pretty good. It’s blocked 15 in the last 20 minutes. I’m not sure why those few get through. I could stop them by turning on verification for all comments but I’d rather not do that.
-
Happy Easter, one and all!
AMDG -
And to you, and everyone.
-
Likewise.
-
Yes, it is, although I have to keep the sound down and can’t quite make out most of the words. Interesting what she does with the guitar. It’s not virtuosic but it works. You don’t often hear electric guitar from a solo performer. I wonder how the guitar is tuned. I will have to see if I can imitate this.
-
I am teaching a 2nd year course next semester on ‘Love’ – a course for theology majors. What three movies should I show? I am thinking of Baran, Romeo and Juliet and Once, although I cannot think of any theological meaning to ascribe to the latter. I got very good suggestions last year for my Film and Theology course, which is why, scrounging on Maclin’s goodwill, I am asking here again. Any suggestions, Paul, Janet, Rob Grano, Craig, Louise?
-
Mac, I thought you might be interested in this. An FBF of my mine put it up – I don’t think he’s a friend of yours.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/art-books/wire-greek-tragedy-optimism/ -
Without even reading the piece, just the title and little one-line abstract or summary at the beginning, I can say I’m in fundamental agreement with it. I can’t remember whether I ever said it here or not when we were discussing The Wire, but I certainly remember thinking that there were many elements of classical tragedy in it. I thought that especially about season…was it 3?…the one about the longshoremen’s union, anyway. The main storyline there was very classical.
Whether or not it has any connection to real life, Omar’s “I ain’t never put my gun on nobody wasn’t in the game” is a classic (in the other sense) Code of Honor movie line.
I don’t recognize John Gray’s name, btw. -
He’s an English political philosopher. Yes, you said the series about the ports was a tragedy, and I entirely agree.
-
The best of pictures!
AMDG -
Glad you like it. That’s at Monte Sano state park in Huntsville, when we were there a few weeks ago for my niece’s wedding.
-
This thread is open for business again.
-
O happy day!
-
If the result is a spam problem, I’ll have to close it again. Comments are open on every post now.
-
I do hope the spam problem stays manageable, Mac.
-
Four years later. Undead indeed.
-
I don’t think I ever did a blog post about it, but I did watch the Amazon series Man in the High Castle a few months ago. Here’s a review that makes some insightful observations about it without giving away too much:
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2016/06/axis-america
My rating: not great but worth watching. Very persuasive picture of America after an Axis victory in WWII. -
Thanks, Mac. A friend who watched it felt the same way. He thought the politics of the whole thing were very interesting, but didn’t find the drama itself all that engaging.
-
I wanted to tack this onto the post about short film you recommend (the name of which escapes me) but I can’t find it.
Last week we went to see this documentary about the original Divine Mercy image and I highly recommend it if it comes to your area. Although it was a bit confusing in places, it was really fascinating and I learned many things about the image that I’d never heard before. One thing that surprised me about the film was how often I found myself laughing–not really often, but there is just a sense of good humour to the whole thing.
AMDG -
Oh well.
-
Very interesting. Doesn’t seem to be showing anywhere near here. I’m not sure how well I like that image but it’s certainly better than many I’ve seen.
-
This undoubtedly says more about my priorities than anything else, but my first reaction to that video clip was, Harry Connick Jr. is a Catholic? Really? He spent a few seasons on the enormously influential Will & Grace TV series. I don’t understand anything any more.
-
Maclin,
It was one of those events like the movie you were talking about. In this case, the diocesan youth ministry brought the film here and all the profits went toward their trip to World Youth Day. So, it might pop up at any time. It will probably end up on line somewhere eventually. It’s almost like watching a mystery.
Aesthetically, I think Daniel’s icon is the best I’ve ever seen, but I’ve gotten to where I really like the face on the original.
Marianne,
The Harry Connick part is very odd. There’s nothing wrong with it, I just wondered what it’s purpose for being was.
AMDG -
Funny, I was going to say that I like Daniel’s better, too.
-
Speaking of Will and Grace: I never saw it, but it’s a good example of one of the most irritating things the entertainment industry does. I’ve seen the show cited happily by people in the industry and by the press as having had a great effect in getting people “comfortable” with homosexuality etc. They’re very proud of its influence. And yet if one of their products is criticized as a bad influence (in whatever way), they deny that it happens. “It’s just a tv show, get a grip, blah blah blah.”
-
Has anybody here watched “Life”? The series.
AMDG -
Is that a science-y PBS show? If so I saw an ad for it and thought it looked interesting, then forgot about it.
-
No. It’s a police drama. I am really liking it. Detective is wrongly accused of murder, goes to jail for 12 years, then is acquitted and returns to police force.
AMDG -
Feeling a bit guilty about not patronizing my local independent bookstore, I made myself take the trouble to go there just now and order Anthony Esolen’s translation of the Purgatorio rather than just click a few times at Amazon. It wasn’t a particularly encouraging experience. I got the distinct impression that they didn’t know who Dante was.
Catching a glimpse of myself in a mirror when I got home, I realized that I look pretty bad, in an old, ill-fitting, faded, stained shirt. So I probably didn’t strike them as a very desirable customer. -
Heck, the way things are now, any bookstore left standing ought to be rolling out the red carpet for even the shabbiest customer.
AMDG -
I think this one is doing very well. Lots of affluent people with an artsy bent in this town.
-
Did you take the opportunity to ask them if you could have a book signing. 😉
AMDG -
No, but this was in part a bit of reconnoitering with that possibility in mind. They do a lot of signings, at least one a week it looked like from their ads. An old acquaintance of mine, a poet, is doing one next week as a matter of fact.
-
Does anyone recall recommending a movie called Seraphim Falls to me? It got to the top of my Netflix queue without my noticing, and I seriously considered sending it back unwatched, because neither I nor my wife have any memory of putting it on there or knew anything about it. But watched it and it’s pretty good: a Western revenge story. My wife bailed out at a fairly gruesome scene early on, so be warned–it’s not the only one.
I figure someone recommended it to me, probably years ago. But I just searched the blog and my email account and can’t find any reference to it. Seems most likely a Rob G recommendation, if anything. -
I just came across a children’s book about Flannery O’Connor and her pea-chickens. I thought it might be interesting to this group: https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/11/03/the-king-of-the-birds-flannery/
-
That looks great. I admit I’m surprised.
-
Me too. Our local library has the book, so I’ve just requested it and will hopefully be able to look at it soon. (I’m 21st in line though, and only 5 copies.)
-
Went to sign up for FilmStruck and was very disappointed to see that it’s not available via Roku–yet–they say it will be next year. That means I could only watch it on my computer or on the iPad. So…not sure, have to think about it.
I wonder if they’ll be pulling Criterion Collection films from Netflix now. -
I don’t know but I see that all of a sudden there are free TMC movies on Amazon Prime.
AMDG -
Have y’all seen the video called Donald Trump is a Dinosaur? (the boss on the show Dinosaurs) As a friend said, it’s really uncanny.
AMDG -
I haven’t.
-
Wow, I can’t believe there are now 42 comments on the “Arrival – Spoilers” thread. I’m feeling left out.
Is it still on topic? -
Yes.
AMDG -
Except for a few comments, but Rob is going to the movie again, so we’ll have more to talk about.
AMDG -
Shoot. I wish I could go see it.
-
Me too! It’s not on anywhere around you, I guess.
AMDG -
Yeah. I feel like an outcast.
-
It’s showing in three theaters within 20 or 30 miles of me but nowhere near Craig and Robert?! That’s weird.
Here’s one I know you’ve seen, Craig, because I see that you recommended it on your blog: Interstellar. I just watched it this evening and am not enthused, although I did enjoy it. A lot of the physics in it seemed like nonsense to me, but what do I know? What did you think? -
Here’s what I wrote about Interstellar on the Arrival thread, fwiw.
“I think Interstellar loses points primarily at the end, where it attempts to explain too much. Up till then I thought it was top notch. It does gain some of its lost points back at the very end, imo, but not enough to salvage things completely. I found it interesting that both films had as major themes the nature of time and the parent/child relationship, and I found some of the parent/child scenes in Interstellar quite moving.” -
My problem with seeing Arrival is not that it’s not showing near me, but that I simply have no opportunity to go!
I don’t think Interstellar is a film to be enthused about, exactly, but I do admire it. For me the best parts were the physics aspects — for a student of General Relativity that scene on the watery planet is like catnip — and also I found the father/daughter relationship at the heart of the film quite compelling. It’s not a perfect movie, of course, and there are things I’d criticize, but overall I liked it. -
The physics in Interstellar is a mixed bag. Some of it is excellent, albeit exaggerated to suit the drama, but some of it (like that scene near the end where he’s floating through the labyrinth of libraries) is nonsense. The physics consultant on the film was Kip Thorne, a very well respected scientist. I believe he’s even written a book about the science in the film.
-
I think the scene in that ‘labyrinth of libraries’ went on entirely too long, and is where the movie faltered. It would have been far more effective to have him there just long enough to establish that he was the “ghost,” then move things along. You didn’t really need all the explanation — the emotional weight of that revelation would have easily carried the movie the rest of the way.
Oh, and I loved the music. A lot of times Hans Zimmer overdoes things, but this time it was just right. -
but some of it (like that scene near the end where he’s floating through the labyrinth of libraries) is nonsense
Yes, that is the weakest scene in the whole movie, and unfortunately, it is also the crux of the film. It’s like they didn’t work hard enough to figure out what they could do there, and it reminds me of the scene where Murph looks at Dr. Brand’s equations and see that something was wrong (although I’m not clear what that was about)–but anyway, not working the thing through to completion.
The scenes between the father and daughter were the best–also his reactions on the ship when he heard their tapes–beautiful, but really painful.
AMDG -
“The scenes between the father and daughter were the best–also his reactions on the ship when he heard their tapes–beautiful, but really painful.”
Yeah, McConaughey is excellent in those scenes.
And like Craig, I thought the water planet sequence was very well done. -
There was a lot I liked about it. Yes, the father-daughter scenes were touching. To me it sort of went space-opera-ish at the point where they go through the wormhole. In fact I think my first eye-roll happened when they stated that the wormhole was man-made. Really? How do you know?
What was relativistically interesting about the water planet? It was certainly spectacular visually. I guess the idea was that the tidal effect of the gravity of the black hole was creating the monster waves? There is a famous and interesting short story involving that effect on the people in a space vehicle…can’t remember the name of it now. Is it even theoretically reasonable to postulate a planet orbiting a black hole at a distance where it would be anything but a dark frozen rock? There was no mention of a sun, unless I missed it. Where was the light coming from? How was this little rocket vehicle supposed to be zipping from one system to another in days or weeks? Etc. Presumably the physicist in charge had worked all this out, so maybe I’m just naive.
On the other hand, I rather liked the library scene. I had pretty much quit worrying about whether anything was believable at that point and just enjoyed the visual spectacle, which I thought was pretty cool. Is it even theoretically possible for a person to enter a black hole and not be reduced to a 1-micron speck? -
One of the weird things that General Relativity teaches us is that strong gravitational fields cause time to pass more slowly. They used this effect in the movie on the watery planet, although they greatly exaggerated the slowing of time for dramatic effect. Still, for me it was like having my mouth full of fizzing candy.
The giant waves were due, I think, not to gravitational tidal effects, but to the fact that the planet had no land masses, and so the waves could circumnavigate without being interrupted. They got big (just as waves in the “roaring 40s” in our southern hemisphere get big), and over time they formed what physicists call “standing waves” — only particular wave frequencies could survive in the long term. Hence the regular spacing between them.
Yes, having a planet so close to a black hole is a problem. If the gravitation were strong enough to slow down time, as the movie requires, then it would be strong enough to tear the planet apart. (There’s your tidal forces.) -
I’m not watching for lack of scratch and time.
-
That’s too bad. If you lived close by I’d treat you. To reverse the song, if you got the time, I got the money. Send me your mailing address and I’ll send you $20 (would that be enough for you & your wife to go?–it would be here). Seriously–I am relatively affluent these days.
-
We’re not that poor. We just have different priorities. Like getting our son to Argentina next summer and our daughter to Peru next fall. Stuff like that.
-
Good priorities.
-
For those of you who aren’t on Facebook, Abby has been seriously sick with RSV all week. She had been more stable, but just got this from Becca.
Things are still very touch and go. If you feel so inclined, will you pray a divine mercy chaplet tomorrow that she kicks this?
AMDG -
I’ll do that.
-
Just did it, Janet.
-
Thank you.
AMDG -
Have done and will.
-
Figured I should put this comment about Nocturnal Animals over here as well, since it originally came up on the “Arrival with spoilers” thread, and anyone who didn’t want to read that thread would miss it.
Nocturnal Animals is a neo-noir thriller. Amy Adams plays a rich gallery owner who is sent the draft of a novel by her estranged ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal). As she gets engrossed in the novel she’s increasingly psychologically affected by it. The viewer is shown both stories — the “real life” story and the one in the novel — and the connection between the two disparate stories gradually becomes apparent.
Although it’s quite a dark film, it has a very strong moral thread. It most definitely works as a thriller, but it’s more than that. And the acting, writing, and direction are all top shelf. I liked it very much. -
Oh good grief.
Oh please.
Give me a break.
Get over yourselves.
Etc., other expressions of exasperation -
That is quite funny. I’m slightly surprised none of my students have tried that. They can be quite inventive of reasons for delay otherwise!
-
Really. The world is a different place. It’s entirely ludicrous.
I noticed when I opened this thread that right above the last few comments I was asking for prayers for Abby. She seems to be doing really well, and today Becca posted a video of her smiling great big smiles, which is something new. So, thanks for the prayers and keep them coming.
AMDG -
That’s great news.
Paul, I’ve seen news items that seemed to say some university students actually asked for that, and got it. -
Is it wrong of me to shudder when I see the words, “The Ultimate Christian Movie Service?”
AMDG -
Reflexes have no moral content.
-
You know, when you click on the Thread instead of clicking on a comment on the thread, it takes you to the beginning. I’ve been reading some of the original comments. On the whole, we were a lot wittier when we were younger.
AMDG -
What I found interesting on the link was that Chuck Berry is still alive–and he’s going to release an album, at 90.
Janet, prayers will continue…. -
Very sad that we were wittier way back when.
-
Thanks, Robert.
AMDG -
I finally started working on the 52 Movies list, with links to each entry. I had promised this several weeks and then forgotten about it. I’ve done about a third of them (working from the latest backward, because that’s the way the blog lists them when you request the topic), and will be finishing it up over the coming week. Sorry for the delay.
-
Thanks for the update!
-
How about the favorites from last year thread?
AMDG -
Feel free to start sending them. I wasn’t going to participate in that, if only because I don’t have a clear enough sense of when I saw/read/heard things.
-
I thought we were going to have a thread for that. At least from what Rob said, that’s the impression I got. Also, I don’t get why it would matter when you saw stuff.
AMDG -
I don’t remember. I know we talked about guest posts. I don’t even remember now where we discussed it. And I guess I’m not sure what you mean by “favorites from last year.” I thought you meant either “things I encountered last year” or “things that were released last year,” or both.
-
I don’t think the “favorites” thread idea got much further than the initial talking stage.
-
Well, we talked about it several times. Oh well.
AMDG -
Do you remember what post the discussion took place on?
-
The first was in the post about Duel. The second mention was here. And then Rob asked again and you said you would. I guess it really doesn’t matter.
AMDG -
Not saying I don’t want to, I just don’t remember it except for a vague notion that it was mentioned. I’ll look at those posts later today.
-
I don’t know why I made such a big deal about it. I would be interested in what other people have to say, but I have already written about the only find I had last year, I think.
I have learned a whole lot of new medical terms.
AMDG -
We can do that. I could make something that will just be a place-holder on which a comment thread can be hung. That’s more or less what y’all are thinking of? Not that y’all would email stuff to me which I would combine into a post?
Learning new medical terms sounds ominous. -
Right.
Well, I learned a new one today, but I think we might be coming to the end of that. Hopefully, no more surgery.
AMDG -
“I could make something that will just be a place-holder on which a comment thread can be hung. That’s more or less what y’all are thinking of? Not that y’all would email stuff to me which I would combine into a post?”
Yeah, that’s what I had in mind. Just an open thread on which folks could mention books, music, etc., that they liked from 2016. -
Ok, it’s done. I look forward to reading y’all’s contributions.
-
I really like Man in the High Castle but I have GOT to quit walking around singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me.
AMDG -
🙂
-
The 52 Movies list is complete, more or less. I need to verify that the links are correct and check the numbering again, because it still had some problems. At the moment it looks like we only had a total of 52, in spite of Rob’s Week 53. Something not right…
-
Can anyone tell me whether, prior to the implementation of RCIA in the U.S, it was the normal thing for Catholic converts to be received at Easter? Or was it just catch as catch can?
-
Can’t directly answer the question, but do know that in the UK it used to be “Whenever the priest thinks you’re ready”. It’s only fairly recently (the last 15 or 20 years) that much emphasis has been put on Easter as the “correct” time.
-
That’s my impression of the sequence of events here, too, but it was only an impression. My wife and I were received in September, not as a part of any structured process. That was 1981, and I didn’t know if that was normal or not.
-
Actually, RCIA was, I believe, originally supposed to be for people who were not Baptized previously.
AMDG -
I knew I could figure out how to do that if I tried.
AMDG -
Nice picture, Janet. What is it?
-
I took that one morning a couple of years ago while Bill was pumping gas. It’s a field next to the gas station. I couldn’t even tell what those blue things were until I saw them in the picture.
AMDG -
Someone recommended Shotgun Stories (movie, Jeff Nichols director) and I wanted to report that I watched it over the weekend and thought it was great. Might have been Rob G. Although I liked Mud, at this point I am not finding it memorable since I remember little if nothing about it. Midnight Special I thought was exceedingly bad….so that leaves the new one, Loving? He can’t really get worse with each release, can he? Shotgun Stories (the story of) will stick with me, good stuff.
-
I haven’t seen it. I liked Mud, although as I recall not as much as others did.
I didn’t notice that “experiment” was a link when I saw the comment yesterday. I think it was on my phone, where it’s not as obvious. Anyway, that is a good picture. -
I think I’m the only one that liked Mud a lot.
There have been a lot of times over the years when I wished I could post a picture here. Now at least I can link to one.
AMDG -
I saw Loving. It is a great story, but I think the movie was too slow. One of the things that is missing is the sense of joy in the couple’s marriage. The guy looked like he was constipated throughout the movie, except one brief scene where he lets his hair down (mixed metaphor alert).
-
Marriages are supposed to have joy? Now I know what has been wrong!
-
Well Robert, maybe I’ll just stick the DVD back in it’s envelope and send it back to Netflix.
AMDG -
Your alert came too late, Robert, since I had to read the whole sentence to get to it. 🙂
Re joy in marriage, maybe society needs to revert to arranged marriages, to get rid of those expectations.
-
I thought Mud was extremely entertaining, despite the sad ending. It had me laughing out loud in parts.
-
Joy in marriage?
Huh? I quite understand that romantic feelings ebb and flow in a marriage. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about a sense that in the main the marriage brings them joy (not pleasure or romantic feelings)–meaning a deep experiential knowledge that this is right for us. I don’t know. Maybe this doesn’t make sense. At any rate, I still think that joy is proper for marriage, even when romantic feelings aren’t there. -
Came here looking for spoilers. Will try to contain my disappointment. 😉
-
Give us time. 🙂 I’m still trying to remember whatever it was that I thought didn’t make sense.
-
One thing I really didn’t care for right off: Joi’s humanity. I have a fundamental objection to that whole thing in sci-fi where the robot or in this case hologram possesses human consciousness, emotion, and so on. The replicants are a little easier to accept as they have a real corporeal existence. Their origin is not explained, which is just as well, but I can think of them as starting out as clones, then genetically altered. I.e. the basic starting point is human. Joi is not convincing and in my opinion not an effective part of the plot, except to add some pathos.
-
I really just have some random thoughts.
Yes, I agree about Joi.
I never really considered the replicants having some sort of human origin. I don’t know why.
I almost laughed at the scene where Freya and her group meet with K and tell him their story. It reminded me so much of The Planet of the Apes–not the movies, but Pierre Boulle’s books which I read long ago. There is this recurrent theme of men creating some some of creatures: intelligent apes, robots, replicants to serve them, and then having the creatures rise up against them.
And then there is the Pinocchio theme.
When I first heard they were going to make this movie, I had no intention of seeing it until I read the Denis Villanueve was going to direct it. Reading what Wikipedia has to say about the creation and making of the film, I think his direction was probably the saving grace.
I thought it interesting that the women were not the typically too thin women that are in American films. They were all very round, except for maybe Ana. This may tie in to the theme of seeking for fertility.
I’m having these thoughts about fertility that seem to be echoed in the film, but not necessarily there by design. When you see what is happening in our society today, it is almost as if we are becoming replicants of what human beings are intended to be, and in our attempt to control our fertility, it seems that we may be destroying it. You know, I often say that I used to wonder if it would be 1984 or Brave New World and find that it’s both with Farenheit 451 thrown in, but now I’m thinking that Children of Men may be in the offing, too. So many young women I know are having difficulty conceiving or bearing their children to term. It was nothing like this when my friends and I were having babies.
Anyway, that’s it for the moment. Very random.
I have to clean my house now. 😉
AMDG -
I found a synopsis online and now I think this major problem that I keep trying to reconstruct in my mind was probably a misunderstanding. I think it involved what seemed to be a contradiction between K’s actions and the fact that his memories were implanted, but probably anything of that sort can be explained as false memory. Also, I think the transportation of Deckerd near the end didn’t make sense to me at the time. It just seemed like a pretext for having the Big Fight Scene. But according to the synopsis there was some reason why they couldn’t torture him for information on earth. Contrived-sounding but at least it’s a reason.
My reaction to the revelation of the underground replicant rebellion was similar. It just seemed unconvincing and cliched. It reminded me of one of the awful Matrix movies. In general I just found the last half hour or so kind of a letdown–pretty much from the point of Luv & Co finding Deckerd and K. And I feel like the sexy and merciless female killer thing has been overdone, too, though offhand I can’t think of another film besides the original BR that uses it.
And lesser things like Luv shooting the false Rachel right then and there. All that blood and mess in what’s-his-name’s pristine environment? Seemed there for pure shock value.
How did K and/or Deckerd conclude that the memory-maker was the daughter? I guess it must have been explained but it seemed kind of arbitrary to me.
All that aside, I did find it to be fascinating and gripping up until that last bit. People have complained that it’s slow-moving but it didn’t strike me that way. I guess if you’re used to the big slam-bang constant-action kind of movie it would seem that way. If nothing else, I want to see it again just for the sheer visual thrill of it. Unfortunately the next time will be at home and it won’t be nearly as impressive.
I have to go get the leaves etc. off the roof of my house. -
Well, K knew that Ana (the memory-maker) had said that it was a real memory. He also knew that it was the memory of Rachel’s baby because of the date and whatever else convinced him he was the one. So, when he found out the baby was a girl, he knew she was the only one whose memory it could have been.
AMDG -
Ana was being a little deceptive in saying it was a real memory but not saying it was not his memory. Jesuitical, you might say. 🙂 Maybe that’s the root of what threw me. I took her to mean, as he did, that it was his.
-
You can hardly blame her. That weird guy would have used her for experiments and maybe dissected her.
Maybe she didn’t want to be the poster child for Freya et al either.
AMDG -
No, I don’t really blame her, but I felt slightly cheated or something, because I’d believed it, too. But then it’s the storyteller’s prerogative to deceive the hearer.
-
I was so under-whelmed re-watching the original Blade Runner this past weekend that I decided I can wait for BR 2049 on DVD. Meanwhile, I think I’ll just go see Thor! 🙂
-
I think it’s already gone from theaters around here anyway. Definitely from the one I checked over the weekend.
I wouldn’t make any claims for greatness for BR, original or new. But I do find the original moving, mainly as an exploration of mortality. “It’s too bad she won’t live–but then, who does?” That’s a great line.
Oh, and since we’re spoilering here: the happy ending that was tacked on to the original theatrical release seems just that: tacked on and unconvincing. I certainly wanted them to be happy, but that was overdone. I think in at least one other version it’s not clear what their future is going to be.
There were previews for some of those big action movies when I went to see BR. I confess I thought a couple looked like they might be fun to see in a theater. But they also looked like they could be annoying. -
Trying to find the end.
-
The problem with using this thread is that unless there is a comment in sidebar, you have to really dig to find the end.
Some of those films looked good to me, too, but I don’t remember what they were.
I don’t think I ever saw the happy ending.
AMDG -
I hope there won’t be too many spoilers yet, because I’m just down to episode seven! Mac you must have really binge watched because a few days ago it seemed like you and I were on the same episode.
I had the MDiv/MTs students to tea on Sunday and they told me that Bob (Winona Ryder’s boyfriend) is the same actor that played Sam Gamgee. I immediately thought ‘of course!’
Years ago on this page Dave said that when a character coughs in a war movie you know that he is for the high jump. He will die within a few minutes. I feel that way about Bob right now. He is becoming sweeter in every episode, and I think it means that monster is coming to come up that lift-shaft thing, and grab and devour him! No spoilers please on Bob’s fate!
I think the first season was a little better, more focussed and gripping. But the second season is also a cliff hanger. I don’t know how they will do a third season. It will have to be a totally Apocalypse means the Exorcist scenario -
I agree its much lighter. The last miniseries I watched was The Disappearance. The Killing and Broadchurch were among the most memorable series I’ve watched in recent years. Also the Bridge. All very dark.
I tried to watch Single Handed but by the second series I was tired of the ‘Old Ireland skeletons in the cupboard’ trick, which seemed to drive nearly every episode. I lose patience with my Irish Catholic friends who cannot deal with the ‘New Ireland’, but this series showed the negativity Catholics have to cope with over there. -
I didn’t binge very heavily–two episodes a day, I think.
Yes, I kept thinking Bob looked familiar, and then it hit me. Sam Gamgee working at Radio Shack is pretty funny. I am trying hard right now to stifle any further comment till you’re done, but I can say this much without spoiling anything: I like the way they gave Bob more depth than just tiresome out-of-it nerd, the way they did with Nancy’s father.
“more focussed”-yes. -
Cross-posted. I don’t know Single Handed. Sounds like a good one to miss. Movies and tv dealing with Ireland seem to be as full of Evil Christian cliches as Hollywood’s, except that in Ireland (Republic of) I guess they’re always Catholic, not just sometimes.
-
Well, it’s the part Grumpy hasn’t seen that is the Jurassic Park part, so I can’t talk about it yet. I was watching some interviews with the actors and Duffer Bros., and someone said that in that scene where Bob was telling will about his nightmare, he thought that maybe Bob was bad, and the Duffers were completely surprised. I had been thinking that a long time. It wasn’t until about the middle of 8 that I realized who Bob was.
AMDG -
It had crossed my mind at some point that Bob might be bad.
Grumpy, please let us know when you’re done.
Terry Gross did an interview with the Duffers which you can listen to here:
https://www.npr.org/2017/11/14/564049997/stranger-things-2-creators-wanted-to-scale-up-for-the-show-s-return -
I should be done very soon. don’t tell me Bob is bad I cannot deal with it
I got a new computer at work and a new laptop for home. Its not ‘taking’ my name and email. I have to put it in every time. -
That’s odd. I just posted and it’s gone. In any case. I thought I bought Single Handed because Mac recommended it? Or maybe it was Rob? It was on LODW
-
He’s not bad.
AMDG -
The “remembering” of your name etc takes place in your web browser–Chrome or Firefox or whatever. There’ll be a setting somewhere that allows you to enable or disable it. Maybe “autofill” in Chrome…?
No, I didn’t recommend Single Handed. I don’t even remember it being discussed. Though that doesn’t prove much. -
It must have been Rob because I certainly read it on here.
-
I finished it
-
I was sorry to guess it right about Bob
-
I was certainly sorry to see him meet such a gory end. But your surmise about him acting like someone who was soon going to be killed was really astonishingly accurate. It made me laugh.
I thought the moment of his demise was handled poorly. I was pretty sure that once he went down into the basement he was going to get killed. But that moment where the character who’s going to die appears to have escaped, and for a moment exchanges a look of relief or love or something with another character, only to be pounced upon by the monster that flies in from off-screen, must be a pretty big cliche if it even seemed so to me. -
I mean, it even happened more or less as you predicted.
By the way, the computer stuff that was the justification for him being the one to go down to the basement was pretty much nonsense. Petty of me to say so but being an IT person I notice things like that.
What did y’all think of the Kali excursion? I don’t think they ever mentioned that Kali is the goddess of death, at least in popular western culture. I was not real keen on that part. But I was going to be very upset if El killed that guy and stayed with them. I figure Kali and her gang are going to be back in series 3. Also Maxine’s nasty stepbrother and stepfather. -
The Kali excursions in the film were very gripping. The scene in the lift when she kills or repels the monster was great. I thought entering the upside down was like descending into hell
Why is the monster Kali in your view? -
About the cliche of Bob’s death, the cliches are one of the underlying devices of the series. The more you know about those 80s movies, the more you see them.
Well, technically, Bob had to go down to reset the breakers, which was what the woman in JP had to do, and the scene with upsidedowners hunting him had to be deliberately reminiscent of the kitchen scene in JP. The way they stalked was very like the way the velociraptors stalked the children, and I think that chittering sound came from JP also.
Bob had to die to make way for Hop. The Duffers said that he was not originally intended to be such an important part of the series. He just developed.
Kali is the Indian goddess of destruction, but also the Divine Mother, which is an interesting concept when you think about it. Wikipedia says destruction of evil, but I’d never heard that before. I think she’ll show up again, and Papa, too.
I never could tell, until the the last couple of episodes, if the Paul Reiser character was good or bad. I’m glad he turned out good.
By the way, there is a Dean Koontz book called The Door into December in which a 9 year old girl is kept in a sensory deprivation tank and develops powers.
A couple of years ago, we watched a series called Granite Flats about some kids in a small town where MK Ultra experiments were being secretly conducted. It was kind of fun. It was made by Brigham Young U. and it was odd because there was an underlying theme of Christianity but not Mormon Christianity.
AMDG -
Replying to Grumpy: I didn’t mean the monster was Kali. But as Janet elucidates that’s the meaning of El/Jane’s sister’s name–just to make sure we’re talking about the same things.
More later. -
Ok I thought you were calling the monster Kali. I didn’t realize that the ‘sister’ is called Kali. What is El’s sister’s name? I know Kali is the Indian goddess of destruction. I thought that Mac was saying the shadow monster was Kali – as a kind of metaphor. I didn’t pick up El’s sister’s name.
Janet said: About the cliche of Bob’s death, the cliches are one of the underlying devices of the series. The more you know about those 80s movies, the more you see them.
I agree. The whole miniseries is about the enjoyment of cliche, and not really caring if its a cliche or not. I myself found the idea that Bob has to be the one to go into the basement because he knows Basic, and the others don’t even know what Basic is, quite funny. It was one of the few jokes in the series about how different the future is. It works as a joke – it’s not intended to be taken very literally. I found his trip down to the basement really terrifying. I had to pause it and go and heat up some more hot milk. I really thought he had escaped and was so sorry when the monsters got him just as he was out the door. I guess its a cliche but it didn’t strike me like that – I was too involved with it – and at the same time, I knew he had to die. It was a question of when. It was so inevitable it was simply a question of when.
I’m guessing the Paul Reiser character is Bob / Sam Gamgee. Yes, I wondered at the start, because the boys don’t like him. But he got nicer and nicer and it became clear to me he was being set up as a victim. -
No. Paul Reiser is the doctor.
AMDG -
I’m assuming that the sister’s name is spelled K-a-l-i. That’s definitely how they’re pronouncing it, so since she’s Indian I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s meant to be.
The Paul Reiser character is the doctor, the one in charge of the lab who won’t go along with the evil plans and is the one survivor (as far as we know) of the staff. Bob is played by Sean Astin. Who by the way I discovered yesterday is Patty Duke’s son.
I understand the idea of all those references to movies of the ’80s etc., and the fun of it. Although I’m sure I missed a whole lot of them. But there’s some kind of line between homage and cliche and Bob’s death crossed it for me because it took away the element of surprise. Not a big deal, I just thought it was a slight miscalculation.
Also I understand that Bob had to die to clear the way for Hopper and Joyce. Computer stuff in movies is usually nonsense, but the idea that someone needed to write a program, never mind the language, to override the lockdown (or whatever it was) was nonsense. It’s like all those scenes where the good guys need to get into some system and it says “password required” and they call over the hacker of the group and he pounds a few keys and says “Ok, I’m in.” Password cracking doesn’t work that way. Again, it’s not a big deal, and the general point that the techie guy needed to be the one to do it was ok. Like I said I just notice things like that because I’m in the trade. -
And yes, that whole pursuit by the demodogs in the building was very Jurassic Park.
-
To answer your question, ‘what do you think of the Kali excursion?’ The punks are annoyingly fake. They are to me the only fake, artificial characters in the series. I didn’t like Kali’s injunction to ‘use your anger’, or its return in the ‘descent into hell’ climax. I would prefer conquest by the power of love alone!
However, it gives El a genuine temptation – to make her mission to kill the bad men and seek revenge. Its important that she rejects that temptation, and realizes, through this excursion, that her mission right now is to save her friends. If she had remained cooped up in that little cottage in the woods, this dramatic return would not have been possible. She now knows that her mission is to save her friends. The ‘sister’ says to her, ‘they cannot save you.’ El replies, ‘yes but I can save them.’ This is very important -
Indeed. El’s temptation is really important. I wasn’t real keen on the device of the killer punks etc, but it needed to happen somehow.
“The power of love”–yes, that’s ultimately what makes the series so rewarding, and so different from a lot of the stuff around these days. The solidarity of “the party”, the willingness at so many points of characters to give themselves for others–all of that makes it much more than just an enjoyable X-Files-ish thriller. -
I love it that when Lucas tells Max the story of what has been going on, she says it’s too derivative.
I watched the first series again, too, by the way. About halfway through the first episode of the second series, I realized that I just didn’t remember enough. I’m really glad I did that.
AMDG -
Im going to confess I binge watched the whole two seasons starting the Friday before last. I started the first season Friday before last, about 8 pm, and I finished it on Saturday at midnight. Then I gave it a rest until Tuesday or Wednesday, then watched one a day until Saturday when I did two, and last night I did two.
I didn’t watch it last year because everyone said it was full of hilarious 1980s cinema references. And I thought I just wouldn’t get the references. Then when it came to just about half my facebook acquaintance this past month going on about how they were enjoying Season 2, I couldn’t hold out any longer. I thought I would plunge in and see if I could understand any of it without the references.
In my memory, ET and Close Encounters are pretty much merged into a single movie. -
There was a discussion on Facebook the other day about how many episodes in a row constitute binging. Most answers were in the 3 to 5 range. By that standard, I did not binge. One night I think we watched three, otherwise it was only two.
I also was really glad I watched season 1 again. Comparing notes my wife and I realized we remembered hardly anything specific about it. I remember my parents years ago saying one of the nice things about getting old is that you can watch tv shows twice and enjoy them just as much the second time because you don’t remember what happened. -
At noon we were having a rocking discussion on facebook about Stranger Things. One person said that EL was Mary with Eleven Stars. Some other people got into a long thing about biological fathers and fatherlessness. Another guy had each character pegged out as a New Testament figure, ie Dusty is Peter!
I got nearly late for class and scurried off. As I left the building I ran into a Protestant philosopher, also nearly late for class. I said we were talking about Christianity in Stranger Things. He said he didn’t see any Christianity. O its full of Christ figures I said. He said he hadn’t seen any: maybe it was just because he’d only seen the first season. I said, when ‘El’ is a name for God. He said, so is El god and there is no Christ figure in it? How can that be? Who is the Christ figure if El is the god figure?’ He was genuinely puzzled. I was baffled by his puzzlement – didn’t he know Christ is God?
We parted confused by one another! -
I’m going to suppose that he would have realized his oversight or mistake or whatever you want to call it after a few moments’ reflection. In slight defense of him though I’ll say that Christians in general, Catholics included, do sometimes talk as if “God” and “Christ” are different things. Usually in the context “God” is referring to God the Father.
It is odd though that he went beyond his first question without realizing his mistake.
I suspect that it’s a stretch to identify anything in Stranger Things real closely with anything in Christian theology. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a Christ figure (or figures) in it. I don’t know if it’s the cultural effect of 20 centuries of Christianity or something in human nature but that basic pattern seems to be very appealing to people–the good person who gives him/herself for others. -
Sometimes I really do feel that I’ve detected another reality existing alongside the one I normally experience:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/12/11/6-year-old-made-11-million-in-one-year-reviewing-toys-on-you-tube/ -
Hey. Now I know what to do. That would be a great job!
AMDG -
Maybe. Ryan’s probably going to grow up and write a memoir about how exploited he was.
-
Maybe I’ll just do that.
AMDG -
Because I’m trying to find the end and so far I’ve only gotten to 2011
-
Has anyone watched “mother!”, the movie from last year with Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem?
Watched the DVD yesterday and really enjoyed it. But it demands several viewings. The whole thing is a biblical allegory. It is pretty intense, and was marketed as psychological horror, so certainly not for everyone, but very thought-provoking. -
I haven’t. First reviews I read, whether positive or negative, seemed to say it was a blasphemous horror movie, so no thanks (to say the least). Then I started seeing comments from people of views I could respect saying that it’s actually good. But still, psychological horror is definitely not my thing. I have not ventured to watch the second series of Black Mirror, which I’m sure is very well done, for that reason.
-
Does this show up if you post something?
AMDG -
I’m not totally sure what you’re asking. Whether your comment appears? Yes.
Light On Dark Water 
Leave a reply to antiaphrodite Cancel reply