22 August 2008
Songs for Summer
On NPR's All Things Considered today, a selection of summer songs from Tom Moon's 1,000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. You can hear audio at NPR for 'I Want to Take You Higher' from Sly and the Family Stone's Stand! (I think I would instead choose 'Dance To The Music' or the obvious 'Hot Fun in the Summertime'), 'Poinciana' from Ahmad Jamal's But Not for Me: Live at the Pershing, and "L'estate: First Movement" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons as performed by Janine Jansen. Moon also cites Springsteen's Born to Run album.
Entertainment Weekly lists its 100 Greatest Summer Songs of All Time ('Hot Fun in the Summertime' is #9 on their list); Pop Culture Madness lists 40 Beach Music Vacation tunes.
The most summery song I know is The Catalinas' 'Summertime Calling Me' (1975). Brings back those Myrtle Beach days. Lately, I'm loving Springsteen's 'Girls in the Their Summer Clothes.'
17:15 Posted in holidays and seasons , lists , music , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
12 July 2008
Video: How to Pretend You Care About the Election
Video at The Onion News Network's "Today Now!" morning show.
Too funny (because it's true) not to post. I actually do care about the 2008 elections and will vote (as always), but I have no interest in talking about it with anyone, ever.
Watch for the text boxes "About the Candidates."
19:50 Posted in holidays and seasons , politics, government and law , silliness and humour | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
06 June 2008
Spring Continues
It feels like early spring today, with overcast skies, some rain and temps in the low 50s. The lilacs in my yard are just finishing up their bloom, except for the rather wild-looking one (i.e., non-hybrid) in the back near the woods, which is just starting. I took a few shots in the garden last week and earlier this week. More at Flickr.
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02 June 2008
Local Food
Interactive map to show what's fresh in your state, by month. How come New Hampshire and Vermont have artichokes in June but Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut don't?
(via Rebecca)
11:12 Posted in community , consumption , earthcare and environment , gardening and weather , holidays and seasons | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this
14 February 2008
Happy V-Day
(click on image for readable view)
From Indexed
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11 February 2008
O Christmas Tree
We undecorated and took down the Christmas tree yesterday.
It's always a sad chore, made sadder this year by all the new growth the tree has been sending out, so that even as some branches were losing copious quantities of needles, others were vibrantly demonstrating the tree's potential for new life. It was if the tree didn't realise it had been severed from the ground, or as if it had recovered from being ungrounded and was now settling in to life in its new location and new role in our living room, lapping up a gallon of water every day, busily producing.
It was hard to let it go, even though from its new location in the backyard, it may yet take on another role -- as shelter for birds and small animals.
In memory of our resilient tree:
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07 February 2008
Lenten Meditations
One day past Ash Wednesday and I feel Lenten all over. It's cold, white, wet, variously icy and slushy outside, snow having fallen overnight and more snow and sleet and rain falling and freezing now. My capable, outdoorsy, optimistic father is likely dying of cancer. I've been following Leroy Sievers' battle with cancer (I think he would call it that) and this morning he is in the hospital, having just undergone more surgery for more painful spine tumours. My brother-in-law was hospitalised and is ill, the cause not quite certain. And 'I'm not feelin' so good myself.' We have almost no income and little prospect of any until at least mid-March. The dog is doing well and finished with chemo but we are vigilant for new lumps, and that vigilance is wearying.
It's not an easy time. It's nothing like living in Chad or Iraq or the Democratic Republic of Congo at the moment. My woes are ordinary ones, and in spite of the at times oppressive and anxious feel of medical tests and prognoses, of mortality breathing down my neck, and (much less oppressive) of lingering unemployment, I don't feel that bad. I can't really even characterise it; it just feels like what it is. I do notice that I am getting irritated and offended by small things that don't usually irritate or offend me. Reading this helped remind me of some things, and these Lenten meditations will also help guide me, I think. I offer them for you, too.
The Upper Room Lenten Study Guide
Lenten Kit (PDF) and daily emailed Lenten devotional meditations - from the United Church of Christ, Congregational
Lenten Meditations from Divine Intimacy - lengthy daily meditations with a Catholic spin
Lenten Meditations from Loyd Fueston - at To See The World in a Grain of Sand (from 2007, so dates are off) - Catholic. "When the priest rubs the mixture of oil and ashes upon my forehead, when he makes that simple cross, I should be shocked by the realization that I’m little more than a ghost. Like all human beings, I live at the gate to the cemetery, dwelling there for less than a century."
Father Kevin at Cell Phone Spirituality - offering brief daily Lenten meditations
Lenten Journey: Encountering Mission - weekly reflections from United Methodist Women
Peace Church Weekly Lenten Meditations - from the Anabaptists. For 2007, so dates are off, but the meditations are numbered. Inspired by Walter Brueggemann's book Deep Memory, Exuberant Hope: Contested Truth in a Post-Christian World. Note: The PDF attachments contain most of the meditation/liturgy.
Free daily email meditation - from the Episcopal Church (you can also order the print booklet)
Daily meditations - Lutheran School of Theology
Lent - meditation and prayer - from BellaOnline; general guidelines for meditating during Lent (or any time)
Tonglen is a Buddhist meditation practice for getting in touch with suffering and awakening compassion, and so seems particularly appropriate for this time of year.
This resource isn't online: A Season of Rebirth: Daily Meditations for Lent (2007) by Marc Foley. Reviewed by Janice Harayda: Meditations for Lent Inspired by God, Dante, Woody Allen and Others.
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29 January 2008
Nazis - 75th Anniversary
Tomorrow it will be 75 years since Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took office in Germany. Nicholas Kulish writes today in the NYT about the continuing struggle of the German people to come to terms with the Holocaust in their country, including "the building of monuments to the Nazi disgrace" that " continues unabated," with new construction beginning in Berlin of two monuments, "one near the Reichstag, to the murdered Gypsies, ...; and another not far from the Brandenburg Gate, to gays and lesbians killed in the Holocaust." These are in addition to the recently opened "Topography of Terror center at the site of the former Gestapo and SS headquarters" and "a huge new exhibition ... at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp," as well as other building projects recently launched or in the works.
Two points that interest me in Kulish's short article (both mentioned briefly and warranting further investigation):
The younger generation of Germans, "who are required to study the Nazi era and the Holocaust intensively," view the Holocaust not as a source of guilt but as motivation for them to be responsible "on the world stage for social justice and pacifism, including opposition to the war in Iraq."
If this is true, it makes me curious about opposition to the Iraq war by those who are steeped in Holocaust history and likely aware of their own families' complicity in it or victimisation by it. Some people see Saddam Hussein as Hitler writ small, merrily exterminating his own people; I wonder what course these young people think would have been best in the case of Iraq, considering their own history: don't interefere, use diplomacy, use another strategy? Second, on the same point, because many people consider WWII a 'just war,' one that needed to be fought if any war ever did, I also wonder how the younger generation arrives at a position of pacifism generally.
The second comment that I noticed was Susan Neiman's, director of the Einstein Forum in Potsdam, an international public research group. She worries that the young will eventually "express their exhaustion with the topic. 'I can't help but feeling that some of the continued, "Let's build monuments; let's build Jewish museums," is a fairly ritualized behavior. ... I worry terribly that it's going to backfire.'"
This framing as 'ritual' of the construction of reminder after reminder of a terrible act reminds me of some of James Alison's thoughts about the sacred centre in his article after the events of 9/11/2001. The sacred centre offers those of us not actually involved in the crisis itself a sense of transcendent meaning, of good clean purpose, in lives that are often cluttered with the banal and with "little betrayals, acts of cowardice, uneasy consciences." The sacrificial centre is invoked to generate a feeling of unanimity, which can then harden to become militant goodness, and so on; and which can resemble, not in intent but perhaps in outcome, the technique well-understood and effectively and terribly used by the Nazis themselves, of bringing people together for a 'great purpose,' which often and seamlessly leads to opposing and scapegoating those who won't come together for the 'great purpose,' to creating the belief that this is thing that really matters, to instilling fear in those who refuse to believe it. Humans seem prone to being, as Alison puts it, "sucked into" the sacred centre. It makes us feel good.
Or, maybe, this younger generation won't so much become exhausted by participating in (or being expected to participate in) the sacred centre as they will come to see the buildings and the history as a reminder of something ... ordinary. Not transcendent, not filled with purpose and meaning, but very ordinary, and as some may already understand in their pacifism, very capable of being re-enacted any time, any where.
11:00 Posted in community , death , girardian anthropology , holidays and seasons , politics, government and law , theology, spirituality, philosophy , today in history | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
20 January 2008
Avoiding Violence of Spirit - Martin Luther King Jr. Tribute
In memory and honour of Martin Luther King, Jr., 1929 -1968 ...
MLK Birthday Commemoration Resources
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It's not only necessary to know how to go about loving your enemies, but also to go down into the question of why we should love our enemies. I think the first reason that we should love our enemies, and I think this was at the very center of Jesus' thinking, is this: that hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that's the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. -- 17 November 1957, "Loving Your Enemies," sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL
There's another reason why you should love your enemies, and that is because hate distorts the personality of the hater. We usually think of what hate does for the individual hated or the individuals hated or the groups hated. But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. ... For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That's what hate does. -- 17 November 1957, "Loving Your Enemies," sermon delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL
For nonviolence not only calls upon its adherents to avoid external physical violence, but it calls upon them to avoid internal violence of spirit. It calls on them to engage in that something called love. And I know it is difficult sometimes. When I say 'love' at this point, I'm not talking about an affectionate emotion. It's nonsense to urge people, oppressed people, to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. I'm talking about something much deeper. I'm talking about a sort of understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. -- Speech at the Great March on Detroit, 23 June 1963, Detroit, MI
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. ... The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. -- Strength To Love, 1963
I'm concerned about a better world. I'm concerned about justice; I'm concerned about brotherhood; I'm concerned about truth. And when one is concerned about that, he can never advocate violence. For through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate through violence. -- "Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?," Annual Report Delivered at the 11th Convention of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 16 Aug. 1967, Atlanta, GA
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King was born on 15 January 1929 at the family home in Atlanta, Georgia. He entered Morehouse College at age 15, graduating in 1948 with a B.A. in Sociology. He was ordained in Feb. 1948 (at age 19) at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, soon becoming assistant pastor of that church. He received his Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, PA, in 1951, after which he accepted the call of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where he served as pastor from Sept. 1954 to Nov. 1959. In September 1951, King began doctoral studies in Systematic Theology at Boston University and studied at Harvard University as well. In June 1953, he married Coretta Scott of Marion, Alabama. He received his Ph.D. in June 1955. His dissertation was titled “A Comparison of the Conceptions of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman.” In 1959, he and the family moved to Atlanta to direct the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (which he helped found in 1957), and from 1960 until his death, he co-pastored Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father.
The Kings had four children: Yolanda Denise, born 17 Nov. 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama; Martin Luther III, born 23 Oct. 1957 in Montgomery; Dexter Scott, born 30 Jan. 1961 in Atlanta, Georgia; and Bernice Albertine, born 28 March 1963 in Atlanta.
King authored six books: Stride Toward Freedom (1958), about the Montgomery bus boycott; The Measure of a Man (1959), sermons; Why We Can't Wait (1963), about the Birmingham campaign; Strength to Love (1963), more sermons; Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (1967), "reflections on the problems of today's world, the nuclear arms race, etc.;" and, posthumously published, The Trumpet of Conscience (1968), lectures.
King was shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968. He was there to help lead sanitation workers in a protest against low wages and poor working conditions. Though James Earl Ray was arrested, convicted, and pled guilty to the crime, a jury in Memphis in 1999, deciding in a case brought by King's wife and children, concluded "that Loyd Jowers and governmental agencies including the City of Memphis, the State of Tennessee, and the federal government were party to the conspiracy to assassinate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr."
King's mother, Alberta Williams King, "was shot and killed as she sat at the organ in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta" on Sunday, 30 June 1974 by Marcus Wayne Chenault, a 23-year-old black man from Ohio who said he shot her because "all Christians are my enemies."
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Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project (Stanford University) Biography, a very detailed MLK Jr. Chronology, eleven MLK Jr. speeches, eleven MLK Jr. sermons, and information on articles, papers, more. Includes pdf-formatted text of the Letter From Birmingham Jail (16 April 1963), the Address at March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (the "I Have a Dream" speech, 28 August 1963), his Acceptance Speech at Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony (10 December 1964), Beyond Vietnam (4 April 1967), and the "I've Been To The Mountaintop" speech (3 April 1968, his last speech). Very slow loading.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Seattle Times), an extensive resource on King, with sections on The Man, The Movement, The Legacy, The Holiday, Electronic Classroom, and Talking About It.
The King Center, whose sections include Welcome, History, Philosophy (a collection of quotes from various King sources), Words, King Holiday, Community, Children, News, and Shop. Not as much information here as in other resources.
Time 100: Leaders & Revolutionaries: Martin Luther King, Jr. (Time magazine), a three-page profile of King, with accompanying timeline and a sidebar entitled "What if King had lived?"
"Loving Your Enemies" speech, delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, on 17 November 1957.
I Have A Dream" Speech (28 August 1963) text. Also available in audio mp3 format.
Robert Kennedy's Speech on MLK Jr.'s Death (4 April 1968) text (at History Place), and in RealAudio.
King's Legacy: PBS NewsHour Talk with Taylor Branch (PBS), the transcript of David Gergen interview with MLK Jr.-biographer Taylor Branch about King's most important legacies, from 2 Feb. 1998.
The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV (FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), an article on MLK's largely unnoted shift from civil rights issues to human rights issues during the last three years of his life, by Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon, in Jan. 1995 Media Beat.
Note: The source for most of the biographical sketch is The King Center Biographical Outline of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
18:25 Posted in girardian anthropology , holidays and seasons , other people said it , politics, government and law , pop culture , theology, spirituality, philosophy , today in history | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
11 January 2008
Atrocity of the Day Calendar
Strangely compelling, the Axis of Evel Knievel ("Another Day, Another Pointless Atrocity") posts details of an historical atrocity most days. Among 'evel' topics are crime, executions, nuclear radiation accidents, birthdays of tyrants and dictators, fires, declaratons of war, war battles, shipwrecks, genocides and other mass slaughters, governmental conspiracies, self-immolation, and so on.
14:54 Posted in crime , death , holidays and seasons , pop culture , today in history | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
04 January 2008
New Year's Day Photos
We got heavy snow on New Year's Day, another 5-6" in addition to the 10" of lighter snow we had about 48 hours before. I took photos.
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01 January 2008
Forgiveness, 2008
Nancy Hitt's column today at Preaching Peace about regrets, resolutions, and the co-mingling of cultural and Gospel teaching is excellent. One excerpt concerning the mimesis of making resolutions:
As I read the [NYT] article, it occurred to me that the customary tradition of New Years resolutions with the expectation of regret for failure to keep them was yet another aspect of the generative mimetic scapegoating mechanism in action. It feels so good to make noble decisions for ourselves; to know that we're participating in what good intentioned people everywhere are doing. It feels good even though we also know that we're not very likely to follow through on these resolutions, and we can anticipate feeling pretty badly about that at some point. It's an interesting phenomenon; we can belong to the 'right' crowd, be our own judge and jury, and cast the first stone at ourselves all within the privacy of our own minds, and know that even as the rejected victim who failed to maintain the standard, we're still part of the community. What an amazing catch 22 sort of end run around the system! You've just got to admire culture sometimes...!
"The good news is that there's always a way out, always a third way, God's way. Even culture has identified that we can be at peace with ourselves if we see things differently than we are at first inclined to. Interestingly, our cultural gurus identify this different perspective as maturity -- something currently optional in our world, but nonetheless real. Seeing things as part of the larger process rather than as restricted to the binary me vs. them makes all the difference."
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25 December 2007
Merry Christmas!
May your day be warm in the laughter and comfort of family, friends, pets, the natural world, or wherever and with whomever you are today; and may you experience the peace of Christ as a gift in some rare and expanding moment.
See Gretchen open one of her gifts!
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12 December 2007
LibraryThing Goes All Secret Santa (And You Can, Too!)
SantaThing: Secret Santa for Book Lovers
The idea is simple. Pay $25. You play Santa to a random LibraryThing member, and buy them up $20 worth of books, based on their library or a short description. Someone else does the same to you. LibraryThing orders the books and pays the shipping, so no addresses are exchanged.
You can also go in for someone you know -- a relative or a friend -- and they get the present. Be a Santa as many times as you like.
Even if you don't want to be a Santa, you can help by suggesting books for others.
Sign up by Thursday, Dec. 13, 12 Noon Eastern.
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11 December 2007
Advent Calendar
Paperless Christmas Advent calendar ... give it a go.
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08 December 2007
Tree Decorated
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Tree Arrives
We went out this morning like millions of others and cut down our Christmas tree from a local family tree farm. It's not as tall as some we've had (when we lived in another house, with a 20-foot ceiling, we cut a tree from the back acres of our property that touched the ceiling and had to be held up with a system of ropes lashed to the loft) but it is wider and fuller than many. Here's its picture, the tree as yet unadorned. Lights are going on as I write, and then ornaments after that.
And, there are a few more additions to the Winter Garden album.
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03 December 2007
Advent and Christmas Lectionary Meditations by James Alison
From the first one:
"At Advent, it begins again: the cycle by which God breaks through the clutter of our lives to announce to us that the Presence is very near, irrupting into our midst, hauling us out of our myths, our half-truths and the ways we have settled for what is 'religious' rather than what is holy, alive, and real."
In Advent, "what we are going to get used to hearing is the still small voice of punctured fulfilment. That is to say, our receiving far more than we imagined we might get from the prophecy, but our getting it through the process of the loss of fantasy. ...
"The One who is coming will not preside over us, but will teach us to want peace from within, and to learn the habits that make it possible. The One who loves us will come as one we despise, and crucify: The definitive puncturing of our god-fantasies, and yet the Presence of one who is powerfully determined not to let us remain wedded to our self-destruction."
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31 October 2007
Happy Hallowe'en
21:30 Posted in art and photography , holidays and seasons | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this
30 October 2007
Seasonal Felicitations to You
Man! -- If only we had started earlier.
(As if. Mi esposo is out hunting down a cheapo light-up plastic pumpkin so we don't have to carve even one real one. I ran errands earlier today, checking six stores for such an item, to no avail -- and some of the stores had moved on already to Christmas ticky-tack.)
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03 July 2007
If You Fly The Flag ...
... fly it properly. Karen at Free Range Librarian pleads with American flag-flyers to do it right: with attention, with discipline, with care, with remembrance of those fighting in its name, and following protocol:
"We're not over there humping our way through the 140-degree heat trying to secure a patch of dust and avoid getting our rumps blown sky-high. We're here, driving to Wal-Mart to buy ourselves a little patriotism, looking for a good price on a flag sewn somewhere overseas, a flag we'll hoist right before we make another run to Publix for more beer and burgers, because we wouldn't want to not have our every whim met tomorrow, even if some troops fighting that unseen war are in such short supply their water is rationed.
"We extend the same carelessness to flags, as well."
Briefly:
- Raise the flag quickly.
- Lower the flag slowly.
- Buy an all-weather flag or bring it in during inclement weather.
- Keep it illuminated or bring it in every night at sunset.
- Fold it properly, don't wad it.
- Dispose of it properly when it's frayed, worn, dirty.
- Remember what the flag represents.
12:35 Posted in holidays and seasons , lists | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
21 June 2007
Summer Solstice
The summer solstice occurs today at 2:06 p.m. (EDT). Hence, flowers and wine.
Our first peony bloomed a couple of days ago, at the tail end of Spring. Here's a photo of the underside:
... which is quite different from the pink-streaked underside of another white peony that started blooming yesterday: 
Another peony in bloom is magenta with a magenta/lavender center:
Most of the peonies are not yet blooming but are on the verge.
Tip from The Vermont Gardener on prolonging peony season: "Peonies can be cut in the bud stage when they are just showing color and then wrapped in newspaper or a loose plastic bag and placed in the bottom of the fridge. They'll last there for about a month and then with a fresh cut and a vase full of water they'll open up to everyone's surprise." I haven't tried this.
Two more garden photos, one of the purple and yellow iris I've featured previously, and one of the bloom of the Filipendula hexapetula (Meadowsweet), which has ferny foliage (foliage not shown). As always, click on photos to see enlarged images.
On another note, this is the wine I am enjoying for summer, a fresh, crisp, light Santola vinho verde (with a crab on the label!):
"The clean nose exhibits aromas of limestone, cardamom and fruit spice hints, along with limeaid spritz. The sip offers a bright, tropical lime along with earthen notes in the middle, then concentrated lemon citrus in the finish. " (per Darryl Beeson). Others detect a hint of pear.
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28 May 2007
Britten's WAR REQUIEM
It seems fitting on Memorial Day to remember Benjamin Britten's War Requiem (Op. 66), written in 1961 for the re-consecration of Coventry Cathedral on 30 May 1962. Coventry was destroyed on 14 Nov. 1940, the "burnt offering" of Luftwaffe bombs during that night of World War II.
Britten's War Requiem is dedicated to four friends*, all of whom fought in World War II and three of whom died or went missing in the War. The Requiem is "a profound and deeply disturbing creed, particularly notable for its juxtaposition of [nine] war poems by Wilfred Owen alongside the Catholic Mass for the Dead."
The first -- and most famous -- recording of the piece features Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya (who did not sing at the re-consecration), German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and English tenor Peter Pears (both of whom did), with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Britten, produced in 1963 on the Decca label.
The ruins of the bombed-out Coventry Cathedral are still visible through the clear glass of the Western Door of the re-built Cathedral. (Take the virtual tour and see for yourself.)
____________________
* The four friends:
>> Roger Burney, Sub-Lieutenant, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He was a friend of Britten's partner, the tenor Peter Pears, and a former chorister of St Paul’s Cathedral. He died aboard the French submarine Surcouf in 1942.
>> Piers Dunkerley, Captain, Royal Marines. One of Britten's closest friends. He actually survived combat, taking part in the 1944 Normandy landings. He committed suicide in June 1959, two months before his wedding.
>> David Gill, Ordinary Seaman, Royal Navy. He was killed in action in the Mediterranean.
>> Michael Halliday, Lieutenant, Royal New Zealand Volunteer Reserve. He was a friend of Britten's from prep school, reported missing early in 1944.
_____________________
All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. -- Wilfred Owen
_____________________
SOURCES
Britten-Pears Foundation: Featured Work: War Requiem Op. 66
Inkpot #83: Classical Music Reviews: Britten War Requiem, by Chia Han-Leon with Ng Yeuk Fan
Pondering Music (Andrew Massey): Britten's War Requiem
Text of the War Requiem (based on Wilfred Owen's poems)
Sounds Clips of the War Requiem
Wikipedia: War Requiem including Movements and Structure
Coventry Cathedral: History and Virtual Tour
11:05 Posted in holidays and seasons , music | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
17 April 2007
Today in History Resources
There are numerous websites devoted to 'Today in History,' listing commemorations of historical events, birthdays, deaths, holidays, saints' feast days, and so.
Some of the best:
- The LoC American Memory's Today in History feature focuses on one person or event, with annotated links and a list of sources.
- The NYT Learning Network's On This Day offers an overview of a few highlights for each day (with links), followed by a timeline of events (briefly described) and lists of current and historic birthdays.
- History Net.Com also offers a timeline and a list of birthdays, with less annotation but perhaps more obscure historical dates listed than the NYT feature.
- USA Today's Today in History also has a highlighted event and a timeline, but the focus is on events of 10 years, 5 years, and 1 year ago.
- The BBC's On This Day links to several news stories each day from its files for events from WWII through 2005.
- Click on a date at Wikipedia's List of Historical Anniversaries and you'll find a boatload of information for each day: Long, linked lists of events, births, deaths, holidays and observances, and liturgical feasts.
Regardless of this plethora of good resources, I'm starting a daily Today in History feature that focuses on events and people that interest me, using as a primary source The Book of Days: What to Celebrate Today by Anthony Frewin -- published in 1979, so there won't be much in the way of current events. (I might come up with supplemental sources as I go along.) As I've been flipping through The Book of Days over the last 36 hours, I realise that many of the people and events don't ring even a faint bell in my head. As I learn more about history, you can, too :-)
16:44 Posted in books and reading , education , holidays and seasons , lists | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
10 April 2007
Diminishment
Christopher at Bending the Rule writes about his Maundy Thursday experience of being accused as a "faggot" in Target in light of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection. Christopher was standing looking at packages of tea on a shelf when a couple of young men pointed at him from down the aisle and one said, "Look at that faggot over there" in a menacing voice, following it up a moment or two later with the hissing of "Damn faggot" as they passed by.
Naturally, Christopher was shaken. He writes about his immediate visceral responses, and about his 'temptations' -- questioning himself and wondering what he had done to provoke the attack, wanting to react to his own fear and anger by freezing up or fighting back, and internalising their perception (and much of the world's perception) of him ... He quotes James Alison on the conflicting message the Church gives gays: "God loves you. God wants you dead."
Describing Jesus's death at our hands (not God's), he reflects back on his experience in the store:
"Demonizing requires a victimizer and a victim. In Christ, we need no longer be either. He has overcome the ways of the world, the voice of the devil, all that would demand we accept ourselves as less than human and all that would lead us to actions that would place us as gods above others. All that would tell us we should be the sacrifice or sacrifice another. These voices no longer bind us."
Today's Dilbert cartoon almost captures the Girardian nature of Christopher's Target experience, the temptation to compare and live the hierarchy that says self or others are gods / self or others are unworthy. (The rivalry is certainly obvious in the cartoon; I'd change the word 'success' to 'being' to make it purely Girardian, from my pov.)
12:10 Posted in community , holidays and seasons , politics, government and law , pop culture , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
08 April 2007
Easter 2007
Happy Easter to All!
+ Yummy-sounding Recipe for Deviled Eggs
+ Yummy-sound Creamy Asparagus Soup recipe.
+ Easter sermon on death and illness:
"Easter, if we're honest, trains us in how to live when we get sick. Easter is what teaches us how to die. And if we're ready to do these two things, we're really ready to live.
"The fact is, illness and death exert enormous power over our lives, in a very real way, they rule us; they possess an authority that makes them nearly god-like. Consider the obedience they inspire. Consider the ways you and I organize our lives around them. Consider the massive amounts of energy, resources, attention they command -- the way they inspire a fear once reserved for God alone, a terror that can make us forget God, curse God, despise God. Are not illness and death gods then who demand our allegiance, our devotion, our worship? Illness and death -- our fear of them, our avoidance of them, our management of them -- organize all of human life. ...
"You -- who live all your life under the shadow of illness and death -- can there be anything more relevant to your life than the truth that death is conquered (despite all its swagger) and that illness is being swept away, regardless of its lingering power over us all?
"No, there's nothing more relevant to the living of this life than Easter. Nothing except learning how to live it."
11:10 Posted in animals , death , food and drink , health and medicine , holidays and seasons , theology, spirituality, philosophy , other people said it | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
04 April 2007
Idleness
This seems worth pondering during Holy Week:
How To Be Idle: An Interview with Tom Hodgkinson, by Katie Renz in Mother Jones, June 8, 2005.
I've saved this to read and blog about for almost 2 years just to feel like I'm not alone -- aside from Wally, my laziness hero -- in my belief that idleness is a very good thing (and not just in moderation!). It begins:
"Ten a.m. is for sleeping in, three in the afternoon for a nap (waking fresh for teatime). Then a rambling stroll followed by the first drink of the day. Ten in the evening: pints at the pub; a midnight contemplation of the celestial sphere; meditation at four in the morning.
"Who the hell lives like this?
"Tom Hodgkinson, for one. His book, How to be Idle ... is a treatise on living a life of leisure and should be required reading for the Western world’s workaholics -- and especially for Americans, who with their collective 415 million unused vacation days last year and pathetic 53% job dissatisfaction rates could evidently use some edifying pointers on successful loafing."
What I really like in this interview is the historical perspective on work and idleness -- which isn't equivalent to doing nothing all day, but is rather making up one's own way of living that is focused on what's of interest; it's appreciating "the value of a good portion of doing nothing in your day -- for your mental health, your physical health, your relationships" -- and his practical advice for being idle:
"If you can stop feeling guilty, then I think it’s easier to start doing what you want to do. The way to stop feeling guilty is to read stuff -- I'm not saying my book, but works by Bertrand Russell or Oscar Wilde, people who weren't losers but who didn't believe in the work ethic."
II.
In another interview, with 3:AM magazine, Hodgkinson names more famous idlers: Jerome K Jerome (English author who had a magazine called The Idler at the turn of the 20th century and wrote essays titled "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" and "Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow"...), Robert Louis Stevenson (wrote essay "An Apology For Idlers"), a heap of ancient Chinese poets, Samuel Johnson, prodigious idler Will Self, Keith Allen, early 20th century Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang, and artist Damien Hirst.
(Hello! Where are the women? I'm here to say that being female is no obstacle to idleness, although being a mother might be ... Though why it would have to be, after the last child isn't nursing anymore, stumps me, if all these men, some of whom also fathered children, can be idle ...)
I find that reading about the lives of eccentrics (some of whom work very hard but generally for their own pleasure) and anti-establishment types is very inspiring. Monks, for instance. And Oscar Wilde, Oscar Levant (I think reading his Memoirs of an Amnesiac, 1965, at an impressionable age strongly influenced my life choices), and other Oscars.
You can read a long essay by Hodgkinson, The Virtue of Idleness, here (probably an excerpt from the book), and check out his magazine, The Idler. (Why are all the best magazines published not in the U.S.?)
III.
I found this excerpt about the idleness of the Middle Ages, from Hodgkinson's latest book, How To Be Free, fascinating, particularly that it was derived in large part from the Sermon on the Mount:
"Surely the medieval age was a time of bad diets, corrupt priests and abject serfdom? Well, no. This view is actually a calumnious caricature. When I started to write How To Be Free, I decided to read Mutual Aid by the great 19th-century anarchist Prince Petr Kropotkin, described by Oscar Wilde as one of the most cheerful men he had ever met. In Mutual Aid, published at the same time as Darwin's Origin of Species, Kropotkin argues that cooperation is an essential part of animal and human life and development. He also reminds us that it was in the medieval age when the great free city-states such as Florence were created. The medievals, he says, valued craftsmanship, cooperation and justice. Mutual Aid led me to read other books on medieval customs and culture, and what I found was a society that made a sustained and conscious attempt to live fairly and justly.
"The two great influences on the development of medieval ethics were Christ's sermon on the mount and Aristotle's Ethics, which had come to Europe via Arab translations. From this material they developed an approach to life which was eco-friendly, neighbourly and based on cooperating rather than competing. So here, briefly, is an introduction to 10 important medieval values, all of which seem radical to us: Anti-capitalist, Anti-work, Anti-competitive, Eco-friendly, Self-sufficient, Hospitable, Charitable, Party-loving, Chivalrous, and Neighbourly." Sounds good to me!
IV.
Dilbert creator Scott Adams' blog is a hoot, besides sometimes offering real food for thought. I recommend it, and the Dilbert books (especially What Would Wally Do?), for fresh perspective.
These are the Wally cartoons I return to again and again:
A character flaw isn't a philosophy [or is it?]
I'm trying to develop a sense of non-urgency
V.
Late Addition: Dave Pollard blogs about endless summer and idleness today:
"How much say do we have over our own lives? If our lives are movies we script ourselves, who is producing and directing them? ... Perhaps the answer is to walk away to right where we are. All we need is love, food, and, in harsher climates, collective warmth and shelter. How much can that cost? In an affluent nation, I calculate it at $14,000 per family, which, for an extended community sharing space and facilities would work out to about $3,000 per person. To be free, happy, and totally in charge of your own life."
17:35 Posted in holidays and seasons , theology, spirituality, philosophy , other people said it | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
Happy Birthday, Craig T. Nelson
Comic and dramatic actor Craig Nelson was born on 4 April 1944 in Spokane, WA. I haven't watched him in dramatic shows of late (as Chief Jack Mannion in The District, 2000-04), but I still watch our VHS tapes of Coach (1989-1997), which is IMO the funniest American sitcom ever to air, largely because of his "deadpan slow-burning" characterisation of Coach Hayden Fox, head coach of the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles football team. His chemistry with Jerry Van Dyke (Dick's brother), who played Asst. Coach Luther Van Dam, was also genius. The crew later moves to Orlando, FL to coach an expansion professional team, but those shows aren't as good. The series re-airs on the USA Network now.
I also loved watching Nelson as Col. Raynor Sarnac in Call to Glory, which aired in 1984 and 1985, but I was apparently the only one.
Besides being an actor -- first noticed in film in 1979, as Frank Bowers in And Justice For All, which starred Al Pacino -- Nelson is or has also been a producer, comedy writer (for The Tim Conway Show and The John Byner Comedy Hour), stand-up comedian (performing with Barry Levinson), director, documentary writer (writing about "artists who chucked the urban grind for a rural lifestyle," as he did for 5 years in the 1970s, for part of the time receiving food stamps and welfare), screenwriter, teacher, carpenter, lumberjack, janitor, plumber, and surveyor (per Hollywood.com). He was the father in the "first, best Poltergeist," and was "a high school football coach in the early Tom Cruise film All the Right Moves." He's also the voice of Mr. Incredible in The Incredibles (2004).
Asked in a 2004 interview what super power he would choose if he could have only one, he chose compassion: "Because that's what I think it takes to make it through life -- an understanding, a give and take. It saves an awful lot of resentment."
Watch Hayden and Luther destroy Christine's white-carpeted apartment on YouTube: Christine to Hayden: "What I do care about is you telling me the truth. That's what makes us close. That's what makes a relationship." Hayden replies: "I don't know why I can't learn that!"
Sources:
CTN at IMDB
CTN at NNDB
CTN interviewed at The Reel Deal (in 2004)
CTN at Hollywood.com
CTN at Wikipedia ; Coach at Wikipedia
CTN at Everything2
08:56 Posted in media, film, tv, radio , holidays and seasons , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
01 April 2007
Soylent Green is People
On NPR's Sunday Weekend Edition this morning:
"Weekend Edition is underwritten in part by The Soylent Corporation, makers of protein-rich products in a range of colors. Soylent Green is people!"
Think they were inspired by this?
20:30 Posted in media, film, tv, radio , holidays and seasons , pop culture , silliness and humour | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
19 March 2007
Onion and 4th Anniversary of Iraq War
I do know that war is no laughing matter.
Not at a loss of more than 3,200 American armed forces lives (military members killed; plus 24,000 to 100,000 military members wounded; more here), at least 60,000 Iraqi civilians killed by the military intervention in Iraq (a report in Lancet estimated that 655,000 Iraqis had been killed by the military intervention through June 2006), about 770 U.S. contractor deaths and many more woundings, deaths and woundings of media members, and a monetary cost to U.S. taxpayers alone of over $400 billion dollars so far, with possible projected costs of $2 trillion. (More on all of this, and other costs, here.) Not at the cost of violence veiled as compassion. Not at the cost of so much energy diverted to such a futile cause.
But, God forgive me, I did laugh at this series of Iraq War headlines from 2003-2006 in The Onion (replayed today as we start year five):
- Point-Counterpoint: No Blood For Oil vs. Exactly How Much Oil Are We Talking About? (Feb. 2003)
- Well, You Try To Reconstruct Iraq,' Says U.S. Defensive Dept. (Oct 2003)
- U.S. To Give Every Iraqi $3,544.91, Let Free-Market Capitalism Do The Rest (Jan. 2004)
- I Support The Occupation Of Iraq, But I Don't Support Our Troops (Feb. 2005)
- Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: 'We'll Go Through Iran' (March 2005)
They're funny because they reflect truth about humanity. Same reason that they're tragic.
Suggested reading: Mark Twain's War Prayer
18:10 Posted in community , death , finance and business , holidays and seasons , politics, government and law , pop culture , silliness and humour | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
14 March 2007
How To Celebrate Pi Day
Celebrate Pi Day (3/14, specifically at 1:59) -- There's not a lot of time left! You could try the frozen hot dog throw. Or honour pi by memorising it. More ideas here.
19:20 Posted in holidays and seasons , math and numbers | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
12 March 2007
Pagan Dreading Big Family Vernal Equinox Celebration
"Despite evidence that the planets are aligned in his favor, local pagan Jeff Birch, 27, said Monday that he would 'rather have a peaceful weekend at home' than attend his family's Vernal Equinox celebration on March 21. ...
"'Talking to Mom the other day, it was the same old manipulative "You're coming home, right?"' said Birch, referring to a recent phone conversation with his mother, Freyja Birch. 'If I hesitate for even a second, she piles on the guilt -- like how this may be the last year Nana Hippolyta can perform the garden fertility ritual, or that without my masculine energy, the yin-and-yang balance will be thrown off -- until I finally give in.' ...
"Besides the usual maiden-mother-crone conflicts, the strained relationship between Birch's sister, Pythia, who recently converted to Wicca, and his father, a devout Dionysian, is another source of tension, according to Birch. 'Last year, Pythia brought her covenmate home, and Dad's still having a hard time with it,' Birch said. 'It's obvious that he doesn't approve of her lifestyle. He's always asking her why doesn't she find a nice warlock to settle down with, or telling her maybe what she really needs is a good old-fashioned bacchanalia. Are other pagan families like this?'
Pythia isn't the first family member to stray from the fold. Fifteen years ago, Birch's uncle Jack married a Presbyterian and has raised two children in the faith. While he is still included in family celebrations, his eccentric monotheism is the source of much awkwardness, Birch said."
11:10 Posted in holidays and seasons , pop culture , silliness and humour | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
14 February 2007
Love Poems
The Guardian asks for favourite love poems, and the first two posted are two of my favourites:
i carry your heart with me
by e e cummings:
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called