I'm enjoying it. I'm also ready for the George Jones biopic starring Jim Carrey (Mrs. Chaka's idea).
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
John and June, George and Tammy
One of my Christmas gifts:
I'm enjoying it. I'm also ready for the George Jones biopic starring Jim Carrey (Mrs. Chaka's idea).
I'm enjoying it. I'm also ready for the George Jones biopic starring Jim Carrey (Mrs. Chaka's idea).
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The Sci-Fi/Fantasy Franchise Ring
Mrs. Chaka and I started talking tonight about science-fiction/fantasy franchise crossovers. You know, like how since Star Wars took place a long time ago in a galaxy far away, and time travel happens in every third Star Trek movie, you could have a movie where the Enterprise joins in the attack on the Death Star. (This crossover is Mrs. Chaka's idea. I had not fathomed that such a thing was possible.)
That reminded me that I had heard of a Star Trek/X-Men crossover (apparently what I was thinking of was this comic book). If they did a movie crossover, Patrick Stewart would get to negotiate between the Federation and the X-Men as both Captain Picard and Professor Xavier. That scene makes the whole project worth doing.
And from that point, we tried to connect the cardinal science-fiction and fantasy franchises to each other. Jim Broadbent connects Harry Potter and Narnia; Christopher Lee connects Star Wars to Lord of the Rings . . .
It took some brain-racking (and eventually some help from IMDb), but this is what we came up with:
There are other, more marginal franchises we could tack on: Batman, X-Men, Terminator, Pirates of the Caribbean. But they would destroy the symmetry of the above.
Incidentally, several of these franchises to Kingdom of Heaven. I'll let you flesh out the connections in the comments.
That reminded me that I had heard of a Star Trek/X-Men crossover (apparently what I was thinking of was this comic book). If they did a movie crossover, Patrick Stewart would get to negotiate between the Federation and the X-Men as both Captain Picard and Professor Xavier. That scene makes the whole project worth doing.
And from that point, we tried to connect the cardinal science-fiction and fantasy franchises to each other. Jim Broadbent connects Harry Potter and Narnia; Christopher Lee connects Star Wars to Lord of the Rings . . .
It took some brain-racking (and eventually some help from IMDb), but this is what we came up with:
There are other, more marginal franchises we could tack on: Batman, X-Men, Terminator, Pirates of the Caribbean. But they would destroy the symmetry of the above.Incidentally, several of these franchises to Kingdom of Heaven. I'll let you flesh out the connections in the comments.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Idea for competitive exercise
For two teams of 2 or more players
Equipment: 2 jump ropes, room to run (a 100-meter course would work well)
Object: Be the first team to reach 1000 jumps
Rules: Each team has a jumper and a runner. The jumpers begin doing (single-under) jumps. If either jumper misses, it's a fault, and the runners start sprinting.
Let's say the two teams are called "Legends" and "Leaders". Assuming it was the Legends jumper who faulted, then if the Legends runner loses the sprint, the Legends have to do an extra 100 jumps. If, on the other hand, the Legends runner wins, his team suffers no penalty.
While the runners are sprinting, the jumpers may rest, change jumpers, or continue to jump. If they miss a jump during the sprint, it's not considered a fault, and there are no game effects.
First team to hit 1000 jumps (plus any penalties they've incurred) wins.
If someone can do 1000 single-under jumps without missing, feel free to substitute double-unders.
Equipment: 2 jump ropes, room to run (a 100-meter course would work well)
Object: Be the first team to reach 1000 jumps
Rules: Each team has a jumper and a runner. The jumpers begin doing (single-under) jumps. If either jumper misses, it's a fault, and the runners start sprinting.
Let's say the two teams are called "Legends" and "Leaders". Assuming it was the Legends jumper who faulted, then if the Legends runner loses the sprint, the Legends have to do an extra 100 jumps. If, on the other hand, the Legends runner wins, his team suffers no penalty.
While the runners are sprinting, the jumpers may rest, change jumpers, or continue to jump. If they miss a jump during the sprint, it's not considered a fault, and there are no game effects.
First team to hit 1000 jumps (plus any penalties they've incurred) wins.
If someone can do 1000 single-under jumps without missing, feel free to substitute double-unders.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Computer viruses and the OT
Fascinating story of the computer virus that ground Iran’s nuclear program down to a halt. An excerpt:
“Originally, all eyes turned toward Israel’s intelligence agencies. Engineers examining the worm found “clues” that hinted at Israel’s involvement. In one case they found the word “Myrtus” embedded in the code and argued that it was a reference to Esther, the biblical figure who saved the ancient Jewish state from the Persians. But computer experts say "Myrtus" is more likely a common reference to “My RTUS,” or remote terminal units.”
Myrtus is the genus of the myrtle plant, and Hadassah means “myrtle”. (Which makes me wonder why we don’t just call her Myrtle.)
If I were writing a virus to save the Jews, I’d call it CyRus. (Cyber Rescue Virus)
“Originally, all eyes turned toward Israel’s intelligence agencies. Engineers examining the worm found “clues” that hinted at Israel’s involvement. In one case they found the word “Myrtus” embedded in the code and argued that it was a reference to Esther, the biblical figure who saved the ancient Jewish state from the Persians. But computer experts say "Myrtus" is more likely a common reference to “My RTUS,” or remote terminal units.”
Myrtus is the genus of the myrtle plant, and Hadassah means “myrtle”. (Which makes me wonder why we don’t just call her Myrtle.)
If I were writing a virus to save the Jews, I’d call it CyRus. (Cyber Rescue Virus)
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Phrases from Homer to Incorporate into Daily Conversation
nothing loath (=quickly)
Now tell me, and tell me true . . .
. . . and his armor rang rattling around him as he fell (This one will have to go into the file with "I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin on the mountainside"--someday I will bust this out. Someday. And it will be awesome.)
vouchsafe X to Y
Tell me, O Muse . . .
and while he was thus in two minds . . .
and they put their hands on the good things before them
the blessed boon of sleep
the child of Morning, rosy-fingered Dawn
Now tell me, and tell me true . . .
. . . and his armor rang rattling around him as he fell (This one will have to go into the file with "I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin on the mountainside"--someday I will bust this out. Someday. And it will be awesome.)
vouchsafe X to Y
Tell me, O Muse . . .
and while he was thus in two minds . . .
and they put their hands on the good things before them
the blessed boon of sleep
the child of Morning, rosy-fingered Dawn
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Reviewing the Iliad
I’ve been listening to the Librivox recording of the Iliad during my household chores. I’m really enjoying it, despite the unevenness of the readers (Pete Darby, yay! Hugh Mac, your talents lie elsewhere).
I can’t help but compare it with that other great work of the ancient world, the one with which I am much more familiar. You know, the Hebrew Bible. There’s really very little in common between the two, except for one episode: 2 Samuel 2:12-32 feels reminiscent of the Iliad, what with the fighting, the spoiling, the speeches in the midst of battle.
But anyone who thinks of “the Old Testament God,” or of the Old Testament itself, as bloodthirsty . . . well, one wonders if they’ve examined the competition.
The Iliad, like the Bible, also uses a lot of stock phrases: So-and-so kills such-and-such, “and his armor rang rattling around him as he fell heavily to the ground.” There are maybe a half dozen of these phrases that Homer cycles through to describe somebody biting the dust (actually, “he bit the dust” is used now and then in the text—yes, there was a time when this wasn’t a cliché). I enjoy this stable of phrases, but some people apparently find them irritating. (Scroll down to the review entitled “One of the most important works of literature ever - and a damned good read too” for some unintentional humor.)
Last night the idea for a game based on the Iliad came to me in a dream. I still haven't perfected my game based on the wars of Alexander the Great's successors, but the Iliad one is simpler . . . I know what I'll be working on over Thanksgiving.
I can’t help but compare it with that other great work of the ancient world, the one with which I am much more familiar. You know, the Hebrew Bible. There’s really very little in common between the two, except for one episode: 2 Samuel 2:12-32 feels reminiscent of the Iliad, what with the fighting, the spoiling, the speeches in the midst of battle.
But anyone who thinks of “the Old Testament God,” or of the Old Testament itself, as bloodthirsty . . . well, one wonders if they’ve examined the competition.
The Iliad, like the Bible, also uses a lot of stock phrases: So-and-so kills such-and-such, “and his armor rang rattling around him as he fell heavily to the ground.” There are maybe a half dozen of these phrases that Homer cycles through to describe somebody biting the dust (actually, “he bit the dust” is used now and then in the text—yes, there was a time when this wasn’t a cliché). I enjoy this stable of phrases, but some people apparently find them irritating. (Scroll down to the review entitled “One of the most important works of literature ever - and a damned good read too” for some unintentional humor.)
Last night the idea for a game based on the Iliad came to me in a dream. I still haven't perfected my game based on the wars of Alexander the Great's successors, but the Iliad one is simpler . . . I know what I'll be working on over Thanksgiving.
Friday, November 12, 2010
For some reason, this kind of argument (X has an ungodly/pagan origin and is thus unacceptable for Christians) drives me insane. See also, Al Mohler on yoga, Frank Viola on "the institutional church." (As an aside, Viola claims that he doesn't reject ideas just because they're pagan. Well, that's the impression I got from reading Pagan Christianity. In fact, I'd call that list of "straw men" an accurate summary of the book's theses.)
Now that I've asserted but not argued anything, I'll drift on to other points, if you don't mind.
My parents and their home church rejected Halloween because of its pagan origins. I heard some great, lurid stories about the origins of jack-o-lanterns and trick or treat.
I call the stories "great" with only partial irony. Now they sound to me like folk etymologies, but I was interested in them at the time. I was in a phase when I wanted to find out the etymon, the true origin, of everything—words, names, symbols, customs.
There is a perennial attraction to the quest for the etymon, a feeling that once you find it, you’ve grasped true meaning. I’m still very interested in etymons, but more because they often make for a good story than because they’re the key to ultimate meaning. The kind of meaning I find more relevant is how the word (name, custom) fits into the larger system. In anthropological terms, I’ve moved from James George Frazer to Claude Levi-Strauss. In linguistic terms, from Jakob Grimm to Ferdinand de Saussure.
Take yoga. The Christian anti-yogaists are dismayed that Christians would put their body in a pose dedicated to a Hindu god. The woman at the health club teaching a yoga class might not be a Hindu. She might not even know anything about the pose's link to a deity. But if you go back far enough, the argument goes, the etymon lies in pagan worship. So the yoga pose *means* devotion to another god. Taking on the pose is like speaking praise of that god, which a Christian should not do.
If the etymon of the yoga pose truly lies in pagan worship, that would be an interesting story. I have my doubts whether the story is true. If I were in a real argument on the topic, I'd like to see some non-polemical scholarship on the question. But would such an etymology imply that the pose *means* pagan worship?
I was thinking that it could mean such a thing in a sacramental view of the world. Sacramentalism does emphasize that we're not disembodied minds, that what we do with our bodies has spiritual impact. But to call this position sacramental would be an insult to sacramentalism. Even in sacramentalism, the body cannot mean what the person as a whole does not mean. You could bless the public swimming pool on a hot day in July, but that doesn't mean all the swimmers become baptized.
Hence, I submit to you that to believe that yoga constitutes pagan worship isn't even sacramental. It's purely magical. It's a pagan idea if there ever was one. (Look, the argument just folded in on itself!)
At some point I stopped despising earlier Christians for the pagan customs they retained/redeemed—and started admiring them for their audacity. (This is one of the things that made Chesterton my homeboy, finding that he had this attitude.) Maybe it had something to do with learning about all the good things in my life that had “bad” backgrounds—Christmas trees, Easter eggs, eeny meeny miny moe, the European settlement of America, most of the names of God . . .
If you want to reject everything with a tainted origin, what will you be left with? Utopia, I suppose. Nowhere to stand.
Now that I've asserted but not argued anything, I'll drift on to other points, if you don't mind.
My parents and their home church rejected Halloween because of its pagan origins. I heard some great, lurid stories about the origins of jack-o-lanterns and trick or treat.
I call the stories "great" with only partial irony. Now they sound to me like folk etymologies, but I was interested in them at the time. I was in a phase when I wanted to find out the etymon, the true origin, of everything—words, names, symbols, customs.
There is a perennial attraction to the quest for the etymon, a feeling that once you find it, you’ve grasped true meaning. I’m still very interested in etymons, but more because they often make for a good story than because they’re the key to ultimate meaning. The kind of meaning I find more relevant is how the word (name, custom) fits into the larger system. In anthropological terms, I’ve moved from James George Frazer to Claude Levi-Strauss. In linguistic terms, from Jakob Grimm to Ferdinand de Saussure.
Take yoga. The Christian anti-yogaists are dismayed that Christians would put their body in a pose dedicated to a Hindu god. The woman at the health club teaching a yoga class might not be a Hindu. She might not even know anything about the pose's link to a deity. But if you go back far enough, the argument goes, the etymon lies in pagan worship. So the yoga pose *means* devotion to another god. Taking on the pose is like speaking praise of that god, which a Christian should not do.
If the etymon of the yoga pose truly lies in pagan worship, that would be an interesting story. I have my doubts whether the story is true. If I were in a real argument on the topic, I'd like to see some non-polemical scholarship on the question. But would such an etymology imply that the pose *means* pagan worship?
I was thinking that it could mean such a thing in a sacramental view of the world. Sacramentalism does emphasize that we're not disembodied minds, that what we do with our bodies has spiritual impact. But to call this position sacramental would be an insult to sacramentalism. Even in sacramentalism, the body cannot mean what the person as a whole does not mean. You could bless the public swimming pool on a hot day in July, but that doesn't mean all the swimmers become baptized.
Hence, I submit to you that to believe that yoga constitutes pagan worship isn't even sacramental. It's purely magical. It's a pagan idea if there ever was one. (Look, the argument just folded in on itself!)
At some point I stopped despising earlier Christians for the pagan customs they retained/redeemed—and started admiring them for their audacity. (This is one of the things that made Chesterton my homeboy, finding that he had this attitude.) Maybe it had something to do with learning about all the good things in my life that had “bad” backgrounds—Christmas trees, Easter eggs, eeny meeny miny moe, the European settlement of America, most of the names of God . . .
If you want to reject everything with a tainted origin, what will you be left with? Utopia, I suppose. Nowhere to stand.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Medieval Mentality
From a review of Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin:
My second thought (and now you're going to laugh) is that the difference between war and criminal war is . . . chivalry.
Perhaps we need a new word, one that is broader than the current definition of genocide and means, simply, “mass murder carried out for political reasons.”My first thought on reading this sentence was, "Isn't all war 'mass murder carried out for political reasons'?" If the international community is to allow war but criminalize some mass murders, what makes the criminal ones criminal?
My second thought (and now you're going to laugh) is that the difference between war and criminal war is . . . chivalry.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Jesus and Violence
Heh:
In an interview several years ago for Relevant Magazine, Mark Driscoll (well known pastor of Mars Hill in Seattle) said,
“In Revelation, Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.” (You can find the original interview here).
I frankly have trouble understanding how a follower of Jesus could find himself unable to worship a guy he could “beat up” when he already crucified him.
Now I'm going to have "The Hammer" in my head all day. HT: Matt Tebbe
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
"What a blessing it will be to attend a banquet in the Kingdom of God!"
Is it sacrilegious to say that the wine at last Sunday's Eucharist was particularly excellent?
I don't think so. The Eucharist is many things simultaneously. Among those things, it is a foretaste of the Messiah's banquet. And we know that the Messiah serves the good stuff.
I don't think so. The Eucharist is many things simultaneously. Among those things, it is a foretaste of the Messiah's banquet. And we know that the Messiah serves the good stuff.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Wasting Time and Money
Mrs. Chaka and I have made the dangerous discovery of two hours of Star Trek (TOS and TNG) being broadcast each night. Last night's episodes (The Changeling and Emergence) were somehow archetypal; each embraced all the joys and absurdities of its respective series.
It's always amusing to see how dated the future is. The Changeling made frequent reference to data being stored on "tapes". Then again, in Emergence, Dr. Crusher had a pretty cool blue iPad.
Oh, and I had a Double Down a week ago. Definitely not worth the price of admission.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Spite Food
I read (on the Wait Wait Don't Tell Me blog) that KFC introduced the Double Down because of complaints that there wasn't enough chicken in their chicken sandwich. If true, it places the Double Down in that delightful genre, Spite Food.
Potato chips are the best-known example of Spite Food. To quote the Wikipedia article:
"The original potato chip recipe was created by George Crum, the son of an African American father and Native American mother, in Saratoga Springs, New York on August 24, 1853.[citation needed] Fed up with a customer who continued to send his fried potatoes back complaining that they were too thick and soggy, Crum decided to slice the potatoes so thin that they could not be eaten with a fork. As they could not be fried normally in a pan, he decided to stir-fry the potato slices. Against Crum's expectation, the guest was ecstatic about the new chips."
I'm still hoping to eat one of those Double Downs; haven't got to it yet.
Potato chips are the best-known example of Spite Food. To quote the Wikipedia article:
"The original potato chip recipe was created by George Crum, the son of an African American father and Native American mother, in Saratoga Springs, New York on August 24, 1853.[citation needed] Fed up with a customer who continued to send his fried potatoes back complaining that they were too thick and soggy, Crum decided to slice the potatoes so thin that they could not be eaten with a fork. As they could not be fried normally in a pan, he decided to stir-fry the potato slices. Against Crum's expectation, the guest was ecstatic about the new chips."
I'm still hoping to eat one of those Double Downs; haven't got to it yet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
