The Critique of Pure Raisins

Items Available At The Socratic Grocery And Deli

2009-10-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

The Unbearable Lightness of Bean Salad

Bertrand Russell potatoes

Ecce Homogenized Milk

The Critique of Pure Raisins

The Communist Antipasto

Husserloin Steaks

Deep-Freud Chicken

Foucault Cuts

Fear and Tremblinguine

John Stuart Milanese

Salade Nietzsçhoise

Henry David Thoromaine lettuce

Sir Roger Bacon

Hemlock

from McSWeeney's Lists

Philosopher Finishing Moves (from McSweeney's)

2009-08-31T08:59:00.000-07:00

The Aristhrottle

The Wittgenspine Buster

The Figure Four Ankle Locke

The Reverse Spinning Kickegaard

The Top Rope Over-the-Shoulder Thoreau

The Pulling Down of the Lyotard

The Feuerback Breaker

The Unemployment Clothes Line

BY PRAVASAN PILLAY

Obscenities Uttered by Jesus Christ (from McSweeney's)

2009-06-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Obscenities Uttered by Jesus Christ.

BY CARA JENNISON AND ANDREW SUTHERLAND

- - - -

"Dad damn you."

"Holy Mom, mother of me."

"Dad."

"Myself almighty."

"Good me."

"Me, Mom, and Mom's husband ..."

"Me."

Star Wars: Clone Wars: Vols. 1 & 2 (2003)

2009-05-19T08:11:00.001-07:00

These (and not the current debacle of the same name) were originally on Cartoon Network from 2003 to 2005 and were created by Samurai Jack alum Genndy Tartakovsky. I believe that these two short (each volume is a little over an hour in length) volumes were far better stories than the first two prequels and the middle of Revenge of the Sith. They are how the Star Wars Universe should have been portrayed.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2009-05-19T08:07:00.001-07:00

Good but not great. It was a fascinating story to watch (except the part in Russia seemed oddly out of place) and I think that, in the end, the film knew exactly which heartstrings to pull. I, of course, cried at the end but not because of emotional involvement with the characters.

JCVD

2009-05-19T08:03:00.001-07:00

The Muscles from Brussels actually made a pretty good film here. He makes fun of himself just enough and definitely understands that being a star really means nothing in the ontological sense. This is good film and I do recommend it.

Martin Heidegger and Rudolf Bultmann

2009-05-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

The intellectual weight of these two scholarly giants in one room!

The Wrestler

2009-04-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

Aronofsky has a way with films. Dark, depressing films that is. You find yourself rooting for his tragic characters (Requiem for a Dream) who will usually never find happiness or redemption. If you add Mickey Rourke's outstanding performance, then you have a film like The Wrestler. There is a scene in which Rourke's character climbs to the top rope and stands victorious with lights shining behind him, it is the most moving shot in the entire film. It is ultimately a Pyrrhic victory, though.

The Reader

2009-04-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

Wow. OK, so I don't really know where to begin with this film. I came into this film thinking that it took place during World War II and so I was very thrown off to begin with. But then, the film takes an incredible turn and I was unable to take my eyes off of Kate Winslet's character. The film is ultimately heartbreaking.

The Young Riders

2009-04-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

This was a fantastic show from my childhood that I was able to get through Netflix. You'll also notice that it includes a very young Josh Brolin and Stephen Baldwin!

The Third Man

2009-04-08T14:40:00.001-07:00

So good. This one is up there in my top five (maybe). Definitely top ten. The dialogue was incredible and set the pace for the whole film. The setting was perfect as it was supposed to be bombed-out Vienna and so they just went ahead and filmed it in bombed-out Vienna (the film came out is 1949!). I've included some of the iconic and most powerful images from the film as well. I find myself becoming more and more a fan of Orson Welles.

Special

2009-04-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

The BEST superhero movie ever!

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

2009-03-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

Apparently I now have to read Philosophical Investigations in order to fully understand Wittgenststein, but I think what I really need to do is go over my logic again to even understand this text. Yet, there is this gem:

"What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence."
-Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Worlds Religions

2009-03-30T14:49:00.000-07:00

"If one of the wisdom traditions claims us, we begin by listening to it. Not uncritically, for new occasions teach new duties and everything finite is flawed in some respects. Still, we listen to it expectantly, knowing that it houses more truth than can be encompassed in a single lifetime."
-Huston Smith

Texts of Terror

2009-03-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

Wow. So this was a quick read of very heavy subjects. I will not be able to read the stories covered in this book again without being deeply moved by the intricacies that move the narration along. I was exposed to the Levite/Concubine story in Judges 19 once before but after this uncomfortably close reading, I am still struggling to put it all into the context of the greater canon of scripture.

The 400 Blows

2009-03-30T14:09:00.000-07:00

Les Quatre Cents Coups, which actually refers to an expression that roughly translates to "raising hell", was a very interesting character study and period study of late 50's Paris. I found out after watching this film that it is the first of 5 in the Antoine Doinel (the main character) cycle that director Francois Truffaut has done all with the same actor that played Doinel in this film! It is also one of the first films of the French New Wave, a genre that I know next to nothing about.

Rachel Getting Married

2009-03-30T13:56:00.000-07:00

Silence of the Lambs-great. Philadelphia-powerful. The Agronomist-amazing. Jonathan Demme has done amazing things and I can easily get lost in Anne Hathaway's eyes for days, but Rachel Getting Married struck me as nothing more than dysfunctional rich people "just trying to get by". Please. Don't get me wrong, Anne Hathaway did a great job but come on people. Seriously, you're stinking rich and everyone is messed up in one way or another, but I am not going to connect with whiny, hipster rich people that are trying with all their might to have some sort of multicultural wedding festival while dealing with family demons.

Battlestar Galactica

2009-03-23T13:40:00.001-07:00

In my opinion, one of the greatest shows that has been on television. Not only was it able to successfully blend science fiction with competent storytelling and superb acting (especially James Callis as Gaius Baltar), but it continually addressed issues ranging from dystopian psychology, torture, and ethics to gender roles, society formation, and theology. The motivations for virtually every kind of action and response to stimuli are examined and turned inside out throughout the entire series. During the week of the series finale, two of the main actors, the reimagined series creator, and a producer of the show met on a U.N. panel to discuss the human rights issued raised during an armed conflict! This show has had much to say about the human experience in multiple facets of life and it will be missed.

What do you hear?
Nothing but the rain

The Adventures of Ibn Battuta

2009-03-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

I felt like I needed a book review in here somewhere.

I had the privilege of starting this book in the Copenhagen airport on my way to the Middle East. The chapter concerning the Arabian Sea was brief but it felt good to have a small idea of what this amazing 14th century Muslim jurist/traveler may have seen. This is not the primary source, which is on the more difficult side to some by in a good English translation, but Dunn does a great job of giving more back story and historical context than Ibn Battuta would have thought to include in the original text. The pan-Islamic world was larger and far more complex than I could have ever imagined and it was a joy to discover the adventurous spirit of Ibn Battuta.

Le Samourai

2009-03-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

So perfect in all it's minimalist/existentialist/60's French cinema greatness! The main character, Jef Costello (played to perfectly detached perfection by Alain Delon who, might I add, is an extremely handsome and alluring man), is a joy to watch as he methodically goes about all that is required of a Parisian/gangster hit man /samurai.

Battle in Seattle

2009-03-23T13:20:00.000-07:00

It was great to watch a film where I knew most every locale, but this ultimately came off as a melodramatic made for TV Sunday afternoon movie. The Seattle WTO Riots are better left as documentary material unless someone like Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, United 93) is at the helm.

Confessions of a Superhero

2009-03-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

This documentary was enlightening to the ways that different people have come to grips with the harsh realities of life. From the less extreme homeless man turned Hulk to the Superman that knows no other reality but Superman. Each person/character shows that being a mere mortal is hard enough without the added weight of being a superhero.

Blindness

2009-03-23T10:47:00.000-07:00

I loved City of God and The Constant Gardener was great on many levels, but director Fernando Meirelles just could not quite pull off Jose Saramago's vision (no pun intended, well, maybe a little) of what Blindness was supposed to be. Yet again, the book is far better than the movie but it was a nice try.

Synecdoche, New York

2009-03-23T10:37:00.001-07:00

Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut is exactly what you would expect from him considering his writing work in the past (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). Yet, this in no way pigeonholes him because he can present such a uniquely bizarre film like this and successfully pull it off too. Casting Philip Seymour Hoffman in the lead works perfectly. You can't help but love him as his life falls apart literally and figuratively. This film is pretty depressing but in the we-all-die-someday-realization sort of depressing, which is more honest I think.

Milk

2009-03-15T20:21:00.001-07:00

I cried...a lot. Every actor in this film was great and I especially loved the ongoing chemistry between Sean Penn and James Franco. The Christian Right made me absolutely furious throughout though.

Dubai

2009-01-28T03:35:00.000-08:00

Iran from a distance.

Gaza

2009-01-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

The film Paradise Now has a line that always seems to put the Isarali/Palestinian War into perspective for me.
One of the would-be bombers is trying to convey the situation to a friend that favors diplomacy over violence...

"A life without dignity is worthless. Especially when it reminds you, day after day, of humiliation and weakness. And the world watches, cowardly, indifferently. If you're all alone, faced with this oppression, you have to find a way to stop the injustice. They (Israel) must understand that if there's no security for us, there'll be none for them, either. It's not about power. Their power doesn't help them. I tried to deliver this message to them, but I couldn't find another way.

Even worse, they've convinced the world, and themselves, that they are the victims. How can that be? How can the occupier be the victim? If they take on the role of oppressor and victim, then I have no other choice but to also be a victim, and a murderer as well."

Man On Wire

2008-12-21T23:27:00.001-08:00

The French consistently remind me of beauty without question. There is no "why?", there is life being lived on the wire though. The walk between the towers altered everyone involved to an astounding degree, far beyond what I would have thought. This film is beautiful.

Encounters At The End Of The World

2008-11-23T19:14:00.001-08:00

The latest film from Werner Herzog, like his many other documentaries, is beautiful in that you begin to see, and ultimately enjoy, the way Herzog views the world. Not to be seen as March of the Penguins 2: Revenge of the Little Tuxedos, this film focuses more on the people one would expect to meet at the South Pole. Each one is very, very unique from the Eastern European philosopher/backhoe driver to the misanthropic penguin expert that tells those who see a penguin heading away from water and into the interior of Antarctica to just "let 'em go".

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crytal Skull

2008-11-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately the Indiana Jones of my youth (the hard-nosed and spry Jones of Raiders of the Lost Ark) has been (see South Park's accurate but obscene take on the most recent Jones film for verb) by George Lucas. Once again, the man who gave us the original Star Wars trilogy only to sour the entire series of films by making tween-friendly prequels has done it again with this film. Right from the outset, this film is loaded with cliches and Jones seems to be only able to spout catchphrases and one-liners. Cate Blanchett does a very unconvincing Russian as her British accent comes through again and again. Harrison Ford's Jones continually reminded me of a senile grandfather that somehow wandered onto the sets of old King Kong films. I felt more sorry for him than anything, like I should talk to him in a soothing voice only to have him yell "What?" as he turned up his hearing aid.

Taxi To The Dark Side

2008-11-13T16:15:00.000-08:00

A terrifying film about the lengths to which a Cold War-raised government will go when it is most afraid. This documentary also reminds us that moral responsibility, so easily attached to superiors during the Nuremberg Trials, is conspicuously absent in today's Abu Garaib's and other atrocities.

Samurai Jack

2008-11-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is a cartoon and, yes, it is about a samurai named Jack that is thrown into the distant future by his arch nemesis the evil Aku to continually battle foes of all shapes and sizes in the hope of getting back to his own time. It is all of these things but it is also really, really good. The pacing and cinematic style just makes you smile and enjoy the ride. The characters are very imginative and they each have a presence all their own. If all of that isn't enough for you, Samurai Jack also won 4 Emmy Awards.

President Barack Obama!

2008-11-04T21:50:00.000-08:00

The first non-white man in the White House and it looks like he is about to heal something too. Amen.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

2008-10-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

For David: It was good. Everyone should watch it.

Mongol

2008-10-20T10:57:00.000-07:00

The first part in Sergei Bodrov's triology about Genghis Khan made me very mad because I want to see all three right now. I only learned later that Bodrov had a very low budget for such a massive epic and that it was a joint effort between Germany, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Russia. The cinematography is incredible and most of it was filmed in Mongolia. Both the young and old actors that play Temujin (Genghis Khan) do a superb job and there is recognizable continuity between the two.

The Visitor

2008-10-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

Thomas McCarthy's second film (his first being "The Station Agent") again delivers a film with characters that are uncomfortably realistic. He excels at finding the perfect actors for these roles that place ordinary people in situations that push them beyond their comfort zone. All the while making the viewer experience it along with them.

Young At Heart

2008-10-15T12:41:00.001-07:00

If you watch the trailer for this film you will most likely feel the beginnings of a good cry when and elderly gentleman does his version of Coldplay's "Fix You". When you watch this film (and you most definitely should) the tears will start flowing as the director introduces more and more of the characters that make up the Young @Heart chorus group and you begin to realize the context in which this song was song.

Please Meet Brielyn

2008-09-10T19:20:00.000-07:00

She reminds me of the folksiness of Gillian Welch, the beauty of Joan Baez, and the poetry of Mary Oliver.

She is a warrior woman that tells me we are trees growing into life and space.

She is able to know all green things that spread out upon the earth and love them.

She sees the world in a way that I can only dream and I am lovingly envious.

She writes words that make me realize that I am in the company of brilliance and is one of the best writers I have encountered.

She changes my life and I love her for that.

We converse about all things holy and divine.

We travel to parks and water to know more fully the grandeur of God.

We are process, we are restoration, we are both beloved.

Miguel de Unamuno

2008-09-04T12:31:00.001-07:00

How could you not love this man?

Fundamentalism

2008-08-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

Fundamentalism is a mind-set. The iconography and language it employs can be either religious or secular or both, but because it dismisses all alternative viewpoints as inferior and unworthy of consideration it is anti-thought. This is part of its attraction. It fills a human desire for self-importance, for hope and the dream of finally attaining paradise. It creates a binary world of absolutes, of good and evil. It provides a comforting emotional certitude. It is used to elevate our culture, social and economic systems above others. It is used to justify imperial hubris, war, intolerance and repression as a regrettable necessity in the march of human progress. The fundamentalist murders, plunders and subjugates in the name of humankind’s most exalted ideals. Those who oppose the fundamentalist are dismissed as savages, condemned as lesser breeds of human beings, miscreants led astray by Satan or on the wrong side of Western civilization. The nation is endowed with power and military prowess, fundamentalists argue, because God or our higher form of civilization makes us superior. It is our right to dominate and rule. The core belief systems of these secular and religious antagonists are identical. They are utopians. They will lead us out of the wilderness to the land of milk and honey.

From "I Don't Believe in Atheists" by Chris Hedges

The Counterfeiters

2008-08-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

For The Bible Tells Me So

2008-08-06T22:21:00.000-07:00

I Want This Life

2008-08-04T10:39:00.000-07:00

Pierre Berès, Tenacious Book Collector, Dies at 95

When the manuscript of Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s “Journey to the End of the Night” turned up for sale in 2001, no one in the world of antiquarian bookselling needed to ask who had discovered this rarity, missing for decades. It could only have been Pierre Berès, the king of French booksellers, friend to Picasso and Éluard, publisher of Barthes and Aragon, a man renowned for his taste and connoisseurship, his vast financial resources and his ruthlessness in the pursuit of the rare and the beautiful. Mr. Berès died on Monday at 95, members of his family announced to the French press on Wednesday.
“We have lost a legendary figure in the world of art, collecting and publishing,” said the French culture minister, Christine Albanel.
Mr. Berès had already staged a memorable exit from the world of books in 2005. Closing the store he had run since the late 1930s on the Avenue Friedland, near the Arc de Triomphe, he put his collection of 12,000 books up for sale. In a series of six sales at Drouet, the auction house, spaced out over two years, records fell as bidders lined up for treasures like the first edition of Rimbaud’s “Season in Hell,” inscribed by the author to Verlaine.
The sale realized more than 35 million euros. Mr. Berès headed off to retirement in his modern villa in St. Tropez, but not before making a final grand gesture. Unexpectedly, he removed from the sale and donated to the French nation an edition of “The Charterhouse of Parma” that included Stendhal’s revisions, undertaken after he read Balzac’s criticisms of the novel’s opening pages.
Mr. Berès excelled at creating a personal mystique. “I do not seek, I find,” he once proclaimed, cryptically, about his uncanny knack for turning up rare editions. His own background, which he deliberately kept vague, only added to his allure. Born in Stockholm in 1913, he bore the surname Berestov, but throughout his life he remained silent about his parents. He grew up on the Left Bank, attended the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand and in his early teens began collecting autographs and haunting the bookstalls of Paris in search of periodicals with authorial inscriptions.
Early on he displayed nerve and charm, two qualities that would carry him far. At 13 he knocked on the door of Georges Clemenceau, the former prime minister of France, presented him with a notebook and asked for his autograph. Captivated, the old man complied, unaware that the supplicant on his doorstep had approached every other member of the French Academy to gather a complete set of autographs.
While still a student, Mr. Berès set up as a dealer, buying new first editions and reselling them later at a small profit. André Gide, who lived a few doors away on the Rue Vaneau, entrusted him with three of his manuscripts to sell.
Precisely how Mr. Berès within a few years parlayed his early sales into a shop of his own, Incidences, on the Rue Lafitte, remains puzzling. A 2004 profile of Mr. Berès in Le Temps states that after being offered some stolen books, he sought out their owner, a down-at-the-heels aristocrat, whose library he then sold, and whose extensive contacts he took full advantage of.
In any case, he navigated the turbulent economic waters of the 1930s with surprising ease, exhibiting a sharklike appetite for opportunities like the distressed state of American millionaires. A quick trip to the United States in 1938 netted the collections of Mortimer Schiff and Cortland F. Bishop.
Mr. Berès returned to France with first editions of Cervantes and a trove of French Renaissance books once owned by François I. He sold a few volumes to cover the costs of his trip and put the rest in storage for several decades, during which time their value increased exponentially. This strategy served him well throughout his career.
Rivals found him unscrupulous. In one celebrated instance he advertised in his own catalog some choice specimens that happened to belong to a competitor. When a client expressed interest, Mr. Berès told him to wait while he fetched the required volumes from his warehouse. Instead he raced to his competitor’s shop, bought the books and resold them.
Such habits died hard. In 1941 he approached the writer Paul Léautaud with a first edition of his novel “Petit Ami,” formerly in the possession of the poet Henri de Régnier. Perhaps the author would now like to inscribe a dedication? Léautaud was appalled. “Write it yourself,” he shouted, slamming the door. Mr. Berès, after entrusting his assistant Lucien Goldschmidt to open a New York branch of his bookstore in 1937, moved to new premises on the Avenue de Friedland in 1939. He survived the war unscathed. The German writer Ernst Jünger, in his wartime Paris journal, described buying several volumes at the Berès bookstore, and not at a discount, either.
It was during this time that Mr. Berès, often accompanied by the writer Raymond Queneau and the photographer Brassaï, would drop by Picasso’s studio. After the war Matisse selected Mr. Berès’s bookstore to exhibit “Jazz,” his collection of prints based on cutouts.
Mr. Berès’s circle of artistic and literary friends broadened after he acquired Éditions Hermann, a publisher of science books, in 1956. Over the years he developed a distinguished catalog of books on mathematics, physics, philosophy and literary criticism, with a stable of writers that included Aragon, Barthes and Queneau. He also branched out into limited-edition art books and began collecting art. On the walls of his house in Paris visitors could admire works by Seurat, Balthus and Matisse.
These were the beginning of the glory years for Mr. Berès; they lasted more than half a century. Combing the death notices of French newspapers with an eye to hidden links that might lead to great finds, he courted the great and the small. He coaxed an annotated Stendhal from Proust’s maid. Wrapped in a red shawl, often with a Siamese cat perched on one shoulder, he would turn up at magnificent chateaus, talk his way inside and emerge with treasure.
Competitors referred to him, enviously, as a “seduction machine.” Women found him to be one. He married three times and fathered eight children, of whom seven survive: Pervenche, Anémone, Angélique, Platane, Achille, Jacques and Anne-Isabelle Montanari.
He never took on a business partner, routinely outbid rivals for choice merchandise, showed no deference to grand clients and in general operated as if he were the sun in his own solar system.
At the same time, his bookstore was much more open and welcoming than the typical French antiquarian business, in which only selected clients get to see the top-quality books hidden in a back room or upstairs.
“He cut his own swath,” said William Wyler, a partner in Ursus Books and Prints in Manhattan. “He just bought great books, and if he liked you, he sold them to you.”
Over the years Mr. Berès’s collection included a 1670 edition of Pascal’s “Pensées,” a 20-volume edition of Balzac’s “Comédie Humaine” inscribed “to my dear mother from her devoted son Honoré,” and a first edition of “Madame Bovary” sent to Alexandre Dumas by the author with a note, “The homage of an unknown, Gve Flaubert.”
As he acquired, he also gave. He donated the archives of Pierre and Paul Curie to the Bibliothèque Nationale, and after giving the archives of the composer Paul Dukas to the library in 1959, he was awarded the Legion of Honor.
On the other hand, the library had to organize a subscription campaign in 2000 to buy, for what Mr. Berès called “a friendly price,” the nine-volume manuscript of Charteaubriand’s “Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe.”
A year later the library paid 1.8 million euros for the mysterious Céline manuscript. When asked how the manuscript came to him, Mr. Berès answered, “Through the door.”
Summing up Mr. Berès, Mr. Wyler said, “An exceptional mind, exceptional taste, exceptional connoisseurship.”
Mr. Berès’s farewell auction offered countless examples of that taste, like his first edition of “Les Paradis Artificiels.” It was Baudelaire’s own copy, with the author’s notes in the margin.
“This was precisely the sort of thing that Pierre Berès would have,” said John Bidwell, the Astor curator of printed books at the Morgan Library & Museum. “The most desirable copy of an important book.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918-2008

2008-08-04T09:06:00.001-07:00

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died yesterday at the age of 89. He made the world aware of the Soviet Gulag system through novels like "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and the massive "Gulag Archipelago".

"Literature that is not the breath of contemporary society, that dares not transmit the pains and fears of that society, that does not warn in time against threatening moral and social dangers — such literature does not deserve the name of literature; it is only a façade. Such literature loses the confidence of its own people, and its published works are used as wastepaper instead of being read."

"One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to."

The Dark Knight

2008-07-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

This felt like a few stories attempting to be blended together and I don't think it ultimately worked. I really enjoyed the film primarily because of this man, the late Heath Ledger. I was disappointed by the rather cursory treatment of Harvey "Two-Face" Dent. The transformation could have been given a film unto itself but instead it felt like a sideshow to the Joker story. I found myself being actually angry and sad at the end of the film because I knew that this incarnation of the Joker will never be seen again. He was the perfect adversary to what the mythology of Batman has produced over the many years. This Joker will have a prominent place in the Batman story and Heath Ledger will be remembered for another method-driven acting performance.

Films

2008-07-17T21:10:00.000-07:00

These should be seen immediately and yes, I did include "Iron Man" because not everything I enjoy is pretentious or elitist. Though it appears that way.

Finally!

2008-06-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

I'm done with college. (and there was much rejoicing)

Done

2008-06-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well almost. I finished my last college paper tonight and my last assignment for my theology major. It feels strange and it has yet to completely sink in. Perhaps graduation will remedy this but I doubt it. I am going to miss the School of Theology but this just gives me the motivation to get an M.Div and Ph.D. so that I can eventually become one of them.

The End of the Day

2008-06-01T01:09:00.001-07:00

A perfect poem to read after drinking wine with friends at the close of the night.

The End of the Day

Under a sallow light
Runs insolent, shrieking Life,
Dancing and twisting capriciously.
Then, as soon as sensual night

Climbs the horizon
Hushing all, even hunger,
Effacng all, even shame,
The Poet says to himself: "At last

My spirit like my bones
Pleads dearly for repose;
My heart is full of melancholy dreams,

And I go and lie on my back
Coiling myself in your curtains,
O restoring darkness!"

Charles Baudelaire

Compline

2008-05-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

Atonement

2008-05-25T00:25:00.000-07:00

It seems as though the world figured I needed a good cry.

Once

2008-05-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

Before I saw Damien Rice a few years back I wanted to find out who this band, called The Frames, was that was opening for him. Damien said that The Frames were one of two bands that he felt put on the very best live shows he had seen. The other band was Radiohead.

Glen Hansard, the lead singer of the Frames, brings all of that passionate intensity to his character of the Guy in this film. There are those buskers (street musicians) that find a way to make you uncomfortable, even embarrassed for them when they sing in public. Hansard made me uncomfortable when he wasn't singing. This was a man born simply to sing and make music. He is a pleasure to watch and the Girl (Marketa Irglova) conveys a subtle, strong beauty.

This was a delicate and lovely film.

The Roots

2008-05-17T22:13:00.000-07:00

Michael Clayton

2008-05-17T22:10:00.000-07:00

Go see it now.

Very Interesting

2008-05-14T09:54:00.000-07:00

I just read this the other day in Newsweek.

McSweeney's (courtesy of Maryann Shaw)

2008-04-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

FIRST DRAFTS OF THE PARABLES OF JESUS.
BY A.J. PACKMAN
- - - -
Jesus said, "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."
One of the disciples asked, "What of the man who builds his house inside the house built on the rock? Surely his house will be even less damaged by water and wind. Is this what we should do?"
And Jesus said, "No, don't do that."
- - - -
At that time a man said unto Jesus, "Jesus! I do not understand the nature of the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus said, "The Father's kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them went astray. He left the 99 and looked for the one until he found it. When it was found, he said to the sheep, 'That you went astray is a clear sign that you misunderstand my instructions. You are nothing to me.' And then the shepherd turned the lost sheep into a pillar of salt, because the shepherd is God in this parable, and that's the sort of thing He does when people fail to understand His Word."
"Wait, what?" said the man,
And the man became a pillar of salt.
- - - -
Then Jesus said to them, "Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him. Then the one inside answers, 'OK, just gimme a minute,' and he goes to one of his friends, and says, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, because a friend of a friend of mine on a journey has come to the friend who's my friend, and that friend has nothing to set before his friend.'"
One of the disciples said, "Wait, doesn't the original person's friend need three loaves of bread because a friend of his friend who's on a journey has come to the friend of the original person's friend, and that friend has nothing to set before his first friend? Or is that what you just said?"
"It doesn't matter," said Jesus. "The point is that God can get you free bread."
- - - -
"But what do you think about this?" asked Jesus. "A man with two sons told the older boy, 'Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.' The son answered, 'No, I won't go,' but later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, 'You go,' and he said, 'Yes, sir, I will.' But he didn't go. Which of the two was obeying his father?"
"The first!" cried some of the disciples.
"The second!" cried the rest of the disciples.
And Jesus said, "Wait, I messed this one up. Did I mention that when the first son went to work in the vineyard he killed somebody? Because that's important. So, yeah, which of the two was obeying his father?"
"Uh ... the first?" said some of the disciples.
"The second! The second!" cried the rest of the disciples.
And Jesus said, "Oh, cripes, also the father only has one arm. And he is riding a horse the whole time. Was that clear?"
One of the disciples said, "Are you sure that's not 'The Parable of the One-Armed Father Who Rode on a Horse'?"
And Jesus said, "Maybe you're right. OK, let's change the question: Which of the two sons was the tallest?"
The disciples were silent.
Jesus shook his head in dismay. "Have I taught you nothing?"

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

2008-04-06T18:27:00.000-07:00

In the same vein as "There Will Be Blood" with a smattering of Terrence Malick, this second (!) film from Australian director Andrew Dominik was deeply haunting (I'm thinking that I've used that adjective before but I don't really care). Casey Affleck is so very disturbing and awkward that it is at times uncomfortable to be in the same room as him. The typical (12 Monkeys, Fight Club, Se7en) Brad Pitt that, when he is acting well, comes off as entertainingly unsettled is a far more subtle character here. He is a Jesse James that is hounded by mistrust and appears so disconnected from every human being in his life. A soundtrack from Nick Cave creates tension and beauty which, I believe, culminates on the day of the assassination. A beautiful film that deserves a place alongside Unforgiven and The Proposition.

There Will Be Blood

2008-01-10T22:47:00.000-08:00

I figured out that I have watched over 1000 films in my life so far.

This one may be the best I have seen.

2007-12-29T22:06:00.000-08:00

I became obsessed with this Gipsy Kings album while spending a summer in Seattle 4 years before actually moving here. I spent my days listening to this album nonstop and reading Marquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude" on the green slopes of the Ballard Locks. "Montana" and "Trista Pena" still get me to this day.

The other album is also interesting because, though I know the story behind Christopher McCandless' ultimately tragic exploration of human freedom, I have never read the book or seen the film that this soundtrack comes from. I was able to listen to all of it in one sitting while driving back from my parents in the rain and darkness along Lake Washington. I can say that it made me visibly uncomfortable traveling in the complete opposite direction of McCandless (back into the city) and the music made me want to drive towards rainy wooded mountains far far away. Maybe I shouldn't see the film.

2007-12-29T21:59:00.000-08:00

I never thought that I could care so much about a coming of age story centered around the turbulent life of a thirteen year old Chinese kid whose overbearing mother runs his life very much like the motel that they own. A great film along the same jarringly realistic depictions of life found in "Me and You and Everyone We Know".

Joyeux Noel

2007-12-22T20:58:00.000-08:00

There is a point in this "Christmas movie" when a german soldier singing "Stille Nacht" is accompanied by a scottish bagpiper from across no man's land. My heart was filled with joy and I wept out of happiness and sadness.

Idiocracy

2007-12-22T20:52:00.000-08:00

This film is hilarious and scary. Hilarious because it is a Mike Judge film. Scary because it is actually coming true in some parts of America.

Death Proof and Planet Terror

2007-12-22T20:32:00.000-08:00

I have been a fan of Rodriguez and Tarantino's films for some time now and these two grindhouse flicks are superb as homage's to the old slasher/zombie movies. They are extremely violent and gory but in a way so dissimilar to current Hostel-like movies. The violence and blood is almost comical in its presentation and I am left wondering if this is good or bad.

Both flicks adhere to the Rodriguez/Tarantino standard of incredible dialogue and very strong female characters.

Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher

2007-12-22T20:20:00.001-08:00

I was amazed at the connection between this 60's era Jesus freak preacher and two prominent churches today. It is a sad story about a time in America when experimentation moved between all facets of life. How people were to make sense of all they discovered during this time led to some being ostracized and others denying their own histories.

Days of Glory

2007-12-22T20:12:00.001-08:00

I'm watching more films during this Christmas break than any other time before and I've been meaning to watch this one for some time now.

Promoted as the French "Saving Private Ryan", it is ultimately an indictment of the French government and the prevalence of racism no matter what the context.

To End All Wars

2007-12-09T16:06:00.001-08:00

I just finished this film so I might still be a bit moved from the emotions that it brought up. Though I am a theology student I cannot stand "Christian" films. I find them over-preachy and just generally bad films. I do not think this film is placed in that genre but there certainly is a message of forgiveness stemming from Christian protagonists. One of the great things about the way this film brought forward the Christian message was in conjunction with other forms of education. The prisoners studied Plato's Republic (probably one of the best books to have in that situation), music and Shakespeare.

I highly recommend this film for a more personal account of those POW's that were forced to build The Bridge on the River Kwai.

And yet...

2007-12-03T18:30:00.001-08:00

And yet I do nothing about it.

Wow

2007-10-16T09:01:00.000-07:00

I forgot that I had a blog.

After Innocence

2007-09-13T18:53:00.000-07:00

This film will pretty much make you lose what hopefully was a little bit of faith you had in the U.S. Justice System. The experiences of the men in this film are almost impossible to imagine, especially the guy who spent almost 22 years in solitary confinement and was not allowed to talk for the first two years of his wrongful incarceration.

The Lives Of Others

2007-09-12T22:51:00.000-07:00

I have watched a film that has changed the way in which I viewed the progression from just living to actual life. It is beautifully shot with colors where life is being experienced and as drained as a corpse where the mundane and pragmatic reign. I was moved to tears of joy at the end and felt the increase of beauty in my own life.

Candles

2007-09-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

If on your grandmother's birthday you burn a candle
To honor her memory, you might think of burning an extra
To honor the memory of someone who never met her,
A man who may have come to the town she lived in
Looking for work and never found it.
Picture him taking a stroll one morning,
After a month of grief with the want ads,
To refresh himself in the park before moving on.
Suppose he notices on the gravel path the shards
Of a green glass bottle that your grandmother,
Then still a girl, will be destined to step on
When she wanders barefoot away from her school picnic
If he doesn't stoop down and scoop the mess up
With the want-ad section and carry it to a trash can.
For you to burn a candle for him
You needn't suppose the cut would be a deep one,
Just deep enough to keep her at home
The night of the hay ride when she meets Helen,
Who is soon to become her dearest friend,
Whose brother George, thirty years later,
Helps your grandfather with a loan so his shoe store
Doesn't go under in the Great Depression
And his son, your father, is able to stay in school
Where his love of learning is fanned into flames,
A love he labors, later, to kindle in you.
How grateful you are for your father's efforts
Is shown by the candles you've burned for him.
But today, for a change, why not a candle
For the man whose name is unknown to you?
Take a moment to wonder whether he died at home
With friends and family or alone on the road,
On the look-out for no one to sit at his bedside
And hold his hand, the very hand
It's time for you to imagine holding.

Carl Dennis

Semi-Coherent Reflections After Reading Some Moltmann

2007-08-31T20:01:00.000-07:00

After reading some of the guy on the left this afternoon, I had a flurry of random questions and musings: Does a Trinitarian God have to be metaphysically necessary? Taking the Kripkian approach, am I able to imagine a world in which "God" was not Trinity? I think this is entirely possible. Is "Trinity" an attribute?
When we talk about God it is usually spoken of in terms of singular omni-attributes but how often do we say "Trinitarian God"? Some claim that Jesus is God, even in this sense are we able to coherently say that Jesus is God and God is Jesus? Or what about the Holy Spirit? Each time we seem to be referring back to this "God" who has attributes but what are the essential characteristics of God? These may be more in line with the God of the philosophers.
It appears that the Ontological Argument is rearing its head in a very different way than intended; it makes us realize what essential qualities this "God" possesses. After this I'm left wondering what sorts of arguments can be made in favor of a metaphysically necessary Trinitarian God?

No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War by Hiroo Onoda

2007-08-31T12:06:00.001-07:00

So I randomly picked up a book about this Japanese soldier that never surrendered after WWII ended (the first photo was taken a few days after he surrendered in 1974!). He was trained as an intelligence officer and was ordered to stay on Lubang Island in the Philippines no matter what. The book itself is very short (I read it in an afternoon) and is a very fast, good read.

It is an incredible story about a man's loyalty amidst jungle warfare with locals, maintaining his own health as well the health of the two men that stayed with him (the other photo is actually him now living in Japan) and an unwavering intellectual commitment to never surrender in the face of what he thought were continual efforts by the Allies to trick him out of the jungle.

Dark Night Of The Soul

2007-08-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

St John of the Cross

Power

2007-08-15T10:08:00.001-07:00

I Love The Onion

2007-08-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

Churchgoer Tips God For Excellent Week

CHARLESTON, SC—Churchgoer Brad Thaden, 48, reportedly tipped God a little something extra Sunday, claiming that the Almighty had done a...

I Love NPR

2007-08-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

The only reason I listen to the radio is doing a story on young religious leaders.

Selecting A Reader

2007-08-10T13:36:00.000-07:00

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned."
And she will.

Ted Kooser

from I Speak of the City

2007-08-10T13:17:00.000-07:00

I speak of summer and of the arrested night that grows on the horizon like a mountain of smoke and bit by bit crumbles and falls on us like a wave,
the elements are reconciled and the night has spread out, its body is a powerful river of sudden sleep, we rock in the waves of its breathing,
the hour is tangible, we can touch it like a fruit,
they have lit the lights and the avenues burn with the blaze of desire, in the parks the electric light pierces through the leaves and falls on us in a green and phosphorescent mist that lights us without dampness,
the trees murmur,
they're telling us something,
there are streets in the shadows that are a smiling insinuation,
we don't know where they go, maybe to the ferry to the lost islands ...
I speak of the long-awaited encounter with that unexpected form, in which the unknown is made flesh,
and revealed to each of us:eyes that are the half-open night and the waking day,
the sea that spreads out and the speaking flame, bold breasts, lunar tide,lips that say sesame and time opens up and the little room becomes a garden of transformation and air and fire bond, earth and water mingle,

Octavio Paz

Kindness

2007-08-08T10:34:00.000-07:00

As this West Bank settler is being carried off, his glasses were retreived by one of the Israeli riot police officers.

What Goes On At A Library

2007-08-07T14:09:00.000-07:00

Me: I found two books that aren't in our system; Melody is going to love me!

My Boss: Or she'll just hate you less.

Miguel de Unamuno

2007-08-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

"My religion is to seek for truth in life and for life in truth, even knowing that I shall not find them while I live."

How hard (or easy) would it be to actually try and live like this? The battle between faith and reason ebbs and flows in such a way through my life that it is perhaps the most "consistent" aspect of my personhood. Liturgy, poetry, art, sunsets: these are things that leave little room to question the divine, but then cogs of my mind begin to turn...

Ingmar Bergman July 14, 1918 – July 30, 2007

2007-07-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

Freaking Amazing Podcasts!

2007-07-24T15:51:00.000-07:00

Pretty much all I've been doing at the library is listening to various NPR podcasts and readings of primary philosophy texts. The philosophy may not be all that interesting to most but I can guaruntee that Radio Lab is very accessible. (Be sure and check out the other seasons too)
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/

There are also some pretty interesting stories on This American Life:
http://www.thislife.org/

Humor and Religion

2007-07-20T10:34:00.000-07:00

Something Worth Thinking About

2007-07-12T17:37:00.001-07:00

Telling people that God disapproves of their deepest needs for love and companionship, and that they must forgo that “sin” in order to be right with God, is an act of emotional and spiritual violence. -Dan Savage

To Episcopal Or Not To Episcopal

2007-07-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

So I'm going to be starting confirmation classes before I take the "plunge" into real organized religion. For the longest time now I've been a part of the non-denominational denomination or I've been just plain agnostic, but now I'm a little apprehensive about signing on to something that has structure. I'm not entirely sure what there is to be afraid of, it's not like after confirmation I won't be allowed to disagree with anything religious anymore. This will be an interesting experience and I will try to keep track of my thoughts through this process.

This Is Why I Love Philosophy

2007-07-02T17:26:00.001-07:00

My two greatest passions (and Monty Python) together for your viewing and intellectual pleasure.

Alright Already!

2007-06-29T17:44:00.001-07:00

So I'm thinking that I may have procrastinated enough and that this blog should get off the ground with some sort of vision statement/manifesto...but I don't really feel like it right now.

I'm all man!

2007-06-27T22:42:00.001-07:00

The Stranger's awesome church report

2007-06-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

Here's the link for ya'll.