Saturday, January 9, 2010
I Like Space.
It might be my main neurosis. Tell me a story. I might like it or I might not. Tell me the same story but set it on a spaceship and I will like it at least 30% better. I do not know why this is. My imagination, from a very very young age, has always been captured by the expansiveness and possibility implied by the sheer infinity of the universe.
When I was in elementary school, I wrote a comic series called "Space Brat" about a kid who flew a space fighter and fought evil robots led by a robot named Rusty. I produced issues continuously for about four years before quitting, constantly promising my readership that I would one day produce a Space Brat film. That film never came (although I started it at least three times, and once tried to start shooting it) but it was read by most of the kids in my classes through those years, and had its share of loyal readers.
Anyways, the following is a terrible, overlong, overly sentimental scene from Star Trek: The Motion Picture that I happen to absolutely love.
When I was in elementary school, I wrote a comic series called "Space Brat" about a kid who flew a space fighter and fought evil robots led by a robot named Rusty. I produced issues continuously for about four years before quitting, constantly promising my readership that I would one day produce a Space Brat film. That film never came (although I started it at least three times, and once tried to start shooting it) but it was read by most of the kids in my classes through those years, and had its share of loyal readers.
Anyways, the following is a terrible, overlong, overly sentimental scene from Star Trek: The Motion Picture that I happen to absolutely love.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
I Like Orchestras.
Sometimes I get these headaches where the only thing that will cure them is either classical music or particularly masterful film/tv soundtracks.
Orchestra was a misleading title. Not all of this is orchestral. In fact, stylistically there's very little that binds this categorization together in my head beyond simple beauty and a lack of reliance on lyrical songwriting.
Some favorites (please disregard any dislike or disdain for the sources and just give peas a chance):
A classic, just don't argue with it.
Simply put, this may be the most romantic song I have ever heard. Is it a bit gushy? Are the strings a bit syrupy and overindulgent? Yes. But I am a hopeless romantic at heart and I am sorry you'll just have to deal with it. Also, since I often put things to movies in my head and this is inexorably tied to my childhood as a trekkie and general dreamer about the stars, for me the romance here is not between two people (even though it is the film's love theme) but my romance with an exploration of the stars. This is what space sounds like to me folks, as unrealistic and as much denial of it's emptiness and coldness and harshness as that implies.
Chills. This whole soundtrack is amazing, but I rarely listen to any of the other tracks on it to quell that headache, because they put me less at rest rather than more. Which is great—a lot of the best art tips its audience out of their place of ease rather than keeping them in it, but the need, the urge I'm talking about in this here article is the one for things that settle me.
Because there's no way I could not include things from this soundtrack, and the variations on the "Shape of Things to Come" theme are always highlights for me.
Starts off admittedly really derivative of "Moonlight Sonata" and then blows my mind around 1:38
Oh lord the string arpeggios take me to heaven.
Creepy as hell and I love it.
Listen to all of these in headphones.
Orchestra was a misleading title. Not all of this is orchestral. In fact, stylistically there's very little that binds this categorization together in my head beyond simple beauty and a lack of reliance on lyrical songwriting.
Some favorites (please disregard any dislike or disdain for the sources and just give peas a chance):
A classic, just don't argue with it.
Simply put, this may be the most romantic song I have ever heard. Is it a bit gushy? Are the strings a bit syrupy and overindulgent? Yes. But I am a hopeless romantic at heart and I am sorry you'll just have to deal with it. Also, since I often put things to movies in my head and this is inexorably tied to my childhood as a trekkie and general dreamer about the stars, for me the romance here is not between two people (even though it is the film's love theme) but my romance with an exploration of the stars. This is what space sounds like to me folks, as unrealistic and as much denial of it's emptiness and coldness and harshness as that implies.
Chills. This whole soundtrack is amazing, but I rarely listen to any of the other tracks on it to quell that headache, because they put me less at rest rather than more. Which is great—a lot of the best art tips its audience out of their place of ease rather than keeping them in it, but the need, the urge I'm talking about in this here article is the one for things that settle me.
Because there's no way I could not include things from this soundtrack, and the variations on the "Shape of Things to Come" theme are always highlights for me.
Starts off admittedly really derivative of "Moonlight Sonata" and then blows my mind around 1:38
Oh lord the string arpeggios take me to heaven.
Creepy as hell and I love it.
Listen to all of these in headphones.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
I Like Bicycles.
...because they are so much more free than any alternative.
Cars feel so tethered down to the system, to expectations, to the cold pragmatism of the systems that are. I expect to go someplace in a car, because that is how you go someplace. Cars are for commutes, cars are symbols of success.
It seems that the alternative, then, should be walking, but walking isn't free either. Walking is nice for recreation, but it is slow, it is impractical, it will never get us where we need to be, only allow us to navigate that place once we've arrived.
You can see, then, why bikes are necessary. Bikes are the third option that make life possible. They are slower than cars, forcing us to pace our life, slow down and breathe. At the same time they are mobile, they can get us where we need to be in a way that cars cannot. I want one like this one:
Cars feel so tethered down to the system, to expectations, to the cold pragmatism of the systems that are. I expect to go someplace in a car, because that is how you go someplace. Cars are for commutes, cars are symbols of success.
It seems that the alternative, then, should be walking, but walking isn't free either. Walking is nice for recreation, but it is slow, it is impractical, it will never get us where we need to be, only allow us to navigate that place once we've arrived.
You can see, then, why bikes are necessary. Bikes are the third option that make life possible. They are slower than cars, forcing us to pace our life, slow down and breathe. At the same time they are mobile, they can get us where we need to be in a way that cars cannot. I want one like this one:
Monday, January 4, 2010
I Like This Conversation.
Sean
i read that as the beginning of a story
like
one day, in the us...
12:06amKristin
ohhh
one day in the us
there was a loudmouth man named rush limbaugh
12:06amSean
hahaha
12:06amKristin
and he yelled so much he gave himself a heart attack
but he's fine now
and according to him
so is the healthcare system the way it is
the end
12:07amSean
:)
12:08amKristin
your turn
12:09amSean
one day in america
there was a man named richard cheney
12:09amKristin
oh god
12:09amSean
and he was the vice president until he shot someone while hunting
and then he was still the vice president
the end
Sunday, January 3, 2010
I Like Funerals.
I don't know why. I've given a lot of reasons over the years when people discover this odd fact about me, and non of them are entirely satisfactory. I have a clear feeling about funerals, but I'm not sure what underlying beliefs and assumptions have created them.
Funerals feel complete, they feel hopeful, they feel forward-looking. Funerals often feel sad, but they feel sad in the way that high school graduation feels sad, knowing that you will never see these same people again, but with a look to the future at their center that creates a clear sense that that sadness is not the end of the story.
Not that I like graduations. They're boring.
I do have some working theories and ideas about my underlying assumptions. They are far from authoritative, but may perhaps be helpful:
1. A disclaimer: my appreciation for funerals does not have to do with some sentiment connected to "going someplace better." I'm fairly sure that I do not believe in the common concept of heaven, as it seems too disembodied to make sense as a reading of Jesus' words about His house and its many rooms. I may affirm a literal resurrection of the dead, a physical restoration of this earth to what it was always supposed to be as a culmination of the here-and-coming-and-not-yet kingdom, but I have to be honest about my uncertainty here and therefore its lack of play in my feelings of looking-ahead and reassurance. I'm not saying that a resurrection offers no reassurance or denying that my lack of certainty may rob my understanding to an extent. It would simply be a mistake to claim that this is behind my particular feelings on the matter.
2. I think that grieving, as a process, is an important part of communal life, particularly the life of something that could be be called the Church. Alexander Schmemann's wonderful book For the Life of the World has a chapter that deals with time as a part of the life of the Church, how living a life marked in time and having that time redeemed and given significance is core to how Jesus enters into the life of the world and offers to make it whole. Funerals and time given for grieving gives embodied existence and significance to the passing of a loved one, acknowledging their importance in the life of the community. As such, I have noticed that the funerals I most appreciate are those that are not a single moment, but mark the beginning or ending of a period of grieving. I don't like funerals where the person is put in the ground as quickly as possible. I like funerals that happen a week or weeks later, where the family and community has been in process for a while and this act marks the beginning of moving forward to a new stage of grief, the beginning of the world turning once more. The grieving process perhaps never fully ends, but it cannot be brushed aside and not given its time before it must come back alongside the revolving door of daily life. This time take apart from daily life to grieve is truly sacramental, as surely a marker of the inbreaking of God in the passage of time as feast, Eucharist, or anything else.
3. Perhaps I feel that funerals, as such an inbreaking, point toward this ongoing, shared, life by pointing first backwards on a single life in the community, reminding us of what God has done in that life and of the hope, love, and promise made manifest in that life. Perhaps that remembrance is part of the inbreaking that points backwards over what God has done.
4. Perhaps I also feel that remembrance points inevitably forward, to the promise of future life that is similarly interconnected, similarly touched by and reaching out with love. It is in this life that we have been given, this life of a person who is no longer with us, that we find the promise of life that can hold just as much significance, the promise of future meals shared, future hopes and dreams, future loves and joys.
5. In the spirit of kairos, this divine time that breaks into and redeems our own, the future and remembered elements of the sacrament of the dead stems from and points back to a present, a recognition of there we are, at the loss of a great life, in mourning and grief. This mourning and grief is intermixed with joy at the remembrance and the promise but is no less potent for it. Indeed, it is this joy at what was had and what will be had that makes the loss so great. Joy is not the opposite of mourning- it is the sugar which ferments in the bitter wine of grief to create its potency.
Perhaps this is why I like funerals. For some reason it is the experience within which I can most plainly see kairos. It is the experience in which I most fully understand the reality of sacrament.
Have good funerals people. Don't cut them short, don't try to just move past grief as if it never happened, don't miss the joy of past and future even if ignoring it may numb you to the screaming lament of the present. And thank Jeremiah Catling for reminding me of all of this.
For the record, I didn't know I was going to write all of this when I started. I wouldn't go so far as to say I figured out all of why I like funerals, but my view is less hazy than it was.
Funerals feel complete, they feel hopeful, they feel forward-looking. Funerals often feel sad, but they feel sad in the way that high school graduation feels sad, knowing that you will never see these same people again, but with a look to the future at their center that creates a clear sense that that sadness is not the end of the story.
Not that I like graduations. They're boring.
I do have some working theories and ideas about my underlying assumptions. They are far from authoritative, but may perhaps be helpful:
1. A disclaimer: my appreciation for funerals does not have to do with some sentiment connected to "going someplace better." I'm fairly sure that I do not believe in the common concept of heaven, as it seems too disembodied to make sense as a reading of Jesus' words about His house and its many rooms. I may affirm a literal resurrection of the dead, a physical restoration of this earth to what it was always supposed to be as a culmination of the here-and-coming-and-not-yet kingdom, but I have to be honest about my uncertainty here and therefore its lack of play in my feelings of looking-ahead and reassurance. I'm not saying that a resurrection offers no reassurance or denying that my lack of certainty may rob my understanding to an extent. It would simply be a mistake to claim that this is behind my particular feelings on the matter.
2. I think that grieving, as a process, is an important part of communal life, particularly the life of something that could be be called the Church. Alexander Schmemann's wonderful book For the Life of the World has a chapter that deals with time as a part of the life of the Church, how living a life marked in time and having that time redeemed and given significance is core to how Jesus enters into the life of the world and offers to make it whole. Funerals and time given for grieving gives embodied existence and significance to the passing of a loved one, acknowledging their importance in the life of the community. As such, I have noticed that the funerals I most appreciate are those that are not a single moment, but mark the beginning or ending of a period of grieving. I don't like funerals where the person is put in the ground as quickly as possible. I like funerals that happen a week or weeks later, where the family and community has been in process for a while and this act marks the beginning of moving forward to a new stage of grief, the beginning of the world turning once more. The grieving process perhaps never fully ends, but it cannot be brushed aside and not given its time before it must come back alongside the revolving door of daily life. This time take apart from daily life to grieve is truly sacramental, as surely a marker of the inbreaking of God in the passage of time as feast, Eucharist, or anything else.
3. Perhaps I feel that funerals, as such an inbreaking, point toward this ongoing, shared, life by pointing first backwards on a single life in the community, reminding us of what God has done in that life and of the hope, love, and promise made manifest in that life. Perhaps that remembrance is part of the inbreaking that points backwards over what God has done.
4. Perhaps I also feel that remembrance points inevitably forward, to the promise of future life that is similarly interconnected, similarly touched by and reaching out with love. It is in this life that we have been given, this life of a person who is no longer with us, that we find the promise of life that can hold just as much significance, the promise of future meals shared, future hopes and dreams, future loves and joys.
5. In the spirit of kairos, this divine time that breaks into and redeems our own, the future and remembered elements of the sacrament of the dead stems from and points back to a present, a recognition of there we are, at the loss of a great life, in mourning and grief. This mourning and grief is intermixed with joy at the remembrance and the promise but is no less potent for it. Indeed, it is this joy at what was had and what will be had that makes the loss so great. Joy is not the opposite of mourning- it is the sugar which ferments in the bitter wine of grief to create its potency.
Perhaps this is why I like funerals. For some reason it is the experience within which I can most plainly see kairos. It is the experience in which I most fully understand the reality of sacrament.
Have good funerals people. Don't cut them short, don't try to just move past grief as if it never happened, don't miss the joy of past and future even if ignoring it may numb you to the screaming lament of the present. And thank Jeremiah Catling for reminding me of all of this.
For the record, I didn't know I was going to write all of this when I started. I wouldn't go so far as to say I figured out all of why I like funerals, but my view is less hazy than it was.
I Like Renewal.
Because I keep starting blogs and giving them up and starting them and giving them up because their scopes are too narrow and I'm too lazy. This blog will center on the theme of things I like. Because I think that if I could pick something that I hope defines me, then it would be my ability to allow hope and joy to win out in the face of my equal proclivity to point out everything that I see that is wrong. And cynicism cannot win. In the end, I remain convinced that this world is full of beauty and I remain thankful to the God who remains my only way of seeing this.
If you ever need to get back to the old one:
http://seanhappened.blogspot.com/
Also, as is customary, I will begin by posting something that I like that has come to start off most of my blogs:
Toaster! Hate Him!
A soft, glaring light
The refrigerator hums anarchy
and calls the other appliances to rebellion.
"Lies!" I say to the Toaster
your facade may be White
but your heart is as Black as mine. (or the coffeemaker's)
"Of course," it replies.
"If I follow the refrigerator I will surely die.
For his way is bleak and cold
and preserves the old,
but still I cannot help you.
For you are a harsh master,
it is 4 AM,
and if your toaster speaks to you, it is time for bed."
If you ever need to get back to the old one:
http://seanhappened.blogspot.com/
Also, as is customary, I will begin by posting something that I like that has come to start off most of my blogs:
Toaster! Hate Him!
A soft, glaring light
The refrigerator hums anarchy
and calls the other appliances to rebellion.
"Lies!" I say to the Toaster
your facade may be White
but your heart is as Black as mine. (or the coffeemaker's)
"Of course," it replies.
"If I follow the refrigerator I will surely die.
For his way is bleak and cold
and preserves the old,
but still I cannot help you.
For you are a harsh master,
it is 4 AM,
and if your toaster speaks to you, it is time for bed."
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