The 1950s

I am currently reading a book called "Scrubs on Skates" by Scott Young, published in 1952. I think this book is great for a few reasons I will here list.

-the illustrations involve straight-shouldered, tall, pristine hair-cut-ed boys who actually look like men
-the author's note explains how there are differences between the Canadian and American hockey rules (assumedly because the author follows the Canadian ones and some of his readership might follow the American)
-I found this book while researching for a music history class (E.T.A. Hoffman was both a musician/musical critic and an author)
-the language (reminiscent of American Graffiti where Ron Howard's character's big dis to the principal was, "Go kiss a duck!") is absurdly tame and makes me laugh (from our perspective, people in the 1950s seemed a bit repressed)

Here is the line that promped me to write about this book which is actually quite engaging and I have difficulty putting down:

"But Wong and Kryschuk, they were quiet kids, wouldn't say boo to a goose. . . ." (153; Little, Brown and Company, Boston)


I have endless appreciation for the 1950s (and '40s, '30s, etc. but '50s especially) because people had a good sense of propriety. I realize that there was much oppression for women and - in this country - non-Caucasian people in more subtle yet pervasive ways but, on the whole, I appreciate that people still had taste and modesty in terms of how they conducted themselves. I cannot complain that I am a victim of my society and I cannot claim that I am as wholesome as my mid-century predessors were.

Groundhog Day 2006

I cannot seem to locate the piece of paper on which I wrote a quotation from Tuesday night's Colbert Report, but it went something like this: "Are you the Jewish crouton on top?" It was hilarious in context but I think it works just fine without.

Last night (Wednesday), Colbert talked with Emily Yoffe of http://www.slate.com/ and he mocked her in a merciless manner, much like he does with most of his guests. When he introduced her, he said she worked for "Slate" and she corrected him by adding the "dot-com" part. He insisted, "So are you saying that if I go to a newstand to look for Slate..." and she interrupted with, "You won't find it there. It's on the Internet." After a beat, Colbert asks in the most serious & deliberate way, "When did Slate go out of business?" (ha ha ha)
Before he had actually introduced her, he opened his lunchbox (the workman's version, metal and all) and pulled out a 500mL carton of milk. [I think this entire episode was dedicated to the working man. He even pointed out his blue collar.] In a vague effort to explain his actions he said, "I hope you don't mind: I'm on my break." Ahh, so insulting, I love it. He struggled with the carton for a while, unable to open it and so he passes it to Yoffe who does the trick in about 5 seconds. He takes a drink and makes a big deal about how lovely it is. Then he declares, "Nothing is more refreshing after thirty minutes of talking than a dairy product."


Last week, Colbert's main guest was Nina Totenberg (a National Public Radio correspondent) and I have a few quotations from his conversation with her but I do not remember the context for any of them. [Before I share those, I must let you know that Colbert does not like bears and he says they are a threat to America.]
(1) "Sharing is caring. [beat] It's true because it rhymes."
(2) Colbert: I'm not a fan of men with beards.
Totenberg: You've never had a beard?
Colbert: I get kinda patchy. It comes in here [pointing to sideburns] then thins out [tracing jawline] and ends up all right here [indicating very central chin]. It has a sort of billy goat effect.
Totenberg: So you look kinda like a bear.
[Colbert reacted by staring at her (fighting a smile), and giving a bit of the evil eye as the audience "ooooooooh"-ed. It was a truly magical moment and I enjoyed it thoroughly.]
(3) Somewheres in this episode we hear about "Sir Phillip Garbagescowl".


This quotation is from his interview with the congressman of the state that he was honoring on that episode (name of place or man I do not recall). During these interviews (I have seen at least one other, perhaps two), he is as subversive and mildly insulting to congressmen as he is with studio guests but when he is with these politicians, he does not let on that he is joking around and there is no audience to laugh and show that such is the case. Generally, he will accuse people of accepting bribes or any kind of corruption and act dumb hearing their response, twisting their words, etc. This congressman in particular seemed a bit ticked off by Colbert's antics and when he was done he ended - in the perfect way, in my opinion - with this:
Colbert: Congressman [even tone, as if he is about to say, "Thanks for your time"], may I stroke your moustache?
[Congressman]: No.
Colbert: Can I comb it?
[Congressman]: [nods]
[Colbert pulls out a small plastic comb (like something you would use on a My Little Pony doll) and passes the bristles through the other man's facial hair a couple of times and then sits back (supremely satisfied) and thanks him for the interview.]


There are more Colb quotations to come but right now I need to sleep or something.

about to implode

Princess Jasmine says: "How dare you, all of you ... Standing around, deciding my future?! I am not a prize to be won!"

Voyez-vous les zombies, là
Les zombies et le lougaroue..


In the words of E-17:
Just when you think you've got what it takes to survive,
You see like you need someone else's advice.
You wait for the day, you constantly pray that it comes...
The day when you feel your life turn around just for once.


ggg
gg
ggg g g

frayed wires

There is a glitch in the system. I am finding an inaccurate/illogical connection between L and E that results in some pretty ugly & depressing feelings.

I see and I do not understand. I observe but I am not pleased.
Perhaps I lean too heavily on L (my favorite - it works!), so much so that I do not know how to work with E. I am not very fluent in its language though we can get by for day-to-day communication. Now, I find myself immersed.




I find that something around here smells uncannily like rejection. No, worse - it smells like apathy. I cannot handle this. My reaction is to run in the other direction promising, "I shall never return or even look back." The know-it-alls in the back of my head offer, "You say that every time.." ... and then I turn around when things look OK. I often say I will never allow myself to become involved/attached to the same degree so that I can get hurt again but, E is too tricky for me and I cannot find L when I need it. L becomes my second language of limited acquaintance.


What do I do now? There is nothing good that I can do/seek out by means of a remedy. I feel rejected by everyone but I know the most important Person has accepted me and this should be enough. E... you lie.

What can I say? For serious... I think that the "I want to crawl into a hole and hide from the world" theory is


I can't talk. I don't want sympathy. I can't hide, I can't go through the motions. Je suis stuck.


...the theory sounds like poppycock but right now it is a PERFECT fit.

siftingsorting

I am trying to clean up my life (in a very literal/physical fashion). Therefore, here I am expanding on these words scrawled on the back of a toy store receipt.
"I found the ugliest one!"
"Where?!"
"All of them." [21/01/06:)]
My grandmother and I were working on a puzzle that depticted about 15 nutcrackers (all very different) on a wooden shelving unit. There were three rows of them and and one oversized ("massively scary" is how I describe it) one at the forefront, stealing the show. I chose the puzzle (from about 10 - 12 options) because I found it (a) relatively easy [she has this crazy 500-piece "Hay in a Needle-stack" one that has been around for years because no one has been daring enough to try it] and (b) supremely ugly. I have a sick fascination for ugly things. I do not want to discuss it because, if I understood it, it would not be so great. During the first two hours that we worked we discussed the puzzle in a very sporadic way and I exclaimed about the ugliness as much as possible because I found it both overwhelming and excessively humorous. She either laughed or made some non-commital response but never actually agreed. After a while, we stopped talking about other things in life and about the puzzle and we worked like dogs (the working kind). Out of the blizzle-oo, my Nana says, "I found the ugliest one!" quite quickly but not exactly triumphantly. I exploded with surprize - partly because it had broken the silence - largely because grandmothers do not say things like this. Grandmothers never use derogatory words like "ugly"; they are reserved for callous young jerks like myself. I use the word "just" too much. Anyways, after I had recovered from the shock and stopped my almost nervous giggling, I said, "Where?" because I was genuinely excited to see who she had given the crown to. With the kind of overlap you usually get when someone is "admitting" defeat - i.e. the "Are you sure you don't want t--" / "FINE: I'll do it.." scenario - she busted in with, "All of them," and I simply lost it. Oh, the hilarity. OK, firstly, that does not even make sense. Secondly, it seemed like she had planned that response OR that she was acting like she had planned the response when she clearly had not in a sort of "YES. I WAS PLANNING THAT ALL ALONG (but I really I wasn't)" stage whisper kind of way. Thirdly, if she meant it precisely the way it came out - planned or not - that is pure comedic gold (good formula). And finally, her tone smacked of (mock) disgust/resignation in the same way that a hurried "It-was-terrible" response comes on the heels of "How was your day?", quite abruptly telling all (sounding like there is simply too much to tell) and effectively killing the subject ("... and I don't wanna talk about it."). In that moment, my grandmother reminded me very much of a Montreal Project Guelphite friend of mind, so much so that I was like... having conniptions. Serious. I get a kick out of people who make their living selling my brand of humor. I could put their kids through college.

Go to bed.

reminded

How are we - mere mortals and ambassadors of Christ - supposed to compete with the forces of evil? This is the most unfair fight in the history of time. You might not even call it a "fight" but a "whoopin" or something. The knowledge that a loss (before the first round is out) is certain makes me uneasy and queasy about the subject. Realistically, Satan never had a chance.

observing: music

Chris Tomlin makes a beautiful marriage of consonance. This is what I have discovered having listened to one of his discs fairly often in the past month or so.

I find something disturbingly euphoric in the way he presents his music.

parallel

Does, with our right to speak, come the right to withhold speech?

crap and the big C

I think my life is dying in the wilderness. I think I do not know what I am doing. Sometimes I think I am illiterate because I have made at least one mistake in each of the three sentences I just typed.

Here is what Stephen Colbert had to say this evening...

He was talking about a law in Oregon that says doctors who allow patients to die (on their request) are not performing illegal activity and how disgusted he was with this acceptance of assisted suicide. He says, "If God wanted people to die, He would send ... bloodclots. I know these are people with terminal illnesses but, as Jesus said, 'walk it off.'"

I fell off the couch when I heard this, mostly out of shock but partially because I could not deal with the hilarity. I should be doing schoolwork right now but my motivation died like my childhood spirit. I'm just kidding. I never had a childhood spirit. Anyways, Colby's kinda funny and kinda sketchy. I appreciate that quote, though because, well, that's basically the way these Biblical accounts appear to us (or perhaps just me). "What's that? You have been crippled since birth? Ah, don't let that bother you. Just stand up and take a stroll around the room, get that blood flowing and those muscles working..." Something about the paltry capacity of the human brain to understand the simplest miracles of the Living God is delightfully amazing to me. Thanks, Colb, for drawing me into reverence again.

a question pseudo answered

I have often wondered if God created us to appreciate beauty or if beauty simply is what it is and we have no choice but to apprecite it. Watching March of the Penguins this evening, I wondered, why did God make these things so beautiful and I remembered Psalm 19:1 -- The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. These things are beautiful because they reflect God's beauty.

"...the kind of thing that leads me to believe that life can be delicate and beautiful -- which it can but not in the same way."

an excerpt (3)

From another email I wrote:

This is something else that I found fascinating (more so, the more I wrote) and encouraging in a way.

"Guilt and conviction are both motivators for improvement, right? Guilt incites us to act so we will not feel bad, while conviction incites us to act so we will do what is right. One is much more selfish I think (it's about us not having something hanging over our head and less about the actual behavior) and based on feelings while the other is likely to make us feel worse initially when we yield (and [feel] amazing, shortly after, of course) and is based more on character or morals. Here's an example from my life-o. I watched a video created by PETA [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals] that contained much jarring footage, designed to make the consumer aware of how their food is prepared. I saw piglets held to the floor by [their neck under] someone's boot while they were shot in the skull with a bolt gun; I saw another animal (prolly a pig or chicken) being swung by its legs, slammed into the floor for some unknown reason [(a cost-efficient death)]; I saw chickens de-beaked (but was told later that this is actually a painless process); I saw the chickens that never left captivity (the perhaps 2x2' cage with several other birds in), I saw their brogen legs that could not support overfed abdomens; I saw a duck's neck being pushed onto a long tube to force-feed it until the liver was big enough (three times the normal size) to be fois gras; I saw a skin-and-bones, bruised, crippled cow wobble and stumble onto a truck for slaughter and I saw pigs suspended by a leg having their throats slit (and the ensuing struggle) and their screams honestly sounded like a child's. The first thing I thought when it was over was that I could never buy or cook animal products for other people. Especially for my brother, that is something I would on-and-off do. It's my heart, my ministry ... so normally I do my best to avoid animal stuff but give in if it will work for someone else. But here, after this video, nonononono, I would NOT be able to support the industry in any way. That weekend, in fact, I bought my brother organic milk and free-run eggs for the first (and last time). I told a couple of people about that video (not [to preach] but it was what I centred my "how was your weekend?"answers around). Eventually, however, I discovered that my will was weak. Feeding people is [what I do], so being restricted in that is a bit saddening or frustrating. Eventually, within a month, I [resumed] buying pizzas or chocolates for whatever reason thinking, "I care more about how I treat this person than I do about my convictions." Something I discovered while discussing the video and my new resolutions with [a friend] was that conviction, like vision, needs no convincing. If it is what you stand for, there is no WAY you will waver. If it is guilt or just mental assent, then you will struggle with it always (and perhaps cheat a bit) and be forced to recall graphic images or whatever to remind yourself why you are doing what you are doing. This was a good lesson, methinks."

[email recipient, again, let me know]

an excerpt (2)

Exerpts from an email I wrote:

"Although it is right to pray with God's will, that does not mean we can only pray if we know what God's will is. If you are not getting a clear answer about something or if a situation is not changing before your eyes, that doesnot mean your prayers are incorrect, too short or insincere. It means that God is sovereign.

"How is it better to neglect the most important person in your life than to drop the things that feel more pressing? This is just like tithing, I think. You can either give back to God 10% of what He gave you and have 90% of your resources blessed, or you can keep all 100% and have it all cursed. It is such a harsh reality and I meet it way too many times. We somehow think that we can make good with what He gives us (waving Him off - as if He's a pesky mother - with our careless hand, back turned) as we furiously try to work a mass of Popsicle sticks and glue into a sturdy cabin so we can turn and proudly display the crooked, dripping creation. I do this all the time. I try to perfect my family life, or my ministry without actually consulting God so I can say, "Look what I did!!" and get His approval. Making us co-heirs with Christ is probably the best approval we'll ever get and it is complete and irrevokable. Yet still, it is as if I wish to EARN His favor ([a concept] not too different from trying to earn salvaition). This is almost like refusing grace. Wow.. that's yea. We almost think, 'God, you just don't understand! My professor's going to kill me if I don't finish this such&such..' as if He didn't create the professor, the such&such and our entire lives."

I posted these two things because they carried a sort of mild rebuke for me as they appeared on my screen, the second more than the first. I have a terrible habit of trying to separate areas of my life: "Things I Trust God Completely For", "Things God & I work on Together" and "Things I do and Hope God is OK With". I am not entirely sure what percentage of my life each category holds, but I know that the third one should not exist. I just tried to do it a minute ago, thinking about quaternary studies (or post-post-secondary or post-tertiary).

[email recipient, if you do not like this post, let me know]

an antitdote

For those moments in which you are considering whom to be loyal to remember: Satan didn't die for you.

music

God-music has a strange way of drawing me into euphoria. I do not even know how to explain it. It is moments like these (I have headphones on at present) that make me think I should invest more money in discs that make me say, "OK, OK, God, You are more magnificent than I could ever understand or be worthy of." Then again, should a plastic circle and electricity be necessary for me to feel that way? One thought I have to counter that is that music speaks more to me than it does to others given my natural bent and skills.

The feeling is almost like that rendered when flying. There is much freedom and an overwhelming sense that anything is possible.


All this from consonance and creativity.