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Some random notes: First, in trying to assist Nyffy with his desire to one day become the Brewmaster of Heaven, a contingent of my friends spent some time this last weekend brewing a batch of Futurebeer: The current state of Futurebeer Futurebeer is beer, after a while. It is not yet, however. It’s that same mysterious “already but not yet” we find with the kingdom of God. Anyway, it was fun to go through a process involving (mostly) natural ingredients that will culminate in pure enjoyment after a period of care and waiting. Being a creative person who works mostly with digital or musical media, I was very glad to work with actual substances to create a product. It’s sort of like the joy I have found in cooking nice meals, only greater due to the extended period of time involved in the process. ...

James 2 came to mind recently, and I was struck by how much I brushed it off, or thought it did not apply to me (or to our small church). I got to thinking about it, and decided that it wasn’t because it shouldn’t apply, only that the specific context in James’ mind is not in our typical experience, and we thereby miss the message behind it. I decided to re-write a passage from the chapter using language and examples that would perhaps speak more clearly to us (or at least, to heterosexual men–others can see where to change things for themselves. You’ll see what I mean in a moment). I find that re-writing passages in this way can be a useful “shock” mechanism to get ourselves thinking further away from the words of the text, and maybe closer to the meaning of the text. You can see an earlier example of this at my old weblog (though the point there is message through irony rather than message through revision). First, I’ll show you James 2:1-13 in the ESV:

Last weekend, our small church community went on a retreat to a place in San Francisco. As a major part of the time, each person had one or more pieces of art to present on the subject of her “deepest dream(s)”. The idea was that something prepared in advance on that subject, then later presented and discussed, would provide an interesting, focused, and perhaps vulnerable manner of getting to know one another more intimately. When I started working on my own art a couple weeks ago, I found that having a deadline for the creative process actually made me quite fruitful, and I ended up having three songs and the start of a short story / novel to share. ...

Anyone who has been around this weblog for long enough has realized that I care a lot about mainly two categories of things. The first is Girls, and specifically how to entice an especially awesome, as-yet-unpinpointed one to eventually marry me. The second is The Stuff I Am Passionate About. This second category is usually seen in long diatribes about how I have so many passions that the thought of finding one thing to do in my life (my life’s project, so to speak) is incredibly daunting. I usually think of such pursuits as falling under one of the following headings: Philosophy, Theology, Music, Language, Coding, Writing, or Design. Importantly, I’m interested in the creative elements of each. ...

(or, reactions after seeing M Night Shyamalan’s highly-recommended new film Lady in the Water twice in one weekend): The problem with good stories is that we cannot always live in them (barring the “good story” which is hopefully and supposedly the whole of our life–but right now I’m talking about good fiction stories; the kind that make you wish they were real). The problem with the best stories is their singularity of message: “Good stories are real! Believe in them!” And of course, they’re not real either, strictly speaking. There are no narphs and scrunts lurking round small ponds in my hometown, waiting to magically awaken greatness in me via some ancient link. ...

Well, this is the longest hiatus I’ve ever had on this blog so far, but I won’t say it’s without reason. Still, there are many times I wish I’d had the space to catalogue some thoughts. The best I can do now is give a list of the sort of things I’ve been up to over the past months (with pictures!). Hopefully you’ll find some of it interesting. In roughly chronological order:

The sun stared, lidless and relentless, down at the dust and sand I slowly traversed. The town that baked there was hardly deserving of any name connoting civilization, much less that desert wayfarer’s dream-word, “oasis”. No waving palm trees; no pools of cool water to waste on dry and cracked feet. Still, to anyone like myself who had somehow survived even a brief stay in the arid deserts (in the quest for companionship), the low huts that provided shade were as welcome as Eden itself. I sat down against a wall in the center of the town. No one moved about in the heat of the day; for all I knew, the entire town had been wiped out by a sandstorm. I lowered my head and fell instantly asleep.

Point A: Martini, Headphones on, Headphones off, Glass table, ticking Clock, curious Hope, sneaking Glances | | | 20' | | v Point B: Two people hanging over Space, City noise, A man telling a woman he Loves her, A Pure smile, Decades

Last night I went back to the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco for the second time this month, to see the Smoking Popes / Lovedrug show. It was an incredible experience, and I realized something about myself that is important to share (and might also be an important contribution to Rock Theory in general). Gratuitous picture to get you to read further: Lovedrug’s symbol of the moment

(If you haven’t yet, read my long, philosophical review of The Da Vinci Code) I saw the movie a few days ago, and so I thought I’d make a short list of some important ways that it was different than the book: The movie’s plot was less complicated. Langdon was more of a spineless religioid. (In the book, he knew about, and believed, the Priory’s story. In the movie, he calls it a “myth”, tacks “according to the Priory myth” on the end of all his statements, and argues unconvincingly about it with Teabing–using much the same arguments as moviegoers would expect frustrated Christians to use). Ultimately he comes across as having gone on a journey of personal discovery, which is not at all the character of the book. Bezu Fache was more of a religious fanatic, and a forensic dupe (as opposed to the brilliant, hard-as-nails police captain from the novel). Teabing was a much more lively character than I would have assumed from the book. The conclusion, especially regarding Sophie’s family, was far less satisfying. Apart from the Teabing bit, all of these were disappointments. The one change I really liked about the movie was the part where Robert finds the seal under the sign of the rose in the keystone. It is covered with “mysterious writing” (in reality, just English written reflectedly). In the book, the characters agonize for a long time over its deciphering. But it is quite clearly (there’s a picture in the book) English. In the movie, Robert takes one glance at it and says, “We need a mirror,” as any non-catatonic English-speaker would. So it cleared up one embarrassment. Now, mostly what I want to talk about is two broader-picture statements which occurred in the movie explicitly but not in the book. As we will see, it’s to Dan Brown’s credit that he didn’t write such laughable dialogue into the novel. (Or if he did, it was done in such a way that I missed it).