“God, how we get our fingers in each other's clay. That's friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of each other.”
-Ray Bradbury
Over-hyped? Over-commercialized? Yes and yes, and more. All the things that people say about Christmas being way overblown and how people lose the meaning of the holiday and all that can be applied to Valentine's day too. I've said it before on here, but for all of those people out there who say that they don't like some mass-market commercial holiday to tell them when to express love and well-meaning thoughts, that's a total cop-out. Shouldn't it just be nice to have an excuse to go ahead and be romantic and expressive for any reason at all? Isn't it nice to have Christmas time to have a deliberate season to reorient ourselves toward Christ and others? Why is Valentine's any different?
This video from the History channel explains some of the origins of the holiday. Like just about every other present day holiday, its placement on the calendar has a lot to do with Christianity trying to take over an old pagan holiday, but that doesn't do anything to invalidate the reasons and meaning behind the holiday itself.
And then here's a fun song. I probably posted this one last year:
I've always been one to do something for the holiday, even if I didn't have a specific Valentine in mind, whether it's just sending a funny card to a friend, or something romantic for someone I really care about. I guess I just have always really loved the holiday.
So there it is. Happy Valentine's day to my beloved, Amy. She's been doing a photography challenge with her sister and I just love her latest post because it's just so her - happy and active and cute. Check it out here.
We have been getting into the Christmas season quite well these last few weeks starting with having our fresh tree up by December 1st, which now is not as great with our tree going from a nice hunter green to a light shade of brown, but it's the spirit that counts, right?
This month has been great so far, though. There was Amy's work Christmas party, a few different get togethers with friends, but the Christmasy events have been really fun too. Just in case you had any doubts about it, the Silvas are very cultured people.Early this month we swung by Temple Square to check out the lights, and last week we caught The Nutcracker performed by the Ballet West dance company.
I hadn't seen it since I was really young, but I think the music is really great and although I probably wouldn't go and see ballet on a normal basis, it's fun to see something so classic performed that's so appropriate for the season. It's pretty amazing what they can do, and I can definitely appreciate that. The performance that we saw seemed like a pretty traditional version of it, which is neat to think that this is the same kind of dance that has been done for over a hundred years.
Last night Amy and I went up to Salt Lake to a local stake center to see a performance of Handel's Messiah. I had never seen that live before, and what I really liked about it was that it was a professional level performance just put on by some people in the community. The concertmaster is a lady that is actually in the Salt Lake Symphony, and it featured 70 voices in the choir, and 40 instruments in the orchestra, including a harpsichord! I thought was really cool. Not sure if I have ever heard one live before.
The story behind The Messiah is one that is really amazing. Handel, at 56 years old, in near poverty, and with no significant pieces to his name was commissioned to write a Christmas piece, and in 24 days he wrote the whole thing. Speaking of his masterpiece he said that if it only entertains, then he has failed; it should inspire men to be better people. It was pretty cool.
One of my favorite things, however, was watching a Charlie Brown Christmas yesterday. I read this article a few weeks ago and it gives a lot of great background to the special:
The executives did not want to have Linus reciting the story of the birth of Christ from the Gospel of Luke.The network orthodoxy of the time assumed that viewers would not want to sit through passages of the King James Bible.
There was a standoff of sorts, but Schulz did not back down, and
because of the tight production schedule and CBS’s prior promotion, the
network executives aired the special as Schulz intended it. But they
were certain they had a flop on their hands.
“They were freaking out about something so overtly religious in a
Christmas special,” explained Melendez.
“They basically wrote it off,
like, hey, this is just isn’t going to be interesting to anyone, and
it’s just going to be like a big tax write-off.”
Melendez himself was somewhat hesitant about the reading from Luke.
“I was leery of the religion that came into it, and I was right away
opposed to it. But Sparky just assumed what he had to say was important
to somebody.”
Which is why Charles Schulz was Charles Schulz. He knew that the Luke reading by Linus was the heart and soul of the story.
As Charlie Brown sinks into a state of despair trying to find the
true meaning of Christmas, Linus quietly saves the day. He walks to the
center of the stage where the Peanuts characters have gathered,
and under a narrow spotlight, quotes the second chapter of the Gospel
According to Luke, verses 8 through 14:
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill towards men.
“ . . . And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown,” Linus concluded.
The scene lasted 51 seconds. When Linus finished up, Charlie Brown
realized he did not have to let commercialism ruin his Christmas. With a
sense of inspiration and purpose, he picked up his fragile tree and
walked out of the auditorium, intending to take it home to decorate and
show all who cared to see how it would work in the school play.
When CBS executives saw the final product, they were horrified. They
believed the special would be a complete flop. CBS programmers were
equally pessimistic, informing the production team, “We will, of course,
air it next week, but I’m afraid we won’t be ordering any more.”
The half-hour special aired on Thursday, December 9, 1965, preempting The Munsters and following Gilligan’s Island.
To the surprise of the executives, 50 percent of the televisions in the
United States tuned in to the first broadcast. The cartoon was a
critical and commercial hit; it won an Emmy and a Peabody award.
Anyway, we don't have much left on our Christmas event plates besides time with family and presents and such, but all of that is probably the best stuff anyway.
The Charlie Brown special is really great because even all those years ago people felt like Christmas was being overrun by all of the commercialism, and lucky for us, there was a man like Charles Schulz to help us collectively regain our bearings and realize what the season is really about.
So go watch your It's a Wonderful Lifes, Christmas Carols, or Charlie Brown Christmas specials. And don't forget to crack open your scriptures to those wonderful words penned by Luke and the other prophets and apostles. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
I don't have much to offer today. I was going to post some stuff about the oil boom in the Americas and an article about pulling out of Iraq, but that is completely unrelated to the holiday at hand. My two favorite days to be driving around are on Valentine's day and Halloween. I love looking in the car next to me and seeing someone in full get-up. It's so fun. This morning while walking to my office I saw a couple of guys, one sitting on the other's shoulders, and they had a long black robe-type thing. The best was that I was approaching them from behind, so I only saw the 11 foot or so long cape draped behind as they were walking on campus. Love this day. Hope you enjoy it, too.
Don't be lame and not dress up or not go out and do anything. At the very least, watch a scary movie, read a scary story, hand out candy and try to scare kids, but just make sure you do something! I was so mad at my roommate's last year when we came back from our Halloween festivities and they were just sitting around on the couch watching The Bourne Supremacy.
Don't be lame. Have fun tonight. Play some tricks or give someone some treats. Don't be dumb.
So what happened? I don't know. I just haven't been much for blogging lately. I am, however, quite disappointed that I haven't done more to honor what's one of my favorite holidays.
We actually haven't even really done much Halloween stuff. It wasn't until last week before we actually did anything at all related to the holiday, and usually I'm quick to post Werewolves of London on here and announce the arrival of the day on the first of the month. I haven't even read a scary novel this month like I've done for the last 3 or 4 years. I know. Something is seriously wrong.
Part of this is because we've been busy. Another part is that my wife and I have different perceptions of what Halloween should be. I like scary Halloween. I like haunted houses and scary movies. Amy likes funny Halloween. So this leads to a clash of what our costumes end up being. I'm learning how to handle it. But don't worry, someday I'll be a mummy, frankenstein, and skeleton. It's inevitable.
I think this is mostly reflected in our upbringings. She grew up in a nice household. Not that mine wasn't nice, but mine didn't have the same standards when it comes to movies and such, nor did she have an older brother 8 years her senior who had her watch all of the scary movies that he would watch. She and I were watching Scream the other night and she was hidden behind her computer screen most of the night flinching at even the sounds of the slasher film, whereas I wasn't phased at all. I don't know. I'm just densensitized in that way, I guess. I was the 10-11 year old kid who reveled in reading the scariest ghost stories I could find alone in the dark in a house by myself. I just loved that stuff. That's where our differences lie. She's nice. I'm the soulless monster who is looking for the scariest thing he can find just so he can feel some kind of emotion, even if it's only fear. That sounds like a scary story right there.
Also, I LOVED the Twilight Zone. Couldn't get enough of it. I would watch the Twilight Zone marathons all day long when it would happen on Thanksgiving and the 4th of July. I lived for that. Which brings me to my next thing: Something Halloweeny that I think is worth reposting is this short story by Jerome Bixby, which Twilight Zone episode had the same name - It's a Good Life.Such a creepy story. Here are the opening few lines:
Aunt Amy was out on the front porch, rocking back and forth in the
highbacked chair and fanning herself, when Bill Soames rode his bicycle
up the road and stopped in front of the house.
Perspiring under the afternoon "sun," Bill lifted the box of
groceries out of the big basket over the front wheel of the bike, and
came up the front walk.
Little Anthony was sitting on the lawn, playing with a rat. He had
caught the rat down in the basement--he had made it think that it
smelled cheese, the most rich-smelling and crumbly-delicious cheese a
rat had ever thought it smelled, and it had come out of its hole, and
now Anthony had hold of it with his mind and was making it do tricks.
When the rat saw Bill Soames coming, it tried to run, but Anthony
thought at it, and it turned a flip-flop on the grass, and lay
trembling, its eyes gleaming in small black terror.
Bill Soames hurried past Anthony and reached the front steps,
mumbling. He always mumbled when he came to the Fremont house, or passed
by it, or even thought of it. Everybody did. They thought about silly
things, things that didn't mean very much, like
two-and-two-is-four-and-twice-is-eight and so on; they tried to jumble
up their thoughts to keep them skipping back and forth, so Anthony
couldn't read their minds. The mumbling helped. Because if Anthony got
anything strong out of your thoughts, he might take a notion to do
something about it--like curing your wife's sick headaches or your kid's
mumps, or getting your old milk cow back on schedule, or fixing the
privy. And while Anthony mightn't actually mean any harm, he couldn't be
expected to have much notion of what was the right thing to do in such
cases.
That was if he liked you. He might try to help you, in his way. And that could be pretty horrible.
If he didn't like you ... well, that could be worse.
I'm also more than a little upset that I missed two different zombie runs that are held in the state of Utah. I couldn't believe I hadn't heard of these especially since I am both a runner and a fan of all things Halloween. Night of the Running Dead is one of them.
Lastly, here is a surprisingly catchy zombie love song a friend of mine turned me onto this morning.
When I'm conducting quorum meetings, I'll usually ask a introductory question to have everyone kind of warm up a bit and so people can just hear individuals share something in the quorum. This past Sunday I asked them about their favorite Valentine's day memories. I was really surprised that so many of the guys were so negative in their perspectives about el dia de San Valentin. Want to know my feelings on the day? Go here, here, or here, if you had any questions about my feelings on it. Or read the rest of this post.
The lamest response, "I don't like being told/feeling obligated to have a day to tell someone that I love them," or some other variation on that line. It is such a cop-out. Such a cop-out. Oh, you know what else I hate? Christmas. I hate that someone made up a day to celebrate the birth of the Savior. We should just remember it every day, and celebrate it everyday. Right? I told Amy about what the guys were saying and she had the same exact response. I just love her.
Anyway, it's just good to have time set aside to celebrate what is probably the most important of all human emotions and expressions. Fortunately, I'm pretty well practiced in expressing my feelings and taking advantage of Valentine's day for just such expressions.
Yesterday was nice. It came together rather quickly once I finally decided on my plan, but it required me running around from the minute my class was done up until the time that the plans actually came to fruition. It included stops at Costco, Macey's, Robert's, Hallmark, and the mall. It required marinating, baking, and grilling. And it ended all smiles. (We even dropped by the dance that our stake put on for a little bit. I just love that Amy is so fun that way. Last night I finally realized, when she mentioned it, that we'll need to take full advantage of chaperoning the youth dances when we're in the family ward. Can't wait.)
An aside: I can't tell you how much I love my grill. It's got so much space, it cooks (mostly) evenly, and it's just so easy compared to a charcoal grill. You can't beat the ease and clean up of the gas grill. Merry Christmas to me! And whomever else is the beneficiary of my recently acquired grill skills. The featured recipe? Stole this one from a friend.
Know what else is fun? I'm sure it's the same everywhere, but it's just fun to see so many guys out and about getting flowers. In just about every car that I was driving by, some guy was carting some amount of flowers along with him. Just great.
Well that is all. I hope you all took advantage of Valentine's day.
The other day I started buying up several different Christmas albums while I was killing some time. I've been a fan of the first few Now That's What I Call Christmas albums and a friend of mine had mentioned the other day that they were up to five Nows, so I decided I might check some of them out. I didn't really recognize many of the track listings, and I was surprised to see one in particular - Lady Gaga's version of Christmas Tree.
It sounded weird to me. Lady Gaga did her own take on O Christmas Tree? So it piqued my interest, I listened to the snippet, and I got really annoyed. I'll spare your eyes from its obscenity by posting the actual lyrics, but if you can't help yourself, click here.
It's probably not even that different from most contemporary music out there, but labeling that piece of garbage a Christmas song had an especially grating effect on me because you couldn't get any further from the actual meaning of Christmas than by having something so incredibly offensive as this song is.
On a similar note, I downloaded the Glee Christmas album without even listening to anything off of it, assuming that I'd like most of it anyway (when it costs so little, it's pretty easy to just put down a little money and get whatever). Then I noticed that their version of Baby It's Cold Outside is sung by two guys, and I got grossed out again.
I jumped off the Glee train a couple months ago. I just can't stand how much Finn gets vilified because he's the only person that has any problem with Kurt's flamboyant and over-the-top homosexuality. If any heterosexual were that blatant and obnoxious about his sexuality, it would be just about as off-putting as Kurt's homosexuality is. I just hate it. And, again, I just can't stand the amount of criticism that is leveled at Finn because of his beliefs. How's that for tolerance? Anyway, just annoying is all.
That's enough of my ranting.
Moving on...Amy happens to like really nice, well put together Christmas lights. I think I'm mostly on board with that, but sometimes when I see an incredibly ugly, haphazard Christmas light arrangement, it kind of just really warms my heart. Am I alone here? There is this house over by our place where the lights are just kind of thrown on the bushes and trees and it looks so funny to me. It really looks like it was put together by some overly-annoyed teenager who was forced to do it. It looks like the kid just threw the strand of lights as far as he could up on the tree and then just plugged it in. I want a picture of it. Anyway, so I thought it was funny to see this paragraph in an article I was reading last week:
In cultural news, is it me or are Christmas decorations becoming distressingly tasteful? With each passing year, TMQ observes fewer homes lit up with gaudy multicolored flashing lights, more homes alight with softly glowing, tasteful white lights. Tuesday Morning Quarterback strongly opposes tasteful, and not just as regards cheerleading outfits. Overdone displays of garish pulsing colored lights helped make this country great. Inflatable flashing Santas are good too -- right now there's an inflatable abominable snowman on TMQ's lawn. Tasteful holiday lighting is another sign of the decline of Western civilization.
Back to music: I did end up finding some pretty good Christmas music. I got some Michael Buble songs, and I was surprised that the crooner hasn't put out his own Christmas album yet. He has the right kind of style for that, doesn't he? I also bought some of the Nutcracker arrangements. I am really interested in seeing that one next year. The music is just amazing. Any recommendations on other Christmas albums? I've already got David Archuleta's, Andrea Bocelli's. But anything else? Let me know.
I think my favorite song this Christmas season has been It Came Upon a Midnight Clear. In church someone played a violin arrangement of it and it was really good. There are some pretty interesting versions of this song, the funniest being Aaron Neville's. Anyway, here is one version by Ella Fitgerald:
I can't believe it's taken so long to get my inaugural October/Halloween post up. I must apologize for that.
Last weekend, Amy and I went to the Haunted Forest over in American Fork. Last year I went to Nightmare on 13th, which I thought was really good, but I think that this one was actually better. They had an opening little indoor haunted house, and then a huge waiting area, and then another outside one that is really long. The whole thing took about an hour and a half, with only about a half or so waiting in line. I hadn't been to this one in years...2003, methinks. There were a lot of good cheap scares. My favorite ones are always the ones where they divert your attention with one thing, and then surprise you with another. There was this one area where there was this circling light placed at about eye level, and then it went dark, and I had just assumed that it turned off. Instead, some shrouded monster type guy came right at us and he totally caught me off guard. Another good one was when two monster-guys were working together. You were so focused on the one that when the other surprised you, there was just no chance.
I really do love all things Halloween. What makes life even more grand is that Amy is totally into it too. We finally came up with our couples costume last night. That's actually been hard because not only have we been wanting to come up with something that is unique, but also well known enough that it's that something that most people can recognize. On top of that, her costume philosophy involves characters that she can act out and that are funny, and mine tends to the more scary variety. Well, we found a compromise and I'm pretty pleased about it. And no one else will find out until after we've donned our costumes. Sadly, it doesn't feature any makeup, but I'm kind of thinking that I need a second costume anyway, right? So maybe I can still come up with something else.
Still ahead on our itinerary: Heeber Creeper, Thriller by the Odyssey Dance Company, Scary Movies, Halloween get togethers, and so forth. Will keep you posted.
I don't think it's really any secret that I love Valentine's day. It's so much fun to be in like/love, to be excited about stupid little things.
One of my favorite things about the holiday is going to a flower store and seeing hordes of guys coming in having no idea what they want, and knowing only a favorite color or the amount of money that they want to spend. Some of them are a little more attentive, knowing favorite flowers, but most just know the bottom line of what they want to spend and go for whatever fits in that range.
My routine in those places is the same - go and sit for about 20-30 minutes just looking at all of the arrangements trying to find something that fits what I have in my mind, my budget, and what I think the girl will like. I'll pour over the prearranged flowers for awhile, and then walk over to the loose ones and see if there is some kind of arrangement I can come up with on my own. I think I do a surprisingly good job with that, although I'm always nervous about it when I come out with them in the end.
...Umm...excuse me, do you have something that says I have really enjoyed getting to know you recently, that I think I'm starting to fall in like with you, that I'm thoughtful and worth getting to know some more, but that I don't want to go overboard because I'm not sure where you're at with everything? Do you think daisies communicates that best or tulips? Is white too springy or purple too passionate? Hmmm...thanks...
You know who has pretty amazing deals on flowers and has a wide variety of flowers that haven't been picked over? Supermarkets. Prices are usually much better, and the variety is wide because few people really think about using them to get flowers. A dozen short-stemmed roses at a local florist cost $42, but at Smith's they were $20. Same quality of flowers too.
I think since I've been home from the mission, there has only been one Valentine's day since 2002 when I didn't do at least one some thing for someone. Not all of those years were because I was dating the person or had a hard crush. A couple were just because I wanted to do some thing for someone, even if we were just friends. I've done cards, a couple missionary packages, that kind of thing. I think 2008 was the only year where I did nothing at all. Becca got 2003-2007.
A friend of mine was asking the other day who I regretted dating the most, and the truth is, I don't regret dating any of them, especially the ones I dated the longest even if those ones were the hardest. I came across an old journal from one of those breakups and I couldn't believe how pathetic I sounded during that time. I was just destroyed. So heartbroken, but in spite of however hard those times were, I can't tell you the amount of love I felt, and emphasize enough the valuable lessons I was able to learn from all of them. When I think back about them now, I have nothing but warm feelings and happy memories. Even the ones that were the most complicated and difficult, they've all somehow turned into positives and I think that's something I'm really proud of. If nothing else, the wrong things about relationships past help me to see the right things I want from relationships present and future. It sounds cliche, but I think it's true.
If I sound optimistic, it's because I am, and I don't think it has anything to do with my going through a dating life untouched, without any kind of traumatizing experiences. Trust me, I think I have taken my fair share of stomach punches in that department. I not only look forward to the blossoming of love and bliss in my own dating life, but I'm content and happy with things as they stand now, and that in itself makes me feel even more at ease.
The best part is when I'll be doing my own song and dance about the next one.
Anyway, I hope that on this Valentine's day you're doing as much giving as you are receiving. It's fun to have someone think about you, but I think it's also just as fun to be doing something for someone else, letting them know that you care about them. People love to be loved, and it's important to do our parts in helping them feel those things.
A friend of mine saw this commercial on a blog of a friend of hers, and I just love it. Can't say it enough.
I just thought I'd post this Thanksgiving Proclamation given by Abraham Lincoln. Did you know that it wasn't declared a national holiday until his tenure as President? Well, that's the truth. I'm not going to cut and paste the whole thing even though it's pretty short, but here is a nice excerpt from it:
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggressions, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict; while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the most high God, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity, and union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United Stated States to be affixed.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION, OCTOBER 3, 1863.
Nevermind, that is the whole thing. You know what I love most about it? How abundantly he references God throughout it. Can an American President get away with that today? Probably not, and that's so sad to me.
Thanksgiving day run - check. It was pretty cold, but it really wasn't that bad. I hurt something in my knee a few weeks ago so I've been, for the most part, staying away from running so I couldn't get too competitive this morning, but I still finished the four miles in under 30 minutes. It was nice to have Dave and Mike come out and run, and I kind of love the t-shirt, which I'll be sporting all day.
So what's left for the day? Overindulgence, mainly. A nap. Mason time. Maybe go watch The Blind Side tonight. I've got a full plate, so to speak.
And what am I grateful for...the people in my life. That's always at the top of my list. For a loving Father in Heaven. For a healthy physical body that allows me to do most anything I want. For music. For the opportunities I have. For this website that we all spent about several hours on last night taking quizzes together. And for this one that has helped me to enhance my glide, which I've been getting pretty decent with.
I wish I would have found these yesterday, but I think they're too cute not to post. This one is a video of veteran fathers surprising their kids at school:
And this one is of...dogs welcoming their owners home.
If you're interested, the following are a couple of organizations that are involved in giving aid to our soldiers currently serving our country:
Soldier's Angels - they have a number of different projects that you can help with including letter writing, putting together packages, and a number of other things.
Kick for Nick - I highlighted this one on Memorial Day. Nick was a soldier killed in Iraq, and this organization is his family's effort to donate soccer balls for the kids in Iraq in his memory.
A week or so ago I may have broken my most recent commitment to not watch rated R movies and saw Zombieland. It was worth it. The movie has elements of both funny and scary. It's a really great mix.
In my reading, there is an author over at NRO that keeps on posting all of these zombie related links. I kind of love him for it. Let me post some of the zombie related things I've come across recently.
This article by actor Simon Pegg discusses the merits of the fast zombie. The second paragraph is my favorite and I also like the he gives the origin of the idea behind zombies:
Still, I had to acknowledge Dead Set's impressive credentials. The concept was clever in its simplicity: a full-scale zombie outbreak coincides with a Big Brother eviction night, leaving the Big Brother house as the last refuge for the survivors. Scripted by Charlie Brooker, a writer whose scalpel-sharp incisiveness I have long been a fan of, and featuring talented actors such as Jaime Winstone and the outstanding Kevin Eldon, the show heralded the arrival of genuine homegrown horror, scratching at the fringes of network television. My expectations were high, and I sat down to watch a show that proved smart, inventive and enjoyable, but for one key detail: ZOMBIES DON'T RUN!
I know it is absurd to debate the rules of a reality that does not exist, but this genuinely irks me. You cannot kill a vampire with an MDF stake; werewolves can't fly; zombies do not run. It's a misconception, a bastardisation that diminishes a classic movie monster. The best phantasmagoria uses reality to render the inconceivable conceivable. The speedy zombie seems implausible to me, even within the fantastic realm it inhabits. A biological agent, I'll buy. Some sort of super-virus? Sure, why not. But death? Death is a disability, not a superpower. It's hard to run with a cold, let alone the most debilitating malady of them all.
More significantly, the fast zombie is bereft of poetic subtlety. As monsters from the id, zombies win out over vampires and werewolves when it comes to the title of Most Potent Metaphorical Monster. Where their pointy-toothed cousins are all about sex and bestial savagery, the zombie trumps all by personifying our deepest fear: death. Zombies are our destiny writ large. Slow and steady in their approach, weak, clumsy, often absurd, the zombie relentlessly closes in, unstoppable, intractable.
However (and herein lies the sublime artfulness of the slow zombie), their ineptitude actually makes them avoidable, at least for a while. If you're careful, if you keep your wits about you, you can stave them off, even outstrip them - much as we strive to outstrip death. Drink less, cut out red meat, exercise, practice safe sex; these are our shotguns, our cricket bats, our farmhouses, our shopping malls. However, none of these things fully insulates us from the creeping dread that something so witless, so elemental may yet catch us unawares - the drunk driver, the cancer sleeping in the double helix, the legless ghoul dragging itself through the darkness towards our ankles.
Another thing: speed simplifies the zombie, clarifying the threat and reducing any response to an emotional reflex. It's the difference between someone shouting "Boo!" and hearing the sound of the floorboards creaking in an upstairs room: a quick thrill at the expense of a more profound sense of dread. The absence of rage or aggression in slow zombies makes them oddly sympathetic, a detail that enabled Romero to project depth on to their blankness, to create tragic anti-heroes; his were figures to be pitied, empathised with, even rooted for. The moment they appear angry or petulant, the second they emit furious velociraptor screeches (as opposed to the correct mournful moans of longing), they cease to possess any ambiguity. They are simply mean.
So how did this break with convention come about? The process has unfolded with all the infuriating dramatic irony of an episode of Fawlty Towers. To begin at the beginning, Haitian folklore tells of voodoo shamans, or bokors, who would use digitalis, derived from the foxglove plant, to induce somnambulant trances in individuals who would subsequently appear dead. Weeks later, relatives of the supposedly deceased would witness their lost loved ones in a soporific malaise, working in the fields of wealthy landowners, and assume them to be nzambi (a west African word for "spirit of the dead"). From the combination of nzambi and somnambulist ("sleepwalker") we get the word zombie.
If you have any question about the different types of zombies that have been thought up, there is a very helpful Wikipedia page that you can access by going here.
If you're worried about what to do in case of a zombie attack, you can either read this book - The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, or you can watch this nice little video below:
If you don't have time for either of those, maybe you should purchase this t-shirt that gives you a quick and dirty idea of what to do in case of zombies. If you just want a website and place to talk about all things zombie, then this is the place to go. And if you want to just kill some time, try this game. Although I don't really know how you kill more than one zombie. Or if you want to combine your love of zombies with your passion for classic English literature, try reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!
I think that about covers it. So good luck. As long as you follow one or more of the guides, practice your zombie killing kills with that game, and carry with you either a blunt object or gun with many rounds, you should be pretty much okay in the event of a zombie attack.
About four or five years ago this song became my October anthem, ushering in both the Fall season and Halloween. I'll probably listen to this song about 100-200 times this month, and I'll end up putting together another volume of current favorite songs of mine with other Halloween favorites. I'm not sure why I started loving this song so much. It's kind of silly, it's classic rock, and I guess those are reasons enough for me.
Yesterday I went shopping and put together most of my outfit for this upcoming Halloween. I won't pretend to keep any of you in suspense: I'm going with a classic zombie costume. I think the classic costumes are the best, if you do them right. So I went to DI and got a tweed jacket, shirt, old old tie, and shoes all for $18. I watched a makeup tutorial and bought some theatrical makeup. I think I'm almost ready.
I can't even tell y'all how pumped I am for this season. This is what's on the docket this month:
The Odyssey Dance Company's Thriller - comes highly recommended from several good sources, and combines a couple of my favorite things: dance and all things All Hallow's Eve.
Frightmares at Lagoon - I'm pretty sure it won't be as good as Knott's Scary Farm, but it'll have to do.
An assortment of haunted houses and corn mazes
Strung Out on the 30th - I went to a show they played the night before Halloween a few years ago and that was easily a top 3 favorite show of theirs. They came out in costumes and everything. Loved it.
The Long Beach Marathon
Playoff baseball - Go Angels!
And I'll probably watch a dozen scared-filled movies during this month of October. I'll have tests to grade for the stats class I TA for, so that will be a good 8-10 hours of movies.
And last, but certainly not least, learning the Thriller dance. I finally found someone as into learning the dance as I am, and we've been going through this tutorial that we found. So in honor of the late and great MJ himself, Thriller!
What's kind of weird is that in Chile, 9/11 is a day of mourning also, but instead of being normal about it people riot in the streets. No joke. We weren't allowed to proselyte on 9/11, and power in the city gets shut down because of all the rioting. I was in this one area that overlooked the valley in which Santiago resides and it was so weird looking at the blackened city except for those areas where fires had been started. Anyway...
Do you remember what you were doing the day you found out the towers had been struck? That was my first semester back from the mission and I had a job as a janitor in the JKHB from 6-9 AM every morning. When I was done with my shifts I would come home and sleep for a few hours and then go to class in the afternoons. One of my roommates disrupted my slumber, calling me on my cell phone, asking if I had heard that the one of the towers had been struck. I was groggy and wasn't sure if I heard him right. At that point, nobody really knew if it was a terrorist attack yet either. I ended up going to class, but while walking through the Wilk all the TVs were broadcasting the days events and there were dozens of people just standing and watching all of them in rapt attention. I stood for about 20 minutes by the TV near the entrance from the Wilk into the bookstore. It was so surreal. Nobody knew what was really going on, but everyone knew that it would have huge implications. It's a singular feeling to have.
View of the WTC from the International Space Station on 9/11/01.
Anyway, my brother put together an email with a number of videos and links to various tributes and commentaries around the web about the day, and I've come across a number of different items. Here are a bunch of articles:
Steven Salinsky writes about all the posturing made by radical Islamists in the days leading up to 9/11 and how that language still persists. Although they're not always valid, they are an indication of the persistent ideology that underlies fundamentalist Islam committed to the destruction of our way of life.
Victor Davis Hanson writes about the seeming schizophrenia that pervades our mentality today. He mentions:
For the last two years, polls in the Middle East have shown a radical drop in support for both bin Laden and the tactic of suicide bombing. We in response have apologized to the Muslim world and magnified its glories at the precise moment when, of its own accord, it has turned on its radicals, who have brought death, destruction — and defeat — to all in their midst.
Few Americans now support our continued presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. And yet even fewer ever thought that the Taliban and Saddam would be quickly dispatched, and two constitutional governments would still be surviving in their absence.
In short, we are reaching a critical moment of clarity. We continue practices that we say are either futile or wrong, and we demonize their architects in speech even as we ratify them through action. At some date, the Democrats and Obama may well close Guantanamo, try our own CIA interrogators, cease tribunals and renditions, ground the Predators, pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq, reach out to Iran and Syria, and distance the United States from Israel.
Ralphs Peters from the NY Post writes a somewhat inflammatory piece about how America has betrayed the dead of 9/11. Some of his points might be a little extreme, but I think he's right through much of the article.
This is a story from StoryCorps. John Vigiano talks about his sons, a firefighter and policeman, who both died at the WTC.
Now the videos...
This one is footage from a nearby building. A man who lived nearby setup his video camera after the first building was hit, and gets footage of the second tower being struck. I haven't seen any footage of the towers being struck since the events occurred, so I thought it was pretty jarring to see it again.
This one will make you cry - a tribute video to those who died, includes some disturbing images of people jumping from buildings.
And then this one is pretty cool. It's produced by the church and is actually about a man who was working in the North (?) tower when the South one was struck, and he left the building, only to see the North one get hit also. He suffers from survivor's guilt, but then finds peace through Jesus Christ.
This one is a timeline of the events of that day.
Hopefully we can all take at least a few minutes out of our day to remember what happened, those who passed away, those who still fight for us, and also acknowledge to ourselves that as individuals and as a nation that we still must be ever vigilant for our own interests before acquiescing to those who undoubtedly still harbor all of their anger and resentment towards our way of life.
These are just a few of Chris' thoughts on the most romantic pieces of entertainment.
Movie
I'm a little bit at a loss, I feel, when it comes to naming romantic movies because I haven't seen any of the classics. However, I'm a big fan of The Family Man. The guy starts out as such a jerk, but in the end he becomes the best dad and such a dedicated husband. I love Tea Leoni. I love the part when he's leaving for work and she runs out and grabs him and pushes him against the house and kisses him. I think it just fits perfectly the kind of relationship that I think any of us would like. There are a lot of things I love about his movie, this part being at the forefront.
Book
Scarlet Pimpernel. I love this book. Love it love it love it. It's really short too, so check it out. A wife feels trapped in a marriage with a man she presumes to be boring and slow-witted. While yearning for more romance and excitement, she later learns that he is in fact the Scarlet Pimpernel, and she has endangered his life by imploring him to help her brother. Best part is the restraint that he has to show in their relationship because he needs to maintain his identity as this dumb aristocrat, but as she walks away he literally kisses the ground that she walks on after she has left.
Poetry
So just about every street in Chile is either name for Miguel de Cervantes, Salvador Allende, Gabriella Mistral, or Pablo Neruda. Pablo wrote a book of sonnets for his wife and what's in there is probably the coolest, most passionate literature you could ever find. Sonnet VXII is probably the most well-known, and rightfully so, because it's just so beautiful. But even the letter at the beginning of the book that is addressed to his wife Matilde is amazing. Best part about his stuff is that you can read the English translation or the Spanish and lose very little of the meaning or the passion of his thoughts.
To my beloved wife,
I suffered while I was writing these misnamed "sonnets"; they hurt me and caused me grief, but the happiness I feel in offering them to you is vast as a savanna. When I set this task for myself, I knew very well that down the right sides of sonnets, with elegant discriminating taste, poets of all times have arranged rhymes that sound like silver, or crystal or cannon fire. But--with great humility-- I made these sonnets out of wood; I gave them the sound of that opaque pure substance, and that is how they should reach your ears. Walking in forests or on beaches, along hidden lakes, in latitudes sprinkled with ashes, you and I have picked up pieces of pure bark, pieces of wood subject to the comings and goings of water and the weather. Out of such softened relics, then, with hatchet and machete and pocketknife, I built up these lumber piles of love, and with fourteen boards each I built little houses, so that your eyes, which I adore and sing to, might live in them. Now that I have declared the foundations of my love, I surrender this century to you: wooden sonnets that rise only because you gave them life.
Painting One of my philosophy professors said that if you want to see a painting that will make your knees weak, look at this piece by J.L. Gerome, Pygmalion and Galatea. The myth, if you're not familiar, is about a sculptor who sees women prostituting themselves and tells himself that he will never love another woman. He was such an amazing sculptor that when he finishes the sculpture of Galatea she looks so life-like that he actually falls in love with it. Aphrodite has pity on him and brings the sculpture to life, and this painting is that scene.
Song
There's so many that qualify. Where do you even start? I love Marvin Gaye's You're All I Need To Get By, but this one is my current favorite. That second line just kills me. You know he knew that was a money line as soon as he thought of it.
Dance
How can I stay away from this show? And I'll never forget this routine.
I've been feeling really sappy this week so that means some Valentine's related posts are coming your way.
What is it about impulsiveness that seems to scream romance? It really is a splendid thing to be so caught up in the thought of another person that nothing else can invade your mind, almost like that boy or girl has made a permanent residency inside the walls of your head and he/she refuses to accept any visitors.
The most impulsive thing I've done for a girl was in April 2002. I had been dating her for the whole school year and the second semester she was back at home in Northern California. She had visited just after my birthday and right before finals, and was going to be spending the spring term in Italy on a study abroad. Once finals were over I went home for the summer. Having just seen her recently, I had kind of figured that would be it until after she got back, but I had some weird attachment/dependency issues with her and so I desperately wanted to see her again. So from one day to the next I drove up and met her near PacBell Park, which might be called AT&T or SBC Park now. We met up on a crowded street, stayed the weekend at her sister's place, and spent the whole time cruising around the bay area. I didn't tell anyone that I was leaving.
My favorite Valentine's day and impulsive related memory was on February 14th, 1994. We just had our Valentine's dance at Sierra Vista Middle School and I had managed to work up enough courage to ask the love of my life, Jennifer Meyerson, to dance with me. Back then I honestly thought she was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid my eyes upon, but I was painfully shy. A few days later, it might have even been the Monday after the dance, was Valentine's Day. My friend Chris and I both liked these girls and decided that one way or another we were going to confess our undying affection for them. I can't remember if Chris did it the day of, or the day after, but she ended up crushing his dreams. That turned out to be the first of many such instances for him. That guy has really taken a beating over the years. At least he never gave up and found the one for him. I wanted to see Jennifer, but had no idea how to go about doing it, and of course was deathly afraid of putting myself out there like that.
After what may have been an hour or two of coaxing and confidence building from my friends, I finally decided to go to Von's, pick out the most romantic card of what's left on the night of Valentine's day, rollerblade over to her house and tell her how I felt.
So with Dave in tow with me for moral support, I found my way over to her front door. I'm not sure what I was wearing, probably jean shorts at the time because I was really into that then, but I remember she came to the door wearing a red sweatshirt, black jeans, and had black socks with some kind of white pattern on them. With trembling hands, a faint heart, and a mouth exceeded in dryness only by the Atacama desert in Chile, I handed her the card. I think I said maybe about a dozen words the entire time, and repeated those probably about a hundred times during the course of the evening. I think I mentioned something about how great she looked at the dance, and how I just really wanted to let her know how I felt.
I was luckier than my friend because Jen was a really nice girl and really appreciated the gesture. She said something about how brave it was for me to actually face her and give her the card. I think I spent an hour at her doorstep, but I'm pretty sure we didn't talk about anything. Dave was rollerblading around in the cul-de-sac the whole time. Nothing ever resulted from that big step forward because I couldn't suppress my nervousness around her enough to ever talk to her after that point. At least not until my senior year in high school when we were finally a little more friendly, and I asked her to prom, but she already had a date.
I just love that memory. I love that I gave her that card. I love that I never took off my rollerblades the entire time. I love that Dave was just blading around in the background the whole time.
I kinda like this song on its own merit, not just because it's Halloween. I always forget about it until a day or two before, and then I'll listen to it a dozen or so times.
This week I have watched Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, 1408, House on Haunted Hill, and American Werewolf in London. Tonight may or may not be Evil Dead. I think that was one I watched when I was way too young and impressionable, but I don't remember anything now. I didn't realize it was rated NC-17 for gore, so I'm a little nervous about it. My brother went through a horror/slasher movie phase when he was a teen and I was like eight, so I saw pretty much EVERYTHING growing up. No wonder why I'm so well adjusted.
Is there a better holiday than Halloween? No. The answer is no. I went to a super crappy haunted mansion last Friday. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to go to more. It made me miss Knott's Scary Farm. I don't care how crowded it gets, you basically get the benefit of going through like 10 different haunted houses for like $30, whereas here you get one for like $15 a pop. And every year they have at least one or two that are amazing.
Because I can't embed the video, here is the Thriller link, and below is a remake. I'll bet you can hardly tell the difference between the two: Freakin' Indians. So weird.
I read Salem's Lot, and now I'm working on reading Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. It's what all the movies are based on, but it feels a little slow to be honest. Salem's Lot was pretty awesome though. Although this first paragraph from The Haunting of Hill House is pretty sweet:
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.
Here is one of my favorite ghost stories, The Upper Berth. I found it years ago in Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories. That's probably my favorite book filled purely with ghost stories that I ever read. Although in that book he doesn't author any, he's only compiling. Have you read any of his short stories? They're kind of twisted, and a lot of times have open-endings. They're awesome. Can't believe that guy was so successful with children's books.
And finally, let's close with this kind of odd poem by Wallace Stevens, The Emperor of Ice Cream. Give me some interpretations people, what do you think it's about?
Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb. Let the lamp affix its beam. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
