song from me

The rich man who can afford bread but does not teach his child how to choose it over candy is not a good father

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:01:00 EDT

"Marathe's chair squeaked slightly as his weight shifted. 'Always with you this freedom! For your walled-up country, always to shout Freedom! Freedom! as if it were obvious to all people what it wants to mean, this word. But look: it is not so simple as that. Your freedom is the freedom-from: no one tells your precious individual U.S.A. selves what they must do. It is this meaning only, this freedom from constraint and forced duress... But what of the freedom-to? Not just free-from. Not all compulsion comes from without. You pretend you do not see this. What of freedom-to. How for the person to freely choose? How to choose any but a child's greedy choices if there is no loving-filled father to guide, inform, teach the person how to choose? How is there freedom to choose if one does not learn how to choose?"

Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest. NY: Little, Brown and Co. 1996. p. 320.

what are you headed for?

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:40:00 EDT

on the road back from dewey lake, i saw my first full 180° arch ever

listen to this!

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:12:00 EDT

the bored again christian

"arguably the number one most-subscribed-to christian music podcast on itunes."

because it's not "christian" music. i highly recommend a listen.

diseases of the moustache

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:04:00 EDT

Temporary Handlebar Weariness.

"What horror to be so afflicted. The right-side cannot hold a twist at all."

(lifted bodily from Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century, a University of Kentucky Archives project)

(may I also take a moment to say that Bon Iver live is just as good as, if not better than, although wholly different from, Bon Iver on record. Plus, he covered Talk Talk's "I Believe in You," which just about took the show into the stratosphere, for me.)

this is essentially off the hook

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:28:00 EDT

who thinks of this? who thinks "i'll digitally stretch kelly clarkson's 'since you've been gone' and lay it over footage from decades-old space missions for the ultimate in spiritualized tributes."?

end of myself

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:18:00 EDT

(note: this is emphatically not a suicide cry-for-help)

it's just i've always thought of myself as above-average-intelligent. but it turns out my thinking is like split-pea soup when it comes to unraveling my own actions and motivations, or addressing issues of stress and complexity in my marriage and parenting and interpersonal relationships. i don't even have the mental capacity to unravel that last sentence!

so, it seems i've come to the end of myself-- that is, the end of my own ability to handle my life. i need some kind of external power just to handle my minute-by-minute.

i know that's what it means to 'trust jesus.' that it means to rely on his resources for life rather than my own. i just don't. know. how.

how i won the war

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:50:00 EDT

candy karaoke

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:13:00 EDT

album cover redesigns by irish artists. awesome.

two posts in one day?

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:32:00 EDT

more on this...

also, please check out zena's post today.

be careful who you mock

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:14:00 EDT

zach galifianakis *is* the snuggler on adult swim (thanks, zach and jim).

so, that's the preface. now, there's a guy who goes jogging on our street many evenings around dinnertime, in shorts and a t-shirt, with the full beard and scruffy hair. he looks exactly like the snuggler!

and we've made a big deal of it. "z, look, it's the snuggler!" "woah, it really is the snuggler!" "look guys, the snuggler, the snuggler!" so the kids have picked it up; their little dinner table is right next to the kitchen window, and when he jogs by, my son will often point him out and yell "mom, look, the snuggler, the snuggler!," and mazzy will shout "the snuuuugler!," which is innocuous in the safety of your (relatively soundproof) kitchen. (i must, for propriety's sake, point out that my children have never seen the actual video of the snuggler. still an okay parent, until the next paragraph).

fast-forward, then, to an evening on the porch with the kids. which we could have forseen what would happen if we'd stopped for even a second during our month-long snugglerfest to consider the possibilities. but nevertheless, along comes the snuggler on the other side of the street. and just like we taught him, my son screams at the top of his voice: "mom, mooooom, loooook! it's the snuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugler! the snuuuuuuuuuuugler!" which goes on far too long for whoever this jogging, snuggler-looking stranger is not to know that he *is* the snuggler to this random wacko family on flowerdale.

(gulp).

"um, hi. sorry. we point you out every night and make a big deal about how you look exactly like the snuggler, and my son is just really enthusiastic. we're not bad people..."

lesson.... learned?