One other thing I could use a bit of help with, and which therefore strikes me as good open-thread fodder in my absence, has to do with my upcoming change of address. Slacktivist World Headquarters will be relocating in April. I’m leaving this lovely one-bedroom apartment here in Everybody’s Hometown and will be moving into the third floor of my girlfriend’s father’s house (picture Rudy from Season 1 of Survivor and you’re not far off). Yes, as I’m sure you’ve... Read more
No. 37, a prayer of St. Andy. This is a brilliant song. Whatever else it may be, it is also explicitly a prayer. I was trying to imagine what an appropriate response might be to such a prayer, which led me to wonder if this isn’t also, unwittingly perhaps, a Christmas song. Read more
OK, so I’m headed to the Northeast Kingdom for the next week and will be mostly away from the Web. The last time I did this, more than a year ago, I posted a series of open threads asking for book/music/movie recommendations. I’m still working my way through those suggestions, but that’s no reason not to keep adding to the list. Somewhere to the right side of your screen is a nifty little widget displaying my Netflix list. Help me... Read more
Left Behind, pg. 411 In a rare display of economy and pacing, we skip directly from Chloe’s midflight conversion to this at the beginning of the next chapter: Buck called New Hope Village Church to set up an early evening meeting with Bruce Barnes, then spent most of the afternoon at the Chicago bureau of Global Weekly. This is a remarkably streamlined transition and a radical, but welcome, departure from the pattern of the book so far. Sure, the first... Read more
The weekend edition has this town way overrated … “Up,” Ticklepenny Corner “Up All Night,” Green “Up in This (Blood on the Banjo Remix),” Don McCloskey “Uphill Battle,” Sarah McLachlan “Upside Down,” Jack Johnson “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),” Stevie Wonder “Uptown,” Prince “Upward Over the Mountain,” Iron & Wine “Us,” Michael Been “Used to Get High,” John Butler Trio “Useless Desires,” Patty Griffin “The Usual Thing,” Marshall Crenshaw Bonus track: “Uuuu (Medium Swing),” The Seventy Sevens. Mike Roe and the boys... Read more
I need to revisit “Shlock and Awwww: Commercializing Altruism” — Jon Mooallem’s conflicted appreciation of ABC television’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Mooallem’s summary of the show’s process is dead on: “In charity,” Francis Bacon wrote, “there is no excess.” But then Bacon never saw Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, which since 2003 has been meting out garish and super-sized acts of charity — each more skillfully choreographed and excessive than the last — every Sunday night on ABC. Each week, the... Read more
Looking ahead to the possibility of a general election campaign against Barack Obama, John McCain tried out some attack lines last night. They need work. Referring to Obama’s mantra of “hope,” McCain said this: “Hope, my friends, is a powerful thing. I can attest to that better than many, for I have seen men’s hopes tested in hard and cruel ways that few will ever experience.” So far, so good. The reference there is to the long years McCain spent... Read more
Because more of the same, only harder, is kind of like change too. (Viia Mojoblog. If you haven’t seen the original, see here. And remember, “Your favorite candidate sucks” (via). Read more
Left Behind, pp. 400-409 Buck Williams isn’t intended to be perceived here as the ever-present, unshakeable, stalker-pursuer of Chloe Steele. That role is reserved for God. We’re supposed to see Chloe here as chased by the very “Hound of Heaven.” God has tracked her down, worn her down and now, at last, we come to Chloe’s big conversion scene. Then again, “conversion” may be too grand a word for what happens to the converts in Left Behind. None of them... Read more
Left Behind, pp. 400-409 An alternative interpretation of these pages … How to Handle a Stalker You meet someone at a dinner party in a city far from home. He seems pleasant, normal enough. You depart on friendly terms, telling him to give you a call if he’s ever in your part of the country. The next morning you learn that he has booked a flight to your city. More than that, he has booked a seat on the very... Read more
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