7 Quick Takes (74)

1. I spent a good portion of the first week of February preparing for a seminar presentation on Henry IV 1 & 2, in case you couldn't pick that up from the rant about "gentlemen of the shade" last week. Those are some plays, folks. If you don't believe that a scene can at the same time be hilarious and horribly sad, you might want to look at Part 2 (after reading Part 1 of course). I suppose the knowledge of how it ends makes it sadder than you might get on a fresh reading, but I still find the tavern scenes pathetic, in the full sense of that word.

In case you are somehow entirely unaware of these plays (which I realize is possible and not condemnable), you must be introduced to Falstaff. This video is an excellent way to begin, though I take issue with Welles' description of the reverend vice. It's a great piece of stagecraft nonetheless.

2. Last Sunday after church I attended the Lunar New Year Parade. It was held on Pender Street in the rain. This is, after all, Vancouver. After some (im)patience, I finally managed to get close to the front, at which point my photography improved.
I am a Rabbit, so it seemed important that I attend this parade. I had been planning on going with friends, but I did not get the text that everyone bailed until I was already on the #10, bound for Pender St. So I was there "alone," or as alone as one can be in a crowd. I overheard numerous homeless people griping about the sudden influx of people, though some of them were friendly. I had an interesting conversation with a down-and-out-looking fellow on the bus, who descibed to me in great detail how he manages to avoid fights with drunks through trickery.
The rest of this post will have photographs of said event along the side.

3. There is a used bookstore down the street from me, and they have been stealing my money ruthlessly. Fortunately, this yeilds books: a collection of Donne's poetry (Cait, the one I gave you), One Thousand Years of Solitude, and Fables of Identity. This last is a collection of Frye's essays. Frye is a Canadian and once-influential literary critic who enjoyed significant popularity and is now considered obsolete and/or unreadable by most literary scholars. I know this, and I know why. I cannot take his work 100% seriously (it's too universalizing, for starters), but I must admit that I'm enchanted by Anatomy of Criticism. I might not ever work Frye into my own scholarly work, but they can't stop me from holding a torch.
At any rate, I can't afford to frequent this bookstore too often, but it's not a bad place. And I have a coupon!

4. On the recommendation of a friend, I borrowed the film Long Life, Happiness and Prosperity (2002). It stars Sandra Oh (Grey's Anatomy) and Valeria Tian (Juno) and takes place in the Chinese Canadian community of Vancouver. It's funny, poignant, gripping, etc. and so forth. Mindy is a twelve-year old only child to her workaholic, money-harried mother. She is an eccentric little girl who tries desperately to improve her mother's financial and romantic prospects... by means of Taoist charms. Her inexpert attempts at these charms backfire, appearing to cause ripples in the local community. I suppose you might not like it if you are opposed to movies in which Taoist magic works. But it is a good movie. Watch it!
[American readers: I am not sure if this is available in outside of Canada. I am wholly ignorant of such things. I couldn't get it at the Roger's Video here, not even before it closed down. I had to get it from the library.]

5. Weather-related take: Last Friday I was tempted to write a post raving about the beautiful weather. I finished reading one of the Henry's in the Rose Garden, no sweater, no shoes, no socks. It was gorgeous. Yesterday was nice, too, but otherwise it's generally been rainy. No surprises.

6. This up-coming week is Reading Week. Today, then, was the last day before break. This afternoon I went to a lovely prof talk by one Prof. Patsy Badir on shame and failure in Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost and Twelfth Night. If I do post at all this week, it will either be a continuation of one of the unofficial series (The Fantasy Genre, for instance) or some more explicit form of literary geekiness. However, I have grading, reading, and writing to do for Monday and Tuesday after Reading Week, so I may be too busy for blogging fun.

7. If you aren't already, I suggest you go take a look at the debate at Leah's Unequally Yoked. The argument surrounds whether it is at all acceptable, from any point of view, for someone to steal a host from a Catholic church, desecrate it, and post a video of said desecration on-line. What fascinates me is that there should be no debate at all. It's an obviously reprehensible act. I don't, for instance, think that a Zoroastrian fire is actually sacred, but I would react in horror if someone put it out; I don't, for instance, think that the Qu'ran is the revealed word of God, but burning one in public is a gross insult. I don't see how anyone could fail to make this connection, though it's also clear that many do. Anyway. Go take a look. I've linked to the most recent post on the issue, but from there you should be able to navigate to the older ones. [Edit 12 Feb: I should clarify that Leah is not the one advocating desecration. Not at all. I commend her for what she's said so far.] [Edit 14 Feb: I have now linked to her index of the posts. Thank-you, Leah, for your lovely indexes.]

And that's it for me. Please visit Jennifer Fulwiler at Conversion Diary for more.

7 Quick Takes (70)

1. Last weekend I watched some movies with the fam: Casino Royale, Blood Diamond, The Bucket List, and parts of PS I Love You. I don't think I have anything to say about any of them right now.
(I am sure other stuff happened. We likely went for a walk outside; I went to church; I read The Girl Who Played With Fire; I probably read Castle Waiting Vol. 2 if I hadn't done that earlier.)

2. On Monday we went to Edmonton. That afternoon and night we went to Whyte Street and to the West Edmonton Mall. At the West Ed my brother bought and had fitted a suit, I bought The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittester and The Problem of Pain by C S Lewis, and my mother got painting supplies. My father, brother, and I then went to the gun range. I don't think I have ever fired a real gun before. It was fun but I know that the other two enjoyed it far more than I did. We tried three different revolvers. I wasn't terribly good.

3. On Tuesday we went to the Art Gallery of Alberta and the Royal Alberta Museum. As always the RAM was interesting; in particular I enjoyed the temporary exhibit of nature photography. The AGA was also interesting, though I understand far less about it. I liked some of the Symbolists; I liked some of the Canadian landscape painters; I did not care for Matisse; I quite liked Burtynsky, but then I already knew that. His Bengladesh shipbreaking series is wonderful. That evening we returned to the Mall, where we discovered that the new Harry Potter was sold out. So Nick and I went to the nerd store and then I got a cinnamon bun and went to Chapter's and then, finally, we went to see The Tourist. It was enjoyable enough but I have problems with it. I can't tell you the problems without spoiling the film, though, so I'll desist.

4. On Wednesday we returned to Fort McMurray. I wrote a letter on the way. When we returned we took some ridiculous pictures as a family.

5. Thursday morning my brother caught a plane back to school.

6. For much of yesterday and today I worked on my Asian Canadian paper. I am almost done.

7. It's New Year's Eve or some such thing. You know, I like the idea of seasonal cycles. I've never understood New Year's, though. It seems like a silly thing to celebrate, the turn of an arbitrary demarkation. Such are we funny creatures, that one bit of time should seem different from another bit of time just because we have collectively decided to put a marker between them.

Please go see the host of this fine carnival, one Jen Fulwiler at Conversion Diary.

Happy Thanksgiving!

...while I try to think of today as something other than a commemoration of horrific colonial violence.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day!




You've heard the discussion about changing our national anthem? Well, I know where my vote's headed.

7 Quick Takes (XXX)

(though this week they'll hardly be quick)


1. If my life were other than what it is, then that St. Valentine's Day occured in 7 Quick Takes week 30, or XXX, would perhaps be appropos. I almost wish I could claim to have counted it out in advance and specifically planned for this sort of synchronicity, but, alas, I can claim no such thing. And, since my life is what it is and isn't what it isn't, nothing occured this St. Valentine's Day that would make even a single X rating applicable. Sorry that I can't provide your excitement for the day.
(Actually, for future reference, if anything ever were to happen which might deserve an X rating, you'd never hear of it.)

2. This past weekend, as you know, I went with the folks to Fort Chipewyan. In Alberta and now some other Canadian provinces, this Monday was Family Day, which is I think a civic holiday, which at the very least means that I didn't work. As with most three-day weekends, we left to go do something.
So, the trip to Fort Chip went something like this: on Saturday we drove north on the Winter-Access Road for five-to-six hours, seeing on the way a grouse and some ptarmigan, not to mention awesome environments. We arrived in Fort Chipewyan and went into our accomadations--the Northern Lights Bed and Breakfast--which was a nice though modestly-sixed house decorated mainly with aboriginal artwork. I stayed in the Bison's Guest Room.
That afternoon we went dogsled riding and learned all sorts of things, and got to play with husky puppies. The puppies were one sixteenth wolf, which the owner says doesn't really mean anything at all. By the time you breed the agression out of dog-wolf hybrids, you've lost any genetic advantages the wolf ancestry might have. The father of these pups (one eight wolf) was simply a very good sled dog, and the owner did not want to lose those genes. Anyway, if you're ever in Fort Chipewyan, give Robert Grandjambe a call. If you think you're headed that way, contact me and I'll set you up with his phone number.
On Sunday we tried to drive to Fort Smith and the Northwest Territories border, but failed to get there. The roads were so rough that we were forced to drive at about 35-40 km per hour, which doesn't make trips go any quicker. We, alas, saw no bison or moose, notwithstanding being in Wood Buffalo National Park. We did see bison tracks, and we saw the Peace River. I will sometime get photos of the drive onto this blog.
Sunday afternoon we returned to town and visited the museum there. It was small, but they had some cool stuff, including a beaver-paw purse and a Chipewyan syllabic typewriter. Also, we went to the top of the hill behind the museum to see the cairn and to look over the Lake Athabasca. In so doing I stood on some exposed Canadian Shield, which made me happier than you'd likely imagine. I did not spend much of my life on the Canadian Shield, living just south of it; this being said, I have always for some reason been attached to it, and to the exposed rock of northern Ontario, and so standing on that same geological formation seemed like a connection to my distant homeprovince. Also, it has "Canadian" it in, and for some reason I'm right now really into Canadiana.
Anyway, we also visited the church, drove around town, and ate at the Lodge, which Lodge burnt to the ground a day or so after we left.
What I learned about Fort Chip is that their likely-government-subsidized housing looks boring on the outside but may nonetheless be quite nice on the inside; that their cemetary has primarily wooden crosses and many of the plots are individually surrounded by picket fences and may have covers; that Fort Chipewyan has just as many ravens as Fort McMurray; and that Fort Chipewyan, like Fort McMurray, is fit in and around hills and so appears smaller at first glance than it really is.
We drove home on Monday, a drive during which I mainly felt nauseated and slept, though I did pen a sonnet before conking out.

3. All this week has been sunny and mild. With the exception of today, snow has been melting off of the boardwalks at work. It's been deceptively spring-like, and memories of Fort McMurray in the summer have been pounding through my blood. Disappointment is coming, I am sure, as we aren't through with winter yet. This being said, I cannot wait for spring. Except when I'm doing awesome winter things, like dogsledding, or when I am seeing the feather-prints of ravens in the snow. This happens daily now.

4. I have now read some of those other library books, including most of the Best Canadian Short Stories 08 and the pre-Tolkien fantasy stories. The latter are quite fun, to be honest with you. I hadn't expected them to be as good as they are. Hopefully I'll have the time and inclination to discuss them with you. In a later post.

5. Wednesday, as I am sure a good number of my regular readers will know, was Ash Wednesday. This is the first year that I've attended an Ash Wednesday service since I was confirmed, which was about eight or nine years ago. I went to church early, as it turned out, and was about to leave because no one was there. However, the priest and her husband pulled in just before I would have resolved to leave and informed me that service was in fact forty-five minutes later than I had thought.

I was also invited to serve. I realize that at this point some of you will be thinking, "Here we must listen to how he served yet again," and you are quite right. You must.

This time I was asked to read the Litany of Penitence, which is very solemn and, well, penitent. I was also told I might be asked to give one of the readers, depending on whether anyone from the guest churches had been asked to read. (On important but low-attendence events like this, local churches will alternate holding services, with all of the priests or ministers presiding in whichever church is hosting it.) Rev. Lesley told me that David was here, so I wouldn't be expected to preach, and I said that that was a good thing because I'd forgotten to prepare a sermon. By the time we were ready to start, five of us--our priest, two other ministers, the deacon, and myself--were joking and laughing quite a bit. One of the other ministers was greeting people with "Solemn Ash Wednesday" rather than "Happy Ash Wednesday," but the rest of us were having an awfully hard time being solemn.

This is important, personally, because here I was, a young guy and a new one to town, and I was able to stand and joke around with four ordained members of the church, all mature and congregationally important people. I felt like I was invited to hang out with the big kids, and we all know how great that feels.

And then, when the time came, I read the Litany of Repentence, though I hadn't expected to be reading it from a kneeling position. My knees were very vividly remembering when I had abused them so badly on the ship's decks. I nonetheless found that I could project my voice from that posture and I was very solemn and penitent. I do hope I helped convey the emotion of the responsive reading. It can be very difficult to worship to a drone, I know. Not that anyone in our church is guilty of that.

Well, there's more to say, but I'll move onto another point because this hasn't been quick at all.

6. I have found more blogs to read, which is a terrible, terrible thing. I have too many to read as is.

7. Hmmm. What else to say? Other than what I've said, there isn't a whole lot going on with me. So I'll stop #7 now to make up for the monstrously bloated numbers 2 and 5.

Visit Conversion Diary.

XXIV

1. On Sunday I served at church again. This will be the last for a little while. I was surprised to see Rev. Leslie there. This meant it was to be a communion service, which I still feel best prepared for. This is the last time I serve for a few weeks now. I still accidentally kicked the little ceramic Magi under my chair whenever I leaned forward.

I am also borrowing The Book of Alternative Services (of The Anglican Church of Canada). So far I've only briefly looked through it. I wanted to see how liturgies were written. I hear them every Sunday, of course, but it's easier to study in writing, so long as you remember that it's prefered form is oral. Over the last few months I have begun pondering the sorts of genres that occur during ritual. It's funny; we discuss all sorts of different genres in English classes but our scope is very limited. I think once I read sermon in one of my English classes. Once or twice I read non-literary academic articles--one of them was an excerpt from Darwin's Origin of the Species. Because my Renaissance professor was a New Historicist, I read a few Renaissance pamphlets. Overall, though, even for genre-interested courses, I have read very little other than prose fiction, written poetry, dictionaries, and non-fiction concerning aesthetics. I have not read many newspaper articles, nor lectures (a hugely important secular genre), nor letters (other than poetic Romantic letters), nor any of the genres concerned with worship services. This gap in my education seems odd--I won't bother going into why it's odd here--and I figured I'd remedy it myself.

Anyway, I once wrote some sort of 'devotional poetry' for a Creative Writing class and a classmate suggested I draw more upon liturgical language, as it was already so poetic. At the time, though, I had no idea how I would access this language, since the church I was attending had little that resembled traditional liturgy. No more than the bare minimum in responsive reading and the 'hymns' were not hymns in the traditional sense, for the most part. Well, now I can access this language, and study its genres (prayer, responsive reading, confession, etc.).

2. I worked this week. Except for brief periods of the day, and I was almost entirely unaware of these, I was all alone at work. Monday through Thursday. By Thursday my work ethic was very low. It's tough to motivate yourself when no one's around for so long. One's mind tends to go off without permission, leaving one rather incapable of working. But I did get quite a lot done, so I'm pleased with that.

Everyone else had this week off; I would have, but I traded it for last week.

3. We put the dog down on Tuesday. Not much to say on that. I'm not actually all that sad; I can't figure out why. I did spend quite a lot of time with her. I don't know. She was old for a dog. I received her and her brother as puppies on my birthday in grade three. I am have a Bachelor of Arts, so you can see that grade three was some time ago, at least in dog years.

4. Also on Tuesday we went to see Sherlock Holmes. I ought to read more of those; I've only read Hound of the Baskervilles. I recognize there's a sort of puritanism debate going on. There's one contingent which is somewhat affronted by how many liberties they took with this most recent movie, and then there's another, more educated contingent which points out that the Sherlock Holmes most people are familiar with is unlike the one in the novels. (Holmes isn't the only one to change, either.) Most people think of the Holmes from the early TV shows and movies, and he's disimilar from the books. Not very many people at all are aware what the Holmes from the books looks like--I've only read one, so I don't think that's a fair assessment--and its difficult to do puritanism well when you don't even know what the original looked like.

The movie itself was fun. Holmes' brilliance was cleverly portrayed, and I must continue to give Robert Downey Jr. props for being charismatic in roles that could be aggravating (ie. Iron Man). Jon will be pleased to know that Rachel McAdams is in this. (Is that why you updated your list, Jon? She's been in the media lately?) While her hairstyle in some scenes made her oddly similar to Helena Bonham Carter--I say "oddly" because she looks nothing like Helena--and she wears period male clothing which makes her look like Oliver Twist sometimes, she nonetheless pulls off a good seductive thief. And I managed to overlook that Watson was played by Jude Law, which is really a good thing, as I for some reason don't like him very much. I also particularly liked how the movie ended.

5. We rented Angels & Demons. It was very similar to the novel, except it omitted one of the more interesting "twists" at the end. I won't spoil it for you, unless you explicitly ask me to. Anyway, it was well-filmed as far as Hollywood goes, and I thought Ewan McGregor was, as usual, excellent.

6. I am enjoying Fallout 3. I know I don't usually talk about computer games here, largely because I never play them any more. However, I do have this new one, and I'm liking how it feels. I don't necessarily mean the in-game ambiance, but rather the interface. I like the way one interacts with the in-game world, the sorts of things one gets to do, and how the Pipboy and VATS work. It's being called the best game ever made, and while I think such a title is a silly idea (how does one judge?), I can understand how this would be a competitor for it. I have hardly scratched the surface of it, and if my track record holds out I won't ever finish it, but I must say this is something I am enjoying. If nothing else it is well-crafted.

7. I spent New Year's Eve updating Wikiquote. And then I went to bed. I don't really do New Year's. I'm one of these people who feels it's too arbitrary and doesn't signify anything of value. It doesn't hit any of the holiday/festival registers; it has no meaning, or at least it lacks obvious signifiers. I recongize that it has to do with turning to a new year, with opportunities and new chances. I celebrated one New Year's in Mexico, and there they have a tradition of eating grapes after midnight and making a wish for each grape. That I can get behind because it's a concrete ceremony (eating grapes) with a concrete reference (wishes) which fulfills a specific spiritual need (hope/petition). But watching fireworks? Fireworks are celebratory, and celebration is also a spiritual need, but what are we celebrating during New Years? Surviving the year? I don't feel like that's a real issue where I live. Not failing at life this year? That's a hard one to take seriously when I'm stuck out here in cultural exile, and anyway it seems awfully pessimistic. I just can't get into it. Any of the winter solstice-type festivals (ie. Christmas) or the spring equinox festivals (Easter) seems to be more sensible to me; the symbolism is clearer. You know, world redemption in the midst of sin and death. That's something that I find meaningful. Celebrating the march of time? Less so.

(8.) We (Mom and I) went for a walk in the woods today, and I took a few decent pictures.

XXIII

1. My brother visited this week. He is normally over at Animation 07-11, where he draws pretty petchers, but he flew in from the Internet on Saturday. We picked him up at the airport and took him home, where he maneouvered around in a remarkably conscious state until he fell asleep during Public Enemies.

Which film is interesting, by the way. It is akin to Lawrence of Arabia or The Guns of Navarone in that I don't fully understand how it operates. It is about a character--not character interactions so much as a character--and the symbolic code or order or whatever you want to call it is different from most movies made nowadays. There is something entirely inaccessible about Dillinger, which is usually a mark of an older movie (ie. 60s) rather than a newer one. At least, in my limited film-watching experience it is. Maybe I'm just a dummy when it comes to watching the classics. Whatever you may think about me, this is not an impossible proposition.

Anyway, my brother coming over meant that the family was together again, at least for a week.

2. We, my family, volunteered at the Salvation Army's Christmas Dinner on Sunday. Mother and I helped set tables while brother and father worked in the kitchen. Then, once food was being served, I was in the kitchen generally slacking off and doing dishes with the other men-folk in my family. We (Nick and I) were sent out to eat once all the guests were served, and we joined a very bearded man named Rob who told us quite a lot about electromagnetism and how the whole system was being run improperly. We chose sitting with Rob because he had been alone for the whole meal.

My mother and I spoke to a woman who wore a nice necklace. My mother commented on it, and she said something like, "Oh, thank-you. Yes, I got it from a dumpster. I got everything I'm wearing today out of a dumpster. You'd be surprised what people throw out." She said it as someone in my own demographic would say, "Oh, yes, I got it on sale at [Abercrombie-and-Finch bracket accessory store]." That is, she said it with a certain amount of pride. And let me be clear: she takes care of those clothes. I'd have assumed she bought them at Wal*Mart or Zellers or maybe somewhere higher-end.

This did mean that I didn't go to church, but I think that's fine in this case, just this once.

Oh, and did you know that the Salvation Army's clergy (their term, not mine) wear uniforms and have ranks, like "officer" and "captain"? I did not know that. I think it's fascinating.

3. On Monday we celebrated Christmas. My Dad works irregular shifts, see. Well, he works very regular shifts, but they don't align with the days of the week, and he doesn't get stats off. (He makes an obscene amount of money on stats, too, so he doesn't exactly want to take them off.) So we celebrated on Monday. It was good, of course. I received more than Fallout 3 and seasons 2.0, 2.5, and 3 of Battlestar Galactica (see photo), but those are the salient points here.

4. On Tuesday we drove on the winter road to Fort Chipewyan. It is only maintained during the winter, and is rather cool. Perhaps I will have more to write on it later as we explore it a little further. (I can't claim the coyote picture; Nick took that one.)

5. I went in to work on Wednesday for four hours in the morning. I got some work done and got some questions answered, the latter of which was most important. I also showed brother and mother my project when they came to get me.

My brother also managed to get Fallout 3 working this day, and I played a little. I have not played it since, but I did enjoy it. I so rarely do that sort of thing any more--play video games, that is--but I used to do it fairly often. I think I like the FPS-RPG hybrid. (If you don't know what those terms are, I wouldn't bother looking them up.)

6. On Thursday, Christmas Eve proper, I served at St. Thomas'. In fact, I served for midnight mass, or the 11:30 service. It was the first Communion service I participated in as part of the worship team. I was jittery at first, but it worked out. Cues were, of course, as always, an issue. I was too distracted and nervous to feel overwhelmed or elated or whatever by the sacrament. But I will get 'better' at being a server and will hopefully as a result learn more things.

It was tough work staying up late enough for that, though.

Evidentally more happened on this day than evening service, but that might be better explored in the next entry...

7. On Friday, brother and I watched obscene amounts of Battlestar Galactica. Over the last week we managed to finish seasons 2.0 and 2.5, but as much as 4 and a half hours of that were viewed on Friday. I must again repeat the quality of this show: it is not your 'dinky' or 'silly' Star Trek-like sci-fi people seem to think it is. That's not to say that the original wasn't--I wouldn't know--but this show is good. It deals with "issues" and characters and suchlike that are required of being good. I have discussed that some extent here, but if you weren't with me back then, you could use being told it now. So consider yourself informed!

Which is not to say that we did nothing else. We--Nick and I--went for a walk down to Conn Creek, a little brook which runs through green space in the middle of the Thickwood-Timberlea area of town. One thing I didn't do is post on my blog, because I spent most of the day thinking it was Thursday instead of Friday, so I'm not doing Quick Takes until now. Sorry.

Today we returned my brother to the airport, from which he will go back into the Internet. But that is really for next week's Friday post.

Adieu,

Christian H aka English Clergyman

7 Quick Takes (XX)

1. I'm actually writing this Thursday night. I might be too busy tomorrow night (a social outing) to do this on Friday, as is traditional.

2. Saturday was Old Fashioned Christmas. Assorted things happened. We had an ice rink and a sledding hill. There were horse rides and pony rides and sleigh rides. There was a hockey shuffle board. There was maple syrup on a stick and children's crafts. There was chilli and hot dogs and hot chocolate and hot cider. There was a silent auction and a gift shop and pointsettas. There were carolers and live entertainment and bonfires and Santa Claus and elves and Christmas decorations. I was floater, as usual. It wasn't a bad event. I stayed later then than I ever have, though. I got out at 8:00. Before I left, I was mopping floors by flashlight.

I want you to look at this photo I took. The one to the right in this paragraph. Those are carollers, yeah, and that's a dude taking pictures of them, and there are little wooden sleighs with reindeer in the background and further back there are Christmas trees with Santa's Village in front of them. But that's not really what I want you to observe. What I want you to notice is the positions of the sun. See where it sits above the horizon? See the length of the shadows? Now here's the kicker: I took this photograph at 12:00 o'clock noon. That's the highest the sun gets around here. And we're not at solstice yet.

Of course, in Inuvik the sun doesn't even raise entirely above the horizon by now.

3. I served in church on Sunday. I've already written about that, though, in this post. That also happened on Sunday. I'm sure other things did, too, but they aren't really coming to me right now. It was a bit of a disappointing weekend, given how short it was.

Writing that Advent post got me to thinking. (Any surprises?) The other day I saw on ad on Facebook exhorting me to celebrate Newtonmas on 25 December. Maybe they want to join the festive season with their own scientistic holiday (I say 'festive season' because this time of year certainly has holidays other than Christmas, and the Jewish community began to observe Hannukah more to fit into the mainstream culture, Islam has the Eid and many religions have solstice celebrations, so I think it's fair to say this is one of those times of year that are celebrated by many different cultures). I have a suspicion that they want to practice a bit of irony and try to replace Christmas' spot in the mainstream culture with their own holiday, but I know I shouldn't think that because it's uncharitable. The choice of Newton-mas over Newton Day makes me wonder, though.

Anyway, this is the second scientist-based holiday campaign I've heard of. The other is Darwin Day. It makes sense for the atheist revolutionists and secularists to try and create a seasonal cycle. Conversion Diary has written about the importance of liturgical seasons, and in my incarnation as a Religious Studies student I have come to realize that many faith traditions take seasonal cycles far more seriously than your average Christian. I like being connected to the natural, planetary cycle because it makes me feel more agricultural and less urban, which is at this point nearing hypocrisy. Regardless, I realize how important it is to be able to enact a symbolic, community narrative each year, and the cycle of fall and return is a potent one. I think it will be a difficult project for the scientistics to create such a symbolic narrative. The creation even of a narrative has proven difficult (see the failure of things like The Great Story to gain momentum), and even people like Dawkins have noted that atheist communities seem inherently prone to dissolution.

Strictly as a scholar of religion, I'd like to see how this calendar holiday deal develops for the atheist movement. Will they try to use the actual idea of calendar holidays--that is, creating an annual narrative that the whole community reenacts--or will they find that is antithetical to their whole project of atheism? And do they have the voice and numbers to make this become popular? People who are still in academia (where atheism is more influential), could you keep your ears to the ground and let me know what develops?

4. I'll never finish this post if my entries continue to be this long.

I finished reading the Lovecraft collection (Nick, if you're reading this, know that you can borrow it now). Unrelated to this, I also finished reading Isaiah. I am now in--you guessed it--Jeremiah.

Thoughts on Isaiah: at some point I need to sit down and read it in bigger chunks. Maybe chart it out. I feel like something's there, but I'm not seeing it. I'm feeling like my education in close reading, while necessary and formative, is limiting me in my ability to see the whole of things I read. I want a sense of the whole structure (an idea I got from Frye, and again there are no surprises there). I have some sense of unease concerning this book. It's my first Prophet since my months in the Wisdom books, of course, so it's been a little while since I read much about carnage and slavery, I guess. This is why I want a sense of the whole.

I started this with Lovecraft, so I guess I should say something about him. Not the best, but certainly not bad. If you have any interest in the horror genre, you ought to read him. If not, then I suppose you need not. "Facts Concering the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family" remains my favourite, though "Whisperer in the Darkness" is a close second.

I have started reading Daphne de Maurier's Rebecca, and am so far enjoying it.

5. Today I received a thank-you (I won't tell from whom or for what) in the form of a $25 gift certificate for Peter Pond (a mall up here) and a space pen. It's one of those pens that can write underwater upside-down in a vacuum on a greasy surface at 100 degrees Celsius. (OK, I realize that it is impossible to be both underwater and in a vacuum or at 100 degrees Celsius and in a vacuum. You know the pen I'm discussing, though.) I also received a $2o gift certificate at Chapters-Coles-Indigo, so I have some fun lined up this weekend!

6. I had some work related things to share. I can't really remember. Let's see. It's cold. But not as cold as it usually is here this season, and it's bound to get colder. And I am now starting to think I hear people with me (usually upstairs) in empty buildings, especially when I have to go upstairs. But those weren't what I had in mind.

There's an article in the Queen's alumni magazine about female sexuality which is pretty interesting, but that's obviously not it because that has nothing to do with work.

That's it! I remember! Sorry, this is negative. OK, I shouldn't say it, because this might get back to me in a bad way. I don't think anyone at work is even aware that I blog, but it's the Internet. Who knows who's reading, right?

Notwithstanding, let me just say this: I am annoyed when educators speak in non-standard English. In particular, I am annoyed when educators speak in a regional dialect--Newfinese, say--when they are educating in a different region--northern Alberta, say. I'm worried they'll teach the kids bad habits, for one. With Newfinese, the worst will be the habit of replacing all ats with tos. ("Go and sit to your desk.") Prepositions and articles, in case you didn't know, are some of the worst for making people judge you. Not only is a person less likely to mistake a vern or noun, but we're usually more forgiving when you do, since then it seems like you're ESL. If you mistake a preposition or article, though, you just sound lazy/slangy/ignorant. This is problematic because, in English, prepositions are the hardest part of speech to learn. This is part of the reason why Chinese immigrants sometimes appear less intelligent to English-speaking Caucasians (or anyone else who thinks they're less intelligent based on language use, I suppose). It's also why it's a problem if you're teaching young kids and you use prepositions incorrectly. We don't systematically teach our children prepositions, but rather teach it through example. (Since it's almost entirely idiomatic and follows no universal pattern, it would be virtually impossible to teach by rote or rule, anyway.) So they kids might pick up the teacher's preposition use, which preposition use will be invalid in the context of all of the English-speaking world with the exception of Newfoundland and maybe Cape Breton. And since they won't be speaking in a Newfoundland accent, people won't chalk it up to coming from Newfoundland but will instead assume that the kid's just not as bright as he/she probably is.

Also, when you tell the kids to stay on the bridge and the nearest bridge is on the very busy highway, I get a little worried. I really hope that the kids know that "bridge" in Newfinese refers to a porch or deck just as much as it refers to a piece of architecture spanning a river, ravine, or road, and that therefore the teacher is telling them to stay on the deck. I don't see how they could know this, but then again I didn't see any of them headed for the highway, either.

I don't think there's anything we can do about this. I certainly don't want to discrimate against people who speak differently than me. It just seems like it's going to be a problem in the education system, as it might give kids habits which will be an unnecessary detriment to them in the future.

Educators, what do you think?

7. OK, cut to the chase, because I need to go to bed: Jon asked in a recent post about life being fulfilling. Or he discussed, more than asked. OK. I feel sometimes unfulfilled because I work for so much of my life now. For those of you still in school, I say this: be happy. School's better than the work force. At least, that's how it's been for me.

So where do I get my fulfillment? The loser answers are blogging, books, writing, and Corner Gas. The less loser answers are fortunately truer, if less frequent. Going to church is actually a big one. I know it sounds hokey, but it's true. St. Thomas' is now a big deal to me. Refer to the Advent post. And time with the dog is actually up there, too, even though she's getting smelly.

And I can't think of any more right now, other than thinking, which I try to do a lot of, and maybe playing Banagrams with the folks.

I need more 'inputs' (think Navs talk, for you Navs readers), and I really need more 'outputs'. Actually, a lot of my outputs are inputs and vice-versa. But what keeps me trucking right now really are those things I mentioned. Other than that I worry about my eyes dying on me due to the superfluity of screens, it works so far.

Simple pleasures are not for simple people; simple people need complex pleasures to keep them occupied, while complex people can deal with stangation because their own minds can turn fairly minor stimuli into fascinating phenomenon. Obviously there's really no such thing as 'simple people.' But I think there's an element of truth in what I'm saying. Look up the original meanings of extrovert and introvert in the personality theories.

An Advent

[To the folks from Elizabeth Esther's blogstravaganza: this current post, "An Advent," won out over a close competitor for the monthly carnival slot. That other post is featured here. It represents what is perhaps another facet of my blogger-personality, appearing as differences in topic and perhaps style. In this case, I am discussing the intersection between people with disabilities and cultural ideals of sexiness. I talk about Aimee Mullins, conjoined twins, where 'sexiness' comes from, and moral reactions to these things.]

Today is the first day of the liturgical year, beginning with the season of Advent. If you are interested in what Advent is, I will yet again encourage you to visit Conversion Diary, which is quite likely one of the Internet's best wikis on all such things, even though it's not officially a wiki. I won't be talking too much about Advent as a general topic, though. Rather, I want to talk about this Advent, which marks or is marked by a unique advent for me.

(In case you didn't visit Jennifer Fulwiler's blog, I should at the very least tell you that Advent is the first season of the liturgical year and one during which we prepare ourselves for the birth of Christ, celebrated on 25 December. The end of the liturgical year, a season known somewhat anticlimactically as Ordinary Time, is the time in the liturgy during which we recall Christ's reign on Earth. Thus in the turning over from this last Saturday to today, we move from Christ's reign to a pre-Christ's reign time, a sort of harkening to the Old Testament which is itself a preparation for Christ. That's not a pre-Christ's reign time in that during this season the sacrifice is somehow moot and we're all for the next few weeks damned. No. It's rather a symbolic sort of thing, a remembering sort of thing. Anyway, Advent is a time of New Year's resolutions--or positive personal change--as we prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ, both as born in Bethleham and as returning again at the end of all things.)

This Sunday, you may recall, is the first Sunday that I became a server at Saint Thomas' Anglican Church. If I were asked to give my denomination, I would say either that I was baptised and confirmed Lutheran or that I am non-denominational. I recall three churches of which I would have called myself a regular member of the congregation: the Lutheran one (St. Paul's) previously described, the evangelical/non-denominational/student church (Bethel) at school, and St. Thomas' here in Fort McMurray. Bethel did not have an alb-clad worship team, but St. Paul's did and during the last two years of elementary school and to a lesser extent the first year of high school, I served there as an acolyte. (I was also Assistant Minister once, but I don't remember much about that.) Anyway, one thing I missed when going to Bethel was the ritual, the altar space, the formal roles, and, as a sort of crystallization of all of that, the alb itself. Here at St. Thomas' we have both the energy of Bethel and the ritual of St. Paul's, and when they called for servers (of which 'acolyte' is in the Anglican church a subtype), I volunteered.

I completed server training a few weeks ago, but in the first two Sunday's following that the other new servers served, and then last Sunday there was a baptism and so one of the girls from the more experienced lot served for that. This Sunday, then, was my first day as a server. It is my luck (solely a figure of speech, I'm sure) that my first day as a server was the first day of Advent, and thus the first day of the liturgical year. Truly a day of firsts.

As far as St. Thomas' itself goes, this is also a time of turn-over. It doesn't match up as neatly as my first, but it's still interesting. Rev. Fraser is going to be consecrated as a Bishop soon and presiding in Athabasca. Thus St. Thomas' will be out a priest. (Rev. Leslie Hand will still be 'our' priest, but she can't always make it Sundays due to commitments at another church.) Today was the second or third worship that I have attended which Rev. Fraser did not himself attend. Rather, the deacon and one of the lay-readers (David and Lori respectively) made up the worship team with myself. Fraser will be back for some more Sundays, but not many more. The sort of service we had today will be more and more common, and so while it's not an actual first, it is among the first and is a taste for what will follow in a few weeks.

However, this leads into a more human story. That is, because Fraser was absent, we did not have communion this Sunday. The sort of service I prepared for was a communion service, and the cues I was watching for were communion service cues. This means I got awful lost and confused when I realized that a central part of the ritual would simply not be there, and so I had no idea when to do things. For instance, in the three songs before communion, you prepare the table during the second song and receive the offering during the third song. So I know that when the priest starts getting ready for the sacrament, I should be getting out the bread box and then the flasks, and then on the song after that I will get the offering plate, receive the offering, and place it on the altar. But since we had no communion, the pre-offering liturgy would be different and my other cue (the priest preparing the sacrement) would be missing. So I was lost.

After some fumbling, though, and some kind guidance from David, I got everything done on time. The good news also was that Lori hadn't led service very many times before and she was nervous too, though she certainly didn't show it.

There were other fumbles than that, but not major ones. David and Lori were very nice (and presumably still are) and it all worked out, and likely no one in the congregation was the wiser.

In a way I was disappointed that there was no communion. I would have liked to have helped prepare the host. It seems magical to me, and I wanted to be part of that. Now, I dislike your common Christian sayings because I fear that through overuse they have lost their meaning. Notwithstanding this, it occured to me during service that this disappointment is another instance of God's plans superceding our own. I had wanted to be part of communion as a way of strengthening my own bond with Christ through that ritual. The whole process was something that I craved, and I craved it solely because I wanted it to make me feel more connected to Christ. This I did not get. Rather, I served during a service without a communion. My focus was on other things then, like singing loudly enough and praying loudly enough and getting my cues right. I was forced to trust that David and Lori, and through them God, would help me perform this role properly and help me help the congregation worship during a time of transition.

I am not saying that I was in the main disappointed, but it wasn't what I was expecting. And don't get me wrong: I have not walked away from this saying, "Now I can trust God and trust the worship team! I am now focused on helping the congregation and not myself, and I can now find Jesus in the service elsewhere than in the host!" It would be nice if these were true, but they aren't really. I don't trust well at all and I barely think of the congregation and on a bad day I have a hard time finding Jesus anywhere, even in the host.

I knew that my peformance as server would not transform me from someone feeling lost and distant from God into a zealous and whole 'little Christ' who is pumping the Spirit out to the congregation. While I am sure that the sow's ear can become a silk purse as much as water once became wine, the transformation from me into Super-me nonetheless seemed a little unlikely even in light of that. I was, however, hoping for some magical connection, some sudden and undeniable affirmation of my community in Christ. Rather, what I did learn, if it was learning, was a lesson that is integral to Advent: that I am not there yet; that I need preparation and that my change is a process, not an event; that I have a long way to go.

I read Narnia books and see how exciting it is that Aslan comes in at the end and turns them into heroes. What I conveniently forget is that Edmund had to wallow in the Witch's prison. That Eustace had to become a dragon (or become disabled and disfigured, which you get by reading what it's like for him to be dragon) and then undergo what amounted to torture at Aslan's claws. That Aravis and Shasta had to trek across the desert with lions hot on their heels (like Jonah, in a way). That Polly and Eustace had to fight a losing battle amidst sorrow at the ends of times. That they had to do all of these things before they became knights (or friends) of Narnia.

The question, of course, is what sort of change is needed? I don't know, but I suppose neither did Edmund, or Eustace, or Aravis, or Polly, or Abraham, or Hosea, or Peter, or Paul. What I do know is that I will start paying better attention to the liturgical year. I don't know what to do to observe that, but at least I will keep an eye on it. And I will stop expecting magical transformations at the appropriate time, not because they can't happen but because they likely won't if you're looking for them.

7 Quick Takes (XIX)

1. On Saturday, I went in to work in the morning. I continued on my project until 1, at which point I went home. I got some movies in the afternoon, and of them I watched Drag You to Hell (or Drag Me to Hell? I can't recall). It wasn't very good. The plotting and pacing needed work, since the climax and the final scene both lacked the emotional impact one expects. Also, the special effects were sub-par for what we expect these days. Or, at least, some of them were. Not all, I guess.

2. On Sunday, I went to church and stayed afterwards for lunch, during which I had a talk with a kid about his Lego and then had another conversation with the deacon. That afternoon I watched Labyrinth, which I enjoyed overall. I still find the movie soundtracks from that era to be counterintuitive. I found I was unimpressed by the battle sequence at the end, due in all likelihood to the fact that the sequence was hampered by the use of puppets. (Necessary in the situation, I understand well enough.)
I did things in the evening that I can't recall. In the later evening I watched Children of Men on the TV. I enjoyed it, but that night I went to bed imagining apocalypse and I was a bit unhappy about it. (Normally thinking about apocalypse doesn't effect me much, since it's all just hypothetical/fantastic, but for some reason I was feeling impressionable--hypnotic?--enough that it did bother me.)

3. Monday. What happened Monday? Well, all this week we've been preparing for our event, Old Fashioned Christmas, which is happening tomorrow. This has had everyone running around busy and stressed.

4. I stayed late on Wednesday. I do remember that. I didn't stay too late, mind, but we got some help from a local landscaping firm. They lent us workers and a cat and we wanted to utilize this as well as we could. However, it gets dark too early to work very late. (Twilight is around 4-5, I'd say. After 5 it's pretty much dark.)

5. Hmmm. While a lot has been going on at work, not much of it is worth comment. It's all just events preparation. I put up lots of Christmas lights; I arranged a Christmas village we had donated and, with ample help, put up Santa's sleigh and Rudolf in a biplane. There was also lots of carrying of things back and forth and suchlike. Today I spent some time arranging floodlights onto buildings. It's been that sort of thing.

6. The homeschoolers came this morning for to present their completed projects. At least, those who could make it did. We had five kids, three of whom read short stories/picture books and two of whom had video assignments. I think it went well. It was stressful trying to get it together in the midst of events preparation, though.

7. I was going to stay late today to continue setting up, but in the end didn't. My Mom, who has the van, usually picks me up. I got the receptionist to call her, but apparently the message didn't record or something. I'm not sure, really. Anyway, the boss goes out and gets me at five to five saying that my ride's here. I was unprepared for that, but the boss said go home anyway, she'll see to it that everything gets locked up. So I went home at the regular time. It felt odd, going home so suddenly without any closing ritual. I felt like the day was unfinished. That feeling faded quickly enough, though.

I swear stuff has been happening outside of work--at any rate, I'm not getting enough sleep--but I can't recall what. Sorry.

At any rate, the event is tomorrow. And then, on Sunday, I am serving at church.

Fare thee well.

Additions to the 7

I forgot these two last night. I got up to seven a bit too soon.

8. It's snowing up here now. Apparently it does not usually stay on the ground for long, but a light dusting of snow has been here for a few days now. I have heard that the second last week of October or so usually gives us one more blast of warmth.

9. We had Turkey Day dinner on Thursday night. This is because my Dad works straight through this weekend, so Monday night's a no-go for us. We had a chicken and not a turkey, with taters and carrots and parsnips and stuffing and spinach.
Americans: in Canada, we celebrate our harvest festival at actual harvest time, not in early winter. (Okay, okay, I realize that November is harvest time in some of the US. Still not convinced it would have been for those pilgrims you always see eating the pumpkins, though.)
Non-Northern North Americans: Turkey Day is slang for Thanksgiving, which is a stat day in Canada and the US. If you watch American telly, I assume you know what Thanksgiving is.

7 Quick Takes VIII

1. To those who live rural or small-town or small-city communities, the idea of a harvest fair or festival is probably not just an academic sort of thing but more of an experiental one. And I'm not just talking about dressing up for Hallowe'en or eating turkey at Thanksgiving, either, but rather about going to a real honest-to-goodness Fall Fair or Agricultural Fair or Plowing Match or something similarly named.

Well, Fort McMurray has some things vaguely approximating this idea, and one of them is the Country Fair, which has for the last few years been venued by Heritage Park. By now you can guess what that means...

This past weekend I was working at the Park. Because of the events in the Park, the executive director decided to open Chateau Gai Hot Dog Café, our concession stand. Due to the sudden absence of any summer slaves (I mean "summer staff"), I was called to work the whole thing. My Dad volunteered the Saturday, and my Mom volunteered the Sunday. Technically, Dad was there for some of Sunday, too, since we called him in but then didn't need him, so he left again.

On Saturday, my Dad and I ran the barbeque and hamburgers while the girls--Susan and Laura--ran the actual concession stand itself, taking money and suchlike. On Sunday, we didn't have Laura, so my Mom ran the barbeque while I helped Susan in the concession. However, we were worried that it would be too busy for my Mom to handle alone, and called Dad in. It turns out it really wasn't that busy on Sunday. Overall, it was a pretty slack couple of days, considering that I was in fact working. (This all means that I have worked for 12 days straight now. Ho-hum, actually.)

2. I painted some at the Marine Park. I put some aluminum paint on vents and the like, and I put black paint on other things. I also painted the great big auger (which is quite distinct from an augur, even though I would have spelled them the same if I hadn't looked it up just now) aluminum, which I don't personally think was an improvement. It does look new and shiny and eye-catching now, but I think it's eye-catching enough without the shine. Its twisted, snaggle-toothed, rusty, menacing mass was enough to grab my attention on the first day, at any rate.

I wore my knee-pads, of course, and I hadn't been on my knees all the time, but I can still feel the weakness and stiffness and pain in my joints from last week, and I feel it all the more when I'm working on those decks, pads or no. (Sorry for the hypertactic sentence, there.)

3. And on the note of things I did at the Marine Park, I once again rode up high in the Genie with my supervisor to paint things I couldn't otherwise reach. I note this in particular because, as my folks will readily attest, there was a time when I would be too utterly terrified to do it. I am afraid of heights (I know too much about phobias to claim I am acrophobic any more), and yet I am not so often afraid any more.

For instance, I was utterly fine in the Genie, despite the fact that it's basket has a grill bottom, through which I can easily see. It's strange: not only am I unafraid, I get somewhat sleepy, in a contented way. It's the same sort of feeling (though not as strong) as that I get sometimes when I am getting a haircut, or someone for another reason is playing with/working on my hair.

4. I have begun, very tentatively, to work on the virtual museum exhibit that will occupy much of my time for the next six months. When it is completed, the museum will be hosted by the Virtual Museum of Canada. Specifically, it will be part of the Community Memories deal. A good example of an exhibit, like that I would wind up making, is Ava's Story. (Isn't she pretty?) Anyway, I won't be e-curating about Japanese-Canadians in BC, of course, but that is the format of what I'll be doing.

In the end I only installed and messed with the software, looked for computers to work from, and did very very very preliminary research. But I have begun.

5. Let's see, now. There were books in there. I finished Prince Caspian. I started and finished Taran the Wanderer, by Lloyd Alexander. That was a good one, which I had never actually read before. I read all of the other Prydian books as a kid, but not that one. I also started and finished A Wrinkle in Time, and have been chipping away at The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Adventures in Narnia. I think, for a number of reasons, I will struggle with the latter; some of those are differences in literary-analystical interests and methods (for instance, I think Lewis' biography is of far less importance than the author seems to believe), but others are more personal. The author, as you can tell from the title, is against the whole Christianity thing, and loves the books despite their theological moorings. And I think most of us know the emotional toll anti-Christian sentiment plays on me.

6. And if you didn't know the emotional toll anti-Christian sentiment plays on me, you will soon find out. I had the idiocy of reading the page on Dawkins in Wikiquote. I have no idea what made me go there, but for some reason I did. You know, I've been good lately. I haven't read very many comment threads, I haven't gone scouting out for atheist blogs (I do this looking for some thread of open-mindedness, and so far I haven't found enough to stitch together a hole in your sock), and I haven't been reading the sorts of books that are likely to irk me. But, for whatever reason, I read some quotes from this man.

Atheism in general distresses me, but I don't make a fuss about it because, let's be honest, that's almost the worst thing you can possibly do. I have lots of atheist friends and even if I'd like the 'atheist' part to change, it seems rather important that the 'friends' part remains the same. So I don't make a fuss or attempt conversions or preach or make leading remarks or talk Christianese. Atheism may bug me, but I don't let that influence my behaviour.

But that man (Dawkins, I mean). He just drives me up the wall. I read that page for maybe ten minutes, and I spent the rest of the evening angry, frustrated, scared, and hurt. I had such trouble dealing with it. While I knew that everything he said was wrong, and I could articulate reasons why it was wrong, I still couldn't shake the convincingness of it. He's like that. He's good at these sorts of rhetorical games. He's so f***ing persuasive. Part of the problem is that the man rides on probability and dismisses possibility, and part of the problem is that he tends to isolate things. Everything makes perfect sense in the little nuggets he presents them in, but they tend to look less relevant and less convincing when you realize that he's looking at a very small part from a very narrow angle. In the end, of course, he has it wrong. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't look like a fine piece of reasoning taken on its own terms.

This, I think, is how he gets so persuasive. He says things people suspect or want to believe, and then backs it up with these little philosophical tricks of the light. He adds in a great deal of the sort of dry humour which includes those who believe what he says and utterly degrades those who don't, and he layers on top of that huge piles of self-confidence in his own rightness. The humour and the confidence, though, are only hiding the hatred and arrogance that make up his whole project.

At least, I know there is arrogance and I suspect there is hatred. There is likely also fear and confusion and doubt and love in him somewhere, but I cannot see it and almost do not want to believe it is there.

So anyway, sometime later that evening I was having a shower and outright fretting about this man and his clutch of rabid followers, and I didn't know what to do. I felt I had to do something, but I couldn't for the life of me think of what. I wanted badly to just sit down and give the whole thing up (not that I could have told you what that meant) if it weren't for the fact that I knew that not only the organized church, but also Christianity, humanity, and the whole of existence would cease to exist if I didn't fight.

And then I remembered a few fundamental things. The first was that so long as I believed and lived that belief, then I've done all I was supposed to do. The second was that God would make things OK. I might not understand how he was going to do that, and I might not even be able to recognize the OK-ity of it at first, but in the end all things glorify God. I just have to deal with that, and it's something I do for and within myself. I don't need to "fight"; at least, not here and for this. The third was that all the screaming and arguement and proof and sophistry is not going to move someone who really believes, be it in the existence of God or the non-existence of God. I can provide arguments to weaken Dawkins' hold on people, but in the end these arguements will not win people over to the side of God. Just calming down would be a better bet than to go in swinging. To say, "Yes, I understand what you are saying. Yes, I can see how these things are convincing. And yet, I still believe," might be more powerful than any arguement there is.

So after my shower I was a bit better. But I've still rankled a little here and there for the rest of the week, and my back, just beneath the shoulder blades, still crawls a little with pre-fight or flight tension.

7. This Take requires some background: starting at the end of next week, I will be taking a vacation to my home province of Ontario, visiting three campuses altogether (Sheridan - Oakville campus, Kingston, and St. Clare).
I had been planning on leaving on Friday at 1:00 or so at night. On Wednesday night, I looked an my travel itinerary and noticed something interesting. Due to the obvious error we made, I am actually leaving very very early on Friday, at 1:00 in the morning. Yes. I leave a full 24 hours early than anticipated.

Which actually works out quite well, because I now get to spend a whole other day with my brother. We plan to go see 9.

My employers are fine with it, in case you were wondering.

This means that my next 7 Quick Takes will be written from Oakville, perhaps in the late morning, even.

That is all. My, what a long post for such little occurence.

You know the drill: http://www.conversiondiary.com/2009/09/7-quick-takes-friday-vol-49.html

7 Quick Takes (V)

1. My brother's gone back to school.

2. As I said before, the dog is here. She's getting on in age, but she's still doing well. She was tired last week, but now she has much more energy and constantly craves attention (and treats).
Her back legs are stiff, though, so sometimes requires assistance when trying to stand up on the linoleum floor.

3. On Wednesday evening, I went to a staff (Heritage Park) potluck. I made a pasta: penne with two parts alfredo sauce and one part tomato sauce, mixed with fresh diced tomatoes, oregano, basil, and thyme, covered in grated cheddar and baked in the oven for fifteen minutes at 350 degrees. The food that the others brought was quite good. There was a curry-base dish with chickpeas which I quite liked, numerous excellent desserts, perogies... I can't remember it all, but I quite enjoyed the food. I spent most of the time with Brett and Brody (sons of the receptionist and, interestingly enough, my brother's co-workers) and Ross and Ben (brothers of co-workers). These are pretty agreeable guys. I barely knew Ross and had never met the others, but I enjoyed it. I didn't really spend much time talking to the girls. They seem to have established cliques or social patterns which I do not fit into. That's fine, of course, and understandable. Most of them will be leaving in a few weeks.

4. I have received a number of old books, most of which I will not read. Josh (my coworker at the Marine Park) and I cleaned out an old trailer full of stuff, and in it was a box of books that were going to be thrown out. Books! Of course I had to rescue them. Most are your cliche fantasy types (at least half have "Dragon" in the title, and one has "Elf"). I don't think I'll keep a single book (they'll go to the Salvation Army or the used book store), but I will likely keep the Archie Digests. What a nostalgia trip, reading those. I'm going to write a post about them at some point. The social dynamics in them are fascinating.

5. We've been having trouble getting work done at the Marine Park. Guys from Ceda came to blast off the old paint and rust from the deck of one of the barges, using a high-pressure washer. This was on Wednesday. We were planning to paint the deck on Thursday, but that was a no-go. It was too rainy. So we worked at Heritage Park instead (during which the previous entry happened). Then today we were going to paint it, but in the morning we saw water standing on the deck and it was too damp when the supervisor made the call. Not half an hour after the supervisor left it warmed up enough, dried up enough, and the water evaporated. If it weren't for half an hour of rain after 1 o'clock, it would have been perfect painting weather. What do you know? I'll be painting Monday, I suppose.

6. Oh! I nearly forgot! My mother and I went to interPlay on Saturday. It was entertaining enough. We saw a performer in the little open-air theatre where the library used to be. He juggled impressively, at fire, that sort of thing. Good performer. Then we saw another busker on the street. He was an escape artist type, though he also swallowed a balloon and did a strange trick with his hands, where he bent them backwards oddly. It was hard to tell what he did. It was neat.

7. Today was my co-worker's last day. I'll be alone at work much of the time. It was good working with him. He kept me entertained. Jon, he'd remind you of Dave Griese, in that he says racist and sexist things all the time, and you're never sure if he means them or not. He drives some people nuts (quite intentionally), but I don't get offended easily. I'll enjoy the solitude for a while (I always enjoy solitude at first), but perhaps I'll start to get lonely in time.

That's seven. Go see the Quick Takes Queen. And while I'm making plugs, I encourage you to read PA's Automata series. The first page is here, and the second is here. The remainder you can get to by hitting "Next" from the second page.

7 Quick Takes (IV)

1. As you can infer, I'm sure, Nick and I went to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on Saturday. We took the bus back home and I realized that twilight is about the one time of day that I'm at all pleased to be in an urban environment. The lights do it.
That night, it was a blood moon.

2. I worked Saturday and Sunday in preperation for Heritage Day. As I think I indicated previously, I had hoped to avoid it, but to no avail. I had particularly wanted to go to a church here in Fort Mac that morning, as a co-worker's sons were leading worship. Instead, however, I was working at the Park, in part because the other maintenance/labour-type coworkers had both come down with physical maladies (dehydration sickness, thrown back). Despite that fact that it most emphatically was not my job, I wound up doing a lot of the preperation. Fortunately, two of my staff-mates called in their boyfriends to help me. I really struggled not to be resentful that weekend.

3. Heritage Day was busy, of course. I was a runner and also the guy in charge of washroom cleaning and garbage pick-up (my usual role during events). Part of the responsibilities of the runner is to sub out the volunteers for their breaks, which lead to my leading a child-bearing pony around for twenty minutes. The pony's name was Crackerjack, and he quickly learned that I was not very experienced in pony-leading. He went as slow as he could go, and tried to sneak bites of grass as often as he could. Troublesome pony. The donkey, Chocolate, wasn't much better, as whenever she was unattended she'd trundle her little cart right in my way.
Due to the traffic Conversion Diary will bring, I should explain Heritage Day: at the Fort McMurray Heritage Park, a museum/park where I sometimes work, we host assorted events. Our largest event is Heritage Day, in which we invite cultural groups to come in and express their heritage through dance or music or vending art and food. We also have lots of games for the children and a petting zoo. Maybe this weekend I will make a whole post about this day.
Anyway, it was quite exhausting.

4. That same weekend (on the Sunday), my father returned to Fort Mac, bringing my mother and our (elderly) dog. That's right: the family is now officially moved to Fort McMoney, Alberta.

5. Due to my working through the weekend and the less-than-ideal weather after it, I got Tuesday off. Good thing, too: I needed it.

6. On Wednesday, I was walking down the street and a homeless man gave me a book. It took me a while to figure out what he was trying to communicate to me. He had received a book from a Chinese woman but didn't intend to read it. Did I want it? I took it and thanked him, but it was a while before I realized that he really didn't want money for it. He simply wanted to give it to someone who would use it. I am very use to being propositioned for money (or food, or empties) here, and I admit I was somewhat startled to be given something by those who usually ask for something. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had said "Good afternoon" to him earlier that day, of course.
Incidentally, I said he received the book from a Chinese woman. What happened was that she, a complete stranger, approached him with a shopping cart full of clothes. She asked him if he wanted them. He said he'd take them, as a friend of his (a woman there during his retelling) could use some new clothes. In the bottom of the cart were the book and some kiddie card games. The woman said that some of the clothes were new; they'd never been worn. I am very intrigued by this. Did the woman realize she had too much stuff, including clothes she'd never worn, and so decided to give them away to those who could use it--not to the Salvation Army, but directly to people who needed it? Or did she go out and buy the stuff expressly to give away? Or some other possibility I haven't thought of?

7. And on the topic of books, I am currently reading Spenser's The Faerie Queene: Book Three. In second year we (that is, my Renaissance Poetry & Prose class) were required to read the first book, and I found it terribly difficult. This past academic year I was required to buy books three and four, but then the books were dropped from the reading list. I was intrigued, however, by the premise (a lady knight, or "martiall Maid", seeking the man she is destined to marry but has only ever seen in an enchanted mirror, all as an allegorical tale demonstrating how she learns what it means to be the Knight of Chastity). After having read far more Renaissance texts and, even more importantly, Middle English texts (in the original), Spenser's "antique" language seems far less daunting than in second year. I am quite enjoying it, actually.

And that's seven! Look at that. It was a busy week, and so the seven takes were easy to fill.

Be sure to check out the Quick Takes Queen.

The Gallery

In the spirit of posting things you'll not have seen before, I'm going to post "The Gallery." This is one which might get me in trouble with particular friends if they read it... to those friends, who never read my blog but there's always a first, none of the characters are supposed to represent actual people. Except one, but that person really isn't going to be reading this.
It was written for a creative writing class last year. I was experimenting with form a bit back then. Still am, really, but less overtly.
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The Gallery

      He once had a dream where he walked through the winding passages of a carnival freak show. In it, the gallery’s denizens were sitting in chairs or on stools, each in a separate niche or room, posing without obvious chains, but he could tell behind their eyes that they were not here by free will in the strictest sense of the word. It was more a case of
      not having anywhere else to go, so we sat around our living room and talked about stuff. I was feeling tired and out of it from cleaning the house all day, so I listened more than talked.
      Rafe and Carol were arguing about religion from either end of the futon while Julie watched TV. It was really Joe who had started it, of course. He’d asked if Rafe believed Muslims were all going to Hell. Rafe made some sort of diplomatic answer that said, “Yes, I believe that all Muslims are going to Hell, but I don’t want to say it out loud.” Carol, as usual, got mad about it.
      “I’m not saying that I think there is a heaven or a hell,” she said. “I honestly don’t think there is. But I don’t see how you can be so closed-minded about the afterlife to say that all people who have different religions than you are going to hell.”
      I didn’t want to get involved and I certainly didn’t enjoy the argument, but I saw Joe that was grinning and his eyes
      were a little more mischievous than the usual person’s were. The man wearing a stained work-shirt and last week’s grime clearly enjoyed this exhibit: The Four-Legged Girl, sixteen or so, who had two pairs of legs. All four appendages lined up in a row next to each other, left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. Above the waist, the girl was normal, as far as he could tell. She used all four legs in an odd pattern as she waltzed to the sound of an old gramophone, seemingly for her own amusement rather than theirs. The other viewer was noticeably relishing the thought of what someone could do with a girl who was double below the navel, but all he wanted to do was ask if it felt odd to have extra feet, or if the rest of the world just looked top-heavy. He did wonder about things along the same line as the man next to him, but it was not
      something you talk about if you want to avoid insulting someone,” Julie said from the floor in front of the TV.
      “Exactly.” Rafe nodded. “I had a Muslim friend when I was a kid in summer camp, once. We just didn’t go there.”
      “Think about it,” Julie went on. “Muslim people likely think all Christians are going to hell. Christians likely think all Muslim people are going to hell. Muslims and Christians likely think all Buddhists are going to hell. So they probably don’t want to talk about it because it wouldn’t help social situations any.”
      “But that’s exactly what I’m trying to say,” Carol said. She flapped her arms quite a bit as she spoke. “If everyone thinks everyone else is damned, then society falls apart, unless they’re open-minded enough to realize that other religions are just as right as they are.”
      “No one of any religion will think that other religions are just as right,” Rafe muttered. When Carol shot a look at him, he spoke up. “It’s part of religion to believe only in one God. As a Christian, I am bound to say that other religions are wrong.”
      Julie looked like she might disagree with this, but first Carol went red in the ears and said, “I just wish that being a Christian wasn’t the same as being
      a Pinhead. That was what the sign called him, anyway. It also said he was The Missing Link between humanity and animals. A young gentleman, probably educated from both university and newspapers, had a young woman clinging to his arm and was displaying the exhibit’s varying points of interest to her. The display looked dolefully at the observers, sitting on the stump placed in front of his tent, which was so small and open that he had no privacy. His head was small, and hence the name. More specifically, it sloped back radically from the eyebrows and ears and came to a clear, rounded tip at the top. His head, but not his chin, was shaved, giving him a Neanderthalic appearance. The dreamer wondered whether the man could read, and then thought, just for a moment, that when the gentlemen examined various points of phrenology, that man on display was thinking ‘I know
      exactly what you mean,” Rafe interrupted. “You think that religious people can’t be very smart or else they wouldn’t be religious at all. Dawkins’ book, and all that.”
      “I just don’t see how an intelligent person can believe in God,” Carol said. She’d now turned on the futon and crossed her legs so that she was facing Rafe directly.
      Julie had swiveled back from the TV to say something, but Rafe cut her off before she could start. I could see his hands tremble a little. “Perhaps intelligent people have figured out that reason isn’t everything, and atheists could learn something from that.”
      “He’s right,” Julie said.
      “There’s emotion, intuition—which studies show is more reliable than calculation—there’s faith, authority…”
      “Oh, come on,” Carol said. “Those are logical fallacies. You learn that in grade ten.”
      “Logical fallacies,” Rafe said. “There’s your logic again. Thinking like your typical doctor…”
      Joe’s amusement aside, I wasn’t feeling very comfortable with all the tension, as from either side of the futon the two heads
      argued with each other. That the Two-Headed Woman’s two heads would bicker did seem somewhat caricatured to him. It was generally understood that couples who argued and resolved their differences had healthier relationships, so he hoped that was the case here. They sat on a stool in the centre of their niche, wearing a sleek black dress reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn. There was no fabric between their young necks, so the viewers could see that this was no hoax. A flurry of boys, entering adolescent awkwardness and clearly not old enough to be there, clustered and gaped at the women. One of them shouted out at them and asked if they had the same boyfriend. The woman on the left stopped the hushed debate to ask the boy if he thought he was man enough to satisfy both of them. Her sister scolded her and they fell back to arguing. Suddenly, the spat seemed to flare, but then fell into laughter. He then wished he could get to know them over coffee, or as life-long friends; asking personal questions from a distance like the hassling rabble would not bring him any
      understanding of the situation or of the people involved,” Julie continued. “Look, unless you genuinely try to see things from the other person’s point of view, you won’t get anywhere.”
      “But,” Carol objected, “none of the religious people I’ve met have ever tried to do that. And that includes my parents, who are very liberal for missionaries.”
      “Not that you seem to be trying all that hard yourself,” said Rafe.
      “It’s different,” Carol went on. “By definition, if you believe in a religion, you have to discount other points of view. I at least examine them objectively.”
      I somehow doubted that, but still felt too uncomfortable to say anything.
      “I don’t mean that you have to believe what the other person is saying.” Julie had pivoted entirely at this point. “I’m just saying that you have to respect that the other person has reasons for believing what they do. I mean, you two arguing on the couch is maybe a step forward in dialogue, or whatever, but it doesn’t mean anything if you’re simply trying to convince the other person of your point of view.”
      Both Rafe and Carol began to glower, but Joe cut in, saying, “What’s really happening is that they both want to screw each other, but they can’t because Rafe’s Christian and Carol isn’t, so they’re trying to convert each other. Really, it’s their unresolved sexual attraction that’s causing all the arguments.”
      Julie raised her eyebrows at me and started to laugh, but then she noticed how embarrassed Rafe and Carol seemed, like Joe’s comment
      had exposed something private. The middle-aged woman watching vocalized her shock at his public display, saying how terrible it is to show yourself in such a way. The dreamer watched as the man crawled about his living quarters on all fours. His knees, according to the sign and visual testament, bent backwards. The middle-aged woman said that he should be employed in something useful and out of sight—perhaps as a beast of burden on a farm in the country, where none could see him. Horse-Man was trying to ignore her, but his head was consistently drawn in her direction when she hectored. Eventually, he surrendered and sat in a modified lotus position on the floor. It made his limbs less shocking, but
      it still doesn’t obscure what they really are,” Carol said, though less passionately than before Joe’s comment. “Religions just fulfill some psychological desire.”
      Julie, now frustrated with the argument, had returned to watching TV.
      Joe said, “With so many people believing in religion, there has to be something behind it, yeah, but I agree it isn’t necessarily logical.”
      “Once again, logic isn’t everything,” Rafe argued. “There’s also—”
      I was about to leave the room to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich or something, but Julie spun around and shut the argument up for good.
      “Just talk about something else, OK? You’re clearly not going anywhere and there’s no point getting everyone upset over this. You know each other well enough to know that you aren’t the stereotypes that you’re talking about. Rafe is perfectly intelligent and isn’t anti-Semitic, Carol, you know that, and Carol’s not immoral and, I don’t know, an abortionist or something. So, if you’re done taking this out on the rest of us, let’s talk about something else.”
      Carol looked like she was still willing to argue, but Rafe said, “Yeah, alright.” With some reluctance, Carol mumbled, “I’m sorry, Julie.”
      “You’re a Christian, Julie. Do you think all Muslims go to hell?” Joe asked, and all four of us laughed
      shakily as she lay on her bed. The sign called her Snake-Woman, but he thought it was a misnomer. She lacked any bones beneath her ribcage, and so the rest of her lay draped like animal skins. Other than her toned arms and thick neck, she lacked any muscle-tone at all. They were alone together in this room, and she spoke to him between her wheezing giggles.
      “Don’t feel sorry for me.”
      “I—” he said, and didn’t know whether he wanted to say ‘don’t’ or ‘can’t help it.’
      “I am happy with my life.”
      “I can’t see how you could be.”
      “You don’t have to.”