The Christmas Post (featuring the Grinch)

I haven't been around recently due to finals, going home, etc. I've been really busy with things, like washing cars for spare change, carefully constructing Gastly profile pictures so that it looks like Gastly is taking over my profile,  and rereading the Artemis Fowl series while getting mildly emotional every time it looks like Artemis may just have a heart. YA books are wonderful. Currently, I'm waiting for my latest batch of ink cards to sit and dry while I listen to "The 99 most Essential Christmas Masterpieces" that I downloaded from Amazon for two dollars. Not even kidding. They're good recordings, too-- choirs and symphonies from Boston, New York, St Peter's, and lots of other places. I don't mean to sound like an advertisement, but seriously. It's awesome. Two dollars.

My family has a tradition of watching the 1966 version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year, and we just watched it last night. I now harbor a newfound love for the Who Song (Welcome, Christmas). And the Grinch Song, of course, but that goes without saying. There's something that's just perfect about the Who Song. Even though they get their presents back, they're happy without them, and while the human in me is cringing at the destruction that the Grinch has caused Whoville, they don't seem to mind at all. This actually seems to be a rare feature in most Christmas movies, which tend to involve some sort of appreciation for Christmas spirit after something good happens, or after the protagonist has learned some painful/touching/epic lesson about the meaning of sharing/love/happiness/Christmas/whatever. But the Whos are different; the only thing that happens to them in the movie is this:

1. They get ready for Christmas, like every year
2. They get absolutely everything taken from them
3. They wake up on Christmas morning and start singing, as usual
4. They let the Grinch into their singing circle
5. They get their presents back
6. They let the Grinch carve their roast beast

There is no questioning that he destroyed their town or that they have no food (seriously, Christmas spirit aside, wouldn't they have starved?), but they welcome Christmas anyway, seemingly without any notice to the current state of affairs, and welcome the Grinch just as gladly. There was no lesson; nobody was taken on a ghostly adventure to see how they should change their future, or presented with the dilemma of whether or not to accept that creepy old man as the real Santa Claus. They simply accepted Christmas and the Grinch, no questions asked. And they actually embrace him as they allow him to sit at the head of the table!

And the Grinch himself, while ostensibly a children's character of a mean old man with a heart two sizes too small and a soul full of "dirty socks" who decides to turn nice, actually represents even more for adults. The latest Glee episode had it right with the focus on the downfall of Christmas spirit that comes with growing up. The Grinch mentions something about how he has been witnessing Whoville like this "for fifty three years". He's turning into a Scrooge. Except that Scrooge had to be pushed out of his grumpy old man "I hate christmas" stage by external forces. The Grinch discovered it on his own, and changed on his own. Even his wonderful, cute, awesome, loving dog Max doesn't really help with that transformation. While it was the singing on Christmas Day that seemed to push him into the world of happy Christmases, there was no singing at the Grinch. The Whos were just singing, and he listened to it. And then his heart grew three sizes that day! 

I think that's why the movie/book is such a classic. (And why the Jim Carrey one was such a fail). The lesson happens almost spontaneously, seemingly without an instigator. That's important today, because if you don't have something magical and miraculous happen on Christmas day (like what happens in every Christmas story ever), then it's kind of up to you to make it happen. That's what the Grinch did, and it worked for him, and he's been a popular and iconic character now for over fifty years. So take a hint. 

I hope everyone had/has a wonderful Christmahanukwanzaakah and holiday break!

The Garden of Eden

In the beginning, when God created Man, He gave Man a wonderful gift: the ability to do homework right when it was assigned. When God gave them homework, they completed it that very hour, so that when it was dinner or time to go to sleep, they did not worry about finishing their homework, because it was already done. Because of this, Adam and Eve found that time abounded and each day they were able to savor every second. The glorious sunny days in Eden seemed to stretch on forever, and the beautiful nights with starry skies never ended.

The Serpent came to Eve one day while Eve was doing her homework, and lured her away with the offer of a delicious looking fruit from the tree. Eve explained that she had homework and had not yet finished, and the Serpent said, "But why do homework when you could eat this delicious fruit instead?" And Eve saw the fruit, and she decided that it did look delicious, but said, "But, Serpent, it is forbidden. I have to do my homework." And the snake said, "Why? What is the point of doing that assignment?" And Eve could not answer. So she took a bite, and found that it was indeed delicious, and was much more pleasurable than doing homework. And she took Adam away from his homework and said, "Eat this fruit," and he, too, took a bite, and they ate fruit in the garden together. The next day, God woke up and checked His email for the assignments that were due at midnight before, and found that they were not in His inbox, and He was displeased. And He said to Adam and Eve, "You did not turn in your homework, and you must leave Eden."

So Adam and Eve left Eden and entered a very different world from what they had previously known. There was suffering and pain and death, and they were new to all of these things. When God gave them their first ex-Eden homework assignments, Eve sat down first to finish hers, but the snake entered her mind and distracted her so that she messed around online and hung out with friends, because that seemed more enjoyable. But time did not slow down, as it had done in Eden, and Eve found that she never did end up finishing her work. She went to her home and explained to Adam what had happened. Adam and Eve were confused at first. Where had all the time gone? But God came to them, and showed them how when Eve was doing fun things like playing on facebook and watching movies with her friends, the time passed far more quickly than it ever did in Eden, and she hadn't been savoring each moment like she had on Eden. God said, "Because you chose to listen to the Serpent instead of me, he will be in your head all of the time. You will no longer feel the same joy and strength to do homework when it is assigned, and you will suffer. You will not notice at first, until it is too late, and then you will beat yourself up while you frantically attempt to finish your assignments at the last minute."  

And then Eve wept, and Adam was afraid, because did not understand this new punishment. But God turned to him and said, "You'll feel the pain of procrastination soon enough, don't worry. Unlike childbirth, this isn't only for women." And Adam did discover procrastination shortly thereafter, and felt sorrow at his banishment from Eden, and begged God to take him back to a world where this new punishment was unheard of. But they had already eaten the fruit, and could not go back.

Poetry Skillz

My roommate Hannah and I went to a coffee shop on Monday for one of her classes; there was a poetry-reading circle there that she had to listen to and write about in a portfolio for her poetry class. We got there around eight to find a small group of older people sitting in a circle in large armchairs and couches around a coffee table and chatting for a while, and we didn't want to intrude, so we ordered coffee and sat at a nearby table and found several boxes of jigsaw puzzles nearby. We selected one with pictures of kittens on a log surrounded by flowers and set to work immediately, drinking our coffee and listening to the people read their poetry. There were six people around the table, and another man sitting nearby who would chime in occasionally. 

The first man, Beard Man, read his poem about Adam and the right of men. It was a very interesting and well-written poem, although I didn't hear all of it. I found his poems throughout the night to be very insightful. There was a woman next to him who I'll call Anonymous Woman, because I don't remember if she read a poem or not, and I don't remember if she said anything interesting. The woman next to Anonymous Woman, River Woman, read a poem about rivers in Texas that I didn't find particularly interesting. I learned that there are fifteen major rivers in Texas and three thousand and something "major streams" which I thought sounded like an oxymoron. Then everybody talked about rivers for a while.

The next person, Portly Man, read a poem that I don't remember too well. His poems rhymed, but he spoke too quietly for me to hear. The woman after him was English Woman (she had an English accent) who read a poem about the Thames. River Woman pronounced it "Thaymees" which I found kind of annoying, and English Woman was quick to correct her. I realized at this point that there is a theme every week to the poetry group, and this weeks theme was rivers. The woman after English Woman, Newbie, was new and didn't have a poem. This was her first poetry circle, and she had heard about it through a friend. Then it was back to Beard Man. I don't even remember if Beard Man had a beard or not, but it just feels like he did. He read another excellent poem.

Hannah and I continued to work on our puzzle, and we worked on it for almost two hours, but we never got around to finishing it. At one point, a girl in the coffeeshop got up and went over to the circle to ask if she could photograph them for a college portfolio she was making. Hannah and I stayed quiet and focused on our puzzle. The group left around nine thirty, except for Portly Man who stayed back and played piano for a bit (there was an electric keyboard in the corner). CoffeeShopBarTender Man hung out behind the counter and chatted with us, and Portly Man eventually left after chatting with us for a bit. He apparently went to Trinity and graduated in 98. He was very friendly, and we all talked about Faulkner and other modernist writers.

Then he left and I played piano for a few minutes, and finally Hannah and I left. We decided we would make Monday night coffee shop visits something of a tradition. 

We stayed up late that night chatting and being silly, and ended up writing a poem of our own composed of lines we had said (and found particularly amusing) earlier that night. Here was the final result:

Actually, I Need One More Distraction

Did you ever realize

that when you tap your nose

you are actually tapping a part

of your face?

Do you realize?

Give me a character

that doesn’t have a seizure

at every chance he gets.

And I have tears

coming from my nose.

What do you do with extra strappage?

Sorry if that’s something that you don’t wonder

but it really is germane to my life at the moment.

High, high, high

in the night sky-

like a fly...

slowly waving goodbye

Good God, what was

in that coffee?

Gingle Berry

My favorite pokemon

So it's pokemon profile picture month on facebook, and in celebration of that, I decided to write about my all-time favorite pokemon. I was always a gameboy fan (as opposed to the anime or trading cards), and my first game was Silver Version, so I consider myself a second-generation person. Well, I did kind of collect the cards, but more because they were pretty. I distinctly remember trading a level hundred Rhyhorn (or Rhydon, whatever the evolved form was) for a level seventy Rapidash, because rapidash was this beautiful fire unicorn, whereas rhydon/horn was this ugly grey thing.  Also, I was disappointed in both the game and the cards that pikachu was actually a terrible pokemon (unless you're playing Super Smash Bros, in which Pikachu is quite excellent). Also, I would like to remind people reading this that I am a very cool person, despite being a huge pokemon nerd.

My number one favorite is a second-gen legendary ice type-- Suicune! She's pretty. And not very good, as far as legendary types go, but still. It's Suicune. How could you not like her? (she just seems like a girl pokemon, so I refer to her as "she") Traditionally, I'm not a huge fan of ice types, mostly because they're never very good, the exception being the half-ice pokemon, like Dewgong (half water), Jynx (half psychic), Articuno (half flying), etc. Suicune is probably the only pure ice type that I would ever actually keep and use in battle. Like I said, she's not great as far as legendary pokemon go, but as far as all the other normal ones, she's wonderful.

The rest aren't in any particular order, so here we go: 

First-gen ghost type-- I actually prefer haunter to gengar, probably just because you can't evolve him without trading him, so I never actually had a gengar and I just ended up getting used to haunter. I loved the dream eater attack! And night shade was always fun at lower levels. The part poison side was kind of a downer when fighting psychic gyms (ghosts are supposed to be good against psychic!), but the Gastly/Haunter/Gengar trio always made up for it by never being affected by normal or ground type moves. 

Ditto! I love ditto! He's cute, versatile, and awesome! (a first-gen normal type that can change his appearance to any other form, including other pokemon whose movesets he duplicates) I've actually never had the patience to train one, because it's difficult to use a ditto unless you are fighting a battle in which you are a higher level than the opponent, and I never trained my pokemon to very high levels; I tended to use the type advantage system more (elite four? I would beat them with a party at level forty or forty five, just rotating who was first at every battle). Still, one day I'll train one!

Caterpie-- I'm  not usually into bug types, but I like it that he evolves into a part-bug, part-psychic bug-type (after getting through the annoying metapod stage), and I like caterpie over butterfree just because he's a cute green caterpillar. I don't like Beedrill/Weedle because he's part poison, and I think I like poison even less then I like bug type. A very useless type.

Finally, here is one of the only third-gen pokemon that I think are really great: the fighting/psychic/dark wolf Lucario. He's in SSB Brawl and he looks cool and he has a great moveset, and he's just awesome. What else do you need? (I can never remember whether the other half of him is psychic or dark, but both types of moves show up on his learnset, as well as lots of steel! Very useful.)

Well, that's not ALL of my favorites, but just the ones off the top of my head. I'm also a pretty big Articuno fan (did anyone else notice that the three first-gen legendary birds were named ArticUNO, ZapDOS, and MolTRES?), and I like the second-gen Ferligator (evolved from the starter Totodile-- here is an awesome picture to the right), and Arcanine. And Venonat. Fun fact about Venonat: he was originally going to evolve into Butterfree, while Metapod was going to evolve into Venomoth. It makes sense if you look at the pictures (below):

                                      


You can see Venonat's eyes and pincers and hands in Butterfree , while Venomoth's eyes and head kind of reflect what Metapod may have originally evolved into. It's even apparent in their types; Butterfree and Venonat are both psychic/bug, while Venomoth is just bug and (I think) flying. Not sure why this didn't happen, but I'm always happy that Butterfree is a twice-evolved pokemon. I always sort of feel like that makes them more powerful than the once-evolved ones. Even if you are a bug type.

Well, I think I'm pokemon'd out. Just kidding, that's impossible. All of you pokemon generation people, don't forget to change your profile picture!! Happy pokemon month! 

(oh, and isn't there some holiday that happens in December? Happy December holiday month, too!)

Hannah and Vicki

So I made a promise to my suitemate a few weeks ago that I would write a blog post all about her one day, and then a similar promise to my roommate a few weeks after that, so here is a blog about both of them.

Vicki is my Latina, math-major, cheerleader suitemate. She can say lots of Spanish words like "hola" and "como estas" and she likes queso. She is also a grader for her math class, and I like listening to her talk about how much she enjoys grading, because I feel like it is preparing me for the teaching world. She especially likes it when she can't read the students' handwriting, or their answers make no sense whatsoever and she has to decipher what they were doing. She also really enjoys astronomy lab, a class that we take together, and we can always point out Jupiter in the sky, and measure where it is against the stars Fomalhaut and Algenib, which is a useful skill. You can use it to impress people at parties, as our astronomy professor says. The best part of our day, however, is when we come back to the dorm after all of our classes and watch Criminal Minds in the evening. Also, I never know how to spell her name. Sometimes it's Viki, or Vicky, or Victoria.

Hannah is my roommate. She likes food, purple, and Winnie the Pooh. We have movie nights together where we introduce each other to our favorite movies: I got to see American Beauty (starring Kevin Spacey and winner of five Academy Awards) and Life is Beautiful (an Italian WWII movie, winner of three Academy Awards including Best Foreign Film) during two of our movie nights. She also likes very spicy food that I can't eat. We also like lots of similar music, like oldies, classic rock, and the soundtrack to Amelie. Sometimes we make up stories to tell each other before we go to sleep at night. The rules are that one of us chooses the protagonist (name and species) of the story, and the other one has to tell the story. The two most memorable stories have involved a mushroom named Harold and an earplug named Murray. And we both like Bruce Willis and think he's very manly.

Sometimes, we hang out together, all three of us. After Criminal Minds is over at midnight, there are lots of infomercials on tv and last night, the people on the programming were selling cds of music by people like Carol King, Elton John, The Mamas and the Papas, and James Taylor (and other artists like that), and we spent a good half hour singing along to the clips of songs that played. It made me very happy.

Memories of things that are silly like that make me happy in general. I was talking with Hannah last night about this last night, that some random events make me feel happy, and feel like even if everything goes wrong, I still have great friends who are there to support me. I like staying up late and talking about silly things!  Everyone should go out and do fun things with their friends like sing along to infomercials or make up stories or measure stars and planets. It gives you a good feeling.

Film Score Buffet

November is a very big birthday month, namely because it's nine months after February. So, a very happy birthday to everyone who has a November birthday! 

I thought I would write about music today, because I feel like it. Each paragraph talks about one or two composers, and gives musical examples, so feel free to skip to whichever looks interesting! I just like talking about music.

Well, I saw the movie Ponyo (yes, the English dubbed one) over the weekend, which happens to be absolutely adorable, and it had an excellent soundtrack by Joe Hisaichi (who composes for anything that Miazaki dicrects).  Here are some of my favorite soundtrack composers:

• Joe Hisaichi
• Hans Zimmer
• James Horner
• Yoko Kanno
• Howard Shore
• Philip Glass
• Michael Giacchino
• Danny Elfman

I'm sure I've left some out. But the point is that Hisaichi definitely makes that list. His Princess Mononoke soundtrack is particularly interesting-- it's very epic-sounding and varied, with instruments ranging from taiko drums to adagio strings, and pieces written for full symphonies pieces solely for vocals. Here is an example of one of my favorites-- Lady Eboshi-- set to a solar eclipse, no less! (no, seriously, I just liked the quality of the track here). On the subject of Japanese soundtrack composers, find a copy of Yoko Kanno's soundtrack to the TV anime series Wolf's Rain, which is simply exquisite. If you only get one track, Leaving on Red Hill is beautiful, simple, and calming (and it has a gorgeous oboe, and I just love oboes).

Leaving the subject of mellow music, Zimmer and Elfman have something in common, which has to do with the catchy and dramatic themes that seem to follow in their wake. Zimmer is, of course, most well-known for his score to Gladiator and the Academy Award-winning The Lion King, while his protege, Klaus Badelt, wrote the score to Pirates of the Carribbean (any soundtrack lover or movie enthusiast will be able to point out the similarities in the scores of Pirates and Gladiator). I'm going to share a more obscure piece of his-- Roll Tide, from the movie Crimson Tide. The first few minutes are a crescendo of the main theme, and the last few minutes contain a beautiful and haunting rendition of the Navy Hymn tune Melita, or Eternal Father Strong to Save. Elfman (most known for The Nightmare Before Christmas, any Edward Scissorhands, and the recently Academy Award nominated Milk), tends to fall away from Zimmer's grandiose style and focus more on the smaller, quirkier styles, namely synthesized vocals. Elfman also wrote the TV themes for Desparate Housewives and The Simpsons. Here is a piece from one of his rare independent works-- a soprano/alto piece in Spanish called "I Forget", part of a six-movement symphony (the Serenada Schizophrana). I always associate them together because of the appeal they often seem to have for people only vaguely interested in the music industry.

Another composer along these lines is James Horner, who of course wrote for Titanic (the best selling film score soundtrack of all time) and most recently Avatar which along with Titanic ranks as the highest grossing movie of all time. Despite the criticism he has received for his music being overly popular/plebeian, I thought because of his amazing success (and luck), he was worth mention. And I'll say it: I like his music. His first Academy Award nomination was for the Alien movies, which is remarkably different from his massively epic later works-- very quiet and eerie (matching the tone of the movies, of course). This is an amusing comparison that I found on youtube of several of his soundtracks. As much as I love him, I have to agree with another large criticism about how he tends to repeat his themes throughout movies. This just compares Glory, Titanic, and Avatar; however, I've noticed a theme almost note-for-note that repeats in Avatar from the movie Troy-- for example, compare the part where Troy is being destroyed to the part where the Hometree falls. Exact same theme.  Anyway, overall, I do love James Horner.

Philip Glass has always been an independent composer before a soundtrack composer. He follows the school of minimalism, which usually means music with a very repetitive structure. An iconic soundtrack example of his music is The Illusionist, during which you can hear how the structure doesn't change much throughout each track (and arguably during the entire movie), and yet it doesn't grow old or tiresome. It keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end. This is a violin concerto that he wrote in the last years of the twentieth century. The first three minutes build up to a beautiful climax of swiftly played motif, and in the fourth minute, multiple violins are added to create an exquisite symphonic picture. 

Lastly, I tend to put Giacchino and Shore in the same group as well because of their versatility-- both are Academy Award winners who have scored an astonishingly wide range of soundtracks. Shore is most well known for his Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but since he composed for this trilogy, his career has gone uphill. He composed for recent positively received movies since then such as Doubt, Eastern Promises, The Departed, A History of Violence, and yes, the recent Twilight movie Eclipse. Similarly, Giacchino, who is perhaps is currently most well known for his award-winning score to Up, also scored for the entire TV series Lost, the recent Star Trek movie, Mission Impossible III, and the very well-received score to The Incredibles. To celebrate his recent Oscar, I'm going to post the main theme to the movie Up, called Married Life.

My track for Shore going to be from LOTR, but it is not going to my favorite track or even what I think is the most popular track.  This is just the music that I feel like posting right now, so I'm going to go ahead and post it. It's one of the best parts of the trilogy for me, from both the book and the movie. 

Anyway, I realize this was a long post, but I hope anyone reading this will enjoy even just one or two tracks of the music!

Ollie's New Look

"I found a car tipped over in the jungle... And we could totally fix it and get it going again. Why? Because it'll be fun." -Hurley, Lost

                                                                      This is Ollie:

                                            

                                   

                                                            This is Ollie's new look:

                                                     

Ollie is my baby tiger. His real name is Olvar, which means "plants" in Elvish. He has an older brother named Kel (short for "Kelvar" which means "animals" in Elvish), but Kel is missing at the moment, and we can't find him. Ollie misses Kel a lot, so today I thought I'd make him a jersey so that he would get his mind off of Kel for a little bit. He seems to really have taken to it.  The mess in the second picture is from all the sewing, ironing, and fabric-shaping that went on this afternoon, in the process of making his jersey.

We wore our jerseys together for the Mu Phi Epsilon meeting tonight, and I thought we made a pretty good pair:

When you feel as if a lot has happened to you, and it's very overwhelming (like if you have an older brother named Kel who's a tiger that you can't find at the moment), you look for very little things that make you happy, and you will find them.  Like sewing a jersey for a stuffed animal. That took me most of the afternoon, and guess what? I enjoyed it. I felt guilty about enjoying it-- for a moment, I had a sudden horrible thought that I wasn't allowed to enjoy things while going through a difficult time. But I really am. That's ok. It's a good thing.

I can enjoy staying up late and talking with friends even though I have a paper due the next morning. I can enjoy learning a new piece on the piano even if it's the most largo piece I've ever heard. It's still beautiful. I can enjoy watching the Tyra show after classes even if it's trash tv. And when I got my suitemate to drive me to Borders on Monday only to find that the book I was looking for was out of stock and it would take six weeks to order? We simply drove to Whole Foods and got lots of expensive cheese instead. Our trip was going to be successful, dammit. And we enjoyed it!

It's much easier to look ahead if you don't look too far ahead. Just keep thinking of the next minute, the next hour. They will turn into days, weeks, months, years on their own. You don't have to worry about that. Just keep going minute by minute, and keep finding the little things that make you smile, and the rest will happen without your worrying.

When I stepped out the door this morning wearing my jersey, my suitemate commented that Ollie (nestled in a side-pocket of my backpack) needed a jersey to match mine, and he was so excited for the rest of the day about that idea that I just couldn't let him down. So I came back after my classes and made him a Mu Phi jersey after watching Tyra. And my thumb was bleeding from the needle, and there were pieces of fabric and thread all over the room, and the water had spilled all over the carpet from the leaking iron.

And Ollie and I were both pleased.

We won today.

Eleni ar nen

This isn't a very long post, but I have lots of other things to get to today. It's been a pretty rough week, and I wanted to write something. Sam says at the end of The Two Towers that "In the end, it is only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must past. And when the sun shines out, it will shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that meant something."

This is one of my favorite quotes from Lord of the Rings, even if it is from the movies. There is, of course, a longer book equivalent (not really a quote):

"The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or foot. Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

This isn't supposed to be an English essay or anything (and if it were, I get that it'd be a pretty terrible one). I just want to say that even when everything is at its worst, and you feel as if too much has happened out of your control, that you don't have your Sam with you, it's not the end.  It's going to feel like it sometimes. But when Frodo is captured in the tower of Cirith Ungol with no Ring, clothes, almost unable to walk and with whip marks on his body, he doesn't know that Sam is spending the entire time looking for him. He isn't alone.

Sam finds him eventually, and holds Frodo completely safe and secure in his arms. For a moment, Sam is simply happy that he has Frodo again, and Frodo rests and closes his eyes and lets Sam hold him. This lasts for a split second, but it is an ocean of time for Sam. And to any obnoxious comments about Sam and Frodo's relationship, what they have is complete and utter trust that lasts them the entire trilogy. That's what everybody needs when they can't one single star in a black sky. That's what can get us through. It is sad to see someone who doesn't have that-- but more often than not, when they think they don't have someone like that, they really just don't know that they do.

One person to simply hold them, one person to hold.  Even when you can't physically or emotionally feel them, they are always there. Oiale.

I will not say the Day is done/nor bid the Stars farewell.

Jesus Fanfiction

I was going through the library a while back and happened to be looking through the theology section, which is my favorite (possibly other than the music section). Anyway, I was going through shelves books on the New Testament, and happened to find one called "The Man Who Dared to be God," by Robert Norwood.  I opened it to the prologue:
"Once upon a time, an aging Greek doctor of medicine and surgery wrote a little book for a young college man. The doctor's name was Luke. He wrote his book for Theophilus. The book was about Jesus."

I was intrigued. I couldn't help but read some more and find about about this groundbreaking work of original theology and history. This book is addressed to Theophilus whom the author of the book says "is on every campus, is in every fraternity of North America," which startled me, because I assumed it was a children's book when I first looked through it. However, it apparently is written to every fraternity in North America.

Theophilus, sadly, didn't quite understand what Luke had to say about Jesus, because he sees "a pale, tortured body of a man on a cross, pictured by bits of colored glass above the chapel altar, and wonders of Jesus looked like that!" (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the sentence).  Well, Norwood certainly has something to say about this image- "Theophilis, Jesus did not look like that." He them proceeds to write some facts about Jesus that I didn't know:

"He was a young athlete from the hills of Galilee.  He was every inch a man, [and] Jesus is still a man....he comes down all the ways of the world. He is browned by the sun. He hair has its same red gold. His beard crisps and curls below his laughing, musical lips."

I was very surprised to learn that Jesus had red-gold hair, but it's later described in the book as a lion's mane of hair, which I have always associated with the color yellow, but as I have never spent much time around lions, I am not positive. When Jesus rides into Jerusalem, he is described as a "tall golden man in a white robe; his flowing hair, like a lion's mane, crowned with a snowy turban".  So, not only was Jesus tall and golden, but he also wore white turbans.

So obviously either Luke was inaccurate with the description of Jesus, or Theophilus has terrible interpretation skillz. Naturally, Jesus isn't the only man described as being quite the manly lion in the Bible...his father Joseph wasn't too bad, either.
"Joseph was a notable man. He was tall and sturdy. The hair of his head and of his full beard was a golden brown. His eyes were deepset and blue. Sometimes those eyes were veiled with the mist of dreams, sometimes they twinkled and shone with fun. He was a man of moods. His voice was deep. He had a habit of talking into his beard, that tumbled from an obstinate chin, halfway down his broad breast. His hands were square, but they were nervous and sensitive."

We can see from this passage where Jesus got his sensitivity towards other people's troubles, because from what we can see in the description of Joseph's hands, he is probably a sensitive man, as well.

Norwood goes on to describe the life of Jesus growing up with his best friend Simon the Rock. I flipped to a random page to find an iconic quote from Peter, and found this: "Jesus, I don't understand you." That pretty much remains constant throughout the whole book (the Bible, too).  Jesus performs miracles, tries to get his disciples to understand that he does, in fact, have to die, and we have a scene involving Judas breaking down and crying. "[He] embraced Jesus with the arms of love, saying, 'Though you were not the Messiah and only a man like me, I should love you to the death, my sweet friend, my beloved one!' As Judas wept in Jesus' arms, the Master caressed him."

I don't recall this scene from the Gospels-- I certainly don't think it's in Luke, in any case. It seems to be a sort of humanistic catharsis here, where Judas represents Theophilus, who is sad and confused as to why Jesus has to die.

The last scene the author leaves us with is Jesus dying on the cross, the people around him taunting him. But, "To these taunts, Jesus made no reply. He had not heard them; he was lost in memories of a night of stars and a cool wind and a mother's croodling song:
Little boy Jesus,
Tell what you are--
Moondrift and a white cloud
Caught on a star!"


I don't think I will quote the whole song. It's four verses, and that would take up a lot of space, and I've probably written far too much on this odd excuse for a book. Interestingly, there are questions and notes all over the margins, and every other paragraph is underlined or starred, so I guess some persevering soul dogged his/her way through this entire book for some paper that I hope she/he did ok on. I really do.

And for all of you college students out there, Theophilus is actually not a five year old, but a college student who is on YOUR campus! That is, if your campus has a fraternity. In any case, give him this book so that he can get a better idea of what Luke was really talking about.


(The Man Who Dared to be God , by Robert Norwood, Published by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1929.)

Percy Jackson

I had plans cancelled this weekend, and I was left on a Sunday evening in my dorm without much to do. The rest of my suite (as well as the majority of campus) was out on account of "fall break" (a three day weekend during which the smarter students will understand that this actually does not exempt them from any work due the following week; I myself have a test in two days). So, I ended up sitting in my room somewhat bored that I hadn't done much this weekend, but with no desire to go out.

The result was that I curled up in my bed, wore fuzzy socks, and rented an iTunes movie: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I have an avid interest in both film and mythology, so I figured this would be a fun and fairly mindless movie. I trusted my roommate enough to refrain from judging me after she got back, once she found out my film choice. I have never read the books, and I probably will never read the books unless I can very easily obtain a copy without spending money (someone loans their own copy to me, one miraculously appears in my dorm room).

Percy Jackson is a middle school student with what he thinks is ADD and dyslexia. But, we soon find out that the ADD is actually a godly urge to fight demons and his dyslexia is from the fact that English letters all look Greek to him (literally-- also, all Greek letters look English to him). There is one scene of him staring at the blackboard and all the letters turn into water. He can also hold his breath underwater for seven minutes. He has an abusive stepfather whose last name is "Ugliano," so we can tell he's probably pretty mean. Throughout the rest of the movie, he befriends a satyr, decides that he likes the daughter of Athena, and meets the son of Hermes. Percy, Athena Jr, and Satyr hang out together the whole movie (I didn't remember anybody's name other than Percy's and god/demigod names that already existed). 

Percy is not the smartest protagonist in history. It took him a good thirty minutes into the movie to realize that he was Poseidon's son (even after knowing that he was the son of a god for twenty mins), despite his being able to sit underwater for unusual periods of time and seeing Greek letters turn into water. Twenty minutes after this discovery, he is lying on the beach, mortally wounded (according to Athena Jr, who lightly cut him on the arm and face), and he doesn't think it would be a good idea to actually touch the water near him until he hears another voice telling him that that would be a good idea. However, he catches on pretty quickly after this, and develops cool water powers during the rest of the movie. I do wish he knew more about mythology, though, because everything has to be explained to him during the movie, like who Persephone is, what a centaur is, and why you shouldn't cut a hydra's head off. 

Athena Jr bothered me a bit more, though, because for someone who was supposed to be the descended from the goddess of wisdom, she wasn't very wise. While Percy fights the hydra, she is smart enough to point out that its heads will grow back doubly if one is cut off, but she forgets that the trio happens to be carrying Medusa's head with them (that they obtained earlier in the movie), so they could turn the hydra to stone at any point. While obtaining magic teleporting pearls that will take the protagonistic trio to the underworld on a rescue mission, she doesn't realize that they will need four magic teleporting pearls in order to leave, not just three, because of the added person.  The problem with these mistakes is that this is something that the viewer could quite easily point out on their own, without knowing anything about mythology. 

Anyway, the movie itself was fine. Not brilliant, but a good watch for a cozy and introverted Saturday night. I just hope Percy Jackson learns a bit more about mythology before his next adventure. It really is dangerous to cut off a hydra's head. Hadn't he seen Hercules?