art links

• Science Museum of Minnesota features a RACE: Are We So Different exhibit.
  
• Danielson: a family movie documentary film about Christian family singers. See Sufjan, tree costumes, and other quirky oddities.
• Minneapolis College of Art & Design: new Alphabet: hand-drawn lettering & experimental typography exhibit.
  
• The U of M Weismann Art Museum: Bob Dylan: American Journey, 1956-1966.
  
• Learn the art of properly frothed milk.
  
• With the blizzard in the last 24 hours, my backyard looks like a large cup of properly frothed milk. She's a beauty.
  

blizzard

There are little pieces of ice starting to fall from the sky... everyone around town is buzzing about getting ready for the big storm, betting on how many inches will fall, stocking up on food and curling up in blankets with good books and hot chocolate and cookies. We are drafting shoveling schedules for our driveway and watching movies about winter and hockey teams and giggling about how crazy it will be when we wake up and look outside... what do you think? Will it be as they say?

rereading terabithia

Why Reread?
C.S. Lewis writes that for an unliterary reader, "reading plays a very small part in the total life and every book is tossed aside like an old newspaper the moment it has been used" but for the literary reader, "there is passionate and constant love of a book and rereading" -- and he means rereading by choice and not as a last resort (An Experiment in Criticism, p 114). For the literary reader, reading is a "lifelong delight" an "arduous and important activity"... they experience literature as one experiences love or religion, they talk about what they read. When we receive any work of art this way, Lewis says we "exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to the pattern invented by the artist" (p 88). Whereas when we use a work of art we merely "treat it as assistance for our own activities." Though armed with plenty of unliterary thoughts (when was the last time I watched 24 for the beauty of the work, not just to find out what happens and then toss it aside for the next episode?) I want to present a case that will persuade you to be literary and to reread books for pure joy.


Last week I finished my fourth re-reading of the book The Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. I would highly recommend this novel for anyone over the age of 9; I would highly recommend reading books that can be reread throughout one's life. Paterson has bewitched and compelled me with her words, which paint a clear depiction of two young friends. It is wonderful to peer into a friendship where one is challenged and changed. I love to watch the way that knowing another person can change another's life! I am jealous of Jess & Leslie's victorious encounters over their fears, their adventures, and the creative life-giving place of Terabithia which births new worlds. Every corner of my mind is replaying the scenes from the story... I object to the ways that they changed the book to make the film yet I am also fascinated by the way the film depicts the characters in life-like and imaginative ways... drawings that come alive, sincerity in facial expressions. My mental capacity is enlarged by this story, my imagination fed and expanded, my heart warmed as a country field and open sky would fill it if I had one to walk through today... Read this book!

Lewis says that some children's books are market-driven, they find out what sells and write for this purpose. An intelligent person once asked me what makes a good children's book. His answer, 'One that you wouldn't mind reading now.' Lewis believes that literature is a sort of end in itself, and is for the reader to enjoy. Even as I struggle toward reading the entirety of larger books on my nightstand... o the piles of good books that await... I cannot stop coming back to the good ones, and not just for sentimental reasons.

Lewis writes, "...the majority never read anything twice. The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers 'I've read it already' to be a conclusive argument against reading a work. We have all known women who remembered a novel so dimly that they had to stand for half an hour in the library skimming through it before they were certain they had once read it. But the moment that they had become certain, they rejected it immediately. It was for them dead, like a burnt out match, an old railway ticket, or yesterday's paper; they had already used it. Those who read great works, on the other hand, wil read the same work ten, twenty, or thirty times during the course of their life" (An Experiment in Criticism, p 2).

Longing to receive what is beautiful, to drink it and take it in as it deserves, to fully enjoy that which has been designed to enjoy, to rest in it, to go back to this well again and again. (This is where I wanted to include some of my favorite quotes from Jess Aarons at the end of the novel but I loaned the book to my friend.)

like flowers blooming in fast motion

Saw Sparklehorse tonight live at First Ave, pretty much a great way to end a Monday. Especially because I heard them first in my friend Hilary's car, which is pretty much where all the great music in my life came from. Death Cab, Pedro, Postal Service, Rosie Thomas, Sufjan, she played it for me, those long drives to Seattle from the mountains, talking but mostly listening to the goods.

The show tonight was full of mellow ballads, repetitive verses with some distortion and good sweet indie rock. My mind wandered during the show, over the sea of heads, the beards and messenger bags and beer bottles. Another show. Here I am. I pleasantly ran into some friends; it is great to have lived here for three years and to see some eyes I recognize. Also, it is fun to hear boys make sound effects when they imitate instruments recounting their favorite part of the show. I don't know why I like this so much, but I do.

I want to take back my post about wishing I could be back in those early weeks of residency here. Back then, I had no struggles with people but I also did not have these cool mittens with places for my fingers to stick out, and I had never heard of Sparklehorse, and I didn't feel as at home like I did tonight; free as a bird. When I first moved here, driving home from a late night show wasn't as familiar as it is now, hugging the road all the way back to the east bank, like sliding into my lovely new boots that fit like a glove.

baby boy

My best friend and her husband are expecting and she has a little baby boy growing inside her! I'm so happy! He already weighs half a pound. Grow little squirt, grow. Can't wait to meet you.

church lady's crisis

I made a big mistake at work. This error was like taking a wrong turn on a route you drive everyday. It seems unthinkable. Your car knows it by heart. You could do it with your eyes closed. Before I build up too much suspense, I must warn you, this is the type of crisis a church lady faces (don't laugh):

My dear friend, the preaching pastor's assistant, graciously broke the news to me on saturday night that I had published the wrong order in the North bulletin. Which means that 1,300 people would open their bulletins this morning and see all the songs that the Downtown Campus was scheduled to sing, 10 miles away. Wrong leader's names printed, wrong order of service, wrong scripture. yup.

First instinct, cover tracks. This must have been someone else's fault. Checked - nope. Fault was... mine. Next instinct, justify self. Mental calculation: I have made almost 500 bulletins in my career, and this has never happened before.

Finding out 15 hours before it happened (I really wondered if I should reprint & refold them all). Action: e-mail the pastors and hope they don't wonder why I don't have it all together.

This morning at the exact moment when North worship started at 9, I was on the treadmill at the gym, thinking, well, they can all see it now. Phooey. No matter how fast I run I cannot get away from this. And all the other things I have been trying to do to keep it together since my performance review two weeks ago - I almost lost it all right there. And I had all but convinced myself that I was the only one in the world who makes mistakes.

Third (delayed) instinct after hitting self in head, (by grace) repentance, humility.

I came home to e-mails from pastors that oozed grace. "We will survive this mistake" "I have done things way DUMBER than this" "Don't worry about it, even for a second!" ... These statements are not because these men do not care about the "undistracted excellence" we all strive for in our worship. It is not because they are sloppy or oblivious in their leadership. It is because these men are alive and are bubbling over with Life. These are the godly men that had to cover for me somehow, and had to face the North people's confusion while I went Downtown and hid out in the crowd for worship at 11.

This is silly, but everything looked new today. I felt like Jean ValJean when the bishop lets him take the candlesticks. Not that there wasn't the conversations later today that are hard and the fights of faith and the prayers and the appointments but there was something good... God's presence. Freedom! From living to keep it all together. Enjoying... him.

song of the day

Because it is right after valentines day can we just say that Brand New Colony is just the most fabulous love song. Okay second only to Casimir Pulaski Day by Sufjan Stevens. Nope, Brand New Colony is best. Really - even with the nintendo beat. Honest. Rock out!

"Brand New Colony"
by The Postal Service

I'll be the grapes fermented,
Bottled and served with the table set in my finest suit
Like a perfect gentlemen
I'll be the fire escape that's bolted to the ancient brick
Where you will sit and contemplate your day

I'll be the waterwings that save you if you start drowning
An open tab when your judgment's on the brink
I'll be the phonograph that plays your favorite
Albums back as you're lying there, drifting off to sleep...
I'll be the platform shoes and undo what heredity's done to you...
You won't have to strain to look into my eyes
I'll be your winter coat buttoned and zippedstraight to the throat
With the collar up so you won't catch a cold

I want to take you far from the cynics in this town
And kiss you on the mouth
We'll cut out bodies free from the tethers of this scene,
Start a brand new colony
Where everything will change,
We'll give ourselves new names (identities erased)
The sun will heat the grounds
Under our bare feet in this brand new colony
Everything will change, ooo ooo...

the moment right before...

Three years ago on February 15 I went alone to join some people I barely knew and I played my first game of broomball on a freezing sunny day down the street from my friend's house. Afterward we thawed out while we drank hot chocolate and compared our bruises. I remember laughter that day, and joy, coming out of somewhere deep. I probably felt awkward too, as I often do. But that was the first day, just weeks after I moved here, that I knew I wanted to stay.

Three years ago on February 17 was the day I started my current job, so it is an anniversary of sorts for me, hooray,... nobody knows, so it will be our little secret. Is it bad to want to be back at that broomball game, with no knowledge of what the new job would be like, still driving my first car before I wrecked it, not knowing anyone well enough to know real struggles with them, being carried through that season of new roads and people and places? Just wanna be kickin' it in that moment, right before something happens. Yup. Don't tell anyone, that I want to be back there.

blurb

One of the funniest words that I frequently come across in my job is the word "blurb". Is this infamous word even official? What does it mean? Why does everyone use it when they send me e-mails? "Don't forget to put my BLURB in the newsletter this week." "I'll send you a blurb as soon as I get the details together."

One of my heroes defines it as follows: "Blurb – could be an onomatopoeic word used to describe the sound of a jello salad hitting the tiled kitchen floor."

Today my boss and I researched the origin of this word and discovered that the word blurb was coined in the year 1907 by American humorist and illustrator Gelett Burgess. It is defined as a short piece of writing that praises and promotes something, especially a paragraph on the cover of a book. It is now the 100th Anniversary of the word blurb.

Blurbify to your hearts content, people. I'm trying to think of other comical words that come up at work. Let me know if you think of any.

an ice block, a chainsaw

People here are crazy. Carving up silly things like this. I can't believe this. Global warming is a farse.

out on a frozen lake

I have been working weekends... late nights in my cube with no one around but the click of the keyboard. It disorients me. This is the point in the winter when the snowflakes are still beautiful but I'm so cold and isolated-feeling that I start to wonder why I moved to this crazy state. Every evening night falls early, and the windchill sets in. It is 2 degrees right now; the low today was -6 and the high was 8. (I guess that's not bad for the cities on February 7). My last Saturday off I managed to get up north and walk out on a frozen lake for the first time. Ice fishers surrounded me and my friend Laura. White above, white below. A thin, dark strip of bare trees, trucks, and ice fishing huts on the horizon. I drank hot choc with 50 of my closest friends and we talked about the great vision. There is something beautiful about this place. But I am still feeling isolated.