Twitter

I hate this "the moment that you..." meme. Ew.

Grading

It's all miserable until a students writes, "plutonian," rather than Platonic. #perfectlentenactivty

Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl is an excellent film. Lars experiences a delusion--that a sex doll that he bought (for companionship; not sex) is a real person. The film is the story of Lars' community, from his brother and sister-in-law, who live next door, to his co-workers, to his church friends, welcoming the sex doll, Bianca, and including her in the life of the town in order to help Lars.

The doctor in their town is also a psychologist ("you have to be, this far north") who treats Lars under the guise of just hanging out while she treats Bianca for her low blood pressure. The doctor says, tellingly, that what we think of as mental illness is sometimes an attempt to communicate. As she spends time with Lars, she realizes that he feels physical pain when he is hugged or touched. He is unable to integrate into the community until Bianca is at his side. And when Bianca has done her job (she believes that she's called to help people, Lars tells us), Lars discovers that she has died. He's able, then, to begin to form relationships on his own.

The way that the community adopts Bianca is remarkable--they give her a job modeling at the mall; she is elected to the school board they dress her and bathe her. And when she dies, they all come out and mourn her. Their acceptance of her on Lars' behalf is profound. And their unconditional acceptance of Lars and his "disability" make his delusion almost irrelevant. Then enable him through their acceptance of who he is, in his strengths and weaknesses. It is this love that heals him.

A Random Assortment

Where the Hiawatha goes for the winter.

~ The horrors of long distance relationships: Pillow Talk lets you hear your partner's heartbeat (in your pillow) from far away. (via Francisco)

~ "It's Harder to Tune Out Cell Phone Talkers Than Regular Human Conversations." I agree. At a coffee shop or the airport, it's fairly easy for me to tune out a conversation unless one of the parties has a loud or annoying voice. But I have a lot of trouble tuning out a) interviews and b) cell phone calls. Why in the world is this? Do people talk louder when they're doing these activities? More annoyingly?

~ "Good News Beats Bad on Social Networks." I agree with this, too! Why is this? Aristotle on sharing good and bad news with friends:

The very seeing of one's friends is pleasant, especially if one is in adversity, and becomes a safeguard against grief (for a friend tends to comfort us both by the sight of him and by his words, if he is tactful, since he knows our character and the things that please or pain us); but to see him pained at our misfortunes is painful; for every one shuns being a cause of pain to his friends. For this reason people of a manly nature guard against making their friends grieve with them, and, unless he be exceptionally insensible to pain, such a man cannot stand the pain that ensues for his friends, and in general does not admit fellow-mourners because he is not himself given to mourning; but women and womanly men enjoy sympathisers in their grief, and love them as friends and companions in sorrow.

Possibly, though, it's a less noble explanation--people want to appear to live enviable lives, filled with engagements and weddings and babies and trips to South America. It's like performing at a high school reunion all the time--trying to make it look like you've got your life together.

~ Many years ago, from what I've heard, STL had an active cave culture. Here's one map.

~ The baby cage.

~ A photograph (from a series) about a long distance relationship (I'm getting very excited that mine is ending in just a couple of months).

Tod Browning's Freaks

Ted Browning's controversial 1932 Freaks follows the inner workings of a circus: a beautiful woman, Cleopatra, and powerful strongman, Hercules, decide to try to con Hans, a midget, out of his inheritance by playing on his attraction to Cleopatra. She marries him and then attempts to poison him so she can marry Hercules. At their wedding dinner, the group of people Tod Browning calls "freaks," welcome Cleopatra into their group with a ritual sharing of a cup of wine. They chant, "We accept you, one of us! Goble Gobble!" She throws the wine in their faces and runs away. When they discover that she tried to poison Hans, they take their revenge on her and make her into a human duck, making her actually one of them (after she rejected symbolically becoming one of them). 

The film shows Cleopatra's (and others') reaction to difference of fear and repulsion, but it also shows the reaction of the clown, Roscoe, who lovingly treats each character as human.

The film certainly does show the power and agency of even the "freaks." It portrays the "freaks" as an incredibly diverse group, and yet as a group with a shared identity that results from their common exclusion.

I'm not sure quite what to make of the film. On the one hand, it portrays the horror of treating the "freaks" as "freaks"--as circus performers exhibiting themselves for the viewer's amusement. It portrays them as multidimensional human beings who have typical concerns--marriage and childbirth and broken hearts. On the other hand, in a way, the film itself does what it criticizes--it presents circus performers exhibiting themselves for the viewer's amusement: First, it includes performances of the tricks that the circus performers who acted in the film actually did in the circus--for instance, there's a man with no arms or legs who lights his own cigarette; there's a woman with no arms who drinks from a goblet, using her feet to lift it. Second, the horror of the film's ending plays on the viewers' reactions to and fear of disability and difference.

The New Pope

This is the first time that I've been through a papal transition as a Catholic (which is to say, the first time I've paid attention). What struck me most about this process was the sense of absence and presence. 

Even though Benedict resigned and informed people in advance about his intention to resign, there was still a period in which we didn't have a pope.

It reminded me of what we remember during lent and especially during Holy Week and most especially on Good Friday--the absence of Christ. Except this was the absence of the shepherd Christ put over us to feed us and strengthen us (as Christ said to Peter).

Of course, we experienced the absence of the pope in the same way we remember Christ's absence during lent--in light of Christ's promise that He will not leave us comfortless and in light of the fact that the Holy Spirit is with us.

But still, after remembering Christ's death, and the darkness over all the land and Jesus crying out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?," it's always a relief and a surprise and a celebration to then focus on His resurrection.

That's how I felt when I got my automated text message about the white smoke and Francisco's texts about who the new pope is (all as I was stuck in the metro): We have a pope! It felt a bit like Eastern morning.

Slight Problem

My favorite meat and the cheapest meat in the store overlap at my grocery store in STL: sausage. Which means that this is now basically the only meat I eat--not that I eat very much meat--but still, I'm worried about the health implications.

Quote

"Nothing more appropriate could be spoken by human nature about guarding against the rise of the vice of discord or about healing it once it has arisen, than the remembrance that God willed to create as a single being the parent from whom the whole multitude was to be propagated, in order that through this reminder the concord of unity might be maintained even in multiplicity. Indeed, that the woman was made for the man and from his side also clearly signifies how affectionate the union of husband and wife ought to be."

--St. Augustine, The City of God

The Pre-Raphaelites

Francisco recommended and Edge and I visited the National Gallery's "Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900."

I have a weakness for the Pre-Raphaelites--probably because they were so literary, and, as a result, are the prime candidates for use on every book cover, from Dante to Chaucer to Shakespeare.

Their themes are fascinating and over-the-top: they draw religion and nature and manual labor, often all in the same picture:

John Millais's Mariana: There's a shrine and the stained glass; the woman stretches from her handiwork; the mouse and leaves creep across the floor.

 They love metaphors; the more overt, the better:

William Holman Hunt, The Shadow of Death

Their paintings are bright and crisp--the realism is almost photographic at times, and yet there's an art there that transcends the real. Their subjects are androgynous and yet sensual. The subjects are remarkably similar to each other--there is more red hair and fair skin in their paintings, I think, than in the rest of art combined. All the subjects have the same look. In fact, it's funny to see Jesus as a Pre-Raphaelite, as if Pre-Raphaelite is an ethnicity.

What I really love is the Pre-Raphaelites' ability to capture other-wordliness. Below, Mary cowers on her bed in a portrayal of Mary at the Annunciation as vulnerable and frightened. (I love that the angel's feet are on fire.)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Ecce Ancilla Domini!, or The Annunciation. His sister, Christina Rossetti, sat for Mary.

The exhibit highlights the overlap between the Pre-Raphaelites and William Morris and the decorative arts. I love William Morris, so to see Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting on William Morris furniture is just thrilling.

It's an excellent exhibit. If I lived in DC, I'd go back again right away.

A Random Assortment

From facebook: "Reinhold Niebuhr was asked which passage of scripture he would chose if he could only save that one passage from a cataclysmic destruction. This was his choice and his rationale. From Reinhold Niebuhr's personal papers, Library of Congress."

~ PAL, wise, as ever, on online classes:

But Plato never shows Socrates talking from a stage—much less from a screen—to a thousand or more.  In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates is in a particular practical situation or predicament, and he’s challenged or called to account by both his friends and adversaries.  The conversation could only develop among a very small group of people who know each other and share very real concerns in common.
...
But why watch Sandel at all?  If “homework” is watching Sandel, then when are students supposed to read great or “real” books on justice?  Why not read Sandel or (to tell the truth), better, Plato or Aristotle or Locke or Kant or Tocqueville, and then use “class time” to discuss the reading?

~  I would love to teach in this program.

~ I'm nervous about the Postal Service running out of money. I'm nervous about them selling off their lovely buildings. I'm nervous about the Post Office starting a clothing line. There's really so much to be nervous about when it comes to the Post Office these days.

~ Only in Texas:

At the State Capitol here, a legal concealed gun is the equivalent of an E-ZPass.

...

... of the 181 members of the State House and Senate, dozens have concealed-carry permits and routinely have their weapons with them in the building, current and former lawmakers said. Jerry Patterson, the state land commissioner and a former senator who wrote the concealed handgun law, put the number at around 35 legislators. ...

“I’d say half the House and half the Senate,” she said. “There’s a couple who, I used to say, their desks would qualify as a gun show.”

~  Best. Obituary. Ever.:

Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies’ man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013.
...
... the family asks that in honor of Harry that you write your Congressman and ask for the repeal of Day Light Saving Time. Harry wanted everyone to get back on the Lord’s Time. 

 (Everything in between is fabulous, too. I would have liked to have met this guy.)

~ From Pope Francis's first homily in the Sistine Chapel:

When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not disciples of the Lord.

I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage – the courage – to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord: to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified. In this way, the Church will go forward.

DC

Reagan.



Georgetown.

Daffodils:

Friday Phone Dump

Teaching.



Paint on a bench.



Stearns' engagement party tetris cookies.



St. Joseph's.



Upstate New York airport.



The exorcist steps.



Georgetown!

Keren Restaurant

Francisco found a great restaurant for dinner with NK and E in DC. Keren Restaurant is an Eritrean restaurant whose only flaw is that it isn't too close to the metro. Well, that and the wine was nothing special. Then again, the bottle was only $10 (I think it was a happy hour half-priced deal.)

Eritrean food is in the vein of Ethiopian. Many of the dishes are on (and eaten with) the same spongey bread (although this bread was less tough and more tender than what I've had in Ethiopian restaurants in the past).

The restaurant was fairly quiet--the televisions on the wall switched between soccer and some Eritrean general talking. 

The food was quite good. Basically, it was what I hoped for when I came to DC, but rarely found in the city (the suburbs are a different question)--a restaurant that's small and non-pretentious, cheap and delicious.

Traveling

I know it's been a while, but this is a crazy time of year--trip upon trip upon trip. I'm in a brief gap between packing and unpacking, so I'll just point you to Simcha's delightful "Papamoon!"

A Random Assortment

~ In memory of the creator of Diplomacy. I only played this game a couple of times a decade ago. But I loved it. I'm pretty sure I repeatedly double crossed a couple of the men I was playing with by batting my eyes. Great game. Really, besides Boggle, the only game I like. (via Jacob Levy)

~ On childhood and nature.

~ Arendt and Eliot in one article?! Best. Article. Ever. Now I need to find a way to get to England for these shows.

"Kitaj’s obsessive concern with his Jewishness started in the early 1970s, after he read Hannah Arendt’s account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the organisers of the Holocaust. For 14 years on and off he worked on “Desk Murder”, finishing the painting in 1984. Invoking Arendt’s phrase, “desk murderer”, it shows the spooky outlines of a 1940s office set against a blood-red background, which morphs into the shape of a mobile gas van."

“'If Not, Not', his masterpiece from the mid-1970s, is mesmerising, lusciously painted and formally resolved. The dreamlike blue lake is inspired by Giorgione’s 'The Tempest' overborne by the looming gates of Auschwitz, in a landscape littered with symbolic objects and people. Kitaj acknowledged his debt here to Eliot, another American émigré, and to the idea of the 'waste land' of T.S. Eliot’s great poem 'as an antechamber to hell'."

 (HT: Francisco.)

~ Oh my goodness, ew: unity wedding sand.

Twitter

Not even kidding: I just received a rejection email that begins:

"Dear Emily Hale,
Dear _PERSON,"

Twitter

What is up with naming snowstorms? I don't remember this ever happening before this year, and now every darned one has a name. I think we're already at "S" in the alphabet, although I'm not certain snowstorm naming proceeds alphabetically. I wonder if the inch of wet snow we got this morning had a name.

UPDATE: The Weather Channel tells us why it started naming storms. One of its reasons: "A storm with a name takes on a personality all its own, which adds to awareness." Also, to gather viewers:

"...it might even be fun and entertaining and that in itself should breed interest from our viewing public and our digital users.  For all of these reasons, the time is right to introduce this concept for the winter season of 2012-13."

To Change the World

 
I'm reading James Davidson Hunter's To Change the World with a group of people (mostly in law school) and discussing with them about how Christians ought to engage culture. Hunter argues that sociology shows that culture is most effectively changed by networks of elites, not by individuals changing. He maintains that Christians have had less impact on America than their numbers warrant because they've focused primarily on "changing hearts and minds," rather than on developing strong institutions within the mainstream of society. (Evangelicalism has tended to make parallel institutions on the edges of culture.)

(Incidentally, the people I'm reading the book with are deeply uncomfortable with Christians trying to change the world, which baffles me--why are they attending a top law school? Just for the money?)

***

Makoto Fujimura is a darling of the Evangelical world. He is an American whose artistic training was in Tokyo in traditional art forms. His work is abstract and utterly modern; at the same time, it often references the past. For instance, he was commissioned to illuminate the Bible in honor of the 400th anniversary of the KJV. Other pictures nod to the Hudson River School and T.S. Eliot (you can see those paintings here), among others.

It confuses me--everyone, including him, says that his faith informs his work. But his work is abstract. When I look at his mostly monochromatic red painting of the book of Mark, I wouldn't have figured that his faith was informing it, unless he told me.

So--does art convey faith? Or does art (at least Fujimura's) only convey faith when he philosophizes about his art?

Similarly, does faith impact the work of scientists and lawyers in ways that wouldn't exist without faith? Or does it simply impact how one understands one's own work or the motivations behind that work? Or does it only come into play when one philosophizes about the relationship between science and faith or between faith and law? How does one's faith come out when being a "Christian" garbage collector, beyond doing your job well and interacting with your coworkers out of love? Are Christians called to transform culture or are we simply called to fulfill our individual vocations?

Missouri History Museum

Francisco and I stopped in the Missouri History Museum briefly. There is a great lobby and a nice exhibit on the World's Fair. I always wondered why St. Louis is so extremely proud of the World's Fair, since it isn't like it's the only World's Fair. Well, St. Louis hosted by far the biggest World's Fair with nearly 1000 buildings. Although I still really don't understand why they made almost all the World's Fair buildings temporary. They look like they were lovely, and they should have left more of them up.

Forest Park in the snow:

Quote

“Obviously I have an ax to grind here. My one great objection to the American hero was that he was inevitably male—in decayed forms egregiously male. So I created a female hero, of sorts, also an outsider and a stranger. And while Sylvie obviously has her own history, to the degree that she has not taken the impress of society she expresses the fact that human nature is replete with nameless possibilities and, by implications, that the world is accessible to new ways of understanding.

…

I think it is fair to say that the West has lost its place in the national imagination because, by some sad evolution, the idea of human nature has become the opposite of what it was when the myth of the West began, and now people who are less shaped and constrained by society are assumed to be disabled and dangerous. This is bad news for the American psyche, a fearful and antidemocratic idea, which threatens to close down change. I think it would be a positively good thing for the West to assert itself in the most interesting terms, so that the whole country must hear and by reanimated by dreams and passions it has too casually put aside and too readily forgotten.”

--From "When I Was a Child" in When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson (about Housekeeping)

A Random Assortment

 
~ On writing much of the Sweet Valley High series:

It took me five years to produce a 300-plus-page dissertation on early modern utopias and another five to turn it into a monograph that would eventually sell 487 copies. And yet, in a matter of a weekend morning, I could produce a chapter—a chapter!—of sparkling, exclamation-studded prose about those Wakefield girls. The Elizabeth in me loved the discipline, the reminder that while my twenties rolled on and I trudged back and forth from Eliot House to the library, lugging books in my arms like a woodcutter, I was producing pages—daily, weekly—that were being turned into actual books (OK, books with pastel covers, books without my name on them anywhere, but still!)—books that were selling, that were being translated (Hebrew, Danish, Dutch), that generated fan mail (OK, addressed to Francine and not to me). Books girls loved. The books I wrote as Kate William, the “author” name that came built in to the series, had readers.

(via Francisco)

~ This piece discusses some of the barriers that make it difficult for low-income kids to go to college. And makes me want to be a guidance counselor.

~ "Give Up Your Pew for Lent" is the most nonsensical thing I've read in quite a while (I've never read Paul Elie, but he's quite adored for his work on Catholic literature, I think):

So if the pope can resign, we can, too. We should give up Catholicism en masse, if only for a time.

We are in the third week of Lent, a six-week season of reflection and personal sacrifice when Christians prepare for Easter by taking stock of their religious lives. In recent centuries Roman Catholics have observed Lent by giving up a habit or pleasure, whether red meat, chocolate, soap operas or Facebook, to simplify their lives and regain their independence from worldly attractions — their religious freedom, if you like.

...

In traditional parlance, Benedict’s resignation leaves the Chair of St. Peter “vacant.” So I propose that American Catholics vacate the pews this weekend. 

There's so much wrong here: Benedict is not resigning Catholicism, nor is he resigning attending mass. I think, to reverse Elie's logic, since Benedict is still going to church, so should the rest of us.

What Elie proposes instead of attending mass is attending other churches and learning about them and taking time to reflect on the telos and purpose of our faith. I think attending other churches can be very good, and reflecting on our faith is important; neither of these things even remotely requires skipping mass.

(In addition--what is this business about lenten sacrifices being about religious freedom?! It's about freedom of the will, not "religious freedom." We can't just contort words to make them mean anything that occurs to us and is cute.)

A Modern Ruin

We came across this modern ruin outside of the Contemporary Art Museum.

This plaque was attached to the church ruins:

When Francisco pointed out the plaque, I was (embarrassingly) confused--the punctuation alone should have given it away. It is part of the Declare It Art project of someone called DW.