Joanna Newsom - Peach Plum Pear

You know. Just to keep things all nice and technicolor today.

Yes, Virginia, THERE IS Anita O'Day

Author Lee Departs Crazytown for Insanity City

Post below, updated: Tosca Lee just passed 144,000.

A significant number, considering its importance in the Book of the Revelation.

"Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads."

Although not as significant as each living member of the remnant, every word is significant, even those that do not make it to final edit. Editing a full third of the draft away is going to be an amazing feat of scrutiny.

Wow. This is like watching Skywalker* in the trench, TIE fighters on his tail, the meter counting down, and an exhaust port no bigger than wamprat for a target. I don't know how it is all going to end, but I guarantee it will be spectacular.

The one thing that Red 5 can't be aware of in the thick of this, and what most of the audience will have forgotten by now, is that Han Solo may be rough, but he's no derelict, and he doesn't stand by when there is action in the game.

*What follows are a series of obscure references to a little-known art film from the late 70s.

Tosca Lee Kicks Asterisks

Ugh, in her latest post, world renowned-author Tosca Lee notes that she's hit 131,000 words in the new novel she's working on. This is a big number, especially to me, who tends to think of long-form fiction as anything that doesn't fit in one of my stupid asterisked* comments.

I've mentioned it before, but none of my major publications have ever cracked the 100-word limit. In one of them, I lost the plot twice before the 50-word mark. So, yeah, to have cranked through, oh, 1,310 times as many words and to complain about not being quite finished is a little like Edmund Hilary summiting Everest and complaining that it doesn't go up any more.

By the way, if you haven't read Lee's Demon: A Memoir yet, you probably should. But only if you don't want me uprooting you like the witless stripling that you are and picking my crooked teeth with the remains.

*My asterisk comments are brief, is what that means.

A One Horse Open Slay

My mind can warp things I hear into contrary intentions. Even the lyrics of "Jingle Bells" can become downright homicidal if I listen to the words I think I hear instead of the words that are there.

God's a shocker. Sometimes we hear condemnation when what He's pouring on us is a piping hot vat of liberty.

I'll let you be the judge. Are the following two verses hammers of doom, or vessels of joy?

"May their dining table become a trap before them!
May it be a snare for that group of friends!" (Psalm 69:22)

Or, to put it more plainly:

"Some things in these letters are hard to understand, things the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they also do to the rest of the scriptures." (2nd Peter 3:16)

Cheerless Links for Joyless Folks

If Scrooge ate a Grinch and chased it down with a big bottle of rat poison for his ensuing dispepsia, he'd look like a friendlier version of myself.

Elvis Costello nailed a great tune with The Other Side of Summer and, in that spirit, I give you

The Other Side of Christmas:

The Lost Genre Guild: Lesson Learned

Christmas in Jail

God Still Loves Us - Biohazard Version*

*(This is a fascinating viral marketing piece from the folks behind the I Am Legend film. I would have thought it would be gimmicky, but it, so far, has been one of the most civil meetpoints for atheists, Christians and others that I've seen on the net. What's strange is that I've been thinking about the God Virus for about six months, and even posted about it a few days ago.)

From a poor little schoolboy who doesn't need no lessons.

Writers Aren't Readers but Talkers Who Hear with Fingers

So this is the thing about writing:

The Word was first spoken, yes?

Speaking, not reading, is at the heart of words. We read Job's debates, but they were first spoken. At Babel the builders' spoken language was confounded. We are directed to shout praise to the Lord, not write it down with a lot of exclamation marks. Jesus' sermons were spoken affairs, though he did teach from scripture (which, for the most part is only a written record of what was originally spoken.)

That must be why, when I read one of the very best books, I feel it in my ear, not my eyes.

The God Virus

Stay with me here.

As I understand it, God walked, in glory, with man and woman in the Garden. As sin came in, so did the separation of the holy from the unholy. So God's tangible presence was separated from mankind's existence. Through history, however, God continued to exploit ways in which his holy presence might be able (without breaking his own character traits of holiness and humility) to dwell once again among men.

Whether it was appearing to Moses, guiding the Israelite ex-slaves by fire and cloud, by dwelling in the consecrated temple, or any number of ways in which God physically drew near to us, God, throughout our history, has seemed a tad obsessed about not only being our God, but about engaging our muddy little selves. In fact, the muddier and more lowly we are, the closer he draws to us.

But the problem is that our sin is persistent. We drive the Living God away, not through strength or will, but because His holiness will not tolerate our sin, while His humility and love is slow to destroy us for that sin. To put it another way, God has three physical options in dealing with our sin: to draw close and disregard evil, to crush the evil out of us and purify us through destruction, or to withdraw.

So, when we cling to sin and don't repent, God, in His mercy, withdraws his physical presence.

This is what happened at some point before the destruction of the 2nd Temple by the Romans. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that both Jews and Christians acknowledge that God must have abandoned the temple as His dwelling place at some point before the Romans laid a hand upon it (for had he remained, the destroyers would most certainly have been destroyed, yes?) The dispute is when God's glory departed. Honestly, I don't know my history well enough to know when Jews believe the glory departed (presumably sometime after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, as I believe - again, could be totally wrong here - that Christians and Jews are in agreement that the glory was present up through the life of Jesus.)

But the fact is that the glory did depart, and sometime after that, the temple came down, and God's chosen people were scattered throughout the earth for a time.

So, God, in our history, has, in humility and love, drawn close, and then, in holiness, withdrawn when our sin was not atoned for. No building could house him, because we would desecrate it. We could meet in no garden, because our sin would drive us from it. Even a flooded earth and a righteous man and his family were not immune to our power to stain any and all meet-points for God.

I wonder if that is why He decided to infect us with His virus? Instead of abandoning us to our devices, or forgetting the Jew, God took a very strange route indeed.

He made it possible for our very selves to be consecrated as a dwelling place of God.

Living Thoughts of a Dying God

As you and I both know, I'm no theologian.

I'm sure some human (four times smarter than my own kind, twice as tasty) out there has pointed this out, but I find it worth noting that Psalms 22 and 23 are not only to be located back-to-back but 23 really seems to be a coda to 22. Am I nuts? Is this a well-worn path?

I'm picturing my brother, naked and hanging to death in a tree, sputtering out this:

"My God! My God, why have you forsaken me?"

But thinking this:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish?

My God, I call by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I have no relief.
Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the glory of Israel.
In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted and you rescued them.
To you they cried out and they escaped; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm, hardly human, scorned by everyone, despised by the people.
All who see me mock me; they curl their lips and jeer; they shake their heads at me:
"You relied on the LORD--let him deliver you; if he loves you, let him rescue you."
Yet you drew me forth from the womb, made me safe at my mother's breast.
Upon you I was thrust from the womb; since birth you are my God.
Do not stay far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help.

Many bulls surround me; fierce bulls of Bashan encircle me.
They open their mouths against me, lions that rend and roar.
Like water my life drains away; all my bones grow soft.
My heart has become like wax, it melts away within me.
As dry as a potsherd is my throat.
My tongue sticks to my palate.
You lay me in the dust of death.

Many dogs surround me; a pack of evildoers closes in on me. So wasted are my hands and feet
that I can count all my bones. They stare at me and gloat;
they divide my garments among them; for my clothing they cast lots.

But you, LORD, do not stay far off; my strength, come quickly to help me.
Deliver me from the sword, my forlorn life from the teeth of the dog.
Save me from the lion's mouth, my poor life from the horns of wild bulls.

Then I will proclaim your name to the assembly; in the community I will praise you:
"You who fear the LORD, give praise! All descendants of Jacob, give honor; show reverence, all descendants of Israel!

For God has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch, Did not turn away from me, but heard me when I cried out.

I will offer praise in the great assembly; my vows I will fulfill before those who fear him.
The poor will eat their fill.
Those who seek the LORD will offer praise. May your hearts enjoy life forever!

All the ends of the earth will worship and turn to the LORD; All the families of nations will bow low before you.
For kingship belongs to the LORD, the ruler over the nations.
All who sleep in the earth will bow low before God; All who have gone down into the dust will kneel in homage.
And I will live for the LORD; my descendants will serve you.

The generation to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought.

It just seems like the next Psalm over couldn't be far from this extended, inner cry:

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

###

So, were all of these thoughts in the mind of our brother, rushing through him like water even as his own body poured out water? In what rhythm, what cadence, what meaning? Jesus spoke so little in his misery, but as he poured out...blood and flesh and water and bile and spirit and thunder and darkness and earthquakes, those few words he spoke indicate the roiling oceans of thought and memory and, yes, Words that must have been crashing within him.

(Sorry for the mixed translations. How then, shall we be translated?)

Lies You've Been Stewing in Since Birth - Exposed!

Free love is neither.

God is not a metaphysical construct. You are a metaphysical construct of God's.

Science without repetition is religion.

There is a reason why pollsters don't call themselves prophets. For prophets, a single false prediction carries the death penalty.

It might be a small world. But not that small.

And, of course:

There is no magic soup.

Born of Magic Soup

Myth makes us.

If I believe that, despite impossible odds, I can win the lottery, I will pay hard-earned money for a disposable slip of paper (assuming that is, that I see winning the lottery as a good thing.)

If I believe that the changing of a particular date holds a special annual meaning, ringing in renewal, I will probably go celebrate at a New Year's Eve party.

If I believe that everybody has a soulmate, I'll likely seek one out with a certain desperation.

And, if I believe that I popped from a vat of magic soup, I'll likely act as if I'm made of magic, as if the universe picked me based on my special qualities, that no one and no thing, save the soup, holds authority over me.

What happens then, when a man discovers that the soup was brewed in the mind of a deceiver, that its master wants your worship, that the soup has meaning, but in the real, scientific-historic course of mankind's era, that, in fact...

...there is no soup?

Stop. I'm sorry ladies and gentlemen. There's no reason to do this song here.

No reason at all.

What reasons do you need?

That Rock, the Moon, is Mine

Every day you've hounded me: "Aren't you supposed to be a writer?"

"Yes," I reply. "Of some note."

"Then why do you keep talking about totally unrelated stuff?"

"Because, my next bestseller is about how the entire history of the planet hoists its gravity onto an single person in the wasteland of a nearly deserted 21st century town."

"And...?"

"And everything matters."

"That makes no sense."

That's why I had to konk you on the head and pop you into my cauldron like that. Plus, I was hungry.

Sorry.

Today, my name is Jezebel.

Caught the "other" Peanuts Christmas special last night for the second time this season. This is not the famous "pathetic tree - Linus as St. Luke" one (i.e. A Charlie Brown Christmas), but the one that came decades later, which consists of little vignettes taken from orginal Christmas-themed comic strips.

My favorite one is about the little girl who changes her name every day, confounding Linus.

"Today," she says, "My name is Jezebel."

Linus explains to her that Jezebel was the evil wife of King Ahab in 2nd Kings in the Old Testament, and that her servants threw her from a window and she landed on her head. (He doesn't mentioned that dogs ate her up, though. I think his point had been driven home before he had to continue.)

The girl replies, "Today, my name is Susan."

As soon as she sees that she has identified herself with an unseemly person, she "converts" without thought.

I think it is important to identify with all people in the bible. We're quick to see characters in black and white terms - Solomon, good, Nebuchadnezzer, bad. Noah, good, Goliath, bad. If we identify with any character, it is usually the idealized "good" one, not the fully realized "semi-good" one and never the stereotypical "bad" ones.

But we miss our own sins that way. If we only identify with Job when we are suffering, we miss both the hazards of his slow-burning impatience with God's justice AND the riches of his redemption. If we don't stand in the shoes of Balaam, we miss how God's Word thwarts attempts to twist itself.

Our eyes can be clouded from any righteousness which may be credited to us if we only identify with sanitized models of real people.

I am Goliath of Gath. I am Jeroboam. I am Jonah. I am Pharoah. I am Saul.

And today, my name is Jezebel.

Nerd Cred and Why You Have None

Just a memo to the planet: there is no reason to want to be a nerd, and 97% of people who claim to be nerds are, in fact, nerd posers. Pseudonerds, if you will.

Here's a little Jeff Foxworthy Anti-Matter to test your Nerd Credentials -

a) If you've ever, even once, had a photograph taken of you that looked "good", you are not a nerd.

b) If you are obsessed with a particular pasttime, such as photography or comic books, it is possible, though not certain that you have attained situational geek status (as in "camera-geek" or "comic-geek"), but a hobby does not make you a nerd (unless you trainspot. Then, congratulations.)

c) If you are interested in technology, even highly technical details of technology, you are probably not a nerd but are simply "gainfully employed."

d) You aren't a nerd if you have a viable interest in the opposite sex, an affinity for irony or can express oneself directly.

e) If being called a nerd doesn't hurt your feelings, then you aren't one.

f) If you think that you are a nerd, then you aren't one.

I know that all of the above is true because I'm not a nerd, but have an appreciation for true nerds, and a quiet disdain for those who pass themselves off as such.

Hence, my undying appreciation for the proper portrayal of the rare American nerd in the characters of Doug and Raymond.

About Those Old (New) Gods...

They are important to know.

We like to think of Molek and Ba'al and Beelzebub and Asherah and Hadad and Dagon and especially the great and despicable El (not to be confused with the real Elohim (our God.)) as these old idols of an ancient past that predated organized monotheism.

Nonsense.

Molek and Ba'al and all the rest, though well-established in Canaan at the time of the birth of the nation of Israel, are new gods. Very new. And, though the Ugarit religion is long dead, the spirit of the old new gods shines just as brightly. We feign intellectual naivety so that we can enjoy their attraction without guilt. Because we don't know our Moleks from our Asherah poles we can block their influence from our mind.

Have I become a sedated pupa, blissed out in the Matrix? Do we even know who our new gods, our old gods, are?

WDJD trumps WWJD

Theologian Greg Herrick writes in Baalism in Canaanite Religion and Its Relation to Selected Old Testament Texts * that "it behooves us to utilize all ancient resources available to us in order to uncover the thought-world and religious milieu in which men penned the very words of God. While there is always the danger of leaving the text in history, this should not detract us from seriously engaging the historical data we have, lest we fall off the other side of the hermeneutical horse and modernize the text to our own peril."

In other words, study as many authentic ancient texts for context as possible but don't wash out the salt of scripture in the process. Herrick is right to be more concerned with our common habit of modernizing scripture.

Jesus isn't my CEO. He's not yours either.

*What? I heard about it on Leno.

We're Gonna Score! One More! Than You!

Ricky Hatton fights Floyd Mayweather on December 8, but I don't need to tell you that.

What I do need to tell you is that somehow ever since Hatton called MoneyMay out after the Castillo fight, the song Vindaloo by Fat Les has been cycling and cycling and cycling in my head.

Now it's cycling in yours.

Happy?

Screwtape on Science

"I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalise and mythologise their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, a belief in us (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy. The 'Life Force', the worship of sex, and some aspects of Psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work -- the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls 'Forces' while denying the existence of 'spirits' -- then the end of the war will be in sight." (pp. 30-31, Letter 7 from the Screwtape Letters)

That old bureaucrat nailed it. The materialist magicians of today may only be the forerunners of the Greatest Ever, but man, are they good. Take a good look at sci-culture, junk science, scientific dissent and tell me again that sorcerors have become a byword.

The University of Thanks (or...Thank U.)

A gifted and hard-working* artist whose work I deeply admire reminded me to be thankful today. I'm really thankful for the garbagemen, without whom I'd have very little to eat, as I've thinned the goat and roast-beef, three cheese chili dog herds of late.

I'm so grateful for my wife for her great qualities, including her low standards for a mate. I thank God for these kids who I can only hope fall irreparably in love with Our Lord. I can't believe the ready kindness that has been shown to me by people of more substance and greater handiwork than I can begin to reflect.**

While I'm thinking of it, I need to tell everyone reading this that they have been invited into a loving friendship with the only living God.*** That is something for which my thanks do not, and can not, end.

*I know she works hard, because I've read it. The gifting is obvious, but so is the work - you know. Picasso was talented, but so was Michelangelo, and Michelangelo also worked like a dog. Yeah. That kind of difference.

**One night, as I squatted, clubbing rats into planks to decorate my sleeping-hole, I looked up at a shadow in the sky. I reached for it sort of absently, and though I had to stretch to reach it, my hand found its rocky surface. I pulled my self halfway out of the hole, but could go no higher. Suddenly, many hands from secret places descended, drawing me higher. I looked around, the shadow-casting rock that I'd been brought to was the loveliest I'd ever seen. Nice and craggy with charming butcher's blade edges.

"Uh, thanks," I said to these strangers in the dark, as I turned to drag the rock down to my tomb. "Thanks for helping me get this rock."

The strangers laughed. "That's not the rock we want you to try for," they said, pointing upward. "That is."

I looked up. I could only see the moon.

***Now you have no excuse.

In Love with a Slaughtering God

The wrath of God has shielded billions of people throughout history, including you (that is, me) and me (that is, you) both. We never talk about that. To the believer, His wrath is a barbaric vestige of a time in His evolutionary past, or has been replaced by the love of Jesus. To the unbeliever, God is an earthy construct created by man to hold a permanent grudge.

None of us acknowledge that the wrath of God, not man, has been poured out countless times in our history, cutting short all manner of evil. We bemoan evil, but how often to we really consider its termination? How often do we praise Him for cracking open the earth and sending evil men straight to sheol? When do we thank Him for the Philistine who drew Saul's reign of terror to an end? Do we still celebrate V-E day? V-J day? Did the Soviet Union collapse because of the goodness of our intentions?

Do you remember the last time you said: that was close?

The wrath of God is good and a flooded world is a world that lived.

Appearances Update

Last night, I was a guest on the Steve Allen Show. You might have missed me because Jack Kerouac went long, so Steve only had about 30 seconds for me. It went something like this:

Steve Allen: So, tell me, and forgive me if this sounds like the sort of question you might get from a publisher, but I'm curious...who constitutes your target demographic for readers?

Me: Well, Mr. Allen, I write really for two kinds of people, both the atheist and what I call "the believer in Anything." You know, both Charles Darwin AND Aleister Crowley. Both Arthur Conan Doyle AND Harry Houdini. Both Neitszche AND Maslow. Marx AND Keynes.

S.A.: But, all those people are dead.

Me: Pardon?

S.A.: They are dead.

Me: Oh. Yes, then. I write for the dead.

S.A.: And that's a paying market?

Me: No. Not yet.

Footage of my interview isn't up on YouTube yet, so I'm kind of worried it got cut off at commercial, but here's the first part of the Kerouac segment.

Scott Jorgenson Strikes Back Again...and Begins

Since I've officially declared myself the world headquarters of all things Scott Jorgenson, I would be remiss if I did not make you (that, is, me) aware of the new release of Fear of Girls 2.

If you've somehow missed Fear of Girls 1, you a) need to start living under a rock and b) should watch that one first. Because 1 comes before 2, except for the occasional 8-section puzzle inversion.

The second one, sadly, lacks the element of Christian parody that I loved so much in the first, but it makes up for it with a bunch of socially inappropriate gender issues.

Charles Hubbell (who played Doug Doug's older brother in the first, and portrayed the believer) is sadly absent, but I guess that keeps him from splitting the screen with eye-candy Tom Lommel.

In fact, Tom semi-personally (that is, not at all personally) asked me to send the link to FoG2 to all my friends. I have none, so I'm instead sending them to myself, via this posting. You can thank me (you) later.

FoG1
FoG2
FoG Universe at YouTube

Giants: Easier to Believe than the Alternative

These humans have an enormous physical range.

Robert Wadlow stood 8'11" and 490 pounds. He died from a foot infection when he was 22, and, I believe, still growing. Gul Mohammed stood about 1'10" and less than 40 pounds.

The sepulchre of Antaeus, the giant king of North Africa, is a megalith five meters high. When the ancient Romans excavated his burial mound, they indeed found giant bones, to their shock.

Of course, we can take comfort in the fact that our enlightened modern archaeologists casually point out that many elephant fossils can be found in the area.

Because, you know, those stupid ancients couldn't tell the difference between a human skeleton and that of an elephant.

Sure, the most logical explanation is that the ancient Berbers came across some common elephant bones and said to their people, "Oh, yeah, remember that one super-revered giant king of ours that we had so long ago? We, uh, found his skeleton at the, uh, quarry where all those dead elephants are. What say we bury him in a new tomb?"

Yeah, I'm sure there wasn't some goatherd in the crowd who piped up: "Uh, guys. Why did our long-lost dead king have tusks?"

Doesn't it make more sense that King Anteus was a really big guy who died and was buried by his people who revered him, and whose bones were later uncovered by the Romans? Why must we insist that a people who certainly would have known what elephant bones were somehow convinced that it wasn't blasphemous at all to pretend that a dead animal was their legendary king? Oh. That's right. Because ancients are stupid and we are more smarter.

Ah, this modern age. Where the least likely explanation now passes for the simplest.

Spilled Paint Buckets

This weekend, I stained the wood frame of a new window we had to install after the old one rotted away. I liked to think of the old one as a magic window, slowly revealing the world outside as it really was, until I realized what the window really was: a deluxe home-value depreciator.

Anyway, as I stained, I came to a very profound realization:

I would never try to paint a room with the help of my pre-school children.

We might survive the first thirty seconds after careful instruction, but pretty soon...

sploosh.

In a vain effort to unsploosh, I'd probably kneel down, fondue-ing my pantleg in Inland Green. Kid 2 would be in stagger-back mode, tottering toward the freshly painted wall.

splat.

Now, tears. More motion, more stains, travelling stains, stains that will ruin my whole house if I don't implement some drastic and immediate lockdowns of now screaming children who had only moments before joyfully joined me in a home improvement project.

I'm smarter than that. I'd never, ever do that.

Even if I did, I sure wouldn't invite all the pre-schoolers in the neighborhood over for a clean-up party.

I realized another thing: my Father will never take parenting tips from me.

When Abraham was called out and told he would be blessed with descendants, God invited him, and all Abraham's descendants, to a painting party.

"Abraham - look! All this land is going to be the possession of your children. What say we get to work on it? I'll start by giving you a son in your old age and blessing him."

"Okay, Lord. I'm happy to help you! Let me just find my spare servant wife. My regular one is, according to her, past her prime."

Sploosh.


Ishmael is born. Because God promised to bless Abraham through his son, nations would arise that would eventually present great conflict for the descendants of Isaac. The paint bucket of God was freely placed in the unsteady, childish hands of Sarah's doubt, of Abraham's panic. That paint would run down through generations, and at least according to a great deal of modern tradition, would even stain today's political landscape.

The examples are numerous: Jacob swiping Esau's birthright (and Esau begging for a blessing anyway), Moses begging God not to wipe out the worshippers of Baal (until, of course, when he descended from the mountain and witnessed the sin with his own eyes. Then he went bloodcrazy,) Jonah dodging Ninevah, all the negotiations of the Hebrews wandering in the desert, and so on.

Sploosh. Sploosh. Sploosh-a-ty sploosh.

Tears. Motion. Stains. Travelling stains.

Yet God looks on the havoc His children wreak and loves them enough to devise a way for them to be washed clean, to be presentable before Him.

His method involves stains, too: bloodstains.

As if I needed reminder, I am not like God in this way. Perhaps it is because, despite my protests, I still prefer my rooms like my tombs: whitewashed.

Yeah? Yeah!

Know what I like about white shirts, coughing on the soundtrack, food that throws food, drums, great lyrics and smiling?

Everything.

Thanks Matt & Kim. You are genuses.

I mean genera. Like Canis and Leucadia and Rotoides.

Dead Chickens and Kittens: A Love Story

When my grandfather was a boy, he was playing with a pet chick and a pet kitty. Bad combo: the kitten pounced on the chick and in his attempt to stop the attack (or in retribution, I've never been sure) Grandpa grabbed the cat by the tail and whacked it on the ground, killing it.*

Of course, the chick didn't survive the assault, either, so there sat my Grandpa, in the dust of an early-20th century Iowa farm, with two dead pets in front of him.

Somehow, this story helps me to endure the book of Leviticus. As I endure it, it becomes a living thing to me. All the repitition of clean and unclean, of skin diseases that have shiny spots or turn the hair white, of head lesions and animal sacrifice, of household mold and issues of blood, of conduct and order and isolation and detail, detail, detail - somehow this has come to life in my heart.

I think of the chick and the kitten and of keeping good things separate, of violence that blasts us far from what is good, of harmony turning to discord, of a trinity divided, of a great and fragile community under constant threat from within and without, and the steps crucial to its defense.

*My troll-roots run deep.

Unique Visitor...

Do you realize that you are a unique visitor?

Most websites, blogs, and uh, internet things are desperate for attention.

Not me.

I've begun to average nearly one unique visitor per day.

That's one too many.

Stop that now! Are you even reading the posts? Can't be. I installed a basilisk subroutine that turns all readers to stone. Or a chicken. I forget how the basilisk works.

In any case, unless you are pecking, literally, at your keyboard right now, you can't possibly have read the posts. Nor should you want to. They weren't written for you!

However, if you are still reading this, you should feel pretty special. You are the only one on the entire planet who is. Even if you are only 11/12ths of a unique visitor. Kind of like Michael Collins, orbiting the moon...never setting foot.

X.D. Songkiller Lives, and Lets Die

Okay, Paul (singer not the Saint.) Genius aside, I've never seen anyone so gracelessly allow a preposition to get the best of them.

"If this ever-changing world in which we live in makes you give in and cry..."

The 40 year mystery is solved. Paul isn't the Walrus, but he is insane.

All Saints Day

It is All Saints Day.

That makes May 1 Half Saints Day, right?

Yesterday was Reformation Day, and of course I forgot to observe it*. Where can I buy Belated Reformation cards?

*Fortunately, Turner Classic Movies had our collective Christian back. They ran a Boris Karloff marathon in honor of Martin Luther's 95 Theses.

Undone Again

Oh, these humans! Such delicate things! As for me, I'm fat and muscle and dirt and rolling concrete.

Or, perhaps, like Karloff the Uncanny in the Invisible Ray, I poison all that I touch. That would explain why the check engine light is on in both of our cars.

God, grant me the grace to be strong AND gentle. Remember the gentle. Remember the gentle.

And meditate on Isaiah 6, the first part:

In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said,“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts,The whole earth is full of His glory.”

And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke.

Then I said,“Woe is me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”

Demon: A Memoir (Reviewed by Me, Read by You)

As you know, I don't rank works of literature, however, I can name only about a score of major modern* works that really matter: Beowulf, Don Quixote, Dante's Divine Comedy, Hamlet and Henry V, Canterbury Tales if you must. In the 20th Century, I've read a few great tales - The Wasteland, the Lord of the Rings, Perelandra, The Great Divorce, The Violent Bear it Away, Ficciones, the Name of the Rose, and The Secret History.

So, there you have it. This reader's noted great works first saw print, with the exception of Tart and Eco, well before my birth. Because it has been 15 years or so since the last straggler (Donna Tart's The Secret History) made it through the arch, I had lulled myself into thinking that my personal canon of great works was closed.

I am an idiot.

One of the greatest perils of postmodern thought is postmodern ideology, which carries an inherent risk: the risk that qualities such as good and bad, important and irrelevant, will be drained of meaning. Eventually, only the "personal" matters, and, eventually, not even that. I must have fallen in line with this quiet assumption at some point, because otherwise I cannot explain the shock I experienced when Demon: A Memoir appeared in my mailbox through what I can only describe as a series of unusual circumstances.

Let me get to the point: Tosca Lee's Demon: A Memoir is great literature, and being such, will very likely be misunderstood (at best) or overlooked (at worst) for another 30 years or so.

Me and the followers of the only way worship the Word, so it has always baffled me as to why we are, generally, so incapable of writing well. Eliot, L'Engle, O'Connor and Lewis are, of course, among many examples to the contrary, but there is a lot of Christian literature that can't even get the prose right, much less the theme. Demon: A Memoir is a new exception to that general tendency.

The plot structure is that of an architect's, the characters are vivid, the writing expresses clarity, wit, realism and logophilia. The book has three extraordinary characters that I'll be able to name on my deathbed. The climax is taut and spectacular. If Tosca Lee ripped out her own heart, I think words would come pouring from the wound.

This is a brave book - one that very humbly ventures into darkness with a candle.

Let me bypass a synopsis in favor of persuasion. I'll give you three reasons to pick this book up through a scene, an artifice, and an element of pathos:

A scene: The recently divorced protagonist, Clayton, is approached by, and drawn to, a beautiful woman in a bookstore. Lee masterfully negotiates a vulnerable man's complex lusts without ever once relying on cultural myths of manhood. Clay's emotions towards her come from a good place, a desire for the comforts and companionship of a wife, and quickly distort into more complex, and less pure desires.

An artifice: I love mis en abyme, when done well. The play-within-a-play in Hamlet, the book-within-a-book in The Name of the Rose, the poet-within-a-poem of Eliot, are all flawlessly executed. I'm a sucker for them, but I also know that they can be a trap, tempting the author to pull the trick once too often (a fate that befell the great artiste of our generation, Michael Jackson, when he turned the spectacular Thriller into a movie within a dream, or vice versa, or something.) The 70s film They Might Be Giants was brilliant mis en a byme, but had to bail on the ending to avoid the myriad traps that the story-within-a-story structure. Demon: A Memoir, shamelessly goes for mis en abyme, and delivers. In spades.

Demon not only is a story-within-a-story-within-a-story, but it is also a Truth-Within-the-Lie-Within-the-Truth story. Not only that, but it makes subtle reference to the conceit with overt references to John Gardner's Grendel and even, of all things, Sesame Street's infamous "Monster at the End of This Book."

The pathos: I know demons. I've seen their handiwork (so have you). Even as a weak and vain bridge-troll, I know my charge: to wrestle against principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in high places, and the rulers of darkness. Somehow, like the unconsolable wailing of Esau over the unfairness of the loss of his birthright to his deceptive younger brother Jacob, the demon Lucian, with craft, earnestness and emotion, quickly earns my sympathy with his account of the Cosmic Disaster, even though I know that he too abandoned his own birthright for even less than a trifle.

Lee must be crazy or brilliant to try to pull this off. Just because it works flawlessly doesn't mean she isn't crazy. Van Gogh cut his own ear off, you know.

Are you getting the impression that I liked the book yet? Go buy it, already, for God's sake. And yours, too.

Post Scriptum - I have noticed two somewhat prevalent comparisons among commentators that don't quite jive with me.

There are a few references in other places to the work as being derivative of Anne Rice's Interview with A Vampire, but this is error. Lee's novel displays an episodic structure that has greater kinship with Stoker's Dracula, and though the villain is certainly sympathetic, he is no less a villain. Why do people think Demon is like Interview? Uhm, I guess because it has an interview in it, I don't really know. Trust me, Demon has a far greater sense of creeping dread, malevolence and power than Rice's Lestat-as-Superman saga (Don't get me wrong, IwaV is a good book, but isn't similar to Demon in any important or thematic way). I guess by this logic, Les Miserables is derivative of The Music Man, because, uh, they're both plays.

Also, Screwtape Letters. C.S. Lewis' demonic parody is delightful and full of insight and encouragement. Demon: A Memoir aims at a much different target. Lucian has much more in common with one of my favorite figures in literature, Lewis's Professor Weston in Perelandra, than he does with the master's more famous work about the corporate inner workings of hell.

A better book to compare Demon: A Memoir to is Stoker's Dracula. The full story emerges through obfuscation and deceptive trails, through a variety of voices and media (where Stoker utilized telegrams and letters, Lee takes advantage of text messages, calendar reminders, e-mail, cell phones) and centers around an evil that takes most of the book to fully appear. Although Lee is a better writer than Stoker, both Demon and Dracula share the same attention to layering.

Post Post Scriptum - If none of this has encouraged you to pick up Demon: A Memoir, here's one last-ditch effort: if you liked Lois Lowry's The Giver, Rice's The Vampire Lestat, the aforementioned The Great Divorce or Perelandra, King's The Eyes of the Dragon (or, for different reasons, The Shining), Borges' The Library of Babel, Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane stories, Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Dante's Inferno or Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, you are probably going to enjoy Tosca Lee's debut novel.

*You do recall my somewhat broad definition of "modern" don't you? Everything following 601 and the baptism of King Aethelbert. The brief thousand-year-or-so period before that is the Classical, and before that, the Ancient. Suck it up if you don't like it. Keep things simple, I say.

Precious Death of Saints

I trust that I'm in the palm of God's hand. I just worry that He may start clapping.

Fantasy Killed the Atheist Star

Paul (the liar in 6 Degrees of Separation, not Paul, the Saint) said it very well:

"Why has imagination become a synonym for style?"

(scroll down in link for full quote. It's worth a look and listen.)

"Imagination as style" is the last refuge of the atheist author of fantasy. The late, great H.P. Lovecraft was a devout atheist, and to prove his worldview to himself, wrote of fantastical cosmic horrors that he openly admitted were fabrications, great eldritch and indescribable creatures signifying both nothing and nothingness. He wrote these wonderful stories, these brilliant illustrations of vivid loneliness, as something of an escape from what he "knew" to be true.

The fascinating thing is that he must, as all atheists admitedly must do, co-opt the symbology of faith in order to express a faithless worldview.

To the religious, otherworldly beings are no stylish, "imaginative" conceit expressing a separate, but deeper materialistic reality. Christians, in particular, believe in the historicity of angels, of miracles, of a Creator who makes himself plainly and tangibly known to his creation. Elves, or space monkeys, or even the mocking "Flying Spaghetti Monster" of the Pastafarian can be natural extensions of our Creator-given imaginations. They can express spiritual truths in new ways.

The spiritual truth of the atheist is that there is no spirt and no truth but proxy truth. How can one express that fantastically? How can one express the joy of living the zero-sum life without resorting to (or simply parodying) spiritual symbols?

The best bet of the atheist writer is to work at building a great artificial proxy, of course. Lovecraft does it best. His stories simply take for granted that cosmic and plasmic beings from "way out there" and "eternity past" occasionally intersect with the insignificant mud puddle we call earth, and upon which we, like ants, crawl out a meaningless existence. Humans go mad when they encounter the atheistic "truth": that an alien cosmos is vast and destructive, and doesn't notice us in the least.

A great proxy, to be sure, but upon what does it rest? Trust me, it isn't floating in ether, but it tries. Lovecraft's created world exists in one in which the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics does not exist. I wish I could have asked Lovecraft one question during his lifetime:

If we came from a sort of magic soup and Cthulhu came from a sort of cosmic soup, then what made the soup? And what made the what?

In any case, the only reason I bring this up is because there is some hubbub about the forthcoming The Golden Compass movie. Apparently, it is based on a series of atheistic children's books, wherein the heroic protagonists kill God.

For the sake of the quality of the literature, Lovecraft carefully buried his theological chinks under complex and wondrous prose. His story, ultimately, is more important than advancing an agenda. But The Golden Compass sounds like its own arc is doomed to collapse.

What sort of atheist sets out to kill God? Doesn't the author know that God isn't a real thing? What do the little murderers target next, Santa Claus?

See, I've got a heart for this sort of pretzel logic. I was a devout atheist, and I dedicated myself to struggling with God. Does that make any sense, logically? I couldn't see it at the time, but it certainly made sense to me at the spiritual level, a level whose existence that I would have denied at the time!

"There's no God, but if there is, I'm going to sock him in the jaw," was sort of my motto. I know now that it makes about as much sense as me saying now, "There's a God, but if there isn't, I'm going to sock an atheist in the jaw." My first error seems to be the one that the author of The Golden Compass is repeating.

Ultimately, atheist writers who attempt to express their worldview through fiction, especially fantastic fiction, end up sounding like quasi-religious fence sitters.

Creating a monster that you don't think your readers should believe in isn't a simple self-defeating purpose.

It's a rout.

It's Not a Movie

"Show, Don't Tell" is a horrible maxim for experienced writers.

We are storytellers, not storyshow-ers.

My tales are not movies. Even if they were, they darn well better "tell" you a story, not show you one.

I believe/hope it was Boris Karloff who eschewed the term "Horror Movie" when referring to his many chilling films, and much preferred the more accurate "Tale of Terror." Even in acting on edited film, Karloff viewed his portrayals as tales first.

I'm not exactly sure why, if a master of English language cinema thought chiefly of his work as tale-telling, we writers should be so obsessed with "showing."

Tell me a good story, and I'll show you a good time.

Oh, THAT crack.

I find myself on the opposite end of everybody in the order, with an uncrossable chasm between us. I've watched some folks tumble down into the everlasting abyss between us, and a few clinging to my side, trying to decide between the struggle of pulling to the level and the ease of letting go.

I didn't make this crack, and I didn't choose this side. How often, on those rare, rare days when I do see the Mighty Hand of God tracing great lines in the dirt, do I, instead of falling prone in worship, say "Hey, yeah, uh, Jesus, thanks for the, uh, canyon, but wow, we were kind of hoping to have a potluck supper instead."

Very, very often.

Ha.

I live.

Two More Great Songs For Me to Ruin

Sleep - zero, Caffeine - 1. I am more of a monster than usual. How many more things that I love can I wreck today?

At least two:

Brandi Carlile's video for The Story doesn't complement the aching beauty of her song. Its shot in such soft, angelic light, and her face is so conventionally pretty that its impossible not to lose sight of the "lines across" her face.

Every time Amy Winehouse's tough guy boyfriend in I'm No Good tears "a man down like Roger Moore" I can't help but picture Bob's Suntory Whiskey ad from Lost In Translation. Thank you Sofia Coppola.

Nits, thou art picked!

The Gentle Ballad of Toht's Melting Head

Colbie Cailat's lyrics to the very cute Bubbly cause me to suspect that she's really singing about that one time King Arthur met Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark right before the Nazi's head melted.

I've been awake for a while now

You make me feel like a child now'

Cause every time I see your bubbly face

I get the tinglies in a silly place

After all, Camelot is a silly place. My face may be grotesque, but bubbly? Eesh.

No wonder Colbie (as Arthur) "crinkles her nose."

Sincerely,

X. D., Song Ruiner At Large

Drawing Near or Pointy Sticks?

Jesus brought the Kingdom of Heaven when his heel first touched Earth (the same heel that'll split a mountain when He comes again.)

We built a tower to reach higher than Him when we all spoke the same language. I wonder if the last Unified Word we spoke before God confounded our language was a great, unanimous "D'oh!"

And I wonder how God looks on our modern (i.e. last millenia and a half or so) worship structures - St. Paul's Cathedral, the Dome of the Rock, Borobudur, for example. Does he see our flawed, struggling efforts to engage him, or are they the equivalent of man's best efforts at heaving pointy sticks his way?

Oh, great. I just started another fistfight with myself. Ow.

One Wish

If I had one wish, it would be that Weston, Ransom and the Queen of Perelandra were characters so rooted in the social psyche that their names would be shorthand for the essence of things.

It has been two years since I last read Perelandra, and I only need to recall the issue of Weston for the hair to stand up on my arms.

If I had two wishes, I'd wish for three more wishes with my second wish. Then I'd wish for a really good friend whose main attribute is that he can grant wishes upon request (yes, that's only one wish.) Then I'd wish for the Iowa State Cyclones to win the rest of their games this season. Then I'd wish for fifteen back-up wishes in case my new friend and I have a falling out.

I am a very inefficient wisher.

Ink isn't Pixel

I write very brief notes to myself everywhere. They are symbolic stand-ins for massive, complex structures I can only hope to comprehend someday.

The weird thing is that these notes MUST be in flowing ink, from a real pen, and have to be written on notebook paper or on spiral bound note cards.

If I typed the exact same notes on a keyboard (whether computer or hack-slam Underwood), they would lose all meaning.

Not to bust all Hummel figurine-like on you, but when it is assumed that sorceror's spells are literary constructs disconnected from what is Real, my first instinct is to wave a magic Pilot G-2 07 and cast Take Note - Recall Galaxy.

Scott Jorgenson Dominates Planet (Mine)

Scott Jorgenson has achieved world domination.

First, the guy co-stars in the 2nd* greatest short film in world history: "Fear of Girls"

In FoG, he played Raymond Ractburger, a lovelorn hardcore gamer. FoG also features my favorite representation of Christians on film. I know I'm supposed to be offended by their awkward, judgmental portrayal, but the fact is that if it wasn't for awkward, judgmental Christians who cared enough about the weird little atheist that I was to share the gospel with me, God knows where I might be today. No, literally, God knows, and I'm pretty sure He's wiping his brow in relief over the few who took his message seriously enough to try to beat me over the head with it.

Anyhow, back to the issue of infinitely greater import than my salvation: Scott Jorgenson's film career.

This guy has already achieved greatness. Raymond Ractburger, pining for his unwitting Leia...his Arwen...his Shakura!...Ractburger is an American everyman, iconic, the Tom Joad of the X Generation, if you will.

But yesterday...I witnessed the great Jorgenson achieving new heights. You probably don't know this (okay, yes you do, because you are "me") but I work in the telecommunications industry. One of my all-time favorite novels is Harry Newton's 973-page Telecom Dictionary. (Bonus: My favorite entry is the hotly debated "octathorpe" AKA octothorpe, octotherp, octothorp.)

I don't work for Qwest by any stretch of the imagination, but I love to see my industry strive for greatness, even it it is in the form of a competitor. Qwest did such a thing.

For their latest ad, they hired Jorgenson. He's hilarious in a silent role.

Good show, Qwest. Good show.

Now learn how to spell. Your company name reads like a breakfast cereal.

*The #1 Slot going, of course, to Tater, Tomater.

"Winning is Cheaper" - quote by Tom Wilson

Wow, this is fun. I won a secret contest at http://toscamoon.blogspot.com/ from the author herself. Tosca Lee is someone I heard about through Jeff Gerke's absolutely amazing site "Where the Map Ends." http://www.wherethemapends.com/main.htm

My prize? Tosca Moon Lee's Demon: A Memoir.

Gerke's interview with Lee was old school nerd*, hearkening to a time before faux-geek got tres-chic. Really funny, too. Anyway, from Jeff's site, I tracked down Lee's writer site (http://www.toscalee.com/ ) and then her above-mentioned blog. I was the first person to guess that she used to work at Smart Computing, so that means I haven't felt this cool since I won a purple ribbon at the 4-H fair for my text-adventure program for the Apple IIe which roleplayed the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter from the Hobbit. I was the only entrant in the computer programming category.

At the same fair, my duroc hog won reserve champion gilt (what she lost on the hoof, she gained on the hook) so I'm pretty certain I'm eligible for the Socially Undesirable Hall of Fame.

Anyhow, when I finish the book, I'll let you know. "You" being "me," of course, as I am the only you who reads this blog. So, yeah. I'll let me know.

*I'm pretty certain that Christian is the new old school nerd, since computers are so unstrange now. I hope Christians never become cool. I think every Bible should be sold with a pair of high-water pants, just to be certain...

Oh, sorry for the gunky linkages (i.e. Name - then link.) I'm rushing. As usual.

I write curiosities.

My only published works of fiction are of 100 words or less.

Evidently, that is the threshold of a mortal's ability to sustain an unblinking stare. For now, at least. Actually my longer works (epics of, say 150, perhaps 200 words*) simply take longer in the blast furnace.

That's where they are right now, burning. The alien technology that should emerge if I play my words right should be a lot of fun.

Until then, my collected published works can be found...here:

Dot, Dot, Dot: http://www.webdelsol.com/DIAGRAM/2_4/eness.html
Transient Eschemic Attack: http://thediagram.com/2_3/eness.html
The Legend of Elizabot Battery**: http://www.ideomancer.com/fl/Eness-Elizabot/Eness-Elizabot.htm

*Actual works in progress may be longer than they appear.
**This was the first time I teamed up with Rudyard Kipling. Okay, well not "teamed up" as much as "appeared in the same magazine as."