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.