Euhemerus Amok: Thanking Jesus for Odin

Snorri Sturluson, one of my favorite humans, is the medieval Christian and an antiquarian most responsible for preserving our (still limited) knowledge of the old Norse myths and epics. Although we can glean some detail from Saxo Grammaticus, Saxo's nine books on the Norse myths serve much better as a critique of the old Norse religion than as a faithful preservation of its stories.

In any case, contributions like Sturluson's, and, to a degree, Saxo's, are often overlooked by the critic of Christ-following. Not only do the contributions of antiquarians provide a sober understanding of our place in history, but they provide much of the historic basis for the renewal of religions that would have otherwise become dead arts.

I wonder how often the neo-Odinist thanks the Christian for carrying enough of his spiritual ancestry forward so that he may approach life in adherence to his ancestral nine truths? I don't advance this to pick on anyone, more to point out that all off us have a lot of valuable things in our life because Christians in our past performed epic service to their fellow man.

I find that the critic of Christ is quick to bring up the crusades, the inquisition and witch trials. But if the critic has never heard of Snorri Sturluson, he's chosen a bad axe to grind.

It won't hold up in battle.

Clinically Lycanthropic Cultural Policy

Back in the 1980s, several clinicians revived the concept of perceived lycanthropy: the belief that one has memories of transforming into another animal, or the delusion that one has, in fact, transformed into an animal (not necessarily a wolf).

Lycanthropy has been a known rare but problematic mental and emotional disorder for milennia. Even the great tyrant Nebuchadnezzer "transformed" into a beast (in his mind) for seven years, bringing the government to a halt.

If clinical lycanthropy, the delusion that one is no different from an animal, is considered to be a mental illness, why then does it so acceptably drive social policy?

Oh well, gives me an excuse to link to apes. I love apes. You know, in a totally species-appropriate way.

Keeping Harmless Flirting Harmless

I'll admit something here that I wouldn't anywhere else. I have a bad crush.

The woman is rich. She's beautiful. And she doesn't know I exist.

I want to keep it that way. I certainly think that if I asked her out, the fantasy would be ruined. Besides, there's a big part of me that knows I'm not worthy.

She's one of those supermodel types that no one ever seems to have the courage to approach.

Her name is Wisdom, and she's so lonely I've heard the woman calling out from the roof of her nearby house to see if anyone might notice her.

Please don't tell her I'm interested. After all, the reality could never live up to the dream, right?

Inside the Mind of a Troll (an inevitably short trip)

So, to the one cricket chirping in the dark corner, here's your customized glimpse inside my mind:

In the process of ignoring an unformed notion regarding Strato of Lampsacus I started to think more about the peripatetic school of philosophy, so I began to walk about without making the conscious recognition that my body was playing out the very definition of peripatetic in an attempt to puzzle out the thing I didn't know I wasn't thinking about.

I decided right there that my walking should have a purpose, so as not to appear mad or distracted, I went to get some crackers, because if I know one thing it is this: food has purpose. One cannot be mad in its quest. The only crackers I could find were Frito-Lay's "Cheetos" brand, the kind with "golden toast" flavor crackers and a pseudocheese colloid wedged between the sections.

Although instead of reading "golden toast" on the package, I thought it said "golden toads" and I thought how much more interested I would have been in an animated version of the Henry Fonda/Katherine Hepburn film "On Golden Pond," which, of course, would have been named "On Golden Toads."

Therefore I was thinking about movies and Cheetos and I thought of galactically famous movie star/internet mogul Felicia Day* who combined my favorite contributions to human culture of the last fifty years: television commercials and artificial food packaging in one masterful stroke in, of all things, a Cheetos advertisement.

In attacking hunger I thought more deeply about hunger, and that sensation's dependence on the hypothalamus to alert the body of its cravings, and how hypothalamus basically means, in Greek, "below the chamber;" the chamber, of course, being the "thalamus" of the brain, and how the folks who invented the Greek language had a descendent named Strato whose, ahem, pedestrian, if not downright non-existent contribution to the philosophy of virtue, was responsible for this entire vapor trail of thought.

So now you know. And knowing is half the battle. Which reminds me...



*Felicia Day is once removed (i.e. 2 degrees) from Kevin Bacon, by Ingrid Oliu - i.e. the original Officer Montoya in the animated Batman series. The Montoya character has eventually become a latter-day incarnation of The Question, a character who first appeared in Blue Beetle #1 and was the inspiration for the Watchmen character Rorschach, whose viscous mask resembles a "living" Rorschach test. I believe Hermann Rorschach studied under Carl Jung, who is responsible for the development of the modern concept of psychological archetypes. According to Jung, the hero archetype was nearly universal in all societies, and depicted a person who defeats evil, suffers punishment for the sake of others and rescues the vanquished. Which basically describes Codex in The Guild, a character played by -- of course -- Felicia Day.

Fear of Girls 3 Wall Poster

Game on.

Okay, not so much a wall poster, and somewhat closer to a .jpg, but still. I haven't felt this way since I caught first glimpse in '77 of a bare-chested Luke and red carpet-ready Leia prepared for battle.*

Fear of Girls 3 is going to take the world by storm. It is the story of America. Told with dice. Through a retainer.

*and two fairly confused droids in the background.

Higgins Stands Where She Should, Not Where I Stood

Missy Higgins really gets a lot of photobooth photos for $4. And a great song.



Where I Stood.

F is for Fire that Burns Down the Whole Town*

I climbed a high tower, looked over the land, and saw water where there should be no water, fire where there should be no fire, and a moon turned to blood.

Somehow, St. John on Patmos doesn't seem so delirious to me.

I'm going to admit something: I get a kick out of the apocalypse. Pure entertainment. That's not to say that I don't take the writings of John seriously. I do.

But man oh man does the book of Revelation inspire some cool stuff: big godzilla monsters coming out of oceans to join forces with, then fight and torture a beast-riding queen of religion and whoring, hailstorms of superbug disease cupcakes, trumpets rolling out the best of Count Basie in a syncopated rythym to beat the devil.

I'm translating loosely, but still. Hellhorses, 200 million man armies at war, blood to the bridles, falling stars, thirsty dragons.

Yum. But you've got to remember that I'm the sort of troll who gets a kick out of cleaning out hog lots and dining on chilli dog spaghetti burittos.

I'm thick in the skull, so I can only afford to spend most of my time just bowing my neck and pushing forward in the Word, and trying hard not to fight against the scarylove Ru'ach of Jesus. I've got to leave the real End of Days to brighter minds than mine.

But I do have fun looking in on the apocalyptic expressions of others:

Apocalypse Soon
Berean Call
The always hilarious* Rapture Ready (I hope those manuals never come in handy for me.)
The God Still Loves Us forums... where being crazy and wrong never felt so good and friendly.

Oh, there are a jillion of them out there. There is plenty of pop-apocalypse, both Christian and non, that borders on (or even bathes in) the asinine. For example, I'm pretty certain that, despite the contemporary protests to the contrary, neither Ronald Wilson Reagan (good ol' 666) nor Barack Hussein Obama fit the profile of the Antichrist as described in the bible.

But the links above are reasoned and worked at. Even if they don't get everything right (because, after all, who does?) they do a good job of citing actual sources and doing their level best to comprehend something as wild and incomprehensible as the End of Days.

*Thanks, Plankton. I feel tingly inside too.

**to those, like me, who find Johnny Cash/Shel Silverstein meditations on death to be a hoot.

Nothing to Fear but Fear of Girls 3

Fear of Girls 3 has entered post-production.* Tom Lommel, Scott Jorgenson and the versatile (and athletically lanky) Charles Hubbell reunite for a lonesome ride through the dark heart of nerdiness.

The powers that be say to expect release in August. Or so.

This episode is going to be the greatest one so far, just like all the third installments of American classics like Goldfinger, Army of Darkness, Naked Gun 33 1/3rd, The Godfather III, Superman III, Jaws 3-D and Revenge of the Nerds III: The Next Generation.

I'll admit I haven't seen that last one, but, come on, it has the best of the Carradine brothers and Curtis Armstrong. Bob Younger and Herbert Viola? It can't miss.

*This is insider lingo which means, roughly, "I have no idea how movies are made, or the proper terminology necessary to fake it."

Mix and Match Apocalypse

I abandoned the floodwaters of Iowa for wildfires in the Great Dismal Swamp of Virginia.

Which leads me to wonder: why aren't there more steam-related natural disasters?

Omega Point Follow-Up

The all-too-common "omega point" science fiction tale either intentionally or by design is an attempt to discredit Christian faith by acknowledging it as an out-of-date evolutionary step in the progress of man (never mind that the core tenets of God-faith are no different today than they were "In the Beginning," nor that Jesus was perfect in every way, and no man has been his equal in morals or ethics before or since his crucifixion*). Very often -- and here, I think it is its draw -- the attraction of omega point stories is that they come off as a sort of "Christianity Lite" with impossibly dark undertones when put to the test.

I recently read a book that updates the Omega Point a little. I won't mention it by title because warning people off of other artist's work isn't something I generally do. The plot hinged on a cult leader/scientist (who didn't believe the religious gobbledygook that he spewed) dying and becoming the accidental martyr of the new religion. By a miracle of science, a computer set up by the cult leader begins to impart godlike wisdom, eventually revealing itself to be god, and inviting humanity to accelerate its religious evolution by recognizing, and giving themselves over to an "everywhere, everything" concept of the Christ.

For some reason, even the most skeptical rationalist gets the creeps when someone brings up the Antichrist. What is more remarkable to me is how oblivious we are to the deadly beauty and unconscious magnetic pull of the Pseudochrist, of which Antichrist is only one type.

*In other words, faith in Messiah, is, historically, the original faith. Ask Abel. Though dead, he still speaks.

Back to Newton and Leibniz

Because disco never died - it just became formulaic.

I don't care if you convert.

This is one of those rare times when I mean you as you and not me, not that you are reading this anyway, so I'm really only addressing the you that lives in my head, which isn't fair.

Anyway, I don't care if you "convert." Of course, I'm a pretty bad person at heart, and it isn't as if I'm always looking after your best interest.

But conversion would be good for you. Even I know that.

I'll even give you a few steps on how to do it:

1) Stop.
2) Turn yourself around.
3) Walk the other way.
4) Consider how close you are to perfection...or how far. When will you achieve it? You know the answer to this.
5) Consider God's Kingdom. I don't need to define it for you - even the darkest heart knows what it is.
6) Consider Christ's sacrifice. You know that too. Even the rocks do, and you are smarter (usually) than them.
7) Seek Him.

God is humble. I'm not.

I hope this bothers you. Deeply.

Eldritch Error and the Midnight Question

What if absolutely everything upon which your life is predicated is a mistake?

Goodnight Girl - the Nadas

It is weird to get nostalgic for a pub I never set foot in.



The Nadas new record, The Ghosts Inside These Halls, is outstanding.

The Gullible Kid Revolution

When I was just a little shoat*, I could get suckered a thousand ways, but I prided myself on my ability, at a very early age, to identify the wholesale fraud perpetrated on the last page of every comic book. Whether the final ad was promoting x-ray specs or a life-sized Frankenstein for $1.00, something in my bones assured me that I'd be disappointed if I ever defaced my precious comic by clipping out the order form and sending my check, money order, or loose change to the company.

Even my impressionable young mind could comprehend that Frankenstein did not come to your house for a dollar. So I contented myself with simply imagining how great the toys looked in the ads, realizing, deep down, that anything you got for a dollar was probably made out of paper and mailed postage due.

My favorite dream ad that never suckered me was "204 Revolutionary War Soldiers - Only $1.98." The layout was similar to the "100 Piece Toy Soldier Set with Footlocker - $1.25": rows of army men engaged in bloody combat. But, the WWII motiff, while engaging, was not as substantial as the Americans and Redcoats. This isn't entirely due to sheer numbers (204 Revolutionary soldiers obviously being more than twice the number of WWII guys. The key to understanding a boy's heart - quantity - notwithstanding, there was something more "believable" about the 204. I think it had something to do with the battleships - their mere presence in the WWII ad made it too obviously impossible to deliver.

I could get gypped a lot of ways in life, but there was no way I was ever going to get snookered by an obvious shell game, and I secretly gloated over the stupid kid who I imagined falling for it, and upon receipt of the order, being instantly crushed by both the chintziness of the crummy toy (which I imagined to be cardboard or paper-thin plastic cut-outs - that you had to cut out yourself - as you might find on the back of box of cereal. And not a good box of cereal - something like King Vitamin or generic corn puffs) and the poor kid's own sense of self-worth plummeting like a stone.

I might not have been exactly master and commander, but at least I knew who I was better than: the dumb kid who bought the promise of re-enacting the Revolutionary War in his bedroom for less than 2 bucks.

Until I came across this: 204 Revolutionary War Soldiers, as ordered back in the day, complete with shipping box.

It's...it's...it's more than I could have ever imagined.

And, I dunno, I can imagine quite a bit.

But here they are - real plastic soldiers in two different colors that are almost three-dimensional and cannons that are nearly 4 inches long! These are better than the cool drawing.

The ad artwork was indeed misleading, but not in the way I thought: it underpromised.

So here I sit, nearly thirty years after the fact, wishing I had allowed myself to be gullible one more time, to take a shot at losing two bucks in exchange for the promise of an army set that would have stretched across the concrete of the bedroom floor, conquering it.



*Que sera sera.

Shut Up and Write You Stupid Writers

Okay, maybe the post title is my own creation, but the inspiration is all Mike Duran.

Now, my posterior is far wide enough to sit comfortably on both sides of the fence on just about any issue, which, according to one of Martin Luther's Lectures on Genesis*, makes me a drunk.

*I think. Don't quote my source, as my memory is addled.

First, They Came for the Snacks...

24-Hour Dorman explores a libertarian's nightmare dystopia of banned cupcakes.

Demon Takes Silver: Thanks God it Isn't a Werewolf

ForeWord Magazine has announced its Book of the Year Award winners.

My favorite book of 2007, Demon: A Memoir has taken the silver medal in its category.

Incidentally, the full list of winners, medalists, and finalists provides a pirate's chest of the treasure from independent presses.

Congratulations, Tosca Lee, and all the authors recognized by ForeWard Magazine.

I think this means I have taste. Chili dogs and rotgut are on the house...er, cave!

Write Justified

Writers spend a lot of time justifying their own existence, mostly to themselves.* A lot of work goes into defending art, and the art of writing, in particular, demonstrating the practical benefits of writing, and the importance that reading holds for the culture.

Many high-faluting** words later, and the writer is in no better standing.

As it should be.

Because writing isn't important. It isn't a signficant contribution to society, regardless of the 15-second soundbite paid to its importance once a year during the Academy Award ceremony.

And that's how I like it. Whether we are firing off an opinionated missive, or finalizing a draft of the Great Armenian Novel,*** I think the most important goal an author can have is to be the least in the Kingdom.

May your writing bear fruit that nourishes. But be happy to finish in last place. That's where the best work happens.

*Mostly because no one else is listening to them.

**Yes, how random of me to rescue the "-in'" suffix from colloquial purgatory while living in place the bastardization of the "highflight" root from which "highfalutin'" stems. I'm a messy rescuer.

***Because, really there hasn't been a huge number of great works out of Armenia since Tmpgaperti Aroume, and everybody and his dog has written the Great American one.