What's Been Up

As the previous said posts are M-pendng. Actually, I think y 14 year old self ay have channeled into e for that one. It sees ore iature than usual.

Ah, finally.

After all that I sit here waiting for Madman Mundt with nothing but the cries of fishmongers and a Barton Fink feeling in spades.

Truth be told it's really Glen Kaiser's Blues Heaven that's furnishing the cries. I'm rather disappointed to have found that I don't have any recorded contemporary Christian music that really matches Springsteen and the Sessions Band live in Dublin for exuberance. I need some Rez band.

I saw the new Harry Potter movie tonight. It may be my new favorite. It manages to catch the brooding frustrating feel of the book very well. It streamlines the story well hitting most of the high points and dropping most of the exposition. I'm anxious to be able to see the end of the story and watch the two parts together to see how they work as one story. I also curious how the second part will work out without the emotional layer of Harry's struggle for the truth about Dumbledore unless that quest will be included there. Despite the action and the slight heart attack in Godric's Hollow and pretty much in direct opposition to most of my Potter reading I think my favorite parts were the more character intensive scenes as Harry, Ron, and Hermione, then Harry and Hermione, travelled the countryside trying to figure out what to do about the locket and how to find the horcruxes. Plus, Nick Cave and dancing. Some of that was really sweet and tense. I hadn't thought about it this way when I was reading the books, but tonight it reminded me of the Sam and Frodo sections of the Two Towers and Return of the King. Far less action oriented and more focused on the characters and how they keep going. Those were always my least favorite sections of LotR until suddenly they weren't. I can imagine how someone might think these sections of Deathly Hallows are just time filler and draggy, and I've read critics who seem to think so, but they really worked for me. And when it was all done I really wanted a beer, but alas, there was none, nor will be.

I know having said much had happened definitely implied I was going to tell what has been happening and implied so again in the title of this post. But I'm not going to tell much. There's both too little and too much. On the one hand there's not really been anything dramatic happening. I'm sure if you read back into other long term updates I've written you'll find almost the same elements as what I would say here or variants slight enough as to make no difference. I drive to and from Evanston every day listening to audiobooks and spend my day working. At home I watch t.v. I like, or read, or watch movies. I go to church, I spend time with youth and teach them about the Bible on occasion. I make lots of punnishing jokes and banter with Steve. Occasionally I go out and do something with friends. Occasionally I go walking along the Lake Michigan shore or watch a hundred geese fly overhead while hiking over glacial kames. It's not unheard of that there might be crazy improvisational dancing at a friend's birthday masquerade, or simultaneous prizes for sweetest and spiciest chili (same batch) at some other friends' party. Haikus happen sometimes, and even longer more thoughtful poems spring up and then don't get worked on. Maybe a friend's band releases an ep, maybe I go out for birthday pizza with only one new friend and no old ones. But it's not ever really dramatic except in that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases and His mercies never come to an end. Day to day He speaks and calls and warns and blesses and disciplines and convicts and loves and in each moment is doing something as dramatic as creation and as small and quiet as a precise caesura. "God in the tiniest infinite detail."

And now having all gotten all Finked up, I'll try to contain myself and not start any fights at USO dances. And I'll open the package.