Sisaundra Lewis was in the house and she wasn't the star. I think she was doing what she wants to be doing, which is having us focus on the music and not her. She sounded and looked great.
I want to see her be the star though; at least some of the time.
Today Pastor David said something like "The biggest obstacle keeping you from doing what you are supposed to be doing right now is your past success." I know that I'm paraphrasing and he was quoting someone else. But the message was to take your accomplishments, which are right in front of you, and put them off to the side so we can move on.
Yesterday at work the three of us who think alike (two us say that the three of us share a brain, and use that for an excuse when we forget something) decided that none of us think time is the 4th dimension. We think it's separate from space, which is defined as 3. One said that he thought time didn't actually exist, but that we can't measure it without motion. I suppose he views time as a construct, which it certainly is. But what I call time and what we can measure of time are not exactly the same things. I think he's wrong, so of course he is and this is my blog anyway. I think that we can't measure time without perspective. I'm not sure if we can measure it without motion. But since we're not still for very long, maybe we'll never know. As the planet turns and my chest goes up and down we're constantly in motion aren't we. Time exists, but depending upon where you are it is different. If you're in heaven you may not have forgotten something that once held you down but it is no longer in your way. Outside of time there is no pain, suffering, striving, etc. I know we work in heaven though, so I can't figure that part out. If we're outside of time, what will we be doing?
I suppose there is value in all human measurements of time. There are good reasons to be dark about half a day and light half a day. There are good reasons to be like the Semites and measure time by the months. There are good reasons to be like the Druids and the Aegyptians and measure time by the year. There are good reasons to be like a Roman Emperor and declare that time revolves around oneself. Jesus didn't do that; at least not when He was on Earth.
But there are bad reasons to do all of these things too. Maybe that's the enemy; trying to figure out which things are good and which things are bad. Different things are good at different times.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Ingrid Bergman
I just watched a movie that was so bad that I had to get out some Ingrid Bergman file to watch next so that I don't lose faith in humanity.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Dark Lady
The first celebrity that I remember noticing was Johnny Cash. Apparently I saw him in person from up in the stands at the Leaky Tepee in West Palm Beach when I was too young to remember. I can picture myself holding Daddy's hand and walking up the steps, and later looking down while holding a banister to see The Man in Black below. But those might not be memories. I had forgotten there was a tv show, but of course that's why I liked him. I wanted to be Johnny Cash or be like him because that would mean I was closer to the first celebrity I actually remember; Cher.
Cher was on tv too and I remember that a little more distinctly. But mostly it's one album, and one photo that symbolized her to me around the time of second or third grade. I always thought it was kindergarten, but today I notice the album is copywritten in 1974, so it had to be at least that late before she found herself in my hands.
I can't find a photo that does the album cover justice. Here her waist and hips are rather thin, but in the one I hold in my hand the waist seems impossibly so and she's long and thin like Barbie's evil twin. Here, the top of the photo is cutting off the very top of her hair. In the one I have in front of me, she's centered just right. Of course it seems just right to me since I spent hours gazing at it.
There's the hairline which is surprisingly asymmetrical at least in shadow, as I've known for decades. And then there are the details I notice perhaps for the first time today. The photo is perfect but invites study. The eyebrow is higher on the side where the hairline is higher. The shadows on the cheeks are different. Are the lips straight or are they not in that mannequin stare with the same blank expression as the cat? They don't share the same eyes but they see the same thing in the same way. They are self-aware in the same way. Her hair has a few strays and provides the visual balance for the cat on the top left of her upper half; cat on top left and hair on bottom right. Today I notice her neck is long- of course it is but it's mainly in shadow. Her upper arm looks soft and not bony. In contrast with her legs her arm has a pleasant amount of substance. She's the definition of statuesque and I don't think a bulldozer could knock her over.
Today I notice that there is only one bracelet. I've seen the glimmer from the lights there and on the black parts of the shoes for decades but today I notice that there are no other adornments- odd for a gypsy woman I think as I look today. No earrings, no nose-ring (I wonder if she ever wore one- at least for photos) no headdress or tiara or visible rings or any metal or sequins on the dress. I have to say the shoes look clunky to me today but I think the jewelry or lack is the perfect choice. As a third grader I took these items for what they were- unquestioned aspects of the perfect photograph. Today I notice that it's Richard Avedon and the dress is Calvin Klein. I didn't know who those names were at the time, and noticing them now I find them odd as a pair. That dress is by him? It's got fringe and the hip cutout seems perfect for her but odd for him. Having known of this photo long before I held any recognition for those two masculine names I question what I do actually know of them.
On the front of the album and the back I find the perfect use of font in both black and white. Her name; that one word, has the suggestion of one of those accent line thingees like on the end of French words such as Renee. This was one of my first contacts with the idea of font. But these seventies examples abound in memory on Yellow Submarine, ABC after-school specials, Wonder Woman, comics, lunchboxes for the Jackson 5 and others and any tv title sequence.
Here we have the use of double lines- one thicker than the other- which I always associate with a show- Broadway, tophats, electric lights... and that idea is emphasized by underlining her name. The other font below has the touch of red and idiosyncratic lower case i's and the swashy lower case h's and f's. On the back in the white it's shown off by the contrast with the regular looking song list text and that tiny logo which intrigues me still; the man almost behind the scenes depicted in the tiny circle: Al Capps- written in of course, ALL CAPS.
Here you can see his logo but on the Dark Lady record cover it provides the perfect foil for the larger Cher cartouche at the top. She's on top and large, he's on bottom and hideous. Does anyone really look like that? Did she ever look like she looks? Today I find the nails too much like claws but the overall effect is not as witchy as I once found it. Sure she's being glammed up as a dark figure but it's not morbid at all and it's not goth. Before any hint of those other Armenians she didn't have to differentiate her dark haired beauty from theirs by going blond.
Cher was on tv too and I remember that a little more distinctly. But mostly it's one album, and one photo that symbolized her to me around the time of second or third grade. I always thought it was kindergarten, but today I notice the album is copywritten in 1974, so it had to be at least that late before she found herself in my hands.
I can't find a photo that does the album cover justice. Here her waist and hips are rather thin, but in the one I hold in my hand the waist seems impossibly so and she's long and thin like Barbie's evil twin. Here, the top of the photo is cutting off the very top of her hair. In the one I have in front of me, she's centered just right. Of course it seems just right to me since I spent hours gazing at it.
There's the hairline which is surprisingly asymmetrical at least in shadow, as I've known for decades. And then there are the details I notice perhaps for the first time today. The photo is perfect but invites study. The eyebrow is higher on the side where the hairline is higher. The shadows on the cheeks are different. Are the lips straight or are they not in that mannequin stare with the same blank expression as the cat? They don't share the same eyes but they see the same thing in the same way. They are self-aware in the same way. Her hair has a few strays and provides the visual balance for the cat on the top left of her upper half; cat on top left and hair on bottom right. Today I notice her neck is long- of course it is but it's mainly in shadow. Her upper arm looks soft and not bony. In contrast with her legs her arm has a pleasant amount of substance. She's the definition of statuesque and I don't think a bulldozer could knock her over.
Today I notice that there is only one bracelet. I've seen the glimmer from the lights there and on the black parts of the shoes for decades but today I notice that there are no other adornments- odd for a gypsy woman I think as I look today. No earrings, no nose-ring (I wonder if she ever wore one- at least for photos) no headdress or tiara or visible rings or any metal or sequins on the dress. I have to say the shoes look clunky to me today but I think the jewelry or lack is the perfect choice. As a third grader I took these items for what they were- unquestioned aspects of the perfect photograph. Today I notice that it's Richard Avedon and the dress is Calvin Klein. I didn't know who those names were at the time, and noticing them now I find them odd as a pair. That dress is by him? It's got fringe and the hip cutout seems perfect for her but odd for him. Having known of this photo long before I held any recognition for those two masculine names I question what I do actually know of them.
On the front of the album and the back I find the perfect use of font in both black and white. Her name; that one word, has the suggestion of one of those accent line thingees like on the end of French words such as Renee. This was one of my first contacts with the idea of font. But these seventies examples abound in memory on Yellow Submarine, ABC after-school specials, Wonder Woman, comics, lunchboxes for the Jackson 5 and others and any tv title sequence.
Here we have the use of double lines- one thicker than the other- which I always associate with a show- Broadway, tophats, electric lights... and that idea is emphasized by underlining her name. The other font below has the touch of red and idiosyncratic lower case i's and the swashy lower case h's and f's. On the back in the white it's shown off by the contrast with the regular looking song list text and that tiny logo which intrigues me still; the man almost behind the scenes depicted in the tiny circle: Al Capps- written in of course, ALL CAPS.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Sorry I Couldn't Call You
It's a shame your phone number has numbers in it. I just couldn't get my fingers to touch the buttons. And even when I did, the 7 and the 8 were stuck and didn't make a touch-tone sound. I thought about playing through the buttons and learning the scale and singing the sound the seven would make. That would work and be more fun than dialing.
If only your number didn't contain a 7 or an 8. I could have dialed.
I could have tried again.
If only your number didn't contain a 7 or an 8. I could have dialed.
I could have tried again.
Two-Minute Entreaty by Anthony Doerr
So I'm in Chipotle again, and I wonder why I waited so long.
It wasn't the food poisoning scare, unless that negativity in the air somehow helped me remember not to spend so much money eating out. Eating at Chipotle feels like an investment though. Some of those other places keep me feeling like I'm throwing money away.
Notes on punctuation, hyphens, paragraphs and style. I put two spaces after each sentence. The text on the cup puts one. I agreed with all the capitalizations that I noticed until "I say, Be big." Why would we capitalize the Be? Hyphens continue to be used indiscriminately in my opinion, but I was thrilled not to catch any misspellings. There was one comma that I thought should have been a semi-colon. I'm not checking my own typing below one more time in homage to my OCD.
On the side of the cup there is this:
Two-Minute Entreaty by Anthony Doerr (I wonder if he's a doer??)
Tattoo Earth's 4.5-billion-year timeline onto your arm, shoulder to fingertip, and your upper arm will get nothing but geologic mayhem: meteorites, magma, acid rain. Life won't begin until your bicep, and from there to your wrist it's all single-celled, oceangoing stuff. Reproductive sex won't show up until your wristwatch, and creatures that are finally big enough to see- tubes and fronds and weird Precambrian plant-animals- will crisscross the back of your hand.
Trilobites paddle across your palm; ancient forests grow from your knuckles; dinosaurs wind around the joints at the ends of your fingers. Mammals burrow into your cuticles.
Orangutans, arrowheads, Cleopatra, the names of the stars- they all have to fit on the sliver of fingernail at the end of your longest finger.
And you? Your grandma's toffee bars, your CD collection, your treehouse, your best-ever Halloween costume, every regret you'll ever have, every dream you'll ever dream, every mouth you'll ever kiss (or wish you had)- they'll all ride the microscopic edge of your fingernail, a tattoo so thin you'd need an electron microscope to glimpse it.
File your nail and you'll wipe out your entire family tree, and Shakespeare and ancient Greece with it.
We are each no more than a spark, a mote illuminated for a split-second as it passes through a beam of light.
Pascal said, "When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after... I am frightened."
People say, "Who wants to feel so small? Let me eat my burrito."
I say, Be big. Big-hearted, big-witted, big-eyed. See, try, love, read, make, paint, and taste everything you can while you can.
You still have some hours left. Go.
It wasn't the food poisoning scare, unless that negativity in the air somehow helped me remember not to spend so much money eating out. Eating at Chipotle feels like an investment though. Some of those other places keep me feeling like I'm throwing money away.
Notes on punctuation, hyphens, paragraphs and style. I put two spaces after each sentence. The text on the cup puts one. I agreed with all the capitalizations that I noticed until "I say, Be big." Why would we capitalize the Be? Hyphens continue to be used indiscriminately in my opinion, but I was thrilled not to catch any misspellings. There was one comma that I thought should have been a semi-colon. I'm not checking my own typing below one more time in homage to my OCD.
On the side of the cup there is this:
Two-Minute Entreaty by Anthony Doerr (I wonder if he's a doer??)
Tattoo Earth's 4.5-billion-year timeline onto your arm, shoulder to fingertip, and your upper arm will get nothing but geologic mayhem: meteorites, magma, acid rain. Life won't begin until your bicep, and from there to your wrist it's all single-celled, oceangoing stuff. Reproductive sex won't show up until your wristwatch, and creatures that are finally big enough to see- tubes and fronds and weird Precambrian plant-animals- will crisscross the back of your hand.
Trilobites paddle across your palm; ancient forests grow from your knuckles; dinosaurs wind around the joints at the ends of your fingers. Mammals burrow into your cuticles.
Orangutans, arrowheads, Cleopatra, the names of the stars- they all have to fit on the sliver of fingernail at the end of your longest finger.
And you? Your grandma's toffee bars, your CD collection, your treehouse, your best-ever Halloween costume, every regret you'll ever have, every dream you'll ever dream, every mouth you'll ever kiss (or wish you had)- they'll all ride the microscopic edge of your fingernail, a tattoo so thin you'd need an electron microscope to glimpse it.
File your nail and you'll wipe out your entire family tree, and Shakespeare and ancient Greece with it.
We are each no more than a spark, a mote illuminated for a split-second as it passes through a beam of light.
Pascal said, "When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and after... I am frightened."
People say, "Who wants to feel so small? Let me eat my burrito."
I say, Be big. Big-hearted, big-witted, big-eyed. See, try, love, read, make, paint, and taste everything you can while you can.
You still have some hours left. Go.
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