dual personalities

Month: March, 2013

March 6, 2013

Absent Friends

by chuckofish

Last week we mentioned how appalled we were with the Academy Award presentations’s handling of (among so many other things) its “In Memoriam” tribute. They left out so many people!

Here is the TCM annual video, which is much better, and as you can see, includes many worthy people left out of the Oscar version.

However, they also appear to have left out Harry Carey, Jr.

What gives? Was he a Republican? Since he died at the tail end of the year, perhaps they had already finished their review, but is that really an excuse?

He appeared in over 90 films, including several classics directed by John Ford. Shame on you. I hope they remember him next year.

6 Comments
March 5, 2013

Things and the reason of things

by chuckofish

Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you,
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.

Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,
For none more than you are the present and the past,
For none more than you is immortality.

Each man to himself and each woman to herself, is the word of the past and present, and the true word of immortality,
No one can acquire for another–not one,
Not one can grow for another–not one.

The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him–it cannot fail,
The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress not to the audience,
And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own.

–Walt Whitman, A Song of the Rolling Earth

And in other news: my friend Gary’s band Sun Volt was featured in the Wall Street Journal the other day. You can read the article here.

via Wall Street Journal

via Wall Street Journal

Gary is the cool dude on the far left.

3 Comments
March 4, 2013

Bread of Heaven

by chuckofish

How was your weekend? I went home a little early on Friday and got right in my pajamas and hunkered down, as I had been fighting off some version of this winter’s flu for a few days. I went to bed and didn’t wake up ’til almost 10 o’clock the next morning which is four hours later than usual. I stayed in bed most of the day reading Willa Cather, only rousing myself to talk to loved ones on the phone.

But the next day was Sunday and I was scheduled to be a lay reader, so I got up, endeavored to make myself presentable and went to church. I read the second lesson which turned out to be some excellent fire and brimstone from Saint Paul to the Corinthians warning about sexual immorality etc.: “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.” Oh, how I do love him. And I say that without irony.

We also sang “Bread of Heaven”, one of my favorite hymns, which always conjures up images of the Reverend Jones in The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain

7053-5729

stabbing the tires of the surveyor’s car while muttering the refrain of this hymn. The words, indeed, are all quite evocative:

When I tread the verge of Jordan
Bid my anxious fears subside
Death of death, and hell’s destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side

I left church renewed and with a light heart and feeling that a reward to myself was overdo. So I went to my neighborhood Dunkin’ Donuts:

DD

for a cup of:

cup of jo

and this crispy goodness:

photo

Life is good. But lest we forget: “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.” (I Cor. 10:13) Have a great week!

6 Comments
March 2, 2013

North Country Fellowship

by chuckofish

I’m a little late posting today but I have a good excuse. This morning I had to take the Session records down to Evans Mills, NY to meet with other Presbyterian clerks (and/or assistant clerks) of the Session and get the books approved. This yearly event is surprisingly painless. You exchange books so that no one is reviewing his own and then you sit there and check them against a long list of requirements. That part didn’t take more than an hour, but the drive was an hour each way — hence the delay.

We met at a one-room church in a small village called Evans Mills near Watertown.

Evans Mills

What makes this church particularly intriguing is that it is both the First Presbyterian Church-LeRay and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church-Evans Mills. Apparently they joined forces back in the early 70s and have been going strong together ever since. As one who was raised Episcopalian but has lately turned Presbyterian I was kind of tickled by the combination. I’d never come across anything like that before.

Though the village was as nondescript and uninspiring as the landscape in the area, which is flat, featureless farmland, I was pleasantly reminded that in all of these places kind, thoughtful people live, work, and worship. They are dedicated to making good things happen for their communities and, yes, all of them are above 45 (most above 55). So let’s hear it for overlooked people everywhere, who are diligently serving the Lord. And cheers to Evans Mills Episcoterian Presbypalians!

Evans mills sign

Okay, as Saturday adventures go, it doesn’t stack up to the city sister’s gallivanting, but it infinitely better than this,

DSC00096

which is how I get to spend the rest of the weekend. What fun things are you up to?

5 Comments
March 1, 2013

I love you, baby, can I have some more

by chuckofish

I think I’ve mentioned that I listen to CDs in my car. I know. Quelle old-fashioned. I don’t have an iPod. I haven’t downloaded much music to my laptop. Sorry. This old dog can only learn so many new tricks at a time.

So I have been wearing out The Lumineers and need something new. Or something old. I rifled through my box of “burns”–i.e. burned CDs, which my children have made for me over the years.

mwc cd

Daughters #1 and #2 obliged me many, many times, burning mixes of my favorites as well as mixes with songs “I might like”.

susie

The boy made some “themed” classics, especially the famous “Kleenex” mixes which included songs and music guaranteed to make his mother weep. These ranged from selections by Patrick Park to Boyz II Men and lots of other stuff in between.

wrc cd

I know that mixes take a lot of effort. But let it never be said that I do not appreciate that effort. I do. Deeply. Thanks, guys. Now, how about burning me a new mix?

4 Comments