dual personalities

Tag: books

September 13, 2022

A little venting

by chuckofish

Yesterday afternoon I went over to an old friend’s house to watch a movie on her huge-screen TV. This is something we do now that we are retired. My rude daughter #1 calls them “playdates”. Anyway, we watched the newest Jurassic World movie, Dominion. It was the extended version–two hours and 40 minutes. When I got home I wrote a detailed review of how really bad it was, and then my computer froze and I lost my review when I rebooted.

Well, it is probably just as well. I undoubtedly would have offended someone with my thoughts about emasculated men and genetically altered female clones who can procreate by themselves, and idiots who declare, “Science is truth!” but the minute they get in a tight spot are screaming, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Irony unintended.

I’m sure Chris Pratt was paid a bezillion dollars for his twenty minutes of screen time, but he should bow out of any further sequels. The scene where he is rounding up dinosaurs on horseback (all CGI) was just embarrassing.

And once you’ve seen one dinosaur chomp someone’s head off, you’ve seen them all. Ho hum.

Anyway, after that I had to cleanse my palate with a good old fashioned John Wayne western–in this case The Comancheros (1961).

Equilibrium adjusted.

I finished the new Longmire book, Hell and Back, by Craig Johnson, and I have to say, I was disappointed. It was okay, but not up to his standard. I guess Johnson, at this point, is just churning them out one-a-year for his publisher. As one Amazon reviewer concluded his negative take, “And Henry says ‘I’m.'”–all aficionados know, Henry never speaks in contractions. A rush job and inadequate editing. Sigh.

Back to Richard Scarry

I liked this post. “My tendency to want to please people urges me to take the sharp edges off the Bible, to bring fog into its clarity. But, such a road only leads to me as lord—and that is the path of destruction.”

5 Comments
September 8, 2022

Here in the spacious classroom of the world*

by chuckofish

I have been inspired by daughter #1 to read some David McCullough history, but first I have to read #18 in the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson. My copy of Hell and Back arrived in the mail on schedule on Tuesday and I dove right in. I’ll let you now how it goes.

I am also reading Dane Ortlund’s Deeper for our women’s book group at church. I am not really one for book clubs since I tend to be too critical and usually am triggered by people and their comments, but I thought I’d give it a whirl. It will be good practice on keeping my mouth shut.

Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

Ecclesiastes 5:2

I watched the original To Be or Not to Be (1942) starring Jack Benny and Carol Lombard earlier this week and it really is a terrific movie. It is Ernst Lubitsch at his best. The plot revolves around a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their talents with disguise and acting to fool the occupying troops. It is a very funny, dark comedy about a not-very-funny situation. It is witty and light and never crosses the line into slapstick. Carole Lombard, radiantly beautiful and smart, was never better. (Sadly, she died before the movie was released.) And Jack Benny, who supposedly felt out of his depth, does a fine job as the hack actor who must rise to the occasion several times. Felix Bressart as Greenberg, who dreams of playing Shylock, stands out among the supporting cast, but they are all terrific.

Mel Brooks remade To Be or Not to Be in 1983 and, as I recall, it is a good movie too. But as comedies go, the original is one of the Top 10 best.

Also, I stumbled upon this old blogpost and I think the Oswald Chambers quote bears repeating.

P.S. John Wayne: An American Experience was voted the Best Museum in Fort Worth by the readers of @fwtxmag 🤠 (I voted.)

Have a good Thursday!

*Billy Collins, “The Only Day in Existence”

4 Comments
September 6, 2022

Chasing the clouds away

by chuckofish

It’s still rainy and gloomy here in flyover country, and we are pretty water-logged, but so far, no more flooding. Oy. Sunshine is promised for tomorrow. Anyway, we don’t mind the rainy weather. It gives us an excuse to stay inside and watch old movies and read old books.

Today we note the passing in 1959 of the popular English character actor Edmund Gwenn, who most people remember as Kris Kringle in Miracle of 34th Street (1947), for which he won an Oscar as best supporting actor. He played many memorable roles, however, such as Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice (1940), Dr. Medford in Them! (1954), and Capt. Albert Wiles in The Trouble With Harry (1955). He co-starred with Lassie in three movies. And he played an Episcopal minister in Life With Father (1947) and in Mister Scoutmaster (1953). He was always great.

Two of his movies I have not seen are Undercurrent (1946) and Mister 800 (1950). I will try to find one of them to watch tonight.

And here’s a fun fact. His cousin in real life was the character actor Cecil Kellaway (who was more likely to play Catholic priests.)

Today is also the anniversary of the death of Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa (1910-98). Later this week I think I’ll watch Throne of Blood (1957), Kurosawa’s take on Macbeth with Toshiro Mifune, which I haven’t seen in a long time.

Writer Madeleine L’Engle also died on this day in 2007. I used to be a big fan of her writing back in the 1980s and I was thrilled to be able to hear her speak at my Episcopal church back then. A woman in the church who had been a classmate of her’s at Smith arranged the event. I came to realize that they were both women who had very high opinions of themselves and that is always ultimately unattractive. And now I doubt if I would agree with anything she believed. So it goes.

Have you seen this Instagram account? Everybody wants to be a cool kid I guess and be noticed as such.

And this made me LOL:

Yikes.

And…do you remember…

Bless the Lord, O my soul!
    O Lord my God, you are very great!
You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
2     covering yourself with light as with a garment,
    stretching out the heavens like a tent.
3 He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;
he makes the clouds his chariot;
    he rides on the wings of the wind;
4 he makes his messengers winds,
    his ministers a flaming fire.

Psalm 104: 1-4
4 Comments
August 30, 2022

Balm in Gilead

by chuckofish

Last week I mentioned in a post that Toshiro Mifune is one of my Top Five favorite actors. That got me thinking and when I had lunch with the boy on Thursday we discussed the topic at length. I explained that by Top Five, I meant my personal favorites, i.e. not necessarily the most handsome or most gifted actors. Just my favorites, the ones I will always stop and watch when one of their movies is on TCM etc. This explains why I have seen Bullitt so many times.

After much thought, these are my five:

  1. John Wayne–no surprise there.

2. Steve McQueen

3. Leslie Howard

4. Toshiro Mifune–

5. Paul Newman

That is a pretty great list, am I right? And none of it is a surprise to readers of this blog. (Errol Flynn almost edged his way in.) All five made some great movies and even the ones that are not so great boost my spirits.

I guess it is sad that there is no one on this list born later than 1930, but what can I say?

If I had to add a “modern” fave, I would go with this guy:

How about you?

I will also note that today is the birthday of Virginia Lee Burton (1909-1968), artist, author and founder of the textile collective Folly Cove. Her book The Little House has always been a favorite of mine and I will toast her tonight.

P.S. On Sunday when the wee bud and I were walking around the outside of the house “looking for things,” he said, “Let’s go in the nature room.” I thought that was kind of brilliant.

Have a great day. Watch a good movie. Read a good book. Look for things outside.

8 Comments
August 11, 2022

“I will sing of the steadfast love of the LORD forever”*

by chuckofish

I was sad to hear that author Melissa Bank has died at age 61. She published just two books during her career, “The Girls’ Guide To Hunting And Fishing,” in 1999, and “The Wonder Spot,” in 2005, but I really liked both of them.

I discovered her during a difficult summer and her book made me laugh out loud. She was funny like people I grew up with, but she was kind too. The cultural elites dismissed her work as “Chick lit” but isn’t that par for the course? Rest in peace, Melissa.

Are you watching the second season of Only Murders in the Building on Hulu? I love that two out of the three leads are old guys who are over the hill and detached, but keep getting pulled back into the world by weird circumstances and their new friend Selena Gomez.

Its tone is unusually sweet and the humor is not spiteful and/or political. It has a lot to say about loneliness. They make fun of their own progressive plot twists. I watch every episode twice! Once to see what happens and a second time to enjoy the dialogue. Is that weird? I don’t care. Here is an interview with one of the stars, Steve Martin.

Well, I continue to be amazed by the fact that I still, nearly a year and a half into worshipping at my new church, am unable to get through a service without crying. Even if I make it through the hymns, the doxology, sung by an inspired congregation at the end of the service, gets me every time. This says something important about singing. “When we make a habit of singing every day, whether we’re up to our necks in mud or not, God is praised and we’ll be encouraged.”

Even to your old age, I am He,
And even to gray hairs I will carry you!
I have made, and I will bear;
Even I will carry, and will deliver you.

Isaiah 46:4

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

*Psalm 89:1

3 Comments
July 19, 2022

 “All the watches in your cabinet are safe”*

by chuckofish

It grew harder and harder. Even within these four walls there was too much misery, too much seemingly pointless suffering. Every day something else failed to make sense, something else grew too heavy. Will You carry this too, Lord Jesus? But as the rest of the world grew stranger, one thing became increasingly clear. And that was the reason the two of us were here. Why others should suffer we were not shown. As for us, from morning until lights-out, whenever we were not in ranks for roll call, our Bible was the center of an ever-widening circle of help and hope. Like waifs clustered around a blazing fire, we gathered about it, holding out our hearts to its warmth and light. The blacker the night around us grew, the brighter and truer and more beautiful burned the word of God. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

I am reading several books, but at the moment I am concentrating on re-reading The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. I read it many years ago, but I kept running across references to it and thought it was time to read it again.

You will recall that Corrie Ten Boom was a watchmaker in Haarlem, the Netherlands, who lived with her family above their father’s shop. A devout Calvinist Christian, she, along her family, never thought twice about sheltering and aiding Jews in need after the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940. Ten Boom’s involvement in the Dutch resistance grew beyond gathering stolen ration cards and harboring Jews in her home. She soon became part of the Dutch underground resistance network and oversaw a network of smuggling Jews to safe places. All in all, it is estimated that around 800 Jews were saved by Ten Boom’s efforts. As a result of her and her family’s efforts, they were arrested by the Nazis and sent to a series of concentration camps. Casper Ten Boom and Betsie Ten Boom never returned. The story is a harrowing one, but a truly inspiring one.

I must note that what the Ten Booms did, they did not do for any political reason. They acted by faith alone. As Christians they could not do otherwise.

I used to think that such a thing as the Holocaust could never happen in America, but I don’t think that anymore.

*Code for “all the people hiding in your secret room are safe.”

1 Comment
July 14, 2022

Loomings

by chuckofish

We seem to roll our eyes a lot these days. At the grocery store, at the gas pump, and so on. We say, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” and we aren’t kidding.

When in doubt, we re-read the first paragraph of Moby Dick…

Haven’t we all felt like methodically knocking people’s hats off in the street? Well, it may be high time to get to sea, but that is out of the question for me. So I watched John Huston’s 1956 version of Moby Dick. It is a wonderful and quite faithful rendering of the great novel and I recommend it.

Starbuck to Stubb and Flask: “It is an evil voyage, I tell thee. If Ahab has his way, neither thee nor me, nor any member of this ship’s company will ever see home again.”

Stubb: “Aw, come on, Mr. Starbuck, you’re just plain gloomy. Moby Dick may be big, but he ain’t THAT big.”

Starbuck: “I do not fear Moby Dick – I fear the wrath of God.”

Even better, re-read the book!

Maybe, as we approach Herman Melville’s birthday on August 1, we should have another Moby Dick reading party…

or at least make some punch…

…food for thought.

P.S. Anne is back after a four week break. Thanks be to God.

And daughter #1 sent me a link to this fabric and it made my day. Clearly there is a market for this! How great is that?

4 Comments
June 9, 2022

What are you reading/watching?

by chuckofish

I have to admit that my reading material has not been terribly cerebral these days. But it is summer and that’s my excuse.

I have been re-reading books from Craig Johnson’s Longmire series and enjoying them anew. Walt and Henry Standing Bear are old friends and it is always a treat to be reunited.

I am also reading Confessions of a French Atheist, which I heard about on Carl Trueman’s Mortification of Spin podcast. Guillaume Bignon is an analytical philosopher and computer scientist working in New York’s financial industry. He is also an evangelical Christian whose conversion story is very interesting. “As the foundations of his unbelief began to crumble, Bignon discovered the wonder of a God that offers salvation freely and not by good works.”

Chris Kyle’s American Gun, which he was writing at the time of his untimely death, is a timely read.

“There’s a saying that to really know someone you have to walk a mile in their shoes. I’d add that to really know our ancestors, we have to put on more than their shoes, which were generally poor- fitting and leaky. Hitch a plow to an ox and work a field for a few hours, and you come away with a whole new appreciation for what your great-great-grandpa did come spring on the Ohio frontier. Pick up a Kentucky long rifle and aim it at a fleeing whitetail, and you’ll learn real quick about how important it is to use every bit of an animal you harvest; you may not have another one down for quite a while.”

This man understood context.

“Whether they’re used in war or for keeping the peace, guns are just tools. And like any tool, the way they’re used reflects the society they’re part of. As times change, guns have evolved. If you don’t like guns, blame it on the society they’re part of.”

As for what I have been watching, it is a combination of the usual old and vintage movies and some newer documentaries. I watched The Jesus Music (2021), directed by the Erwin brothers, and featuring interviews with prominent Christian artists like Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Toby McKeehan, Kirk Franklin et al. I am old enough to remember the Jesus Freaks of the 1970s, but I had no idea there were Heavy Metal Christian bands in the 1980s. It really is fascinating to watch.

I also watched The Capote Tapes (2019) which is another look at the court jester of the rich and powerful set. There is nothing really new revealed in this documentary, but I have always liked Truman Capote. He was a very talented writer and his demons were real and actually quite relatable. At the end of the movie Andre Leon Talley talks about the items he bought at the auction of Capote’s estate. The thing he wishes he had gotten was an old tin still filled with the cookies Truman’s Cousin Sook had sent him long, long ago. That just about did me in.

(Both documentaries are available on Hulu.)

Meanwhile, I am gearing up and getting my head in the right place for Vacation Bible School next week. Again, I say, keep me in your prayers.

P.S. How could I have forgotten to mention that the wee twins “graduated” from pre-kindergarten last week. What ho, on to kindergarten in the fall!

What are you reading and watching?

2 Comments
January 13, 2022

Humble and contrite

by chuckofish

I recently watched The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) starring Frederic March as Missouri’s favorite son. It gives a sanitized look at the great man’s life but it is really pretty good. It inspired me anyway to take down “Life on the Mississippi” from its place on the shelf and I have been reading it.

Not surprisingly, it is very good and extremely readable. Have you read any Twain lately?

I have also been following the Gospel Coalitions’s daily “Read the Bible” plan and so far so good (12 days in!). I am currently reading a chapter a day of Genesis, Matthew, Nehemiah and Acts. (I am taking notes, because my memory is so bad!) Breaking it up this way is a good idea, since you don’t get bogged down in the Old Testament and you also see how everything in the OT points to the fulfilling of its prophesy, the coming of our savior, Christ Jesus. As Don Carson says, “When you read, remember that God himself has declared, ‘This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word’” (Isa. 66:2).

It is easy to see why 19th century American writers were so good–they were immersed in the Bible, steeped in its vocabulary and vivid visualizations. So many of today’s writers write as if they grew up watching made-for-tv movies and not reading much. This does not make for good literature.

I found this article about C. S. Lewis and Billy Graham on the subject of Angels to be interesting. And here’s what Calvin thought about Angels. “Calvin’s view about angels is indeed not spectacular in the sense that it offers new and unexpected insights into the world of angels or presents an impressive and new, reformed angelology. But on the other hand it can be called spectacular in the sense that for Calvin, angels play a greater role in the life of the believer than could be drawn from the spirituality of the average Reformed believer.”

This is an interesting article. “Put simply, cancel culture is a culture of bullying. What starts with a difference of ideas ends with a willful public destruction of other human beings. Those who claimed to be the ones bullied have now become the bullies themselves, all because of a shift of power…Power is the critical concept, here. Cancel culture is based on the assumption that power—not truth—is the only way to drive cultural change.”

I am leaving tomorrow to visit daughter #2, baby Katie and DN in far-off Maryland, so wish me luck and traveling mercies. I’ll be flying…

…no choo-choo trains for me this time! I can’t wait to see everyone and check out their new house!

Love that red jumper made by her great-grandmother!

7 Comments
October 7, 2021

What are you reading and other stuff

by chuckofish

Last week I read the newest Longmire book, Daughter of the Morning Star, by Craig Johnson.

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It is the 17th novel in the series and, as you know, I am a big fan. This one–about Walt and Henry Standing Bear (Walt’s best friend) investigating the disappearance of a Native teenager and the harassment of her sister–did not disappoint. Walt and Henry are always a literary breath of fresh air.

Now I am waiting to receive my copy of the latest novel by Amor Towles, The Lincoln Highway, which was released on Tuesday.

Let it be noted that Tuesday was the birthday of Jonathan Edwards (October 5, 1703 – March 22, 1758).

“And yet some people actually imagine that the revelation in God’s Word is not enough to meet our needs. They think that God from time to time carries on an actual conversation with them, chatting with them, satisfying their doubts, testifying to His love for them, promising them support and blessings. As a result, their emotions soar; they are full of bubbling joy that is mixed with self-confidence and a high opinion of themselves. The foundation for these feelings, however, does not lie within the Bible itself, but instead rests on the sudden creations of their imaginations. These people are clearly deluded. God’s Word is for all of us and each of us; He does not need to give particular messages to particular people.”

Some things never change, right?

I don’t miss being an Episcopalian, but this was kind of funny in a sad way, i.e. this is all Episcopalians have to offer these days. And, newsflash, that is not enough.

This is very special, indeed.

Also, today is the 71st anniversary of our parents’ wedding in 1950. They made it 38 years until our mother died. So I will toast them tonight. Mazel tov, Mary and Newell.

1975

I pray for the day ahead and that I might bring Glory to God, in word, thought and deed. I thank God that his mercies are new to me every morning. I thank God that his grace is sufficient for all situations that I may encounter.

6 Comments