Kitchen Photos - First Week

Here are an assortment.

Cabinets before:



Cabinets (or not) after:



Backside of the tray ceiling in the Dining Room. So, that's how they did curved ceilings in 1931.



Living Room Wall (before):



Now, a hole where the wall used to be:

Kitchen Project - The Beginning

A serious kitchen remodel begins with demolition on Monday.
There is a lot of packing of cabinets into boxes and moving of kitchen stuff.
It's like moving out.
We will be without a kitchen for 8-10 weeks.
I resist spending money, most of the time, but I am sure that this update will be excellent, like the upstairs project was some years back.
Other current events: Finished reading Kevin Roose's Unlikely Disciple, a story of a Brown student's semester at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, undercover. Recommended.
I will be teaching a short (2 Sunday) class in January on the Dead Sea Scrolls. A selection of them are coming to the Milwaukee Public Museum, and a little orientation never hurt anyone.

Quite a Week of Outages (of all kinds)

I am not complaining. More than anything, this is a way for me to list off what is going on so I can prioritize. But I figured that some or all of the items might be of interest.

Okay, so. One, S. discovered that the brakes on the Insight had failed. Luckily, she was in the driveway. Like a goofus, she did drive it to the dealership without incident (the stones of Indiana Jones, that one). Now we wait for the part to be shipped from Japan. Ugh! Two, my step-father, V. had a massive heart attack and is in intensive care in the Quads. I am driving down to support Mom and to visit him. Three, huge hardware issue at my work (my area of management). Cause yet unknown, and impact is contained, but it continues not to be good. Four, yesterday morning, I got to experience my first oracular migraine. If you don't know what that is, good for you. The short version is that it is a migraine headache focused in the visual center of the brain, causing one or both eyes to experience strange behaviors. The ophthalmologist checked the retina, and it looks fine. So, take two aspirins and call me if it happens again. [Side note - playing tennis with dilated eyes is not funny in the slightest.]

So, what have we learned? Feel blessed when disasters decide only to brush up against you, rather than knock you out. Remember that some people aren't so lucky, and support them as best you can.

As a side note, as a result of a mention on a Twit RSS feed, I am reading Jean Baudrillard's Transparency of Evil. It is awesome. We are, indeed, in a time when the systems we have created tend to train us and discipline us more than we control them. For example, some think that we use computers. Not exactly. Our behaviors bend (operant conditioning) to the rules in the programs as much as we customize the programs for our use. We gain skill in 'mousing.' We learn 'short cuts.' And are rewarded. Our skills at spelling and mathematics atrophy, increasing our dependence on the machines for basic functioning. Do machines help us become better humans, or lazier humans?

It's been that kind of week for me. Perhaps lighter fare another time.

McEnroe is 50

Growing up a left-handed tennis player in the 80s, there was only one person to emulate - Johnny Mac. And I did. To this day, the hours of volleys in the grass (because why would you ever let the ball bounce?) have left me awkward from the baseline and automatic at net. I caught a glimpse of Johnny Mac playing a team tennis match (with kids 30 years younger than him) and got chills on one point where he volleyed an impossibly hard and low forehand so that is travelled exactly 90 degrees from the inbound trajectory, skimmed the net, and practically hit the judge's chair (which is inline with the net). Physics and gravity be damned, so it seemed and still seems. As they say, the greatest men's doubles team (before the Bryans) is John McEnroe and anyone else. Childlike reverence for an unlikely hero.
So, I have gravitated to doubles, naturally. My mixed partner, L, and I won two matches at the state tournament, one an improbable come-from-behind. One of the best moments of the summer came at the end of the comeback win, after shaking hands with the opponents, when my partner and I just looked at each other and smiled those tight, 'probably-shouldn't-shout-for-joy-just-now' smiles. I don't get to visit 'the Zone' often, but I did that day, and it is critical to have an activity that transports you. Thanks, Johnny Mac. All that practice pays off.

The Government Inspector by Gogol

We just saw this production at the Milwaukee Rep.
When a play is good, it is easy to say that there was a fortunate alignment of good acting, good writing, good directing, and magic.
When a play is bad, it is sometimes hard to pinpoint which of those elements is out-of-sync. Each intensifies the other, like a resonance eventually tears a motor apart.
Or, perhaps, it was the historical moment. In the nineteenth century, one relied on the occasional farce and slapstick for amusement. One could not reach into the over-stuffed DVD supply or cable channels and pluck out any number of light situation comedies. But now, with the abundance of witty word play and hilarious two-dimensional characters, The Government Inspector did not satisfy me. Unfortunately for live theatre, I have come to expect more depth and innovation, more philosophical and emotional depth of the live-ness.
And, yet, my very dissatisfaction is interesting. What is theatre to me? What do I really expect? Is laughter not enough? Is philosophy and intellectual reflection the only reason to go to plays? Isn't 'being entertained' enough... sometimes?
Perhaps I am too much in my brain and not enough in my heart or belly.

Collected Thoughts for a Missing Quarter

Apparently, I am not committed to blogging.
Updates? A kitchen project was planned, then placed on 'hold.'
Reserved two kittens, waiting for the litter (perhaps as late as June 2010).
Practicing the bass. Practicing tennis. Working out more regularly (lost 10 pounds).
Absolutely nothing to say.
Maybe later. Maybe not.

Vacation in California

Packing B and M's house, impending flooring.
Church anthem.
Jamming on a borrowed bass (Autumn Leaves sounded pretty good, but as to the rest, I have much work to do).
Falafel Drive-In.
Congreve's The Way of the World.
Life Birds and Parks.
Mountains and Lava Rocks.
Lots of talk about Business Time.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival (The Music Man, Equivocation [Aye! How do you learn all of those lines?], Macbeth, Dead Man's Cell Phone, and Death and the King's Horseman).
Bed and Breakfast, stress on the breakfast.
Star Trek and Woodpecker Movies.
Jen' Garden and Dragonfly (restaurants).
Bend, OR.
The Ellis Motel, whoo!
iPod Funk-competition on the drive home.
Great Friends who are more like Family!!

Way Too Hard

After 12 and a half years, Ivy the Cat (or as Apple branded her - iCat) is no longer with us. She had a progressively worsening heart disease that took the fun out of her and of all of her favorite things. [I hate writing this, just for the record.] It was the hardest decision of our lives, and we are still mighty miserable. She gave us a lot of joy and companionship, and we miss her more than words can express. They say that time heals and that it gets easier. Well, the 'easier' had better hurry up, because this part is terrible.

Historians, Some Quotations, and Disaster Recovery

Haven't blogged in a while... so this is one of those 'catch-up' streams.

At the end of February, I went to THE Ohio State University to attend a conference in honor of my dissertation advisor. It was wonderful seeing so much of the Illinois gang as well as meeting up with the students from the other schools. On the first day, I felt like an alien anthropologist dropped into a village I had studied 20 years before. I spoke the language, knew many of the customs and stories, and, yet, retained a bit of scientific distance. My 'otherness' reappeared every time I was asked 'So, where are you now?,' which, translated from the native language, means 'What university or college do you teach at these days?' I always had to answer 'None. I am in industry,' which, translated, means, 'I never got a teaching position and had to learn how to do something else.'

My distance faded because of two events. One, NGP asked me to read (at his banquet) a poem I composed in 1993, on his move from Illinois to Yale, entitled 'Ode On A Cattle Prod.' It meant a great deal to me that he has kept it and the working cattle prod that came along with the poem. Two, I was invited to resurrect some of my research and try to submit an article for the book that will come out of this conference. At the moment of this second event, all of my old academic desires and inadequacies came flooding back. We shall see if I can write something acceptable.

Moving on, I tend not to gravitate to New Age-y stuff, but Eckhart Tolle said something (in a PBS program I flipped through last weekend) that makes a little sense. 'All we have is the NOW. The past is a story, and the future hasn't happened yet.' Pretty simple, but it struck a chord. Second quotation (or paraphrase by now), on a History channel documentary about Einstein, one of the professors commented that 'The nature of genius is having the will to make all of the mistakes necessary to get to the success.'

Finally, we had our one of the two annual Disaster Recovery tests at the beginning of this week. At this event, we try to rebuild the company's data center from backup tapes and documentation. That accounts for some of the sleepiness I can't seem to shake.

Now, back to work...

El Capitan, Tennis, and Concerns

Epiphone makes an acoustic bass guitar they call 'El Capitan.' I know because El Capitan calls me from my guest room even now, 'Senor Rick, come and play.'

Anyway, we shall see how it goes. I have started to contact some recommended teachers as well as finding some cool bass tutorial web sites.

It is like tennis to me, only later. I was (am) an intellectual-type (read: dork or geek, if you prefer), so I never really gravitated to 'activities', per se. I picked up tennis in junior high despite lack of training, and, eventually, came to enjoy it. Now it is a skill I assume as part of my personality. It is part of who I am.

Can bass become the same? My concern is that it is late in life to start something as complex and... well, as big as playing a musical instrument. But singing bass for years has tuned me to hear bass. I hear the lines under every tune. I remember where I was when I first heard Alanis Morissette's 'You Oughta Know' where Flea kicks in. [Bass geeks know what I am talking about.] I bought Best of Parliament to listen to Bootsy. Seriously.

But, do I have time? This is the concern. Quakers (e.g. Thomas Kelly) have a more nuanced definition of the term 'concern' - something like a calling from God to ponder and skillfully act. Playing the bass is NOT a concern like that, but becoming overloaded with numerous good activities could be. I have experienced ebbs and flows of involvement in the past, first too much and then too little. Back and forth. Adding bass around the same time as I have joined the Board of the local theatre group, contemplated writing a 3-4 person play, and offered to teach church classes again... this all sounds like a recipe for overcommitment and burnout. Ebb and flow.

So, my current strategy is to try to use my time more efficiently and pay attention to my stress levels. When danger is detected, then I will have to start throwing ballast overboard rather than rearranging the deck chairs.

Gotta go. El Capitan and snow shoveling call (not necessarily in that order).

Vitus and Blogging

Watched a Swiss-German film last night, Vitus. Basic story is a young piano prodigy and all-around genius has to find his way. He has the overbearing support of his mother and the loose, supportive freedom of a Yoda-like grandfather. Tempting morsels include: an interest in bats, insider trading in the stock market, a professional flight simulator, possible brain damage, a babysitter who is the love of his life (at the age of 12), a leaky roof, the Rolls-Royce of hearing aids, and tons of excellent Classical piano music. Subtitled. Highly recommended.

The film raises the excellent question of 'why do you do what you do?' In conversations with S this morning, we agreed that this life seems, on some level, to have 'ended up' here without much piloting. I added that the results are so good that it might be counterproductive to take the wheel at this time. What does that say? It begs the question of what you want and what you desire and what you enjoy (back to Zizek and Lacan, to an extent). In the film, Vitus must break away from playing to piano for his mother's reasons and find his own reasons. We all carry baggage from the early years. But what have we settled on enjoying?

For example, if we are to anatomize my history a bit, I started in grad school not because I loved Henrician England or the Renaissance, but because I had a good undergrad teacher and wanted to teach. Grad school allowed me to do that a little, but required me to divert a lot of energy trying to be good at something that I turned out not to be good at, research in a foreign language. Teaching was my oasis, and the archives were my burden. I can say that now. I slogged through because I am also somewhat OCD about completing things.

So, I did not find a history teaching job. Let's not go into the reasons, because it doesn't matter now. Anyway, I gravitated to a job teaching computers, not because I was particularly adept with the things, but because it gave me the chance to teach for 6-8 hours per day, 50 weeks a year, for 10 years. And I grew. And I learned. And I evolved into that shape, the shape of a teaching person.

So, that company ended, and I got a job as a DBA. Being a trained communicator in the IT field helps differentiate you, BTW, so I rose in the pay grades and the titles. I became a manager and am one today. I work. I enjoy it some days, and not other days, but I always take it seriously (perhaps too much on some days).

But, where did the teaching go? In most conversations, I have said that the end of my dissertation process was the cutting of the anchor-line causing me to drift. That may not be true. Rather, the end of my teaching job may more accurately be the beginning of my fade. My ups and downs have become more pronounced since I don't have the teaching outlet for my pent-up teacher-nature.

So, what to do now? Teach at night? Become a certified tennis trainer? Teach a church class or two? Learn something new that I can then teach to others? What would that be? As I come to recognize myself better (blogging is part of that discernment process), perhaps I will better be able to target the next step in my evolution, rather than letting the pilotless boat keep going where it will.

Zizek and The Thin Man

Ten years later, I learned that Lacan's claim to fame is applying Freud to language-constructs as an extension of psychoanalysis. I knew he had a Freud-thing, but this book on Zizek really flipped the switch. I kind of think Lacan is still convoluted and self-indulgent (rather than informative), but he his method does SEEM clearer.

William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man are fabulous. How can a movie from 1934 (other than It Happened One Night) be so fantastically prescient of the dialogue that we all wish we could have? Highly recommended as a period piece as well as a ground-breaker in the ways of banter and dialogue.

Enchanted, the Ottoman Empire, Anna Faris and Charlie Kaufman

Movies:
Enchanted. I was. Really good to see the Shrek-take on classic stories being brought to live action. Amy Adams presents the perfect balance of smart and starry-eyed. Patrick Dempsey started a bit stiff, but became more likable as the story continued and he softened. Highly recommended. I might even purchase this one to have it at my fingertips.
House Bunny. Wow. After Smiley Face, I wanted to believe that it was the material, and not the actress (Anna Faris). With material and evidence piling up, I am coming to the conclusion that Ms. Faris only has one note, and an agent that helps her pick the absolutely worst screenplays. Do not waste the 1.5 hours on this movie. Sorry. I did. Consider it my effort to protect you.
Adaptation. On the other hand, this is one of the best screenplays alive today, and Nicholas Cage's most nuanced role,... maybe ever. I am a Charlie Kaufman fan anyway, but Adaptation presents a wonderful study of making something out of nothing, something with depth and meaning (as opposed to the Seinfeldian circle back to set the world back to zero). This film and screenplay merits revisiting and rethinking numerous times. And it can stand up to such a focused attention, unlike so much else coming out of Hollywood. Become a Charlie Kaufman fan.
So.
The Ottoman Empire. I am thinking about constructing two church classes. The first would be called something like "Rome and Jerusalem" and consist of 3 sections of 3 classes each - 3 on the history of the Roman Republic and Empire up to the birth of Jesus, 3 on the history of Judea and the Jewish religion up to the birth of Jesus, and the final 3 of the intersection of Roman and Jewish power and religious tensions around the time of Jesus. I know that is a lot of material to fit into 9 weeks, but the high level would be sufficient for the first pass. At this time, we need to set a stage for deeper dives in our church education, so this is a beginning, not a graduate seminar.
The second class would be more related to the Ottoman Empire. I would want to structure something in the arena of post-Jesus Mediterranean World and the Middle East with an eye to the interaction of politics and religion. This class would also be a light touch, a setting of the stage, a presentation of basics to identify the holes in knowledge and the resonances of pertinence. Early Christian community evolution, the Councils, the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, the rise of Islam, the Crusades, the Renaissance and Reformation in the shadow of the Turkish East. I would probably stop with the Reformation. I have already taught that class in some detail a few years ago.
But this sets the stage for some more detailed discussions of Islam and the subtle and delicate (im)balances in the Middle East and Mediterranean World today.
Comments? Recommended books? Topics not to forget?

Netflix versus Empire Era Begins

Yes, we have entered into the 20th century (just eight years too late).

Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter - highly recommended Tim Burton adventure.
Smart People with Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ellen Page. Not smart, people. When will I actually care about any of the characters?
Monster with Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci. Wow! Yes, I have been living under a rock on some of these movies. I should have seen them before now. Well, Charlize Theron was amazing.
Smiley Face with Anna Faris. Don't. Much more agape (not even frowny). The film lacks point and even the lame attempt to introduce the depth, theoretical interest and the Communist Manifesto is subverted by the society-preserving ending in which the law breaker pays her debt society. Anna Faris is adorable and comically rich, but the material is poor and weak.

Connections - Progressive Christianity, Michel Foucault, and the Joker in Dark Knight.
A while back, in a church class, we were discussing the difficulty with Progressive Christianity. Progressive Christianity lacks a compelling narrative. Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan are good at sniping at the simplistic and literal interpretation/story of Jesus and the narrative of the roots/formation of Christianity. But there has been no one stepping up with a compelling counter-narrative to the literal reading of the Gospels.
So.
Would Foucault say that we are reading and acting rationally within a grid (episteme?) of stories and meaning that repeat the super-hero meta-narrative? Jesus as super-hero. We, as human culture, are at some level in a crisis so beyond our own understanding that the only way to salvation (whatever that may be) is through the intervention of benevolent billionaires, benevolent aliens, or the loving son of God. Can't we act/work our way out of this? We have a problem of being overwhelmed by the situation and the news, and we choose to wait for a savior and bury our heads in the TV,- alcohol-, entertainment-, consumerist sand.
How do I get my head out of the sand? How do I become unaddicted to the soothing effects of TV, alcohol, sleep? Isn't it important that someone talk about this, act in some micro-political way to nudge people awake [see Walter Bruggemann's The Prophetic Imagination]?
Or is the situation more like Joker's assertion that we (humans in society) are afraid and struggling to have and to enact plans... that are too easily tipped toward evil or destruction?
In fighting 'terrorism' (and terrorism is definitely a bad thing), haven't we (USA) exported and inflicted more violence than the 'terrorists' ever could? We have a much larger budget, after all. What if the real danger is not the 'terrorists,' but that we will become the exporters of terror throughout the world and not even see our own faces, not even see what we are doing? What if we just push the needle deeper into the grooves on the record that plays the soothing song of 'exporting democracy and freedom' back to us? Living inside an empire, can citizens see the imperial activities? Can we really feel compassion for the 'other'? Can we think outside the grid/episteme of the comfortable society?
Jesus, as I read things, told a story of compassion ('com' with; 'passion' to feel; to feel with) within an empire. His story was (is?) so subversive that he was killed by the Powers, like so many prophets before and after. [Perhaps we will talk about Atonement some other day.] Stories and grids of meaning are, following Foucault, indeed, foundational, formational and political.
So, what story do we tell ourselves? What stories do we choose to tell about ourselves?
So.
I live with a healthy sense of cognitive dissonance, obviously. Netflix versus Empire-
awareness. In V for Vendetta, Evie says 'Artists tell lies to reveal the truth while Politicians tell lies to conceal the truth.' Perhaps in art and entertainment, there are some 'truths' that threaten to sneak into our hearts, minds and spirits along with all of the empty intellectual calories. Maybe.