You know you're Catholic when...

...you type ewtn.com instead of espn.com, when trying to check football scores. And I don't even like EWTN.

Oh well. Cheesy win, Pats, but even a cheesy win is a win. Shame that the Giants beat the Packers, because I was hoping to see the Packers creamed by the Patriots. Yeah, I'm still bitter about Seattle's loss last weekend.

My Oblate Story, Part 2

Thanks for the comments on the first part of this...such things aren't easy to talk about, since part of the way people like my family keep power is to make people like me question their perceptions of the situation. You start to wonder if it's just you, and you're stretching things out of proportion, but that's part of their game. Promise the rest of the story isn't so bad.

When we first set eyes on The San Joaquin
Was like a friend we always knew
The gates swing open so far and wide even God could drive through
We worked the crops from dawn to dust shared along the way
I never will forget it until my dying days

We were Bakersfield bound and the California dream
Down the road lay the promised lands our fields had all turned green
We were Bakersfield bound like so many gone before
Just to cross our River Jordan and reach the other shore (Chris Hillman, "Bakersfield Bound")

So when I stepped off the plane at LAX to start at CalArts, it did feel like I'd reached the Promised Land. There couldn't have been a better fit for me than CalArts, and I realize a lot of it is looking back at it through rose-colored glasses. It's not that there weren't troubles--there were. A lot of months I'd be living off of $60 a month for groceries. I ate a lot of beans and rice. CalArts is a performing arts school, and as such it's a completely different environment from an academic one. It's rigorous, but in a completely different way, and nothing in my schooling had prepared me for it. While things are loose and laid back, it's also fiercely competitive.

But things came easily. Pieces I wrote seemed to flow. I had a group of people around me, who were just like me. (Most of them I'm still friends with, and we still keep in touch.) A lot of writers on Benedictine life describe how one's life should be an extension of the Eucharist, and that, like everything else came easily. My life seemed to be bathed in the same glow I'd see reflected off of the mountains at sunset. The relationship I had with teachers was deeper than a meeting of minds. I've written about Lucky a bit here. I was the most regular with respect to the Divine Office than I've ever been, not to mention other observances that go along with being Catholic.

It didn't really matter that I couldn't find a regular Oblate group who'd take me, since my days in California were numbered (I was planning from the get-go) to go off to grad school. Plus none of the groups met near me, and the monastery nearby insisted on group contact. (It's their program, they're free to establish whatever parameters they see fit. They're a good group of guys.) I had my community, and they encouraged my contemplative nature, even if they didn't belong to my particular faith.

It was at CalArts that I discovered Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert (ahem), Aldous Huxley, et al, who seemed to speak about being a contemplative within the lay world better than some traditional spiritual writers did. I learned about Balinese music, and the sky seemed to be the limit. (I didn't get into computer music until UW. There I was strictly instrumental.)

When it was time for me to move on to UW, I didn't want to go. But there was also the danger: many CalArts graduates found they were unable to go anywhere else, and chose to live close by, never really growing. It's a pull I still feel, and I still have a habit of trying to describe where I am in terms of how unlike CalArts it is.

Next time: Seattle.

My Oblate Story, Part 1

oA Benedictine Oblate is a lay person, who lives according to the Rule of St. Benedict in so far as their station in life will allow in some sort of formal association with a particular monastery. My first exposure to the Rule of St. Benedict was during a class at Augie about community as part of the honors sequence. It was a decent class, and the study of the Rule culminated in a two-day trip to New Melleray Abbey, in Iowa. I was struck by something there, but I wasn't sure what.

And the Lord, seeking his laborer in the multitude to whom He thus cries out, says again, "Who is the one who will have life, and desires to see good days" (Ps. 33[34]:13)? And if, hearing Him, you answer, "I am the one," God says to you, "If you will have true and everlasting life, keep your tongue from evil and your lips that they speak no guile. Turn away from evil and do good; seek after peace and pursue it" (Ps. 33[34]:14-15). And when you have done these things, My eyes shall be upon you and My ears open to your prayers; and before you call upon Me, I will say to you, 'Behold, here I am'" (Ps. 33[34]:16; Is. 65:24; 58:9).

What can be sweeter to us, dear ones, than this voice of the Lord inviting us? Behold, in His loving kindness the Lord shows us the way of life. (Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue.)

It wasn't until I'd made the acquaintance of the new Catholic chaplain at Augie, a Benedictine nun, that I learned of Oblates and that there was a group who met nearby. I attended their monthly meetings regularly, and it felt like a dream that there were people like me, who were living the kind of life I thought was closed off. Finally the summer before I was to go to California, I was to be enrolled as a novice, a year before one makes a final commitment as an Oblate.

I've never publicly told this part of the story before, and I owe the sisters an explanation. It's hard writing this, and a part of me thinks that I'm making it up. Perhaps it's time that I admit that this demon has no power over me, metaphorically speaking, or perhaps it still has some hold. I was to spend some time with the community I was to become an Oblate with during an intensive silent retreat. It sounded like heaven, with plenty of time for meditation and silence. When I told my family about it, they didn't take it well, to put it mildly. They were convinced I was joining a cult and absolutely forbade me to go.

There were hours of interrogation about my motives, and that summer I was virtually imprisoned. I had no way of getting there--I didn't have a car, and there wasn't any transportation between cities in that part of the state. There were other threats about psychiatrists, since they thought my personality had changed (maybe it had and they weren't listening.) When interrogation didn't break me, then there was open scorn and teasing about my becoming an Oblate. What I was called doesn't bear repeating, namely because it's also an insult to the many religious I know.

I'm sure if you ask my family, they'd have an entirely different version of this story. That's how their types keep power. I didn't have much time to myself for prayer that summer. I memorized many of the psalms, so that if my books I used to cobble together a version of the Divine Office were taken away from me that I could still pray some of it. I had a copy of the Rule of St. Benedict hidden--the small $3 version--on me at all times. I'd do lectio divina late at night, when my family was asleep, and I learned about walking meditation on my own. The summer previously I'd obtained a medal of St. Benedict, which that summer I wore under my clothes constantly. I knew I had to keep my head down, convince my family of my normalcy, so that I could make it to California, where I eventually moved. I haven't been back much, and that summer marked the first real break with my family. (I have limited to no contact with them now.)

(I promise, this story gets happier. Sorry to end on such a downer, but I need to get up in a few hours for work.)

Funding poultry empires

So I got some money from the family...at first I wasn't going to cash their checks, but I figured if I'm going to be the evil granddaughter, then I might as well have some fun with it.

I know Aloysha over on Cascadia Catholics posted about Kiva.org, too, but it's a nifty place. The most you can donate is $25. For that, you invest in someone's business in the form of microloans. Of course, you don't get interest on the $25 when/if you get it back. But when you get paid back, you can reinvest it.

I used to make rosaries. I haven't in awhile because I just didn't have the time, and because a lot of the rosary making groups on the web are either the not-so-nice kind of traditionalist, or they're just into making profits. I still pay my dues to Our Lady's Rosary Makers, but I just haven't had the heart to get back into it. (You can see some of the ones I've made here. I think it's public.)

I started making rosaries back when I had walking pneumonia one summer, and was feeling better, but not well enough to do much. Boredom set in, and I sent off for a beginner's kit. Then I started looking around for communities online, and I found the Rosary Army.

OK, the clue that they use the term "army" in their name should've clued me in. But they're really the Something Awful of the rosary-making world on their forums, without the comedy of Something Awful. If you don't like EWTN, don't dote on the Theology of the Body, and don't snark on other denominations and religions, you aren't a good Catholic.

So if you have someone (me), who joined their forums for the social aspect (I don't like cord rosaries, and I think wire ones that don't use premade chain are every bit as strong), who readily identifies as a feminist (I believe women have choices about their lives), is getting an advanced graduate degree (when most of the forum derides academe as liberal claptrap), thinks the notion of "culture wars" is fundamentalist bullcrap, and can't stand EWTN, there will be sparks. So, yeah, I'm done with them. Sad thing is, they seem to be the dominant type of catholics out there on the web.

And I'm working on a Benedictine Oblate post. Lot of stuff to sort through on it, and I'm trying to get it into something remotely interesting to read. (Unlike tonight's mental dump.)

At work, so not much time, but I had another thought about the Opus Dei book I've been reading. I think what bothers me the most is their concept of contemplation. Sure, one's life can be a kind of living prayer, but it isn't contemplation, per se. As one of the priests at my parish so aptly put it, contemplation is "resting in the embrace of the Divine." Seems like the average Opus Dei member is kept too busy to shut up and listen--they fill their lives with so much noise, whether it's in the form of a devotional or attracting other people. Sometimes the words need to stop, and one can be filled with noise in silence. Maybe that's the reason for their snark against other religious orders.

LOTRO, linux, and more Opus Dei

A jet-lagged linux geek is a dangerous thing. I've been running "Lord of the Rings Online" in linux for awhile (water effects aren't as good as in windows, and you have to patch via windows). I hadn't figured out how to get it in windowed mode until this morning. Funny what happens, when you uncheck "full screen" in the display options of the program...Screenshot was taken outside of the Lagging Pony in Bree.

Granted, when I read more of Allen's book on Opus Dei, I was stuck on a tarmac at Boston, my flight delayed by over an hour, when I had only an hour to get to my connecting flight (Which was in a different concourse, since I was flying a codeshared airline from ORD). I'm about two-thirds of the way through the book. Also in the interest of full disclosure, I'm really really jetlagged.

On the one hand, I get the notion of one's life being an extended prayer. I like the notion of sanctification of work, and I do believe people are called to be contemplatives in lay life. However (and this is a big however), I can't help but be creeped out and a bit pissed off with how Opus Dei perverts those notions.

Why the secrecy? They can claim it's just privacy all they want, but why do their members hide their affiliation? Sure, it's nobody's business, but if it's something beautiful in your life, don't you want to be a witness for it? Secondly (and sort of along the lines of the first), their recruiting techniques leave a lot to be desired. It seems like the one consistent thing in the book is that they prey on people with a literal understanding of their faith or those more likely to already be on the fringe or marginalized. That's a cult's recruiting tactics, especially when combined with isolation.

And you really don't want to get me going about the whole "well women are better at domestic things, because it's their traditional role" circularity, either. Granted, the plural of anecdote isn't data, but I don't have a domestic bone in my body, as visitors to Chez Fork can attest. Is it because I've been "masculinized" as they say, or is it because we all have different gifts? For instance, the Frood is much more domestic than I am. Conversely, you really don't want him doing the cooking (although he's getting much better.) There are other things I'm content to let him take care of, but there's nothing biologically based in the ability to cook, for instance. I know a couple fathers, who're stay-at-home dads, and they're awesome parents. Should their children be deprived, because it's not their traditional role?

The issue of mortification is the least troublesome to me, honestly. I understand the value of ascetics, and sometimes you just can't help suffering. Offering it for some other purpose is a laudable thing, I think. But deliberately seeking out suffering? I'm with Thomas Merton that one's asceticism should be for the purpose of enjoying the world and life we're given. Opus Dei reminds me of the line from "Dogma:" "You don't celebrate your faith, you mourn it."

Couple of good articles...Crystal found this one about Opus Dei. Wow, remind me not to drink their kool-aid. Of course after dyeing yarn with kool-aid, there's no way I'm drinking the stuff anyway. The Allen book is a bit better, the more I get into it, but it's still awfully apologetic.

Here's an article about a documentary on Delia Derbyshire, which I hope is at the SIFF this year. She was a composer/engineer who worked for the BBC Radiophonic workshop back in the 1960's, and (with Ron Grainer) wrote/created the Doctor Who theme. She also did a lot of the music for it, AFAIK. Sadly during her life, she didn't get much credit. If you can find the BBC documentary "Alchemists of Sound," there's a few clips of her. (It's on google video here.)

ETA: there's a downloadable link to "Alchemists of Sound" here. If you're the least bit curious about what I do, that's the basics. (Things are a bit different now, because I'm digitally manipulating sounds, not physically manipulating tape.)

New silly poll up. If they're giving me the functionality to do silly polls, I might as well take advantage of it. The last one was split evenly among the fandoms.

So a few months ago, in one of my wanderings to Half Price Books, I picked up John Allen's book on Opus Dei for a buck. Now in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a fan of Escriva. The whole drill sergeant spirituality doesn't do it for me, and the notion of blind obedience makes my inner Benedictine cringe. Also in the interest of full disclosure, I've only read parts of the introduction and the first chapter.

I was hoping for more of an anthropological study, or something truly neutral, as the title suggested. Instead, it feels very much like an apologetic. Parts of what I've read are interesting, but other parts are disturbing. How do you argue with someone, when they insist that the traditional role of a woman is wife and mother, and then justify it by saying that the role is the traditional role for a woman? If you'd say that about any other marginalized group of people (say the "traditional" role for a person of color), you'd be flamed into next week, and for good reason. Choice is one thing, and if that's what a woman chooses, fine with me. But they don't even give their members that choice.

Perhaps I'm being too hard on it--I've read the first chapter, after all. But if they're really after the sanctification of the ordinary, why all the secrecy? I was in the process of becoming a Benedictine oblate--more on that later--and everything was transparent. You can find oodles of information on oblates, including the liturgy involved, on the web. If you ask a given Benedictine community who their oblates are, they're happy to oblige. Yet Opus Dei hides their members in secrecy, saying that non-Opus Dei people don't understand. They aren't helping themselves, here.

Secondly, I'd like to know why ex-Opus Dei members are all remarkably consistent on their stories. I've read a lot of accounts from former members, and they all agree on certain things. You don't find the same sort of internal consistency to people who're blowing things out of proportion or falsely remembered memories.

I'll probably finish the book one day, but maybe not now. Things are too divisive and fundamentalism too prominent in our society for me to be objective on the book.

Got the post-holiday blues? Feeling a bit of blogging malaise? Another blogger got you down? Check out the game, Burnout 3: Takedown. It's totally marketed towards males under the age of 25, but there's something for everyone in crashing cars and driving like a maniac. I'm no good at traditional racing games, but I'm not bad at this one. There's no redeeming value in the game, nor is there any intellectual content, but sometimes you need a bit of mindless drivel.

213 things Garpu is not allowed to do

#1: Take apart the Hoopy Frood's Nintendo DS lite before it dies.

#2: Take apart the Hoopy Frood's Nintendo DS Lite and put it back together again. Not even if I put all the screws in the right places.

#3 Teach the song "Charlie Mops" to my nieces, including those I'm not directly related to.

So I'm totally lusting after an ice blue Nintendo DS lite. Because they aren't region locked in any way, they're fully compatible with any other DS game. (Steve and I both have Wifi Yakuman DS, a Japanese mahjong game--he got it for birthday/Christmas.) I can't really justify the extra $30-50 plus shipping for it, though. I was considering getting the case and modding a refurb (no way would I want to do that to a new DS lite), and I found this video describing how to take apart a Nintendo DS Lite:



No, the Hoopy Frood won't let me practice on his. Although since the ice blue cases go for $20 on Ebay and the refurbed DS system is about $100, I'm not so sure I'd save much money. Completely dreaming, here, since I can't justify spending money on a DS lite, when my old DS works perfectly well. (Although it's touchy, the battery doesn't last long anymore, and it's a crapshoot if the wifi works. But the brightness control on the LCD screens on a DS lite would be nice, since I mostly use the DS during the day in sunlight on public transit.)

But, yeah, I've totally called dibs on the Frood's DS Lite when it finally gives up the ghost.

So what does everyone have planned? Christmas is kind of a bummer for me, so I need a contact high from everyone else's cheer.

Us, not much. We've got Christmas with the Hoopy Frood's dad and stepmom today, so we're all piling over there for holidays with the first set of inlaws. (Inlaws-to-be? Hell, we're as good as married, so I guess they're as good as inlaws. And thanks to divorce, I have two sets of inlaws.)

Then tomorrow is our birthday (Yes, the Hoopy Frood and I have the same birthday, which happens to be Christmas Eve.) Normally we do sushi (sushi restaurants are empty on Christmas Eve) and some sort of movie, but there haven't been many movies the past couple of years that we've wanted to see. Christmas Eve birthdays kind of suck because before the Frood I didn't really get one once I turned twelve or so. (I did as a child. But then as I got older, it was thought that I'd "understand," and the two days got combined out of convenience.)

Christmas we don't have anything planned other than going over to the Hoopy Frood's mom and stepdad's. Normally we hang out, munch on stuff, then play games. I'm kicking myself for not bringing my mahjong tiles, but Japanese rules mahjong is completely different from American mahjong, and it's not really something you can teach in an afternoon. (Plus the Frood and I aren't good enough at it to teach other people yet, although there are some easy truths: don't deal into an open riichi, which is along the lines of don't pee on an electric fence, since you can see their tiles.)

Anyhow, have a merry Christmas!

And in my fandom news, the show, "Doctor Who" is getting flak from both the last survivor of the Titanic and a Christian group. Never mind that the special everyone is bitching about hasn't aired yet (3 days to go). Anyone want to start a betting pool as to when Bill Donohue will get penis envy and start complaining about "Doctor Who" having an anti-Catholic agenda?

In the interest of full disclosure, this one will be filled with spleen venting and minor airing of grievances. I'm seeing a trend in the blogosphere that's disturbing me. It seems like any kind of Catholic who doesn't openly identify or sympathize with the SSPX has a big target painted on their ass, especially if they openly identify as female. I've seen two bloggers lately harassed and quit blogging because of it.

It's as if in their minds--the bullies--that any Catholic woman must be demure--read subservient and non-threatening--homeschool, and be a mother. Fortunately for the rest of us, the Church is big enough to accommodate everyone. You know the old adage about praying as you can, not as you can't? That isn't limited by sex. Some women do find their spirituality through motherhood and raising children. Others don't. I find it unsurprising that most of these bullies are men under the age of 25 and are single, not by choice.

These attitudes towards women scare me, frankly. This is behavior I'd expect from certain tribal regions of the middle east, not in westernized nations out of a religion that's gone through the Enlightenment already. It's as if they can keep women ignorant, they won't demand things like equal pay, access to education, and the like.

And these attitudes aren't just towards women, either. You should read some of the hate they spew towards gay, lesbian, and transgendered people. Really, folks, gay is not catching. You can't become gay because of gay cooties. All confessing your disgust with "the gay lifestyle" does is make you an asshole. While I'm not in the least bit attracted to women--my kidding about Natalie Portman, aside--it isn't helping anyone, least of all myself, to emphasize this point. There are a ton of lifestyles I wouldn't be happy with, but it doesn't mean they're necessarily bad. All it means is, for whatever reason, they're wrong for me. And while I'm on the subject, I fail to see how a loving and committed relationship between two consenting adults does anything other than encourage my relationship. We need more love in this crappy world of ours.

Point the third, related to the second. Reading books by non-Catholics won't make you Protestant or atheist. Witness the ranting by Bill Donohue about the Dark Materials trilogy. I thought they were entertaining. One of my favorite TV shows is produced/written by an atheist (*gasp* and a gay one at that), and I'm finding plenty in it that engages me as a Catholic. (See also the end of "Last of the Time Lords.") Thank God, but we don't live in a Catholic world. We need to be able to engage and deal with other points of view besides our own, and being able to appreciate another's argument is not the same thing as accepting it.

Point the fourth. Just because someone has a blog doesn't mean that every point of view is welcome. The First Amendment only pertains to political speech, the right to assemble, and public speech. This blog is not public. Nor is any other blog. The blogosphere would be a more pleasant place, if more people remembered that. Nobody has a right to say what they want in any blog, not if they don't want to be sitebanned.

When drama works

And I'm not talking about the bloggy kind of drama. It's weird for me dealing in forms that aren't abstract, since drama in abstract music is far removed from drama in other arts. There was a post over on Paul Cornell's blog about drama and the audience. He makes the point that in mutli-faceted drama:

That’s the contract I make with it. It’s not there to console me, comfort me, make me feel better right now, although it may end up doing that in the end. The comfort it finally affords me is that of the blues. It’s actually there to make me feel alive and connected with the rest of human experience, hopefully extreme human experience that I’d prefer to do like this rather than first hand, thanks very much.

I think when drama works, I'd rather have the kind he's discussing (Found in BSG, Studio 60, et al) than the cheap kind. If I wanted feel goods and warm fuzzy, there's Lifetime or whatever made-for-TV movie is out there. If an author is going to play with my emotions, I'd hope that there's something to show for the investment I make in the show.

For instance--and here be spoilers for Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica--when Kat dies in "The Passage," her death meant something. She was far from a sympathetic character--if anything she was one of the characters I think the audience had a hard time identifying with because of her failings. But, if anything, this also endeared her to characters, because we all know people like her, even if we wouldn't want to have a social event with her.

I like it when characters do something that makes me wonder what the hell they were thinking, because when a character is perfect all the time, it makes me wonder what he or she (or it in sci-fi) is hiding. Cornell brings up the passage in "Human Nature" when John Smith allows Tim to be beaten. Certainly I think at that point, more than any other, the audience fully realizes that our hero isn't there anymore. Or Joan's comment at the end, that a whim got people killed. Our hero screwed up.

The end of Season 3/29 of Doctor Who was about as dark as the show gets. Once again the consequence of genocide is front and center, and there's absolutely no escaping it, or the damage that's been done to certain of the characters over the course of the last three episodes. It'll be interesting to see where the series goes from there. I'm hoping that it isn't a cheap kind of catharsis afterwards--it would be too easy to hide behind the facade of "wacky alien in space," ignoring the dramatic fallout. (I think that's why I didn't mind the Rose angst, even if I didn't like her character much. If someone you're close to leaves suddenly and not as part of some kind of breakup, then odds are any intelligent being is going to deal with it. Or not.)

So long as "All Along the Watchtower" isn't used as a plot point, I'll be happy.

So in the words of my Minnesotan relatives, we're gettin' a little bit of snow, dere. I'm in Boston. Flight was drama-free, and I had a seat to myself both ways. Go figure. I love some of the euphemisms they have for snow. "Flurries," is anything under 6 inches. "A little snow" means that it's over 6 inches, visibility might be down, but the plows are out and you can still move. "Some snow" is decreased mobility from there. "Heckuva lot of snow" means that you had to get the snowblower out and probably aren't driving anywhere. "Blizzard" means that you stay put, complete white out, and probably can't see the driveway from your house, and will have to get the neighbor to plow your driveway out.

Think I'm finally acclimating back to colder weather. Seems like the first Christmas break I spent in Boston, I did nothing but freeze. Then again it's actually been slightly colder in Seattle lately than Boston. (It's a dryer cold out here, too, so it doesn't feel as miserable as Seattle when it's under 30 degrees.) I think this is the remains of the Ragnarok '07 we had a few days ago that left western Washington looking like the 9th Ward.

And in other news...I finally broke down and bought a real laptop bag. My backpack ripped the night before I was supposed to leave town, so I got this one. (Was the cheapest one at the store I could get to.) Even though I paid $65 for it, it was worth every damn penny going through two airports. (Already paid for it, I think.) It's balanced, it doesn't throw your center of gravity off, and I'm pretty sure it's bigger on the inside than the outside. Plus it has a pocket for everything, including one that fits my breviary perfectly. That side entry panel for the laptop is the coolest thing since sliced bread, too, especially if you have to pull it out at security checkpoints. One review of it was complaining that the panel was too small, but he thought the inside pocket was the laptop sleeve. (That's for cords, mouse, etc, or so it says in the manual that came with the backpack.) RTFM saves the day!

Eight meme

For those of you on facebook, you may want to read this about beacon, what it does, why it's bad, and how to block it. If you haven't inherited the skepticism I have from my computer security partner-in-crime, then disregard.

So the number eight is popping up a lot lately on various blogs, and I got tagged for a meme. Don't normally do them on this blog, but I haven't had much to discuss lately. (That should change in the future...been reading books about the Camaldolese Benedictines.)

8 passions in my life:

1.) composing music
2.) Benedictine monasticism
3.) Doctor Who
4.) Computers
5.) mahjong (Japanese rules)
6.) video games
7.) Balinese music
8.) knitting

8 things to do before I die:

1.) the Camino de Santiago
2.) study music in Bali
3.) See Doctor Who being filmed in Cardiff
4.) Travel.
5.) See Firefly/Serenity
6.) learn to rollerblade
7.) quit renting
8.) beta test a video game that doesn't totally suck.

8 things I often say:

1.) Huh.
2.) Some variant of "frak."
3.) "reverse the polarity of the neutron flow." (I've used this on a support call.)
4.) A stream of profanity at NPR when it wakes me up in the morning, both because it's waking me up and because of the content.
5.) "Hihi." (default greeting, both online and in my analog mode.)
6.) "What the heck?" (Or if I've been talking to Minnesotan relatives, "What's the deal?")
7.) WTF, LOL, squee, OTM, AFK bio (in analog mode) For instance, the Frood will say something funny, and I'll respond "El Oh El." Or if I'm going somewhere, I'll say, "OTM. Back in a bit" (OTM: MMO speak for "on the move," meaning a slow moving raid is moving.)
8.) "Hey cool."

8 books I read (or am reading) recently:

1.) Film and the nuclear age : representing cultural anxiety / Toni A. Perrine
2.) The imaginary war : civil defense and American cold war culture / Guy Oakes (Guess what I'm writing a paper on)
3.) the Dark Materials trilogy (which I like.)
4.) Forever Autumn, Mark Morris (OK. Total brain candy, but after some of the stuff I read, it's a good break.)
5.) And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, Randy Shilts
6.) Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality, Peter-Damian Belisle
7.) Rationalizing Culture, Georgina Born (pretty interesting...an anthropologist looks at the power structures at IRCAM)
8.) Just Plain Folks, Loraine Johnson-Coleman

8 films that mean something to me:

1.) "Fargo," watched it with a close friend of mine, who described it as a modern morality play
2.) "Blue," crappy ending, but it's an interesting study of what it's like to be a composer (how ideas come to you, etc, not that I'm a ghost writer for my husband.)
3.) "Jackie Brown," movie I saw my first day at CalArts.
4.) "Shaft," (remake, first movie seen with the Hoopy Frood)
5.) "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," the Frood and I saw that movie the day after 9/11. We just had to get the holy hell away from CNN for awhile.
6.) "American Movie," was a preview at CalArts, and the filmmakers in the film were actually there. I thought the whole thing was a mocumentary, until I actually met the makers of "Coven." Holy crap, that's the way they are.


8 songs that mean something to me:

1.) "So Many Roads," Grateful Dead
2.) Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.
3.) Gorecki's third symphony, first movement
4.) "Bakersfield Bound,"Chris Hillman and the other Desert Rose people. Really speaks to how my life was the summer between my first and second years at CalArts. I was stuck in a part of the country I hated, and I really was "...Bakersfield bound like so many gone before / Just to cross our River Jordan and reach the other shore / When we first set eyes on The San Joaquin / Was like a friend we always knew."
5.) Coltrane, Love Supreme (OK, it's an album)
6.) Miles Davis, Aura (Ditto, but I can't pick just one song.)
7.) Ellington, Queen Suite (you want to learn orchestration, check that suite out. Instrumental color deliminating form doesn't get much clearer.)
8.) Teruna Jaya (Balinese gong kebyar piece)

8 living people I'd like to have a beer with:

1.) Jonathan Harvey (composer)
2.) Russel T. Davies (heh of course)
3.) Anne Sophie-Mutter
4.) The regulars on here.
Hrm...can't think of any more. If I can, I'll update.

8 people who I'm passing this on to:

Eh, tag yourselves.

And...it's snowing. The Frood has corrected me. If it's snowing, it's Ragnarok, not Armageddon. So yeah, Ragnarok '07 has begun, and they're calling for more snow tomorrow. Here's hoping it doesn't stick. Much, at least.

They're forecasting Armageddon from the skies:

Statement as of 5:23 AM PST on December 01, 2007

... Snow Advisory in effect from 10 am this morning to 10 PM PST
this evening...

The National Weather Service in Seattle has issued a Snow
Advisory for the western Washington lowlands... which is in effect
from 10 am this morning to 10 PM PST this evening.

Up to three inches of snow is expected across much of the western
Washington lowlands by late this evening. There may be local areas
close to the Olympics that may receive around 4 inches of
snow... such as Hood Canal and along the south slopes of the
Olympics.

Hasn't started yet, but it's pretty dark for 8:30 a.m. 3-4 inches isn't much, but it is when your city just doesn't get that kind of snow and doesn't have the small army of snowplows and de-icers that every little municipality has in the midwest. Fortunately I don't have to be anywhere this weekend I can't walk to. Depending on what the front behind the one bringing Armageddon does, we could get more snow tomorrow, too.