UPDATE: Change that I can blog in.
UPDATE: Have a look! Look closer!
Looking Closer 2.0 is coming.Read more
Song of the Day
Choose your version... it doesn't matter. And then...
DO YOUR PART TODAY. Post the song on your blog.
Here's a free download of "If a Song Could Be President": http://tinyurl.com/5crqr2
Spread the good news of Over the Rhine to the whole world. Seriously, has there ever been a greater opportunity to wake up the world to America's best-kept musical secret?
Special thanks to my spokesmodel: Amanda Jolman.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, the song's from The Trumpet Child.
Today's favorite: Kidnapped!
I'm working on a scene that involves a character who has wandered off from his traveling companions is coming back to announce that he's found what they all came looking for. He's almost there, when suddenly he's SURPRISED BY KIDNAPPERS, and he doesn't see his friends again for months.
This has me thinking back through my favorite kidnapping scenes at the movies.
Cyndere on the SciFi Channel!
Check out SciFi Wire, the news service for the SciFi Channel today, and scroll down through the headlines. You'll see a familiar face!
Join Me and Together We Will... Enjoy Poetry
The Backwaters Press presents...
Jody A. Zorgdrager's new book: Of Consequence.
Marianne Boruch:
Through the dark of childhood and the illness of aging parents, through the mystery of insects and roses and gulls, in places both ordinary and odd, this poet enters beauty — its pain and release — with equal fearlessness.
Browser, 10/30
Image journal's Gregory Wolfe considers Robert Clark's new book Dark Water: Flood and Redemption in the City of Masterpieces, and responds to the Washington Postreview by Michael Dirda. Read more
Roger Ebert Remembers "The Last Temptation of Christ"
Congratulations to my friend Steven D. Greydanus. His review of The Passion of the Christ was persuasive for Roger Ebert when that film was released. Now, his review of The Last Temptation has proven useful to Ebert as well. There's a reason that Greydanus is my favorite writer among Christians who review movies. He's really, really good.
The film is indeed technically blasphemous. I have been persuaded of this by a thoughtful essay by Steven D. Greydanus of the National Catholic Register, a mainstream writer who simply and concisely explains why. I mention this only to argue that a film can be blasphemous, or anything else that the director desires, and we should only hope that it be as good as the filmmaker can make it, and convincing in its interior purpose. Certainly useful things can be said about Jesus Christ by presenting him in a non-orthodox way. There is a long tradition of such revisionism, including the foolishness of The Da Vinci Code. The story by Kazantzakis, Scorsese and Schrader grapples with the central mystery of Jesus, that he was both God and man, and uses the freedom of fiction to explore the implications of such a paradox.
Thanks to Joseph Hollies for bringing this to my attention!
The Flavor of Cyndere's Midnight
When I wrote Cyndere's Midnight, I never even considered the possibility of a recipe book spin-off. But thanks to the inventive and resourceful Adrienne Lema, it just might happen.Read more
Today's Favorite: Bullies
I've just seen Ben X, which is to movies about kids and bullies what The Passion of the Christ is to movies about persecuted messiahs. I've also just seen Choking Man, about an immigrant who suffers mockery at work because he doesn't speak much English.Read more
Browser, 10/29
When you say that The Bible is true, do you mean... literally? I'm thrilled to see that Mark Shea has begun a series on rediscovering how the early church read The Bible. The series begins here. It should be a very stimulating series, with Shea at the helm. There aren't many voices in Christian writing as engaging, witty, and revealing as Shea's. And besides... he quotes Gandalf the way other scholars quote, well, other scholars.
- PopMatters gets one thing right: WovenHand is awesome. But I agree with Opus about where they're very, very wrong.
- Brandon Sullivan reviews Cyndere's Midnight.
- It's a good day for fans of Terrence Malick: An article on The New World (and another one here, that's older but still worth reading). A more on The Thin Red Line, here, and in this piece on the legendary, unseen, five-hour version. (If you've seen the new extended cut of The New World, I really want to hear from you about the changes. I hope to see it soon, but deadlines are ruling my schedule right now.)