Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Alone at Midnight

There is an old hymn that goes:
"Oh Jesus, my Savior, my song in the night
Come to me with thy tender love, my souls delight,
Unto thee O Lord in affliction I call
My comfort by day and my song in the night

Oh why should I wander an alien from thee,
or cry in the desert my face to see
My refuge my solace, my souls delight,
Oh Jesus my Savior my song in the night

Lord Jesus, I come to thee in lowly despair,
give strength to my fainting soul, the burdens to bare
My comfort, my joy, my souls delight
Oh, Jesus my Savior, my song in the night."

When I hear this song, I always feel like I should cry - not because the words are sorrowful, but because of the truth and beauty that are contained within those words. When you are alone at midnight, your covers on the floor due to your tossing and turning and your eyes wired open, where does your soul find refuge?

link here

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Review of things I have watched and/or read over the last couple of weeks

I have been on a movie watching kick lately. I haven't watched this many movies since I was living by myself (when I watched around 12 a week - nothing else to do, I'd already read all my books).
Recently I've watched: Forbidden Kingdom (twice), Iron Man, Speed Racer, The Darjeeling Lmtd, There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, An American Crime, The Proposition and The Curse of the Golden Flower (also, many parts of various retarded movies along the same line as Rush Hour 2). I have also read/am reading Fury (Rushdie), Robinson Crusoe, two Agatha Christie's, Mathilda, as well as a few other smaller books whose titles escape me. I have also been listening to/studying some great new music by Haydn, Beethoven, Lizst, and some Renaissance composer (I forget again) (coming soon in this category The Art of the Fugue, of which I recently read a fascinating article whose location on the internet has also deserted my memory - unfortunately).
In spite of the title I am not going to review any of these things (at least, not in any formal way). Others have done so and they have done a far better job describing the works respective faults and strengths. I also tend to like/dislike things for odd or even unknown reasons. For instance, Speed Racer was not a great movie, or even, really, a good movie. It was, however, interesting enough that it has provided humor and headaches since I watched it (they throw beehives and snakes at each other and they have dueling car wheels, also more colors in one 30 second scene than Willy Wonka had in the whole movie).
I would however like to discuss appeal to people - as I have grown older I find that I am appreciating things for different reasons. I find that I appreciate passion for one's craft almost as much as I appreciate talent at one's craft (although execution of a craft is still the most important). In some ways I believe this is a product of the environment that I find myself in, a place where the talent pool is lower but the desire is still present. But back to appeal, it is interesting to me to find out why people like things - even if its very banal: "It makes me happy" "It appeals to my simple side" "It makes me think of cheese" and if I can find out and partially understand the appeal that it has to someone it has become increasingly difficult for me to find fault with the work. So what do you think?

Friday, May 16, 2008

With deepest apologies to all you who have some sort of vested interest in the writing of this blog I am ready to write. Some of the Official Friends of the Blog have told me that they are starting/have restarted/will be restarting blogs because they need to make themselves write (for various reasons). I believe this to be an admirable goal and in that spirit I would like to offer you a semi-firm promise that I will write these epistles to you at least once a week.

I'm somewhat hesitant to write to you about semi-important things. mostly because semi-important things tend to make people upset and then they leave comments that are questioning, or they send me emails about how I'm wrong, or they leaving burning bags of dog poop on my front porch - I don't like burning bags of dog poop.

But I actually do think about important things - like world peace and tree huggers and global economy, the state (or lack thereof) of christian education, problems with a belief system that doesn't support rational thought, or even what you were wearing today - I think about that a lot, mostly to mock you.

So I warn you, there may be IMPORTANT (notice the capitalization and emphasize the word accordingly in your own mind) things in store for this blog. I'm going to marry "The Huffington Post," "The New York Post," "Wired," and "Slate" and add in my own take on other stuff.

Ok, have a nice life
until next time
this is Jaron - spokesperson for J.R. Ledgerwood
signing off.