Words to Live By

"You know what they say. Giant worms can do whatever they want."
Phineas Flynn

Don't mention it. Oh, wait, you didn't, did you?

So, Rebekah visited and said some positively lovely things about our day together. Really, she made my house sound so nice I had to wonder at first whom in the world she was writing about. I do, however, need to point out one omission on her part. It must have been an unintentional oversight. Because certainly you wouldn't come all the way to Chicagoland and not mention that your hostess rewarded your effort by making sure you got to watch an entire episode of Spongebob Squarepants uninterrupted for the first time ever.

You're welcome, friend. It's the least I could do. I wanted to make your visit special. I have nothing if not imagination.

GCB

There's a new show on ABC called GCB. It's named after the book on which the show is based: Good Christian B*****s. As I understand it, for a while the show was going to be called Good Christian Belles but then it became simply GCB. I'm not sure why since very few people these days seem to have any problem with the "b" word (for the record, I do).

One of the stars is Kristen Chenoweth (Glinda from the original Broadway production of Wicked), who actually plays the main antagonist. According to what I have read, the show is set in Highland Park, Dallas, and follows the lives of some women who attended high school together. The protagonist is a newly widowed woman with two children who moves back home only to discover that the girls she used to torment in high school are still around and hungry for revenge.

Here's a trailer for the show. Warning: some adult dialogue/situations.



Obviously much of the humor in the show is going to arise from the over-the-top character played by Chenoweth (I have to admit I smiled at a few of her lines--can't imagine anyone else delivering them quite like that). Because her character gives lip service to Christianity while behaving in consistently un-Christian ways, the series has already received some negative press and calls for boycotts. Personally, I think they're probably making a mountain out of a molehill. (Where are the calls for boycotts from Texans, who are also depicted poorly? I'm from Texas, and I didn't know people like that, but then again, I didn't grow up in Highland Park.)

The show strikes me as farce--satire. It's a soap opera, and we all know how realistic soap operas are, right? They aren't to be taken seriously. Real life isn't like that. I also don't have a problem with Christians being depicted as sinners. We are, aren't we? Christians can and do behave in mean, nasty, and despicable ways, all while claiming the name of Christ. The difference between Christians behaving badly and others behaving badly is that a believing Christian acknowledges the existence of sin and its hold on him and knows his need for a Saviour. His sin grieves him. I doubt that we will get any of that in this show because ultimately that's not what the series is about. The church setting could be changed to something else and the show's premise would still be intact: grownup women behaving like the worst high school stereotypes you can imagine.

And that ultimately is why I don't plan to watch GCB (not that I have time for another TV show--it's all I can do to keep up with the two I am currently enjoying): not because it depicts some Christians in a negative light but because it appears from the trailer that the show is not going to offer any thoughtful commentary on life but rather a non-stop exercise in sex jokes and vulgarity. The occasional laugh is not worth the ick factor.

And, oh yeah, did I mention that I have a problem with a show that has "b****" in the title?

More on Lost

In his sermon yesterday, my pastor talked about how Christianity is the only religion that hinges upon God coming down to man rather than man reaching up to God. In light of that truth, I was struck by this observation in one of the columns that I read today about the Lost season finale:

"Despite the overwhelming presence of symbols from a variety of religious traditions and time periods, Lost was never about transcending the human realm in order to become divine. Lost's religious dimensions reflect a persistent, almost maniacal desire to be human . . . .

"Our heroes are not on a quest to get to paradise or return to the Garden of Eden. In fact, it is just the opposite. They are in paradise, but paradise has not turned out to be what we thought it was." (Bradley B. Onishi for The Huffington Post)

I don't think we should overplay the Christian symbolism in the show. It is not an apology for Christianity. But the Christian narrative is certainly there, strongly, from start to finish. And as Gene Veith observes, the Christian doctrines of sin, sacrifice, suffering, repentance and forgiveness are in the end what makes it all hang together:

"The story was resolved by a sacrifice (which these other religions don’t believe in), by forgiveness (Locke forgiving Ben for murdering him), by reconciliation, in a church (which these other religions don’t have), ending in Heaven (which these other religions don’t believe in)." (Dr. Veith in the comments thread on his post "They Once Were Lost and Now Are Found").

Farewell to Lost

My take on the Lost finale: incredibly moving and emotionally satisfying. Are all my questions answered? No. But in the end I realize that the reason I stuck with this show was not the plot, which was so twisty-turny that I had a hard time keeping up with it (and year-long breaks didn't help!). The reason I kept watching, from the very beginning, was the people, who were utterly riveting and made me care about them deeply. Hats off to the writing and acting that brought that about.

I find it interesting that within our own family there is a difference of opinion about What It All Means and that the dividing line is age-based. The young Lost watchers in our household have one idea, and the old folks have another. My theory about that is that the younger fans are not ready to Let Go of Lost quite yet, while us old fogies are.

Evan, who is 6, obviously never watched Lost with us. He didn't want to, but if he had I would not have let him. But considering that we have been watching Lost for most of his life, he heard us talk about it enough that he picked up on certain things. Last night he had two questions:
1) Did they defeat the Smoke Monster?
2) Did the dog survive?
I am very happy that I was able to answer in the affirmative for both. For Evan, Lost ended quite satisfactorily.

A cursory trip through cyberspace this morning reveals a lot of unhappiness among some Lost fans. It will be interesting to see how the Lost saga fares long term. It is certainly not the type of show that is going to enjoy a long career in reruns. You were either a part of the event, or you weren't. And I don't expect any Lost reunions or spinoffs or any such silliness, for obvious reasons. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if the show manages to keep its income stream going for a while longer with More Lost Mysteries Revealed type book and DVD sales. More power to them.

Bottom line: would I do it again? Would I give 6 years of my life to this show? Yes. In a heartbeat. It was absolutely worth it.

I'll leave you with a link to the blog of a friend who several years ago wrote about what Lost meant to her family. Although our situations are far from the same, I strongly relate to what she says about how Lost provided a escape hatch for her and her family through some difficult times. I think that is the best thing about Lost for me. It was one thing, besides church, that brought four out of five of us together in a shared passion on a regular basis. Considering that one of us is going off to college in a year, the passing of Lost may signify the passing of a time for us, too, that is too quickly slipping away.

I guess I have some Letting Go of my own to do.

We Really Did It

And it wasn't so bad. Sort of fun, actually--made us feel young and adventurous.

We decided the night before that we didn't need to get in line early because the item(s) we were interested in were not "doorbusters" for which tickets would be handed out. So we set the alarm for 4:15 and after throwing on clothes and brushing hair and teeth (at least I think I brushed my teeth--if not, sorry, Mr. Salesman!) fueled up with coffee and leftover cranberry-apple pie before leaving the house a few minutes before 5:00 a.m. Destination: our local Best Buy, just around the corner. We passed Target on the way and sure enough, there they were, the Black Friday hordes, extending the full length of the front of the store. I was amazed by the amount of traffic and the full parking lots at this time of the morning, but it was kind of fun to be in the thick of it. For today at least, we too belonged to the Black Friday Brotherhood.

Here was the scene as we drove up to Best Buy. I thought that, being more of a specialty store, it might be less crowded than Target or Wal-Mart, but the line was comparable (the picture only shows a small segment of it). Doors were being unlocked as we arrived, and by the time we had parked and crossed the lot, the line had dispersed and we walked right in.

First stop: electronics, to replace our current television (see previous post). The television that had drawn us to the store was there for the taking, but we ended up getting a slightly larger and higher resolution set, also for a very good price. A bit more than we intended to spend, but hey, we've had a hard year, you know? Call it our Christmas gift to ourselves.

Next stop: appliances. We have also been needing a new refrigerator and had seen one in the Black Friday ad for $599--a Samsung side-by-side, 25 cu. feet, black, with through-the-door water and ice, regularly $999. Compared to the rest of the store, the appliance department was pretty quiet--just a few other customers besides us. But no salesmen to take our order! Finally one arrived, only to inform us that the inventory/delivery system had crashed and he would have to take hand orders. We bought the refrigerator but so did a bunch of other people across the country as well as the nice lady in line ahead of us. We'll find out later if we were high enough in the queue to actually get one of the units before the inventory ran out. Sigh. Wish us luck.

(Update: Best Buy just called. We have our fridge! Or will when it's delivered later this week.)

Here's the checkout area as we were leaving the store at about 6:30 a.m.--thank goodness we didn't have to deal with this crowd since we had already paid for our items in appliances.

After a stop at the grocery store, we were home before 7:00, thinking we would get the new TV set up as a surprise for the kids and then go back to sleep for a nice long morning nap. You would think two fairly bright, college educated types would be able to knock down this task in a matter of minutes. You would think.

But by this time the coffee was starting to wear off, and fatigue was setting in, and my dearest and I found ourselves strangers in a strange land, lost in a blur of cords and cardboard and styrofoam and a heretofore unknown tongue: " . . . connect one end of the coaxial cable to the RF-out jack above the HDMI2 saturation plug next to the RF-in video input contrast source, tightening the VGA connectors and being careful not to drop the whole stupid mess on the floor . . . . and if you need help, be sure to call the customer service number in the manual, which will not connect you to our customer service at all but instead to some other pathetic outfit that is going to have a long, miserable year because their number was incorrectly printed in our 2009 manual . . . . "

I did have to laugh when the "initial setup screen" came on:

I think the writers of the setup instructions were no more familiar with English than we were with HDTV-ese. I guess maybe the exclamation points are an effort to remind us of how we felt when we first got home? You know, before we opened the box?

It took several hours, but finally . . . finally, we ended up with this.



And the frosting on the cake? The Huskers won!

I don't think we will make Black Friday shopping an annual event, but would I do it again? Yes. It was worth it, more for the refrigerator (40% off is not typical!) than for the television (we could have probably gotten a comparable deal next week). And notwithstanding some of the Black Friday horror stories of the last few years, it wasn't unpleasant at all. The store was well-prepared for the crowd and we saw no one behaving badly. In fact, there was an odd sort of cameraderie among the shoppers as we shared the insanity of it all and pulled for each other to get the deals we had come for. And the best part? My husband and I had more silly fun together than we have had in a while.

I hope your Friday after Thanksgiving was as rewarding as mine and that you, too, got to spend it laughing with someone you love.

We're Really Gonna Do It

For the first time ever in our married life, my husband and I are going to shop on Black Friday.

Here's why:



A few months ago our television fell off its stand (I know you're wondering how that happened, but let's not go there). The picture has looked like this ever since. We don't watch a lot of television, so we weren't motivated to replace it right away. But several times over the past few months we have considered watching a movie only to reconsider after remembering our unit's current resemblance to a bowl of Fruit Loops. We also use the TV for educational purposes--instructional videos for French and history--and we have continued to watch those in spite of the decidedly hallucinogenic element. But I have been procrastinating showing several historical movies I would like the kids to see. The Salem witchcraft trials are disturbing enough in realistic hues--I don't think I'm ready to see Giles Corey under a pile of pink, blue, and yellow rocks.

Ultimately, though, we might go on like this indefinitely if not for the premiere of the final season of Lost, which will take place on February 2. We have very few things that we do for pure recreation, but this is one, and we have waited almost a year for it. Of course February is several months away, but we have seen ads for 32-inch LCD HD television sets for as low as $248 on Black Friday. We're not picky--that will do for our needs--and we're thinking the deals may not get much better, so a little before 5:00 a.m. Friday morning the hubby and I will drag ourselves out of bed, throw back some coffee, and join the ranks of the Desperately Seeking Bargains. With any luck we'll be home with our new acquisition in time to go back to bed for a few hours before breakfast.

So . . . any Black Friday pros out there who want to offer some shopping advice to us inexperienced newbies? Things to do and not do? Ways of increasing the likelihood of success? Pitfalls to avoid? We're all ears!

I want to watch this show

There's a new show on ABC. It's an updated version of the old series (miniseries?) "V." I remember watching the old one some years ago--it was about space aliens who supposedly want to be our friends but who really want to eat us.

Here's an excerpt of an article in the Chicago Tribune about the new "V":

Imagine this. At a time of political turmoil, a charismatic, telegenic new leader arrives virtually out of nowhere. He offers a message of hope and reconciliation based on compromise and promises to marshal technology for a better future that will include universal health care.

The news media swoons in admiration -- one simpering anchorman even shouts at a reporter who asks a tough question: "Why don't you show some respect?!" The public is likewise smitten, except for a few nut cases who circulate batty rumors on the Internet about the leader's origins and intentions. The leader, undismayed, offers assurances that are soothing, if also just a tiny bit condescending: "Embracing change is never easy."

So, does that sound like anyone you know? Oh, wait -- did I mention the leader is secretly a totalitarian space lizard who's come here to eat us?

Welcome to ABC's "V," the most fascinating and bound to be the most controversial new show of the fall television season. Nominally a rousing sci-fi space opera about alien invaders bent on the conquest (and digestion) of all humanity, it's also a barbed commentary on Obamamania that will infuriate the president's supporters and delight his detractors.

Yay, Fox!

The Fox network (not to be confused with Fox News) has announced that it will not be pre-empting its regular programming to broadcast the President's 100th Day press conference tomorrow night but will follow its normal schedule (which on that day and time means viewers will get to watch an episode of the series Lie to Me. I'll leave the sarcastic comments to my readers.)

I approve. The press conference will be broadcast on Fox News and a plethora of other stations (including, no doubt, ABC, CBS, and NBC as well as the other major cable news networks). Our president is all about freedom of choice, is he not? There will be plenty of other places to watch the press conference (and the ensuing media love fest). Good for the Fox network for giving viewers an alternative.

Everyday Heroes

You are probably familiar with the Susan Boyle craze that is sweeping the blogosphere. She is the middle-aged woman whose audition for the television show Britain's Got Talent has taken on a life of its own. I have to say that when I first watched the video of her singing "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables, I didn't quite get what all the fuss was about. Yes, she has a very good voice--but I know a lot of good singers, including several that I think have better ones. Why aren't they on YouTube getting all this attention? All I could come up with is Susan Boyle herself and her life story and her looks, both of which for some reason make people think she won't be able to sing. So she's never been kissed and she's not model-attractive. Why does that make people surprised that she can sing? Watching the video of her audition, I will admit I was moved by the sight of an everyday woman like myself finally getting to pursue her dream. I get that. Good for her! But my initial reaction to her voice was that yes, it's nice, but it is lacking a bit in nuance and sounds like it could use a little more training. All you Susan Boyle fans out there, please don't come gunning for me!

But then I heard this recording of Ms. Boyle singing "Cry Me a River" (HT: Gene Veith). It's from a charity CD recorded in 1999. All I can say is "Wow!" Now that is a voice! I think it's much better than her rendition of "I Dreamed a Dream" and shows off much more of what her voice is capable of. The "I Dreamed a Dream" performance uses sort of an all-out Broadway approach, whereas this song in my opinion shows many more layers of Ms. Boyle's voice. I can't help wondering if the Britain's Got Talent people got hold of Ms. Boyle and made her dress and sing a certain way and perhaps even picked that song (listen to the words) so as to maximize the desired effect. Certainly it is to their benefit to have the Susan Boyle phenomenon sweeping the world the way it is, and seeing as how this is not the first time something like this has happened with this show, I can't help wondering to what extent it was set up.

I know; I'm a cynic. But none of this takes away from the personal stories of Paul Potts and Susan Boyle, both of whom are gifted people who in pursuing their dreams have obviously inspired and touched millions of people. At the same time, I'm a little troubled by the implication that neither of them did anything worthwhile until they hit it big on YouTube and that only now have their lives taken on any meaning. There are many, many talented people in the world--people who are just as talented as these two and whose stories are just as compelling--who will never win a talent competition or make it on to YouTube, and I am inspired by them as much as by Susan Boyle, even moreso, because some of them are people I know personally and have watched day in and day out as they try to make a living and care for their families and go to church. They may not have fame, but they are every bit as admirable and inspiring as Susan Boyle and Paul Potts, and I don't have to go to the internet to see them.

I bet you have some of those people in your life, too. Next time you see them, why don't you give them a YouTube moment and let them know how special you think they are?

LOST Returns Tonight!

How long we Losties have waited for this day. And finally, it's here, just in time to to provide the escapism that some of us so desperately need right now.

If I could, I would give every Lost fan one of these--a 13-year-old live-in who has no interest in the show and who cheerfully and willingly entertains her little brother so that the bigger people in the house can attend to their addiction uninterrupted.

Thank you, sweetie. You're the best.

Ray Bradbury

Last month I blogged about reading Fahrenheit 451 for the first time. So it was rather timely to come across this article about author Ray Bradbury. When the 2007 Pulitzer Prizes were awarded not long ago, Bradbury received a special citation, the only author of science fiction to ever do so. The 86-year-old writer did not attend the award ceremony, claiming doctor's orders, but he later told an L.A. Times reporter that his real reason for not attending was that he would not get to make a speech. What would be the point of going only to shake someone's hand and smile for the camera?

In the same interview, Bradbury also states that Fahrenheit 451 has been largely misinterpreted over the years. According to him, the enemy in the book is not the government, but ourselves, and the real danger is not government censorship but public apathy, which is fed by television watching. In the novel the main character's wife refers to the people in the programs she watches as her "family"; the televisions themselves are called "walls" (she has three of them and is hoping to acquire her fourth). As I read, I pictured a kind of a virtual reality interactive television room with floor-to-ceiling screens to which one could literally escape and enter an alternative existence. Judging by the size and capabilities of some of the televisions I see in homes these days, Bradbury's vision for the future of television may not be far off the mark.

The effects of television watching have been debated by sociologists for years now. There are those who argue, like Bradbury, that it dumbs us down, numbs our brains, and stifles interest in reading. But as the L.A. Times article points out, there are also those who argue that television has in many ways proven to be a societal good--that it has great educational and information value when used properly, and that rather than discouraging reading it has encouraged some people to read who otherwise might not (due to movies and programs based on literature as well as book clubs such as that promoted by Oprah Winfrey).

Personally I think the "heyday" of television may be coming to an end. But it is being replaced by another type of alternative reality in the form of the internet. These days many of us spend time reading online that we might otherwise spend reading a book. As someone whose love for literature led me to major in English, I worry about that. At the same time, though, while I think the internet potentially has some of the same mind-numbing dangers as television, it also seems to me to have a much greater potential for good in encouraging people to write who otherwise might not. (Case in point: me. I have written more in the past month-and-a-half of blogging than I have in years.)

I think I'll take a break from the computer and go read a good book now.