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June 29, 2005
signs and wonders
"It is a wicked and a perverse generation," Jesus said to the Pharisees, "which seeks for a sign." Perversely enough, I seem to have a gift for making signs (in case you were seeking).
It started with last night's post with the church signs, created at churchsigngenerator.com. But my sign making days have just begun, because I've suddenly found I'm good at it. I just kinda look at a blank sign, and suddenly it starts to speak to me. Take this fortune cookie, for instance:
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The sign of the fortune cookie couldn't have been written any other way (don't bother trying, I already checked). But even more "sign"-ificant are those moments when a sign comes together in a single word:
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I also prize signs which seem to tell a story, or at least the beginning of a story:
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All subtlety aside, sometimes a budding young signmaker must demonstrate versatility through directness:
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The ultimate aim of signmaking is always commercial, of course. At the end of the series you must work in a sly yet captivating product placement:
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Don't be afraid, when making signs, to borrow or even steal other people's ideas. If someone else has spent millions on a television ad campaign which is pure genious, for heaven's sake, use their material! And use their tools and software, too. For instance, I shamelessly copped all these signs from the homeless advocacy website sparesomechange.com and didn't even give them an attribution until the bottom of my blog entry.
Posted by joel at 12:41 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 27, 2005
on a mission from blog
The sign in front of Trinity Church has become a beacon to higher-order bloggers.
I read today that the fellow who teaches RCIA at the Manhattan church where Dawn often attends finally responded to her voicemail and email...after three months (see the comments on her blog entry). Apparently Dawn's message was misplaced or lost. But her popular blog (she is a Large Mammal in the Truth Laid Bear's blog ecosystem) played a role in getting her back on the church's radar. A regular reader and commenter on her blog heard about this, and contacted the church. Shortly thereafter the chap in charge of RCIA left a comment on her blog apologizing for the oversight.
Yes, I'm irritated. A person approaches a church, because she has become convinced that the Roman Catholic Church has a life-giving message --The Truth that has the power to transform-- but she can't sign up for the proper class because they've lost her message. Sorry, respectfully, I have to say that I can't help thinking that her message isn't the only one that has been lost. If lambs fare so poorly, what chance does a Marauding Marsupial have?
Sadly, the Baptists down the street were not able to avoid a bit of triumphalism.
Signs created at churchsigngenerator.com
Posted by joel at 11:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
willie dillie
The difference between Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan is day and night. Dylan is the night. "All Willie lacked was the chicken wire," my dad, an old-time Dylan fan, disparaged. My dad remembers back in the early seventies when his army buddies would sometimes drive out to Willie's home town to hear his whiskey-infused honky-tonk.
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And to think I had wondered before the concert which of these two performers had the bigger star power. My first clue should have been the rotund fellow who came out before Willie to plump for Willie's book, Willie's movie, Willie's four album releases in '05, including Willie's very first reggae album. He then whipped copies of these CD's into the crowd and left the stage.
Whipping things into the crowd is Willie Nelson's schtick these days I guess. He wore two hats and three bandana's on his head during the concert, and four of these lids he tossed to the crowd. Actually he tossed three of them out, the fourth, a bandana, he seemed intent on giving to some young woman to whom he had been winking, waving and making goo-goo eyes during his concert.
My dad and I went to the stand or sit on the ground area in front of the stage at the beginning of the concert. We sat through the delightfully named opening act: The Green Cards are an outstanding rockabilly bluegrass group comprised of four Aussies and one Brit. Nelson played a laid-back set, full of old medley-ized stand-bys. He waved to the crowd an awful lot. There was one bright spot in the concert; for his second to last number he sang a funny new song called Superman.
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It wasn't until after Willie & co. went offstage that I realized how light the crowd had been during Nelson's set. As Dylan's roadies began to buss the stage and setup his gear, the crowed began to flow in around us. Whereas for Nelson, people stood on the blankets they had spread out, with some four to six feet of space between you and your neighbor, we were standing shoulder to shoulder by the time Bob and the Band appeared. I looked around and found that I liked these people better than the ones around for the Nelson set. The Dylan people had shorter hair, looked like they had jobs and smoked less pot. There were more loners too; generally the Nelson crowd was there in groups of two to six.
The sun was setting as Dylan and the Band strode out, unpreambled by any schlocky product pitches. Bob wore a ten gallon stetson; the same hat he would later wear as he walked off stage. Dusk settled down as the footlights rose. The night was here, the tempurature had dropped a couple of degrees, and Bob Dylan, with stage presence rolling off of him, without speaking a single word, launched into the first song of an hour and a half long set of heartfelt gospel, soul, blues and rock. And that's the moment when I really wished Dawn could've been there.
Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan performed in Eastlake, Ohio at Classic Park on June 26th.
Posted by joel at 01:08 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
June 13, 2005
wired in hoboken
What a day. Following the advice of my native guide (the lovely and street smart Dawn Eden), I didn't come into The City today: temperatures were forcast in the hundred-somethings, so it wasn't a great day to pound the paving stones of the concrete jungle.
No problem, my son and I will just go to the Liberty Science Center. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, before all of the above, I awoke to find zero hard-drive space on the server which serves this blog. Was it hackers? Aliens with shrink-o ray guns? Inflation? Corporate raiders? No, just backups run amuck. Easy to fix, just delete the backups...well, at least most of them.
And then on to the science center. Now begins an odyssey on the perilous seas known as the New Jersey highway system. I feel uncharitable toward that highway system at the moment. And I believe my feelings are reciprocated by the highway system. It has special nets which can winnow midwesterners into odd, backwards places, like a filling station which is part junk yard, part swamp, part alternate truck route and 100% the wrong way. I drove with a laptop on the passenger seat beside me, Google maps consistently giving me hints just too slowly (Thanks to a slow cell connection via Verizon). I seethed as I drove for two and a half hours to move a mere 30 miles across the Garden State, like a the lowly Hoosier pawns we were.
But there is nothing for weariness like 50 minutes of air-conditioned IMAX. Tom Cruise narrated the new International Space Station. Something about those reclining chairs that just smoothes away the potholes (it wasn't Tom's voice, I assure you).
So we closed down the Science Center, and as we took to the New Jersey Turnpike our luck changed for the better. Shortly we were ensconced in the food court at some mall (was it the Newport Mall? Who cares), eating from Sbarro's and some Mongolian Wok type place. We finished just in time for The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D.
After the movie we moved almost without effort over to the Hoboken PATH station, parked, walked to the Hoboken Panera, bought something, sat down at two laptops and the rest is blogging history.
Funny how we get connected to the Internet. I hated this town for a while this afternoon. But now, with a little caffeine, and nice fat link to the Information Super Highway, I'm thinking New Jersey can't be all that bad afterall.
Posted by joel at 10:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 08, 2005
a pounce of prevention
Nineteen year old Gerardo Flores may not have been the sad patsy in his 16 year old girlfriend's plot to murder her unborn twins which some make him out to be, according to KTRE.com:
"District Attorney Art Bauereiss said Basoria [the girlfriend] was against abortion and got pre-natal care to make sure she'd have a healthy baby.""...Basoria had bruises on her arm, leg, and abdomen when she was rushed to the hospital after the miscarriage."
"Basoria reportedly denied being beaten by Flores, but a Lufkin police officer who talked with her that night said she cried whenever his name was mentioned."
What's interesting to me the number of these stories cropping up this year. First there was the Detroit Sluggard. Then came the Texas Stomper. And then a week ago they arrested the Boston Bungler for attempting to pay an undercover cop to assault his girlfriend and end her pregnancy with a knife or baseball bat. He offered to pay in cocaine, presumably having heard an ounce of prevention is worth the pounding cure. Or something like that.
As Reagan, quoting Malcom Muggeridge, said in Abortion and the Conscience of The Nation, "Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other." These cases depict the wider cheapening of life which abortion portends. If you can kill them in a clinic, you can kill them at home.
Posted by joel at 01:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
June 07, 2005
little texans a big deal
At the time of this writing, 60% of Internet users who've read WISCTV.com's story of the 19-year-old Texas man who killed his girlfriend's unborn twins by stepping on her stomach believe Texas is too harsh. The other 40% believe the jury done good or should've done more.
The girl, who is alleged by the defense to have punched herself in the stomach at the same time, cannot be prosecuted because she has a right to kill her unborn children. Even in Texas. What a tragedy. Didn't her square-dancin' squire know Planned Parenthood is always ready to step up to the plate and pinch-hit for violent boyfriends who don't have enough balls to walk on the floor instead of on pregnant mothers?
Prosecutors declined to seek a necktie party for the clompin' killer, perhaps because George Bush isn't governor right now. So thumper gets an automatic life sentence. The Texas jury deliberated for four hours (I like to think they talked about the weather for the last 3 hrs and 45 minutes of that). Don't mess with Texans. Not even the little ones.
Posted by joel at 02:19 PM | Comments (11) | TrackBack
June 01, 2005
this place is going to the blogs
When I see a really dumb movie, I leave the theatre feeling gypped, but also thinking, "Sheesh, I could make a better movie than that. Ditto for bad books; I finish some piece of prosaic pablum and think to myself, "nothing novel about that; now if I were to write..."
And thus my theory: mediocrity as muse. It's the dumb stuff, the really inane that sparks me to get off the proverbial sidelines and produce. When I'm trying to outperform the uninspired and leave the lackluster in last place, I set reasonable goals (just slightly better than dumb), and attain 'em.
All that is to say I've been reading some really great blogs lately. Blogs so great I really have nothing to say. As our moms used to say, if you can't find something nice to say, say something really nice. So here's a rundown of the rounds I've been making lately:
The Dawn Patrol
My number one vice. Not only can I not hold a candle to this one, but what little writing I am doing these days is comments on Dawn's well read and well annotated entries. Wherever there is lively debate, it means somebody's wrong, and that means idiots are present! As I mentioned above, that's where I shine.
The Nightfly
I first encountered the Nightfly whilst reading Dawn's comments, and I had absolutely nothing to say. He's hilarious and smart, and probably doesn't even need inanity to spark his creativity. Check his recent post Sleight of mind. I could've written that. Problem is, I didn't.
Ragged Edges
Yet another Dawn Patrol commentator who cramps my style just by being so sharp. Be sure to check out his recent article on the struggle against terrorism.
Crying While Eating
Not exactly a blog, I know, but still, an idea which is so simple I wish I'd thought of it. Lots of people crying while eating. Some of them are not very convincing. In fact, I just know I could cry and eat better than some of them. (hat tip: ksra)
Posted by joel at 09:38 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack