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August 20, 2006
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
My initial and stronger reaction was: "What the heck was that?" My secondary reactions follows. And my tertiary is the wrap-up.
Japano-bizarro vertigo-fest filmed á la Eraserhead and Night of the Living Dead and owing much to the Cronenberg-Romero-Lynch triad. Grainy, jerky off-centered, over-exposed and jumpy. The story a teratological blend of cyberpunk and self- and other- loathing rarely, if ever, seen this side of Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with a dollop of the frigid and horrifying eroticism of Tennessee Williams in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Sweet Bird of Youth. Then inflate it with the excesses of Cronenberg's Crash, Dead Ringers, and Naked Lunch.
What passes for a plot lumbers by mercifully undisturbed by such things as logic and sequence. And so the film speeds along like Koyannisqatsi on an overdose of caffeine and designer club drugs careening wildly from one oddity to another without ever pausing to smooth out wrinkles and attempt to make sense.
And in writing this I know I've told you nothing about the movie--and yet everything essential. Finally a film for hardcore fans of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.
In sum--far more unpleasant than the gestalt formed from blending all of the references above together and filming them in black and white. And weirdly interesting. Although only recommended for the hardcore Asian film fanatic or the collector of the odd and outré.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 21, 2006
Duty Now for the Future--Judgment Day
During the great Aesthetics controversy of 2006, there were many (some proponents) of the side that opposed changing artwork that suggested the better course might be to support those artworks, however feeble they might start as being, that better express our worldview. In providing economic incentive to publishers and film-producers we could achieve at least part of our end through these reasonable means.
So, I'm here to mention and strongly suggest that anyone interested in the Arts might want to take a look at James F. David's mainstream SF novel Judgment Day. I'm not sure that it is a very strong novel, but what it IS is a novel that is published by a mainstream publisher (Forge, a division of Tom Doherty), on speculation, as it were. I think Forge decided to try to cash in on the Left Behind phenomenon.
I haven't finished the book, but I can say that what I've read so far has been far better written that any single volume of Left Behind. The Christianity that informs the work is of the same kind tending toward literalist interpretation, though not overtly so--and the author doesn't appear to be as antagonistic to Catholic Christianity as the authors of the Left Behind series. AND the story is not an extended retelling of the visions of the Book of Revelation. In fact, while there is some talk here and there about Apocalypse, there isn't the overall brooding on the subject that the other series has.
What Judgment Day gives us is a world in which a determined group of Christians has been granted, by means of a vision, the ability to achieve space-flight without rockets. It isn't as bad as it sounds. The visions occur and a dedicated team works for 20 or more years to realize the essence of the vision. That's what inspiration is about.
Of course the entire world is up in arms about fundamentalists possessing space flight and not sharing the secret with all. And there is an antagonist who is a literal human-sacrificing Satan worshipper who schemes and plots to bring the entire thing down. Of course this person achieves a certain prominence in the political world and is able to pull various strings that bring events to a boil.
As I said, I haven't finished the work, but I did want to recommend it to those who are looking for SF or other fiction that isn't afraid to take faith seriously. I'll keep you apprised as I complete the book--but so far, it's reasonably good SF. In fact, some of the only readable SF I've set eyes on for a while. But then, I've been out of touch for some time.
While you're at it, and if you're interested, scroll down the left column and you'll find a group of sites headed with SF. These are Christian SF sites that I discovered via Speculative Catholic and Claw of the Conciliator. If you're interested in SF, you might be interested in some of what these people have to say. Except for MIrathon, who appears to be a Catholic SF writer residing in Miami, you will be straying outside the strict bounds of the Catholic World. But so far as I've been able to determine at this point, none of these sites is virulently anti-Catholic--most tending to a moderate, if very strong and very heartening Evangelical or other mainline protestant faith. If you discover otherwise, please drop me a line.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:08 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
I May Have Found a Home
I picked up Rod Dreher's Crunchy Cons this weekend and after reading the manifesto, decided that I may have found a home. There were several points that helped inspire this feeling.
From the foreward:
from Crunchy Cons
Rod DreherIn late summer of 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast. As the people of New Orleans waited for help from a bumbling government bureaucracy incapable of handling mass catastrophe, the city descended into anarchy and chaos. Just weeks later, another hurricane, Rita, annihilated much of coastal southwestern Louisiana. There, however, the small-town and rural Cajun people of southwestern Louisiana instantly pulled together. The difference? In Cajun country, the ties of family and community were much stronger than in New Orleans. This point is central to Crunchy Cons: For the sake of communal self-sufficiency, we must recommit ourselves to building up family and social networks. Right ow, joining the volunteer fire department or a local farmers' co-op might be more authentically conservative than joining the Republican Party (not that there's anything worng with that!).
Now, if what is stated is true, and even if we leaven it with the fact that a small town is not the same kind of entity or scale of entity as a big city, it speaks of the kind of society and community I would like to live in. I always thought a Catholic community modeled on Amish and Mennonite models would be one of the most perfect places imaginable. (But then I pause to recall the lessons of Animal Farm and I hesitate.)
But this statement is fundamental to my entire political philosophy:
But we are not liberals. For one thing, we don't share the liberal faith in the ultimate goodness and perfectibility of mankind. Because we believe in evil and the duty of good men and women to confront it with violence if necessary, we are not pacifists. We don't believe that morality is relative, and that each generation is free to find its own truths, and to adopt a moral code that suits its desires. We object to the idea that there's nothing wrong with our country that a new tax or government program can't fix.
We don't believe it's the government's job to guarantee social equality, only equality before the law and, within reason, equality of opportunity.
I'll have to see how the rest of the book bears out, but the manifesto and these passages, only a few pages apart speak to me in the deepest labyrinths of my thought. Obviously, I probably won't agree with every point Mr. Dreher has to make, but perhaps there is enough contiguity for me to able to identify with a group.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:33 AM | Comments (10) | TrackBack
Images in Christian Life
from Renovation of the Heart
Dallas WillardThere are many things we need not see and are better off not seeing--thought, if you wish, you have a "right" to see them. Anyone who thinks that if I have a right to do X it is good for me to do X, simply hasn't thought deeply about the matter. Paul's wise counsel, by contrast, was, "Whatever is true, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let you mind dwell on these things" (Philippians 4:8)> Make no mistake; this is a fundamental and indispensable part of our spiritual formation in Christ.
Images, in particular are motivational far beyond our conscious mind and they are not under rational control. We must take care that we are nourished constantly on good and godly ones, without necessarily being able to see and say what is wrong with the others. "What is wrong" with them well may be something we cannot bring before our consciousness, but which works in the depths of our soul and body as an instrument of feces beyond ourselves.
Beauty is essential in spiritual formation. Beauty is not beauty without truth and goodness--it is "as an Angel of Light" whose heart is complete darkness. The most beautiful image in the world that denies God only seems beautiful--it is a seed of darkness. This is probably similar to what Savonarola taught the people of his day, only he made the mistake of assuming that anything suggestive of the beauty of the human form was somehow tainted and evil. There are the Venus de Milo La Primavera and La Trionofo di Aphrodite, all of which portray the female body in its splendor without necessarily provoking the prurient. When one approaches works like The Naked Maja and such like, the question becomes more nebulous, and for some of us none of these images in any amount is licit. That is the individual way and path. Nevertheless, it is part of spiritual formation to dwell upon the beautiful because it bypasses the eternal censor and tells us something that mere intellect cannot tell us about God. God cannot be apprehended, much less embraced by intellect alone but only through the union of intellect and emotion that make up the mind of the person. Certainly our senses feed the mind, but it is ultimately the mind that is the primary gatekeeper and the spirit within us that says, "Let it be done unto me," to God. And these things may only happen when we have surrendered all to God.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 22, 2006
Reactionary Radicals
When Mr. Kaufmann typifies himself as a Jeffersonian decentralist, he has me, because that is where my home is (without some of the other Jeffersonian trappings, I might add). Mr. Snyder of The Western Confucian was kind enough to leave a reference to Reactionary Radicals from which I derive the excerpt. Sounds like another book I will have to look into. And while I think it may take Mr. Dreher a little down the line, it certainly sounds along the lines of what Dreher suggests in Crunchy Cons.
from Look Homeware, America
Bill KaufmannI am an American patriot. A Jeffersonian decentralist. A fanatical localist. And I am an anarchist. Not a sallow garret-rat translating Proudhon by pirated kilowatt, nor a militiaman catechized by the Classic Comics version of The Turner Diaries; rather, I am the love child of Henry Thoreau and Dorothy Day, conceived amidst the asters and goldenrod of an Upstate New York autumn. Like so many of the subjects of this book, I am also a reactionary radical, which is to say I believe in peace and justice but I do not believe in smart bombs, daycare centers, Wal-Mart, television, or Melissa Etheridge’s test-tube baby.
“Reactionary radicals� are those Americans whose political radicalism (often inspired by the principles of 1776 and the culture of the early America) is combined with—in fact, flows from—a deep-set social “conservatism.� These are not radicals who wish to raze venerable institutions and make them anew: they are, in fact, at antipodes from the warhead-clutching egghead described by (the reactionary radical) Robert Lee Frost:
With him the love of country means
Blowing it all to smithereens
And having it all made over new
Look Homeward, AmericaThese reactionary radicals—a capacious category in which I include Dorothy Day, Carolyn Chute, Grant Wood, Eugene McCarthy, Wendell Berry, and a host of other cultural and political figures—have sought to tear down what is artificial, factitious, imposed by remote and often coercive forces and instead cultivate what is local, organic, natural, and family-centered. In our almost useless political taxonomy, some are labeled “right wing� and others are tucked away on the left, but in fact they are kin: embodiments of an American cultural-political tendency that is wholesome, rooted, and based in love of family, community, local self-rule, and a respect for permanent truths.
Obviously, this is something requiring careful consideration, but at least I know of it now to consider it. You have done me a great service Mr. Snyder, thank you.
With respect to Mr. Dreher, I must admit to coming late to the party--but it's the only way that I attend such things. After the furor has died down, I can sit and take my time with the canapes, snacks and leftovers and enjoy the relative stillness to determine finally whether it was a party worth attending. So far in my reading of Mr. Dreher's book, it has proven to be so. I hope that continues.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 23, 2006
The Downside of Crunchy Cons
You knew there had to be one! And it isn't too far into the book that one finds it.
Mr. Dreher sets out to tell us that a Crunchy Con is an anti-materialist, not involved with bigger and better and the acquisition of more and different things. Then, in the first two chapters of his book he talks about food and homes. Admittedly it isn't about acquisition so much as it is about how to "do it properly," but the end result is an almost obsessive concern about how you get your food and what kind of house you live in.
It would be ridiculous to say that these are of no importance--they do affect how we live and how we feel. However, they are not the end-all, be-all, nor do they necessarily dictate how we relate to one another. If one buys one's food at a supermarket, one could still hold the values that place people and relationships above things. And yet, there is a sense in which it does not seem that Mr. Dreher thinks this possible.
One final point, in the discussion of homes, it is evident that Mr. Dreher thinks that if you don't live in a gentrified inner city or in a rural setting you simply aren't living anywhere that is livable. There is a constant denigration of the way that most people must live. Calling suburban house "McMansions," etc.
Because the book is a first stab at the articulation of a principle, this is probably the fallout of attempting to define a concept. What would be more helpful is to say how one could modify the mode of life one is in without pulling up stakes and moving to the inner city. I think in food Mr. Dreher makes some useful suggestions about how we might alter the way we live--but he fails utterly at making accommodation for present circumstances in the section he calls "Homes." And more to the original point, it seems to be overly concerned with material objects. Our homes are important--but I have discovered during the extended absence of this summer that home is not a place or a building, it is the gathering of the people you love deeply. My home is wherever Linda and Samuel are.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:39 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Children as Waste
One extremely distressing moment in Crunchy Cons came in the course of an interview with a food provider. And to put this in proper perspective, I'm certain that the person interviewed did not mean what he said to sound as it does, but let me quote the line:
"The children of those illegals come in and clog the school systems."
Like so much sewage the children clog the system. There's something very, very wrong when you can think of any person as "clogging" the system, but particularly a child who has absolutely no choice in the matter. A child goes where his or her parents go--if that means to another country to be educated, so be it, but that child, although they cause an additional burden on the system, cannot be regarded as a mere thing that "clogs the system."
This kind of thinking distresses me and causes me to rethink the Crunchy Con phenomenon. I thought the emphasis would be on people and community, loving people, and accepting people. Even if one is strongly opposed to all immigration, to regard children in this way is very distressing.
Perhaps I need to rethink affinities, because what is important first and foremost is the dignity of the person as the image of God and my relationship with persons not with things. "Whatsoever you do unto one of these, the least of my brethren, that you do unto me." When we regard children as "clogs in the system" something is wrong with the worldview.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 2:28 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
August 24, 2006
"Lazarus, Come Out!"
Too many are dead in their faith. And there are so many ways to be dead. This is part of what Jesus meant when He said, "Narrow is the way and strait is the gate that leads unto salvation." For indeed, the way of living faith is narrow indeed.
Some are dead in their political faith. While politics should always be informed by religious sensibility, the spiritual life should never be informed by politics. When it becomes so, it goes astray, looking for secular solutions to eternal problems and straying from the narrow way. That is not to say that those with a political faith do not know Jesus, but they do not know Him in His fullness. They have chosen their own way to know Him rather than His way to know Him.
However, the form of dead faith and half-life that is most insidious and most hidden is regret--either conscious or unconscious over things done or left undone. Regret is another killer of faith because regret always lives in the past and faith is the eternal present. The person of faith is informed and formed by his or her past, but that person is not slave to their past. We don't see St. Teresa of Avila dwelling on her past even as she struggles to write her life. There is the constant infusion and interjection of the person St. Teresa is now, and a kind of irritation about talking about the past and all of its dead things.
So too with St. Therese, who wrote of the past in obedience, but whose past and present constantly fuse and intermingle. The past is only important as it exists in who we are now. What we did not choose, what we did not do is part of who we are, but it is not to be dwelt on, merely learned from.
When we enter the land of regret, we enter the tomb. And interestingly, regret is one of Satan's slyest weapons, because often the regret might be over vocations not pursued, spiritual opportunities not embraced, good paths not taken. All of these things can be very good things if they help us to make the right choices for the future. But more often than not regret is a form of creeping paralysis. What I did not do in the past I cannot choose to do now. That opportunity is gone and will never come again and I cannot be whole unless I can go back and undo it. And because I cannot, I am not who I could be and I cannot make the choices I would make.
What utter nonsense! What we did not do in the past, what we rue today, we can choose to undo in different ways. Let the past become present and remember the incorrect choice and use it as a guide, a signpost to make the correct choice. The Road to Joy is marked by many, many self-created sorrows. If we let Satan have control, we can continue down that long dark path, Orpheus descending. But as soon as we learned how to use the past to inform the present, as soon as we push regret out the door and call upon God in faith, Jesus says to us, "Lazarus, come out!" We, who were the people Christ wept over when He learned that we were dead, return to Him, live and vibrant and complete in Him.
But to do this requires complete surrender. It requires us to say, "Je ne regrette rein." I am who I am because of what has gone before. My choices made this person, and even this person is one whom God loves beyond all telling. This person can choose life, can choose God at any moment. This person can shed the dead past and enter into the vibrant, living present. This person can come alive in Christ.
Are there things in your past that you would choose now not to have? Are there things, experiences you would choose to undertake? If so, turn regret into joy by recalling these things and using them as guides. God gave us signposts in His interactions with us. It is time that we came to understand His signposts and used them to move toward Him. Pull off the shroud and join the living. Give up regret, for Lent and forever. Live in light and joy--turn the past darkness into a beacon for the present and thank God for all that you have learned as a result of what has happened in the past.
Narrow is the way and strait is the gate that leads unto salvation. But that narrow way is Jesus Christ, the vast eternity of Incarnate Love. And that straight gate is love of Him and embrace of his life, death, and resurrection. Hardly what we would think of as narrow or strait in comparison to the small prison of self that we choose when we choose regret, greed, politics, or anything other than God. Jesus speaks of a narrow way, but I see a passage the size of a world, the size of a galaxy, the size of the Heart of God. It is narrow because there is only one way to it--surrender.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:15 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
"Friends of Christ"
from The Way of Perfection, 1.3
St. Teresa of Avila
O my redeemer, my heart cannot bear these thoughts without becoming terribly grieved. What is the matter with Christians nowadays? Must it always be those who owe you the most who afflict you? Those for whom you performed the greatest works, those you have chosen for your friends, with whom you walk and commune by means of your sacraments? Aren't they satisfied with the torments you have suffered for them?
Who knew she could see so far into the future and see my life and my conduct? But praise God that she did and she could raise for me the warning flag--look how I treat Him! Look at what I do each day and ask, "How does that give Him honor?" And the truth is, it does not. Day by day I find my ways to avoid being a friend to Him here below and in his heavenly home.
But He doesn't care. I come straggling along, and He is leaping with joy to see me. He leaves the party of the Saints to bring me in. Every time. Every single time. I am transformed, I am broken and renewed. Every time. What grace--words fail, so St. Teresa may speak for me. And while I grieve for my sins and for my treatment of Him, I rejoice in knowing how He loves me nevertheless.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:15 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 25, 2006
A Prayer Request
Someone from India posted this to a post too old, perhaps , to be read by many, so I repost it here unedited:
Dear sir, I am kavitha from India.One of my friend his name is Senthil
and he is suffering from polio attack from his childhood.he is now
26yrs old and his one hand and leg is very thin and weak.so please pray for
his healing and pray for him to accept jesus christ has his
saviour.Praise the lord.Thakyou
Please pray for Senthil and for his friend Kavitha who was thoughtful enough to request of strangers the favor of a prayer.
If you stop by again, thank you Kavitha for allowing me to be of service. I will pray for Senthil and for you, that your bright Christian spirit bring life to those around you. God bless!
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Pluto Demoted
By now you know this, and I sit in the peculiar position of having it have an enormous impact on my every-day work.
Personally, I think the definition adopted is poorly configured and poorly construed and erects new categories where there is no clear division or way to make a clear delineation. On the other hand, I hope the scientists get through their debate quickly so the matter can be settled. But this is not the sort of thing that tends to die down in scientific circles. I suppose one must just wait to see which way the majority.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gutenberg Science Fiction
Via Hassenpfeffer a list of Science Fiction books available in electronic format--they include works by Terry Carr, Andre Norton, and H. Beam Piper, among others.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 4:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack