Two One Wo/Man Shows

I went to a One-Woman show last night. It was Murmur Theater Company’s production of Pamela Gien’s The Syringa Tree. The woman who played 24 characters was Kelli Chaves (she was the one who played Jane Bennet in the Haymarket Theatre’s Production of Pride and Prejudice, if you happened to attend that). It was directed by Jeff Little, a graduate of Hastings High School (he was the one who played Mr. Bingley–on a side note, the man who played Mr. Darcy showed up to watch the performance, and, oddly enough, the main character Ms. Chaves played was a girl called Elizabeth, or, more frequently, “Lizzy.”)

I really enjoyed her performance–I thought that she did a good job moving back and forth between so many characters. Furthermore, the role must have been exhausting, because she went for 90 minutes without an intermission, mainly playing a hyperactive 6-year-old girl. The whole thing reminded me of the Benny section of Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, both being heavy stream-of-consciousness told by a child. They did the show twice in Lincoln (read a story in the Lincoln Jounal Star here), but through special circumstances we were fortunate enough to get it to come all the way to Hastings.

Now, I know that that much of my story isn’t interesting, but this One Woman show provides a nice transition into a man who is putting on a One Man version of the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy movies–it looks pretty funny (you can see a video clip here). He also has done a One Man version of the Star Wars Trilogy (see a video clip here). He does a pretty good Gollum for a Canadian.

Illness and Philosophy

Apparently the late nights of blogging and movies have caught up with me. I came down with a cold/sore throat yesterday and spent today on the sofa. Thankfully, a DVD I ordered arrived in the mail, giving me four hours of quality entertainment while I blew my nose and guzzled Gatorade.

The DVD was “The Question of God,” a PBS program that aired last September. I read about it in the newspaper, but somehow missed the program on TV. Thankfully, Amazon supplied me with my very own copy of the four hour, two part series.

“The Question of God” is based on a Harvard professor’s class in which he presents the spiritual and atheistic worldviews, as seen through the persons of C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud. The program is a quality production, and mixes documentary on the lives of Lewis and Freud with a discussion panel that examines the issues involved in each segment. The documentary segments are particularly good, and include live actors playing the roles of Lewis and Freud, taking their quotations directly from the work of Lewis and Freud. In this way, the documentary creates a dialogue between Lewis and Freud on God’s existence and related issues.

Anyway, I’d highly recommend the program to anyone interested. You can learn more about it here.

Gollum and Gifts

Some people did a complete psychological and psychiatrical diagnosis of Gollum’s problems for the British Medical Journal. It’s a pretty funny read.

Also, in case you were ever foolish enough to think that those offers for free iPods could be legitimate (what idiot would think that?), you should probably read this article from the New York Times. Tricksy spammerses.

So, it seems that those of us who do not yet have iPods will just have to get them the traditional way: wait for our birthdays, and, if necessary, strangle good friends. (Hey Andrew–want to go fishing sometime?)

Musings

It’s after 1:00 and I can’t sleep, due to naps, inactivity, and copious amounts of chocolate. Since I haven’t made a substantive post in, oh, two or three weeks, I figured I’d give it a go. Please forgive any incoherencies on account of the time.

Another Christmas has gone. Once again, I was nearly oblivious to the season until the day before, although I did get my shopping done about four days beforehand…a new record. Christmas seems to be the one time of year that I get to spend massive amounts of time with my whole immediate family, which I very much enjoy. This Christmas involved a late Christmas Eve viewing of several episodes from the fifth season of The Simpsons, which my brother brought home with him. Christmas Day involved the obligatory gift exchange. To my delight (albeit unsurprised delight) I received the complete works of Francis Schaeffer, Will Durant’s “The Story of Philosophy,” and Richard Tarnas’ “The Passion of the Western Mind,” among other things. This gives me plenty of reading over break that will hopefully help me to begin generating honors thesis ideas, a primary goal for my break. Other Christmas Day activities included “Master and Commander,” “Big Fish,” and a five hour, five nation, Risk game that ended in a draw. I enjoyed “Master and Commander” much more than “Big Fish,” probably because of my Russell Crowe bias, the historical early 19th century setting, and the interesting war vs. nature theme.

I’m halfway through “The God Who Is There” and am enjoying it very much. Although sometimes Schaeffer could stand to organize his thoughts better, the content of the book (relativism’s emergence in Western thought) is very interesting. It’s especially helpful in seeing the role 19th century philosophy played in paving the way for the relativism that’s widespread today. Having read some of Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche last semester, this book helps place them in the proper context of the development of modern thought.

Schaeffer’s book causes me to consider doing my honors thesis somewhere in the philosophy/theology of the 19th and early 20th centuries. A possible focus is German theology during this period. I haven’t thought much beyond this, but Barth has been on my mind this semester and especially now.

Okay, I’ll try sleeping again.

Pure Fantasy

In case you’re interested, someone has created a list of every deviation Peter Jackson took in his movies from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books. I’m glad that I’m never this obsessive-compulsive.

Furthermore, Apple’s Trailers site has recently put up a two minute trailer of the upcoming Chronicles of Narnia movies, which will begin with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (Note: this isn’t a theatrical trailer, but more of a “making of” trailer, although it does look like they have included very small clips of things that might be from the movie.) If you generally liked what the filmmakers did with the Lord of the Rings series, it looks like you will enjoy this: the same people are doing the special effects, and it’s being filmed in New Zealand. Disney is also in on the deal, but that will probably simply mean deeper pockets rather than an over-childrification of the films. It’s supposed to come out December 9th, 2005, so that will (hopefully) be an enjoyable Christmas activity next year.

By the way, which Narnia book was your favorite? I personally preferred The Magician’s Nephew because the whole creation thing at the end was so cool, but I suppose a good case could also be made for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or for The Last Battle. The other ones were good, but compared to the big three (at least, the big three in my mind), they were little more than fillers.

Merry Christmas!

This is the original version of Charles Wesley’s poem that was subsequently turned into the hymn “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” The man seriously knew how to write poetry.

Hark, how all the welkin rings,

“Glory to the King of kings;

Peace on earth, and mercy mild,

God and sinners reconciled!”

Joyful, all ye nations, rise,

Join the triumph of the skies;

Universal nature say,

“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”

Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,

Christ, the everlasting Lord:

Late in time behold him come,

Offspring of a Virgin’s womb!

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see,

Hail the incarnate deity!

Pleased as man with men to appear,

Jesus! Our Immanuel here!

Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace!

Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!

Light and life to all he brings,

Risen with healing in his wings.

Mild He lays his glory by,

Born that man no more may die;

Born to raise the sons of earth;

Born to give them second birth.

Come, Desire of nations, come,

Fix in us thy humble home;

Rise, the woman’s conquering seed,

Bruise in us the serpent’s head.

Now display thy saving power,

Ruined nature now restore;

Now in mystic union join

Thine to ours, and ours to thine.

Adam’s likeness, Lord, efface;

Stamp Thy image in its place.

Second Adam from above,

Reinstate us in thy love.

Let us Thee, though lost, regain,

Thee, the life, the inner Man:

O! to all thyself impart,

Form’d in each believing heart.

Addiction

This time, it wasn’t my fault.

For the past few years, I have started a more shameful Christmas tradition than spiking eggnog: endlessly playing the current “NCAA Football” video game for Xbox (now in its 2005 edition, although it uses the season schedules and players from the 2004 season). The first year my brother and I had an Xbox, we bought the 2003 version and quickly developed a physical addiction to the game. I was so appalled by my lack of productivity over the break, though, that I vowed never to play that devil game again. That vow, of course, carried little weight when the next Christmas came around.

For Christmas 2003, I gave my brother “NCAA Football 2004″ as a gift; I ended up playing it more than he did (aren’t I a selfless gift-giver?). The 2004 version, of course, only further entrenched me in the cycle of addition: playing–feeling shame–vowing never to play again–picking up the controller for just one more game–etc…

Although there can be no excuses for my behavior, there certainly are reasons: this game simply rocks my socks off. The graphics are amazingly realistic (in fact, when you play at Memorial Stadium, you can see Oldfather Hall looming over the east stadium). The coaching responsibilities now not only include play-calling, play-making, recruiting, and working to keep a contract, but the 2005 version has now added disciplinary responsibilities to a coach’s job description. Also, there’s nothing like getting a freshman phenom and playing him through his senior year, watching him grow and mature into one tough football player. I sometimes have a tough time graduating my seniors.

But even so, I really didn’t want to play football this Christmas; I had a reading list, and I wanted to work on various other projects I hadn’t gotten to during the past semester (and things I probably won’t get to during the next semester). Furthermore, my brother has recently gotten really into Halo (and the new Halo 2), so I didn’t think he would be too interested in playing football; I really didn’t think he would be too interested in buying “NCAA Football 2005.” Unfortunately, due to a series of unfortunate events, my Christmas break productivity was not meant to be.

You see, a couple of weeks ago, my dad dropped our TV on the Xbox, damaging the TV and destroying the Xbox. Fortunately (or perhaps I should say “unfortunately”), our warranty on the Xbox covered such accidents (with about three weeks to spare), and Best Buy replaced our gaming console. With the Xbox, though, came two sample games: one being a tennis game that I refuse to touch; the other, quite anti-serendipitously, “NCAA Football 2005.”

So what am I supposed to do here? How could I possibly avoid creating the Lincoln College Cardinals and beginning to take them from a B-rated team to a national championship team? The crowd noise alone at Bird Cage Stadium seems to be sufficient proof that my coaching skills are needed.

But is this round of addiction my fault? I cannot possibly see how it could be; after all, I wasn’t the one who dropped the TV.

Slashdot Recap

Slashdot has had several really good (and common-interest) posts over the past few days. I was simply too lazy to post each of them individually, so here is a little of the “best-of” from the past week:

• History of Star Wars Video Games–Need I say more?
• Off-the-Record Messaging released, which includes (for the first time, to my knowledge) the ability to both assure someone that an encrypted message came from you, but to still be able to deny that that same encrypted message came from you after a conversation–this, of course, is important for all my super-secret, sensitive communications, when I might later need plausible deniability.
• British “Secret Agents Hold Code-Breaking Contest”
• Somebody posted a way to make a cheap teleprompter–genius! (not to mention oh-so-practical)
• OpenOffice 2.0 Preview released – (Note–OpenOffice.org is a free and open-source office suite, extraordinarily competitive and compatible with Microsoft’s Office, especially for being free software. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s certainly worth a shot.)
• Some ways to avoid spam on Gmail
• Self-Heating Coffee

Male Bond-ing

(Nervously blogging with my laptop actually on my lap.)

Some highlights from Sunday evening’s Goldeneye Party and Monday’s Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Marathon (yes, we watched every extended edition version in one day, one after another):

• On Sunday night, taking a break from murdering each other on the Nintendo 64 console in order to debate the relative merits of Calvinism.
• On Monday morning, remembering (from when we roomed together) the joy of having to wake Andrew up after being awoken by his alarm clock, which he had instinctively turned off in his sleep.
• Creating a hypothetical drinking game where participants would take a drink every time Sam and Frodo exchange a “knowing look.” (Note: we neither participated in this game nor do we encourage anyone to participate in this game, because participants are almost sure to die of alcohol poisoning–unless, of course, the aforementioned participants are elves.)
• My incessant comparison of every particularly ugly orc to Ben.
• On the Taco Bell run for lunch, my trying to explain Shakespeare’s use of puns and how he used words whose meanings have changed since his time; my example: “conceive” meaning “to understand,” to which the entire car proceeded to give examples of all the ways in which we still do use the word “conceive” to mean “understand.”
• The “Breaking of the Fellowship,” when Grant had to leave some time during Return of the King.
• On the drive back to Hastings, Ben’s saying, “I think it’s really dark out because it’s so cloudy,” to which I said, “Ben, I can see the moon and several stars. Look, there’s a constellation,” to which Ben responded, “Oh, crappy.”
• Andrew’s comment about the movie marathon:
  “I don’t think we’ll do that again.”
  “Oh, we may yet, Mr. Frodo. We may yet.”

Interview with Piper

Here’s an interview with John Piper that Joel linked to from his blog. It’s a great interview that explores Piper’s formation as a pastor and an author.