and if your way should falter along the stony pass

show me a garden that's bursting into life

sunshine in november

I have always found sunny days in November ominous in their loveliness. Something about long shadows all day connotes a mood of perpetually dying day. And if November's trend were to continue, might not the sun sink behind the horizon forever and the world slip to eternal darkness?

I love them and and loathe them. I'd like to say they are better than the nostalgic gray cold we had Sunday, but I'm not so prejudiced. I love them both more than I loathe them. Time passes with persistence, and perhaps even a bit of grace. Why worry?

post-modern sacrament

"In the morning I walked to the bank. I went to the automatic teller machine to check my balance. I inserted my card, entered my secret code, tapped out my request. The figure on the screen roughly corresponded to my independent estimate, feebly arrived at after long searches through documents, tormented arithmetic. Waves of relief and gratitude flowed over me. The system had blessed my life. I felt its support and approval. the system hardware, the mainframe sittiing in a locked room in some distant city. What a pleasing interaction. I sensed that something of deep personal value, but not money, not that at all, had been authenticated and confirmed. A deranged person was escorted from the bank by two armed guards. The system was invisible, which made it all the more impressive, all the more disquieting to deal with. But we were in accord, at least for now. The networks, the circuits, the streams, the harmonies."

-Don DeLillo, White Noise

grading

Today I read the best student paper on the Odyssey I've ever read in ten years of teaching the poem. The best thing: it's a student who took my Written Communication course and who continues to show improvement as a writer. Persistence and practice pays off.

baby one more time

How awesome is this song; how awesome is this band?

Crossfit: "Cindy"

5 pullups
10 pushups
15 squats

As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes.

My score = 24

secret

"Yes, it is the dawn that has come.  The titihoya wakes from sleep, and goes about its work of forlorn crying.  The sun tips with light the mountains of Ingeli and East Griqualand.  The great valley of the Umzimkulu is still in darkness, but the light will come there.  Ndotsheni is still in darkness, but the light will come there also. For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing. But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret."

 -Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country 

sydney whispers

She approaches with stealth, quietly as he reads an ancient epic on the recliner.  The sun has made its way to the horizon, and he would like nothing more than to rest, reliving glorious feats of gods and men.  She whispers.  "Papa, we should go outside and play baseball." How can he resist.

"Guess what, Sydney.  I ordered you a present.  It's going to come in the mail in a few days.  What do you think it might be?"

He sees that she knows instantly, but she pauses anyhow, pretending to think about.

"Maybe some new wiffleballs?"

She's right.

They play ball as the last day of summer turns to night.  And she hits many homeruns.

"the offense"

    When Christianity came into the world, it did not need to call attention (even though it did so) to the fact that it was contrary to human nature and human understanding, for the world discovered that easily enough. But now that we are on intimate terms with Christianity, we must awaken the collision. The possibility of offense must again be preached to life. Only the possibility of offense (the antidote to the apologists’ sleeping potion) is able to waken those who have fallen asleep, is able to break the spell so that Christianity is itself again.

    Woe to him, therefore, who preaches Christianity without the possibility of offense. Woe to the person who smoothly, flirtatiously, commendingly, convincingly preaches some soft, sweet something which is supposed to be Christianity! Woe to the person who makes miracles reasonable. Woe to the person who betrays and breaks the mystery of faith, distorts it into public wisdom, because he takes away the possibility of offense! Woe to the person who speaks of the mystery of the Atonement without detecting in it anything of the possibility of offense. Woe again to him who thinks God and Christianity are something for study and discussion. Woe to every unfaithful steward who sits down and writes false proofs, winning friends for themselves and for Christianity by writing off the possibility ofoffense. Oh, the learning and acumen tragically wasted. Oh, the time wasted in this enormous work of making Christianity so reasonable, and in trying to make it so relevant!

    Only when Christianity rises up again, powerful in the possibility of offense, only then will it need no artful defenders. The more skillful, the more articulate, the more excellent the defense, however, the more Christianity is disfigured, abolished, exhausted like an emasculated man. Christianity ought not to be defended, at least not on the world’s terms. It is we who should see whether we can justify urselves. It is we who must choose: either to be offended or to accept Christianity. Therefore, take away from Christianity the possibility of offense or take away from the forgiveness of sin the battle of an anguished conscience. Then lock the churches, the sooner the better, or turn them into places of amusement which stand open all day long!

- Soren Kierkegaard

wagon wheel

Kierkegaard on truth

Christ is the truth in the sense that to be the truth is the only
true explanation of it; the only true way of acquiring it. Truth is
not a sum of statements, not a definition, not a system of concepts,
but a life. Truth is not a property of thought that guarantees
validity to thinking. No, truth in its most essential character
is the reduplication of truth within yourself, within me, within
him. Your life, my life, his life expresses the truth in the striving.
Just as the truth was a life in Christ, so too, for us truth must be
lived.

Therefore, truth is not a matter of knowing this or that but of
being in the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an
infinite difference here, best seen in Christ’s response to Pilate.
Christ did not know the truth but was the truth. Not as if he did
not know what truth is, but when one is the truth and when the
requirement is to be in the truth, to merely “know” the truth is
insufficient – it is an untruth. For knowing the truth is something
that follows as a matter of course from being in the truth,
not the other way around. Nobody knows more of the truth
than what he is of the truth. To properly know the truth is to be
in the truth; it is to have the truth for one’s life. This always costs
a struggle. Any other kind of knowledge is a falsification. In
short, the truth, if it is really there, is a being, a life. The Gospel
says that this is eternal life, to know the only true God and the
one whom he sent, the truth (Jn. 17:3). That is, I only know the
truth when it becomes a life in me.

- Soren Kierkegaard

LBA

Couldn't win a stinking game last week.

10-0 this week.

be still, and know

pilot crossfit w.o.d.

Three rounds for time of:
25 Push ups
25 Pull ups
25 Dips
75 Squats

16:36 as rx'd.

everyday's song

today's song

sweet mercy

"murph"

Crossfit, "Murph"

Run one mile.
100 pullups
200 pushups
300 squats
Run one mile.

For time.

33 min, 12 seconds.

Ouch.

sydney's last day of summer vacation

Tomorrow, Sydney has her first day of kindergarten. That makes today the last day of summer vacation. She said she wants to play in the park, walk in the woods, play baseball, and ride her bike. But then some cartoon on tv demonstrated how you make juice pops in the freezer, and that got added to the list of things to do.

We'll giver her a shot, Syd, cuz there are only so many days of summer vacation in a lifetime, and we ought to make the most of em.

a song for today

Gotta love Harry Belafonte.

chainsaw massacre

I'm not very good with a chainsaw to begin with. But after I figured out that I had installed the chain backwards--so that the teeth were facing the wrong direction--cutting up wood became much more enjoyable.

Still, I wouldn't want to do it for a living.

Ludington

In August.

Perfection.

diamond notes (12)

Last night we played two innings before the storm hit. I went 2-2 with a three run homer. We were ahead 6-1.

Season totals: .428, 12 HR

We play tonight in Bremen. Then I play with the Outlaws Thursday at 4:00 p.m. at Belleville complex in South Bend in the ASA Men's Major.

my strengths

Strategic
Learner
Ideation
Intellection
Context

www.strengthsquest.com

more fastball news

I had a rough day hitting-wise on Saturday. I went 3-13 with an inside the park homerun as we went 2-2 with my pick-up squad. Virtually every time I hit the ball hard it went right at someone. I have a theory about this: it evens out over the course of the whole season. I have stretches where almost everything I hit finds a hole, too. Maybe I'll have one of those stretches during the last month of the season. Hope so.

crossfit: angie

My first ever crossfit workout.

"Angie" is ...

100 pullups
100 pushups
100 situps
100 air squats

For time. You do them in order (have to complete the pullups before you start pushups, etc.). You can take breaks, but the clock is running.

Time: 19:09

Gotta learn to do kipping pullups.

41/m/185#

diamond notes (11)

Last weekend we finished second in the Michigan ASA state tournament in Moline. We went 5-2, and lost to the Fat Boyz from Marquette in the winners bracket championship and then again in the final "if" game.

We played well and won several close and two extra inning games in the tourney. We have to move up to a new classification--A/B for next year--because of our performance in the tournament. I played well overall; went 14/28 (.447) with 3 homeruns (10).

I am playing with a pick-up team tomorrow in Battle Creek. Next week I've been picked up to play in the Men's Major world series in South Bend with the "Outlaws." Should be fun. We play the Quad City Sox on Thursday, August 4 at 4:00 p.m. at Belleville Park.

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eddie calls it a campfire song

diamond notes (11)

We swept a double header on Tuesday night, and I had one of the wierdest nights at the plate ever. I was 1/3 on the night with 7 walks. So that's a really good on base percentage, but it was a bit of a frustrating night, because I would have liked to swing a bit more.

We play in the state tournament tomorrow night at 6:00 p.m. in Moline, MI.

gimme shelter

Saw her bring the house down with this song one late night at Cornerstone in 1999 (I think).

With Dave.

Ten years, it's been, my friend. Miss ya.

diamond notes (10)

A lot of fastball (that's the Canadian term for fast-pitch softball) has been played since I last wrote. Seven games actually. We won five of them and lost two. I was 9/23 (.433) with one very long home-run (7), which I'm going to tell you about, because it occurred to me after I hit it that I will very likely never hit a softball that far again the rest of my life. I'm 41, remember.

The right-field fence on the diamond we were playing on was 275', which is actually long for fastball (they're usually 235'-260'). About fifteen paces beyond the right-field fence, there's a picnic shelter/roofed pavilion. The 2-0 pitch I hit landed at the peak of the roof. My coach said he thought it went 350'.

The next morning, leading off our game, someone from our dugout yelled, "Let's go, Pavilion." As I'm batting, the umpire laughed and said, "Pavilion... I like that. I got to tell the story of your home-run over beer last night."

So no matter what happens, there's always going to be that one time I hit a colossal bomb onto the picnic pavilion in Frankenmuth. Which is nice.

...

p.s. I'm not even sure it was the longest home-run of the tournament. I saw three others that went, what I thought was, at least as far. But they didn't land on the roof of anything.

Diamond notes (9)

Won 12-7 on Tuesday night. 3-4 with a walk and a double. Scored 3 runs. We play in Elkhart tomorrow night and in Frankenmuth Saturday and Sunday.

song of the day

the pleasures of eating

"The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy and remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the dewy first light of morning when gardens are at their best. Such a memory involves itself with the food and is one of the pleasures of eating. The knowledge of the good health of the garden relieves and frees and comforts the eater. The same goes for eating meat. The thought of the good pasture and of the calf contentedly grazing flavors the steak. Some, I know, will think of it as bloodthirsty or worse to eat a fellow creature you have known all its life. On the contrary, I think it means that you eat with understanding and with gratitude. A significant part of the pleasure of eating is in one's accurate consciousness of the lives and the world from which food comes. The pleasure of eating, then, may be the best available standard of our health. And this pleasure, I think, is pretty fully available to the urban consumer who will make the necessary effort."

Wendell Berry, "The Pleasures of Eating"

Read the rest here: http://www.ecoliteracy.org/essays/pleasures-eating

CONFESSION:
I find this convincing and convicting. We buy local beef and pork (often from family members who raised them for show at the 4-H fair). But not yet chicken; I hope to change this. We eat out too much, and I've no idea where that food comes from. We grow a little food, but not enough. We compost, but not as much as we should.

It's about gratitude, Berry suggests, and too often I am ungrateful. But when I witness the astonished wonder with which Sydney picks a ripe cucumber from her garden, and the pleasure she takes in eating it--without any dip!!!--I am drawn into gratitude. Where does this magnetic attraction to the farm, to the garden, to the orchard I have been feeling these past years come from? It feels like the irresistable pull I once felt toward inner-city Kingston years ago. Will I have the courage to go?

a good song for today

something that annoys me

..."Dr." in front of the name of anybody but a medical doctor, veterinarian, or dentist.

The rest of us just don't deserve to be called "doctor" and it's laughably pompous for academics to insist the we be called such.

That is all.

Diamond notes (8)

Won 10-0 on Thursday night in Benton Harbor. 1-4 with my 6th homer of the season. Next game Tuesday night. Tournament in Frankenmuth--home of the most ridiculously overpriced hotels in the state of Michigan--next weekend. Luckily, I'll be driving in from Port Huron and not staying in a hotel.

what I wish I could have learned in science classes in high school and college

My approach to education would be like my approach to everything else. I’d change the standard. I would make the standard that of community health rather than the career of the student. You see, if you make the standard the health of the community, that would change everything. Once you begin to ask what would be the best thing for our community, what’s the best thing that we can do here for our community, you can’t rule out any kind of knowledge. You need to know everything you possibly can know. So, once you raise that standard of the health of the community, all the departmental walls fall down, because you can no longer feel that it’s safe not to know something. And then you begin to see that these supposedly discreet and separate disciplines, these “specializations,” aren’t separate at all, but are connected. And of course our mistakes, over and over again, show us what the connections are, or show us that connections exist.

- Wendell Berry

1. Basic animal husbandry
2. Composting
3. Gardening/farming
4. Canning and freezing
5. How to change the oil and tune up my car

it must be a duppy or a gunman

summer reading group #4

Monday, July 25 @ 7:00 p.m.
Prenkert's house

We will be discussing Mark Richard's fantastic memoir, House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home. Don't miss this one!!

NOTE: I started reading this, and it was so good I just had to pass it on. I know this strays from the earlier plan (Maxwell and Nabokov) and takes us into "non-fiction", but it'll be worth it.

Papa San (song of the day)

Diamond Notes (8)

My "pick-up" team and I went 3-0 in pool play on Saturday, in what was most likely the hottest day on which I've played three games of softball. The heat index was 101 when we started our game at 11:00 a.m. I didn't check it after that. Suffice it to say, it was brutally hot.

We lost a heartbreaker in the bottom of the 7th 4-3 in the first game on Sunday, ending our tournament. I played shortstop the whole weekend and went 8-13 (.453) with two triples and a couple walks. Not bad.

My team plays Wednesday and Thursday this week.

Diamond Notes (7)

Tomorrow I play softball in Wabash, IN. I would like to explain why.

My regular team (Smalltown Fastpitch) is not playing in Wabash. Instead, I have been "picked up" by another team (Goshen Gators), who happen to be short some of their regular players for the weekend. This happens fairly regularly throughout the course of a season. As a matter of fact, this season my own team has picked up at least one player for each of the tournaments we have played in.

Here is another interesting thing about this particular tournament. The winning team takes home a cash prize. That's not normal. Neither is the format of the tournament.

We play three games in "pool play" tomorrow (11, 3, & 5). Based on our performance in pool play we will be entered into a single elimination bracket on Sunday. The top two teams from each pool go into the "gold" bracket. The bottom two teams from each pool go into the "silver" bracket. By the end of the day Sunday there will be a silver champion ($300 cash prize) and a gold champion ($500 cash prize). It's not much, but it's a lot more than any other tournament I've ever played in. Not sure who they found to sponsor this, but kudos to the people in Wabash.

Hope we don't lose all of our games.

p.s. Don't you feel enlightened about the workings of men's fastpitch softball now?

rise

Such is the way of the world
You can never know
Just where to put all your faith
And how will it grow

Gonna rise up
Burning back holes in dark memories
Gonna rise up
Turning mistakes into gold

Such is the passage of time
Too fast to fold
And suddenly swallowed by signs
Low and behold

Gonna rise up
Find my direction magnetically
Gonna rise up
Throw down my ace in the hole

updates

Turned on my computer today for the first time in a week. Here's what you've missed.

1. Went to Port Huron. Watched a lot of fastpitch softball. Went to the beach.
2. Went to see U2 in Lansing. The acoustic version of "Stay (faraway so close)" was a highlight, but as always, "Where the Streets Have no Name" brings the house down.
3. Went 1-3 with two walks in a win on Tuesday night. The smell of something dead and decaying--from somewhere beyond the rightfield fence--was oppressive.
4. Started Phase 3 of P90X. Got tickets?
5. Mowed the 73 acres (ok, slight exaggeration, but it does take about 6 hours) at St. Mark Missionary Church.
6. Drove to Benton Harbor to play an inning and a half of softball before we got rained out.
7. Hosted reading group at my house. We sort of talked about "The Things They Carried." What a great book.
8. Had a long meeting discussing some curricular changes.
9. Read I and II Kings. Observation: There were a lot of evil kings.
10. I could go on, but you probably don't care about the rest.

magnificent: guaranteed

I bet my ticket we'll hear this one.

staring at the sun

Diamond notes (6)

Moved to 12-9 on the season with our 8-5 win last night. I played centerfield and went 2-3 (.426) with a double.

Now let me mention one of the best ways to determine how well a fastpitch game is played: time. On Saturday night we lost a game 11-8 that lasted easily two and half hours. That is bad. Last night, our game took an hour and twenty minutes. That's much more like it.

It's not that I wish to hurry my recreation along. But sloppy play typically slows the game to a snail's pace. Last night's game had a couple of errors, but it didn't have countless wild pitches and walks and pitching changes. It also had one very long homerun hit by our opponent's left fielder--a hanging changeup got launched about 330 feet.

Saw this one

Notre Dame, October 2001

U2 360

So, next Sunday night I'll be going to my 5th U2 concert. It will be Jeanie's 4th. But I'm envious that she actually saw one of the Joshua Tree tour concerts. Anyhow, leading up to this, songs I'd love to see performed (again) in concert.

Diamond notes (5)

Long story short: We finished second in the Rich Plangger Invitational this year.

After winning our game Friday night [see Diamond notes (4)], we won 5-2 on Saturday morning. I went 2-4 and scored a couple runs. That guaranteed us a spot in the elimination round on Sunday, but we still had one more game of pool play late Saturday night. We lost a marathon game in the sultry, mosquito infested Benton Harbor midnight, 11-8. I led off the game with a homerun (5), and then went 0-3 the rest of the way.

On Sunday morning in the elimination round we won a tight game 3-2 against Jack Daniels from Ohio. I hit the ball hard all game, but had nothing to show for it (0-4). We dropped the championship to Munger, MI, 11-8. I went 2-4--the two balls I hit hard were outs, the two I didn't hit hard were hits. Go figure.

Numbers:
Tournament record = 3-2
My tournament hitting stats = 8-20, 3 HR
Season Record = 11-9
Season hitting stats = .415, 5 HR

Below is me about to connect. I believe that ended up being a line drive right to the second basemen.

Rave On

Buddy Holly lives!

Diamond notes (4)

We won our first game of pool play last night 11-3 in five innings. We played one of our better games of the season. We're 8-7 now, with pool play games today at 2 and 8, and single elimination tomorrow if we qualify. I went 3-4 (.456) with two homers (4). Made an error at shortstop that cost us a run. I'll try to do better today.

song of the day--a little cigar box blues

Just because cigar box guitar has to be one of the coolest instruments ever.

Diamond notes (3)

We played (sort of) a nine inning game last night. The other team only had 9 players, so we provided them with the three extra fielders each inning while we batted. We lost a 14-7. I played shortstop (for both teams) and for one inning rightfield (for the other team). Went 4-6 (.424) with a homerun (2) and three RBI. We play our first game of the Plangger Invitational tourney at 9:00 p.m. on Friday night, and we complete pool play on Saturday with games at 2 and 8.

Trivia: Most fastpitch players wear metal spikes. I've never been comfortable in spikes. At 41, I'm much more in danger of catching a spike and blowing out a knee or turning an ankle than I am of slipping in my turf shoes, which are way more comfortable than any cleats or spikes I could buy (thanks Boombah! http://www.boombah.com/s.nl/sc.26/category.304486/.f )

Twinkle, twinkle...

In honor of Sydney, who figured out how to play this song on the piano app on mama's phone ALL BY HERSELF this morning.

Diamond Notes (2)

Last night we won 4-3 in extra innings. We scored 3 in the first and didn't score again until the bottom of the 8th. With no outs in the bottom of the 8th we got a bunt single followed by bunt that was mishandled and then thrown away at first base leaviing us with runners at second and third. Our number nine hitter hit a cue shot in to no man's land between the pitcher and the first baseman that scored the winning run. So not only did we score without hitting the ball out of the infield, we scored without hitting the ball past the pitcher. I played shortstop and went 2-4 (.395) and scored a run. That makes us 7-6 on the year.

We play tonight in Benton Harbor if the rain stops and we host a tournament this weekend starting Friday night. Here's the tournament schedule. http://www.michiganfp.com/2011-tournaments/2011-rich-plangger-invitational

Keep your lamps trimmed and burnin'

Diamond Notes (1) -- season summary

Due to the overwhelming interest (expressed by the thousands of readers of this blog) in my fastpitch softball playing exploits, I have decided to add a regular feature here called "diamond notes."

Let's see.  I play shortstop and lead off most of the time, though on occasion this season I have played some centerfield.  I'm hitting .385 with a pitiful 1 homerun after twelve games.  My team, "Smalltown Fastpitch" is 6-6 on the season.  Our next game is Tuesday night in Benton Harbor.  Ya, I drive 50 miles each way to play softball, since there's basically no men's fastpitch to speak of in Indiana anymore. 

On a wierd note, I have hit three foul ball homeruns this season.  That might double the number of foul ball homeruns I've hit in my career.  I've no idea what to make of that.

Last night we won our game 10-1 and I went 2-4 with a triple. I played centerfield and we had three high school baseball players in the infield.  Perhaps there is hope for the future of men's fastpitch afterall.   

Interesting weather observation: it was 75 degrees at my house when I left for the game.  It was 58 at Plangger Park in Benton Harbor when I arrived an hour later.  Lake breeze, I guess.  That just a day after the high temperature was 98 in Benton Harbor.

all the way down

"...depression demands that we reject simplistic answers, both "religious" and "scientific," and learn to embrace mystery, something our culture resists. Mystery surrounds every deep experience of the human heart: the deeper we go into the heart's darkness or its light, the closer we get to the ultimate mystery of God. But our culture wants to turn mysteries into puzzles to be explained or problems to be solved, because maintaining the illusion that we can "straighten things out" makes us feel powerful. Yet mysteries never yield to solutions or fixes--and when we pretend they do, life becomes not only more banal but also more hopeless, because the fixes never work."

[. . .]

"One of the hardest things we must do sometimes is to be present to another person's pain without trying to "fix" it, to simply stand respectfully at the edge of that person's mystery and misery. Standing there, we feel useless and powerless, which is exactly how a depressed person feels--and our unconscious need as Job's comforters is to reassure ourselves that we are not like the sad soul before us."

- Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

"and butterflies are free to fly..."

"I'm strangled by your haunted social scene
Just a pawn out-played by a dominating Queen"

Somebody's Crying--anthem of unrequited love

From "High Fidelity"--opening monologue.

Come and Get It (35)

Best song I heard on Pandora this morning, hands down.




p.s. I still need a nickname. How cool is "Paperboy" as a nickname?

Reading Group Book #3

We will be discussing Tim O'Brien's groundbreaking post-modernist novel at our next meeting.

Sunday, June 26 @ 7:00 p.m.

"No waving and no cigarette lighters, please" (34)

As the days fly past will we lose our grasp or fuse it in the sun? (33)

Today's song--just because I love Neil Young more than anyone probably should.

Will I see you give
more than I can take?
Will I only harvest some?
As the days fly past
will we lose our grasp
Or fuse it in the sun?

"I kiss you in my dreams" (32)

How do you get a name like "Lead Belly"?

Comment with nickname suggestions for me. I'm in need of one.

Until then, enjoy a classic.

After Day 30 in the 30 Day song challenge? Day 31

And now, let the real fun begin.

Here's a song for today, just because. What's my connection to this song? Well, I like playing it on guitar for one thing. For another, it reminds me of a certain citrus-sy soda I used to drink when I was a kid--one that never failed to give me a tremendous gut ache.

I know the song isn't about the soda. I think the "electrical banana" is actually a name of a dance and not what you're thinking, shame on you.

Day 30: Your favourite song at this time last year

Day 29: A song from your childhood

This song is incredible...

Day 28: A song that makes you feel guilty

"Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die."

day 27 – a song that you wish you could play

day 26 – a song that you can play on an instrument

Day 25: A song that makes you laugh

Day 24: A song that you want to play at your funeral

Day 23: A song that you want to play at your wedding

C.S. Lewis on entertainment

"Every good book should be entertaining.  A good book will be more; it must not be less.  Entertainment . . . is like a qualifying examination.  If a fiction can't provide even that, we may be excused from inquiry into its higher qualities."

--C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

reading group meeting #2: Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Sunday night five of us (David, Dori, Lyndsey, and Katrina) discussed Wendell Berry's novel The Memory of Old Jack over pretzel balls, gummi eggs, and pink lemonade.  Wonder of wonders, everyone actually read the book and everyone liked it.  Several members expressed a willingness to read more Berry.  Perhaps we will.

Meeting #2 will be...

Sunday, June 5 @ 7:00 p.m. at Prenkert's house.

The book is Salmon Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories.

Day 22: A song that you listen to when you’re sad

Day 21: A song that you listen to when you’re happy

Day 20: A song that you listen to when you’re angry

It never ceases to cheer me up.

Day 19: A song from your favorite album

Not the album version, but a great video version nonetheless.

U2, The Joshua Tree, "Where the Streets Have No Name"

Day 18: A song that you wish you heard on the radio

Only problem... the song makes me cry every time I hear it.

Day 17: A song that you hear often on the radio

Stupidest category so far. On the other hand, this song is better than most you hear on the radio right now.

Day 16: A song that you used to love but now hate

the NBA's most difficult player to defend (ever)?

Day 15: A song that describes you

Day 14: A song that no one would expect you to love

numbers of interest

• Percentage of Americans in 2009 who believed the free market "is the best system on which to base the future of the world": 74
• Percentage of Americans who believe so today: 59
• Percentage of Chinese who do: 67

(Source: Harper's, June 2011)

Day 13: A song that is a guilty pleasure

Day 12: A song from a band you hate

day 11 – a song from your favorite band

Do yourself a favor and watch this.

day 10 – a song that makes you fall asleep

Day 09: A song that you can dance to

Sydney and Papa's favorite dancing song...

http://youtu.be/xcbYD_MTDcY

"Minglewood Blues" - Old Crow Medicine Show

summer reading group 2011

What:  Meeting #1 of back yard reading group

Where:  Prenkert's back yard

Book:  The Memory of Old Jack by Wendell Berry

When: Sunday, May 22 @ 7:00 p.m.

Day 08: A song that you know all the words to

Ya... I do.

Day 07: A song that reminds you of a certain event

Day 06 – A song that reminds of you of somewhere

"Johnny Too Bad" - The Slickers



If you know me at all, you know where this reminds me of.  Am I supposed to explain all of these?

Day 5 - A Song That Reminds You of Someone

Day 4 - A Song That Makes Me Sad

AND...

process

"Most students . . . feel that they must first have something to say brefore they can put it down on paper.  For them writing is little more than recording a preexistent thought.  But . . . writing is a process in which we discover what lives in us. The writing itself reveals what is alive."

- Henri Nouwen

day 03 – a song that makes you happy

Gogol Bordello - "Start Wearing Purple"

30 day song challenge--Least favorite song

Hard to single out just one. When I was like 13 years old they played this stupid song to death.  I turn off the radio anytime I hear it now. 

why i write

"The deepest satisfaction of writing is precisely that it opens up new spaces within us of which we were not aware before we started to write.  To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know.  Thus, creative writing requires a real act of trust. We have to say to ourselves, "I do not yet know what I carry in my heart, but I trust that it will emerge as I write." Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, in trust that they will multiply in the giving.  Once we dare to "give away" on paper the few thoughts that come to us, we start discovering how much is hidden underneath . . . and gradually come in touch with our own riches."

-Henri Nouwen

30 day song challenge--your favorite song

best things about May

1.  NBA playoffs virtually every day.
2.  It's not hot yet.
3.  It's not really that cold anymore.
4.  It stays light until 9:00 p.m.
5.  Kiddie Kollege on Tuesday and Thursday with Miss Rachel.
6.  No classes for me.
7.  Clean office (in process).
8.  Hitting wiffleballs every day.
9.  Reading many, many pages just for the fun of it every day.
10.  No papers to grade for four months.
11.  Fastpitch softball begins again.
12.  The Cubs, no matter how bad they are, still have a chance to redeem the season.
13.  Morgan laying in the sun on the back deck.
14.  Walks in the woods.
15.  Biking.
16.  P90X with renewed intensity.
17.  Did I mention the NBA playoffs?
18.  Playing the uke and the harmonica
19.  Dandelions.
20.  Burning leafs left over from last fall.
21.  Veggies growing in the various containers and raised beds.
22.  Vacuuming the pretzels, cheerios, cinnamon toast crunch, french fries, and other filth from my car because I  finally have the time.
23.  The daily office.
24.  Reading group begins, again.
25.  Church softball.
26.  Lunch time basketball.
27.  Shooting hoops in the driveway.
28.  Memorial Day weekend.
29.  The bouncy jump in the backyard.
30.  Sydney's fifth birthday.
31.  Jeanie counting down the days to the end of school.

Quote of the day

“Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions to this end. In the face of a man’s death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred.”

- Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, on the death of Osama bin Laden.

look up here

chekhov's gun

"One must not put a loaded gun on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." - Anton Chekhov
 
"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." - Anton Chekhov
 

neil postman on technological change

"Technological change is not additive; it is ecological. I can explain this best by an analogy. What happens if we place a drop of red dye into a beaker of clear water? Do we have clear water plus a spot of red dye? Obviously not. We have a new coloration to every molecule of water. That is what I mean by ecological change. A new medium does not add something; it changes everything. In the year 1500, after the printing press was invented, you did not have old Europe plus the printing press. You had a different Europe. After television, America was not America plus television. Television gave a new coloration to every political campaign, to every home, to every school, to every church, to every industry, and so on." (Neil Postman)

The same can probably be said for many new things that get introduced into a culture or group.  For instance, a basketball team doesn't add an all-american seven foot center to the starting line-up and remain the same team plus a seven footer.  The team is transformed.  I don't introduce Lolita  as a required novel in my World Literature class and it remain the same class plus one incredibly beautiful, clever, and very controversial novel.  It becomes a different class altogether.  I attended college prior to the proliferation of networked computers.  That college--and college education in general--is not now a college or a college education plus networked computers; it's a different college, a different education entirely. 

Likewise, I don't decide tomorrow to purchase a gun to keep in my nightstand for protection from intruders intent on evil and have my home, my family, and even my very self remain what it, we, or I was plus the gun.  Home, family, and self are transformed.

The question is, will I be happy with--can I live with--what the new technology transforms it, us, and me into? 

The whole article is worth reading.

http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/neil-postman--five-things.html

the dwight shrute approach

opening day is thursday

And there's no crying in baseball.

rob bell and pope mohler

Hilarious.

this is spinal tap

Just for fun and since I've not been writing much at all lately, the next few days (until I get bored with it), I'll be posting some of my all time favorite movie scenes, in no particular order. This is classic; I cackle every time I see this.

cramer on campus safety and guns

Questioning Campus Safety's Gun Policy The following is an opinion piece published in The Bethel Beacon, the student newspaper of Bethel College, Indiana, my alma mater as well as where I currently teach. Bethel students, staff, and faculty with a valid Bethel email can access and comment on the article here. Others will have to simply leave their comments below. http://cramercomments.blogspot.com/2011/03/questioning-campus-safetys-gun-policy.html

fantastic movie

The Sunset Limited

how to help sydney not whine and cry in the morning when she wakes up overly tired

Pull out my phone and turn on the "sneaky fart" app.

Ya, my daughter thinks the thirty or so different and very realistic sounding fart noises are hilarious. You do what you gotta do in the morning.

http://www.freeware4android.net/sneaky-fart-download-25819.html

back ache

Is it possible to get a back ache just looking at your driveway on a morning like this?

Prediction: two more big snows before spring.

Readers of this blog will see I'm not very good at predicting anything weather related.

Later today, if I don't actually end up with a debilitating back ache, Morgan and I will take a walk in the woods.

It is not necessary to have more than one sentence in any paragraph, nor does a blog entry need a true central focus. Thesis statements are overrated, you know.

update

Ok, my intuitions were proven incorrect like two minutes after I posted the previous blog.

Daytime classes are all cancelled tomorrow at Bethel.

Noon hoops is on.

lucky jeanie

At 9 p.m. this evening, Jeanie got the text announcing no school tomorrow. We should all be so lucky. Alas, I will get no such text tonight, and I'm betting I will find myself in front of a class full of students who, having banked on a snow day, will have not read the assignment for the day. Ok, I wouldn't bet my next paycheck or anything. Let's just call it an intuition.

By the way, I did p90x, chest, shoulders, and triceps tonight. Guess what I'm bringing to the party?

more daylight

Driving home last evening, I noticed something on the western horizon. The sun. The time: 5:45 p.m. It's a small thing, but the early sunsets of winter are slowly coming later and later, and that makes me happy. I don't measure winter in degrees or inches of snow. I measure it in daylight. I can handle more cold days and more snow days, and who knows how many of these there will be.

But one thing I can count on--the days will get longer, sun will set later. I'll take it.

hands down, the best player in college basketball right now

china

Lord willing, I'm going to China! (I hate exclamation points--too much like laughing at your own joke; but I felt that sentence warranted one.)

Anyhow, I'm going back to China. Last trip was Spring of 2004--the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Wong Fu Jing, Silk Market, etc. Best part is hanging with the Bethel students, though.

Worst part is the nearly crippling jet lag that hits upon your return.

Worth it, though.

proem

Rage: Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.
Begin with the clash between Agamemon -
The Greek warlord - and godlike Achilles.

______


Writer’s block: Sing, Muse, Robby’s writer’s block,
Soul-sucking and shameful, that drained the guts
Of countless gel pens, bleeding endless trivialities
Upon a thousand cheap notebooks,
And left them tattered and forgotten in a basement closet
For moth and mouse to devour undeterred.
Begin with the futile attempt at composing his proem,
Blank screen mirroring the worried face of the teacher.

a very old man with enormous wings

A story about the ways our expectations shape our responses to and interpretations of stories.

This one, for instance.

how to fix basketball

Some rule changes needed in both college and the NBA:

1. Eliminate media timeouts.

2. No live ball timeouts. If the ball is in play, you cannot bail yourself out of lousy play by calling timeout. The only time a timeout can be called is either when the clock is stopped or after a made basket before the ball is inbounded.

3. Each team would be allowed 2 full and 2 30-second timeouts per half.

4. Halftime reduced to ten minutes.

p.s. And though it's not a "rule" change, in college, the officials need to do a much better job of protecting shooters by calling the foul when there is contact. I don't mind that they let some contact go un-whistled when the offensive player is clearly initiating the body contact, but it's gotten bad, and the quality of basketball in college has declined dramatically in the past ten to fifteen years in part because of it (and mostly because of AAU--but that's another story).

suggestions

Some ways to improve the NFL:

1. 10 minute quarters.
2. Each team would be allowed a 20 man active roster.
3. To be eligible to kick a field goal, a player must have played in the previous offensive play. (effectively eliminating kicking specialists).
4. Deepen the end zone to twenty yards, goal posts stationed at back of end zone.
5. All games played outdoors on natural grass.
6. Eliminate 2-minute warning.

Tune in next time for rule changes that would improve basketball.

something

Something happened to my hip while playing basketball today. I don't know if it's possible to sprain your hip, but that's what it felt like--the awful tweaking of a joint when it twists or extends in a direction it should not.

It does not hurt sitting here watching free NBA league pass on television, but it's torture walking up the stairs. So I will stay here under my sleeping bag, fire roaring a few feet away, Steve Nash torching the Wizards on TV.

Jeanie says I complain too much about my aches and pains. She has the highest pain threshold of any person I have ever met.

numbers revisited

To write 300 blog entries in one year, one must average 25 entries per month, or about 5.8 entries per week.

I shall have to pick up the pace. Should I write more about "everything" or more about "nothing," and under which category does this particular entry fall?

space

My office is nearly twice the size it was for most of last semester, and I cannot begin to tell you the difference that space has made for my state of mind. I hadn't realized how crowded and cluttered I had felt until now, having been given room to stretch out and air to breathe these past several weeks. I felt this same way when we moved out of a house that was crammed in between two other houses a few years back. It is cliche to say that you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of a boy, but there may be something to it in my case. In the country there is space, and I have realized that I need the room to bloom and grow.

I mean no metaphor, here. I am simply thankful for a bigger office in which I feel much more at ease entertaining the visitors who happen to drop in. Perhaps I am more hospitable now, which is good, since I am sure that I have entertained angels unaware.

is literature dangerous?

I sure hope so.

literary quote of the day (1/16/2011)

"If you know what you are going to write when you're writing a poem, it's going to be average."

-Derek Walcott

tell me what you read, and I will tell you what you are

I'm thinking of a possible new topic for a seminar in literature next fall. I'd call it "Bethel Favorites" and have a dozen different faculty, staff, and recent alumni pick a favorite literary work. The seminar members would read and discuss the work, but the faculty, staff, or alumni would come and present a guest lecture on how and why they "love" the piece of literature, how it speaks to them, how it has enchanted or mentored them over the years.

The implicit thesis of a course like this would be that our favorite works say something about what we are. "Tell me what you read, and I will tell you what you are."

violence on the sledding hill

The kind of sleddding/tubing--ours are neither sleds nor tubes but more like the things you see in the picture--that produces the most ecstatic laughter in my four year old daughter involves great crashes at the bottom of the hill. Sydney lies on her inflated "Rudolph the Reindeer" sled and I plow into her full bore, sending her and Rudolph hurtling, powdery snow showering us both.

Her riotous laughter, contagious.

wow... watch the whole thing closely

highlights of the day

1. Shoveling the driveway three times (okay, me twice, Jeanie once).
2. Scott Johnson's funeral, with its symbolism of flight
3. Caleb Laidig's dunk
4. Bethel beating Huntington--twice
5. Finishing ENGL 150 syllabus
6. Witnessing record breaking snowfall
7. Jeanie's Jamaican style brown-stew chicken
8. Watching "Wipeout" for five minutes
9. Completely ignoring the NFL on tv
10. Ice cream cake and popcorn

literary quote of the day (1/7/2011)

"By the pricking of my thumbs,
something wicked this way comes."

-2nd Witch, Macbeth, Shakespeare

A Nation of Cowards - The Atlantic

A Nation of Cowards - The Atlantic

firsts

Today was the...

1. First MERT meeting of the semester.

2. First class of the semester: "Sermon on the Mount & Story."

3. First office hour of the semester.

4. First time sledding this year.

5. First day of the rest of my life.

january 5, 2011

"Papa, I just had to come in and say I love you."

I guess it couldn't wait until I finished my shower. That's okay; I'll let it slide. This time.

numbers...

Number of of posts on this site in 2008: 47

Number of posts on this site in 2009: 107

Number of posts on this site in 2010: 96

Number of posts on this site so far in 2011: 3

Number of posts the author of this site has set for himself as a goal this year: 300

Number of days this year the author of this site will likely have absolutely nothing to say: 365

Number of entries this year in which the author will reference p90x: 93

Percentage of entries in the history of this blog that have been fictional or semi-fictional: 89

Percentage of entries in 2010 that were simply quotations from other authors: 62

Percentage of entries in the history of blog that have been true: 99.44

Number of times the author of this entry has fabricated a statistic: 5

Percentage of Bethel College students who should faithfully read this blog: 0

Number of walks in the woods author of blog has taken with his dog this year: 1

Percentage of those walks in which he accidentally trespassed onto private property: 100

Number of other human beings encountered during those walks: 0

Perfect temperature in Celsius for walking in the woods during January: -3

Favorite number: 33

Number of homeruns by author during 2010 fastpitch season: 11

Year of career high in homeruns (18): 2008

Number of times author has been runner-up in the World Series of Wiffleball: 2

Number times author has been world champion in the World Series of Wiffleball: 0

Most free throws author has ever made in a row: 125

Next best: 89

Most three pointers author has ever made in a row: 37

Shoe size: 11

Number of books read cover to cover in 2010: 49

Number of episodes of the Wonder Years author watched today while working out: 4

Age as of today: 40

Age as of tomorrow: 41

why i do p90x workouts

Reason #1:

Because if I don't workout hard on a regular basis, it becomes painful to play basketball and nearly impossible to concentrate while trying to read and comment on essays.

Reason #2:

Because I like being able to do more than five pullups without feeling like I want to pass out.

Reason #3:

Because I can't help myself; it's a habit now.

Reason #4:

Because I like bringing two guns and a six pack to the party.

Reason #5:

Because if those people on the commercial can do it, why can't I?

Reason #6:

Because I like sweet baby ray's barbecue sauce way too much, and if I didn't burn A LOT of calories virtually every day I might be ginormously fat.

.... to be continued....

homerun

Today, Sydney hit the longest homerun of her relatively short wiffleball career, a towering bomb to left-center field. I tossed one to her at the knees and out over the plate and she let go with the smoothest left-handed swing I've seen her make, head perfectly to ball. Crack! Papa laughs.

Not just because it's January and we're playing wiffleball, not just because Sydney is four and requested wiffleball, but because his daughter cackled as she raced around the imaginary bases in our frozen backyard.

"Good pitch, Papa!" she said, as she picked up the bat. "If we played for the Cubbies, we'd be stars."