Lent, Day 12

Welcoming party for newlyweds Mary and Fred.

Failure.

I think that I shall never be
Able to photograph this tree
At least, not properly
But golly gee
It pleases me.

Lent, Day 11

While we're looking back at Friday, here's another entry for the Tom Waits Lenten Songbook.

Well the rampaging sons of the widow James
Jack the cutter and the pock marked kid
Had to stand naked at the bottom of the cross
And tell the good lord what they did
Tell the good lord what they did
- "Get Behind the Mule"

Lent, Day 11

A look back at Lent, Day 10, around 1:30 p.m. Clam sandwich. You see how I suffer.

Lent, Day 10

Jesus says, "Mother I couldn't stay another day longer"
Flies right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

- Patty Griffin, "Mary"

POW Bunnies

Every day, they let us out of the cage and give us time on the ground. But there are still bars. Mary always starts trying to dig out from under - you can see where she's working in back there - but it's no use. They just keep moving the pen.

Lent, Day 9

Well I've been faithful
And I've been so good
Except for drinking
But he knew that I would.
- Tom Waits, "Jesus Gonna Be Here"

New Feature: POW Bunnies

The chickens get free run of the grounds because they lay eggs. But they're either too dumb to leave, or they actually like it here.

Second Son Made Pancakes

Cinder-who?

Lent, Day 6

Just when I thought I was done quoting lyrics to pop songs (and from Sting!)...

"Men go crazy in congregations, they only get better one by one."

That said, I do of late have a tendency to look around the inside of a church during Mass and think, "If this congregation could be roused to act..."

Lent, Day 5

"Moral posturing is part and parcel of temptation...It pretends to show us a better way, where we finally abandon our illusions and throw ourselves into the work of actually making the world a better place. It claims, moreover, to speak for true realism: What's real is what is right there in front of us - power and bread. By comparison, the things of God fade into unreality, into a secondary world that no one really needs. God is the issue: Is he real, reality itself, or isn't he? Is he good, or do we have to invent the good ourselves? The God question is the fundamental question, and it sets us down right at the crossroads of human existence."

- Pope Benedict XVI, from today's reading in Magnificat

Lent, Day 4

Saturday, 12:20 a.m.

Lent, Day 3

How on earth did I miss hearing about Lourdes?

"Jessica Hausner’s strange, mesmerizing Lourdes approaches this religious mythology with an ambiguousness that can be deeply frustrating at first, as Hausner refuses to take a position on whether the town is a wellspring of spiritual gifts, or a gaudy, exploitative tourist trap. Then the story shifts, and the film becomes an inquiry into miracles—who gets them, who doesn’t, and how it all fits into God’s inscrutable plan."

Lent, Day 2

"The terrible thing is that a perfectly good God is in this matter hardly less formidable than a Cosmic Sadist. The more we believe that God hurts only to heal, the less we can believe that there is any use in begging for tenderness. A cruel man might be bribed - might grow tired of his vile sport, might have a temporary fit of mercy, as alcoholics have fits of sobriety. But suppose you are up against a surgeon whose intentions are wholly good. The kinder and more conscientious he is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless. But is it credible that such extremities of torture should be necessary for us? Well, take your choice. The tortures occur. If they are unnecessary, then there is no God or a bad one. If there is a good God, then these tortures are necessary. For no even moderately good Being could possibly inflict or permit them if they weren't.

Either way, we're for it."

- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Happy Ash Wednesday!

"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

Happy Mardi Gras!

This song features Branford Marsalis playing one of the happiest saxophone solos I have ever heard. Not that I've heard that many. But I like this one. It starts at about 2:23.

Beginnings.

First Daughter knows the first step to founding your own world order is to have an awesome flag.

Very cool.

Minimalist TV show posters. (The one for Knight Rider is so awesome that I couldn't post it for fear of my blog bursting into flames.)

Wanna Be A Gooder Writer?

Then hie thee hence to the blog of the Gerasene Writer's Conference, Wisconsin Poet presiding. The online part is free!

I wrote a story!

The stucco-and-tile façade of the Chee Chee bar glares blackly out onto Broadway; inside, the stale air is tinged purple. A half-dozen men hunch over the bar; four of them are drinking from 24-oz. tallboys of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The bartender has stepped away from his post; that might be him studying the jukebox on the back wall, or it might not. He doesn’t have to worry much about his neglected post; “urgent” is not the watchword here. “Grouchy” might be a better call, gauging from the loudest man at the bar. “You know the old saying, ‘Women and children first?’” he asks the man next to him. “Children, I get. I don’t know about women.” It seems that love, sweet love, has struck again.

Alphonse in the news.

Jezebel and Broadsheet weigh in.

Incidentally, issue one is now available online.

Alphonse in the news.

The intrepid souls over at The Awl let me try to explain myself.

Lights Out?

Blogger just announced that they will no longer be supporting blogs that publish via FTP come March 26. Guess Godsbody can start making the necessary arrangements.

Today in Porn, Hatbox Edition

The Manhattan Lawyer passes along, appropriately enough, this bit about the legal efforts underway to make sure that nobody ever sees the John Edwards sex tape. (Insert caustic comment here about what exactly it says about society that such efforts should be deemed in any way necessary.) My favorite part of the story concerns the magic hatbox: "The video, which Hunter hid in a hatbox at her North Carolina residence, apparently came into Young's possession in mid-2008 after Hunter asked him to retrieve her passport, which was stored in the hatbox."

"Hunter! Get me my passport!"

"Where is it?"

"In the hatbox, silly! Under the sex tape!"

"Ah. Of course."