The paint is not dry, the sign says it quite clearly as I stand by the bench.
The same sign has been on the same bench for three weeks, yet still, yet still I stand.
You see, I know what we are like.
We NEVER believe the paint is dry…until it’s wet.
Sorry, another video, but dammit this is important.
For some reason unknown to anyone but their musical director and maybe Jesus, the Towson University marching band decided to perform the following well-known anime theme song.
Watch and listen, enjoy the overbearing horn section and more vibraphones then you could kill in a month of Sundays…and see if you recognize the Anime series the music is from.
Answer is after the jump.
Sorry to post so much video today, but this is just….amazing.
Just had to share…love the song, love the video (even if the video is only half the song…).
The song is of course by Jonathan Coulton, the video was made at a Cornell Summer Animation Workshop by Pisut Wisessing.
Behold, Hu-mons…someone decided to translate and perform Eminem’s Without Me in Klingon. He even calls himself Klenginem.
Damn.
Why didn’t I think of doing that?
Now if only the rapper in question had sounded a little angrier, and a little less 16 years old…
And after the jump, because I knew you would demand them…THE LYRICS! Now we are all ready for Karaoke Night.
I knew he was that way the first time I saw him in that hat…
A new day rises.
The Bluebird of Hope soars free.
But do mind the fangs.
The following oh so tempting invitation has gone out to the world from the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, North Carolina (their website is currently suspended however…there’s a shock). I swear if I were in the area and had nothing to do Halloween night (improbably, I know, but still…) I would drop by, just for the food and the sex in the vestibule.
Halloween Book Burning
Burning Perversions of God’s Word
October 31, 20097:00 PM – Till
Great Preaching and Singing
Come to our Halloween book burning. We are burning Satan’s bibles like the NIV, RSV, NKJV, TLB, NASB, NEV, NRSV, ASV, NWT, Good News for Modern Man, The Evidence Bible, The Message Bible, The Green Bible, ect. These are perversions of God’s Word the King James Bible.
We will also be burning Satan’s music such as country , rap , rock , pop, heavy metal, western, soft and easy, southern gospel , contempory Christian , jazz, soul, oldies but goldies, etc.
We will also be burning Satan’s popular books written by heretics like Westcott & Hort , Bruce Metzger, Billy Graham , Rick Warren , Bill Hybels , John McArthur, James Dobson, Charles Swindoll , John Piper, Chuck Colson, Tony Evans, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swagart, Mark Driskol, Franklin Graham , Bill Bright, Tim Lahaye, Paula White, T.D. Jakes, Benny Hinn , Joyce Myers, Brian McLaren, Robert Schuller, Mother Teresa , The Pope , Rob Bell, Erwin McManus, Donald Miller, Shane Claiborne, Brennan Manning, William Young, etc.
We are not burning Bibles written in other languages that are based on the TR. We are not burning the Wycliffe, Tyndale, Geneva or other translations that are based on the TR.
We will be serving Bar-b-Que Chicken, fried chicken, and all the sides.
If you have any books or music to donate, please call us for pick-up. If you like you can drop them off at our church door anytime. Thanks.
My favorite part is the fact that in the list of heretical writers, they include “The Pope”. All of them? They make it sound like a stand alone title passed down father to son, like The Phantom. “Beware…the Priest that WALLKKSSSSS…” Does he get a sharp purple Mitre with a skull on the front?
I also dig that not only are they serving both fried and BBQ chicken, but “all the sides”. You can tell when a book burning is swank because they serve both potato salad AND macaroni salad.
I would be inclined to think this is a hoax, except that the always exceptional First Things is blogging about it.
As a comment from a Rabbi Fraser states on First Things, “Think positively. They are burning books, not people.”
Amen.
Also, who knew there were so many damn bibles…
OK, I am going to hell with at least eight nine, possibly ten eleven (when I am feeling self-critical) of these on my rap sheet. Feel free to guess which.
Anyone beat my total?
I am no stranger to serious and philosophical concepts in comics and graphic novels…even those considered on the surface to be juvenile. Of course there is Watchmen and it’s deconstructing of heroes, Dark Knight dealing with aging and the passing of a dream, Maus exploring man’s inhumanity to man, Persepolis looking at being a woman under the rule of religious extremism, the work of Neil Gaimen examining our relationship to the eternal and the depths of our own souls….LOTS of big chewy concepts disguised as kid stuff.
However, not even I am fully ready to face existential questions of predestination in Archie, let alone his wrestling with his inability to accept the fact that he can fully love two different people. I mean….HUH?
Despite that, this quote from the current writer about the question of who Archie will marry at the end of the current story arc is priceless…“The polls that I’ve seen ran about 80/20, Betty over Veronica, with Jughead continually coming in a strong third”.
Read on to find out more…
I want this sign as a tattoo.
I don’t care where, just somewhere cut into my flesh.
A year of shattered twilights
Words of strange intent echo back, lyrics out of time and mind
Regrets hang low behind me, like overripe fruit, marking wrong roads.
A year of shattered twilights
Cannibal memories lurk ahead in ancient sentences spoken by no one.
Recast and rephrase, running for the edge, any edge.
A year of shattered twilights
Sliding down, set like a stone on a final shelf.
Set like a final stone.
It is sad that in this day and age in the vaunted Western Democracies, bastions of freedom and wisdom amidst chaos and fundamentalism, there is still a need for Banned Books Week. This year it runs from Sept 26th to Oct 3. Check out the official website HERE to find information, details, events in your area and what you can do to battle the forces of pernicious and willful ignorance in libraries and schools around the world.
A good cross section of the so called “reasons” for book banning can be found in the list of the 10 Most Banned Books in 2008…quite a disturbing collection all in all. It seems the main element that we feel we must protect our children and ourselves from is sex (‘natch) but also right up there and far more chilling is a fear of ALTERNATE VIEWPOINTS, be it alternate views on religion, politics, the family, race or lifestyle in general.
That these titles are usually branded “unsuitable for age group”, meaning they are usually barred for the young adult/teen they were intended for is especially disappointing. Those are the years we most need books to guide us, inform us, challenge us, comfort us, make us feel not quite so freakish. That grups assume that anything a teen reads they will then slavishly emulate (“Gee, a character in this book just had unprotected sex with a stranger, got pregnant, upended their life and had an abortion…where do I sign up, baby???”) just shows how stupid and forgetful we can be as a species.
Check out the list after the jump….a couple may surprise you.
I stand with the law heavy in my arms as stone while around us the night birds swarm the dying of the light.
I watch the stone faces in the sweltering heat, hear the words intoned like living beasts of prey.
Mine eyes dazzle.
In ages past they wished sacrifice, they wished singularity, they wished a king.
What do they wish now? Each stone God gave them.
What will they be given now?
When Moses stood thus did he too debate whether to cast the stone law down, or himself?
…and a belated Happy New Year to all of you.
May you all be inscribed into the Book of Life for another year, or if not, at least know the reason why.
