marta douglass

Movin' on up!

2011-09-14T23:33:00.000-05:00

To reflect my new name and new life, please find me at martawillcox.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Gap Yah Royal Wedding

2011-08-01T14:45:00.001-05:00

This is great. Amazing that Comedy Central (UK) totally hired the Gap Yah (video here) guy!

yes.

2011-07-30T22:20:00.001-05:00

2011-07-25T16:34:00.001-05:00

Thanks
by W. S. Merwin

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water looking out
in different directions.

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you
looking up from tables we are saying thank you
in a culture up to its chin in shame
living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you
over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the back door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks that use us we are saying thank you
with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable
unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us like the earth
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

I loved the use of this in Anne Lamott's Travelling Mercies

haha!

2011-07-22T17:48:00.000-05:00

(from here)

2011-07-21T18:50:00.002-05:00

Crack The Surface - Episode I from SilentUK on Vimeo.

claire posted this on my fbook wall. soooo interesting! makes me look at london in a whole new way.

Here's some guys in St. Louis doing the same thing: St. Louis Urban Exploration Society

Personal thoughts: I think that people like feeling a sense of control over their environment by knowing the secret nooks and crannies and being where they are "not supposed to be." There's an interesting explanation at the 5-minute mark in the video where a guy talks about how he read adventure novels when he was younger and grew up and found that he didn't have a way to be adventurous in his daily life. Urban exploration answered this for him.

giggle.

2011-07-20T17:23:00.001-05:00

giggle. taken from biz's pintrest. it's actually from (here). jono and i just bought it for our london flat from her etsy (here).

Jono loves this:

2011-07-19T19:26:00.001-05:00

Jono loves this.

2011-07-18T12:41:00.000-05:00

(from the internet)

wowza. marchesa.

2011-07-07T00:03:00.001-05:00

some wedding music:

2011-07-06T15:54:00.000-05:00

2011-07-03T22:27:00.002-05:00

this outift all the time yes.

2011-07-03T21:59:00.003-05:00

(link)

this video is a big hit with the high schoolers at my church in st. louis...enjoy!

2011-07-03T15:19:00.003-05:00

what? i know.

Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes

2011-07-02T13:03:00.002-05:00

(link)

This is the floor at the Standard Hotel restaurant in New York. Wow! I really really like the look of this! It also kind of reminds me of the story that I heard once that the rouble was once so inflated in Russia that it was actually cheaper to wallpaper your bathroom in currency notes than to buy wallpaper. I can't find that story on the internet anywhere, though. Sometimes I feel like there needs to be classes on how to google search. There are so many synonyms out there!

just pretty.

2011-07-02T12:55:00.000-05:00

(link)

great cover!

2011-07-01T21:09:00.000-05:00

Bolero

2011-06-21T12:28:00.004-05:00

I was listening to "Bolero" (because my lack of knowledge of classical music is embarrassing) and my mom walked in the room and said, "Oh every time I hear this song I think of Torvill and Dean!" "What?" We watched it together and it gave me chills. My mom says that this is reputed to be the best pairs skating performance ever.

gorgeous.

2011-06-18T17:35:00.001-05:00

(garance)

This is the best thing EVER.

2011-06-17T20:08:00.001-05:00

STUCK from Joe Ayala on Vimeo.

wow.

2011-06-16T23:09:00.001-05:00

(link)

She looks so Art-Deco.

2011-06-04T02:42:00.000-05:00

(link)

2011-05-29T10:13:00.001-05:00

2011-05-26T05:32:00.002-05:00

The Great Minimum by G. K. Chesterton

It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fatted lives that of their sweetness tire,
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

-------------

I have probably posted this poem on this blog 2 or 3 times. it's one of my favorites.

2011-05-06T05:52:00.001-05:00

szymon:

Book you can sleep on :) by Yusuke Suzuki

stolen from Jake and Anna Claire Gee's tumblr page. They're going to be missionaries in Japan (and are super cool). (GeePan-blog)

wonderful.

2011-05-06T05:50:00.001-05:00

snagged from Claire's fbook wall.

...i knew it!!

2011-05-02T11:10:00.001-05:00

swiped from (this article)

2011-04-26T09:22:00.002-05:00

two of my favorite guys in the world have a fashion blog: The Midwestyle. Check it out. I love them.

~While scanning through the back catalogue I found a mention of yours truly:

"I first came across the 10-inch shearling-lined Bean Boot about a year ago in Minnesota when I saw hot-mess-and-theologian-in-training Marta Douglass flouncing around the cold Rochester streets in them. (She's since fled the country to be with some Englishman, but I have no doubt the boots are serving her well in the London fog.)"

aww.

these are amazing

2011-04-23T12:37:00.000-05:00

YSL - from Jak&Jil blog

tube map

2011-03-31T06:49:00.003-05:00

things to look up later:

- londonist.com might be my nymag.com for over here?

- Londonist: A Guide to Alternative Tube Maps

- Geofftech.co.uk: Tube map variations

- The London Tube Map Archive

- Londonist: The Little Book of Tube Etiquette

- good site for looking up info about Abbey Mills Pump Station (here)

- "The historic pumping station at Abbey Mills is an operational by Thames Water and access is by special pre-booked tour only." Noooooooo!!

remember John Snow and epidemiology?

2011-03-22T17:05:00.001-05:00

2011-03-22T16:46:00.000-05:00

simultaneous invention list

2011-03-22T14:57:00.013-05:00

- contemporaneous invention

- simultaneous invention

- zeitgeist

- alexander graham bell and Elisha Gray both invented the telephone ("In the Air" by Malcolm Gladwell)

- "As for the telephone, it was actually invented by Meucci as far back as

1857. The various later claimants must have been influenced by the article Meucci had published in the leading American scientific magazine of the time." (- "Duplicate Inventions" by Tertius Chandler)

- more from the New Yorker Malcolm Gladwell article:

- Newton and Leibniz both discovered calculus.

- Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace both discovered evolution.

- Three mathematicians “invented” decimal fractions.

- Oxygen was discovered by Joseph Priestley, in Wiltshire, in 1774, and by Carl Wilhelm Scheele, in Uppsala, a year earlier. "In The Engines of Our Ingenuity, John Lienhard writes, “That riddle dogs all of

science. Equally futile arguments rage over who discovered oxygen. Was it Priestley who first isolated it? Lavoisier, who recognized it as a new substance but failed

to identify what the substance was, or Scheele, who got it right before either Priestley or Lavoisier but didn’t publish until after they had?”" (Scott Berkun, The Myths of Innovation, p. 73)

- Color photography was invented at the same time by Charles Cros and by Louis Ducos du Hauron, in France.

- Logarithms were invented by John Napier and Henry Briggs in Britain, and by Joost Bürgi in Switzerland.

- “There were four independent discoveries of sunspots, all in 1611; namely, by Galileo in Italy, Scheiner in Germany, Fabricius in Holland and Harriott in England,” Ogburn and Thomas note, and they continue:

- The law of the conservation of energy, so significant in science and philosophy, was formulated four times independently in 1847, by Joule, Thomson, Colding and Helmholz. They had been anticipated by Robert Mayer in 1842.

- There seem to have been at least six different inventors of the thermometer

- and no less than nine claimants of the invention of the telescope.

- Typewriting machines were invented simultaneously in England and in America by several individuals in these countries.

- The steamboat is claimed as the “exclusive” discovery of Fulton, Jouffroy, Rumsey, Stevens and Symmington.
- Jason Bardi, The Calculus Wars

- Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler both independently produced the world's first gasoline-powered automobile in Germany in 1885/1886. Austrians claim Siegfried Marcus in 1864. A Frenchman invented the first steam-driven car in 1769(from about.com)

- early versions of the bicycle: J.N. Niepce in Paris in 1816 and Karl von Drais in Mannheim in 1817 (from about.com)

- radar

- television: "More recently, the invention of television involved a five-way

overlap of creative effort more complex than the Newton/Leibniz

debate. Paul Nipkow was the first to consider sending images over

wires back in 1884, but he never made a working prototype. In

1907, A. A. Campbell-Swinton and Boris Rosing were the first to

suggest cathode ray tubes, but it wasn’t until Vladimir Zworkin

and Philo Farnsworth—working separately in the 1920s—that

true working models of television existed. The inventors worked

independently but simultaneously at the same basic goals with

trails of overlapping concepts, progressions, and business politics

too complex to follow. Like most innovations, if you crack open

the invention of television in search of singular answers, you find

more questions (which we’ll explore later in this chapter)." (Scott Berkun,The Myths of Innovation, p. 74)

- The Myths of Innovation by Scott Berkun

- MRI imaging

- motion pictures

- "some believe the zeitgeist theory of innovation - that cultural forces tell the true story of innovation. How else can we explain the WEstern Resaissance, Enlightenment, and Dark Ages without lookinga t the entire environment? from this viewpoint, individuals pay a large debt to factors beyond their control." (Scott Berkun, The Myths of Innovation, p. 73)

- carbon copy paper: Ralph Wedgwood (England), 1806; James Watt (Scotland), 1779; Turri (Italy), 1808 (Wired.com article)

- John Couch Adams (Cambridge) and Urbain Le Verrier (Paris) both discovered the planet Neptune in 1845 (wikipedia article on it). Bouvard had told scientists in 1821 where to look in the solar system.

- "Duplicate Inventions" by Tertius Chandler

- Mendelson's Law: In 1900, however, his work was "re-discovered" by three European scientists,Hugo de Vries, Carl Correns, and Erich von Tschermak. The exact nature of the "re-discovery" has been somewhat debated: De Vries published first on the subject, mentioning Mendel in a footnote, while Correns pointed out Mendel's priority after having read De Vries's paper and realizing that he himself did not have priority. De Vries may not have acknowledged truthfully how much of his knowledge of the laws came from his own work, or came only after reading Mendel's paper. Later scholars have accused Von Tschermak of not truly understanding the results at all. (wikipedia)

- James Burke, Connections

- and his BBC series from the 70s (which seems kind of silly now) are all on youtube (how nice!)

- the telescope: three Dutchmen in 1608, Della Porta (Italy) in 1580. (wiki)

- Logarithms: Napier in 1614 and Burgi in 1620

- "Photography is one of the few genuine cases of simultaneous invention. It

is really quite remarkable: Niepce and Daguerre were inspired by lithography

(invented by Senefelder in 1796), and their rival Talbot was set off by some-

thing quite different-Wollaston’s temporary-image star - camera (1802).

Again, photo negatives were separately invented by Reade in 1839 and Talbot

in 1840. Yet one should add that the pin-hole camera effect goes back to

Alhazen (d. 1039) and simple photochemistry to J. H. Schulze in 1727." (- "Duplicate Inventions" by Tertius Chandler)

- "Cailletet and PIctet both liquefied oxygen in 1877. They worked only 150 miles apart, yet claimed ignorance of each other." (- "Duplicate Inventions" by Tertius Chandler)

- the invention of zero?

Another post to look up things from

2011-03-20T16:59:00.002-05:00

I met up with a friend from L'Abri tonight (4 and a half years ago I was there!) and she gave me a delightful night of conversation and a couple things to look up:

- book on marriage, which a L'Abri worker gave the highest praise of saying that it was the only book on marriage he has read which didn't make him want to bash his head in. The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason. Have to look that one up.

- The Now Show on BBC Radio 4 (link here) - like of like the Daily Show maybe?

- Dylan Moran (irish comedian) - "monster" and "Like, Totally"

the conclusion

2011-03-20T16:58:00.002-05:00

sigh...I feel I must report the conclusion of the aubergine vs. eggplant debate. 13 year old N found in some British encyclopedia the entry for aubergine being "the fruit of the eggplant." I am officially humbled and corrected. Kind of.

Something I learned today...Eggplants vs. Aubergines

2011-03-11T14:11:00.004-06:00

vs.

13 year old N and I had a good solid 20 minute argument over Aubergines versus Eggplants. This is one of the many US vs. UK food names that I have discovered. Others that I can think of right now: Oregano (UK) = Cilantro (US). Swede (UK) = Rutabaga (US). Celeriac (UK) = Celery Root (US). I knew I was stubborn but am discovering how nationalistic I am.

Brief outline of the eggplant/aubergine debate:

N: (incredulous) Eggplant?! Wots an EGGplant??

M: (sigh) This. This what I'm cooking with. This is an eggplant. We went over this the other night with aluminum. Both are right. You say aubergine. We US people call them eggplants.

N: yeah because they're called aubergines.

M: no they're called eggplants

N: no they're called aubergines

M: why do you call them aubergines? that sounds french.

N: because they're called aubergines.

...immediately we're on google...

N scores an early point by looking up "eggplant" and finding that the actual vegetable is called an aubergine while the plant itself is called an eggplant. I suffer momentary losses. I regain composure and ask her to look up the etymology of "aubergine." Win. Aubergine is derived from the Arabic al-baoinjan. More win: then the FRENCH took the Arabic word and made their word: aubergine.

M: so basically you guys just used the French word while WE translated it to the ENGLISH word - eggplant.

Victory!! ...or is it? N proves to be a true contender and has not surrendered....yet. Part 2 to come.

very very fast explanation

2011-03-11T14:11:00.001-06:00

The United Kingdom Explained from C. G. P. Grey on Vimeo.

thanks to allie for posting this on facebook

book report: "Diffusion of Innovations"

2011-03-08T10:23:00.005-06:00

Briefly, Diffusion of Innovations is a massive book that has sat on my shelf since 2007. I've always wanted to read it (for reasons I'll go into later) but didn't really have time until now. It's a treat at 471 pages and very readable.

But...to my point. One of the surprisingly enjoyable aspects of it (I was expecting it to be very academic and ridiculous) is that it has plenty of case studies. Although I am reading it cover to cover, I just flipped to a random page today and found this case study:

"Dr. John Snow and the Cholera Epidemic in London"

The diffusion of an innovation and the spread of an epidemic have much in common, and similar mathematical models have been used to understand these processes (Bailey, 1975). One of the important fathers of epidemiology (the study of epidemics, how a disease is distributed in a population and factors that influence this distribution) was Dr. John Snow, a medical doctor in London in 1854. A cholera epidemic was under way in the city, and some five-hundred people had died of the mysterious disease. Some believed that the disease was carried by miasmata ("bad airs"), while other blamed Jews for the illness (a form of anti-Semitism).

John Snow set out to find the cause of cholera through"shoe-leather epidemiology." He plotted the number of cholera deaths in each house on a dot-map for a neighborhood in London, Golden Square (a sub-district of Soho), in which the epidemic was especially sever. Snow found that many of the cholera deaths were concentrated around a water pump on Broad Street. Of the eighty-three cholera victims in the area, all but ten were located closer to the Broad Street pump than to any other public water pump. He talked to the affected families, who admitted that they always fetched their water from the Broad Street pump. Snow conclude that cholera was carried by water polluted by sewage.*

On September 8, 1854, he removed the pump handle, and the cholera deaths soon stopped. Snow became a hero of public health for his theory of waterborne disease transmission. Today, a replica of a handleless pump stand on Broadwick Street (the current name for Broad Street), kitty corner to the pump's original location. A plaque is affixed to a building on Frith Street where Snow had his first medical practice, commemorating him as a pioneer of epidemiology." (pp.336-337 in Diffusion of Innovation, 2003)

Okay, wanna know a cool thing? I looked up the pump on google maps and found it! here's the picture from Broadwick Street:

and also! down the block is a pub called The John Snow! I smell a field trip. Am I home-schooling myself? Well, as long as beer is involved.

*also related to my personal field-trip idea of going to the Abbey Mills Pump House - this was around the time of "The Great Stink."

To become an expert on...Jono (part 1 of...)

2011-03-08T08:49:00.003-06:00

I read Sheldon Vanauken's book A Severe Mercy a couple years ago and in it Vanauken chronicles his love story with his wife. They come up with a wonderful idea, as they see themselves as defenders and architects of their love and think strategically about how to protect and sustain it. One of their methods was to invest time and energy into investigating whatever the other was interested in. To be devoted to the same hobbies (or at least knowledgeable about the area) created a stronger bond. Vanauken writes (swiped from her blog): "If one of us likes anything, there must be something to like in it-and the other one must find it. Every single thing that either of us likes. That way we shall create a thousand strands, great and small, that will link us together. Then we shall be so close that it would be impossible-unthinkable-for either of us to suppose that we could ever recreate such a closeness with anyone else. And our trust in each other will not only be based on love and loyalty but on the fact of a thousand sharings-a thousand strands twisted into something unbreakable.”*

As I was talking with JL about how I didn't really understand or appreciate classical music, JL brought up the idea from Vanauken's book. And so that is what I'm doing here. To seek to understand what is good and likeable about Mahler's 2nd symphony "The Resurrection." It's a good thing, too, because Jono and I are going to go hear it live at the Royal Festival Hall for his birthday. Might as well understand and enjoy the 90 minutes of it.

Okay, so here's the deal. What's hard for me with classical music is that I don't really understand the language. I need to understand what is going on to mentally engage with the music because I often don't find it purely pleasurable to just listen to that style of music. It's similar for me with most art, actually. If I understand kind of what the artist was maybe trying to say and it is a lot more enjoyable for me (some might say that this is cheating and that one should just experience the art and draw their own conclusions. To that I say rubbish!).

So, this is from wikipedia (honestly couldn't find anyone else talking about it) "Mahler devised a narrative programme for the work, which he told to a number of friends. In this programme, the first movement represents a funeral and asks questions such as "Is there life after death?"; the second movement is a remembrance of happy times in the life of the deceased; the third movement represents a view of life as meaningless activity; the fourth movement is a wish for release from life without meaning; and the fifth movement – after a return of the doubts of the third movement and the questions of the first – ends with a fervent hope for everlasting, transcendent renewal, a theme that Mahler would ultimately transfigure into the music of his sublime Das Lied von der Erde."

See? That's helpful. Then I can understand where Gustav Mahler was coming from and choose to agree or disagree with his handling of the subject matter. Or...decide that the music really means something else and be self-satisfied with my own interpretation.

*as a side note: later on in the book Vanauken is honest about how, once his wife became a Christian (and he wasn't yet), he did have a moment of emotional infidelity where he felt a bond with another woman. I still feel that the idea stands up as a good one. At the very least it is a loving thing to seek to understand what your other half sees as good.

sooo cool!

2011-03-08T05:14:00.001-06:00

People I want to work for: Clare Short

2011-03-04T16:49:00.001-06:00

read about her (here) - I'll write more later.

2011 TED prize winner: artist JR

2011-03-01T03:44:00.001-06:00

check out the video (here). it is so mind-blowing.

To become an expert on...The Big Society

2011-02-27T17:33:00.002-06:00

Many conversations I have had the last three weeks have mentioned The Big Society. Roughly defined (by wikipedia - here) it is "the flagship policy idea of the 2010 UK Conservative Party general election manifesto. It now forms part of the legislative programme of the Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement.^[1] The aim is "to create a climate that empowers local people and communities, building a big society that will 'take power away from politicians and give it to people'."

I want to figure out what that means.

Wikipedia is just to easy to ignore. I'm going to go through their definition and try to figure out everything on there that confuses me. That should be a good starting point.

Okay, so here are some things that go into The Big Society:

1. There will be a Big Society Bank established in 2011 that will take money from banks, dormant British accounts (??), and charitable contributions. This money can be accessed by grants from charity organizations and community centers.

The Bank is a non-governmental organization. It will be financially self-sufficient. this is what it says (from the cabinent report): "second, the Bank must help prove that putting

money into social ventures can generate both

social impact and real inancial returns. This is

vital for building market conidence in what is

a new ‘asset class’. It is also part of building the

Bank’s own investment track record, and thus

its ability to raise more capital if required"

What that sounds like is something like the microfunding projects like kiva.org and that other one by the Indian guy who only lends to women (i can't find the name of it now - GRAMA VASANTHAM' maybe? Gramin bank!) where they claim that social entrepreneuership lending is actually profitable. but this is different. how can non-profits be profitable? am i missing something? moving on...

ok, ok...The Big Society Bank will not directly accept grants from non-profits. Rather it will give money to funds (intermediaries) that will give money to "social ventures." okay, i'm with you so far. i think the part that is confusing is that i'm not familiar with anything like this happening anywhere else. i need a podcast on this.

The New Yorker wrote a piece on this (Lauren Collins: "What's the Big Society?") and referenced Edmund Burke who is viewed as the philosophical founder of modern conservatism in the UK. And the New Yorker associated him with ideas such as government being left out of people's affairs and instead small bands of citizens joining together to accomplish things in society. I am out of my depth here.

"Communitarian Conservatism?"

An idea that might be scary to Brits but is normal to Americans is the existence of a big philanthropic sector. Americans don't assume that the government should be the first to help out homeless people. They assume that the shelters should. Why do we assume this? The Big Society is encouraging people to start taking responsibility for helping each other out instead of the government helping out. Wow. how does one change the social assumptions of a nation?? Wow.

The Labour Party has called this plan "DIY Britain" - haha.

2011-02-26T08:45:00.001-06:00

"Armed with such parallels, the Ever Wasers smile condescendingly at the Better-Nevers and say, “Of course, some new machine is always ruining everything. We’ve all been here before.” But the Better-Nevers can say, in return, “What if the Internet is actually doing it?” The hypochondriac frets about this bump or that suspicious freckle and we laugh—but sooner or later one small bump, one jagged-edge freckle, will be the thing for certain. Worlds really do decline. “Oh, they always say that about the barbarians, but every generation has its barbarians, and every generation assimilates them,” one Roman reassured another when the Vandals were at the gates, and next thing you knew there wasn’t a hot bath or a good book for another thousand years."
- "How the Internet Gets Inside Us" by Adam Gopnik
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/02/14/110214crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz1F4nJPE3x

2011-02-26T08:34:00.000-06:00

"the real damage is being done at the neurological level, that our children are having their brains altered by too much instant messaging and the like. This sounds impressive but turns out to be redundant. Of course the changes are in their brains; where else would they be? It’s the equivalent of saying that playing football doesn’t just affect a kid’s fitness; it changes the muscle tone that creates his ability to throw and catch footballs."
"How the Internet gets Inside Us" by Adam Gopnik
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/02/14/110214crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz1F4khqLab

2011-02-26T08:30:00.000-06:00

"Cognitive entanglement, after all, is the rule of life. My memories and my wife’s intermingle. When I can’t recall a name or a date, I don’t look it up; I just ask her. Our machines, in this way, become our substitute spouses and plug-in companions. Jerry Seinfeld said that the public library was everyone’s pathetic friend, giving up its books at a casual request and asking you only to please return them in a month or so. Google is really the world’s Thurber wife: smiling patiently and smugly as she explains what the difference is between eulogy and elegy and what the best route is to that little diner outside Hackensack. The new age is one in which we have a know-it-all spouse at our fingertips."

from "How the Internet Gets Inside Us" by Adam Gopnik
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/02/14/110214crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz1F4jkJL6y

2011-02-26T07:56:00.000-06:00

from (here) - Milk and Roses Cafe - Brooklyn, NY

London sewerage system

2011-02-26T07:16:00.005-06:00

Place to visit next: London sewerage system.

Mainly because I've never heard anyone talk about it and it was on wikipedia's list of modern wonders of the world (here). and that's amazing.

Here's why it's cool:

- because it's beautiful

- was covered in the BBC mini-series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World (covering feats of engineering during the Industrial Revolution)

- "In the summer of 1858...London was in the grip of a crisis known as the 'Great Stink'. The population had grown rapidly during the first half of the 19th century, yet there had been no provision for sanitation."

- Parliament only authorized funds for the sanitation after "The Great Stink," defined: The Great Stink, or the Big Stink, was a time in the summer of 1858 during which the smell of untreated human waste was very strong in central London, England. (link). awesome.

- so, what happened was this: "Joseph Bazalgette, a civil engineer and Chief Engineer of the Metropolitan Board of Works, was given responsibility for the work. He designed an extensive underground sewerage system that diverted waste to theThames Estuary, downstream of the main centre of population. Six main interceptory sewers, totalling almost 100 miles (160 km) in length, were constructed, some incorporating stretches of London's 'lost' rivers." (also wiki)

These people know how to build a sewage treatment plant - it's so beautiful! Much better job than these guys: MSD-St. Louis.

2011-02-26T07:13:00.001-06:00

this is my girl becky. it is a privilege to know her.

London Fashion Week: Saturday

2011-02-21T17:10:00.003-06:00

London Fashion Week: Monday

2011-02-21T17:00:00.001-06:00

missouri!

2011-02-18T05:29:00.002-06:00

from fifty and fifty - the state mottoes project (here) where fifty designers tackle the fifty state mottoes. this one by tad carpenter.

in other news, 11 year old girl actually thought i said "misery" the first time I said my state. jokes abound.

Ever-Waser am I

2011-02-17T10:14:00.004-06:00

"All three kinds appear among the new books about the Internet: call them the Never-Betters, the Better-Nevers, and the Ever-Wasers. The Never-Betters believe that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic, news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake themselves. The Better-Nevers think that we would have been better off if the whole thing had never happened, that the world that is coming to an end is superior to the one that is taking its place, and that, at a minimum, books and magazines create private space for minds in ways that twenty-second bursts of information don’t. The Ever-Wasers insist that at any moment in modernity something like this is going on, and that a new way of organizing data and connecting users is always thrilling to some and chilling to others—that something like this is going on is exactly what makes it a modern moment. One’s hopes rest with the Never-Betters; one’s head with the Ever-Wasers; and one’s heart? Well, twenty or so books in, one’s heart tends to move toward the Better-Nevers, and then bounce back toward someplace that looks more like home.

From "The Information" by Adam Gopnik (Feb 14 issue of the New Yorker)
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/02/14/110214crat_atlarge_gopnik#ixzz1EEX7pr00

It's perspectives like this that make me love the New Yorker. I find myself to be an eternal "Ever-Waser."

Tinie Tempah - "Pass Out"

2011-02-16T11:32:00.003-06:00

the Brit awards (read: British Grammys) were on last night and this guy won British single of the year. Thus confirming that Top-40-esque songs are not great on their own merit but only gain affection after hearing it every 20 minutes on top 40 radio. But, as those songs go, it's not bad.

A list of the winners (here).

Interesting that all the "international artists" are Americans. I wonder how often that happens.

I'm all verklempt (actual spelling, I looked it up). Discuss amongst yourselves. Here's a topic: Americans are cultural colonialists. Discuss.

2011-02-15T08:48:00.001-06:00

stolen from claire.

2011-02-15T08:41:00.002-06:00

Claire showed me the new wedding website from the people at Anthropologie, BHLDN. These photos are from an old collection found in Belgium. The one on the right - what the??

do you see it?

2011-02-12T16:47:00.001-06:00

London so far...

2011-02-12T16:01:00.002-06:00

God was very sweet to me and blessed me with weekend plans my first week here! Last night at dinner, here are the things that I wrote down to look up:

- Sophie Dahl (after a conversation about cook book authors and me gushing over Nigella). Apparently she's in the same vein as Nigella, full of sensuousness and femininity while(st) cooking. Love. From the BBC's write food website for her recipes (here): "After the success of both a novella and a full-length novel, Sophie published her first cookery book, Miss Dahl’s Voluptuous Delights, in 2009. The recipes were inspired by Sophie’s childhood memories and the travelling she did as a model. Some of the book’s recipes were brought to the screen for BBC2’s The Delicious Miss Dahl, broadcast the following year."

of come to think of it, I do remember her being a famous plus-size model. Yay for femininity!

- BBC's Good Food website (here):* apparently fantastic recipes. we'll see if it usurps williams-sonoma as king of my stove.

- TV show: My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. A new friend was talking about gypsies who get married around 16 and cook and clean and have children for the rest of their lives. unsurprisingly their wedding day is the best day ever. and completely crazy because they are planned by 16 year old girls and encompass the fantasies of 16 year old girls. (favorite picture here). turn about is fair play and i shared with them the glories of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant. Bam!

*yay for English hilariousness - in registering on the Good Food website, it offers you the option of "Master" for your title along with Mr. and Miss and everything else normal. Hahahha.

Book Report: 'Hold Me Tight'

2011-02-09T10:31:00.003-06:00

Now that I have plenty of time on my hands, being unemployed, I am reading the books that I have heard about or have been assigned that I have never had the time to read until now. One of those is Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Dr. Sue Johnson. It was assigned for my Marriage and Family Counseling class at seminary and my professor said it was spot-on.

so far:

"Distressed partners may use different words but they are always asking the same basic questions, 'Are you there for me? Do I matter to you? Will you come when I need you, when I call?'"

"Distress in a relationship adversely affects our immune and hormonal systems, and even our ability to heal. In one fascinating experiment, psychologist Janice Kiecolt-Glaser of Ohio State University had newlyweds fight, then took blood samples over the next several hours. She found that he more belligerent and contemptuous the partners were, the higher the level of stress hormones and the more depressed the immune system. The effects persisted for up to twenty-four hours. In an even more astounding study, Kiecolt-Glaser used a vacuum pump to produce small blisters on the hands of women volunteers, then had them fight wit their husbands. The nastier the fight, the longer it took for the woman's skin to heal." (p.25)

-- I discussed this last one with Alexis and Allie the other day and Alexis said that this makes sense because when we are loved we are more like whom we are supposed to be - like pre-Fall garden perfect, when we could experience the full loving relationship that we had with God.

jono loves this lecture:

2011-02-09T06:25:00.002-06:00

the past couple months or so jono and i have been talking about work/life balance. talking to allie and sharon a couple days ago, i remembered making a vow to myself in middle school to live a life where i wasn't stressed out. i've gotten mediocre grades and don't really have a "career," per se. but i'm happy and I have friends and family that I love. i don't really think that that vow should define my life - avoiding anything that might stress me out. and i obviously forgot that i made it. but i do think that life has been a little better (in some ways) because of that vow.

best cake ever!

2011-02-09T06:21:00.000-06:00

2011-02-04T19:48:00.001-06:00

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

The idea that everything references everything is an interesting one to me. It goes along with the "there's nothing new under the sun" idea. I have more ideas about this but I'm way too busy packing for London. Maybe later.

2011-01-31T18:24:00.001-06:00

flashvars="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&songIDs=23510159&style=metal&p=0" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="window" />

cultural differences

2011-01-24T23:17:00.004-06:00

some lonesome train station from while I was at L'Abri in 2006

"British Rail was having a bad day. We crept a mile or so out of the station, then sat for a long time for no evident reason. Eventually a voice announced that because of faults farther up the line this train would terminate at Stockport, which elicited a general groan. Finally, after about twenty minutes, the train falteringly started forward and limped across the green countryside. At each station the voice apologized for the delay and announced anew that the train would terminate at Stockport. When at last we reached Stockport, ninety minutes late, I expected everyone to get off, but no one moved, so neither did I. Only one passenger, a Japanese fellow, dutifully disembarked, when watched in dismay as the train proceeded on, without explanation and without him, to Manchester."

-p.238 Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson

I am sure that I have been in similar situations before and have been the Japanese guy. When in strange circumstances, I revert to the safety of black-and-white thinking and follow rules. When no one moved, I would just assume (contrary to all reason) that everyone on the train was a train employee and was going to the train employee lot after the line terminated and where I would be stranded and glared at.

i love this male model

2011-01-24T23:16:00.002-06:00

junya watanabe, from thesartorialist

2011-01-20T23:29:00.001-06:00

Well, I can imagine him beyond the world, looking back at me with an amazement of realization - "This is why we have lived this life!" There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.

-- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2011-01-20T23:22:00.002-06:00

"I told them, If you want to inform yourselves as to the nature of hell, don't hold your hand in a candle flame, just ponder the meanest, most desolate place in your soul.

They all did ponder a good while, and I did, too, listening to the evening wind and the cicadas. I came near alarming myself with the thought of the loneliness stretching ahead of me, and the new bitterness of it, and how I hated the secretiveness and the renunciation that honor and decency required of me and that common sense enforced on me. But when I looked up, your mother was watching me, smiling a little, and touched my hand and she said, "You'll be just fine."

How soft her voice is. That there should be such a voice in the whole world, and that I should be the one to hear it, seemed to me then and seems to me now an unfathomable grace.

She began to come to the house when some of the other women did, to take the curtains away to wash, to defrost the icebox. And then she started coming by herself to tend the gardens. She made them very fine and prosperous. And one evening when i saw here there, out by the wonderful roses, I said, "How can I repay you for all this?"

And she said, "You ought to marry me." And I did.

-- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

2011-01-16T22:48:00.001-06:00

photo by Ditte Isager

side note: Ditte Isager shot the photos for a cook book that my brother picked up over the holidays called Noma: time and place in nordic cuisine about a chef who is creating food that incorporates elements of the food's natural environment. For example, mushrooms are put along other food items that would be found in the immediate environment were mushrooms grow - like twigs and grasses and birds.

Like a Kid in a Grocery Store

2011-01-16T15:21:00.004-06:00

I work at a small chain grocery store, one that specializes in "fashion foods" (as my manager told me during my training). As such, it serves a mostly upper-middle-class clientele (which is the same socio-economic group that i have in my youth group), and so, as a true fake ethnographer, I get to see my target in another environment: shopping.

I guess there are many different things I could comment on, especially after pondering the 'To the Best of Our Knowledge' podcast on consumerism a couple weeks ago. Upon further reflection of consumerism and after observing the ritual of shopping for 4 months, I have come to see how much shopping is really a heart activity.

One piece of evidence I see to support this is how kids acts towards their parents inside the grocery store. I have seen kids, practically from the time they can walk freely, approach their parents innumerable times with something to buy. As an employee this is curious because that is precisely my job. I am to approach customers with things that I think that they might like. We don't work on commission by any means but we are kind of a hands-on grocery store with our customers. So the first time I noticed what was going on was when I started to realize that the kids are doing my job for me.

I am trying to see it from the kid's angle: what are they getting out of this? The parents are usually harried, on the phone, distracted, and a little peeved. By pointing out different items for their parent to buy, the child is requesting that attention be paid to them, but this is valuable attention. If the kid succeeds in their parents buying whatever they just pulled off the shelf to offer them the parent is putting money (and therefore value) in the child and what the child wants. This feels good. Besides the attention and confirmation, let's not forget that the child is actually getting the food item that they wanted as well.

There is also some commentary about capitalism tapping into our need for love and approval that needs to happen here. In college I took all classes that had to do with pop culture, cultural studies, etc. In one of them we were assigned the book Can't Buy My Love by Jean Kilbourne. In the book she highlights how advertising poses their products as the perfect lovers, satisfying what human relationships fail to do. It's convincing.

The back of the book reads: "Many advertisements these days make us feel as if we have an intimate, even passionate relationship with a product. But as Jean Kilbourne points out in this fascinating and shocking expose, the dreamlike promise of advertising always leaves us hungry for more. We can never be satisfied, because the products we love cannot love us back."

Which puts it all squarely in the category of...idols. Of course! We behave the way we do about products - with greed, obsession, discipline in saving, recklessness in not saving - because we are worshiping them. It feels like it, anyways. So what does this have to do with the kids in the grocery store?

Kids connect the products they are persuading their parents to buy with the love that we all associate with those products - obsessive idolatrous love. The kids want to get a piece of the action. We are so in love with the products that we buy that kids sense that there is love to be had there. It's still a good thing to be hit in the cross-fire of love between a parent and a product than to miss out on it all. And also there is a nice feeling of control when the child has influence over the direction of the parent's love. Greed is good when you feel loved by it, the feeling says. And this love for products may be one of the most powerful expressions of love that we observe in a such a capitalistic nation...or at least the most predictable.

http://9-eyes.com

2011-01-10T20:24:00.003-06:00

this is from the blog 9 eyes by the artist Jon Rafman. I read about it in the article "Global Entertainment" by Rob Walker. Jon Rafman compiles beautiful and bizarre images from Google's Street View and posts them on his tumblr. Amazing.

Oh, and I also don't know how to shrink images i get from the internet on blogger. help?

intel presents: the sartorialist

2011-01-10T19:47:00.003-06:00

thoughts that ran through my mind

1. kind of funny that intel sponsored this. especially that since i was just listening to a 'to the best of our knowledge' podcast on the way home from work on consumerism. a columnist from the new york times, Rob Walker, was on talking about his (somewhat obvious) observation that companies advertise in ways that have nothing at all to do with what they are actually selling. this is one example. by intel creating this short (7 minutes) film, I think that they are stylish and am reminded that they exist and write about them on my blog (that 4 people read...hah! stick it to the man!)

2. i wonder how scott actually earns enough money to fly to all the fashion weeks he attends. advertising and side projects certainly cannot foot the bill...or can they?

3. he is a very good-looking man

4. he's from the midwest!! omg!! maybe he's from st. louis!! (Jonathan Franzen is - new discovery). no....wikipedia shot down my dreams = Indiana.

5. waaaay cool to see him actually approach a person to ask them if he could take their photo. i always wondered how they (all street fashion photographers) did it. i've had to approach strangers before to ask them to do a favor (sign a petition, etc.) and it's HORRIBLE. but i guess he's actually paying them a compliment so they like it in some way. i'm sure he has amazing stories of people cussing him out and getting all paranoid. yes. scott is now on my "dream dinner party" list. along with all the hosts of Globe Trekker. they must have great stories too.

6. ahhh! they show the girl who was wearing the dansko shoes! i have that exact pair and i wear them to work and secretly think they're awesome looking but feel slightly 40 years old when i try to wear them outside of work. suck it, world! the sartorialist and a hip new yorker girl think they're awesome!

7. i kind of wanted to write down word-for-word what he said at the end about the world becoming more homogeneous with the internet but it would take forever and he was really just talking about blogs. he did make the point that the internet has not completely made the world homogeneous, as milan and paris and new york are all still themselves but the internet allows us all to access the super-fashionable people there. i don't know about that. i am in st. louis and dress the way i do because of a lot of reasons but i am extremely influenced by the sartorialist and his girlfriend garance. i am positive that i am not alone. doesn't that make the world more homogeneous? how can the internet not have that effect?

(*also, thanks to Allie for posting this on my fbook wall)

2010-12-23T16:56:00.000-06:00

now that I'm a do check-out and bagging at a grocery store, it's good to know...

2010-12-19T21:10:00.002-06:00

"[Adam] Smith's real question, it turns out, was not the economist's question, How do we get richer and poorer?, or even the philosopher's question, How should one live? It was the modern question, Darwin's question: How do you find and make order in a world without God?"

- Adam Gopnik, "Market Man: What did Adam Smith really believe?" in The New Yorker, Oct 18, 2010

Some version of that modern question was what the Sociology department at Mizzou was trying to answer. It didn't make sense to me.

2010-12-19T21:08:00.001-06:00

"The first lesson reading teaches is how to be alone."

- Jonathan Franzen, How to be Alone: Essays

tulle on my face all the time!

2010-12-19T15:32:00.001-06:00

(jakandjil) - lanvin and h&m

2010-12-19T14:51:00.000-06:00

(credit where credit is due)

2010-12-18T17:58:00.000-06:00

(spreadthelove - etsy)

2010-12-18T17:50:00.000-06:00

(jcrewing)

2010-12-18T17:49:00.000-06:00

(source)

so many things that i like about men can be seen here.

2010-12-18T17:48:00.001-06:00

(musingsinfemininity)

beautiful.

2010-12-13T00:07:00.001-06:00

(credit where credit is due)

Task: List the clues that tell you that this photo was taken in France and not in America.

2010-10-19T22:55:00.002-05:00

I was all about this song in 7th and 8th grade. For my eighth grade English class we were doing a section on poetry and I turned in the lyrics to Lauryn's rap as a poem. I think I misunderstood the assignment and thought that we could turn in "found" poetry. I can only imagine what my teacher thought as she read this:

Loving you is a like a song I replay
Every three minutes and thirty seconds of every day (Uh)
And every chorus (Uh) was written for us to recite (Right)
Every beautiful melody of devotion every night
This potion might, (Uh)this ocean might (Uh) carry me (Uh)
In a wave of emotion to ask you to marry me
And every word, every second, and every third
Expresses the happiness more clearly than ever heard (Uh)
And when I play ‘em, every chord is a poem
Telling the Lord how grateful I am because I know him
The harmonies (Word) possess a sensation similar to your caress (Uh)
If you asking then I'm telling you it's yes (Yes, yes)
Stand in love, take my hand and love Jah bless
Right, right

2010-10-17T23:35:00.003-05:00

From Le Petit Prince.

It’s not a hat, it’s a boa constrictor digesting an elephant.

“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”

from tattoolit.com

I remember reading 'The Little Prince' while taking my brother Clay to college, which means I was around 8 years old. I remember sitting in a hammock with my mom at Covenant College while she translated the French version aloud and I read the English version and would correct her. For all the times that I've read the book I don't think I've ever finished it.

What's up with US territories (that aren't states)?

2010-09-27T11:53:00.001-05:00

Unincorporated organized territories

Guam (since 1898): also the home of a U.S. Naval Base and a U.S. Air Force Base.
Northern Mariana Islands: formerly a United Nations Trust Territory under the administration of the United States, it established itself as a U.S. Commonwealth in 1978.
Puerto Rico (since 1898): established as a U.S. Commonwealth in 1952.
United States Virgin Islands (since 1927): these were purchased by the U.S. from Denmark, initially in order to add to the defenses of the Panama Canal.^{[citation needed]}

Harvest

2010-09-09T21:10:00.005-05:00

Harvest time blows my mind. After a long time of working with my plants - planting, watering, fretting - they've finally produced fruit. I completely forgot about them giving something back! What an unexpected gift!

This is from the Mission Garden at my church. I got two plots and am growing watermelon (they're tiny!), squash, cucumber (I think?), tomatoes, and peppers! This is one of the first fruits!

I received this orchid plant about a year ago and it looked like this. And then the blooms died and it hasn't looked like this again until now. It was fascinating watching it grow. Slowly a small vine started to sprout from the base and grew longer and I attached it to this bamboo rod and propped up the blooms. Amazing! Orchids remind me of the movie Adaptation. Anyone?

This last guy was actually a mistake. I realized really late that I need to stake my tomatoes. So while I was wrangling the plants, one of the branches broke off with this green tomato on it. I looked up a recipe for Fried Green Tomatoes and am considering giving it a shot.

2010-09-09T21:08:00.000-05:00

from Hedi Slimane diary

2010-09-06T16:38:00.002-05:00

from popcultureafternoon

i am counted among the delighted!

2010-08-24T12:12:00.002-05:00

This is new from Sufjan Stevens. I heard about this from Claire. Listen to it here.

I recommend the song "From the Mouth of Gabriel" - it is so choice.

2010-08-19T22:59:00.002-05:00

me, age 14.

"I have begun to understand what deeply spiritual people teenagers are. (Silly of me to have forgotten, when I was one myself.) Even the scruffiest middle-schooler is on a seriously beautiful, completely unique journey, as we all are, and have been, even when we were little kids."

- Melissa Range, Poet, Youth Ministry volunteer, Oakhurst Baptist Church, Decatur, Georgia

from Contemplative Youth Ministry by Mark Yaconelli

Agricultural Subsidies

2010-08-17T11:25:00.002-05:00

The original purpose of my blog was to create a place where I can give myself homework and store the information (and maybe discuss it with other people too). Here's a new assignment.

Last night at the Forum we discussed food. The Forum is a group that was started by my friend Dan Parris (see below) so that we can share expertise with each other and discuss topics. My friend Kate talked last night about food (mostly citing Michael Pollan and the documentary 'Food, Inc.'). Through the discussion I realized that I need to know more about the way our government subsidizes crops. The reason this is important is because the government makes it profitable to grow crops (like corn) which normally wouldn't be profitable (because there isn't as much demand as there is supply). So when powerful governments institute crop subsides, it changes the world price of certain foods. This whole thing also has a big impact on illegal immigration (which is the next thing that I need to get a handle on).

Articles:

-wikipedia: Agricultural Subsidies

- Overseas Development Institute, "Toward 'smart' subsidies in agriculture? Lessons in recent experience in Malawi"

- NYtimes, "Surviving without subsidies"

- Washington Post, "Farm Subsidies over time"

- USDA: "Farm Income and Costs. Farms receiving government payments"

- NYtimes, "The Way we live now, the (agri)cultural contradictions of obesity"

Books:

- A Billion Dollars a Day: the Economics and Politics of Agricultural Subsidies by E. Wesley F. Peterson

wish me luck! give me more resources!

Vote, please.

2010-08-07T16:36:00.003-05:00

My good friends Dan Parris, Rob Lehr, and David Peterka have all been working on a documentary on global poverty for a couple years. They have all the footage they need (it's an incredible story) and they just need some extra capital to finish up the film. Apparently Pepsi is giving money away for free (well, if you give them your email address) and their project, "Give A Damn Documentary" is up for the $50,000 prize. Everyone and their mom is voting EVERY DAY for the project. Please lend a hand.

(Do it here.) --> http://www.refresheverything.com/giveadamndoc

Thanks!

great

2010-07-23T00:05:00.003-05:00

I love the sartorialist and a ton of people check his blog (therefore many people who check my blog have already seen this photo) but it's too beautiful not to re-post. it looks like a thomas hart benton painting.

"Ain't I a Woman?" by Sojourner Truth

2010-07-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Delivered 1851 at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

2010-07-10T13:54:00.000-05:00

2010-07-03T15:23:00.001-05:00

The album Friend Opportunity by Deerhoof

2010-07-01T15:49:00.002-05:00

This is from the online magazine/blog Tourist, out of London. I heard about it from my friend Claire.

church ladies!

2010-06-28T23:45:00.003-05:00

"[What the traditional view] boils down to is a patriarchal view of society. The male was created as the "ruler" (greek: kephale) who "exercises authority over" (authentein) a woman. The woman was created to "submit" (hypotassesthai) to the male's authority. Women, therefore, are to be "silent" in the church; they are not permitted to lead men (like the women in Ephesus were trying to do). An egalitarian view, by contrast, is theological. It sees the male as the "source" (kephale) of the female, whom God created "from him" to be his "partner." The divinely ordained relationship of male and female is therefore a mutually submissive one (hypotassesthai). Neither the male nor the female is to lead in a "domineering" (authentein) fashion (like the women in Ephesus were trying to do)."

This is taken wildly out of context from a book, Two Views on Women in Ministry edited by James R. Beck.

This statement is referring to 1 Timothy 2:11-15: 11 Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve; 14 and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 15 Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. (ESV)

However, I must say that the second theological viewpoint feels like a breath of fresh air to me.

This whole thing reminded me of a thing that N.T. Wright wrote on women in the church. You can find it (here.)

Capacity Building

2010-06-21T12:40:00.002-05:00

This is the best thing I've heard on development in a long time...

capacity building - an excerpt from "This American Life" episode, "Island Time"

ACT TWO. COMPOUND FRACTURE.

Apricot Irving grew up on a missionary compound in Limbe, in the north of Haiti, and visits the missionary hospital there. It's pretty well stocked and staffed but, oddly, kind of a ghost town. Meanwhile, a rural Haitian-run clinic 5 miles away, without anywhere near the resources of the missionary hospital, is packed with people. Apricot spends time with the American doctor [Steve] who used to head the missionary hospital but left in order to help foster a "new" Haiti at the Haitian-run clinic.Apricot Irving is writing a memoir about her experiences growing up on the missionary compound. She's currently looking for a publisher. (13 minutes)

Irving: "building community - if you want haitians to create and sustain their own institutions this is what it looks like - slow, and sometimes cumbersome. but steve knows the pitfalls of the other model. when he was in charge of the old missionary hospital, he found the job so stressful that he even considered leaving medicine. he came to a kind of crossroads and had to make a hard choice. we talked about it in the car.

Steve: "the choice really is...it became for me an either/or. on the one hand, in the face of dysfunction and in the face of extreme human need, what was required of me was to build a citadel, to become a dictator. and in that dictatorship, benevolent dictatorship, i could be the cowboy to fix the problems that would bring efficiency, service, and security. what's wrong with that? why not become a benevolent dictator? the problem that i found with that is that that model creates, in a way, a new slave plantation mentality, where the slaves become dependent on the slave master. and in the end, one reaps the fruit of slavery: discontent, anger, violence. the choice to then go to the other extreme - to purposely work hard at not becoming a dictator, for the sake of building community, means that people are going to suffer, people are going to die. good will not be provided. goods will not be rendered. here we are, praying, when there's someone who needs a c-section and we can't get it for her. there's a terrible choice."

Irving: "and why is it that, in choosing community, there are these added costs? why do people die? why are goods not distributed?"

Steve: "because community takes time, perseverance, and relationship building. yeah, [it] drives Americans crazy. we're a fix-it culture. it's the hight of evil, probably, from an american cultural point of view, to not fix a problem when it's right there to fix. what's the problem? fix it!"

i know these people!!

2010-06-18T16:49:00.001-05:00

this is the first time this has ever happened to me. i actually know the people in an internet meme! i went to mizzou with the happy couple and a bunch of their groomsmen and bridesmaids. incredible! what a great song!

I love Miranda July

2010-06-14T11:07:00.003-05:00

Miranda July does everything and she does everything cool-ly. Here's a review/interview with her about herself and her installation/performance at the Venice Biennale. Here she is interviewed by Dave Eggers:

"Dave Eggers: As someone who works in different media, when you see or hear something you think you might work into an artwork of some kind, do you automatically know which medium it’s destined for?

Miranda July: Usually I do. I write down the idea in my notebook, and then I put a little letter in the corner of the page in a circle. S for story, N for novel, M for movie, A for art, P for performance, B for business. This makes me sound totally rigid. I am also lots of fun! Totally wild! Party!"

...and Khaela Maricich:

"Khaela Maricich: What is something that you have learned during the past 10 years?
July: I at least got a toehold on how to fight. The kind of fighting where I listen. I don’t agree, but I listen. And, like it or not, listening changes you"

I love her. If you get the chance, check out the article and look through the slideshow of her installation. There's one where there are three podiums that say "Guilty," "Guiltier," and "Guiltiest."

Interview Magazine: "Miranda July"