GIFT revisited

I went to GIFT again tonight and made an effort to learn every song I didn't know so I could sing to (at least) one chorus and one verse and, as contemporary praise and worship songs are apt to include, one bridge of some sort. Save for the phrase "My God is Mighty to Save," I had to learn every song they played, which was nice - the critical distractions of lyric and melody will be thrust onto another avenue than this blog. If you haven't read the post from... a few weeks ago, you should find it, skim through it and read the comments because they are great. Linsay Vladimirov (who might be reading this regularly now... which weirds. me. out.) and I met a little bit ago to talk about the nodes, trends, practices and design of praise and worship as a student, professional and leader. It's interesting to try and keep track of what goes through my head during praise and worship. Largely, my attempts to focus myself (not necessarily to clear, calm or numb my mind down) on breathing the words from inside and to my lips, with my buddy Mark and the old guy on my other side (which is, by the way, one of the best things - singing next to crotchety-seeming old people with voices from the 60s) along with the rest of the student body and Sioux Center community that gathered together on Sunday evening, bringing their trials and joys from the past week, and expectations for the coming one, in a conscious attempt to worship.* And if the thoughts running through this past week were cast with the veil of Linsay's admonishing of me (yes, that's what she did; she yelled. at me.) to get over myself and wake up and realize, of course, that there will always be flaws and distractions and mistakes and, most of all, decisions that are made largely according to preference. So, in brief, get over yourself and don't let your critical thoughts on how this song should go, how that transition was bad, what they didn't do (exactly like I did in the previous post) get in the way of you worshipping the Lord God Almighty.

And I had this realization mid-song tonight at this terrific point. I even had my arms crossed when I laughed to myself, thinking, "WHY would they do that?" I forget what EXACTLY they did, but I know and will admit that I did this a few times in the evening. Understandably, I stopped singing when I did this, and when I broke from the presence of worship, and stared at the lyrics up on the screen, trying to resolve the actual melody with my understanding of the melody. And I hesitated to start again with the song because, and this is a big deal - believe me - even if it doesn't seem so, I hesitated to start singing the song that I had previously laughed at because I was, of course, much too good for this song now. It had failed the very rigid and temperamental exam of my approval, like so many songs and people before it, but not a lot of foods. And I was too good to worship the Lord God Almighty with this song. It's OK. You don't have to hurl stones; I sang the rest of the song after laughing at myself.

I have a question though - when do you stop singing a song? What are the signs of melody, lyrics or execution from the band that will take you willingly out of the presence and sacrifice of worship?

I don't know that he thinks about it often, but I bet that my dad would enjoy living alone every once in a while. It's six forty on Sunday evening, the first time manipulation of the year, though it is still quite dark outside. Mom and the girls are at evening service and he came back home from the office just a few minutes ago. I'm here after a big Saturday and yet another night of struggling to fall asleep. Dad is downstairs now. I can hear steady, careful chopping and stirring. The TV isn't on and there's no music. I think, I couldn't say for sure, that my parents' marriage is a relationship where they could sit quietly and inhabit the same space peacefully in silence. I can't say whether they do that or not, whether they have that luxury and even if that is the case, it's not the same as quietly and deliberately cooking alone when that's all you want to do. I love my family, and try to see them at least once a week but I would spend so much more time at my house if it were empty. Having a wife and two girls in the house is different from living with six guys and the catatonic friends and lovers that we involve ourselves with. Yes. Yes, the last time the house was empty, there was a party with roommates and friends and lovers, yes and it was very fun. And it would probably happen again, but AFTER that... well, and maybe I would appreciate a change of scenery and pace as well. Being anonymous in a city would be nice, but it is not plausible for a few months yet.

It's an October Friday

Everyone is sick, and busy. We all seem to be just a little bit behind on what we need to be ready for. The pressure mounts, and we hit ourselves for letting it get this far.

The autumn sun glows, even through the slim windows of the library now at 3 5oPM. The leaves swell about, casting their rich smell about the campus as the sidewalks dry from the past few days of rain threatening to become snow. Nothing is completed or finished, but our syllables snap today - our words are quick, our thoughts transfer well over in conversation. And, doesn't it seem like, even after this nonsense, we're all holding our heads up and bringing our glasses together? It's the sun.

The reality of traveling to the Philippines flew into our minds and shook our bones after we flew, waited, descended, landed, taxi'd, lined up, collected our bags, met our hosts and - finally - when we stopped through the last of the doors into the warm evening, and Manila rushed at our faces. The city was bustling, as one would imagine it to be, and the smell firmly set our feet on the ground and our hearts into our intentions. We were there, across the ocean, sweating in our worn jeans while, at home, there would be several more months of icy snow and biting wind. Of course there were months of excitement and anticipation beforehand. Even the hours up in the air, waiting to transfer in Hawaii and, before that, the meetings for preparation of what to expect and, as best as we could, how we should go about our teams and sites. In all honesty, those times were squabbling and hand-wringing. The thrill of travel and the unexpected is what was driving us, along with the hope for an effective and artful job of documenting the soul of the those without a voice in modern civilization. It became real - all of our preparation, prayers, frustrations and joys shared with friends, hopes for what we would learn and what we might forget came to a halting, shuddering motion with that first sight of the bustling city past the airport parking lot and that first warm smell of a people we didn't know.

---

Three friends stayed up several nights, and that's one of the greatest things about guys and the trust that is found and built: we can and, often easily, do. One night in particular, up until almost six in the morning, sitting around the table talking about what we should be doing and laying out the course of actions that we knew would be best. We knew these things to the point that we wanted them to happen. We wanted ourselves to be bigger, stronger, more honest versions of ourselves and were only held back by how small we actually were. It's difficult to focus on what one person is confessing when it is so glaringly similar to what you have to say, and so you do. Nights in the living room, long car rides through borders and patrols, the passing questions to remind ourselves not to push it away and, instead, to confront it but it all came to that halting, shuddering revelation of This Is Who We Can Be and now we have to deal with it. And others who haven't listened or spoken with us those nights will say that it's all for the better and why did you wait so long? And they will be right - it is for the better. It's good that actions followed words and the only reason to have waited so long was for fear.

---

The snow began falling in a blessed city - one that we had the enormous fortune to witness at night, to look about us in the dark of night, and still be able to see from the buildings and lights and realize that we would be here through it, until the next day. The snow began falling, as they had said it would, and as it had done every year of our lives and we still sat in awe at it. Had we really forgotten that it could happen? Did we convince ourselves that we wouldn't see it again, would have to live it through memories and photographs? We were fortunate enough to breathe it in, to smell the affected air, hear the muted sound of the streets and feel cold enough to be chased inside to view it from behind glass, but to view it for hours and hours and sit exhausted but awake. We knew that you would be leaving soon. The songs that we knew would be different once you did - they were already beginning to, I suppose. And the authorities assured us of it, we had written it in to our day-to-day like we were ready for it, had mentioned it casually because it was so for sure and, again, as if we were ready for it. And maybe you were (I hope you are now) but I wasn't, and I won't be for some time even if I know that it is real now. The halting, shuddering knowledge is acceptance - hesitant and rebellious as it can be, and all the necessary steps after this - plane tickets, class finalizing, packing, the passage of time - will be more smacks upside the head. But it's not as if I could use more of those, right?

Paul and Mark came home from work at the Wesselius farm with radishes, carrots, rainbow kale and - as seen - arugula and dandelion greens. I was driving home from a great show, evening and morning in Omaha (Yo La Tengo concert) after a rough week of school, trying to enjoy the reddening landscape. This wasn't difficult, but strange after a morning with three inches of the best packing snow in a long, long time. Sarah with her arms crossed, scowling at the thought of our return through the most jaded sunglasses I've ever seen. (Exaggeration.)

We came home to rooms full of our friends and I put on the apron and got to work with Paul and Christina, who was in town for the weekend - a much needed gift. The community grill was gassed and turned up high to kill anything cooked before and to get the grill as volcanic as possible. The roast was quickly cut into steaks, salted, peppered, balsamic oiled and brown sugared with Bailey telling me about her weekend, and lending a free/clean hand when I needed. The meat sat for a few minutes as I put a makeshift mustard vinaigrette together - one like what I learned from Carol in Colorado Springs this summer, but without some key ingredients (white wine vinegar, lemon juice) but with some of the last chives of the season. Then we made hummus and Paul approved, which is a good thing. The steaks got high heat on both sides, made that lovely, animalistic sizzling that roared through the cold, dark evening. A few minutes on both sides and then held in the oven, still warm from Christina's bruschetta. Half an onion had been sliced and broken apart in butter/olive oil/salt on the stove-top. Not red, but only because we didn't have it. I mention the red onion for visual purposes as well as flavor, and not just because Bailey was cooking with me - some bold purple skin would have been nice.

Anyway, the beef was sweet, then rich and the greens were peppery and crisp. The feta cheese was tangy and creamy. The dressing complemented all these flavors, I think. The onion was there - not really necessary, but I like onion. Bailey's hands.

-Click the image to enlarge it-

Here I go blabbering about again.

I'm with my brother and childhood friend at Barnes, reading up on various methods of literary criticism and getting totally jacked (not joking) and Andrew, childhood friend, looks up from his paperback to ask, "Hey. Remember dioramas?"

I did. Usually putting together a scene from English class (Sign of The Beaver), a historic event from social studies (Underground Railroad), a certain species from science (leafcutter ants in the rainforest) or (my favorite) a moon colony. I remember these projects, stuck in a shoebox, or a cut-away from pieces of posterboard fused together, were as detail-oriented as you wanted and you needed to have done your research before you start putting the visuals together. You also needed to gather your materials, have some sort of a plan, be able to work around problems and miscalculations and convince your parents and older brothers to help you.

"Do you think kids still do that? Or is it more on computers now?"

And that question concerned me so I looked to facebook to find an Ed. major and ask.

Alvin

Hey wake up.

3:45pmEmily

ha ha ha

at least im being productive....ha..ha..the hills

3:45pmAlvin

HEy! SCREW. YOU.

Right up the...

No, I have an ed question though.

3:45pmEmily

heyyyy!!

k shoot

3:46pmAlvin

My buddy and I were just talking about making dioramas for school projects and we're wondering if kids still do that, or if it's more on computers now...

3:48pmEmily

depends on how hands on the teacher is..some teachers(like I will be most likely) tend to do a combo of technology and "old fashioned", but we are taught how to use computers in our lesson plans, and that hands on stuff like dioramas is good for kinesthetic and visual learners

more than you ever needed to know

3:49pmAlvin

That was kind of vague.

"...she said it depends on the teacher."

3:49pmEmily

ha! nooooo..read more

the trend is towards tech stuff though

smart boards with 3D stuff and hand held student boards to interact with the main one

we now have a whole class on it

3:50pmAlvin

SCREW that.

3:50pmEmily

(tech in the classroom that it)

ha!

3:51pmAlvin

I mean, practically, they need to learn how to operate a keyboard and tech... 'cause that will keep exploding... but, in a sense, they'll learn that themselves, but critical thinking and creative problem-solving... is more hands on.

3:52pmEmily

true..which is why i think a mix is good...you cant replace making a plaster of paris volcano or a paper mache solar system

3:56pmAlvin

...paris volcano?

4:01pmEmily

plaster-of-paris

ever use it?

to make a volcano

4:01pmAlvin

...Ohhhhh. OK. I was just thinking that you were an idiot for a sec.

4:02pmEmily

haaaaa

riiiiiight

4:03pmEmily

guess what i found?

farmville

Emily is Emily Huston. This concerns me still... and I guess it will always depend on the teacher and age of students, but I feel that challenging younger students through the frame of a complex computer algorithm/game/interactive quiz is still challenging them through a limited frame. And I remember working through those exercises by finding the loophole, so we wouldn't have to be challenged anymore. Another hands-on, awesome and exciting project was the egg drop - we design a vessel to protect an egg from surviving a two-story drop. A lot of kids used parachute-esque devices, with or without a whole bunch of padding. (I stuffed mine in a teddy bear). But imagine how that project would go if it was computer simulated... and there was a limited, but vast, option of materials and applications to protect your digital egg with? "This game blows. See if you can use 'dick' on your egg.'" 3D boards and smart classrooms are cool, but I think the general idea is that tech classrooms are designed to instruct the teachers on HOW-TO operate these tools for learning, but the danger (I hate the way I'm acting like I know what I'm talking about) is that the tools become substitutes or deceptions of the original intention: innovation. To use a cliche, thinking outside of the box is - from what I hear - what keeps the cubicle drones in their cubicles.

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Grand Rapids is terrific.

If you're reading through Firefox, I apologize for the font and size crazy. I've tried some different things. I hope it's pleasing to read from where you are.

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OK. To answer the query I just posited on facebook...

No. It is not easy to start writing with Wu-Tang streaming through your headphones. Have you ever tried to clarify the lyrics or melody to a song while another song was playing? It's damn near freaking impossible. So you can imagine trying to find the words to express what you felt today while this is pouring into your head,

Yo RZA, yo razor!
Hit me with the major
The damage, my Clan understand it be flavor
Gunnin, hummin comin atcha
First I'm gonna getcha, once I gotcha, I gat-cha
You could never capture the Method Man's stature
For rhyme and for rapture, got niggaz resigning, now master
my style? Never! I put the fucking buck in the wild kid, I'm terror
Razor sharp, I sever
the head from the shoulders, I'm better
than my compeda, you mean competitor, whadeva!
Let's get together

It doesn't work too well. But you sit back and let the track finish and keep up on the chat until it does.

I went to GIFT for the first time since sophomore year tonight. Robert Minto had a short piece in the last Diamond about the idea of unity in the various worship venues that Dordt campus has to offer. He called out how a lot of Dordt students see GIFT, Wellspring, Praise and Worship and Chapel. I know I thought of them all as separate services before and attended Wellspring even less than I had attended Chapel before, and GIFT or PW much less... if at all. OK, except that I was in a Wednesday night PW band freshman year (very sexy) with Andrew Voss (very sexy) and Brando Huisman and Bethany pre-Keep and Heather and Heather. So I was there when we, you know, played. The point is that I miss playing... wait, let me make sure I mean what I'm about to type. I miss playing praise and worship songs. I miss praise and worship.
And, for those of you who might not know this already, a large part of my life (about five or six years) was driven by praise and worship. I learned guitar with the hopes to play in youth group, but they needed someone to play the newly purchased bass (a sweet, lovely black Washburn that I hope they still have) so I did that for years, with John on the drums, then Pete when John moved back to Korea. Andrew took over on bass, tore it up, and I played back-up guitar with Min and Dan leading... and then, with little variation in the band, I led for almost a year (I think). Jean on keyboards, teaching me to sing. Rachel and Priscilla on vocals. James from time to time. Mikey took over on drums when Peter and David and Jean went off to college. My best friends were playing drums and bass and keyboard and on vocals and we lived all week together, culminating our experience and angst and gratitude twice every weekend leading praise and worship. (We were really good.)
It's good, I think, to ask "What is worship?" for so many years as a stupid, young kid. Not that all young kids are stupid; I was. It leads to good discussion and deliberate actions every week - practicing, playing, singing and praying songs with a trusting group of people. Did we do enough? No, of course not. Do we do enough now? No, of course not. But the point is that I grew up in a Christian setting - the Korean Christian Grand Rapids scene - that had praise and worship as its foundation. (Brothers, am I wrong? Is it different now?) I moved to Iowa and found that, even within the CRC, white people do praise and worship differently, which is a whole different conversation. Maybe it was the move to Iowa as much as it was me "growing up" and "maturing" but I got tired and disgusted with large groups of North American youth raising their hands and singing poorly written songs as an expression of love to a Lord and Savior - an activity that could very easily be mistaken for having a pleasing emotional and self-serving time with your friends. (Singing in a group is therapeutic. Live music is fun. It's easy to convince yourself that this is good for the soul, but is it challenging and genuine?) I was that guy, that North American scum, for so many years in my life and believed that the most faithful and righteous action we could perform was praise and worship.
OK. I know a large part of the change was from a closer examination of some popular CCM songs. We don't need to talk about those... Every Move I Make? Really? I was a counselor at Dordt Discovery Days two summers ago (summer camp for pre-high school Christian kids... a fun time and a serious recruiting avenue) and encouraged my group to sing at the nightly praise and worship sessions around the fire, but I literally cringed when we sang this song and -horribly - I wondered if singing these words, adding the motions and filler-sound effects made them simplify their understanding of their relationship with Christ. I wondered if it made them stupid. Cushy Christian homes in cushy Christian suburbs, man.
I felt that GIFT (Growing in Faith Together) and mid-week Praise and Worship were high school worship sessions... largely for the people in college that never "grew out," or got sick, of high school worship. As they are, arguably, the two best-attended ministry sessions on campus, it's an indication of what the larger student body wants in worship - and for those that don't, they're showing, with much smaller numbers at Wellspring, that they are the minority, or they don't really care. They're not voting. Don't get me wrong - some of my best friends regularly attend GIFT and/or PW and I've done some grumbling about the lack of worship diversity on campus etc. The idea, however, much larger and more holy significant than my idea of it - thankfully. The auditorium was largely filled tonight with students who weren't expressly required to be in attendance and music was lifted up with what I believe was the genuine hope for glorifying the name of our God. I didn't know a lot of the songs tonight, or most of the people in the band, and - of course - I was distracted by a lot of the technical details/mishaps as well as the questions, again, of worship and service. I was critical of lots of things, noticing decisions that I would have made differently, comparing worship leaders to others I knew and played with - wanting to speak, angrily, to the guy about what it means to lead worship as a servant and not as some sort of vessel having this amazing individual experience of your own that everyone is supposed to, somehow, benefit from. Put your hands down, sir. Open your eyes and sing into the microphone so the people that came to worship won't be distracted and worried about which verse they're on.

"There's a typo on the screen. They should really get somebody who knows the flow of the songs to work the Powerpoint. There should be a better program for this than Powerpoint. I miss using overhead projectors. Why is there such a glaring, awkward pause in between songs? Why don't they do something about that? Why isn't the lead singing into the microphone? Why isn't that other girl singing into the microphone? I don't even know what their voices sound like. Why do they call this Growing in Faith? There has to be a better, more fitting, more accurate acronym for what this is. Shoot, I don't know this song either. They're looking at each other like they don't know when to end the song. Did they not practice enough? Is that the American flag on the side of the stage? Is that the Iowa flag next to it? Iowa has a flag?"

Etc. All very distracting. It's unfair already to judge, but it's REALLY unfair to judge a new band off of one night at a relatively early part of the year. Afterward, a new freshman friend (Paul Alberts) said that, based on his first impression of GIFT, tonight, he probably wouldn't be back. I wanted to encourage him to give it another try, to come with us again next week, but I hesitated because I realized that I probably said the exact same thing when I was a freshman. I don't want my freshman friend to go because I want him to go... I'm not even sure I want him to go. I know I don't want him to go if he feels obligated to, or that he thinks he should for some bullshit reason... OK. I do want him, after processing his decisions and humility and desires, to go but, moreso, I want him to be unsatisfied with a Christian lifestyle that ends in praise and worship - or any other session that is designed for an exclusively Christian audience.

There's a photo buried in a box somewhere at my house. It's me with thirteen of my friends from high school at prom. It's our junior year and, of those fourteen guys, six are married now. We're in our tuxedos, smiling pleasantly as if our moms were watching. I dreamt last night that I went to go see Dan Poel get married. Poel is the first one to take his shirt off and improv a pole dance (very sexy) and did the best impressions in high school. He has a quote on his facebook from Vince Lombardi (Confidence is contagious; so is lack of confidence) and his job description reads, "i help people lift weights." He has a heart condition that kept him from playing football last year, but recently got approval from the doctor. His dad was a huge prankster in his years at Dordt. I saw a photo of him when I was a sophomore sitting on Dan's desk. He had a mullet and a party animal face; he looked like a nice guy. If I remember the story correctly, he died of a heart attack when he was in his thirties. Dan has a tattoo on his left bicep - his dad's name in a large novelty black font. He also got both his ears pierced with big diamond studs and walks around campus in shorts and t shirts from some athletic training camp or wherever. More often than not, the sleeves are cut off of those shirts and you can totally see his nipples. He'll notice you noticing his nipples and he'll ask if you want him to come over later to knock boots. THAT's who Dan Poel is.
So he got married last night to some girl that I had never seen before but now, thinking back on it, I imagine I respected the shit out of her - taming the beast and its hormones. I traveled via tugboat to a town that looked like it had seen more thriving days. The streets were empty, the buildings needed paint, the sidewalks were overgrown etc. The reception took place in an old Catholic church with winding, carpeted stairs and wood-paneling in the basement. Everybody was there. Dancing. There was a jazz band battle - some hired band tearing it up against the likes of Jason Kornelis, some other friends and Dan Davis. Who knew Dan Davis played standup bass? Who knew Dan Davis played standup bass so well? I thought that to myself sipping a glass of wine and he looked over and smiled in a way that said, "Yeah, how you like me now?" I danced with Scott and Margaret. I have to say this again: Everybody was there. I arranged to have drinks out on the town with some, shall we say, old friends when the reception began to slow down. Quick drinks. I had to get out of there, throw my stuff in a suitcase, and leave early. No, I know. I'm sorry. I won't be at the hangover-tending brunch the next morning. The dance floor was dark, the music was slow and smoky - I want to say elemental, and I can because this is a dream that I remember and also because screw you. I traveled to see my friend from high school marry a girl he loved, and was celebrating that with, like I said, everybody. We danced to dozens of beautiful songs and the dance floor was dark, slow, smoky and elemental. I remember after that, after drinks so brief we barely spoke, but looked at each other and sipped in a small place outside in the quiet, after that, on the tugboat pulling away from the island, I read message after message after message... from everybody... telling me they were happy, sad, angry, disappointed, surprised, disgusted, indecisive, anxious... mostly unhappy, but a few people were happy.

I ran into some old friends at Tofher's the other night. Super ex-girlfriend and Chicago resident Renae, current roommate and chill drinking buddy Adam and I walked in on what we expected would be a slow night - the middle of the week - and found... who was all there that night?

Emily Stam and Brady, Jane, Jason, Mikey, Dee and Mela and a handful of other people that I don't remember, know too well, or don't know at all. I said hi to the bartender, ordered a pitcher of Blue Moon and pulled out my ID but she shook her head and said, "It's OK. I remember you." That has nothing to do with what I want to relay here - I just thought it was cool. The fun thing about having a drink in a small town bar is that you can go back, and forth, and make the rounds with your drink, stopping in for an argument, making a sly joke, pulling friends out for a bar and taking a breath for conversation in a loud(ish) room. Near the end of the night, as they were headed back to the brick house and we were headed back to campus, and Mela was relaying her parents' visiting, she left with an invitation to join them. I had to decline. We were tired, our other roommates and friends were expecting us back and if I went to the brick house, I would probably end up spending the night on the couch. "OK. If I don't see you tonight, I'll probably see you two other times this year," she said with a smile that wasn't really a smile, but a "Yeah, how ya like me now, you beautiful bitch?" That made me sad (and electrified) because the truth is that I can, and feel comfortable, taking my roommates over to the brick house, any circle of friends over to the brick house (and back to my apartment, out for a walk, a drink at Tofher's, Orange City for an escape, the Bean etc. etc.). Introducing new friends is one of my favorite things, but sometimes I feel like I am neglecting some friends over others. I live with, and have a great time with, my roommates and I'd argue that I'm the odd one out in the group. I don't want to call them the Bean crowd, but I love them too - individually and communally - and we celebrate a lot of the same interests. There are other friends too - the rooms upstairs that hold an indispensable refuge from the activities that take place in my apartment. Just last night I read in Bailey and Val's room while they were already fast asleep and earlier today, I took a pre-dinner nap in there with Pam and Amanda and Devil Wears Prada. (You heard me.) But we fall into a routine, you know? Class, class, see friends in between classes, lunch, class, stop by rooms, some people come visit, etc. So I'm wondering, dear patient reader, what it is that leads people to be friends. Note that some people... some personalities are more prone to be friendly anyway, to everybody, and others are more guarded.

I'm sitting in my Southview apartment, in the middle of bags, boxes, open suitcases with clothes spilling out, lamps, a lineup of speakers and LCD Soundsystem blaring, a sink of dirty dishes and a few magazines that I have to catch up on from my time away. Just a little bit ago, Troy and I met Dordt faculty and staff upstairs in the mezzanine to welcome the freshmen class to their college experience. We sat as student representatives on the stage and sang with our professors and administrators as the freshmen filed in and took their seats. I'm glad we did it, even if they looked dazed, confused, tired and/or bored. That's all expected from their first day of orientation. One thing I wanted to say: College is nothing like orientation - shake it off. Their PC leaders and advisors and everyone else has, no doubt, welcomed them to our fine institution already, and even if some of them are looking forward to starting the semester, I'd put some money down that none of them feel as terribly excited as the professors, administrators and their parents. Dr. Kobes spoke for the faculty right before us. The house was brought down. The man tore it up. I firmly believe that the ceremony should have consisted of songs, prayers and Dr. Kobes affirming the hopes and promises of the incoming class. Troy and I stood at the opposite microphone and felt our knees shake. As my eyes adjusted to the lighting from the stage, I saw more and more familiar faces in the crowd - people I knew would be there and, unfortunately, others I forgot had graduated high school. One thing I wanted to say: It's astounding to realize that these friends will be walking the same halls, that we'll be there as they grow and affirm who they are and what they believe. Especially for those of us whose younger siblings will be starting this year, I can't take how excited we are. I've stepped over onto sentimental now, but you can believe how strange I felt before the sea of confused and anxious students. One thing I wanted to say: This is their school now. How they choose to lead (or not to lead) this year will be much more significant than anything the upperclassmen manage to pull off in the next couple months. Hats off to them. Here's to a good year.

The clock on my laptop reads 1 38 AM, which means it's 11 39 PM here in Mount Langley. Bear and I set up our dinner just a few minutes ago. Deep breath.

Olympia oysters pan-seared then topped with a dot of herb butter. After learning to shuck an oyster, and considering that these water-filtering gender-switching creatures are still alive through our sticking a knife into their most intimate spaces, sweeping through the muscles to reveal them in all their vulnerability, I still find myself silent and focused at the counter with a small knife. I've read that oysters are the only food we eat still fully alive. I guess I did have squid in Korea that was still moving, but I think those were "just" nerves reacting - the way a daddy longlegs' leg still spasms when you rip it apart. I know. I know. We're talking about food here. What I mean to say is that shucking an oyster is a dangerous and serious ability - like slaughtering a chicken to feed people you care about, to entice their senses and provide sustenance. And they taste so good. Even as they shrink to the size of dimes in the pan and take on the coloring and flavors of the butter, we taste the ocean.

Roast tomato. As simple as ripe, organic tomatoes, marinated for fifteen minutes in sea salt, black pepper, chopped shallots and olive oil then slow roasted at 225 degrees for... must have been almost two hours, slowly filling the kitchen with an escalating dance of comfort and sensuality. We topped with a few drops of balsamic vinegar right before serving. It was more subtle than sticking your face over a pot of tomato sauce with the music going, and friends laughing in the tail end of spring semester, but along the same lines. This bowl of tomatoes is so precious, we'll keep the juices that are left when the last piece is eaten. It might be the base to a sauce we make, or we might sop it up with a nice piece of...

Olive baguette. We purchased this at the Mount Vernon Food Coop, but we believe one Nate Smith could (and probably has) reproduce such a crusty, tasty canvas for a forkful of...

Roast vegetables - zucchini, red bell peppers, leeks and fava beans with olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and pepper. This was probably the most visually vibrant plate we had, and a wonderful salad to behold. We could eat this all week, but we'll have polished it off in two days. (You don't understand how much we made of this. If we stuffed it in a bag and placed it under Beardface's shirt, people would ask if we were having twins.)

Salmonberry Wine, picked in May of this year from the back 17 acres of Child's Creek Farm, among the creek and muck, bottled the 4th of August... which is just last week. Beard has a winemaking store owner friend Bob who, with his dog, caught up with us on the way to the co-op for afternoon coffee. Beard gifted him four pounds of Salmonberry when he picked them so they could both make their own wine and share. Bob ranted and raved about how good Beard's was - he shared it with some winemaking aficionados (read: nice snobs) and they thoroughly enjoyed it. So we opened it tonight to see and record notes.

8/15 First Bottle (w/ Alvin) + oysters!

- tang, good berry bouquet and flavor

- very bright and refreshing

- reddish rose color

- lemon on back of tongue?

He's right and there's a very, very clean and appealing finish. It's almost a buzz on the roof of your mouth, but there's no fuzzy film left on your tongue which adds greatly to the drinkability. Right now, I'm not trying to sell this guy. It's a great wine and I'm not a huge fruit wine drinker. So, ladies, first year winemaker and single bearded guy. Must be great with kids and OK with asian life partners and goats.

I was going to take pictures, but most of the food is gone. Later, photos of wine.

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D9 was... well, it's an interesting story of how it was made... apparently a Halo movie (the xbox game) was in the works, but it fell through... and that is somehow related to this... where Producer Peter Jackson approached Director Neill Blomkamp and basically said, "Do whatever you want and I'll support it. I'm Peter Jackson." Whatever Peter Jackson touches is studio insurance (even mediocre, three-hour King Kong with a world profit of well over $250 million). So previews were all over the place, a creative marketing strategy for the bigger cities was executed and a bunch of girls rolled their eyes. When a movie gets well over 90% on Rottentomatoes, it's kind of a big deal, but those usually aren't movies that might be described as "Not enough like Time Traveller's Wife," or "Too much like Transformers, not enough like... insert geeky sci-fi movie here," or even "Where are the boobies?" Let's talk about the flaws first.

The first half or so of the film took a documentary-style to relay the exposition of the plot - interviews and "stock" footage of anti-alien/non-human regulations. The second half is the Transformers/Harrison Ford/Bourne with shakier camera and quick cuts. There was one POV of the alien looking out the window, he is dejected and... claw-cuffed and hopelessly observing some physical abuse and the POV shot itself is swooping all over the place. That, and the gross content, with the cherry coke and theater popcorn, led to a pretty rough headache.

It dipped, for just a few scenes, into the sentimental. The rogue alien and cast-off human kneel before each other, wounded and bleeding with bullets tearing all around them. They look each other in the eye - one set is kind of gray and blue, the other is yellow and black. "We stick together! I'm not leaving you!"

That being said, it's pretty impressive that the film had the audience to resonate emotionally with the aliens. Glory had us caring about Denzel Washington, WallE had us crying for a robot that only said one word, and District 9 had us rooting for a prawny, skeletal creature from space. Nice.

The metaphorical significance somewhat dissolved itself as the specific resolution was being sought out. I think I'm OK with that because it gave way for character structure and decision, but I'm not too OK with as simplified a resolution as, "They have the thing we need, let's go Die Hard on their asses. Thug life." I should have said that I'm not a big sci-fi viewer, and maybe it all dwindles down to the geeky guy getting really mad and picking up a gun that makes people explode in order to make a movie.

I guess the previews led me to believe that the black muck the guy gets sprayed with is some sort of initial infection that would spread, of course, to other humans, which is why the aliens are there in the first place... like several other alien films or, even worse, some vampire flicks and, even better, a handful of zombie flicks. One guy gets infected and starts spewing his business on everyone else, the aliens successfully plague another planet. How many movies are coming to mind right now? Independence Day, Dawn of the Dead, Shaun of the Dead, 28 Days Later, The Faculty etc. That's not what happens here. What happens is, the guy goes back in time to see what his wife was like when she was, like, six years old. It's OK! It's not creepy because he tells this little girl, while they're standing alone in a field, that he's going to marry her someday. Not creepy. Romantic.

Right?

Happy Allison's birthday. Allison, all my friends like you better than they like me. Enjoy it.