catholic novel reading list

Silence, by Shusaku Endo.
Mariette in Ecstasy, by Ron Hansen
Beloved, by Toni Morrison.
The Lieutenant, by Andre Dubus.
The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner.
The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene.

Today, for the first time in 17 months, we watched a little bit of television. Our antenna is not terrific and I got bored of the Sunday afternoon sitcom patter within 2 minutes. Canned track + 38-word joke buildup = weak.

more reading

American gothic tales / edited by Joyce Carol Oates.
Esquire's big book of fiction / edited by Adrienne Miller.
Gogh's room at Arles : [three novellas] / Stanley Elkin.
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Mapp and Lucia / E.F. Benson ; with a new introduction by Stephen Pile.
Rediscovering values : on Wall Street, Main Street, and your street : a moral compass for the new economy / Jim Wallis.

Burning your boats : the collected short stories / Angela Carter ; with an introduction by Salman Rushdie.

A bit of Fry & Laurie. Season four [videorecording] / BBC Video ; 2 Entertain Video Ltd. ; written by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie ; producer, Jon Plowman ; director, Bob Spiers.

Based on a dream I had today

It's a doozy. Not armageddon, nor apocalyptic, but spiritually very powerful and deep.

Would someone please tell me why my spiritual connection does not talk to me in English, but rather Hebrew, which I do not understand, and French?

Facebook Political Fights are a waste of time and bandwidth

I know people who post political comments on Facebook, but I find they tend to be the type of people who don't have an opinion so much as an affiliation with a party that leads to negative comments about anyone who opposes that party.

If we don’t reevaluate our opinions every time we receive new information, they stop being opinions and start becoming beliefs.

A belief is acceptance of truth, while an opinion is judgement of truth.

Opinions are ongoing judgements of new information, while beliefs are acceptance of old information with disregard to new information. A key element to growing as a person is forming opinions, then challenging them.

Opinion leads to politics and politics does not contain truth. Anyone who can stay silent and challenge their own ideas by staying committed to their search for truth has no need for opinion and must eventually give it up completely.

Hounded by blood center, and other news

After two calls from a predictive dialer gone haywire, I e-mailed someone at the blood center who arranged for a voice-only message to be delivered to my voice mail. I also figured that maybe there was a rush for my blood type, because not everyday am I harassed by technology, so I made an appointment.

So imagine my surprise when after two hang-ups, two e-mails, and one call leading to a scheduled appointment in one morning, the blood center CALLS AGAIN! I was testy: "I have an appointment already in an hour. You can stop bothering me." Before a live voice was on the phone, even. The second time that number called me, the first time a live person was on the phone.

I see that Senator John McCain (AZ) has withdrawn his support to have vitamins and supplements regulated by the corrupt Food and Drug Administration. I am still wondering how the Republicans in America expect people to take care of their health: restrict access to preventive care -- does that save money for people's healthcare? How about limiting the text on nutritional labels, so the consumers don't know what additives or carcinogens or neurotoxins are in the food -- does that save money for people's healthcare? All the Republicans voted NO on the Health Care Reform bill passed by the House of Representatives: do they have a better quality, cheaper plan? Considering how the Democrats bend over backwards to appease the GOP, do you think the Democrats would have gone along with a cheaper, better quality plan? (I'm thinking yes)

Do you think old people collecting Social Security and having Medicare benefits vote Republican? I'm thinking yes. All the more reason to take anti-aging health supplements to prevent dementia.

witter

I have lately taken to walking out of an area when the energy turns dark or oppressive. Today I walked a half mile to a local independent coffeehouse hoping to read Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and stood in line when someone came in and dumped his backpack on the seat I wanted. It's a small coffeehouse: three people were at the south area, talking, so I wanted to be far away from them as possible. I guess he did too. This left me with a large wooden table with the Sunday paper on it, and a kiddie table I am obviously too large for. So I left. I saved about $1.50, maybe $2.60.

Took the son to his first Mass today. I expected him to be bored, so I gave him a Mass activity book and he brought pencils, asked him to be quiet and to sit in the pew while I got a blessing. Boy, did I set my expectations low. He took an offertory envelope, filled it out, put in a dollar, attempted some hymns, and walked up for a blessing. "I didn't get any wine. I should have told them I was twenty-two," he quipped after Communion.

The one place where the vibes have almost always been great is closed today.

Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal Feud on the Dick Cavett Show

I'm reminded to subscribe to the Bat Segundo program podcast. Great literature and culture podcast.

I need to read some Janet Flanner, Gore Vidal, Daniel Berrigan, Richard Rohr, Cornel West. I'm interested right now in theologians the Vatican brands heretics: Edward Schillebeeckx, Matthew Fox (now Episcopalian). I could read Rosemary Radford Ruether. There's the side of the Catholic Church that emphasizes sin, culpability, and cloaking abuses; then there's the spiritual mysteries and social justice and work of the laity I find compelling and welcoming.
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I don't miss watching television. Sure, Kids in the Hall and QI are great, but are they available on American television networks? Can American TV adopt and adapt these kinds of programs? Where is the audience? Is there a difference of the audience who has a 24-hour salesperson in their homes versus the audience who must pay for a television license or who pays some tax for a public broadcasting network like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?

what? twice in one day?

Ah me, this is not the romanticised memory I have of Mark Hollis, yet somehow I can recall ex-Talk Talk drummer Lee Harris's interview quips "We've had to pull people off/away from Mark" and "I loved performing but not the crap that went on backstage" and it does gibe with Mark's confession of the need for gin before going onstage.

http://www.the-company.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=2882

I really liked the first Talk Talk albums and we both moved from EMI to have bad experiences at Polydor in the 90's.

I met him a couple of times but not for long enough to gather an opinion about him.
I did have a run in with the band at an after show party in a Munich hotel around 86. There was a lot of drink involved and they had been really abusive to a female EMI exec who was a good friend of ours.
They had also had a run in with INXS who were on the same indoor festival bill.Talk Talk were on first and after show had got paralytic and trashed their dressing room.
I think it was Mark who had thrown a glass of gin in Michael Hutchence's face in the backstage area and the Aussies wanted to kick off with them as well that night.
We decided to join forces and take them on.

At the aftershow there was a stand off between Talk Talk, their security and INXS and the Marillos.
Lots of shouting and threatening, handbags at dawn and all that. Good old fashioned schoolboy stuff! :D It was defused by their security who put them all to bed.
We phoned their rooms throughout the night like the drunk children we were.
They were terrified :D

I don't count that as a real indicator of what they were like as people.
We all have our moments ;)

I guess being abusive is one way to insist upon yer privacy...
Seriously, though, past the boorishness and bad behaviour road tours seem to bring out, when I listen to Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock my soul does cartwheels, and my spiritual "tell" or "spark", chills travelling up the shin over the knee to the thigh, lets me know that reaching beyond the aural wonder is akin to attempting to tickle God under the chin.