The Sheer Genius of Sheared Gnus

The difference between "sheared" and "shorn" is subtly insane. A sheep is sheared. A man's hair is shorn.

The shorn locks fall to the floor.
The sheared wool falls to the floor.

Unless the locks are sheer, in which the sheer, shorn locks fall to the floor. If the wool is sheer, it is still sheared, for sure.

Don't get me started on shoeshine from Poland, because if I dab Polish polish onto sheer sheared wool and streak it through my sheer, shorn hair, call the police, unless they are Polish. They'll polish me off.

Hey! What about the gnu? Not much, what's gnu with you?

Note: When teaching English as a second language, I recommend saving this lesson for last.

Inventor of the Catapult

Dionysus the Elder of Syracuse is most frequently cited as the inventor of the stone-hurling catapult, circa 400 B.C.

I wonder what King Uzziah of Judah (circa 770 B.C.) would have to say about that?

Going Deep In Strange Places

He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness, and light resides with him.

Never Mind the Truth, Here's the Sex Pistols

"Never mind" is a retort perfected in the lie mines of hell for this present age. The moment a lie is exposed, it can be easily veiled in a thick coat of "outdated anyway," and replaced with a shiny new untruth.

If you believe in progress, if you believe in the evolution of ideas, in the importance of taste, you may have swallowed poison in your time. If you have, you may have reached for "never mind" instead of an antidote.

Who Quotes the Watchmen? Quiz!

I doubt you've heard it, but there is a little internet rumor that a Watchmen movie might be coming out someday.

Test your Watchmen IQ with some important quotes:

"We can do so much more. We can save this world... with the right leadership."

"If you’ve got really smart people who are all focused on the same mission, then usually you can get some things done."

"The only person with whom I felt any kinship with died three hundred years before the birth of Christ. Alexander of Macedonia, or Alexander the Great, as you know him."

"I saw east and west, locked into an escalating arms spiral, their mutual terror and suspicion mounting with the missiles, making the possibility of disarmament progressively more remote."


"This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands."



"The brutal world he'd relished would simply cease to be, its fierce and brawling denizens rushing to join the mastodon in obsolescence... in extinction."


The Quiz Question:

Are these quotes from the mouth of Ozymandias or from President Obama*?


Here's a hint:


They were all spoken by a comic book character.


















One more quote:


"It doesn't take a genius to see the world has problems."


Unlike Obama, Ozymandias had a Comedian who tried to contradict him once:

"No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they're small enough for them to handle."







*Apologies for the rare dip into human politics. You know I care very little for the petty management affairs of men. I'm far, far more interested in what your literature has to say about your culture and your leaders. Of course, I'm the only one, troll or human, I've ever met who actually found the ending of the Watchmen graphic novel to be upbeat and inspiring.

Tracking Shot Lip Synch for Grace Kelly

If you've ever read Ussher's Annals of the World, or for that matter, the Holy Bible, you would understand why I love tracking shots.

I see all of creation, from the beginning of time to its inevitable end, as one complex and thrilling tracking shot. Whether it is the opening scene of A Touch of Evil or the one take fight scene from The Protector, good tracking shots make bold statements.

I love what the gang from TCU has done with Mika's Grace Kelly.

Asterisks Illuminate the Night

The asterisk* is the forefather of the hyperlink.

*From the Latin "asteriscum," meaning "little star" -- which happens to be a term which describes how I like to view myself** in God's kingdom. Keep in mind, I'm generally delusional.

**Which may also explain my fondness*** for asterisks.

***And my general dismissal of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions.

Making of Fear of Girls

Finally, at The Microscopic Life with Terry Pounds, a documentary that gets behind the scenes of the world-renowned Fear of Girls.

There is one question that isn't addressed in this otherwise stellar film: how can views be better measured in a web environment that has become more multi-channel? In 2005, a viral video on youtube was likely to be hit, viewed and measured on youtube, at one portal. In 2009, users proliferate copies and embed (often uncounted - the embed play counter of youtube leaves a lot to be desired) videos at a much higher rate so that a video's "virality" requires a more complex measurement.

Nevertheless, a fascinating study of the art, business and love of making great films. And it is so great to see Lommel and Jorgenson out of character and in regular joe movie star mode.

Worldwide Exclusive: The Guild's Latest Announcement

Guild fans the world over have come to expect the unexpected from Felicia Day and her creation, The Guild. Now comes the unexpectable unexpected. Which is unexpecteder.



Thanks to xtranormal for the tools.

Zuzu's Petals! Zuzu's Petals!

You know the drill, my little gingersnap.



God and sinner reconciled, indeed.

BloodWaterGodMagic vs. Charlie Brown

Thanks in no small part to Charlie Brown's Christmas Special, we (Christians, non-Christians, and Anti-Christians alike) have been duly guilted into struggling against the insidious and confounding spirit of "commercialism" at Christmas.

Television advertisements extoll the "magic of Christmas" and suggest that that deep and meaningful magic is contained in a Lexus. If you want the magic, you ought to buy one.

I think the ads may be right.

You've got to remember that I come from a magical land of barbed wire and hog manure citadels. The rocks where I make my bed are ensorcelled, and my cave buzzes with the childlike whispers of the faerie-dazzled.

So I don't have the knee-jerk rejection of claims of magic that most humans do. Even if they come from a car dealership.

The fact is this: Christmas is magical. You know this to be true.

The question is, what is the source of the magic?

Some will say that it is a cultural magic: society has determined the Christmas season to be one of familial homecomings and bonding, a time to party with friends and receive presents.

Others will note that there is an inherent magic in the acts of Christmas: that, at some level, Father Christmas is a real spirit, and that gifts are his icons, imbued with some fragment of that unidentifiable joy.

Another possible source is a social-personal one: that there is, as part of the so-called "collective unconscious" a natural "need" for Christmas magic, a sort of primordial, protean phenomenon structured to salve a person's spirit whilst drawing him into the Unknown Greater.

These all have their merits, but none of these notions have the ability to completely describe the source of Christmas magic. After all, gifts can disappoint, depression afflicts, acutely, the lonely at the holidays, and Christmas or its pagan alternatives are celebrated widely, but not universally.

Besides, anyone who knows magic knows that its true source is more, well...sacrificial than that. Whether eye of newt or iocane powder, real magic has components that are rare and hard fought, almost exclusively bought at the risk, and often loss, of blood or life.

Some time ago, near a gnawed-on feed trough, a god burst forth through the blood and water of his mother, in the helpless person of an infant named Yeshua. Certainly, there were miraculous spirits in the world, and strange tidings and joy, but those were ripples from the source of the magic of that hour: a wriggling, swaddled and bloody baby born amidst dung and wheat mash. Those ripples continued out, and later drew rich and educated men to bring extravagant gifts to the toddler to celebrate his reign.

They may as well have left him a Lexus.

That's why I don't have a huge problem with the so-called "commercialization" of Christmas. All of it, the presents and food and excess and laughter, can be taken to points of abuse or exhaustion, but they don't have to be, and, often, more than often, they are not. And these things only exist as radiating ripples of the Magic of Christmas, which has its source in Our Savior, born a man, all those years ago.

The so-called "True Meaning" of Christmas is not "Stop Being Materialistic." It is "Start Living Abundantly in the One Who Loves Abundantly."

And sometimes, just sometimes, an abundant life may be found in the driver's seat of dazzling new Lexus.

Havah: Addenda

I was discussing the novel with an imaginary friend of mine, and I realized that I forgot to mention some big ideas that are very organic to Tosca Lee's Havah: The Story of Eve:

The origin of the Lilith myth
The origin of the "Venus of Willendorf" statuette (or its predecessor)
The truth and myth of what we now call "race."
The dichotomy of the natural strain and natural primacy of monogamy.
The substance of divorce.
The meaning of animal sacrifice.
The "primitive/progressive" myth.
An exploration of our distance from God.
The importance of blood and death for the redemption of men.
The distinction of naming.
Man in God's image.

And...
The obviousness of God's handywork in childbirth.

For those of you keeping score at home.

Fear of Girls 3: High Rollers

Doug and Raymond are finally back with their continued quest to avoid meaningful human contact.

And Church.

Happily, they fail.







Looks like their venture paid off in the veritable bonanza of gaming glory that is Mohogo.com.

I've got to wonder if this is what Felicia Day went through?

PS - A new series seeking distribution, Midnight Chronicles, starring FoG's Charles Hubbell has some very cool trailers up now.

Havah: The Story of Eve - Further Explorations

If you enjoyed Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, Tosca Lee's Havah: The Story of Eve will leave you breathless. Havah exceeds the excellent The Red Tent in nearly every category: delving into more intimate historical detail, stretching the scope of speculation with sound research, and breathing life into characters that could so easily fall flat. Importantly, Havah avoids the stereotyping of our ancestors that plagued some parts of The Red Tent.

If you think you know the plot of Havah, think again. It truly is an experience you won't soon forget.

Here are just a handful of the questions that I found being addressed through the course of the compelling narrative. Not only did I experience the alien lives of our ancestors and origins in Havah, but I also was subtly challenged to contemplate all manner of mysteries both great and small,* including:

The source of iron content in human blood.
The roots of Satan's "Lord of the Flies" monniker.
Death as an alternative control.
The miracle of self-awareness.
Insects as sin-amplifiers.
The concept of naive superintelligence.
The meaning of language.
The origin of dragon mythology.
The birth of idolatry.
The importance of (what we now call) incest.
The meaning of guilt.

And there is much more than that. There is blood in this book. Bad blood. Good blood. God's blood.

When Demon: A Memoir debuted in 2007, it became readily evident that a new, inventive and meaningful storyteller (in the deepest sense of that word) had burst upon the scene.

Demon: A Memoir and Havah: The Story of Eve are companion books, but this is unlikely to be apparent at first blush. Though a great span of time (from origin to present) separates their settings and all but two characters (both of whom are critical, but also almost never overtly "on stage") are entirely different, both stories make it clear that a new world (and worldview) of Providence and the fantastic has been birthed by a most capable midwife in Tosca Lee.

*One of my favorite qualities of Havah is that there is a subtle shift from romance languages (in the Garden) to grittier Anglo-Saxon vocabulary in exile. Lee is nothing if not a writer who builds in layers.

Havah: Why We Matter

If Joan Armatrading gets down to the DNA, I know an author who goes much, much deeper than that.

Tosca Lee takes on the very moment of human consciousness in Havah: The Story of Eve. Her sophomore effort brims with texture and flavor, character and real ideas. It also might stand a little too close and pin you against the wall until you give yourself over. And it won't necessarily make you a better person. At least, not at first.

The reader will enter the thoughts of Eve (the titular Havah) from her awakening, through a personal, familial and societal arc that doesn't just touch on important questions about origins, but delves deeply and puts muscle, skin and, crucially, teeth, to the oft-overlooked framework of what we think we know.

I've written in the past that Lee's first effort, Demon: A Memoir was likely the best novel written in the new century. Havah exceeds Demon in scope, character and detail, and, on those three merits, now wears the crown.

There's a great scene in the film Aliens where the good guys are bunkered safely inside a room and tracking the monsters progress against their location. One of the marines is using an infrared (I think) tracker to see where the beasts are, and is calling out their distance from the room. 9 meters, 8 meters, and so on, sort of a "wait until you see the whites of their eyes before shooting" moment.

When the marine says, "6 meters," Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) says, "They can't be. That's in the room."

And it dawns on them. The monsters are bigger, stronger, more numerous, and, most chillingly, smarter than they imagined.

That's Lee's latest effort for you. One of the best living voices, one of the most disarming and delving literary minds, is actually getting better.

God help us.