|
trinite0
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Ethan
Country: United States
State: Illinois
Metro: Chicago
Birthday: 5/21/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: Grateful Dead, other bands, folk music, playing mountain dulcimer, poetry, fiction, politics, organized religion, technology, H. P. Lovecraft, that kinda stuff, kitties
Expertise: underachievement
Occupation: Student
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
2/18/2005
|
|
| I blow two months of dust off the old blog in order to report that I have taken my first step toward an eventual goal. I desire to eventually make an two-stage 80-mile bicycle trip out to the Missouri wine country along the Katy Trail. To that end, yesterday I did my first trip along the trail, about 20 miles up to this little campground and marina called Cooper's Landing.
I learned about something that I'm sure Luke Damoff at least is very familiar with: physical exhaustion valuably reminds us of both the gift of life and the pain of mortality. Instead of wisely getting started in the cool of the morning (which has been wonderful for the past several days here), I chose instead to set off at about 2:30 in the afternoon. I think it only got up to about 84 or so, but there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The sections of the trail that pass through open country became opportunities for meditation on the pain of our earthly sojourn. The Jesus Prayer was a great aid. But the shady sections where I rode through wooded tunnels became types of that spiritual relief that comes to us graciously throughout our lives, as foretastes of our final rest.
As for Cooper's Landing: well, I imagine heaven will be a lot nicer, but I'll probably be even more surprised at what I see there than I was to find delicious pad Thai at a backwoods marina in mid-Missouri.
| | |
| Has anyone seen or read the play Private Lives, by Noel Coward? It's going to be playing in Kansas City durng my family's vacation. Do you think we would like it?
| | |
| Cats have marvelous adventures. Here is a site where one man discovered how to go along for those adventures.
| | |
| We have purchased patio furniture for my father for Father's Day.
Now, if you come visit me, we will drink chilled amaretto beneath the summer stars.
| | |
| After long and great anticipation, I have finally watched Pan's Labyrinth. I'm a little sad to say that I was not quite as taken with it as I had hoped. It is a phenomenal story, and it filled me with images that I will never forget. At the same time, it also filled me with a few that I wish to forget.
I did not find the extremity of violence necessary. It was nearly on the level of Sin City, another film of astounding stylistic brilliance that turned my stomach with sickly gore. Perhaps these things are even more harmful for being so well done -- I know I couldn't stop seeing Sin City before my eyes for two days afterward.
Still, Pan's Labyrinth is a far better movie, truly beautiful. The violence, though extreme, is yet rare. And the scenes of terror, rather than mere revulsion, were incredible. The feasting monster -- Dear Lord, preserve us from the terrors of evil desire. The avaricious, the gluttonous, the lustful -- his eyes are in his hands, and his gaze is grasping.
I did love it, and would vote for it for Best Picture in a heartbeat, though it escapes my proverbial all-time list by a thread.
| | |
|
