Posted 5/3/2002 11:36:36 AM

e.II

Posted 5/3/2002 11:34:06 AM
wow. there was only 1min1sec between the last two thoughts...

Posted 5/3/2002 11:33:16 AM
i think that it is time to move beyond supply side spirituality...

Posted 5/3/2002 11:32:15 AM
in two weeks i will have, inshallah, seen attack of the clones at least twice.

wow.

Posted 5/2/2002 06:52:02 PM

frank gehry has sought to craft a sign of a sign of liberated art in his architecture. the guggenheim is probably his most widely recognized work.

what would a guggenheim church be like? it seems to me that many in our day are trying to bring about a "new" kind of communal spiritual architecture somewhat akin to the way gehry has sought to enact a new physical architecture.

i like the passion and ideas of gehry, but in the end his attempt at an enactment of liberated art still crafts an institutional museum with employees, business hours and gated works of art. his ambitions of liberation fall short by the very nature of his work. liberated art has no ropes, no business hours, no curators… liberated art is not ripped out of context, aggregated and centrally brokered. an art liberated would be more akin to loosely coupled networks of community artists and roving bands of guerilla artisans enacting a quasi-public art that lasts a moment or millenia.

when i think of liberated art i often think of the enormous buddhas carved into the walls of sloping stone that we stumbled upon in our childhood in central asia. there were no ropes, no tickets, no trinkets, no hucksters, no hotels, no maps, no post cards… we stumbled into someone’s public art that was enacted thousands of years ago and yet still sat quietly without mediation ready to surprise the next wanderer open to finding it.

the challenge with the guggenheim is that it is still a centralized institutional mediator of art. a place to go. it is not networked artists, but a mall of art. not decentralized such that the art emerges all around one. it is still founded and run as an institution within which events take place. this is all ok i guess, but not a liberation of art.

what if the artists just stayed home? what if they just created and impacted their communities with beauty and shock and hope?

it seems some are advocating a postmodern church along the lines of the guggenheim. a sexy, non-linear architectural wonder that really does nothing to subvert the fundamental limitations of the institution that is the primary inhibitor to an authentically liberated art of spirituality. maybe people should just stay home and create and impact their communities with beauty, shock and hope. maybe the death by irrelevance of the cages of god in our time will spawn a return to integrated, authentic living in the spirit. maybe not. what do you think?

Posted 5/2/2002 05:57:00 PM
Some Top 5 Lists In No Particular Order


Top 5 Songs - Today

1. Kasey Chambers - A Million Tears
   
2. Madonna - Skin
   
3. Goo Goo Dolls - Think About Me
   
4. Sting - When We Dance
   
5. Counting Crows - Anna Begins
   
6. U2 - Wild Honey

Top 5 Albums - Today

1. Sting, All This Time
   
2. The Crystal Method, Vegas
   
3. Goo Goo Dolls, Gutterflower
   
4. Alice in Chains, Nothing Safe
   
5. Madonna, Ray of Light
   
6. U2, Achtung Baby
   
7. Green Day, Dookie
   
8. NIN, All That Could Have Been (...oops that's 8...)

Top 5 Love Scenes - Literary/Cinematic

1. The Thomas Crown Affair, after the tango, sophisticated and playful (movie)
   
2. Reality Bites, simplicity & confusion, enjoyment & regret, love latent & fear present (movie)
   
3. The Hottest State, in paris and all the while so very exotically normal (book)
   
4. Fight Club, haunting, curious, passionate in a fucked up american kama sutra kind of way, hmm, this one i will get flack for... (movie)
   
5. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, poetic, austere, primordial, savage, archetypal, dashing (movie)
   
6. Pump Up The Volume, there really is no scene. hilariously cerebral. (movie)

Top 5 Jobs

1. Daddy
   
2. Rock Star
   
3. International Philanthropist
   
4. Tenured University Professor
   
5. UN Proactive Regional Diplomatic Mediator

Top 5 Sources of Caffeine

1. Hansen's Energy
   
2. Sobe Adrenaline
   
3. Dr. Pepper
   
4. Mountain Dew
   
5. Penguin Mints

Posted 5/2/2002 03:32:56 PM
i predict that people will come
from east and west,
and north and south
to sit with abraham, isaac and jacob
at the amazing party in the
kingdom of heaven.
those who think the
kingdom of god
belongs to them will be thrown out
into the darkness
where they will cry tears of bitter regret.
Q64

jesus speaks of a kingdom without ownership.

when we begin to attempt to broker this kingdom
we join those weeping with regret.
we do not sell this thing called the kingdom...

WE ENACT IT!

(my maiden post on akingdomspace blog -- not yet public)

Posted 5/2/2002 03:29:38 PM
//Ok, so my ass was being kicked at Tekken III the other day waiting to see a movie when it dawned on me that the simulation of my kicked ass cost me $4.00 and I didn't even get hurt. What the hell. I want some fucking pain. I paid $4.00 for this hot chick to break my back. The least I should get is some residual pain.// The question of simulation is no longer phrased in terms of the distinctions between a simulation and reality. Simulation is now a discussion of degrees and sophistication. Simulation is recursive life. We grew up thinking that simulation was a way to pretend in a world of reality. We now realize that reality is the pretense of an unselfaware simulation.

Posted 5/2/2002 03:21:20 PM
Here is indisputable proof that to say, "I love you," to a woman immediately subjects you to her mastery.

Original English Text:
i love you.

Translated to French:
je t'aime.

Translated back to English:
I love you.

Translated to German:
Ich liebe dich.

Translated back to English:
I love you.

Translated to Italian:
Ti amo.

Translated back to English:
I love to you.

Translated to Portuguese:
Eu amo-lhe.

Translated back to English:
I love to it.

Translated to Spanish:
Amo a él.

Translated back to English:
Master to him.

(All of the translations for this absolutely undisputable love polemic were done by Carl Tashian's Lost In Translation tool. I was pointed to this tool by specz.)

Posted 5/2/2002 02:57:10 PM
we had some amazing poetry at bentley's last night. i love all of you. what an amazing life we get to live together.

Posted 5/2/2002 02:52:12 PM
this disgusts me: GodHatesFags.com.

what is this baptist church in kansas hoping to accomplish with this public discourse? particularly disturbing are the memorials to high profile homosexual murder victims that announce how many days they have been in hell. "Matthew Shepard has been in hell for 1299 days." wow. i am at a loss for what to say about this.

Posted 5/1/2002 01:36:19 PM
bought my first Star Wars Episode II schlock today...

a box of General Mills, "Star Wars Episode II Cereal Collector's Edition #2"...

catchy name.

Posted 5/1/2002 01:20:07 PM
Allah the action figure has arrived!!!

Putting the fun back into fundamentalism.

Posted 5/1/2002 11:24:18 AM
my religious objection to door knobs

so a month or more ago i went to open the front door of my lower-middle class condo and my 8-month old door knob with a 50 year guarantee snapped under the pressure of a simple twist and was left dangling freely from my right hand. it's mate fell out of the other side of the door with a thud on my composite stone porch.

what happened? this door knob was supposed to out live me, or at the very least, my tenure in this "transitional" townhome that has become anything but transitional.
what happened? this thing is made of hardened metal to keep bad guys out of my happy little american life, but it cannot withstand the super human strength of my wrist?
what happened?

slight turns day after day wore down the cylinders that housed the screws that held the two sides of the door knob together. that slight pressure on that one, seemingly random, day was enough to incarnate every slight turn over the last 8 months in a crashing destruction of my door knob.

so now what?

now a green towel sits in the hole that remains where a door knob once lived. the towel keeps the environments of in and out seperated. or so i would like to think. i take the towel out each time i enter or exit to slip my fingures through the hole to pull or push what remains of the partition that guards the portal to my home/the world.

being doorknobless is now normal for me. it seems almost a protest against the religion of knobness.

Posted 5/1/2002 11:12:22 AM
in an email from j.

....to demand unconditional love is a condition....

...i'm frustrated with myself and self-centeredness. that is the beauty of the progressive tense... there is no better suffix than the "ing". i am changing. i am in the progressive tense.

Posted 5/1/2002 09:44:51 AM
Internet Radio May Day
today marks an internet radio wide protest against the impending CARP legislation currently before congress. get involved and save global indie radio.

Interesting Post from someone in my spiritual community in response to a criticism that we are not "christian" enough.

From Robert Scheer's Blame It On Rome:

While it might appear to be sweet revenge for the Inquisition, it is best to resist the impulse to burn some Catholic priests -- and the cardinals who covered up their criminal activities -- at the stake. Be thankful that we live in a secular, pluralistic society in which the heavy hand of the sanctimonious is restrained....

As one searches for an explanation for why so many priests have been exposed as child molesters recently, there is no indication that pornography or other manifestations of a permissive secular world pushed any of those men of God into their insanity. Indeed, the more plausible explanation is that they led a life too cloistered from the ordinary sources of adult sexual stimulation and satisfaction.

As the stories of the Bible amply testify, sexual perversion was a feature of the human experience long before the advent of modern communications technology. Certainly the history of the Catholic Church is replete with tales of decadence on the part of priests long before the allures of the silver screen, cable TV and the Internet.

Rather than scapegoat gay men -- or sex outside marriage, pornography, masturbation, short skirts, precocious children, Hollywood films and so on -- the Roman Catholic Church might be best served by reciting the wisdom of Pogo at every vespers: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Pedophilia is a serious crime, irrevocably damaging young lives. The problem here is not that the church had sick priests but rather that their evil ways were permitted to fester by the indifference of corrupt cardinals and bishops who then and now blame everyone but themselves for the terrible harm that has been done.

Posted 4/30/2002 10:09:15 PM

Madonna is taking the stage in the West End production of Up For Grabs.

Posted 4/30/2002 09:39:03 PM
From JOHO's blog.

"The Pseudo Politically Correct term that I would use to describe the mind set of postmodernism is "epistemologically challenged": a constitutional inability to adopt a reasonable way to tell the good stuff from the bad stuff." (Chip Morningstar)

This is exactly right, but it — I hesitate to say it — needs to be deconstructed. POMO at its best challenges the comfortable notion of "reasonable." Buried in that term is an appeal to a privileged standpoint that is usually deeply conservative: facts, rationality or common sense.

Believe me, I am deeply sympathetic to Chip's reaction to POMO. His description of what it's like to swim among these fish mirrors my own experiences. But an appeal to the "reasonable" ignores what's most important about POMO analysis. POMO tells us that all understanding is interpretive, that other interpretations are possible, and that our interpretation seems right not because it is right but because it's our interpretation.

It seems like we have two choices: we fall into an indecisive relativism that says that all views are equally valid or we sprain our brains trying to see how there could be a way to tell the good stuff from the bad stuff. To say that there's a "reasonable way" to do so seems to me to miss the point because it assumes the very thing that we should be stubbing our toes trying to think through.

On the other foot (er, hand), I personally think it's a mistake to assume that we have to choose among fundamental interpretations. We don't get to fly above all interpretations, including our own, picking and choosing among them. We are our stance in the world, a stance given to us by history, culture, language and accident. So, the lesson I take from POMO is that absolutism is a mistake, that humility is warranted, and that we always have to decide among uncertain choices that are themselves delivered by the accident of history.

So, how do we decide whether the post-feminist-meta-Marx-pre-Freudian interpretation of the Book of Job is worth our time? I don't think POMO actually helps us. It's better at freeing up creative interpretations that challenge the status quo than at enabling us to choose among those interpretations. My guess is that such decisions actually come after the fact: we're inspired/energized/heartened by the critique we just read and only afterwards do we try to "justify" why that critique is worthy of belief. Belief is the last in the series. And it's the least interesting. More important: Does it excite you? Does it reveal the world in a way that matters? Does it set the hairs on your neck on edge? Does it give you a chill?

Posted 4/30/2002 05:28:54 PM
passion is the fire of communication.
communication the protocol for integrity.
integrity the fundamental language of love.
without these we are mere objects of convenience
adrift on a tide of relational moments without continuity.
the story of love is woven with the threads of passion, communication and integrity.
add a dash of serendipity and magic has been made.

Posted 4/30/2002 04:31:37 PM
the significance of insignificance is seen only in retrospect.

Posted 4/30/2002 02:52:42 PM
oh, yeah, one more thing,

DON'T POSTPONE JOY.

now is it.

Posted 4/30/2002 02:46:47 PM
TRUTHBULLETS - the unamerican greeting card series.

Odds are, if you're surfing this page, you're in some interpersonal situation that could use some clarification...

Posted 4/30/2002 01:55:26 PM

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the earth all one's lifetime. - Mark Twain

if i seem odd to you remember that i am a trans-culture kid.

Posted 4/28/2002 03:57:32 PM
from EVHEAD's blog:

Waitresses provide security in the form of conversation, sustenance in the form of food and pleasure in the form of alcohol. Even the loneliest man will be brought to life by the reassuring attention given him by his waitress. - Freud

Posted 4/28/2002 01:45:19 PM
when i read the writing and hear the speaking of so many purported xian semioticians or postmodern ministers i get the distinct feeling that something is off. i feel The Secret being whored out in postmodern disguise...

i hear things like this...

-> missional - how we need to "reach out" to postmoderns -- as if we are somehow this cultural demographic that just needs a new branding of xianity. how xianity is somehow a third entity outside of culture and thought that can be "contextualized" within various ideological constellations – as if the postmodern turn is simply a new opportunity for roman/reformed xian ministry -- as if we still can presume the objectivity that allows words like contextualization to even enter our vocabularies.

-> narrative - how we have or are moving beyond foundationalism so we need to figure out how to substantiate our creedal positions narratively -- as if the trajectories of theology from the past presuming various foundationalisms can remain intact unchanged after contingency.

this is so not there from where i sit at the keyboard. i like some meanings of missional and narrative. there are just so few i hear that i like... in edgy xian circles it is cool to talk about 'postmodernity' as if the statements being made are revelatory. “we’re a non-foundationalist, missional, generative, blah blah blah…” whatever. are you trying to be cool or has contingency gripped you and demanded its due?

the unknowing within the trace, the matrix of différance, the decentering of deconstruction are quasi-revelatory only in so much as they are embodied in the humility, the hope and the agreed intentionality of communities of faith. this is not about creating new boxes for xians to sit around in and 'worship.' this is about the sacred space of what it is to be fully human (in the image of god!) in this moment. this is about the worship of advocacy, the sacrament of intimacy, the beauty of lives that subvert the simplistic branding of the cultural/spiritual fashion du jour by embodying an active ambiguity that privileges love, righteousness and otherness.

theology is now always already done in community. The “queen of the sciences” has been dethroned. theology has nothing to do with being right. theology has to do with being right. 'theology' is now an agreement within community helping emerge transformation within that which we inhabit. it is now about enacting the kingdom. it is now about becoming the father…

Posted 4/28/2002 01:33:36 PM
e confleeced haret se e explodous quil tu dep wardys commentimo.

Posted 4/28/2002 01:32:31 PM
::earlier to zimbah::

the innocence of ignoring through play... why can't we live this way now?

eventually we come in and eat.
we don't starve ourselves to death in order to play.
but we don't defer play just to eat...

we still sleep... we still do our chores...
but now it is playful. now it is so alive--it is summer, we are free, we are immortal....

to become children again... to ignore enough to live a life of love without regret.

to play.

funny how adults miss life in all their living.

Posted 4/28/2002 12:31:19 PM
my friend dan from dealingwith is starting a band this summer: Christian Porn Machine... another enactment...