this entry's title is actually a truncated excuse to check out natalie portman

I just watched The Darjeeling Limited, and I really wanted it not to be terrible -- I kept devotedly wishing this wish until the end of the credits even, to no avail.  Totally terrible.  Okay, well, there were some fun colours and a few okay things, but it was just overall one of those films people trick themselves into giving accolades.  It's okay, you can admit it here.

Maybe I would have felt differently about it if I watched it when it actually came out (2007) -- but probably not. 

But that's not what this is about. 

This is a bookend. 

My friend Hannah, who is super much radder at blogging, has offered her services in revamping my hideously bland and basic blog format (she didn't use those words, but I am -- it's okay, we can admit it here), and it's exciting but not for the reason you might think. 

As might be obvious, I've been busy with Christmas and life and generally forgetting about blogging (albeit for less months than usual)... so it was the farthest thing from my mind when she suggested it today, and it took me off guard because I spent a good deal of today thinking about how agonizingly overdedicated to detail and aesthetic and having things in order I can be (eg: was just in my Favourites tab thinking "what a mess, I should organize this...but that would take like a whole day probably...and do I really want to donate a day of my life to that?"  -- do other people think that? ever?)   Anyways, obviously I dedicate abnormal amounts of attention to minutae, let alone larger items, so it was refreshing to realize that I'd given really slim to no attention to designing or formatting my blog.  Because that seems like something that would trump "Favourites tab" in the organizational/aesthetic spectrum.  But it really hasn't, and I didn't even notice it till today.  

So I guess, to celebrate this breakthrough, I'm going to totally negate it via concentrated cooperative regression.  Hahah no no, just kidding. 

I'm going to welcome a friend's wise insight in the hopes of making this space more enticing for myself (and you I suppose) to visit. 

Although after checking my stats, I'm pretty sure 99% of the traffic here is crazy women across the globe google image searching "Elizabeth and Mr Darcy," which was a subject of all of ONE entry here... there are a lot of desperate ladies out there looking for what must end up as pixellated pineworthy wallpaper it seems.  

"...to be continued"  (totally underwhelming Anjelica Huston performance, by the way)

good*night

So many things just happened, I don't know what to do.  So I'm going to blog about it.  This will either be a fun departure from the usual premeditated/educated entries, or a disorienting waste of (y)our time.  Preferably both.

Okay. Here's how it started. I came home from a meeting, considered conforming to adult midweek tradition and watching a sitcom (I classify myself as a 45 year old "life stage wise" sometimes in case you're wondering what I'm talking about), but opted to have a "ponder shower" instead (because really I'm not that old and resigned to it yet), which usually entails really good story ideas that I forget half of before I make it to a pen and paper. Tonight's ponderings instead included first, reminiscing fondly about a song I really like and about dreams and friends and names; second, blowing my own mind by realizing something super obvious that I never really thought about before; and third, racking my brain trying to remember a character from Jurassic Park's first name...Don Arnold?...Tom Arnold? (uh definitely not)...Sam Arnold?........ JOHN Arnold!! 

Then I decided I felt like sharing this song I keep replaying in my mind, maybe via Facebook....or a blog if I felt ambitious & like tying it into the other stuff I'd been thinking about... so enter Internet, link to YouTube to find the song... and WHAT to my wondering eyes should appear but a suggested link on the YouTube homepage to something called "Jesus Christ in Jurassic Park." 

I don't even care what the original this adaptation/dub is based on is -- (okay I did look it up and the audio is snatched from a typical pointless YouTube vid of some guy chasing/yelling at a dog that's chasing some deer or something, I don't know, I didn't finish watching it) -- you can mix anything with Jurassic Park and strike gold.  Add Jesus Christ to Jurassic Park, and well folks, roll credits because that was the Meaning of Life.  (I don't really mean a crazy man screaming "Jesus Christ" .. in case you aren't reading into this .. I mean Actual Jesus Christ.)   You might feel like I'm spending more time than I should talking about this, but if you do, you clearly don't know that probably the things I think most about in life are a) Jesus Christ and b) Jurassic Park.   I often wonder "how would this situation be different if there were veloceraptors in it?"  I'm not even making that up to sound interesting.  I really think that regularly.

What if Jesus was really hoping that like...for the Triumphal Entry his Dad would let him ride a T-rex in instead of the donkey?  Obviously he's a pretty confident guy and knew he didn't need to pimp his ride, so that's respectable.  But I really would love someday for him to sidle up on me and semi-secretly say "the T-rex thing..I totally thought 'if things were different...'"   The Jesus I know I think would for sure have thought of it laughingly in one of his private moments.  Maybe during a ponder shower. 


Anyways -- here's the song I sought :

Greg Laswell falls in the same category as William Fitzsimmons with me.  Well..not the melancholic albums-about-painful-divorces-that-make-me-content-for-some-reason category from the other post (actually pretty sure one of his albums falls into that category too now that I think of it), but more the I-can-listen-to-all-his-songs-for-years-over-and-over-and-never-tire-of-them category.  So lovely.  Go get them all and love them too.

The Question of the Day a couple days ago with Chay & Brodie at the cafe was something -- waaait! this actually ties into the Book Blog too!  It was a stolen "Hyperthetical" from Chuck Klosterman!  This keeps getting more and more enmeshed.  So good.  So yeah it was to the effect of "If someone offered you the power to watch your dreams the next day like a movie, but the catch was that you had to bring everyone you know (family, friends) to the viewing -- would you opt to do it, or turn down the offer?"   I would totally want to, and for sure want everyone to come, because my dreams are always exceptionally vivid and detailed and long and complex, and often better than movies -- I could totally charge admission and they would be huge, I often wish I can rewatch them.  Not to brag or anything.  But my unconscious brain is like 98% more amazing than most people's conscious ones.  (Including my own hahah.)   But yeah I very often dream about my good friends and it feels the next day like we got to hang out and it's so great.  Once I even dreamed about someone who was my best friend, except when I woke up I realized it wasn't an actual person, it was just someone imaginary who didn't even have a name, but I missed him that whole day like my best friend just died.  It was really rough!  hahah.  

This is where I was pondering -- while I was pondering dreams and friends and names earlier -- how part of why I love this song a lot is because it's so brief and fleeting and very much like a dream, or a dear friend whose visit always seems to be not long enough..  or something you can't quite put your finger on, something inside and around you that you can't nail down...  and how I couldn't remember the name of the song even though it feels like it's an inextricable part of me, and how I love mysterious, unnamable, unownable things..  and I can name all my dear friends that I dream of, so while their "presence" may be fleeting, their memory is lasting.  Except I guess for one, that one who never was.  And maybe one other one -- my dearest friend -- (and this is the part that blew my mind in all its hidden obviousness) -- did you ever think about how God doesn't have a name?

And you can throw all the Yahweh and Adonai and Elohim you want on the table, but if we're goin' Old Testament on this, I'll see your tetragrammaton and raise you an I AM.  I don't think you can get less-named than introducing yourself as I AM.  (or "I am that I am" or whatever extrapolation you want to use here)   ...what a guy.  (oh and in case you're saying "Shaina. You are obviously super immune to the obvious -- you actually SAID 'God' in the same sentence you marvelled at Him not having a name in," the thing about that is "God" is not actually a name -- it's just a denoting of Him as THE God -- in a sea of gods -- but I'm not here to teach that lesson tonight so we'll leave it be.) 

So yeah.  I love Jurassic Park, I love Jesus Christ, I love Greg Laswell, I love dreams, I love my friends, I love clever mysteries, and I'm going to bed because it's 10:15 and I'm an old person. 


sweet dreams * *

Christian Porn

...it opens with Katherine Heigl reclining romantically in a field of grass, the exchange of a few sweet sunkissed nothings and the casual quoting of scripture, finally a kiss that actually defies the laws of physics -- I'm pretty sure they were both lying on their backs and the only parts of their bodies that touched were their lips. (okay, I exaggerated that last part. But not by much: he was partially on his side..but I scrutinized it and am confident I can state only their lips touched. Junior high dance chaperones would LOVE this movie.)

* la la laaaah cue the sound of sweeping vistas and long, layered pioneer garb fluttering in the wind *

~ Love's Enduring Promise ~  

Oh -- hang on -- a weinery guy with a lot of swanky gizmos who looks like he wouldn't know which end of a hammer to hit stuff with has entered the plotline... brb, just gotta fall in love for a sec... 

Okay, back. So anyways, I know you're already feverishly adding it to your "must see" list, so I won't ruin the whole thing for you.  But for those of you who're like me and rarely actually get around to seeing your "must see's," I'll give you a brief synopsis for blog's sake:

*SPOILER ALERT!*

...so it's basically your classic girl meets older guy who offers her asylum via marriage when her age-appropriate husband is randomly killed in a freak pioneer accident / guy almost chops his leg off  while cutting wood and spends 3/4 of a movie on the brink of death / mysterious stranger saves guy and his farm and his family and woos his conveniently aged daughter who I'm pretty sure goes from being 11 years younger than Katherine Heigl to 3 years younger than her in the span of ... wait. oh.   This is where you find out that I'm actually summarizing two movies -- and that I've seen this one before and am watching it a second time, on purpose.  

I've taken to blaming Sandra Bullock for things this week, and I'm pretty sure this one is on her too.  (You may have been privy last week to the "Generation Boomerang" Facebook thread that was borne of my sentiments on adult-children -- after that gregarious evening of being an ambassador to Manhood, I decided I needed a "girl day" on the weekend to balance my gender identity back out -- enter: snazzy sleep-in hair, devil-may-care wardrobe [blankets are clothes, right?] and mid-90s Sandra Bullock romcom's) 

Anyways, I forgot I started this with a scandalous title, so I should probably explain that before I forget:

I can't remember for sure, but I feel quite certain that this phrase comes from my pal Hannah (Halloween Hannah if you recall her from previous namedrops) -- she works at the library (which I kind of am jealous of) and sees all kinds of atrocious things there.  And yes.  Christian porn is one of these things.  Only what she means by that (or now means via this scenario I'm inventing if I'm totally remembering things that never happened) is literally these exact movies -- it's a whole series apparently -- a Hallmark cheesefest of based-on-books "Christian Romance" that they offer on dvd via your local literature trove.  (Who wants to come over for a marathon?  Bring your best Snuggie and a bottle of merlot!  And don't forget your kleenex and shame!)  hahah oooh okay maybe that was mean.  There are a few redeeming moments in them.  Or something.  Maybe I just like farms and jarring musical cues that tell me exactly what to feel.    In any case -- I'm pretty positive Hannah and her handy vlogging skillz are to be credited.  (I considered googling the term to see if credit was due elsewhere but I thankfully realized what a mistake that would be.) 

And get ready to have your socks knocked off, as per usual, because YES -- 9 paragraphs in -- this does have something to do with the current (and almost only ever) book this book blog has been about. hahah.  (But look at this: 2 entire related entries in 1 week!  Progress!  Note this, Taylor -- and bring it up at work so I feel compelled to finally finish this book and move on to a new one.  Remind me that one of the next chapters is about my husband, Zack Morris.)   The next chapter of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs on the roster is actually simply entitled "Porn."  I was considering skipping it and moving straight to the Cereal chapter (yes, at long last the cereal reference will be explained!)  ... because most of the perspectives I have on porn are better "in the moment" discussions than blog fare ... but it all kind of came together in the perfect storm tonight, care of Hallmark and Britney Spears.

Britney Spears even makes a cameo in this entry, you ask?  Naturally.  Of all things/people/forces in this world, I feel Britney is the one I would be least surprised to see turn up in any given context.  This is a power not many humans possess -- and I can't tell if it's a power we should avoid tampering with or aspire to...

So, to recap:  Christians, porn, and Omnipresent Britney. 
Keep all your limbs inside the trolley, because I have no idea what's about to happen. 

"Everyone knows that the Internet is changing our lives...However, it certainly appears that the main thing the Internet has accomplished is the normalization of naked people on the World Wide Web, many of whom are clearly (clearly!) doing so for non-monetary reasons. Where were all these people fifteen years ago?" (p.110) 

[ reminder: this book was published in 2003 -- date accordingly ]

[ sidenote: I read this book while in California a couple springs ago -- then a while later I saw a rerun of The OC where Seth was reading it...in California.  I like things like this. ] [ also: I miss Seth and The OC ]


We are presently living in a culture where seeing Britney Spears at the local 7-11 probably wouldn't shock many of us -- and where seeing your third cousin from Nowhere, AB next to naked in casual Craven Facebook tags is an annual occurrance. 

What kind of massive sneaky neutralization is this, I wonder?  It's even stealthier than global warming.  Waaay stealthier.  Probably not as dangerous -- I doubt blurring the lines between celebrity and regular folk is going to cause massive global repercussions for mankind.  OR IS IT? 

Hahah okay those caps were silly ones, not super serious ones. 
But so as not to leave you feeling like I led you down an anticlimactic descent into madness here, I will substantiate the caps to some extent:

"In less than a decade, millions of Americans went from (1) not knowing what the Internet was, to (2) knowing what it was but not using it, to (3) having an e-mail address, to (4) using e-mail pretty much every day, to (5) being unable to exist professionally or socially without it," (p.114) 

Once, long long ago, in order to be a pinup girl (or a crooner, or a movie star, or anyone culturally noteworthy or "known") you had to have that middleman -- the machine -- of celebrity.  It was more of a verb.  Now, it's a noun.  An insta-designation.  The middleman has been unwittingly mowed down by tweens joyriding down the Information Superhighway, weilding more technology than they've been advised or educated enough to know what to do with, and EVERYONE is a walking editor-free tabloid. 

So if we're all VIP celeb's, it would follow that we should aspire to the lifestyle, right?  Minus Middleman, the charmed, branded, upgraded, softcore shower scened, bulletproofed Britney'n'Clyde status update is what's awaiting all of us in life!  Hooray!  Dear government, I'd like my Lexus in gunmetal, and if you could pre-program all my fave movies (you can find them in my FB profile) into the interior theatre system, that'd be greeeat.    

I touched on this earlier in the "series" so I won't be redundant or draw this out much longer -- but I really am concerned with my generation's perception of their reality. 

I see people in my hometown trying to live like they're inhabiting a Britney video and I am genuinely afraid for their children.  Not just on a financial level, but on a familial level, a psychological level, and a spiritual level.   I have a hard time, just from maybe overexposure to it, sometimes taking scripture literally and at face value -- but when it tags money as a tricky master to be avoided, there are leagues of wisdom beneath it.  Stress where there should be peace, shame and debt where there should be stewardship and charity, time and space wasted on storage and accumulation where there should be time and space spent on family and community.  How much we forfeit to the almightly dollar. 

And not only am I concerned for these, but for the ones trying to live like they're inhabiting a Hallmark movie -- the aspiring Christian porn stars.  Alas.  They who might burn with me against the sacrifice of a family's life on the altar of Britney may first be required to remove the Katherine Heigl shaped planks from their own eyes...

Life is not a movie, of any genre.  Okay maybe it's one movie.  

( musical interlude )

I often throw an old William Fitzsimmons track or two on the shop mix and it hits me like a wave of outer space peace at an unexpected moment of a ridiculous day.  Is it weird to be comforted and calmed by a depressing song?  One of my best friends once told me I have a melancholic personality.  I never studied that strand of Personality Typing so to this day I'm not for sure sure what she was telling me -- (I should look that up) -- but I always remember it when I'm richly encountering a sad song or an Anglican flavoured church service in a minor key or a bleak landscape or a grey day...  

My last entry was about crossing paths with things in dark places that you probably don't want to... but I think there's a lot of treasure to find in "dark" places as well.  Some of my best spoils have been procured in voids and chasms many would dread to enter; ones some of me wants to forget -- expeditions gone awry... several I had no choice in taking.  

I don't think it's bad to be kindred spirits with melancholy pieces of this world.  They're some of the most honest things you'll meet. 



for those who have ears to hear