Wednesday, September 27th
The Secular Trinity
Jesus' temptations by the devil right after His baptism are the temptations of the three basic forms of power: religious, political, and economic. They also correspond to three real life events in Jesus' ministry. The temptation to turn stones to bread parallels Jesus' feedings of the crowds in the wilderness. The temptation on the temple mount corresponds to the short period of time when Jesus was in charge of the national religious system after driving out the moneychangers from the temple. The temptation to rule the nations by worshipping Satan parallels the temptation in Gethsemane to call legions of angels and destroy the dominant political system. What is interesting is how one can apply these temptations as a template over Jesus' most famous prayer:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed by Thy name.
Praying this portion of the Lord's prayer is an antidote to the temptation of religious power- the temptation to seize power by hallowing our own name. Of course, no one is so impolite and crass as to actually pray, "Lord, I pray that my name is hallowed above all others." But the temptation to see our own name hallowed rather than the name of the Lord comes out in less obvious ways. We may pray, for example, that the name of our religion, or our country, or our business be blessed above that of the names of other religions, countries, or businesses. These evil prayers would be in direct contradiction to Jesus' command to pray that the name of Our Father be hallowed. These evil prayers essentially replace the phrase "Our Father" with the phrase "My Father." They are a co-opting of the power of The Father for my purposes rather than our purposes.
Thy kingdom come- Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.
This is obviously an antidote to the temptation to political power- the temptation to impose one's own will on earth and establish one's own kingdom.
Give us this day our daily bread. And remit us our debts as we have remitted those of our debtors.
This translation is John Howard Yoder's in The Politics of Jesus. This portion of the prayer is an antidote to the temptation to economic power, and interestingly it is the lengthiest part of the prayer. Possibly this is because both religious power and political power have always hinged on economic power- it is always the wealthy who get to choose what kind of religious or political power structures will exist. It is also helpful here to remember the phrase "You cannot serve both God and Mammon," where Jesus uses the picture of the evil choice as serving wealth rather than God, as opposed to serving Satan or some other figure.
Jesus then ends the prayer with a reference to the temptations in the desert which helped form it:
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from (the) Evil (one).
Rocki Wentzel has suggested to me that these three basic forms of power could also be counterparts to the three persons of the Trinity. In this picture, economic power (or mammon) is the worldly version of The Son, political power is the worldly version of The Father, and religious power is the worldly version of The Spirit. Thus it is possible to talk of a Secular Trinity as opposed to a Holy Trinity.
In Revelation 12-13, there are three beasts mentioned that could be the counterparts of the three persons of the Holy Trinity. First there is the Dragon, then the Beast from the Sea, and finally the Beast from the Land. All these trinities could be mapped out this way:
Father--Dragon--Political Power
Son--Beast from the Sea--Economic Power
Spirit--Beast from the Land-->Religious Power
Sunday, September 24th
Jackie Mason on the national language question
There may be those among you who support including Spanish in our national language. I for one am 110% against this! We must preserve the exclusivity and above all, the purity of the English language. To all the shlemiels, shlemazels, nebbishes, nudniks, klutzes, putzes, shlubs, shmoes, shmucks, nogoodniks, and momzers that are out there pushing Spanish, I just want to say that I, for one, believe that English and only English deserves linguistic prominence in our American culture. To tell the truth, it makes me so farklempt, I'm fit to plotz. This whole Spanish schmeer gets me broyges, specially when I hear these erstwhile mavens and luftmenschen kvetching about needing to learn Spanish. What chutzpah! These shmegeges can tout their shlock about the cultural and linguistic diversity of our country, but I, for one, am not buying their shtick. It's all so much dreck, as far as I'm concerned. I exhort you all to be menshen about this and stand up to their fardrayte arguments and meshugganah, farshtunkene assertions. It wouldn't be kosher to do anything else. Remember, when all is said and done, we have English and they've got bubkes! The whole mynseh is a pain in my tuchas!
shlemiel- A dummy; someone who is taken advantage of, a born loser.
shlemazel- An extremely unlucky or inept person; a habitual failure.
nebbish- An inadequate person, a loser.
nudnik- A pest, a persistent and annoying person.
klutz- An awkward, uncoordinated person.
putz- A vulgarism for penis but most usually used as term of contempt for a fool, or an easy mark.
shlub- a clumsy, stupid, or unattractive person
shmoe- a jerk
shmuck- S.O.B.
nogoodnik- A worthless, disreputable, or malicious person.
momzer- A bastard, an untrustworthy person.
farklempt- choked up or not feeling good
plotz- To burst, to explode, "I can't laugh anymore or I'll "plotz." To be aggravated beyond bearing.
schmeer- noun or verb: spread (e.g., cream cheese on a bagel); bribe
broyges- angry, irate
maven- An expert, a connoisseur.
luftmenschen- A dreamer, someone whose head is in the clouds.
kvetch- To annoy or to be an annoying person, to complain.
chutzpah- Nerve; gall, as in a person who kills her parents and asks for mercy because she is an orphan.
shmegege- A petty person, an untalented person.
shlock- A shoddy, cheaply made article, something thats been knocked around.
shtick- A stick or thing. Often refers to an individual's unique way of presenting themselves, as in "She is doing her shtick."
dreck- Shit. Can refer to the ugliness of objects or people.
mensh- A person of character. An individual of recognized worth because of noble values or actions.
meshugganah- Crazy, refers to a more chronic disturbance.
farshtunkene- Rotten (awful person)
kosher- Refers to food that it prepared according to Jewish law. More generally kosher means legitimate.
bubkes- emphatically nothing, as in "He isn't worth bubkes" (literally 'goat droppings')
tuchas- buttocks, rear end
(I was unable to find definitions for "mynseh" or "fardrayte")
Thursday, September 21st
Be careful, people!
Listening:
Abbey Lincoln- Abbey Is Blue
Britney Spears- Britney
Bud Powell- The Return Of Bud Powell
Chick Corea- Delphi 1
Count Basie- Count Basie
Depeche Mode- Playing The Angel
Duke Ellington- All Star Road Band
Ferrante and Teicher- The Greatest Love Songs Of All
Foo Fighters- The Colour and the Shape
Hoobastank- Hoobastank
Rufus Wainwright- Poses
Stan Getz- The Chick Corea/ Bill Evans Sessions
The Quintet- V. S. O. P.
Tori Amos- Little Earthquakes
Reading:
4 New Versions of Bill Evans Tunes Taken from his Recordings- Peter Dreyfuss
Guitar Crosspicking Technique- Mickey Cochran
Born Again- Kelly Kerney
Eating:
Way too much pasta and pizza
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Be careful, people! Like me, you probably knew that Elvis died on the toilet, but I just discovered that he likely died employing the Valsalva maneuver because of constipation. Don't do this! Over 1200 people die every year on the toilet employing the Valsalva man(e)u(v)re.
While watching a program on the history channel about the Sahara desert, the question occurred to me about how one would go about buying a camel if one wanted a camel. I did a search for camels on ebay, not knowing that they have a policy against selling most live animals. This is a problem for me! I have come to rely on ebay for most of my shopping needs. Fortunately there are places on the 'net where one can get info on buying camels. According to allcamels.com, Camelids of Delaware sells dromedaries, although their website isn't up yet. Then there is this place in Wisconsin that sells Dromedaries. I don't know what I'd do if I wanted to buy a Bactrian camel though- there are a few for sale here but they seem to be prohibitively expensive. The same site would probably be a good place to get camel saddles, though.
The camel has a single hump; The dromedary, two;
Or else the other way around, I'm never sure. Are you?
--Ogden Nash
Friday, September 15th
What I did on summer vacation- part ii
Nancy has taken a job with the Clintonville-Beechwold Community Resource Center driving seniors to various functions, outings, and appointments. Previously she had been the Resource Center's most faithful volunteer, so when she took on the job vacancy left by the exodus of the full-time driver, she left a void that the agency has been scrambling to fill. Since I have been off this month, I decided I would volunteer as a driver for the September breakfast club, a monthly event for elderly folk held at the North Broadway United Methodist Church. I never feel quite natural in this kind of a role, and I was very happy for Nancy's company at the event. She is really quite good at her new job- she has a knack for relating to the elderly and other disadvantaged people.
The so-called breakfast club actually consists of a luncheon and a presentation. The presentation this month caught us by surprise: it was a video made by The Land We Call Ohio Project which featured an old friend of ours who passed away a couple years ago. We knew Richard Canfield was a painter and that some of his art had been featured in a book, but we didn't know the extent of his participation in the project until yesterday.
The project was the work of eight artists who painted scenes from each of Ohio's 88 counties. Reproductions of these paintings were then collected into a book along with histories of the various counties and stories about the artists.
One thing I appreciated about Richard was his dedication to his craft. Richard underwent a couple of eye surgeries that severely affected his depth perception. He continued to paint, although it was necessary for him to use one hand to touch the canvas before applying the paint with the other hand, so that he knew exactly where the canvas was.
Not long after these surgeries Richard died suddenly and unexpectedly from a heart attack. It was a tragic loss.
Here is Richard's "The Serpent Mound" from Adam's county in Ohio:
Thursday, September 14th
Don't believe everything you see (or read).
Q: In this image, which line is longer?
A: Actually it's an optical illusion: both lines are the same length.
Tuesday, September 12th
Wikipedia Roulette
Anybody up for some Wikipedia Roulette? Just go to Wikipedia and click on the random article link until you actually get an article on something you recognize. Here were my first two rounds:
1. Hakodate (???; -shi) is a city and port located in Oshima, Hokkaido, Japan...
2. "Complete Discocrappy" is a 2000 double album by punk band Charles Bronson...
3. The Slime Pit is the name of two Masters of the Universe locations...
4. The Truesteppers were a British garage production duo...
5. Sindoor is a red powder used by married Hindu women...
6. The archlute (Italian arciliuto, German Erzlaute) a European plucked string instrument...
7. The name EMM386 was used for the expanded memory managers of both Microsoft's MS-DOS and Digital Research's DR-DOS...
(Embarrasing that I didn't know #6)
1. A radar note, in currency collecting is an individual bill or note ("banknote") of "paper" currency in which the characters in the serial number in the note read the same backwards and forwards...
2. The Holy Science is a book written by Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri in 1894...
3. Transcona is a neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba...
4. The Hekro Towers is a skyscraper in the Central Business District of Johannesburg...
5. MLD can stand for either:
* Minimum lethal dose
* Multicast Listener Discovery
* Malad City airport code
* Maniac Latin Disciple
6. Ragnarok Flash Animation is an animation flash...
7. Cattaraugus Reservation is an Indian reservation...
8. The Piano Sonata No, 31 in A flat major, Op. 110 by Ludwig van Beethoven...
(whew I was getting nervous! And embarrasingly I initially misidentified the Beethoven Sonata as one that I had played before. I haven't played it, but I've heard of it, so that stops this round.)
My next few rounds I actually did much better, scoring 2, 2, and 3...
Thursday, September 7th
What I did on summer vacation
Reading:
N. T. Wright- Simply Christian
Robinson- Everyday Life in Ancient Greece
Listening:
Coldplay- Parachutes
Coldplay- A Rush of Blood to the Head
Well, I'm off from my postal job 'till the end of the month if I want, although I will probably work a few days in the middle so that I don't run myself totally out of vacation time. In the meantime I am drinking beer in the middle of the day and trying to get caught up on 30 years or so of contemporary culture. Jared Boyd's last CD purchase may have been "Cracked Rear View," but my last new CD purchase was so much earlier than that that it was a record, not a CD.
It's really embarrassing as a musician to have no idea what Pearl Jam or Coldplay sound like. I have to fix that, and soon.
Not to change the subject, but does anyone know a good wine to go with corn chips?
Last night I got called into my other job, the musical one. There was a big party of Chinese people that came into Panda last night. My boss described them as "high class," explaining why they wanted a live piano player. My boss two bosses ago told me that there was a difference in the way that Chinese and Americans approached the dining experience. Americans typically like for the waiters to interact and converse with them, whereas Chinese typically like to be left alone. It has taken me quite a while to get used to this. Usually I feel like my presence at the piano is futile; that I am being ignored.
It's good for me though. My pride needs to be knocked down several pegs.
Last night was typical for the first hour or so. I do get a kick out of it when my playing a Chinese pop song elicits an interested look. Not very usual for a white guy to be playing that stuff. Once it caused an interesting situation when a Chinese woman was trying to request some pop Chinese tunes. Perhaps difficult is a better word, because I don't know the titles of what I'm playing, either in Chinese or English. And seeing as my entire repetoire of Chinese pop tunes numbers about 4, it's all a futile proposition.
So I was overjoyed last night when a Chinese man requested For Alice. Interestingly, that song was also first ever requested of me at the restaurant, so I was able and happy to comply.
That first request is the subject of an interesting story. Rather than being happy, I was dismayed when my first request ever at the restaurant was for For Alice, because I'd never heard of the song. The Chinese man who asked for it seemed shocked that I couldn't play it. "You play the piano, and you can't play For Alice," he asked incredulously. As he was starting to walk away I had a sudden idea and asked him to sing the first few notes. It turned out I knew For Alice after all, although by a slightly different name. Last night when I played it the Chinese gentleman got a big grin on his face and declared that I was a good piano player. Afterwards he gave me a gift of 12 Chinese zodiac postage stamps. They were packaged with the usual Chinese penchant for pastel colors which makes most Americans think "cheap," but they were actually very nice.
If a wine goes well with corn chips, will it also go well with cheese puffs?
Monday, September 4th
My Labor Day Miracle
I've been having doubts about my faith recently and it all came to a head today when I heard that the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin died. So I prayed for a miracle and God gave me this:
Nancy pulled this exact replica of the Virgin Mary from the bag of Fritos we were eating today. We were going to sell it on ebay but unfortunately the dog got to it when I was putting away the camera.
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