fortune cookie redux.

In keeping with my general feeling of a slow but definite uptick in my personal, uh, fortunes... Tonight's fortune cookie had not zero, not one, but two fortunes.

"The physician heals; nature makes well."

"He who hurries cannot walk with dignity."

I'm seeing a theme here. Patience, grasshopper. Patience.

huzzah for the appetizer diet.

I have to thank Lukas Pearse for summarizing last night's Akron/Family gig at Stage Nine so succinctly: he said that he felt like he'd stuffed himself on appetizers. A lot of really long intros, and really long outtros. "Tro" music. Myself, I loved it, but I think I know exactly what he meant. These guys have totally mastered the art of the long, atmospheric, psych-freak-out jam. Whatever that's worth to you.

But it was good times last night... took the above picture with my new cell phone (welcome to 2004, James), saw lots of good folks — all three Just Barelys were in the crowd, as well as a posse of usual suspects: K, L, S&R. Very cool seeing Andy Murdoch and Jen Reynolds back in town. I wanna see hands in the air if you remember Living the Dream...

Intelligent Divine

Like I needed another reason to love Rowan Williams... the Archbishop of Canterbury weighs in on whether creationism should be taught in schools...

"I don't think it should, actually. No, no. And that's different from saying - different from discussing, teaching what creation means... For that matter, it's not even the same as saying that Darwinism is - is the only thing that ought to be taught. My worry is creationism can end up reducing the doctrine of creation rather than enhancing it."

The story on the BBC News website is called "Fears over teaching creationism."

On a related note, the Daily Telegraph has figured out that having a genuine intellectual (i.e. R.W.) as the leader of a large organization (i.e. the C of E, & the A.C.) is turning out to be not such a bad idea.

"With a little luck, the ball goes over, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose."

There is much to admire about Woody Allen's latest, Match Point. It goes without saying that Allen is as wedded to New York settings as any director could be — so the ease with which he takes on London in this film impresses me. I felt like I was seeing London through the eyes of a person of real culture; the way he uses the layout of the Tate Modern to generate some moments of drama is one of many skilled touches. The cast is strong across the board, the script fairly sings (not five minutes into the film you see the setups happening and feel the tension building, without knowing where it's all going), and this may just be the closest he will come to repeating the greatness of Crimes and Misdemeanors.

And that, unfortunately, is the one small but significant problem with this film — a couple of moves, in the last five or ten minutes, that simply come too close for comfort to the earlier film. While there's no reason not to enjoy Match Point, thoroughly, on its own wonderful terms — and while, yes, he does have a somewhat different thematic direction in mind this time — anyone familiar with C&M is bound to feel just a little cheated.

"What has anything got to do with the Holocaust?"

You want trenchant analysis? We got trenchant analysis. Did you see that piece in the NY Times, about Syrian-American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan's TV interview on al-Jazeera? If the Times' "most emailed" list is anything to go by, the world has been lapping up her criticism of the supposed "Middle Ages" Islamic mentality.

Now Adam Becker has struck back with his essay on one of my favourite websites, The Revealer, and has given her arguments the shredding they deserve. Sample quotes:

"Frankly, her statements are nothing new and people have only taken an interest in her because she is an Arab woman, which bestows her with an authenticity as vivid as her image on the computer screen. If a white psychiatrist from California said the same things, would her statements be passed around the internet like a celebrity sex video?"

You know you want more.

"...at that moment of realising death may be imminent, what happens, what goes through one's head?"

"Well there's no time to think. You don't think at all. You just experience it. What you do, in my case, is that you fight and fight to stay alive. You try and insist upon breathing. You insist on not losing the ability to breathe. And I just managed it by the skin of my teeth."

Harold Pinter, interviewed by Michael Billington in yesterday's edition of The Guardian. (Do read it, if only for the priceless bit about his Nobel-notification telephone call.)

I think Harold understands how I feel about the Arabic test I have to write tomorrow.

Beware the Ides of March, people!

peace for Purim

It is possible to imagine, though, that Iran's intermittently persecuted Jews, living today under a president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who denies the historical truth of the European Holocaust while threatening a new Middle Eastern one, might see Purim not as a story of tragedy averted but as one of tragedy foretold.

It's the Purim break-fast, today, and Jeffrey Goldberg has a fantastic op-ed in today's NY Times where he draws the unfortunately too obvious connection between the Book of Esther story of Jewish genocide averted in ancient Persia, and the anti-Semitism of today's Iranian leadership.

But while I call attention to that, may I also call attention to a series of posts on Juan Cole's blog: "Peace and Love in the Qu'ran" (click on the numbered surah:verse links). Iranian extremism notwithstanding, I'd hate to think that everybody thinks about Muslims this way. Or, especially, this way.

Early spring

is such a sharp contrast to last year's complete lack thereof, wouldn't you agree, fellow Haligonians? I felt slightly retarded for the sheer weather-euphoria I started experiencing on Saturday, but a couple of people I respect have assured me I'm not the only one who feels a mystical high in the March sun. Even better, everything is starting to move again.

At Keira's party on Saturday, Brensan and I talked about getting the Sunday night bike dinner posse back up and running. Today, after registering for spring-term French classes at the Alliance Française, I took my warhorse of a GT mountain bike over to Idealbikes for a tune-up. If we get the least bit of sun this weekend, I'll be hitting the trails. Rock!

someone tell me what this means.

I opened my fortune cookie today, and it was empty.

she is a music video.

Thelibrarygirl says it better than I could. For the canonical blurb, go here.

point-counterpoint on Syria

"Religion is making a comeback in Syria, where people feel the state's socialist and pan-Arab ideologies have failed for the last four decades."

Two interesting articles on religious culture in Syria came to my attention today. In the dentist's office I picked up a recent issue of Maclean's and found this piece about evangelical Christianity thriving under the secularist protection of Bashar al-Assad's Baathists (though the article — keeping things dead-simple for Canadian readers? — doesn't mention the Baathists by name).

"While Protestant churches have existed in Syria since the mid-19th century, it's only in the past couple of decades that evangelical churches have sprung up here..."

"...but many Syrian Christians fear their position might change under the threat of Islamist extremism if al-Assad's regime collapses."

Indeed, and that's what this BBC article contemplates, as a competing form of religious fervor takes root:

"After ruthlessly crushing a Muslim Brotherhood rebellion in 1982, the Syrian government has found it is unable to contain the rise of religion. So instead, the authorities have decided to go with the trend and co-opt the symbols of Islam..."

"You know what? I think it just got a little easier out here for a pimp."

"Oh, my. Hey, we want to thank Keith Young our choreographer. And the whole Sony Records, Lisa Ellis, our moms, our whole families. Thank you, Jesus. And for giving us a chance, the Academy. We love the Academy. You know what I'm saying? Gil Cates. Everybody. I got plenty of time. Ain't nobody else. I want to thank everybody. Yeah. Donnie Ienner. Once again our families. Ludacris. What's up? Going down. George Clooney, my favorite man, he showed me love when I first met him. We bringing the house. We out of here. Memphis, Tennessee!"

bliss

is the discovery, on a sunny winter's day, that you have the deck of the ferry to Halifax all to yourself.


For another definition of bliss, go here.

whether you agree or not, it's a memorable quote.

"The very idea of giving Rushdie a literary prize after his book Satanic Verses was like offering Hitler the Nobel Peace Prize after Auschwitz."

Read on...

the concert Dave always wanted to see

I cannot recommend Dave Chappelle's Block Party highly enough. It is wall to wall fun, with enough social subtext to give it all some bite and some grounding. The bite is more piercing if you know the present context in which the film emerges.

Here is a not-quite-arbitrary timeline:

• January 2003: Wattstax, the restored edition, is revived at Sundance.
• September 7, 2004: The Wattstax Special Edition DVD is released.
• September 18, 2004: Dave throws his block party.
  
• March 2006: After a lot of water passes under the (Brooklyn?) bridge, the rest of the world gets to join the party.

Owen Glieberman's review in Entertainment Weekly totally nails this one. Favourite quotes:

"...he exists in a perpetual limbo of satirical detachment, but only because he appears to be deviously fascinated by every person and situation he encounters. Like Richard Pryor, he's all feelers, with a mockery that flows, almost compulsively, out of his screwy generosity of spirit."

"Dave Chappelle's Block Party is perhaps the first concert movie since Stop Making Sense to give you a blissful buzz. The buzz comes from the music, which has a loose, burning joy that's rare to behold in a live rap performance, and also from Chappelle's wicked prankster's glee, which spreads through the movie like a happy virus."

"...the finale, in which Lauryn Hill, with her china-doll face and luscious tremolo, reunites with the Fugees to do ''Killing Me Softly With His Song,'' is sublime..."

the quintessential.

the ends of life

Terry Waite is even more impressive in person than you'd perhaps expect. At yesterday's inaugural Segelberg Lecture he gave the audience what they came for — harrowing glimpses of his time in captivity, and what led up to and followed that experience. And some rather trenchant side commentary.

[This quote may not be 100% verbatim] "I can't believe that so-called civilized governments can even entertain the idea of subjecting individuals to torture. It is degrading to the people who commit it, degrading to the societies they come from, and degrading and humiliating to the victims."

This self-identified Christian says that he did not allow himself to pray extemporaneously during his time in captivity, because he thought it would degenerate into "oh God get me out of here." It was his responsibility—his choice—that led him into his situation, and so he saw no point in being "childish" about it.

"In the face of that which happens, one learns to face reality and deal with reality."

I'll post a link to his talk once the video goes up on the Dal faculty of management website. And also a summary of his list of American social crimes under the present administration. That was quite the mini-manifesto.