Going into The Gloom

In Timur Bekmambetov's (Nightwatch, Daywatch, Wanted, and interestingly enough, a Tim Burton children's film this summer!) Nightwatch, only spiritually gifted "others" can enter into what is called "The Gloom", wherein spiritually light or dark actions carry significant clout and affect the state of the world.

In Met. Jonah's recent speech to an ACNA (Anglican Church in North America) convention concerning unity, he quippingly described Orthodoxy as "a bunch of people who like to gather for colorful quaint rituals in the sacred gloom."

Funny, but it seems as though I remember overhearing many of the visitors to my parish describe it that way as they were leaving...

Beard-Off

In Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise, Amory Blaine keeps pictures of Literary figures with beards up on his wall to inspire him. Being among the most juvenile humans alive, I propose a Beard-Off. Check out the beards in the Picasa web album, then vote in the poll. Who has the best beard?

When voting, keep in mind that amazing handlebar mustaches, beautiful sideburns, and roaring goatees are on a competitive level. Feel free to proffer your own missed author of literary significance.  The first two are Homer and Doestoevsky.

Do you think Phelps is Sexy?

Admit it, you've looked at the body of a swimmer at the Olympics and either said to yourself "I want to be that" or "I want that." No one can argue that swimmers have the best, most natural bodies in the world. Runners tend to be more legs than arms, weightlifters are grotesquely over-featured, baseball players and football players eventually get fat, but swimmers are the main course. So what about the last Olympics? Was everyone disappointed that the swimmers all wore big body suits that covered everything?

I noticed that all the major highlights all involved Phelps with his suit rolled down to his hips...

The World Championships are going on right now and Swimming's international governing body (FINA) has decided to (yes in the middle of the most important competition outside the Olympics!) eliminate all full body suits from international competition FOREVER. So get your TVs adjusted, the guys will be rolling out the six packs (or eight packs) again. The males will now be limited to a Jammer, or tight shorts.

Unfortunately, Fina will still allow women to wear "knees to shoulder" coverage, sorry no Bikinis, guys.

The Spawn of Frogs!!!

Hypochondriacs frequently see dark objects, such as threads, hair, spiders, flies, wasps. These appearences also exhibit themselves in the incipient hard cataract. Many see semi-transparent small tubes, forms like wings of insects, bubbles of water of various size, which fall slowly down, if the eye is raised: sometimes these congregate together so as to resemble the spawn of frogs; sometimes they appear as complete spheres, sometimes in the form of lenses.

Theory of Colours - Goethe, #119

Merton on Desire for Directed Religion

From the high, gray, expensive tower of the Rockefeller Church, huge bells began to boom. It served very well for the 11:00 mass of the little brick church of Corpus Christi. What a revelation it was, to discover so many ordinary people in one place together, more conscious of God than of one another; not there to show off their hats or their clothes, but to pray, or at least to fulfill a religious obligation, not a human one.

From The Seven Storey Mountain-Thomas Merton