my culturally savvy christian blurb and some words on poetry

the june 15 issue of imageupdate includes the s.o.'s reviews of sandra scofield's the scene book and michael mott's the world of richard dadd.

in addition to noting that she's reviewing two books, not one, i'd like to emphasize that mott's book is poetry. indeed, i'm particularly impressed when a fellow non-poet like the s.o. can pull that off. yes, i was an english major; i have scanned and explicated my share of strange poems, and i do all right in the comprehension department, but reviewing the stuff is beyond me. i feel rather inadequate when it comes to comparing the quality of one poem to another. i suppose prose is just my thang.

why all this attention to imageupdate? well, i also contributed to the latest issue, and it went something like this:

The Culturally Savvy Christian: A Manifesto for Deepening Faith and Enriching Popular Culture in an Age of Christianity-Lite by Dick Staub

There’s a good chance that the writer and social commentator Dick Staub is a secret apologist for Image. His newest book, The Culturally Savvy Christian, closely parallels Image’s underlying mission: it vigorously challenges readers to discern rather than idly consume, and more importantly, to nourish the contemporary culture rather than becoming pop culture clones. As the past host of a syndicated radio program, Staub has mastered the art of pairing people with ideas and watching them take off. This talent makes The Culturally Savvy Christian a particularly intriguing read: Staub collects facts and voices from sociology, theology, and pop culture and fits them into an insightful conversation about the devolution of culture and evangelicalism. He contends that most Christians, even those who travel in exclusively Christian circles, have been wooed by the forces of marketing and technology and have thereby fallen into an unconscious illicit union with superficiality and sentimentality. Staub dubs this blind self-centeredness Christianity-Lite, and he believes that to avoid a quiet backslide into mediocrity, we must get serious with our faith, sink deeper into the Word, and react to the world with intelligence and creativity. Some Christians bemoan culture’s vulgarities and believe that deepening faith requires us to withdraw into cocoons of Christian isolation and churn out happy-feely Christian art, but Staub warns us that this is not the way of Christ. Instead, he explains that like CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, and Dostoevsky, “Christian artists are not bound to create religious art, but they understand that their exploration of everyday human occurrences is gilded by their walk in faith.” The Culturally Savvy Christian encourages us to peer through the pop culture fog, dismiss the fluff, and reach for the life-changing, the thoughtful, and the meaningful.

let me know if you want any more feedback about the book. i'd give it a 10 out of 17.

despite staub's criticism of marketing, i think his book succumbs to two marketing ploys: (1) every five paragraphs or so, he has a new section. this makes the text easy to digest, but it's a cheap writing technique. (2) staub loves to watchwords. he picks adjectives that seem heavy and laden with meaning and then he uses them again and again.

still, although i skimmed the meaty middle of the book, the culturaly savvy christian certainly succeeds in its overaching goal. it is an insightful depiction of the emergence and cure for christianity-lite.

the reason i didn't blog tonight

i'm getting tired of looking at that last post every time i boot up the internet, so i thought i'd shoo it further down the page by writing a sentence or two about why i'm not writing:

1. first, i toured alex's new house and ate at his neighborhood BBQ joint. fans of the blog might remember alex because of his vast collection of music (somewhere between 3,800 and 4,016 songs) which i nabbed and subsequently rated. during our afternoon chat i was shocked to learn two things: (a) alex is renting his two-bedroom ballard house for an insane $600 a month and (b) because of financial problems (i.e., working as a mars hill intern, having an upcoming wedding this month, and being alex), he is no able to keep current with the indie music scene. still, he let me borrow the shins' latest album.
   
2. i'm breezing through dick staub's the culturally savvy christian: a manifesto for deepening faith and enriching popular culture in an age of christinaity-lite, the next book that i've been asked to review for imageupdate. i have to finish skimming the book and writing a one-paragraph blurb by thursday morning.

andrew david. "conversations in spanish I: but what if he's this tall? can he still ride the octopus? yes, sir, it is right over there, in the field." san ignacio town, belize.

first sentences and google

NEWS: i'm performing at the norse center tomorrow. just me and a piano this time.
------------------------------
no blog today. i'm not doing well at this timely posting business lately, and i don't expect to improve anytime soon. the problem is that i don't have anything to say and no time to say it.

but once long ago i had plenty to say. here's some of the first sentences that i wrote while i was in college. the sentences aren't spectacular, but i can objectively prove that they're unique. you see, for some reason, i was curious to see if any of the sentences were duplicated on the internet. not even close. i couldn't even find a duplicated independent clause. in the list that follows, citations are formatted like this:

month.day.year The first sentence of the paper with material duplicated elsewhere on google in bold. The name of the paper. A description of the closest duplicate on google with the number of hits for the bolded material in parentheses; in some cases this description is hyperlinked (3,780).

12.08.99 Before embarking on my first quarter at SPU, I possessed a fair share of anxiety regarding my future roommate. The Victorian Perspective. Chris Lear's first marathon (44).

05.02.00 In his Discourse on Method René Descartes urges travelers “lost in a forest…not to wander this way and that, or, what is worse, remain in one place, but…always walk as straight a line as they can” (Veitch, 165-66). Contemplating Contemplations. A chapter in a philosophy, science, and technology book (6).

06.8.00 Some folks find gardening to be a great stress reliever; probing the moist earth sets their minds at ease. The Brothers Karamazov. (22,700).

06.8.00 The literature of Stephen Crane typically portrays a world bereft of God. A Shipwrecked Commentary. A horror literature course (18).

11.22.00 George Herbert’s “Redemption” is a poem narrated by a tenant in search of a cheaper rent contract. Residing in Redemption. (6).

02.12.01 In the corner of the Skagit Valley Hospital maternity ward lay three pregnant poets. Parents of Perspective (Dryden, Swift, Wordsworth). (1,010,000).

03.13.01 Without wise men, no nativity scene is complete. Journey of a Sophomore (TS Eliot). Commentary regarding Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature (33).

03.15.01 With eager anticipation, the crowd gathered about the fire. No Such Monk (Beowulf). A pipe shop (707).

05.25.01 Let’s be honest, I am writing this paper for you—a captive audience of one. The Patchwork Quilt of Humanity. A dumb blog (7,510).

03.19.03 According to Dante Alighieri, the gates of Hell warn newcomers to “abandon every hope, you who enter” here. Arbeit Macht Frei. (4).

yes, i spent way too much time on this post. yes, in the time that it took to do all this googling, i probably could have written something more substantial. yes, i am going to bed now.

random blog updates

in october of 2006 i announced my attempts at an amateur career in photography. well, it's taken me half a year, but i finally made $100!

in december of 2005 i deemed death cab for cutie's "what sarah said" my favorite sad song. in that month, "what sarah said" also happened to top my charts in the death related rock genre. now, unfortunately for death cab, their piano-based elegy has been supplanted by a.j. roach's "grandaddy" (this link passes directly through the artist's site; no pesky video). incidentally, "what sarah said" is still my favorite sad song about death that can be twisted into an interesting metaphor for baptism.

also, i'm really proud of the internet tonight. i'm not a fan of the official "what sarah said" video, so i was searching for something a bit more palpable. i wasn't too successful, but i did find about a dozen how-to videos related to the piano score. generally speaking, i tend to consider the internet a vast impersonal resource for information and time-wasting. if i were to personify the internet, i might describe ms. web as a nasty vindictive nerd, but tonight she was something of a musical saint, generously spreading the gift of music-making throughout the four corners of the globe. way to go!

andrew david. "the look of an istock photographer" somewhere in guatemala.

choose your own adventure

suppose you were appointed the role of frodo on a dangerous canoe trip through an unfamiliar land. after several weeks of rowing, your fellow traveler develops tendonitis and is unable to continue the expedition. together, you paddle to a quiet fishing village somewhere on the edge of the world and part ways. she climbs from the canoe, hoists her pack, and you never see her again.

beyond the dock, you spot two or three shacks and the beached hull of an ancient tug. everything smells of fish and decay. the big city, you smirk. the fate of the world rests on this forgotten population of ten. indeed, without another set of hands your mission is doomed. rising from the canoe, you muzzle your doubt and approach the town.

there's no sign of the men and women who created this awful stench (i.e., fisherfolk), but you still manage to drag up three candidates to help complete your quest: a novelist, a fiction editor, and a literary translator. one of these three adventurers will have to do, but who should you choose?

[stay tuned for my answer and how it relates to franz kafka’s the trial in the next post or so.]

[[okay, here's my unofficial back page review (andi's comments made a follow-up post unnecessary). i was going to use this riddle to reveal that either (1) the translator of my edition of the trial was pathetic (and unworthy of quests) or (2) kafka was an idea guy, not a writer. there is NO reason to read this; the cliff notes are probably better written and infinitely more concise. still, i like the concept of the novel; kafka just needs a creative translator with a keen sense of poetry and pacing. (and perhaps kafka would be a good quest candidate if he was only needed to think and not do.)]]

ratings updated, the reviews (and links) are not

i'm worn out from tonight's soccer practice. it's hard work pretending to be the coach. anyway, i've added several books and movies to the rankings on the left (in bold), including mikhail bulgakov's the master and margarita, a 20th century russian "masterpiece" that you're far better letting other people read.

i'll post something worthwhile someday. in the meantime, this is my favorite picture from the mayan ruins of tikal:

andrew david. "frond framed ruins." tikal, guatemala.

no time for a decent blog

errrrrr....here's what i hope to blog about soon:

1. my cat dream
2. some movies (blades of glory, the queen, the last king of scotland, spiderman III)
3. some books (the martian chronicles, all the pretty horses, the crossing, an american tragedy)
4. something thoughtful; at the moment the blog feels like it's drifting in a sea of the mundane, and i'd like to change that, but if i try too hard, my posts have a flashy, contrived feel (like in the last post).
5. an excerpt from my first newsletter article. i know you're all rather anxious to learn about biomarkers and alzheimer's disease!
   

andrew david. "tourists and the oddly shaped nests of the montezuma oropendola." tikal, guatemala.

an overdose of euphoria

wednesday was a good day, a really good day. i got some reassuring news from my boss, successfully coached my first ever soccer practice, crashed out a lively version of ben folds's "fired," performed secondo piano on our jolly rendition of sufjan stevens' "chicago," watched two episodes of lost, and discovered my 6th favorite flavor of ice cream (slow-churned american idol).

but when i awoke this morning, my head was in a vice. i had an insufferable headache, perhaps an ego hangover.

you see, until yesterday, i was rather suspicious that my soccer experiment would explode in my face. thus, i half-expected to be sitting cross-legged and alone at our first scheduled practice. instead, i had five enthusiastic soccer pupils chasing each other through cones and, surprise, surprise, thanking me for my patience. and then the ben folds cover was punctuated with the unfamiliar sounds of shouts and applause; from my bench at the piano, the green-bean-twenty sounded more like one hundred. and so now i wonder somewhat abstractly if perhaps it's more than possible for one to get too much of a good thing.

of course, i doubt that my happy night really caused the headache, but the hand-in-hand nature of good and bad, black and white, falling and faith seems an intangible truth.

i encountered this strange blending of absolutes as i worked on the ADRC newsletter at work this week. in an email to the s.o. i explained that "for the first time ever, i have a sense of what to write and how to write it, but it's interesting that this sense of 'this could work' is also accompanied by an odd feeling of 'now don't screw this up--this could be your one opportunity of writing clarity.'" it's as if the universe commands that a burst of productive creativity (or any goodness) is necessarily followed by a lull of frustrating ineptitude (or badness).

i started this post with some references to soccer, so i suppose it's only fitting to return to sports. i tend to spend my morning commutes listening to talk radio or kjr 950 hosts mitch levy and steve sandmeyer. on wednesday morning, the pair were discussing the mariners 11-3 victory over the division-leading angels. sandmeyer was defending the levy theory, which purports that by scoring 7 unnecessary runs, the m's may have tipped baseball karma in anaheim's favor for the remainder of the series. again, there's no statistical support for this theory, but perhaps the universe demands moderation. perhaps ichiro--he of two strange statements and a future pitching career--should have saved some of those 5 hits for the next night. perhaps in the interest of future good days, i should politely ask people to refrain from compliments or applause, perhaps a disapproving grunt might be good now and again
.
andrew david. "the jaguar temple. rarrrrrrr!" tikal, guatemala.

PS the music links are to youtube. i realized that it was silly to link to amazon, because amazon only allows you to play a little sample of songs whereas youtube has the entire song. i'll continue with this strategy for all future music links. however, these links also have their disadvantages--you must suffer through some dancing girls and a little speech by sufjan.

some of the others in a live concert at the green bean

that's right, my new band, some of the others, will be performing at the green bean open-mic night on wednesday. we're a cover band that focuses exclusively on sufjan stevens classics. more particularly, we have trained our euphonic sights on chicago, one of the singles from come on, feel the illinoise (check out track #9). some day we may broaden our repetoire to include other sufjan songs and perhaps even some muse but in the meantime, our guitarist, trombonist, accordionist, violinist, marimba-ist, vocalists, and pianists make chicago a spectacle that is more than worth the drive (or flight).

we'll be playing sometime after 9pm. incidentally, the green bean is greenwood's favorite non-profit coffee shop. you can find it next door to the tap root theater at 210 n 85th st. also, some of the others is a name that i coined just now, so don't be surprised if mari (our illustrious leader) introduces us by some other name (e.g., sufvan stejens) at the show. (some of the others seemed an apt name because the band consists of some of the players from our soccer team, the others, and then some others.)

for those of you who are very ill and can't make it to our second debut, i hope to have some bootleg youtube footage for you in the next few days.

the s.o. "contemplating the d-c-g sequence of chicago." cahal pech, san ignacio town, belize.

radtrip

in a previous blog entry, i linked to a preview for devin's superman film, and now, in the interest of fairness to all of my director friends, here's a preview for evan's film radtrip.com. i'm more intimately familiar with radtrip.com than superman: the battle for home because, believe it or not, i actually helped film one or two of the scenes. the two films are alike in that they both have very, very small budgets but the similarities end there. the battle for home is a dramatic film that considers parallels between christ and superman whereas radtrip is a fun adventure film that encourage cheap, environmentally-friendly long distance travel. hmmm...i think i may be able to post the film directly on the blog. let me know if this works....

added some films to the scale

i spent today's blogging time adding films to the rankings on the left panel. until this evening, the list only included films that i'd seen since july or august of 2006. however, because the list makes no mention of this exclusivity and because i can't quite recall which month i started this tally, it seems a bit silly to ignore other films that have been discussed on this blog. here are the new additions to the 17 point scale film ranks (and as is my custom, comments to the right of the hyphens indicate why one might choose to forego the film, and the exclamation marks indicate that the link will take you to something i've written about the film)

15.good night and good luck - in black and white
14.magnolia - foul-mouthed, violent, abusive ch's !
13.united 93 - somber yet poignant !
13.crash - profane, violent; lacks subtlety !
12.sophie scholl:final days - like a german tv movie !
12.l'enfant - slow, awkward, in french !
11.the son - slow, awkward, in french !
11.searching for the wrong-eyed jesus - quirky !
10.the storekeeper - short, silent
10.munich - long, too many kettles boiling !
10.brokeback mtn - long; mostly hype !
09.tsotsi - gaps in ch. developm; poorly translated !
09.dandelion - awkward, disjointed, and strange !
07.v for vendetta - worse than i expected
07.the da vinci code - crammed, silly, wrong !
05.new world - boring, cliche (sorry jeff) !

soon, i hope to share with you my opinion of blades of glory, the last king of scotland, and the queen.

andrew david. "tree of life." cahal pech ruins, san ignacio town, belize.

superman is coming! (and dreams 3 and a debate-related comic)

1. devin's film superman: the battle for home premiers wednesday night at seattle's admiral theater. admittance is free but popcorn is not.

2. sorry, everyone. as usual, i've lost interest in the three-part post that i was hoping to finish this week. i finished the storytelling and find myself far less interested in the punchline (i.e., my alleged ability to prophecy in my dreams). but i'll do my best in a sentence or three. here's a recap of what i dreamt:

• wednesday night: i met brady and his pregnant wife (as opposed to the not-pregnant one) alisha in the lobby of a hotel in belize. the stairwell to their room ended about a flight before their room, so i climbed on the roof to look for another entrance.
• thursday night: i hung out with a millionaire who liked ramming into cars, burning them, and leaving large checks for their owners.
• thursday night: i wandered over to an umbrella nonprofit outside the mall and saw brady talking with a volunteer. it turned out that an unknown woman had dropped her baby off with the nonprofit and not returned. brady packed the baby in his mountaineering bag and we set off to find the mother.

first, a little context. brady and alisha live in spokane. the last time i spoke to them was last summer when they attended danny's wedding reception. in other words, there is no impetus for them to suddenly appear in my dream.

well, on friday, the day after the second dream, i called my buddy jonathan to see if he was free to play tennis the next day. he was up for some morning tennis but had dinner plans--brady and alisha were coming to town! somehow my unconscious mind predicted their arrival...and alisha's pregnancy. crazy.

you may think, "that's just a pair of coincidences, mr. andrew," but my powers were later confirmed by my television. some friends and i are playing catch-up on lost, and sunday's episode just happened to be centered around desmond's strange new ability to see the future. is it a coincidence that i found a fellow seer less than a week later? hardly.

and since those first prescient dreams, i've had yet another vision of the future. one night i dreamt of an orange cat (if you're lucky, i'll share that dream in a later post), and then the next day, as i sipped tea and read cormac mccarthy's the crossing in my backyard, an orange cat secretly prowled in the grass. yes, i am a prophet.

3. here's a comic my roommate showed me that almost relates back to thursday's post about my mad debating skills:

it's from xkcd.com

urgent soccer matter

back in february i wrote that i was thinking of founding a co-ed soccer team. somehow, my thoughts mushed together into something a little more concrete than cerebral wonderings: if the stars align right, i'll be submitting a registration form on monday.

i'm aiming for a total of 15 players (8 guys, 7 girls), and so far we're 1 guy and 2 girls short. thus, if you know anyone who might be interested, leave me message.

if you're thinking "hmmm...i might be interested in that, but i don't know anything about soccer," here's the scoop: we'll have 5 girls, 5 guys, and a goalie (any gender) on the field at all times. our team will have an odd blend of talent--some of us have never played soccer and some of us have coached it--so we're going for a fun, easy-going experience. of course, I'd like to destroy the competition too, but this could be an interesting experiment.

again, if you're interested, leave me a message.

pietro's pizza. "that's me in junior high." seattle, wa.

i suck at debating

this afternoon i joined an LDS member, a priestess of light, an ethnic catholic, and an agnostic in a passionate discussion of mormonism. at one point in the conversation, the priestess of light tried to convince everyone that mormonism and catholicism were more closely related than protestantism and catholicism because both faiths claim apostolic succession. despite a bag of facts, i couldn't seem to sway the priestess. thus, it is no surprise that when the debate got more controversial--i was arguing that mormons are not christians--i failed again. it took a dozen hand scratched diagrams before i could even convince my crowd that protestants, catholics, and orthodoxers fell under the same religious umbrella.

my inability to argue effectively isn't a new discovery. i have always had trouble pulling rhetoric from my brain without first thinking, thinking, and thinking some more. however, until yesterday, i was functioning under the false belief that, thank God, i could at least hold my own in a written debate. and then i posted in the controversial subject section of the grammar forum. ooooh boy, was it a disaster.

[i'll finish the 3-part post next time--i first had to confess my inadequacy in these logic wars]

andrew david. "belikin, the belizean hometown brew & a possible explanation for my sucky debate skills?" san ignacio town, belize.

ps. i may have the priestess of light's title wrong. i think she's also a druid.

dreams 2

[today's post is continued from yesterday's post in which i recounted 1.3 of my prophetic dreams and speculated about their cause.]

it was the last time that i ever saw the man: i watched him place the $5 million check a safe distance from the wreck and then return to the van. as a storyteller, i'll admit, this feels like an unpleasant way to leave the fellow; he should peel from the parking lot in a cloud of exhaust or shrink into the fabric of his grey tweed coat, a concrete chameleon, a certain spectre of some malovent surreptious secret. but, no, he walked at a rather ordinary pace to the rather ordinary van and i saw him no more.

instead, my dream suddenly exploded in a brilliant splash of colors. razzle dazzle rose, torch red, laser lemon, jungle green--a crayola parade of twirling octagons. apparently, i was surrounded by a throng of umbrella wielding shoppers returning to their cars, each peopling the drab lot with her own customized color. it dawned on me then that i didn't have an umbrella of my own, so i started walking purposefully toward the mall (yes, this is a remarkable dream). near the entrance, i saw a crowd, some tables, and an overhead banner proclaiming UMBRELLAS FOR THE POOR, A NONPROFIT. ah hah.

it was quite a spectacle; volunteers were busily attempting to distribute their wares to the hundreds of needy shoppers. as i watched, i gathered that the number of umbrellas was running low. it was nearing closing time. and then i noticed my college buddy brady hatfield off to one side, listening intently to a bespectacled volunteer in a red pant suit. she looked worried.

i worked my way toward the pair and greeted brady with a smile. he motioned me toward the woman.

"--carol, this is my friend andrew."

"yes, well, hello." then back to business. "after that, right, she asked me to watch him. she said she'd be right back. something about her keys or front door or i don't know." as she spoke, the woman brought a finger up to her cheek and absently performed tiny figure-eights.

"and i didn't have time to--" over the chaotic sounds of mass charity, an infant's screams momentarily interrupted the woman, but she continued. "she just left."

brady sprung into action. he gently removed the shrieking puddle of fat and face from the car seat and secured the boy in a burly-looking mountaineering pack that just happened to be waiting on the ground. "don't worry," said brady, "we'll find the mother."

unfortunately, that's where the dream ends--i awoke before discovering the baby's fate. however, that afternoon, i received an important phone call, and the prophecy was revealed....

[stay tuned for the final prophetic dream post]

andrew david. "a little girl with some flowers." san ignacio town, belize

dreams

[programming note: it's not wednesday, but i've decided to post a little something tonight anyway. also, my travel writing experiment is turning out to be a flop, so i may return to regular blogging again soon. we'll see....]

for my trip to belize, doctor wendy prescribed chloroquine. "don't worry," she said, "this isn't the one that gives you crazy dreams or makes you monster-sick." indeed, there are several ways to kill the malaria bug and chloroquine's side effects are rather tame. it's malaria med cousin is a bit more interesting however: travelers taking mefloquine complain of the usual aches and pains--headaches, nausea, dizziness--and then some more interesting symptoms like vivid dreams and visual disturbances.

i picked up my chloroquine at bartell's pharmacy on march 24th and have been taking the pills every saturday since. they taste rather nasty, but i didn't experienced anything too alarming until late last week. that's when i started having crazy dreams.

okay, in of itself, crazy dreams really aren't that uncharacteristic for the typical andrew evening; my memory and imagination have collaborated on some rather bizarre late night escapades. but this is new: my dreams are prophetic.

the first visitation of the future occurred last wednesday night. i was dreaming of a hotel in belize when some friends from spokane appeared in the lobby. "what are brady and alisha doing in belize?" i wondered. before i could inquire further, i learned that the hotel's staircase terminated about a flight and a half short of their room. this was particularly awkward because alisha was pregnant (and this wasn't one of my office mate james's flying dreams). after clamoring up onto the hotel's roof and trying to find an alternate entrance to their room (you know, ancient apostle-style), i awoke.

no, i didn't climb my way to work the next morning, but there's a surprise embedded in that little adventure. but before i explain, let me recount thurday's dream. i'll warn you though, my newly discovered talent for divination is in no way correlated with an improved sense of timing. that is, i'm not about to interfere with this vision i've been granted, and although much of the dream may seem irrelevant, there's no way i'm skipping to the end.

my recollection of the dream begins with me sitting in the passenger seat of a nondescript white van, watching as the driver, a heavy-set bald man, scanned his mirrors, pulled into the parking lot arterial, and then attempted to repark in the neighboring space. i say attempted because the space was already occupied--my driver didn't seem to care. he pressed the gas and gunned our big white beast through the rear bumper of the unfortunate subaru. with a chuckle, he jumped from his seat and tossed me a can of lighter fluid. as flames reflected off the walls and cars and puddles of that concrete jungle, we admired our handiwork. the man happily quipped about the surprise of the owner when he or she stumbled from the mall into the presence of their smoking car-cass. he then wiped the grime from his hands and reached into his sports coat.

"how does five million sound?" he asked. he nodded to himself, scrawled a figure in his ledger, and dismissed me with a wave. as i walked toward the mall, i turned to watch him stuff a check in a bright green envelope. he placed the envelope a safe distance from the smouldering wreck and returned to the van.

[i foretell that this post will be continued in the future, perhaps tomorrow....]

[disclaimer: this is creative nonfiction with the emphasis on creative--i may be overplaying my response to these dreams just a tiny bit.]

andrew david. "traveling by van" the highway from belize city to san ignacio town, belize.

use it or lose it, the blogging chromosome

sean says that if i only post once a week, i'd better make each post darn good, but as i watch these words tumble from my mind to blogger's posting page, the rust is palpable. it's been nearly a month since i updated this site regularly, and i fear that the blogging cortex of my brain has been attacked by some unseemly parasite.

in the context of the 17 point scale, i'm not sure what that means. it's not like i have a history of poetic profundity on this blog, but something is dying. i suddenly find myself at a loss for words. yes, this mysterious parasite has cast an odd spell on me. as it steals away the anecdotes and observations that (to me) define this blog, it leaves me feeling oddly happy. during the week i live a bright and sunny psychosis, glad that i don't have to ponder the days events looking for rare insight or colorful metaphors to anchor my midnight musings. i can be lazy again.

and consequently i go blind. i fill my world with baseball scores and second round NFL draft predictions. i rekindle my addiction to istockphoto.com. and i forget how to process the world for web content.

of course, this tug and pull is the way of life: i blog and thus i sleep less; i travel, and my piano fingers wither; i fall in love, get married, and have two dozen kids, and my closest friends fade into the forgettable periphery. gain and loss, x and y chromosomes that follow each other everywhere they go. it's odd, i just can't escape the nostalgia for that loss. i long for the days when my blog rocked (okay, long is a bit overdoing it there), i long for the days when i was great friends with this person and that person. i even long for what might have been.

okay, my sentences are beginning to seesaw--that's a clue that i'm becoming overly sentimental, so i'll close. here's the prayer of today's blog: Lord, hasten the day when the laws of nature implode and leave us lossless in your arms. amen.

andrew david. "17 points of light pass behind a dark cloud" belize.

ps. perhaps my blog is back to normal, because that is totally not what i intended to blog about!

belize travel tips (a drinking lesson)

for the past few days i've been a bit ill. most likely, it's just an extended visit by our fiesty friend, traveler's diarrhea (TD). i'll spare you the gory details of my present acquaintance with the fellow, but if you're considering a trip to belize, you may want to know a few things about TD--you know, stuff like who are his friends? where's he hang out on friday nights?

well, since you asked, TD is a party animal compared to his tropical peers. malaria, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and the cureless dengue fever buzz about in mosquitos and noseums, but TD spends his times in bars, restaurants, and your refrigerator. he's a colorful fellow, that TD, but rumor has it, he has a rather sordid past. the internet tells me that TD first arrived on the scene in the form of fecal matter and that he now makes his home in our food or drinking water. yummmmm.

now, if you travel to belize, your doctors will probably warn you about TD. they'll say "don't drink the water" or "don't eat uncooked vegetables or peeled fruits," but perhaps it'd be more effective to say "don't drink the fecal water" or "avoid those fecal fruits." still, despite my current bout with something rather similar to TD, i recommend ignoring those doctors and drinking that crisp belizean agua. once you arrive in belize, you'll find that nearly all the major restaurants, hotels, and tour agencies claim that their water and ice is purefied, so unless you drink from a bucket, gargle sea water, or wander into roadside shack, you'll probably be fine.

moreover, at some point in your travel through belize, you may experience what i like to call a brazen drinking moment. i first experienced something like this during my visit to gimmewald, switzerland.

after spending the night in an overbooked hostel, i strapped on my 50 pound pack and started up a trail. i was heading for that small dot on my rick steve's map of the alps. the dot appeared to be near the top of a mountain, and as i climbed up and up into the sun, i realized belatedly that i only packed one bottle of water. after several miles, the bottle was empty and i was parched. my climb became secondary to the search for water. but there were no sparkling streams or cool mountain rivers, just cow troughs. i passed one and then another. the third trough was fed by a wooden pipe that vanished into the hillside above my trail. clear liquid cascaded from the pipe into the metal receptacle below. i was panting. i loosened my pack and pulled the empty bottle from an outside pocket. i glanced side to side, ensuring that no incredulous hikers, angry farmers, or jealous cattle were witness to my unsanitary behavior, and then positioned the bottle under the pipe. i waited a moment and took a great swig of cattle water. and for the next few days, life was glorious. i marched from mountain to mountain and never worried about water: there were plenty of cattle troughs in the alps.

the moral of the story is that there may come a time in belize when you're thirsty enough to risk a refreshing glass of well-disguised fecal water. in my case, it was ice. belize is like an outdoor microwave, everything gets warm rather quickly, and that includes bottled water and red fanta. thus, ice is a necessity, and by the end of the trip i didn't bother to ask "is this ice purified?" because their answer was invariably "yes." of course, that may very well explain my present condition.


andrew david. "good looking water" san ignacio town, belize.

you may not like this but....

i'm back in the USA, but instead of posting regularly for the next few weeks, i'm considering posting only once a week for the next month or so. i know this may be painful for the most devoted of my followers, but you've gone without the 17 point scale for at least two weeks now, so perhaps a weekly dose of 17 point goodness may now be sufficient. i'm thinking that wednesday nights might be a good time for the weekly posts or perhaps i could write posts when i take my malaria pill each week (saturdays); i'll let you know once i arrive at a final decision. also, if i find time to wade through my photographs, i may post some textless picture entries. in any case, i'll be attempting to use the extra free time of unblogginess to draft a travel essay or two about my adventures in belize. if the writing gods smile upon me, i'll be sure to post the results of this labor here on the 17 point scale.

DAY 2

andrew david. "at present, there are 2 major influences on my worldview, the s.o. and this horse" somewhere in guatemala.

greetings from belize

hi, everyone.

we have internet access at our house here in san pedro, so i figured i'd say hello. i don't tend to use the 17 point scale as a diary or travelogue, so i'm not sure what more to say. perhaps a list will do. belize is warm; humid; lush; sandy; formerly british; trilingual; friendly (yet a thousand years removed from those violent mayans a la gibson); well populated by meat dishes like pork chops and shrimp; regulated by "sleeping policemen" (i.e., speed bumps); and rather colourful. it's also a great place for relaxing (e.g., beach and poolside lounging) and adventuring (e.g., summiting mayan ruins, spelunking, evading backcountry armed robbers). maybe if i get ambitious, i'll try my hand at another travel essay, but i doubt it. in the meantime, here's a trio of pictures from DAY 1:

andrew david "freshly squeezed ojay" and "three chairs" cahal pech resort, san ignacio town, belize.


andrew david. "the steps to death" cahal pech ruins, san ignacio town, belize.