whitney and pedro are married!
here are the photos i took while in stockton for their wedding: http://picasaweb.google.com/the17pointscale/200908WhitPedroWedding?authkey=Gv1sRgCMfS4OCIpuDgGw&feat=directlink.
beth's house is breaking up.
after a mildly stressful rental search, mari and beth are headed east toward greenlake. they have found a beautiful new house (which i've yet to see) and fun new roommates. nora, a sometime-roommate, will be heading to california (or maybe colorado?) later this summer. and tomorrow, whitney (seen below in red socks) will be shipping her soccer skills south to california for good.
i thought i'd write a post to commemorate whitney's leaving or the disbandment of the house, but instead i'd like to share some advice from getgirls.com: "there's a rule about dating women with a roommate....this rule is that you must also make a good impression on her roommate."
this rule is general knowledge in the kingdom of men, and we don't need "the world's leading source for seducing women" to give us a head's up. still, i've heard (and seen) horror stories about guys and their girlfriends' girlfriends. for example, during the years right after college, i lived in a series of cramped, messy apartments--at one time, we squeezed three guys into a single nasty room--yet despite our ugly abodes, one of my roommates preferred to hang out with his s.o. at our place, not because it had some mystical appeal or because he loved us so much, but because of his relationship with her roommates.
in contrast, i'm a regular at beth's house on 79th; i genuinely like all of her roommates and consider them good friends.
during a recent work lunch, some friends and i chatted about dinners and executions; we pondered what we would eat for our last meal on death row--steaks & ribs, pizza & beer, exotic curries and a bottle of egon muller riesling--each listing was a more wonderful gluttony than the one before.
now, regardless of what we may think of california, it's probably a bit ridiculous (and morbid) to venture any kind of comparison between whitney's last meal as a washingtonian and the smörgåsbord of delicacies my work friends dreamed up for a final night in the joint. but forgive me, i can't resist. indeed, i find it rather interesting that we ate sadza, a simple shona food that mari imported from zimbabwe. sadza tastes great, but it's rather simple; it doesn't set the taste buds on fire or make the stomach purr, and i would be a little surprised if it were whitney's favorite food.
but sadza ignites community.
the kitchen crowds as people gather to help prepare the meal. someone grabs a great pot and dumps pound after pound of corn meal inside. the pot is large, they say, because you never make just a little sadza. and when it's ready, the main dish is a finger food, the ultimate evolution of the potluck. grubby fingers go at it, glopping the sadza in delicious tomatoey-onion sauce; everyone is united in their forklessness.***
yes, sadza is a fitting end to the era. beth, mari, nora, and whitney's decision to prepare sadza seems emblematic of their heart for community (also see this post from 2005), of their friendly openness to people like me. and this sadza approach to life worked.
indeed, it has inspired phrases that you'd see in yearbook scribblings: fun parties (which i used to consider an oxymoron), caroling, talking about guys (errrrrrr...perhaps i mean listening to talk about guys), taking trips, eating too many vegetables, performing sufjan, watching lost....
you know, getgirls.com is right: it pays to be friends with your girlfriend's roommates.
addendum
i was also hoping to say some words about whitney. i think we'll all miss whitney's honesty, her enthusiasm, her encouragement, her funny mannerisms, and her devotion to her friends, and we know she'll settle in well down in cali.
(the links are to other posts about whitney and to other posts with whitney pictures).
the s.o. "soccer skillz" seattle, wa. [PS these are very, very closely cropped pictures; thus the poor quality]
***well, almost everyone. as much as i love this metaphor, there are those that choose to wield silverware, and they don't spoil the community by doing so. some may think them stubborn or contentious, but really they're just adding their personal flare to the event.****
****in case you couldn't tell, i eat sadza with a spoon.
please comment if you have other thoughts or yearbook-like comments on the girls of 79th or whitney.
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
let me know if you want any more feedback about the book. i'd give it a 10 out of 17.
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.
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.
in lieu of a proper blog posting, i'm trying a new font. and in addition to tinkering with the 17 point scale text type, i also finished my christmas shopping and started don delillo's white noise. beth recommended it to me during our gre studies. she said something like "it's a strange, post-modern classic; i think you might like it,"and because beth has a surprisingly keen sense of what others like, i thought something like "okay." and now here i am reading white noise and experimenting with blog fonts [p.s., it turns out that the new font is invisible. what a waste. oh, well, ain't life grand?]
unknown. "flipbook potential" shekinah, saskatchewan. (i spent about five minutes studying these pictures. during that time i discovered great, earth-shaking truths and was bemused by the animate nature of my hands, cup, and expression [and by 'my' i'm referring to me, the guy in the stripes], especially in contrast to beth's motionless expression of mock gravity.)
(1) i've made $11 on istockphoto.com! only $89 more and i'll actually be able to cash out.
(2) i've evaluated 4,182 mp3s. only 75 more and i'll have rated my entire itunes library.
(3) i've exchanged 4+ emails about editing a client's novel. only 1+ more and i might have a deal.
(4) i've posted 192 blog entries. only 8 more and i'll have exhausted all of my ideas for the 17 point scale. okay that's probably not true, but at the moment it certainly feels that way. and since it's always best to be prepared, i've found you a replacement site; it's a blog about reading, writing, and annie dillard. in the most recent post, the blogger (beth) talks of church, polar bears (well, they're actually dillard's polar bears, not beth's), and the beautiful agony that is writing (or more particularly, the troubling realization that visits nearly every young writer, the sad epiphany that some greater, more renowned author has somehow stolen your paper mache idea and given it wings, the elegant, nuanced wings of a monarch butterfly or a hoatzin). just imagine the coolness of my parenthetical thought multiplied by some really big number (maybe a number like 70. isn't that the really huge, seemingly infinite number that Christ offered the apostles when they asked how many times they should forgive their brother? i may be recalling this wrong, but if not, does that mean that jews and romans were really bad at math? or should i stop forgiving him later this year?), and you'll have a rough sense of how great this blog is. but there is one problem. you'll have to pay spu a few thousand dollars before you can read it. yep, it's that good. officially, the money that you'd spend to read the blog is considered tuition for spu's mfa in creative writing, but we all know that that's just lawyer talk, cause i'm telling you, it's a darn good blog.
andrew david. "yes this is a rather plain wedding picture and yes i wore those sandals during the wedding and yes thats danny and alison at the bottom of the page and yes you can tell becky that ive finally read some wendell berry" saskatchewan, canada.
this week image update published my sophomore attempt at a book recommendation. it's the one that begins "photographer james walker perry spent six years snapping necks on the mississippi delta preaching circuit...." also, while you're there, check out beth's review of carole graye's poems by denise levertov.
andrew david. "a tornado is sleeping in my shirt & an oreo is living in my yurt" blackfeet nation bison reserve, mt.
the story of black peak nearly killed me in two ways: (1) as i explained in the last few entries, i almost scraped my brains out on the rock and (2) i exhausted too many words in the telling--that is, i don't feel up to posting sentences or paragraphs; nothing that flows or seems to have a point. so, in the meantime, i'll make a list.
things i enjoy: (1) watching ben think, (2) watching coneybeare eat, and (3) watching beth be.
andrew david "gastronomists make sucky signs and bloggers take stupid pictures" the united nations, nyc.
this week image update published my freshman attempt at a book recommendation. it's the barbara brown taylor paragraph, about a third of the way down the page. also, check out the lead review (of david james duncan): it's beth's.
ray david (2002). "the published blurbicist" venice, italy.
i don't really have much to say tonight so i thought i'd post a ten-minute nonsense story. i'm missing beth at the moment, so it's mostly about her (and me and a tree and a surprise guest). all of the pictures in the story are by matt basinger.
andrew and beth happen to like trees. when the weather's nice, they even climb trees--big, green, sappy trees, sweet smelling apple trees, and even tropical palm trees. however, there is one tree they don't climb. it sits silently outside of andrew's house. the limbs look so inviting, says beth. no, says andrew, remember what the landlord said. andrew leans back in the grass, scratches his chin, and bursts out in a deep bass "you may climb any tree on this lot, but never, no, never, climb the monkey tree."
as they sit and consider the landlord's words, a squirrel tentatively hops from the neighbor's carrot patch toward the tree.
"oh, no," says andrew.
"oh, yes," says beth.
the squirrel leaps from the grass onto the bark--zap! with a sudden flash the squirrel is transformed into a wreaking pile of ash.
"that smells disgusting," says andrew.
"yeah, let's leave," says beth as she wrinkles her nose.
the couple quickly purchases a last-minute deal on expedia.com and flies to new york city. as the plane lands, they are so overcome by the beauty of the cityscape that they forget all about the monkey tree and the recently deceased squirrel. "look!" cries beth, "it's the brooklyn bridge!"
after they arrive at the airport, andrew and beth scurry to the bridge and begin to kiss (see below). as their lips lock, a smart-looking pedestrian turns and watches. he adjusts his glasses in order to get a better view. "hmmm..." he thinks.
as andrew kisses away, beth suddenly senses that something is amiss. she opens an eye and spots the intelligent looking pedestrian.
beth whispers to andrew, "it's matt."
"what?" he asks mid-kiss.
"it's matt," she says.
"it's me," says matt.
after smiling for awhile, matt takes the couple to his home in morningside heights. "this is my wife, jacinda," he says.
everyone smiles. "we know jacinda!" exclaims the couple happily.
sure enough, it's jacinda. she asks everyone about the kiss and then feeds them bright green salad from a monkey tree.
THE END
as part of our wim wenders decathlon, beth and i spent this evening eating pancakes and watching million dollar hotel. bono is all over this movie (mr. t------, please remember, that's bah-no, not bo-no); he wrote the screenplay, made the music, and even cameoed. the movie also features a surprisingly harsh performance by mel gibson and a scraggly bunch of mentally ill characters. the lead role belongs to tom-tom, a puck-like 'village-idiot' who flirts curiously, speaks curiously, and hops curiously.
after sharing our thoughts on this unusual film, beth and i began to discuss tomorrow's plans. then, as i was about to propose a run around greenlake, the image of tom-tom suddenly popped into mind. before i could restrain my imagination, our hypothetical run was transformed into a three-mile hopping. and what better way to hop than by matching his-and-her pogo sticks? despite this brilliant plan, i'm afraid that the farthest i've ever pogo-stuck is about four feet. apparently, that's about 23 miles less than the world record.
1
2
1. andrew david "magical kingdom" central park, ny. -- in case you can't tell, i tampered with the colors of this photo. i just felt obligated to post at least one picture of central park scenery.
2. "where's waldo" grand central station, ny. -- find the dude with the yellow coat! double-click the picture to enlarge it and then start counting. once you've found waldo, note your time in the comments field. it took me many, many minutes because i didn't know i was looking for him until after i posted the picture.
i have been promoted!
today, may 1, marked my first day as a (or the) full-time editor for the MIRECC (Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center). it may even be my first day as an adult: my first day in an actual career. whoohoo!
in other news, beth is also starting a new job. as of may 15 she will be the coordinator for SPU's MFA in writing. congratulations beth!
(I will continue 'a pg-13 post' in a future posting)
andrew david 'ascension' puerto vallarta, mexico.
don't skip this picture! especially if your name is mari and you really loved my easter post. in a maundy thursday post, i presented a close-up image of the land-locked fellow. the portrait seemed to communicate a sense of pure horror (perhaps related to the crucifixion). then, in an easter post, i included a photo of the same triangle man that somehow communicated an entirely different perspective--it highlighted the praise-like position of his outstretched arms (perhaps related to the resurrection). i was concerned with simultaneously illustrating the transformative power of photography and the easter season. now, i have posted a final picture, which may finally tell the whole story.
to be honest, when i first saw these statues, they gave me the creeps, but given the current title and context, two other interpretations strike me as particularly fitting. the children on the ladder represent beth and i. triangle man--God--is encouraging, perhaps even commanding, us to venture upward. it's a ladder of life, with each rung representing another step in our earthly destiny. to some, this may seem like a sickly optimistic vision of life, but what can you expect, i just got a new job! instead of moving side-to-side in the grown-up world of jobs, i actually feel like my work-life is on an upward course.
but life is more than the day-to-day grind of the nine to five. likewise, this picture may suggest something a bit more transcendental. however, on my own i am afraid that i lack the language to make this message clear. andrew, beth, a ladder, and a triangle-headed God are curiously like the divine dance of the trinity, i can only pull the pieces together by using a distinctly christian lingo.
and here is my attempt: this picture represents the fruition of the gospels. God is calling us to resurrection life. he is urging us to accept christ's redemptive gift and live here on earth, here on the ladder. sure, there is an empty space at the rainbow's end, a moment where the ladder ends and we finally climb up into the son. but like christ, we must first make our homes here in this broken world. indeed, i think this picture might be the final, most poignant of my holy week posts--it is a picture for all year, all life 'round.
i never know where beth will take me. perhaps that's because i'm a guy and for whatever reason i am blessed with the uncanny ability to drift off at just the wrong moments. yes, mother, ideally i would never drift off. but come on, if that were the case, i'd probably have a harem by now (perhaps compliments of this wonderful batch of personals). so, as the occasionally deaf, one-woman man that i am, there should be little surprise that this evening i found myself somewhere that i didn't quite expect: in the midst of a gospel-style worship service. i later discovered that this exhuberant hand clapping, joyous shouting, and singing--a relatively unfamiliar way of talking to God--was merely a prelude to the night's expected entertainment (or more appropriately, enlightenment), a message by Dr. John Perkins, 'the renowned civil rights leader and founding partner with SPU of the John Perkins Center for Reconciliation, Leadership Training, and Community Development (whew--that's a lonnnng title...it comes from spu.edu, but i'm not posting a link because the quote may not be available after today).' dr. perkins shared some interesting points regarding racism, christianity, and the disaster-battered state of the deep south, but it was the gospel choir that first got my attention.
still, despite the novelty of this form of worship, i was struck by an odd parallel. based upon tonight, it appears that gospel music tends to repeat a line or a chorus over and over again. during the course of this repetition, the choir director may tinker with the congregation's intensity or tone, but the words remain the same. shifting gears to a more personal one-on-one (that is man and God) setting, this emphasis on repetition is surprisingly similar to an old orthodox practice (and roman catholic too, i think...isn't there a latin term of some kind? kyrie gaglingok?). in the way of a pilgrim (or more particularly, the philokalia), an unknown, 19th century wanderer recounts his discovery of the orthodox 'Jesus prayer,' a simple sentence that christians were taught to pray unceasingly. "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me," they would pray all day, everyday. now, i know that i have a penchant for finding quirky little connections where there are none (take poetry and football, for example), but even now i feel some sense of gladness at this link between the ancient and the more modern pictures of my faith.
earlier today i was asked, 'if you could attend a live concert by any musical artist, living or dead, who would it be and where?' after nearly mumbling my way out of the question, i thought of the many sundays that i've sat on the floor at st. mark's and participated in a compline service. every time that i stare up into the cavernous space of that church and hear those voices rise mystically above me, i feel a reassuring connection with the past. i'm reminded that as i stumble along this journey of faith i'm not alone. the path is well-worn by other men and women down through the centuries. and that's probably why i dismissed elton john, ben folds, switchfoot, radiohead, burlap to cashmere, and other more likely candidates in favor of some 7th century cathedral with an anonymous cluster of monk-dudes singing gregorian chant.
andrew david. 'one too many, version 2' puerto vallarta, day 1.
these were our first 2 for 1 margaritas in mexico.
that's right, today beth turns 25! happy birthday beth! whoohooo!
in honor of beth, please share your favorite beth memory. i'm not asking for your favoritest, just something that's pleasantly memorable.
andrew: i find that one of beth's most attractive qualities is her enthusiasm. whether it be ts eliot, dipping sauces, or some other who-knows-what, she exudes an energy that is both cute and contagious. (and here comes my memory.) during our week long trek through alaska beth got excited about meese. soon she started referring to these phantom creatures as moooooooooose! for example, as we swatted mosquitos and other blood-sucking insects on a woodsy trail in canadia, we happened upon 17 piles of moose droppings, or as beth would later say, 'mooooooooooose poop!' well, you really ought to have been there, but that's my memory, what's yours?
hmmm...check out this bumper sticker that the washington state democratic party almost sold on their website. here's an apology from the chairman. here's how i found out about this. oh, and if you read to the end of the comments on that first link, you'll see my response.
anyway, the HAWKS play at 1:30. and thanks to my amazing, beautiful, brilliant, literate, hard-working, well-dressed, philosophical, generous, travel-savvy, stylish, conscientious, artsy, fun-loving, admirably righteous, clever, contact-wearing, cute, soon-to-be-football crazed girlfriend, i'll sitting at the 20 yard line!
that's right, i'll be at the game!
me...andrew...at a SEAHAWKS playoff game to see the first HAWK playoff victory on the road to the superbowl!
GO HAWKS!!!
[sometime later, its also the 5th comment to this post]
whitney -
here's what i HATE: contentedly chewing on a candy-cane only to find that - yuck! - you've been eating candy cane wrapper. and then begins the desperation; contorting the tongue into the molars in order to pry out htose pesky plastic pieces. and then the chocking. aggh.
[1/25/06]
whitney, face it, if you're a democrat, then you're a heathen. all of you left-wing liberals are just a bunch of sinners. oh,wait...i guess that's true of republicans too. well, so much for that.
it seems to me that the assumption that 'everyone should be as i am' is just another part of being human. hearkening back to psych 101, i think that this philosophy is the second or third tier of maslow's pyramid. once your material needs are satisfied, you look up from your happy belly and start to ponder how everyone else isn't meeting your needs.
at least that's my experience. some folks, myself included, have a laundry list of things that christians (or moral people) can't do. i don't think that's altogether bad -- in fact, its kinda' crucial to have a moral compass -- its just that our laundry lists tend to grows longer and less flexible as time goes by. soon enough, we only value other christians, other republicans, other people that we view as tolerant. so, to conclude, democrats are the same way. as a seattleite i doubt i can even count the number of times that i've heard rash generalizations of conservatives as unenlightened, cross-bearing idiots; as if democrats have the monopoly on intelligence. ultimately, i think those clowns at reefer magnets and the wsdp had a novel idea, except instead of writing HYPOCRITE on that Jesus-fish, the bumper sticker should have tatooed the slogan across the forehead of a generic stick-figure. we're all just a bunch of hypocrites.
Dipping into the mail bag, we find that an important comment may have gone unrecognized. On Friday, September 16, Beth asked: "do you mean 'anecdote,' or do you really believe a blog should in some way neutralize or counteract the boredom and meaninglessness in the lives of its readers? In any case [...] you demonstrated [that] perfectly in your Christmas list. Good list, by the way."
At that time, we replied something like this: "Indeed. i meant to say 'anecdote.' that particular post was already running a bit past deadline, so i apparently didn't have the opportunity to fully edit its content. we at the 17 point scale take grammar quite seriously, so we welcome any and all input. so thanks again for your sharp eye. however, despite your fine catch, you may note that we have left the original content unaltered. after all, as you nearly suggest, the error may be more telling than its intended meaning. consider our freudian slip an unheralded & unconventional unveiling of our mission statement. the 17 point scale endeavors to step into the vast sea of blogs as an antidote to the ennui of our postmodern world."
