Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Well, I’m gonna be on the radio on Sunday. CLICK HERE for more information. I’ll be interviewed on AM 950 KTFN at 9:00 in the morning so you might need to stay home from church if you wish to catch my interview. It probably goes without saying that I’m gonna be interviewed regarding the Jehovah’s Witnesses (since that is, embarrassingly, absolutely the only topic on which I am an expert): what do they believe, why did I leave, why do they shun former members, why do they hate beards…stuff like that.
Tune in and listen, if you’re not already sick of me from reading this blog. I think they set aside a time for people to call in, so if you want to ask any pressing questions you may have, now’s your time. If you can’t think of any questions, here are some suggestions:
-How long is a “generation” these days?
-Which scripture discusses the prohibition on rated R movies?
-Why don’t Witnesses celebrate birthdays? (You can ask it but, sorry, there’s no good answer.)
-Do women in the religion have separate drinking fountains to go along with their separate spots on stage?
-How many Smurfs does it take to clear a Kingdom Hall?
-If Witnesses are going to live forever on Earth after Armageddon, what sort of superpowers will they need?
-How come Witnesses hide their copies of Thriller?
-If New York legalizes same-sex marriage, will all the Bethelites finally be able to become “one flesh”?
-Is it true that a Circuit Overseer’s butt won’t kiss itself?
In other news…
Newt Gingrich, certainly one of the most disgusting men to hold the position of Speaker of the House in recent decades, was in Minneapolis this week. Here’s a video commemorating that event:
Also, dress codes are stupid. Good for this kid.
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
Tonight, before bed, Owen and I read the last chapter of Stuart Little, a book I have owned for over 20 years. Owen had recently seen the movie “version” of Stuart Little, and I wanted to balance that with the original – and far superior – rendition of the little person.
I must admit, I had almost entirely forgotten the details of this great story. I had remembered that Stuart was actually born into the family – not adopted as retold in the sanitized movie version. The book also makes a point of noting that Stuart ages quicker than his human relatives – he could walk as soon as he was born and within weeks of his birth, he was shimming up curtains.
I had also forgotten about Stuart’s friend Margalo, an injured bird with whom Stuart strikes up a loving friendship. Stuart, it seems, can speak the language of Margalo, and of the family’s cat Snowbell. (As an aside: I always find it odd and inconsistent how sentient animals are depicted in fiction. It appears they can understand humans, but humans can’t understand them. I don’t get it. Anyway…) Stuart and Margalo spend much time together. Later, correctly believing she is in danger, Margalo flees the Littles’ house. When she doesn’t come back for some time, Stuart goes in search of her. And here was a point that baffled Owen: why would a young mouse just up and leave his family like that? Though I told Owen that Stuart was ‘full’ grown, even though he was only about 4 years old, it still did seem odd that Stuart left without saying goodbye or leaving a note. It seems, if he did wish to find Margalo, he would’ve had better success had he recruited his parents and his older brother.
Stuart’s search takes him to the town of Ames’ Crossing – surely the best chapter in the book. Here’s how it begins:
In the loveliest town of all, where the houses were white and high and the elm trees were green and higher than the houses, where the front yards were wide and pleasant and the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky, in this loveliest of all towns Stuart stopped to get a drink of sarsaparilla.
Wow! Oh my god! This enormous sentence – rivaling in length something Thomas Jefferson would write (in fact, it’s quite a bit longer than the opening sentence of the Declaration), is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful I have ever read. After reading it to Owen, I had to stop and back up and read it a second time. I think it sums up the feeling of the whole book quite nicely. Later, when asked where he can be found, Stuart responds: “The highways and the byways are where you’ll find me, always looking for Margalo. Sometimes I feel that I’m quite near to her and that she’s just around the turn of the road. Other times I feel that I’ll never find her and never hear her voice again. Which reminds me, it’s time I was on my way.” Again: beautiful!
I was concerned that Owen would be upset at the open-ended conclusion of the book, and when I read the final words tonight, I looked over at him and saw that it took him a second to realize the book was over. He asked me what I thought happened to Stuart, but I turned the question around and asked him first. It seems Owen had already decided how the tale would end.
Happy.