<p>A story, of which more can be read "here":http://rudycarrera.com/wp/?p=3624, came to my attention. You’ll read that artists in England, for example, have no trouble mocking Christianity or Judaism, the pillars of their own civilization. Surprisingly, they seem to be a bit afraid of having their own throats slit should they dare to insult Islam, a religion foreign to them on just about every level. What say you about this?
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<p>It’s one of the reasons I, in public anyway, tend to be quiet about religion. I’m of the idea that if one asks, I should answer. If one doesn’t, there’s no sense throwing pearls to the swine (no, I’m not calling anyone a pig, just using a metaphor)!
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<p>Personally, anyone bugging me about their religion (or their anything – I have a thing against fanatics) gets an earful from me. And I usually take the diametrically opposite argument – I’ve read quite a bit on most of the major religions, and have dabbled enough in occultism to be able to carry my weight in such pointless arguments :) Depending on how well disposed I am, I may even act out an on the spot conversion so that the person may feel better about themselves. After all, that’s what it’s all about, right? Why else would you need to advertise (loudly even) your (religious) beliefs?
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<p>This is, sadly, a curse Protestantism has wrought. I write this as a former Protestant (an O.P., actually, being partially of a Lutheran background). After actually looking deeply into Lutheranism (and October 31 is the anniversary of the 95 Theses), I found it, along with the Baptist, Methodist and other interpretations, severely lacking. I have my biases, obviously.</p>
<p>And yes, Joel is excellent people.
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<p>Salutations,<br /> As a person who studies history (as my minor, my major is Economics)and as someone with faith (that is sometimes lagging) in Christ,I have made it a point to observe, study, and understand other denominations of Christianity. While I am not a foremost expert by any means, my observations try to be as pragmatic as my temper/opinion will allow.<br /> However, one denomination of Christianity raises my ire. It is these "new born" Christians. What raises my ire is the arrogance that some of these people have when it pertains to the history and context of Christianity. One such person I deal with at my job, speaks to people as if he is the only one who will be saved, other denominations that do not believe as he does will be going to hell, ABSOLUTE discredit for logical/scientific thought, and other various annoying actions.<br /> My questions are:<br /> 1. Is this a common trend amongst them?<br /> 2. Am I the only one that notices this?<br /> 3. Am I being an ass and should just leave this alone?<br /> Please feel free to post any response to this. As for me, Rudy can vouch for me being pretty reasonable and observant due to he and I going to school together.</p>
<p> Joel
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<p>What book companies have you fixated on their releases? A personal favorite over the years has been "New Directions":http://www.ndpublishing.com/, who have released wonderful works by Ezra Pound and Octavio Paz, among others.
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<p>Maica;</p>
<p>Those two cents parlayed into a small fortune as far as I’m concerned. In Castilian, we have a similar word: duende. The Portuguese have fado, which seems to have the same feel to it. </p>
<p>That you referenced Andrei Codrescu gives you many bonus points in my book! Many thanks for your contribution to this most interesting of topics.
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<p>Good question — I’d like to embroider a bit on the X we are constructing….......</p>
<p>I think the quality we are talking about can be beautifully expressed and elaborated by one Romanian word: dor.</p>
<p>My experience of dor is one cerebral, emotional, and physical, all at once. It compels and confines, inspires and liberates. It drives a person to do, be, convey, and live in a way that refers to that dor. Dor has origins within, and from without, and in many ways it is unstoppable. It has a link to home — and in my experience that has to do even with the things in the distant past which formed those who first colored my perception of home. Dor also surges in a person who is trying to convey that same sense.</p>
<p>I have heard dor in the voices of singers from everywhere. And I have missed it in the voices of others.</p>
<p>Here is what Andrei Codrescu has to say about dor:<br />
"There is an untranslatable Romanian word that expresses with great precision the kind of unbearable longing and nostalgia that grips one’s heart when thinking of home. That word is dor. I have felt it many times. Nostalgia for the medieval squares of Sibiu steeped in golden light, longing for the outdoor cafes of Bucharest, drinking new wine, all of us young, intoxicated with poetry and song. I missed the smells of flowering linden trees, the blue reflections of deep mountain snow in the evenings, the old peasant villages that Ceauşescu’s insanity almost wiped off the face of the earth. I missed the real fairy tales I was raised on. The story of the waters of life and death, youth without age, the tale of the sheep Mioriţa that recites the cosmic poetry of the sky, the story of the poplars that grew pears…"<br /> Andrei Codrescu The Hole in the Flag, 1991</p>
<p>my two cents!<br />
MP
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<p>Bojan;</p>
<p>This is something I had not thought too much of, which is sad, as I have a profound love of the arts (and especially music – moreso your bands like Mizar, Kismet and Zlust, all of whom I know well). Love separates the street musician for whom only the passion of the performance is sufficient, from the graduate of, say Berklee School of Music or many conservatories, where one learns mechanics, precision; in short, to be a machine. One can be supremely schooled and yet remain soulless. And others can become "one-chord wonders." All through love. Imagine that.</p>
<p>It’s a fine answer, and I’m honored you took the time to place it.
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<p>The reply from 3protons on your friend’s site seems to capture a part of what I was going to say. I’d say that this "elusive" quality X is most definitely Love. Love for the work, no matter what sort of work it is. From my own experience, I tend to invest more imagination, creativity and emotion in the work if I am emotionally involved with it (whether it be a translation, photograph or story/poem). I’m guessing it’s the same with music, and can point at several bands that "had it" and then "lost it" (Metallica springs to mind first). When the work becomes about the money, and not the work itself, then you’re just going through the motions, going with the recipe which seemed to work on the previous album. It’s the Hollywood method: If it brought you money, make a sequel (or make a remake, if it’s old/non-Hollywood) – and we know how that worked out for Wenders’ "Der Himmel Uber Berlin" (remade as The City of Angels).</p>
<p>Hope this answers at least some of the "mystery" :)
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<p>I have a new "most beloved" film, "Everything is Illuminated," based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer. In short, it is the tale of Jonathan, a collector of family artifacts and Ukranian-American Jew, who goes to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his Grandfather’s life during WWII. The narration is done by Aleksander Perchev, the other main character in the story, a "humble translator" whose English is "not so premium," in his own words. Jonathan and Alex meet because of Alex’s family’s business of taking "rich Americans to find their dead relatives." Alex call’s Jonathan’s trip a "very rigid search." Everyone who comes into contact with Jonathan along the way has his or her life changed significantly, not necessarily because of WHO Jonathan is but more because of WHAT he is doing.</p>
<p>The film was brought to my attention just before I embarked on my own VERY RIGID SEARCH in Romania for relatives not completely unknown (we lost contact against our will during the Cold War). I watched the film with my husband (my partner on my Very Rigid Search) and parents (who were really thrilled about my Very Rigid Search). Surely, my own experience fuels my love for this film, but even if I hadn’t embarked upon my adventure I would still love this film.</p>
<p>The dialogue is in wonderful broken English, English, and Ukranian with subtitles. I grew up hearing broken English, so that is very comforting and authentic to me.</p>
<p>The film also de-Frodo-fies Elijah Wood for me. I thought he was somewhat flat as Frodo in "Lord of the Rings," and although the film’s Jonathan is not a wildly expressive man, Elijah Wood really captures the roll well.</p>
<p>This is not a chick flick by any means. Everyone I have shown the film to has been glad to have watched it. There are some terribly disturbing images, but overall a very wonderful picture.</p>
<p>Maica Preoteasa
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<p>This isn’t philosophy per sé, but a dear friend, Gawain, "posed this question":http://heaventree.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/quality-x-or-what-some-have-and-some-dont/ on his wonderful blog, Heaven Tree.</p>
<p>What is your opinion of this topic? What makes someone randomly greater or lesser than the other, especially when it comes to the arts?
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<p>Since childhood, music has played an integral part in my life. I grew up with everything from punk and prog-rock to "Industrial music":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Records and free jazz. I grew into collecting labels in my teens. I was especially impressed by Tony Wilson’s "Factory Records":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory_Records, who released albums by some of my favorite bands, such as Joy Division and New Order, The Durutti Column and A Certain Ratio, along with other seminal dance acts such as Section 25. Daniel Miller’s "MUTE Records":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mute_Records, who would release groups such as Depeche Mode, Erasure, the legendary Laibach and Einstürzende Neubauten also had a section in my collection. ECM, ESP-Disk and Cherry Red Records also formed large blocks in my collection. </p>
<p>What labels interested you? Which influenced your taste in music and which do you still collect?
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<p>I like the aspects of military history that cover the technical subjects. What I mean is for example is the books of DK Publishing that cover Battle, Weapon, and now Warrior. I remember you did call it the "redneck guide to history," but they are informative in their own way.</p>
<p>Joel
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<p>I’d like to list a few that I read constantly:</p>
<p>"Heaven Tree":http://heaventree.wordpress.com<br />
"Kakistocrat":http://kakistocrat.blogsome.com<br />
"Mount Shang":http://www.mountshang.blogspot.com<br />
"Varieties of Unreligious Experience":http://vunex.blogspot.com</p>
<p>And for a great variety of articles, check out:</p>
<p>"Arts &amp; Letters Daily":http://www.aldaily.com</p>
<p>Have you any to recommend?
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<p>With a family name like Carrera, one wouldn’t figure me on first glance to be a practicing Eastern Orthodox Christian, but I’d posit that it’s not wise to bank on a name for much of anything in the United States, where we’ve lost a lot of the significance of heritage (for better or worse). My road to Orthodoxy was a strange one. Both my parents were born in Mexico, and my recent ancestors came predominantly from Prussia and Northern Spain, though I’ve an uncle or two who could easily pass for Persian or Chechen. I was read to a lot by parents who instilled education and a maternal grandfather who took in information like a sponge. Thanks to his books and magazines, and given that part of the ancestry hailed from the Baltic states, I had some interface with Russian culture. Working with musicians publishing music when I became older helped out quite a bit as well.</p>
<p>My brother and I were born Roman Catholic, though raised in a Protestant household for the most part (I’ve been told that my great-grandfather was a Lutheran pastor, and my grandmother’s family were non-denominational protestants). Neither gave me what I wanted out of religion, so I figured drifting away from the Church would be a natural for me, especially as I was being taught by kooks when I first entered University in 1988. Several years passed, and through traveling, I came across the sound of church bells. It seemed innocuous enough, but I had not heard church bells peeling since I was a kid, and I figured I had to go to the source of the sound. It turned out to be a Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and there was a luncheon going on. Though I feel silly for it now, I barged in and asked if the priest would make time to talk to me about his faith. He did, and we scheduled an appointment for later that week. After a four-hour conversation covering everything from our mutual history (I spoke good German at the time, and he had lived in Bavaria during WWII), we touched on church doctrine. After making his case, and after seeing how stunning the service was, I wanted a bit more. After a while, the Ukrainian Orthodox priest allowed me to be chrismated in the church. That was around 1993, and though I’ve traveled much since then, I’ve been a Pravoslav (the actual word for Orthodox [right-path] in Slavic languages) ever since.</p>
<p>How did you get there?
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<p>Which sort of military history? I actually have a very young cousin who recently gave me a pleasant surprise by asking his old cousin about the history of military strategy, as he’s already begun reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, which is impressive for a kid of 12 or 13. I’ve recommended Carl von Clausewitz’s On War, and I’ve decided to get it for him as a present. Any kind of intellectual interest that leads to good reading should be rewarded. I’m keen on European History as well, but I’ve veered more toward Mongolian History, as I warmed to it thanks to a brilliant mentor I had at Uni.
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<p>I have to admit that whether as a crowd favorite or complete heel, Russell Crowe has the goods to back it up as an actor. It’s almost as if he’s acting like he would in real life (and considering some of the run-ins with the law he’s had, I’d be wont to agree with you). I’ve never had the chance to see the original, so I’ll have nothing to compare it to, but if I enjoy watching this, I’ll have to see if I can run across the original on DVD or through Netflix. Thanks kindly for the tip!
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<p>I am aware that this is a remake of the original 1950’s film, but it is a very good movie. Russell Crowe is an intriguing villain, in the fact that he is charming and a sinister bastard. Christian Bale plays the role of a torn father pretty well, but it is kind of boring in the beginning.<br /> What really made this movie good was the overall pace to it. It’s not slow, like Unforgiven. You can sit through it and not be bored. Overall, I highly reccomend it, or even buy it bootleg…lol.
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<p>While I have many interests, I’ll speak of the intellectual ones. I like to read about history, especially military and European.
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<p>If you’ve ever wondered why the Latin alphabet developed into what it has since become, you can do no better than to read David Sacks’ wonderful history, laid out in an encyclopedic fashion. The read is engaging, and does a wonderful job of tracing our letters from their Phoenician and Hellenic roots to Etruscan and Roman modifications into modern times.</p>
<p>Purchase it "here":http://www.amazon.com/Letter-Perfect-Marvelous-History-Alphabet/dp/0767911733 .
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<p>Start with anything that piques your interest. A good conversation, perhaps?
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<p>What things in life make you happy? What makes you motivated to enjoy your day, or gives you inspiration to try new things?
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