PeaceBang

Insult

I had an experience today in my doctoral seminar that cemented my commitment to Unitarian Universalism afresh.

I’ll tell you later.

Hunkering Season

I feel so lucky to live in an area of the United States that has four distinct seasons. Last year we pretty much skipped from winter to summer, and I’m still frowny about it. After all that snow, no warm, sexy air to tease us back into life, just 50 degree rainy days in May and then BLAM, Hades temps.

When I wonder why I tolerate unfriendly Bostonians, the atrocious traffic, the lack of joie de vivre here and the long, austere winters, all I have to do is live through another autumn to understand it all.

My New England ghosts talk to me in the autumn. They live in the stillness, the blazing foliage, the dry chill, the first frost, the empty, wind-swept beach. They are serious ghosts, and beautiful, and they draw me with a spirit that meets and matches my own melancholic nature, full of the awareness of mortality but deeply loving the world nevertheless. When I take my first crunch of Macintosh apple, they hang over my right shoulder and smile, and remember. They love the subdued festival that is a pumpkin on the front porch. That’s their idea of a party. They wrap around me in my cozy bed as I read by candlelight, the cat snuggled by my side while the mice get cold enough outside to plan an invasion. I hear them sighing in the opening of the chimney flue. They pad around the empty parsonage at night, fussing around cracks in the floors and windows and checking locks. They like me to make cornbread, even though I never eat it.

I don’t really know what my ghosts are saying or what they want from me, I just know that they want me here.

They keep me company in invisibility.

Back to the Flickr photo page

Must Have Been a Slow Day

I’m writing my sermon at home and Fausto’s at work, and he calls me because he knows I’m obsessed with www.litterboxcam.com and have never seen the cats, not ever, and he has JUST SEEN A CAT.
So he calls to let me know, then sends an e-mail, and I miss the cats by like one second.

I am ready to throw myself under a train so he sends me a photo of what he thinks is one of the cats eating kibble but by accident attaches a photo with no cat in it at all. To which I respond with great desperation, “WHERE’S THE CAT?”

So he amends his error by attaching a photo with a really live spotted cat eating kibble, rear view, very cute. And the world is a joyful place again.

And this, my friends, is how UU bloggers spend slow days.

PeaceBang Shamelessly Plugs Her New Group

**”American Roots” Concert Comes to The Village Church**

“Sweet the Sound,” a musical project focusing on American sacred “roots”music (bluegrass, gospel, old time country, shape note, etc.) will perform at the Village Church on Saturday night, November 19, at 7:30pm.
(Wellesley Hills, MA)

The project takes its name from the lyrics of “Amazing Grace,” perhaps “the most famous song in American sacred music, known and loved well beyond the bounds of Christianity,” says the project’s Musical Director, Matthew Myer Boulton. (Boulton is also Professor of Worship at AndoverNewton Theological School, and Associate Pastor of Hope Church in Jamaica Plain.) Since the success of the film soundtracks for “Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?” and “Cold Mountain,” Boulton says, there has been a resurgence ofinterest in old American sacred music. “Sweet the Sound is about rediscovering some of the great songs in American Christian traditions, songs that have stood the test of time,and go right to the heart of human experience,” says Neil Helme, a singer, stand-up bass player, and founding member of the project.”All in a row,” he says, “we’ll play an African-American spiritual, a Hank Williams tune, a vibrant gospel song, and a shape note hymn from1846. It’s an American gumbo.”
The project also writes and performs original material, influenced by these old classics. The “Sweet the Sound” concert will be an evening of great music,fellowship for all ages, and a chance to “sing with the ancestors,” asBoulton puts it. And what’s more, it’s free! So mark your calendars -and invite a friend or two!

******

PeaceBang says, “I went to my first rehearsal last week and I can confidently say, it’s a whole passel o’ fun!”

Where Do Old Heart Throbs Go?

RexSmith
Originally uploaded by Peacebang.

Well, apparently some of them become realtors.

He still looks great, no?

I remember seeing Rex on Broadway in “The Pirates of Penzance” in the late 80’s. He was cute but I only had eyes for Treat Williams as the Pirate King.
What a fun show. It’s one of the few I’ve done twice and would happily do again. It’s just a big piece of candy set to music.

I Love Movie Spoilers!

One of my worst vices is guessing the ends of suspense films as soon as I’m able, which is usually within the first half hour of the film. I had guessed the ending of “The Sixth Sense” within the first twenty minutes. Very few films with a “twist” ending are very twisty to me.

So my new favorite website is going to be www.themoviespoiler.com.

What’s more relaxing on a Sunday afternoon after an insanely hectic church day than to read this kind of thing?

“Seconds later we see Caroline and Violet starting to wake up at the same time. Caroline gets to her feet and walks over to Violet. She bends down and takes one of Violets thin cigars and smokes it. Luke comes in and goes up to Caroline. We see Violet’s body on the floor and she is shaking in fear. I’ll explain this right here. Mama was in Violet’s body the whole time, and Caroline was switched into Violet’s old body. The whole time, Luke was really Papa Justify and Luke was actually in Ben’s body the whole time.”

Now I don’t have to rent “The Skeleton Key,” whose screenplay I suspected badly mangled the basic tenets of Voodoo (and Hoodoo), and now I’m sure does.

Loves it!

T-Man Sam Rides Again

T-Man Sam called the other day in a blaze of artistic hysteria because he’s preparing a big art show in Toronto for the beginning of November and also showing in some galleries in his own hometown of Ottawa:

http://www.foyergallery.com/artists/t_sametz.htm

His great big giant artistic brain inspired him to create an enormous pisanki, which is a Ukranian Easter Egg for you non-Bohunks out there. T-Man is of Ukie heritage and I am of Czech heritage and when he found out I knew what a pisanki was we knew we were fated for life. So he is, at this very moment apparently, soaking and bending wood and stuff and hot gluing it into place. Or he’s welding it. Or maybe whittling it. I really don’t know, as it was impossible to follow his explanation and I can’t imagine you make WOOD BEAMS into an egg shape in the first place. But he’s the genius, not I, and I’m telling you this, dear readers, to say that sometimes you meet really wonderful people through the blogging world.

Good luck, T-Man. May the pisanki vision make itself manifest through you. Just don’t hurt yourself with the power tools.

Miss Otis Regrets

I received an e-mail invitation to a Harvard Alumni Dinner on November 20th. President Larry Summers to give the keynote address. My reply, verbatim:

“My opinion of President Summers is less than fond. I attended the HDS Convocation in 2004 and was treated to the sight of our eminent preacher, the Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes, giving a brilliant address while Larry Summers sat slouched down in his chair with his legs sprawled apart in the fashion of an irritated frat boy. He couldn’t have communicated ‘I don’t want to be here; this isn’t important’ more clearly had he had a placard around his neck bearing the message in ink.

I have no desire to attend any Harvard functions that feature Dr. Summers, but thanks for asking.”

[Rev. PeaceBang]

Oy Vey!

Tevye Takes a New Wife, and This One Is TV Famous
By BEN BRANTLEY
Published: October 14, 2005

Here are instructions for transforming yourself into a Jewish matriarch in provincial Russia in 1905, inspired by Rosie O’Donnell’s performance in “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Minskoff Theater. Feel free to try this at home.
1. Plant yourself on the floor as if you were an oak.
2. Puff out your chest.
3. Place the palm of your left hand on the back of your left hip.And, voilà!, you have instant Golde, the wife of Tevye, the philosopher-milkman in the musical adaptation of Sholom Aleichem’s stories of shtetl life in the twilight of imperial Russia. Just strike that commanding maternal pose and all other essential elements of character will soon arrive naturally. It might help if you prayed a little, too.That would seem to be Ms. O’Donnell’s approach to a role previously played by Randy Graff and Andrea Martin in David Leveaux’s elegant but empty revival of this much-loved show by Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. Alas, a pose and a prayer prove to be not quite enough to allow Ms. O’Donnell - the comedian, television personality, theatrical producer, sometime actress and confessional blogger - to make us believe that she is someone other than who she so famously is.
Her accent trots the globe, through countries real and imagined. It is variously Irish, Yiddish, Long Island-ish and, for big dramatic moments, crisp and round in the style of introduction-to-theater students.
Her relationship with the notes and keys of a song is similarly fluid.In the scene where Tevye (Harvey Fierstein) frightens his wife by describing an ominous dream, Ms. O’Donnell puts her hands to her pinchable cheeks and emanates a series of high-pitched o’s, bringing to mind a distressed dolphin. Whether center stage or on the sidelines, she can be relied upon to react with italicized gestures and facial expressions to what everyone else is saying.Ms. O’Donnell, who has previously appeared on Broadway as a tough teenager in “Grease” and the Cat in the Hat in “Seussical,” executes all this with a cheerful confidence that is unfortunately not infectious. A stalwart promoter of Broadway when she was a television talk show host, Ms. O’Donnell does seem to be enjoying herself.But as is usual with her stage performances, she suggests a jill-of-all-trades who thought she might as well try her hand at acting, too. The overall impression brings to mind what might happen if the lead in a high school production fell ill and the director turned to the most popular and reliable girl in the senior class (who is already the captain of the field hockey team, the debating society and the pep club) to fill in.It would be nice to report that Ms. O’Donnell’s cheerleading persona brings new energy to this production. But the show’s effectiveness relies so much on full emotional conviction by its cast and audience that a kibitzing performance like this one creates only distance.So it is up to Mr. Fierstein, the famously throaty actor (and multiple Tony winner) who took over the starring role from Alfred Molina nine months ago, to fill the vacuum. He does this by stepping up the vocal mannerisms (even more than when I last saw him), embellishing every third or fourth syllable, spoken or sung, with ornamental slides and runs, often at the expense of intelligibility. Not since Mercedes McCambridge dubbed the part of the demon in “The Exorcist” has there been such a vocally baroque performance.A warning to those of delicate hearing: the show is now so overmiked that when Mr. Fierstein exercises his nasal tones, your eardrums go into shock. When Ms. O’Donnell tries to match him in stridency in the duet “Do You Love Me?,” you may find yourself longing for a more aurally soothing environment, like the runway of a busy airport.

Just Griping

I’m so tired my eyes burn, and it’s been raining for four straight days. I’ve unpacked and caught up on all the laundry and phone calls but I haven’t hauled my carcass out for any grocery shopping yet, which means I’m foraging for nuts and berries in the crevasses of the cabinet. I know I have some frozen items but I don’t even feel like microwaving anything.

When Elizabeth picked me up from the airport on Monday she brought a thermos of broccoli soup with her, and some home-made muffins. It almost made me cry. The last real thing I had had to eat was an amazingly good barbecue briscuit sandwich in the Dallas Airport, like ten hours earlier.

Yes, we use food too much for comfort, but it’s a kind of comfort that works sometimes.

I am going for a massage tomorrow for the simple reason that my jaw is clenched so tight I can feel my shoulders creeping up toward my ears in response. I did a lot of stretching this morning but unexpected ministerial obligations prevented me getting to the gym.

I just had no idea this trip would be so exhausting.

It’s 8:30 pm and I might just call it quits for the day. My sermon sucketh mightily but you know what? I have a Board retreat all day Saturday followed by a church potluck (for which I should cook something, but won’t — if I can’t feed myself I sure can’t feed anyone else). The sermon is honest, passionate, as coherent as I can be right now, and it will have to do.

I will undoubtedly pick at it tomorrow but I have decided that grocery shopping is my #1 priority, followed by a swim.