Fr. Stephen Freeman writes about the modern condition in a way that resonates with me and what I've witnessed in my lifetime.
I think we are often disappointed that God refuses to behave as the god of modernity. The extremes of the “prosperity” preachers are only the most egregious examples of modernity’s god. There are others, more subtle. For example, we expect God to cooperate with our political projects (both Left and Right).
The first time I went to an Orthodox Christian Church, it was with a group of confirmation students from my Presbyterian Church. Not knowing the tradition, we just happened to end up at "Forgiveness Vespers," the service that kicks off the Orthodox Season of Lent. At this service, parishioners line up around the perimeter of the church sanctuary and walk around the circle hugging each other and asking for forgiveness. This was a rather intimate tradition for 8th graders who didn't know anyone at the church to be participating in.
I've been writing recently about my new appreciation for physical media for my music collection. I've hit a few snags, though. As the absolute cost of obtaining music goes down in that you can get almost anything included as part of your all-you-can-eat streaming music plan, the cost of physical copies of that same music keeps increasing.[1]
Just today, I received a CD I ordered from Bandcamp. When I opened the package, I couldn't help but feel a bit left down.
Karaoke Night by soccer mommy When I went to the Hopscotch music festival a few weeks ago, two of the bands that I went to see were Soccer Mommy and Pavement. Pavement played the first day, Soccer Mommy the third. After Sophia Regina Allison, the woman behind the stage name Soccer Mommy, took the stage, she mentioned getting really into the festival and staying the whole weekend (something not all the artists did).
Matter continues to add features that make a subscription to the service even more valuable. The latest is an enhancement to their recent podcast support. Matter will not intelligently (some might say artificially) break podcasts down into chapters. This is something that used to be done organically with podcasts, but seems to have fallen by the wayside as podcasters potentially worried about people skipping the now ubiquitous ads. It's nice to have this capability back.
This article about the lifecycle of tricks in skateboarding really brought back memories for me. It heavily references the early nineties, the period I was most active in skateboarding. As noted in the piece, it was a time of big pants and small wheels. Lucas Wiesenthal, who wrote the piece, focuses on a few particular tricks, one of which is the pressure flip. Wiesenthal relates how quickly tricks came into vogue and how, just as quickly, they went out.
Last week, I spent some time serving at a soup kitchen. This soup kitchen no longer serves soup, but I guess no one can decide on something more appropriate to describe the establishment. I ended up serving donuts, which were the dessert du jour, the last thing on the line before drinks. Previously, I had served drinks, and people could pick sweet tea or lemonade, but now, the only drink offered is water.
The moment when I became a catechumen in the Orthodox Church is captured on Instagram. There are a few comments about our group of catechumens. One reads, "may they persevere to the end." I believe I've heard this before in the same, or similar contexts, so I think it is a pretty common saying under these circumstances. When I first read it, I wondered why there was such a strong statement of hope in our ability to run the race.
If the soundtrack to the movie Kids isn't my favorite film score, it's certainly close to it. I listened to the cassette I had over and over on long drives to and from college my sophomore year after my recovery from lymphoma. I had incredibly mixed feelings about the movie itself, owing to the overwhelming nihilism it depicted, which was only enhanced by both Larry Clark and Harmony Korine's congenital knack for taking things to the extreme.
Jason Morehead laments the way content is disappearing from the internet. He brings up the way technology news site CNet deleted a whole swath of older pieces.
In the grand scheme of things, deleting old tech articles may not seem like a big deal. But what frustrates me is that there’s no real good reason for it, just as there’s no good reason for Disney deleting titles to save money. Not when they’re shelling out stupid amounts of money to executives, anyway.
