Crazy Dreamers

I forgot to think up a review on my way home last night. I was too busy thinking up the...

It begins just like those stories your Southern granny used to tell you--soft, slow, and seemingly meandering--but don't let the...

Jennifer Goff of The Distracted Globe has set herself the arduous task of adapting Moliere's 1672 Les Femmes Savantes to...

I am a certifiably Bad Theatre Person. Before last night, I had refused to have anything to do with Oscar...

Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus" is one of those Important Plays, works of art full of giddy genius, reckless jealousy, and the...

I use Ubuntu on my laptop at BigBlueHat almost exclusively (save for some Photoshopping). I ran into a problem last week with having the same IP address as our wireless printer. After some man page research, I can up with this solution:sudo ifconfig eth1 address 192.168.1.7For me, that changes my wireless card (eth1) to use 192.168.1.7 IP address. The really happy part was that there was no rebooting required, and the changes was quick and painless though a bit geeky.

Anyone know what happened to Market Square? It's been closed for a few weeks now with the message "thanks for 3 years" on their sign. Any information would be appreciated.

Caution: product may contain spoilers. If you've seen the trailers for Hancock, you may have gotten the impression that it's primarily a comedy about a drunk superhero. They're not entirely misleading. The first 30 odd minutes are hip-hop backed episodes of drunk "heroics" by the reluctant, anger motivated "superhero" Hancock. It's a humorous, relatively fast paced, expletive-filled ride to the plot line and key characters. Generally in superhero movies there's a turning point: Spider-Man deciding responsibility comes with power, or Batman embracing his fear in order to overcome it. These turning points often highlight human struggles and present superhuman results most of us wish were possible. Hancock, however, shows us what it would be like if we had those super powers and never grew as a person. While Hancock does turn from drinking, shave, don a "hero suit," and change his theme music from hip-hop to classical, the underlying man changes little. Though he's a bit cleaner, he remains motivated by self-image and self-gratification. The director refers to this "redemption" as "a man looking to tap into a higher version of himself." If that's as good as it gets, perhaps he should look elsewhere. This meager change of heart produces equally disappointing results: a single successful act of heroism, after which we learn Hancock's all too Grecian back story and meet his 3,000+ year old spouse (also the spouse of his only friend). From this point on the movie is distinctly Greek. Hancock and Angel have a deities' brawl in downtown LA, love-hate their way to the final climax, and end the movie with a happily ever polyandry. I'm sure the movie means well; there's just no hero in it.

My wife and I have been discussing this topic for several years. We're recently back to it en force as we try to map out what's next for our family. I hope to be posting more on this topic soon, but for now, here's a link dump of some recent sites I've found:Transforming Culture: A Vision for the Church and the Arts - this was a symposium held on the 1st-3rd of this month in Austin Texas. They'll be making audio downloads available for purchase soon. The general information they provide is interesting and encouraging.Space for God blog's write up on the Transforming Culture symposiumthe author of Diary of an Arts Pastor was one of the speakers at the Transforming Culture symposiumImago Dei Community - a Portland, OR based church with a focus on the arts both in worship, as ministry, and as a vehicle for the communication of Truth.International Arts Movement - Makoto Fujimura who came to Christ because of a search for Truth in art has begun this group to promote similar exploration by other artists.Art for God's Sake by Philip Graham Ryken - a short but effective introduction to Christian art and the need for involvement. The introduction features information on Makoto Fujimura's work.Along with these more national and international efforts, action is being taken in the Upstate of South Carolina as well:Silver Chair Books - a local book store in Greer, SC is hosting a Christian in the Arts discussion group in the next few weeks.Another group is going to be hosting an presentation on the Transforming Culture symposium this Friday night at Snapshot Café and Art Bar. Details provided by the organizer are below:Where: Snapshot Café and Art Bar110 Poinsett Hwy at Rutherford Rd.Greenville, SCWhen: Friday, May 2, 6-7 PMWho: Any Christian in the visual arts. Bring a friend!RSVP: stgeorgeapa [at] bellsouth [dot] net

This quote comes from the development/programming side of my life, but it likely has farther reaching application:"when you learn something new by using it, the application you build will contain all the mistakes produced by learning, and you don’t always get a chance to return and fix those mistakes."from REST and Resource Oriented Architecture