I told you it was good....




It was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who said, “The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”  I think Dr. King is tapping into something quite powerful, something holy.

As Dave said in a previous post, “there was a time when it was Christians who led the way in both the arts and sciences, leading to great discoveries and equally great works of art. “  I would suggest these Christians understood that Christianity is actually an expression of something much bigger, that they understood the message of God to be holistic, and one, which reconnects man back to the Almighty.

Eighteenth century paintings, movies, music, books, literature, television, advertising, all of it, the creative culture, the creative communication.  In what way, if any does the gospel tie into the idea of the arts?  From Genesis to Revelation we see the Creator God, the creative heartbeat of God.  Perhaps in several ways, understanding the arts lends itself to our understanding of God.

Paul when speaking to the Athenians quoted their poetry, poetry that had originally been written to their pagan gods.  Is Paul merely memorizing these poems to utilize as a tool in his evangelistic arsenal?  No!  I think Paul read these poems and liked them.  Now, don’t get me wrong, he took that beauty and put it perspective, but I think he saw something beautiful in them all the same.  Paul was able to see God in all humanity, including the arts.

In Genesis we see that God begins the world with a creative act, but he doesn’t stop there.  He then turned over the act of creativity to mankind.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that God assigned the naming of the animals to Adam, an act that at its core is a creative one.  God creates and then positions mankind to be sub-creators.

Dorothy L. Sayers, in her book “Mind of the Maker” said, “We should not act as though the Fall never happened, but rather redeem the fall by a creative act.”  It’s the idea that creativity can change the world, that the world is broken and that through Christ, the church is piecing it back together… the idea that a creative act has the potential to actually redeem the Fall, to make things better.   It’s making music, growing a garden and then inviting your neighbor over for dinner.  It’s when a father writes stories all day and then reads them to his child.  And so, what is your creative act?  What is your creative endeavor?  How are you redeeming the Fall? 

I leave with the thoughts of Paul Tillich: “The divine life is creative, actualizing itself in inexhaustible abundance.  The divine life and the divine creativity are not different.  God is creative because he is God.  Therefore, it is meaningless to ask whether creation is a necessary or a contingent act of God.”

< Zachary C.

Zachary Crow is a filmmaker, freelancer, and creative seeking to redeem the Fall by creative acts. 

Rating - 9.5/10

Ten minutes into the film and you're certain you've chanced upon something rare; a film that is truly an auteur's labor of love. The Fall is not so much about imagination as it is about childhood innocence.

In a hospital in early 20th century Los Angeles, Roy Parker (Lee Pace), a depressed and suicidal stunt man paralyzed from the waist down befriends a free spirited young girl, Alexandria (played brilliantly by Catinca Untaru, who at the time was only 6 years old) secretly hoping he can charm her enough to get a bottle of morphine. He proceeds to tell her a story that he makes up along the way and the audience is privy to a sumptuously visual tale calling into action colorful characters ranging from an angry slave to Charles Darwin and his pet monkey.

As Roy becomes progressively more depressed in the real world, his story gets darker and immerses an innocent young girl into the recesses of the mind a man on the brink of suicide. As Alexandria starts getting emotionally involved, she goes to great lengths to keep the story going, to keep Roy going, all the while hoping for a happy ending. The third act was so emotionally engaging that I have to confess, I think I may have shed a tear or two.

Shot in some 25 countries, the film is an eye-popping travelogue and the compositions of a few frames are so ridiculously brilliant that you can't help but marvel at what goes on inside the head of the director.

The characterizations and the plot itself are deeply flawed mostly because the director pays too much attention to visual detail but you'll be hardpressed not to overlook that. You have to hand it to Tarsem for his audacity; he shot the film over four years with his own money and never allowed studios to touch a single frame. This is evidenced by the lack of a truly uplifting ending.

For me, the film was an immensely personal experience taking me back to my childhood where bedtime stories played an integral part; perhaps the reason why I tend to go off on tangents so often. Escapism, you see, is a beautiful thing.

[Link to IMDB profile]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791/

Ten minutes into the film and you're certain you've chanced upon something rare; a film that is truly an auteur's labor of love. The Fall is not so much about imagination as it is about childhood innocence.

In a hospital in early 20th century Los Angeles, Roy Parker (Lee Pace), a depressed and suicidal stunt man paralyzed from the waist down befriends a free spirited young girl, Alexandria (played brilliantly by Catinca Untaru, who at the time was only 6 years old) secretly hoping he can charm her enough to get a bottle of morphine. He proceeds to tell her a story that he makes up along the way and the audience is privy to a sumptuously visual tale calling into action colorful characters ranging from an angry slave to Charles Darwin and his pet monkey.

As Roy becomes progressively more depressed in the real world, his story gets darker and immerses an innocent young girl into the recesses of the mind a man on the brink of suicide. As Alexandria starts getting emotionally involved, she goes to great lengths to keep the story going, to keep Roy going, all the while hoping for a happy ending. The third act was so emotionally engaging that I have to confess, I think I may have shed a tear or two.

Shot in some 25 countries, the film is an eye-popping travelogue and the compositions of a few frames are so ridiculously brilliant that you can't help but marvel at what goes on inside the head of the director.

The characterizations and the plot itself are deeply flawed mostly because the director pays too much attention to visual detail but you'll be hardpressed not to overlook that. You have to hand it to Tarsem for his audacity; he shot the film over four years with his own money and never allowed studios to touch a single frame. This is evidenced by the lack of a truly uplifting ending.

For me, the film was an immensely personal experience taking me back to my childhood where bedtime stories played an integral part; perhaps the reason why I tend to go off on tangents so often. Escapism, you see, is a beautiful thing.

9.5/10

(Cross-posted on Couch Critics)

Did you know that her children and husband became her salvation after she fell from the garden of Eden? Did you know that? (Eph 5:23)

The woman only became Eve (mother of all living) after she fell (Gen 3:20), and came under subjection to her husband after she met the serpent (Gen 3:16).

The serpent was told:

Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Reading 1 Timothy Chapter 2:

11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.    

12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.    

13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve.    

14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.    

15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

This teaches us a number of things. Firstly, the woman is subject to her husband, she is not independent. And here she must not teach the man. Secondly, the WOMAN was deceived, so SHE has to overcome the serpent, by bearing children.

So in Revelation Chapter 12 of the Christian Bible, we see the woman overcoming the serpent in this way. She produces offspring that defeats the serpent. PLEASE women, do the same. In Revelation Chapter 12, we do not see the MAN overcoming the serpent, we see the WOMAN overcoming the serpent. You may want to read more on what the Bible says about the woman.

Language in vocabulary
Is not one
Easily subscribed to by this hand
Pictorial and musical
Are a choice made long ago
But I hear words, your words
That translate into my language
Beautifully
Now more than ever
And the pleasure is there
To be heard publicly
Openly
Speak and continue to speak
Sing and sing again
And I play
Giving a symphony
Giving
As the return with you, phenomenal, love
Chatter box
The pleasure is mine

by Cole Coonce

]]> http://silentists.wordpress.com/?p=842 Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:51:07 +0000 Gryff Grigorovich http://silentists.wordpress.com/?p=842 nested deep, burrowing slowly burning
in the fall, the heart of it is dimly
a flickering flame in amber and violet
pouring out its rays in brown and gold
dripping warmth across the honed edges
of the chill breeze mingling twisting with the
rising smoke spiced with clove and appleseed
and damp and bitter hissing bark piping
steam from boiling sap in shadow tendrils
probing up among the biting of cool fleeing
breezes now hushing all living things to sleep

i sleep in the heart of this season i nest
smoldering burning burrowing my way in
towards the core of the fall where the faintly
flickering rays draw in my sleeping eye and
the air that was purified in the early searing
now cooled and spiced with appleseed and
clove, and pine sap boiling up and offered
to the twisting up breezes from damp
and steaming bitter bark in bursts and hisses

on hands and knees i approach the heart faintly
flickering dimly blue in the first darkness, blue
with the bloodwarm pulse and the lights gone out
then amber rising from the deepening core
and violet darkly throbbing inward turning
burning burrowing nesting those solitary lights
whose tender shadow tendrils touch and tug me
coaxing to join them alone in warmth spilled out
glowing syrup, distilled reduced in brown and gold
spilling warming over ragged chill edges torn skin
frantic shreds ribbon skin scouring gravel
the tearing clinging bodies in heat torn open
falling in the closing day burned into this dim night.

night now falling, closing, eyes and warming hands
we clasp, draped on chests rising falling and slowly
burning we are sleeping nested deep and burrowed
deep into the fall and deep in to the heart of falling,
the dim flickering amber guttering violet dimly warming
our falling through radiant streams of brown and gold.

OBS! helst ska man se filmen utan att ha sett trailern. Så lita på mina ord. Se filmen! Kolla inte ens upp den på imdb! Men om du måste se klippet kan väl hålla för öronen annars vet man för mycket.

Tummis.

Man was originally created in the image of God and was furnished in his mind with a true and salutary knowledge of his Creator and things spiritual, in his will and heart with righteousness, and in all his emotions with purity; indeed, the whole man was holy. However, rebelling against God at the devil's instigation and by his own free will, he deprived himself of these outstanding gifts. Rather, in their place he brought upon himself blindness, terrible darkness, futility, and distortion of judgment in his mind; perversity, defiance, and hardness in his heart and will; and finally impurity in all his emotions.

-Synod of Dort 3/4.1

__________

I often find myself in stark wonder that Adam could give up perfect fellowship with God for the miserable worship of himself and his own will.  The only thing that cures me of this prideful disdain for Adam is the realization that I'm no different.  The height from which man fell should only encourage us to judge the depth of Christ's love for us on the cross all the greater.

Sunt insa sigura ca se practica destul de des. Consta in vizionarea a cat mai multe "imagini miscatoare". Acestea vor deveni parte din tine si cand te astepti mai putin iti vor face o vizita.

Sa va explic cum s-a intamplat in cazul meu: De-a lungul timpului am vazut o multime de filme... nici nu le mai stiu numele tuturor, sau cand le-am vazut dar, intr-o seara, in timp ce ascultam muzica (un mix de la Pascal Feos) mi se derulau in minte o multime de imagini din Mad Max (tot felul de masini ciudate ), Matrix si alte filme de care nu imi aduceam aminte. Totul se petrecea extrem de rapid in functie de ritmul mixului! Asta da experienta:)

Intamplator, am descoperit pe un blog o recomadare de film. Acesta se numeste "The Fall" si a fost caraterizat de catre David Fincher (Fight Club) ca fiind "ce-ar fi iesit daca Andrei Tarkovsky ar fi facut "Vrajitorul din Oz".

Legatura dintre "The fall" si imaginatie e una simpla! Filmul este extraordinar din punct de vedere al peisajelor surprinse. In plus, multitudinea de culori ce te rasfata o credeam posibila doar in desene animate. Dupa ce m-a introdus destul de repede in lumea lui tocmai prin culori, filmul asta inca nu imi da pace. Nu imi pot scoate din minte anumite imagini! Au devenit parte din minte si asta ma face mai bogata :)! Pot sa spun ca am fost fericita pe toata durata filmului, dar si dupa!

Probabil ca nu vedeti inca legatura filmului cu titlul... Dupa ce l-am terminat de vizionat au aparut intrebari de genul "la 5 ani imi treceau prin cap asemenea imagini?" - "Nu stiu", "oare imi pot imagina locuri si culori mai frumoase de atat?" - "Vom vedea".

Dar cea care m-a nelinistit cel mai tare a fost daca "mi-am pierdut eu abilitatile de a-mi imagina lucruri pe care nu le-am vazut niciodata pentru ca experienta mi-a dovetit ca imi inchipui ceva ce deja stiu?". Cert este ca nu mai vad lucrurile atat de simplu ca la 5 ani si nici nu mai imi imginez tot felul de monstri ce traiesc sub pamant, din pacate...

"Problema" cu filmele, de care pot spune ca sunt dependenta, e ca imi ofera imaginea, iar imaginatia se relaxeaza. Oare daca se relaxeaza ea prea tare, se mai comporta ca la 5 ani? Sa imi poata oferi tot felul de experiente vizuale atunci cand ascult muzica, cand citesc sau cand ma joc?

There's something really quite special about The Fall. I had the same feeling watching it as when I saw Pan's Labyrinth last year. I suppose it's the feeling of watching something that the director really cares about. Apparently Tarsem Singh, the director, flooded millions of his own money into the project, and that it contains no CGI. At all. I emphasise that because, quite frankly, that's astonishing.

I guess pushing millions of dollars into the film would be the only way to achieve such breathtaking beauty without resorting to conjuring it up on a computer. It's not just the normal stuff that you'd expect to be faked; men coming out of burning trees, an entire city painted blue or a maze of insurmountable stairs. It's also things like a meadow in the middle of the desert, a island in the shape of a butterfly and an elephant crossing a vast sea. These things are certainly possible without CGI, but why bother?

To understand the answer to that question you really need to see the film. The plot is relatively simple; in the beginning of the 20th century a little girl breaks her arm, and a Hollywood stuntman takes a particularly bad fall. Stuck in the same hospital, she goes to him every day to hear a story, or 'epic' as it's described. The resulting story is where all these fantastical elements play out.

Now, it's easy to say something pithy about how the story set in the real world is far more meaningful and important than that of the imagination, but in this film, I don't think that's true. They are both important to the mechanics of the story, as one affects the other, but I did find myself looking forward to the next time the 'bandits' graced the screen.

The film is dominated by the Romanian actress Catinca Untaru, playing Alexandria, the five year old girl with the broken arm. The story that the stunt man (Lee Pace) tells is shown to us through her eyes, where the 'Indian' who lives in a wigwam and has a squaw, is actually from India, with a beard and turban, and every member of the cast is played by one of her friends in the real world. She has a way of blurting out her scentences that adds her role credibility and more importantly aimiability. The consternation on her brow when Roy, the stuntman, refuses to continue with the story at various intervals is both hilarious and endearing.

Overall, the whole film is a spectacle, first and foremost. There is a story there, but it is a device to deliver you these grandiose vistas, while still maintaining a feeling of continuity. As I said at the beginning, there are a striking amount of similarities to Pan's Labarynith, but in an entirely complimentary way. However, the darkness from that film is not carried over here, and, while dark in some parts, it never seems to become truely threatening. I suggest you go out of your way to watch it, as I doubt we'll see it's like again too soon.

Dupa ce am crezut de cuviinţa sa va recomand cu ce sitcom-ori sa va delectaţi, am sa îndrăznesc sa va atrag atenţia si asupra a 3 lung-metraje. Va garantez ca după ce o sa vedeţi aceste filme o sa va uitaţi cu un ochi critic la restul celuloidelor.

1. The Fall

Aflata in spital, la secţia de ortopedie, o  fetiţa ( jucata admirabil de o românca, Catinca Untaru ) face cunoştinţa cu un tanar ţintuit la pat care, pentru a o încânta si apoi sa ii ceara sa faca favoruri morfinice, născoceşte o poveste fantastica. Pe măsura ce timpul trece, iar naraţiunea înaintează, graniţa dintre real si imaginar începe sa dispară si totul se scufunda intr-o imagistica ireala.

[dailymotion id=k2P2FbfMb5jGO8wl1T]

2. The City of Lost Children ( La Cité des enfants perdus )

Într-o societate bizara si suprarealista, Krank, un savant nebun, răpeşte copiii in scopul de a le fura visele si de a-si stopa procesul de îmbătrânire. Este acompaniat in misiunea lui de câteva clone, o femeie pitic si un creier într-un acvariu. Duşmanii lui sunt un marinar retardat si o fetiţa. Curioşi ?

3. A Scanner Darkly

Timpul: viitorul apropiat. Locul: Suburbia. Povestea: una încurcata, iar eroii - tineri drogaţi cu substanţa D. Cu toţii se afla sub conducerea unui guvern care urmăreşte sa îşi distrugă proprii cetăţeni. Deşi guvernul lasă aparenta existentei unor legi de protecţie si siguranţă a cetăţenilor, drepturile acestora din urma sunt puternic încălcate. ( Cinemagia )

Then Ransom's sacrifice is seen as an unmeritorious act I assume because of the Protestant creed of Glory to God Alone. But this causes him confusion when he sees the King's face who is created in the image of "Maleldil".

"You might ask how it was possible to look upon it and not to commit idolatry, not to mistake it for that of which it was the likeness. For the resemblance was, in its own fashion, infinite, so that almost you could wonder at finding no sorrows in his brow and no wounds in his hands and feet. Yet there was no danger of mistaking, not one moment of confusion, no least sally of the will towards forbidden reverence. Where likeness was greatest, mistake was least possible."

He continues to struggle with idolatry when he talks about man-made images,

"A clever wax-work can be made so like a man that for a moment it deceives us: the great portrait which is far more deeply like him does not. Plaster images of the Holy One may before now have drawn to themselves the adoration they were meant to arouse for the reality. But here, where His live image, like Him within and without, made by His own bare hands out of the depth of divine artistry, His masterpiece of self-portraiture coming forth from His workshop to delight all worlds, walked and spoke before Ransom's eyes, it could never be taken for more than an image. Nay, the very beauty of it lay in the certainty that it was a copy, like and not the same, an echo, a rhyme, an exquisite reverberation of the uncreated music prolonged in a created medium."

His iconoclasm is showing, but he knows that there is something to marvel at in humanity. It is so hard when converting from Protestantism to be able to make peace between the Creator and the created. We have been so conditioned to believe that it is a sin to appreciate the greatness of creation. Proper veneration has become foreign. We are more afraid of committing idolatry than to venerate man's intended end, and that which represents and communicates those who have accomplished deification, or theosis - icons.

But it is because of Christ's and the Saint's union with God that venerating them is not idolatry. God is in them, unseparated, unmixed, distinct, and undivided. To venerate the Saints is to worship God and His intention in Incarnation. Perelandra is full of What Would Jesus Do? Instead of God filling His Saints so that they can reach their potential - deification. Lewis presents a copy, but not the real thing.

Back to disillusioned optimism, less than perfect people can still impart improvements to where we are at present, so I'll not give up on Professor Lewis. And I'll not give up on Father John Romanides who has also let me down with this unsubstantiated ad hominem on page 90 of Patristic Theology, "If we use the criteria of the Apostle Paul and the Church Fathers such as St. Symeon the New Theologian regarding who is truly a theologian, we will see that contemporary modern Orthodox theology, under the influence of Russian theology, is not Patristic theology, but a distortion of Patristic theology, because it is written by people who do not have the above-mentioned spiritual prerequisites [that they be in theosis]." This is all he says about Russian "theologians". I'm very disappointed and now will have to force myself to finish this book as I did with Perelandra.

I struggle with disillusionment a lot, but I know I can't keep retreating forever from the less than perfect. Part of it is dealing with being offended and learning to forgive and have a humble attitude about how much I fail myself and require patience and forgiveness from others. But also I have read that love requires perfection, so it is ok to notice when something is not perfect and to bring it to attention when it is presented as the truth. We are easily deceived and must fight it in ourselves and others. Father John Romanides is motivating me to seek theosis through purification and illumination by prayer and repentance, so I will keep reading him even though he must be one of those ethnocentric Greek Orthodox. It just takes some of the fun out of it is all.

Neuropolitique's Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been? (New Electronica 22 1995) is OK. Very much of its time – a sort of ambient-tribal-dub techno existing somewhere between the Orb, the Advent and Global Communication. Enjoyable, but not essential.

From Fopp's bargain bin I got copies of the remastered, expanded reissues of the first two Fall albums. Live at the Witch Trials (Castle 847) is a double CD with a adequately recorded live set as well as singles as bonuses. Dragnet (Castle 848) just has the Fiery Jack and Rowche Rumble 45s as well as loads of rejected takes (four of Rowche Rumble) which are fun to listen to once – at most. Dragnet is probably the better album, although both are crackers.

Finally, for a measly quid I snaffled a copy of Preston Reed's Metal (Outer Bridge 1002 2002). With cover blurbs acclaiming it as “one of the most unique and challenging guitar albums ever” and “a conspicuous guitar genius”, I couldn't pass it over at that price. What you get is thirteen tracks of incredibly dextrous, and often mind-poppingly fast acoustic guitar. Eschewing the atmospheres of Loren Connors and the folksy atonalities of John Fahey, Reed pitches up somewhere between John McLaughlin and Ry Cooder, covering blistering bluegrass, jazz-picking and (as the title suggests) metal riffing – all on unaccompanied acoustic. Great stuff. It doesn't seem to be in print any more, alas.

You know I love freebies, so a freebie session (as part of the Melbourne Writers' Festival) with one of my favourite authors? I'm so there. Well, I was so there this afternoon. Robert Muchamore is a fab YA writer, and though the target audience are 12-year-old boys...well, this 22-year-old lass likes the books. Though I haven't read any past The Fall because I haven't been to the library for months.

My word, I felt old. I think I was the oldest person in the audience, except for the parents. But it's just so nice to see good books being appreciated. Kids were lining up to buy more books, and talking about T-shirts and beanies they'll order off the Internet... And the lines, my word. Long line to get in (I was near the front because I was about 40 minutes early), and an even longer line for the signing. I didn't bring anything to be signed, on account of I don't actually own any of the books (I've borrowed them from the library). But I did get this photo taken. You probably can't see my new hair length too well because of my dark locks and black top. But I seem to still have a head tilt, and my teeth still look yellow. Though my cheeks look a bit chubbier in this photo, so it's possible I've put on face weight since May. If you zoom in on the photo, you might be able to see my undiagnosed-condition-ravaged fingers - though they're not looking too bad today. Sure are wrinkly, though.

Instead of the Malthouse, this year the Festival venue is Federation Square. It's opposite Flinders Street Station, has weird architecture, and looks kinda fugly. I wasn't sure exactly where BMW Edge was, so I had to ask. I photographed the stage, and it's on my Flickr (don't want to overload you with pics right now; I'm feeling considerate).

Anyway, afterwards I thought I'd take a few photos of Melbourne for you. Didn't go far, though. But along Swanston Street between Flinders Street and...whatever road the Town Hall is on, there was not one, not two, but three tacky Australian souvenir shops. Great range of postcards, though.

Still, I photographed part of Flinders Street Station, an iconic building that's no doubt on a postcard somewhere - just not my shoddy photo. Actually, I don't think I did too bad with this one. Yay me.

That ad I saw on the side of a building. Wicked has come to Melbourne, and as we all know, "Oz" is really Australia. Just don't follow the Yellow Brick Road, 'cause you'll take a wrong turn at Albuquerque...

And these horses. (Sorry about the guy's arse; he was cleaning hooves.) I saw a few horse-and-carriages on the move, but this one was stationary, so I stopped and snapped. They didn't even freak out at the flash. Good horsies! :-)

Don't ask me about the feathered headpieces. They probably have delusions of Kylie Minogue.

Anyway, I'm back in the city tomorrow for the session with Rachel Cohn and Simmone Howell. Now what else should I photograph for you?