Avdat

Happy Independence Day!

A visual update to a post I put up on The Ivy Bush three years ago:

Three things that make me feel like a radical othodox apostate patriotic:

This piece of music:

This sports moment:

And this speech:

You Tube Friday, San Jose edition

Because General Assembly is meeting this week, and what's GA without a little love 'n' justice?

Field trip

Last Wednesday a group of us set out for the island of Staffa, home of puffins and the muse for Mendelssohn's Hebridean Overture.  Our boat made straight for the island, and as I was in the stern, I didn't get a good look at it until we were almost upon it, and the boat turned to make its approach to the landing:

My first impression was that a multi-mouthed sea monster has reared up from the waves to swallow us.  This was reinforced when we got a chance to explore Fingal's Cave.  The sound of the seawater filling and then receding from the cave, plus the splendid isolation of the island is what Mendelssohn tried to capture in his Overture.  Looking up, the algae covered roof of the cave looked liked the monster's poorly capped molars:

The rock formations on Staffa are extraordinary.  Some of us commented that they looked like someone had poured concrete into hexagonally-shaped cylinders and stacked them on top of each other.  A strange image came to mind--God has created this island as an eight-year-old kid at the beach might make a sand castle by filling his bucket with wet sand and dumping the formed contents upside-down:

Wikipedia states, "It consists of a basement of tuff, underneath colonnades of a black fine-grained Tertiary basalt, overlying which is a third layer of basaltic lava lacking a crystalline structure. By contrast, slow cooling of the second layer of basalt resulted in an extraordinary pattern of predominantly hexagonal columns which form the faces and walls of the principal caves.^[1]The lava contracted towards each of a series of equally spaced centres as it cooled and solidified into prismatic columns. The columns typically have three to eight sides, six being most common. The columns are also divided horizontally by cross joints.^[7] Similar formations are found at the Giant's Causeway In Ireland, on the island of Ulvaand Ardmeanach on the Isle of Mull.^[6] "

While I was taking in the view below, the person next to me commented that she just didn't understand how people could witness such beauty and not believe in God:

I replied that that the difference between believers and non-believers might be that while the latter would certainly feel awe in the face of such beauty, the former would feel awe and gratitude.  I can't help but think that it must be something of an impoverished existence to be stunned by the sight of the seas pounding on the rocks and yet have no one to thank or glorify for it.

On my last overseas trip, to Israel, we had the chance to view another jaw-dropping geologic formation, the Machtesh Ramon in the Negev Desert.  At the visitor center on the lip of the crater we watched a movie about the formation of this vast hole in the ground.  It stated that if you compressed the history of the universe into a year, then human beings and our hominid ancestors have only been around since December 30.

If there is no God, then that's a lot of beautiful sunsets, lovely flowers and awesome geology that no one has taken aesthetic delight in until just now.  That doesn't seem right to me.  If there isn't a God who's been saying, "Good, good, very good" for all this time, well then, there ought to be.

That's not a very good argument for the existence of God. Heck, it's not an argument at all.  It's more a sentiment.  But it's what I came away from Staffa with.  That, plus a close encounter with a puffin:

You Tube Friday--mystical May edition

In honor of Dame Julian of Norwich, whose feast day is May 8 or 13, depending on your denominational affiliation, I give you two versions of Bombadil's tribute song:

The worst song ever

Scientifically proven!  You must give it a listen.

Wonder

Being a Christian, I cannot believe that the child born with two faces in an Indian town is the reincarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga.  That said, I do deplore the reporter's chalking up this belief to the "superstitious" nature of rural Indians.  Maybe they're kind as well!  While it's gotta be hard living up to such outsized expectations, other disabled children enter this world to a far cooler welcome.  It's too bad we can't see more of the Imago Dei in the millions of babies born with Down's Syndrome, Cleft Palate, and other birth defects.

Natalie Merchant said it best:

No suitable title for this blog post

Because some posts gotta have soundtracks (HT--Jennifer)...

Who does this white boy think he is, Barry White?

I'm think the latter artist would definitely be a better fit for Relevant Church's praise and worship team.  Too bad he's dead.

You Tube bonus!  This is how they give their testimony at Relevant Church! 

Silly me.  I thought that the X in SEX was going to stand for, "We watch X-rated videos together."  But I'm a guy.  Of course I'd think that.

Brackets! Brackets! More Brackets!

If you're like me and you cheer for an underachieving, dysfunctional, total loser basketball team, you have two choices.  You can offer yourself as a neutral kitty holder for your office's NCAA tournament pool.  Or, you can fill in the brackets in the Charlotte Observer's One Hit Wonder Tournament!

Yes indeed, thirty-two of the best songs for prompting the question, "Whatever happened to them?" are squaring off against each other for the championship.  They're divided into regions based on decades.  And now, I'll do my best Billy Packer/Jim Nance and handicap the field:

The 60s:  It's a pity that Louie Louie and Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye might face each other in the second round.  That's one for the ages.  But when you think about the fact that the best basketball game ever played might have been that regional final between Dook and Kentucky in which Laettner drained that last second shot, well, we just have to admit that sometimes the best basketball games aren't the championship games.  Louie Louie gets through.

The 70s:  I'm partial to Gary Numan's Cars.  We had a K-Tel 8-Track tape, or was it an LP, with that song on it, and we listened to it over and over and over.  Those synthesizer drums were hypnotic.  But just as Packer must put aside his Wake Forest bias when handicapping the tourney, so must I.  How can anyone stop Play That Funky Music White Boy from coming out of the 70s region?  Yes, there will be some white boys playing in the final four.

The 80s:  Every tournament screws somebody over.  This year is no different.  Funkytown might technically be an 80s song, but it's definitely '70s in sound and spirit.  Like days of old in men's college basketball, when the second best team on the east coast was awarded the dubious honor of top seed out west, the selection committee has taken with one hand what it gave Funkytown with the other. 

In fact, I see A-Ha's Take on Me defeating Funkytown in first round.  It's one of the best songs of that decade, with one of the best videos to match.  Remember?  Charcoal cartoon character slams himself against panel in order to marry real-life girl?  Great love story that raises interesting philosophical questions.  How could they do so well on only one song?

The 80s are the most interesting bracket, and not just because it's my decade.  Pitting Come on Eileen against Don't Worry, Be Happy is genius.  Unintelligible lyrics versus non-communicative sounds.  Imagine either song tipping off in the final four tip against Louie Louie!  And the Mickey vs. I Want Candy match-up is a great contest between naughty/nice pre-AIDS female sexuality.  Whip It crushes 867-5309/Jenny, setting up bruising a second round video showdown.  Of course the ladies will appreciate A-Ha's romantic storyline, but for the guys, you can't get much better than a Cowgirl stripped down to a red brassiere by guys wearing red flower pots.

My pick?  Pick 'em.

The 90s:  I'm man enough to admit to owning the Deee-Lite CD with Groove Is in the Heart on it.  I can assure you that their status as a one-hit wonder is a wonder itself.  That CD's full of hits!  But like many starving artists before them, it is Deee-Lite's destiny to achieve post-mortem fame. 

That said, there mere mention of Achy Breaky Heart, Ice Ice Baby and I'm too Sexy reinforce what a musical wasteland the early 90s were.  Thank God for Tubthumping to redeem the decade (and Happy St. Patrick's Day while I'm at it!):

But we've saved the best for the last bracket.  A musical monster that is to this tournament what Walton and Alcindor's UCLA Bruins were to NCAA Championships of old.  The only song that, in the words of Mrs. Avdat, can inspire the same moves in both our two-year old niece and her 95-year-old grandmother.  Yes.  You know that of which I speak.  I need not even say its name:

The finals.  Yes, even UCLA's reign eventually came to an end, at the hands of my beloved Wolfpack no less!  But this year, there's no stopping the Macarena.  Never is.

P.S.  There's always legitimate discussion of those bubble songs whose bubble burst on Selection Sunday.  You can't convince me that Gloria belongs in the tournament any more than Virginia Tech does.  But I've already said my piece about that song.  I think a case could have been made for letting Funkytown play a little closer to home in order to accommodate I Want to Be a Cowboy in the 80s bracket, but it's a judgment call.

You Tube Monday, Bonus Holiday Version

We all love actors with... range.  Did you know that before Hugo Weaving was an elf and an alien he was a drag queen?  Neither did I!

Or maybe I didn't see a movie about three Aussie transvestites exploring the Outback in an old bus.  Maybe I just had a weird dream--no doubt induced by watching bits of The Fellowship of the Ring back to back with that Carol Burnette tribute on PBS.

But without further ado, here's the unironic original version of I've Never Been to Me, the song that Weaving's character breathed new, campy life into.  If you can watch the entire video, you can probably listen to someone drag their fingernails down a chalk board as well as perform many other feats of skill!

A Christus Victor Christmas

Benjamin Britten's This Little Babe:

This little babe so few days old,
is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this week unarmed wise
the gates of hell he will surprise.

With tears he fights and wins the field,

his naked breast stands for a shield.
His battering shot are babish cries,
his arrows looks of weeping eyes.
His martial ensigns Cold and Need,
and feeble flesh his warrior's steed.

His camp is pitched in a stall,
his bulwark but a broken wall;
The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes,
of shepherds he his muster makes.
And thus as sure his foe to wound,
the angels' trumps alarum sound

My soul with Christ
join thou in fight;
stick to the tents
that he hath pight.
Within his crib
is surest ward;
this little Babe
will by thy guard.

If thou wilt foil thy
foes with joy, then
flit not from this
heavenly boy!

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