matthew henry john bartlett

Friday After a wierd evening, and while watching The Ring at the home of a friend I fell asleep. When i woke i found that my brother was still there and still being mildly obnoxious. That made me sad and we drove home.
Saturday After avoiding Karaoke I fell asleep in my car at 1am in town. I woke up and saw Rebecca and Jono’s happy faces at my window. That cheered me up some.
Sunday After dinner with steak and wine and beer and JD Sumner at Kimball’s I fell asleep sitting upright on one of his couches. I was woken up by Simon and Richie which made me happy to be awake.

I am currently listening to Beck’s recent album Sea Change. Somehow i managed to buy it new new from SBR for $21.50 on Saturday. I get a buzz when record shop assistants approve of my purchases. This album is so pretty, i wonder if that will last through a few more listens. Very lush strings. Even feeling.

QuickTime video: Radiohead/Go to sleep [via pullpulk]. Their best since ‘Just’.

Provisional themes for this month: Inwards – figuring out how to maintain the jeu de vivre, Outwards – getting people to write for issue one of my imaginary zine BREATH. And my life is a song that God is singing to the world (on a good day).

parp! parp!

I will confess to you
Because you made me think about the times
You turn the picture on to me and I’ll turn over
The vision was a masterpiece of comic timing
But you wouldn’t laugh at all
And I wonder what the boy was thinking
The picture was an old collage of something classical
The model with a tragic air
Because without a doubt he’d given up the fight
The ghost of somebody at his side

I will confess to you
Because I didn’t think about the message
As I walked down the alleyway it was a Sunday
And all my friends deserted me because you painted me
As the fraud I really was
And if you think you see with just your eyes you’re mad
‘Cause Lisa learned a lot from putting on a blindfold
When she knew she had been bad
She met another blind kid at a fancy dress
It was the best sex she ever had

I’ll send a dress to you
Because it’s needing badly taken in
But I was so embarressed when I missed your party
It was me that paid for it eventually
Because you know how much I wanted
To meet your friend the star of stage and local press
The dream of all the bowlie boys that hang around here
And I’m no different from the rest
I’m not too proud to say that I’m okay with
The girl next door who’s famous for showing her breasts

You’re not impressed by me
But it’s a funny way for you to tell me
A whisper in a choir stall
The man was talking about you simultaneously
Frankly, I let my heavy eyelids flutter
Because I have been sleeping badly lately
I know you were historical from all the books I’ve read
But I thought you could be bluffing
And with this chance I’ve missed I feel remiss
It’s days and months before I see you again

A couple of years ago, when i was living in Kilbirnie, Christie & Melanie came over for an afternoon. We went to the beach down the road at Lyall Bay, sunbathed and wrote a silly poem. When we got back home we recorded it on my PC, and mashed it into a mildly amusing song. A couple of months later we three performed an interpretive dance to it at a youth camp talent quest. It’s called Seascape…Escape, and you can download the poem [mp3, 1.4MB] and the song [mp3, 2.3MB] if you like.

I invented a new smoothie recipe this afternoon:

one pear
2 tbsp pineapple juice
2 tbsp aged cheese
one piece of bread
one marinated sun-dried tomato
one cracker (french onion)

Basically you just wash the pear, cut it in quarters, get rid of the yucky bits and blend everything on high for a few minutes. I had a couple of spoonsful before i chucked the rest out, and it tasted and looked pretty gross. I think i’ve discovered the limits of smoothie kwazeen. I really wish i hadn’t wasted that sundried tomato, i love those things. Science, i guess.

If you enjoyed this smoothie story, contact me for an adults-only version!

Wellington chums: come to Beats & Bubbles at Bodega tonight at 10ish.

hey all, sorry i’ve been slck but i’ll try to cacth up. I lost my rugby final (sorry daniel), but it was a good match so it doesn’t really worry me.
I would defintily recomend matts smoothie by the way, it is quite the treat of a lifetime.
I’m thinking of taking up running with matt,in which case we will probably run a half marathon in a couple months or so, or a martial arts of sorts, probably tai-kwan-du.
I am very happy today because I was complimented by some random guy that a free-verse poem i wrote sounded like shakespeare, it wasa a question in an email;

how does this wintry eve find you?
the air glistening with dew yet to fall,
the sky black like that of the inner ear,
flittered with tiny spots of light,
each bigger than a thousand earths,
toiling their way through their celestial path,
their majesy displayed only by a slight twinkle,
like as to that in an infants eye, so tender;
how does this night find you?
but best to look to things below,
for here is where you are.
out of the bushes a woodpigeon flies
the loud, kind of hwooping noise it brings
reminds me of another day, another time
when youths sweet beauty was captured
the flowers, all in bloom, had caught it
and winter is the ransom.
winter, the time of death abroad
winter, brings peace, and life restored.
through winter’s cold we find loves heat
to cheer the sullen heart.
winter, summer, their fital roles are rending,
but in the spring time and the fall,
their ways are ever blending.
its better that we look to earth,
than at the world above,
for we are here, and it is there,
bland and without love
for love is what all life’s about,seen in the birds about
and also on the faces of the poeple passing by.
how does this night find you?
joyful in this resplendant beauty?
or prehaps, not, prehaps sad,
waiting for something, precious in your sight?
how does this even’ find you?

WITHIN AN INCH of him he had seen a face. Now a cloud crossed the moon and the face was no longer visible, but he knew that it was still looking at him–an aged, appalling face, crumbling black and chaotic, larger than human. Presently its voice began:
     ‘Do you still think it is the black hole you fear? Do you not know even now the deeper fear whereof the black hole is but the veil? Do you not know why they would all persuade you that there is nothing beyond the brook and that when a man’s lease is out his story is done? Because, if this were true, they could in their reckoning make me equal to nought, therefore not dreadful: could say that where I am they are not, that while they are, I am not. They have prophesied soft things to you. I am no negation, and the deepest of your heart acknowledges it. Else why have you buried the memory of your uncle’s face so carefully that it has needed all these things to bring it up? Do not think that you can escape me; do not think you can call me Nothing. To you I am not Nothing; I am the being blindfolded, the losing all power of self-defence, the surrender, not because any terms are offered, but because resistance is gone: the step into the dark: the defeat of all precautions: utter helplessness turned out to utter risk: the final loss of liberty. The Landlord’s Son who feared nothing, feared me.’

Your global richlist position [via Joel G]
The Machine [Flash 'game']

If you trust me, and you have an internet connection which can support a streaming Real Audio broadcast at reasonable quality, spend an evening listening to a radio programme put together by Australia’s Radio National. It’s called Night Air, and the particular episode Richard and I listened to yesterday is called Addiction. It’s a beautiful and thoroughly interesting hour and a half. There’s nothing good on teev.

We find limiting ourselves to a maximum eight hours bedroom-time at a stretch most helpful. This figure includes activities such as pre-sleep reading. Afternoon naps can supplement this where required. This procedure has been shown to increase the quantity (and perhaps even the quality) of apparent useful time in any given day.

can you tell i’m writing a reponse to an RFP for work right now?

My friend Richie S has these verses on the poetry whiteboard in his bedroom:

Insecurity, no confidence that was my style
I did some false things, you’d say I was playing the wrong strings
To realize and see how lost I was, it took a while
But it was worth it, ’cause now I’m much more confident and fit

I’m not going down the highway
‘Cause I had the might to stop
And turn around before it was too late
Instead I’m slowly going my way
And if I don’t reach the top
I still got lots right here, I appreciate

Harvey Pekar on reviews of American Splendor

well here i am again, on a cold sunday evening writing my blog.

This week end has been quite outstanding really. let me explain. my freind seth zorn turned fifteen last week so i figured i’d probably have a party and get him something cool. so me and a few guys from my class put together our combined brain power and financial power and got him a discman. it was the first time ever i’ve seen him speachless, because usually he talks, or rather prattles, at a million miles a minute. he just stared and stared, till finally i had to prod him and shout “oh wow!!” in his voice, which, like a finely tuned starter motor, started his vocal engine roaring. that was the present, but we still neede a party, so we organised a movie night at my place, and watched ‘tomb raider’ and ‘fast and furious’, which i’ve seen far to many times and can recite a couple seconds ahead of the actors. but anyway, that was cool, but not cool enough, so we went swimming the next night, which was REALLY cool, specially cos we got in for free.

oh yeah, and on friday evening i was looking forward to my first, non-rugby saturday in a couple months, and thus my first sleep in, but then on satuday morning i woke up at seven thirty and couldn’t get back to sleep. but it was sunny and warm so its alright.

you all in internet land have a good’n, and i’ll go back to reading my book in front of the fire, it SO warm…

Beck/Sea Change is shaping up to be album of the year for me. He’s just a genius.

LONESOME TEARS

Lonesome tears
I can’t cry them anymore
I can’t think of what they’re for
Oh they ruin me every time

But I’ll try
And leave behind some days
These tears just can’t erase
I don’t need them anymore

How could this love ever-turning
Never turn its eye on me?
How could this love ever-changing
Never change the way I feel?

Lazy sun
Your eyes catch the light
With the promises that might
Come true for a while

Oh I’ll ride
Farther than I should
Harder than I could
Just to meet you there

How could this love ever-turning
Never turn its eye on me?
How could this love ever-changing
Never change the way the feel?

The Tony Clifton story
Incremental Shakespeare quote search

The purest Joy i think is the becoming increasingly cognizant of friends’ growth.

The Victoria University Anglican Chaplaincy is holding an X-Nous (Christian Mind) talk & light dinner at Ramsey House tomorrow at 5.30pm.

Acts 17 – Paul talks to the Epicurians and Stoics at the Areopagus. While arguing them, he reaches back past the Philosophers and quotes the Stories. (perhaps)

Today when i checked the mailbox i discovered Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. Laurel has very kindly sent it down, and i have started devouring it already. Enjoy some:

    “Amen,” William said in a devout tone. “But what does this have to do with the fact that the library may not be visited?”
    “You see, Brother William,” the abbot said, “to achieve the immense and holy task that enriches those walls”–and he nodded twoard the bulk of the Aedificium, which could be glimpsed fromt he cell’s windows, towering above the abbatial church itself–”devout men have toiled for centuries, observing iron rules. The library was laid out on a plan which hasa remained obscure to all over the centuries, and which none of the monks is called upon to know. Only the librarian has received the secret, from the librarian who preceded him, and he communicates it, while still alive, to the assistant librarian, so that death will not take him by suprise and rob the community of that knowledge. And the secret seals the lips of both men. Only the librarian has, in addition to that knowledge, the right to move through the labyrinth of the books, he alone knows where to find them and where to replace them, he alone is responsible for their safekeeping. The other monks work in the scriptorium and may know the list of the volumes that the library houses. But a list of titles often tells very little; only the librarian knows, from the collocation of the volume, from its degree of inaccessibility, what secrets, what truths or falsehoods, the volume contains. Only he decides how, when, and whether to give it to the monk who requests it; sometimes he first consults me. Because not all truths are for all ears, not all falsehoods can be recognized as such by a pious soul; and the monks, finally, are in the scriptorium to carry out a precise taks, which requires them to read certain volumes and not others, and not to pursue every foolish curiosity that seizes them, whether through weakness of intellect or through pride or through diabolical prompting.”

I came across a pretty detailed set of notes on the book.

Sorry i havent kept in touch, bvut , well, you know, this and that. went to toupo this weekend, great times, good to see my sister again, and i went gliding, which just so happened to be my first time in a plane, so it was cool. the trip home was a different matter though. I expected it to be about three- four hours long, and it looked to be that way, until two hours later we got stuck in traffic, not to mention pouring rain, and for the next four and a half hours got an average speed of about fifty kilometers per hour. A trip the length from toupo to wellington has no right to last six and a half. There should be a law about heavy traffic piling up around levin, like it always does.
I best be going because ive got a short story to write, and a debate speech to write as well( my team got into the regional junior premier grand final for debating, should be good fun)
cya
james

MP3s: Bootlegs, remixes, mash-ups, dubtronics, pasteism [via Dan W]
All about vaginas [via mefi]
Java applet that teaches about binary trees

Palmerston North high school lets students sit uni papers.
Illusions by Akiyoshi Kitaoka [via my boss]
Online petition to extend NZ GM moratorium by 5 years [via kathy]

This made me laugh:

    “I wonder,” William said, “why you are so opposed to the idea that Jesus may have laughed. I believe laughter is a good medicine, like baths, to treat humors and the other afflictions of the body, melancholy in particular.”
    “Baths are a good thing, ” Jorge said, “and Aquinas himself advises them for dispelling sadness, which can be a bad passion when it is not addressed to an evil that can be dispelled through boldness. Baths restore the balance of the humors. Laughter distorts the features of the face, makes man similar to the monkey.”

Eco said Hegel said

Reading the newspaper is the everyday prayer of the modern man.

This afternoon i found that riding up front in the train is five to seven times better than riding down the back. When you’re riding in one of the normal carriages you look out sideways and the world slides by like a cartoon strip. The train speeds up and slows down and stops and speeds up again and you don’t really know why. You are incubated and secure. Riding up the front, looking forward, the world is coming at you. It feels like you’re on a slot car set. The tracks are foolishly narrow. It doesn’t seem a sure thing that you’ll arive safely. The points could be off by an inch and we’d be over on our side. Sometimes you can see your goal, and the driver speeds the train up when there’s a big straight ahead. Another commuter train zips by on the track next to ours going the opposite direction, and it looks like a smooth yellow slug with big black eyes.

It took most of today for me to realise it’s September 11.

My sister Kathy has lent me Life of Pi for ten days. She forced me to read it by giving me this schnippet to read first:

    There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, “Business as usual.” But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.
    These people fail to realise that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God’s, that the self-righteous should rush.

Victoria University’s Anglican Chaplaincy‘s next event is a seminar on Radical Orthodoxy & Post-liberalism. Dr. Gregory McCormick & Dr. Nicola Hoggard-Kreegan are presenting papers. Download the PDF flyer if you’re interested.

There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man and beast, it is all a sham.

[via Bruderhof Daily Dig]

Last night i dreamt that i became a bear. It happened all of a sudden. My friends (my family didn’t feature in the dream) still recognised me, and tried to deal with the change as best they could. At first i could still talk roughly, and communicate by writing. My talking became increasingly hard for them to understand, and i quickly became too clumsy to write legibly. My friends didn’t seem to be making much effort to understand me. I wanted desperately to be a man again. Everyone lost patience with me (I remember Mrs Steenhof was more compassionate than most), and i slunk away into the bush to live a normal unhappy bear-life.

There was more, but i can’t recall it. I woke feeling lonely and disconsolate. It has been quite a few months since i read or thought about Kafka’s Metamorphosis, but the connexion is unmistakeable.

I went to sleep again and dreamt twice more. One featured a wee baby boy (mine) and a church service with elaborate and beautiful music coordinated by Ben Hoyt. The other got kinda dirty.

Brian McLaren quotes Wendell Berry:

If you destory the ideal of the gentleman and all remove from men all expectations of courtesy and consideration toward women and children, you have prepared the way for an epidemic of rape and abuse. If you depreciate the sanctity and solemnity of marriage not just as a bond between two people, but as a bond between those two people and their community, their forebears, their children and their neighbours, then you have prepared the way for an epidemic of divorce, child neglect, community ruin and loneliness.

in Men, Women, Sex & Happiness [30 min RA]

And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah:

“This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.’
But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and stopped up their ears. They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry.
‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the LORD Almighty. ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land was left so desolate behind them that no one could come or go. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’

Again the word of the LORD Almighty came to me. This is what the LORD Almighty says:

“I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.”

This is what the LORD says:

“I will return to Zion and dwell in Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the City of Truth, and the mountain of the LORD Almighty will be called the Holy Mountain.”

This is what the LORD Almighty says:

“Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with cane in hand because of his age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.”

This is what the LORD Almighty says:

“It may seem marvelous to the remnant of this people at that time, but will it seem marvelous to me?”

declares the LORD Almighty.

How I wrote Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Magnificent panorama of Angkor Wat temple in Cambodia [via Richard B]

It is interesting to be alive now: there are no rules at all, nothing that can be taken for granted. If once a man steps outside of his familiar childhood certainties he finds he must needs define the parameters of every interaction. Sometimes this becomes a frightening and overwhelming task, sometimes i am aware of the enormous possibilities and the wide horizon. The West has fallen already; we can be the avant-garde of something better and more beautiful.

History is vast and the world is strange: Sophisticated tribes lived in Amazon basin in pre-Columbian era.

The bad ol’ WTC towers
Space Between Words [via Daniel S]

As is the custom in these parts, i celebrated the Spring Equinox (yesterday) today by removing the insulation tape from around the sunroof in the car that Jono and i own. The tape was there to stop the rain from coming in. Thank goodness it never rains in Springtime. I celebrated the poor performance of the car’s automatic transmission by visiting an auto mechanic. He told me i probably wouldn’t get any change out of $1000 to get it repaired.

And also! Wichita Lineman, which is my faux-favourite song, was written by Glen Cambell. I found out yesterday that Glen Cambell is the seventh son of a seventh son.

OSC on MP3s
Wikipedia on Wittgenstein

NT Wright – Reading Mark’s Gospel [20 min RA & transcript]

Walter Kirn on The Christian Subculture

Sorry i havent kept in touch, bvut , well, you know, this and that. went to toupo this weekend, great times, good to see my sister again, and i went gliding, which just so happened to be my first time in a plane, so it was cool. the trip home was a different matter though. I expected it to be about three- four hours long, and it looked to be that way, until two hours later we got stuck in traffic, not to mention pouring rain, and for the next four and a half hours got an average speed of about fifty kilometers per hour. A trip the length from toupo to wellington has no right to last six and a half. There should be a law about heavy traffic piling up around levin, like it always does.
I best be going because ive got a short story to write, and a debate speech to write as well( my team got into the regional junior premier grand final for debating, should be good fun)
cya
james

From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth,
From the laziness that is content with half-truths,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
O God of Truth, deliver us.

  [via 2think.org]

A review of Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum
Eco on Macs vs PCs [short]
Eco on research, information filtering, the internet, community. [long]
Christendom’s #1 Porn site
Matrix Revolutions trailer [47MB QT, via Scott C]

It is my considered opinion that the ideas of NT Wright and his ilk are a way that Christianity is likely to become useful in the world, and more unified. Part of the way they will acheive this is by clearing away some of the debris that has attached itself over course of the last two millenia to what Jesus was on about. Unfortunately some people really like the debris, and some are secretly afraid that debris is all there is.