Pitching for Prizes

I am bothered by the promotional blitz leading up to Universal’s Middle Eastern action-thriller The Kingdom, for many reasons. Some are tied to hunches I have about the film and deeply held convictions about God and peace and stuff. Another is that it looks like a very promising cast in a big, dumb, pandering movie.*

So, in the brutally competitive spirit of this site, you are invited to battle for the most interesting film pitch with this cast. The movie that makes me want to spend money to get into a dark theater wins. Second prize will be awarded for anything I would put in my Netflix Queue.

Write a brief description of characters and plot, with a summary and themes, or write up something in the style of movie trailer narration. Employ at least the lead actors from The Kingdom in the lead roles, but feel free to add supporting cast, or replace production staff at whim.

Entries that involve Jaime Foxx cross-dressing or undercover as a white person will be immediately disqualified (Collateral, Ray, Dreamgirls). The film also stars Jennifer Garner (Alias, 13 Going on 30, Daredevil), Chris Cooper (Adaptation, The Bourne Supremacy, Breach), Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), and a bunch of other people (okay, Jeremy Piven).

Submit your entry in the comments to this post. May the good Lord take a liking to ya.

Prizes may include one or none of the following: 1/4 pound of Coffee Klatch Sumatra beans; $5 gift certificate to Audio Lunchbox; 1/4 flock of chicks donated in your name through Heifer Int’l.

*If you’re excited about this film, I don’t hold it against you. Like I said, it’s a great cast. I could be convinced. But not for the purposes of winning this competition.

Read Full Post »

Milestones

Today is a special day, as Akismet has protected me from over 1,000 spam comments today. Thank you, Akismet. Thank you to the other six of you who left actual comments. I can only hope that there aren’t hundreds of other real people who desperately wanted to contribute to building authentic community and conversation, but I was so protected from them that they simply had to stay utterly isolated and alone. Safety comes at a price. Whatever you want, Akismet; I can’t handle the truth.

Read Full Post »

More Things I Don’t Have Time to Write About: Pig in the City

1) Happy International Day of Peace. You were wondering what was different about today, weren’t you?

2) The U2charist, and other brilliant ideas.

3) Some of the ACU Lectureship is available through their iTunes U podcasts (click Theological Lectures), but not the Landon Saunders keynote, which is what I mostly hear people buzzing and squirming about. He must have said something like “The only way for the Churches of Christ to survive in the 21st century is to convert to Islam.” Amen, brother.

Read Full Post »

Pluralisms

“Come on down to Crazy Don’s Toyota Superstore in Oxnard! We’ve got Camries, we’ve got Carrollae, check out these 2008 Prii, and our entire stock of Matrices!!”

I started wondering today if the Toyota people ever consider the possibilities. “A bunch of Cordobas” is rather graceless, in comparison.

Sometimes all the cars slow down, and you have time to think about this.

Read Full Post »

Cross Pollination

I guest blogged over at Gather Round, Children this week, providing a list of fibs Gabe thoughtfully collects in the series “Invented Statistics.” Really, if you have never read everything Gabe ever wrote, let me encourage you to do so over the next several hours.

Read Full Post »

Halfway rotation

Is nine half of twelve? I thought about putting this together earlier, but here’s my list of new releases this year getting the most of my attention. I anticipated a lot of great music this year, and am a little surprised that neither Spoon nor Crowded House ended up making the cut, and that I’m listening to all this jazz and funk based stuff, but, so it goes. Halfway ordered:

10) Loney, Dear, Loney Noir
9) Galactic, From the Corner to the Block
8. (it made a smiley face) Rosie Thomas, These Friends of Mine
7) The Shins, Wincing the Night Away
6) Arcade Fire, The Neon Bible
5) Happy Apple, Happy Apple Back on Top
4) Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha
3) Laura Veirs, Saltbreakers
2) Over the Rhine, The Trumpet Child
1) Waterdeep, Heart Attack Time Machine

Read Full Post »

9/12

A few proverbs for the post 9/11 season (this chapter was very thought [and heart] provoking):

Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

Do not gloat when your enemies fall; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from them.

Proverbs 24:11-12, 17-18

Read Full Post »

More things I don’t have time to hmph hmph hmph (zzzzzz)

1. The new Happy Apple. The old Happy Apple, for that matter. Back on Top.

2. This bumper sticker: “We are making more enemies than we can kill.”

3. This printed across the front windshield of the pick-up behind me in large, capital, ambulance-style reversed stencil print: “SLOW TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT.”

4. Randy Harris often says most of his friends are dead (meaning, mostly, the mystics and other folks in the cloud of witnesses). The other day he commented that the next best thing to a dead friend is a facebook friend.

Read Full Post »

“Your builders outdo your destroyers”

On the one hand:

Harris made a great point, and timely given this week, about the possibility that the US is the prophets’ Babylon (rather than their Israel, who do not fare better, just stand under a different kind of judgment).

On the other hand:

We read an excerpt from Billy Collins’ “The Names” at our 9/11 prayer service this morning. It was followed by a reading from Isaiah 49:

For the Lord has comforted his people,
and will have compassion on his suffering ones.
But Zion said,
“The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.”
Can a woman forget her nursing child,
or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.
See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
Your builders outdo your destroyers,
and those who laid you waste go away from you.

[Editor’s note: I feel the need to clarify that this service was to remember the lives given and taken 09/11/01, and those who continue to mourn them. This passage was not meant to suggest God’s posture towards our nation or culture. He remembers names I will never be able to pronounce.]
. . .

The Names
Billy Collins

Read Full Post »

Sisyphus stops for coffee

I feel the difference
between dependence and trust
in the weight of my child
carried in my arms
or sleeping against my shoulder.
It may only be ounces,
or just distribution;
but feels like two completely different kinds of mass.
The difference settles with a sudden, heavy sweetness
that my heart will not forget.

I am always straining across the gap
between the Ground-of-all-being and the With-us-god,
as if a bridge’s cables could relieve earth’s burden.

Maybe I am more tired
than I have to be.

Read Full Post »