Here’s an introduction to falconry. Be the first on your block to master this skill.
I’m not back to full speed on my blogging–whatever that means–but I want to direct your attention today to news and items which are probably not worth your attention, but they will make for some darn interesting conversation with the certain people, maybe those people you’d like to avoid.
First, The Very Short List points out Abebooks’ Wierd Titles, a collection of books you may have seen at the used bookstore and wonder how the fruit something like that got published. Pratical titles like Help! A Bear Is Eating Me! and impractical ones like The Teach Your Chicken to Fly Training Manual. Of course, there are several of unsavory titles, and I don’t mean Critter Cuisine, the guide to dishes made from your backyard. Be forewarned.
Second, Obit Magazine has a feature story on bizarre deaths from this year. For example, “in Vienna, Austria, Gunter Link, a devout Catholic, grabbed a pillar at church as he gave thanks for being rescued from a stuck elevator.” Somehow the pillar supported a 860lb. stone monument and was unstable enough to topple and crush him. Worshippers attending Mass the next day discovered the body.
Clock face is blinking. All is not calm, despite acceptable profits, contract bonuses—some unavoidable layoffs. Year end in the black as starless night, silent night, without bells or winds. On Christmas Eve, only sleepless, blinking red numbers.
But who’s on the lawn below? Hollow-eyed, ashen children are kicking cans, and are they singing? I throw up the sash. “Born to raise the sons of earth . . .” they rattle.
I start to yell, but a rag-wrapped child grabs my hand. “I would have been seven this Christmas.”
I jerk back, and they’re gone, leaving my hand chilled.
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I wrote this in response to Loren Eaton’s group solicitation for 100-word advent ghost stories. Read more such stories by way of his blog, I Saw Lightning Fall.
I read a Christmas story the other night to my oldest daughter and finished it misty eyed. It was “The Christmas Apple” by Ruth Sawyer, first published in the book This Way to Christmas in 1944. A poor, very skilled clockmaker labors for years over a beautiful, nativity-themed clock in order to present it to the Holy Mother and Child during the annual church procession of gifts. The entire village attends the procession to worship the Lord on Christmas Eve, and many believe that the statue of the Christ Child will reach out to receive an especially prized gift, should one ever be offered. No one still living had ever seen this miracle.
When Christmas Eve arrives, a long-time friend of his tells him with tears that her father has fallen sick and all of their Christmas money was spent on the hospital bill. The clockmaker tells her not to worry, that he would sell a clock, and give them the money for their tree, treats, and decorations. He goes door to door, trying to sell his best clock, but he cannot sell it to anyone. He finally goes to the richest man in the village, and that man says he will buy a clock, but not the one being offering. The rich man wants to buy the fabulous nativity-themed clock which has been in the clockmaker’s shop window. Of course, the clockmaker does not want to sell it, but in the end, he does, taking less than one percent of the offered price.
Once again without anything to give during the Christmas procession, the clockmaker starts to go to church, Continue reading Gifts for the Christ Child
Jeffrey Overstreet reviews that sci-fi movie you’ve been hearing about:
The masterstroke of the original Star Wars‘ trilogy was its bold third-act subversion of audience hopes and expectations. Lucas made the villain we loved to hate into a redeemable human being, one who could be saved by grace. Avatar has nothing so bold or redeeming as that, nothing to discomfort audiences with the wild truth.
What begins as mythmaking devolves into political pulpit-pounding, a narrow-minded “war-for-oil” critique of recent and present-day American military interventions in the Middle East that sounds oh-so-2004.
Illustrator Paul Rogers has a series of sketches based on well known movies. If you think you know your movies, then eyeball six sketches from each film, presented in order and without star actor’s faces, and see if you can name it. I was pleased to recognize “39 Steps,” but I most of these I’ve never seen.
Michael Hyatt writes about mistakes many people make on their blogs, like posting too much or too little, poor headlines, bad first paragraphs, and other stuff.
He also links to a free e-book called What Matters Now by Seth Godin and several others.