Hone your writing skills with one or more of these websites. I’ve used Ask Oxford in the past, and I’ve needed help with my headlines for a long time. Do you use any of these resources? Do you dislike any of them?
All posts by Phil
The Proper Use of Pain
Frederick Buechner on “The Stewardship of Pain.”
Pain can become a treasure if we treasure it to the point where it can become compassion and healing, not just for ourselves, but also for other people. If you want to see that sort of thing in operation, the treasuring of pain, the using of pain to the healing of yourself and others, someday attend an open meeting of AA or any of the related groups. That is exactly what those people are doing, sharing their hurts, their experiences and their joys.
And remember the cross. It seems to me that the cross of Christ in a way speaks somewhat like this same word, saying that out of that greatest pain endured in love and faithfulness, comes the greatest beauty and our greatest hope.
You’ve Got a Great Band
So, what’s it like to be a guitarist? Dan Skidmore says:
Without a doubt, the single biggest misconception people have about being a professional guitarist is that it is all about your technique on guitar . . . Unless you are Yngwie Malmsteen, being a professional guitarist is primarily about relating to and working well with other musicians. I bet even Mr. Malmsteen has had to say he’s sorry a couple times.
For example, one band I worked for was auditioning bass players. Following the auditions, we talked not only about each bassist’s skills, but also about what we termed his “potential jerk factor.” (We actually used a different word for “jerk.”) We would be spending a lot of time with anyone we hired. Is he pleasant to be around? Is he likely to show up for things on time? Will he do his share of all the work that goes into a gig? These considerations are at least as important as the musicianship. Any working musician will take a solid player with a good attitude over a virtuoso who is a pain.
In Defense of Shakespeare’s Christianity
Leland Ryken rejoices to find Christian allusions galore in Shakespeare’s writing. “[S]cholars who are attuned to the Christian element in Shakespeare’s plays correctly observe that there is sometimes a gratuitous element in Shakespeare’s Christian allusions, meaning that Shakespeare incorporates Christian references beyond what seem to be strictly required by the context.”
Does that mean the great bard was a genuine believer? No, but he had a fairly Christian mind in his writing.
“The world that Shakespeare creates in As You Like It is approximately the same as the religiously-saturated world of the farms around Pella, Iowa, on which I was raised. While a writer can create a Christian world only to mock it, Shakespeare adopts a sympathetic stance to what he portrays in As You Like It.”
A Little Romanian Dance
The Dutch Violinist Janine Jansen plays Béla Bartók’s Romanian Dances live from Prinsengrachtconcert Amsterdam 2005.
What If Broadway Challenged Liberal Ideology?
Michael Riedel writes on two politically conservative plays working the ropes to get produced in New York.
But wouldn’t it be novel if, every once in a while, a show did more than reaffirm what theater people know to be the absolute truth? . . .
“Reagan” is a one-man play that doesn’t portray the 40th president as a fascist. It’s by Lionel Chetwynd, whose scripts for television and film include “The Hanoi Hilton,” “Color of Justice,” “Kissinger and Nixon” and “DC 9/11: Time of Crisis.”
The other play is “Girls in Trouble (Formerly Three Abortions)” by Jonathan Reynolds, one of the few openly conservative members of the Dramatists Guild.
His play “Stonewall Jackson’s House,” a sharp attack on political correctness, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1998.
(via ArtsJournal)
Giveaway: The Vanishing Sculptor
Mr. Holtsberry is giving away one of Donita K. Paul’s novels, The Vanishing Sculptor. Leave a comment on his post to enter. The winner will be chosen by a meeting of the minds at the U.S. Department of Treasury, that is to say, at random.
Seeing Pixar’s ‘Up’ Was Her Last Wish
“I’m ready (to die), but I’m going to wait for the movie,” said a 10-year-old cancer patient, waiting to see Pixar’s latest movie. The girl, Colby Curtin, was too sick to go to a theater, so a family friend called Pixar and Disney to ask if they would help her watch the movie before she died.
A Pixar employee brought a DVD to the Curtin family along with movie-related toys and stayed while the family watched. Colby couldn’t open her eyes to see the film. Her mother described the scenes to her. The family didn’t know “Up” focuses on an old man holding on to the dreams he had with his departed wife. They knew primarily that the story had lots of balloons and that Colby wanted to see it.
She died that evening.
The Friday Fight: Recent Skirmishes
Book of the Year
World’s 2009 Book of the Year is essentially a perennial bestseller: The Bible. Specifically, they are praising the ESV Study Bible, which has a hefty preview site.