Category Archives: Goofing

The Meme of the Beast

Friends, you are reading this post because you are predestined to copy the Meme of the Beast. Already, you have passed the point of no return, so here are the rules:

  1. Snag a theology book or a book on religious living. Take no more than six seconds deliberating your choice. Just snag and return.
  2. Turn to page 66 and find the sixth sentence.
  3. Copy it into your meme post with proper reference.
  4. Post your quotation with the introduction and rules on your blog, linking to the post where you first read The Meme of the Beast

“Indeed, I do not hesitate to say that according to the New Testament it is rank heresy to recommend Christian behavior to people who are not Christian.” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ)

This is an original BwB meme (which explains its triviality). Of course, the quotation is not.

Educational post

I’ve joined a Kvalavåg group on Facebook. Kvalavåg (as I’ve probably told you already) is a farm (more of a rural community today) on Karmøy Island, Norway. My great-grandfather was born there, and if it weren’t for the xenophobia of a naturalization judge who asked my great-granduncle, “Why don’t you call yourself by an American name?” my last name would probably be Kvalavåg today. Or Qualevaag, in the spirit of the orthography of the age. (Norwayphilia aside, I’m not sure I’d really care to have to spell my name for people six times a day.)

Anyway, somebody in the group linked to an Ikkepedia page for Kvalavåg. (Ikkepedia is related to the English language Uncyclopedia. It’s a good pun because “ikke” means “not” in Norwegian.) Having nothing amusing of my own to tell you tonight, I thought I’d translate the entry for you below. Continue reading Educational post

Listening In Without Asking for Repetition

Loren Eaton points out a writing exercise suggested by N.D. Wilson, whose blog I’m going to add to the sidebar. “Go to a public place (restaurant, bus-stop, coffee-shop, etc.). Take a notebook. Sit somewhere that gives your ears full auditory range. Listen. Attempt to copy down whatever dialog drifts your way. . . .”

Loren’s real name, by the way, is Nerol Notae (the final letter of both names being silent). Yes, he’s that Nerol Notae! He cleverly disguised it by writing it backwards so he could blog in relative obscurity, but we have found him out. From now on, the famous Nerol Notae will not be able to hide his blog from his many off-Broadway fans, his Fifth Avenue fans, his Champs-Élysées fans, etc. The world had to know sometime, Nerol. Thanks for the fish.

When I’m a celebrity, I won’t forget the little people, however contemptible they may be

What a day it’s been in blogdom!

First, the immortal Hunter Baker (author of the soon-to-be-released The End of Secularism), plugs West Oversea over at Mere Comments.

Then “Mike” at Threedonia (one of the best blogs in the world for sheer fun) posted about Hunter Baker’s post.

If we can just keep this momentum going, I’ll soon be hobnobbing with Jonah Goldberg and refusing to return Ann Coulter’s calls.

(Just a joke, Ann. Call me anytime.)

The June Smithsonian includes a light piece entitled “Words to Remember,” by Miles Corwin, about Amanda McKittrick Ros, generally considered the worst novelist in history.

If I didn’t recall, from C. S. Lewis’ Collected Letters, that he and the other Inklings used to wile away the evenings reading passages from Ros’s novels, to see how long they could last before breaking up in laughter, I’d be tempted to suspect her whole story was a hoax.

What price prose like this:

“Speak! Irene! Wife! Woman! Do not sit in silence and allow the blood that now boils in my veins to ooze through cavities of unrestrained passion and trickle down to drench me with its crimson hue!”

Sure, it’s bad. But is it really worse than Dan Brown?

I’m working on my new linen Viking tunic. Cut it out last night. Tonight I think I’ll tackle the neck hole, always one of the trickiest parts of a tunic.

There’s nothing intrinsically unmasculine about sewing (he insisted, his face nevertheless revealing his profound shame and ambivalence). A sewing project is essentially an engineering job. There’s lots of measuring and fitting stuff together, with (one hopes) the solid satisfaction of a well-constructed product at the end of the process.

I think the problem is that clothes just don’t matter as much to guys as they do to women.

Reenactors are different, though. We compare our trousseaus like debutantes.

In a manly, virile way, of course.

My modest contribution to the cause of World Peace

(No need to thank me. Your awed silence is thanks enough.)



Imagine
there’s no freedom

It’s easy if you try

No place to hide from

Big Brother’s searching eye

Imagine all the people

Living just one way…

Imagine there’s no nations

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to love or stand for

No constitutions too

Imagine all the people

Rocking the boat no more…

You may say I’m a dreamer

I suppose that I might be

I hope some day you’ll join us

And the whole world will think like me

Imagine confiscation

Of private property

We’d all be poor together

Except, of course, for me

Imagine all the people

Doing things my way…

You may say I hate freedom

That I’m against democracy

But it will all be so peaceful

When no one has the right to disagree