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Un-Touched By an Angel

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This is a post about lost love. Not personal, romantic love (I’ve overplayed that card in this space), but television series that at one time or another were high points of my week, satisfying substitutes for an actual social life. And then something happened, and love died.

My judgments on these programs are not intended to be a guide to the reader. If you enjoy these shows (most of them are still on the air), God bless you. Enjoy yourself.

But they are dead to me.

First on the list is Touched By an Angel. Oh, how I adored this show during most of its run. Aside from starring Roma Downey, with whom I longed to run away to the Isles of the Blessed, it was produced by an open Christian, who made it a point to keep her angels (more or less) consistent with biblical descriptions. They were not the souls of dead people. They had no wings. And it was hinted, though not much dwelt on, that not only did heaven exist, but there was a bad place as well, where those who rejected God ended up. I understood that the realities of the business prevented them from saying anything specific about Jesus Christ. I appreciated the good parts. Continue reading Un-Touched By an Angel →

Blogs, Socials, Publishing

Theft as Research: Magazine Steals Recipes from Various Sites

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Ed Champion reports on the flagrant theft of copyrighted writing by a cooking magazine named Cooks Source. First, the food historian behind this 16th century apple pie article noticed that her article was printed without permission in the magazine. She asked about it and was asked if she didn’t want it published, since it was already online. Once Champion learned about it, he looked for other copy-n-pasted articles in the magazine and found at least five definite instances and several possible ones.

Bookselling, Publishing

PW Best of 2010

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Publisher’s Weekly has ten of their picks for best books this year. Here’s one. The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee. PW says: “Grim, but so is Dostoyevski. Lee, who can craft a sentence, follows several decades in the lives of an American soldier and a Korean orphan whose paths cross during the Korean War, the reverberations of which, Lee shows, are now deeply woven into the fabric of what it means to be American.”

Authors

Epstein on the Acute Slouching of Literary Culture

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Joseph Epstein talks about T.S. Eliot’s life and reflects on modern literary culture. “Literary culture itself, if the sad truth be known, seems to be slowly but decisively shutting down.”

Uncategorized

Bipedal again

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I’m low on inspiration tonight. It’s been a while since I did a book review, but the book I’m working on is taking time. It’s not bad, but not great either, plus it’s quite long. And I’ve been catching up on my magazine reading during my breaks at work, rather than hitting the fiction (my magazine load will be lighter in the future; I’m dropping Smithsonian. They’ve been edging leftward, in my estimation, and the age of the internet has provided me alternate sources of obscure information).

I haven’t mentioned yet that I’m off the cane. The doctor told me to keep the weight off the knee, and take anti-inflammatories, for two weeks, then see how it went without visible means of support. And so far it’s going fine, but I’m watching for sudden structural fatigue. I probably won’t be taking any exercise walks until spring. And it would be a good idea (my doctor hinted, oh so diplomatically) if I took off a few pounds.

I did some research on canes, by the way, and learned that there’s a difference between a cane and a walking stick. Canes are an English thing, because the traditional English cane is made of malacca, which is a strong tropical cane. We Americans make our supports out of wood, so we call them walking sticks.

Actually we call them canes, but apparently we shouldn’t.

My cane is made of metal. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to call that. A walking pipe?

Bookselling

Rock Point Books Is Closing

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Rock Point Books, an independent bookstore in downtown Chattanooga, is closing next month. They had good author readings at one time. They say the economy weighed them down too much to stay afloat. No word on whether federal stimulus money will be used to save the jobs lost here.

Rock Point Books in Chattanooga, photo by Larry Miller

(Photo by Larry Miller/Flickr)

Religion

Taking pains

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The other day, Phil posted about his belief (with which I highly concur) that witches and occultists and various kind of spiritual practitioners have no actual power to curse a Christian (or, probably, anybody else). This is the view I’ve taken (I think pretty consistently) in my fantasy novels—that magic is illusion, and all that is necessary to counter it is a cold bucketful of reality.

In the comments, Greybeard brought up “a very popular little book about an obscure Old Testament character who was noted for the prayer he prayed.” He was referring, of course, to The Prayer of Jabez, by Bruce Wilkinson. I’ve never read that book myself (for reasons I’ll explain), but I have a more positive view of it than some, because the people I knew who did try to put its principles into practice did so with view to submitting to God and seeking to expand their fields of service, not their personal prosperity.

Still, I had a grudge against that book, and still do. Because, from all I’ve heard of it, it fails to address the central, primary meaning of the Jabez story. It’s a story that applies to me in a way it probably doesn’t apply to most people, and it irked me that all these people were co-opting my story for their own purposes. It seemed to me a Nathan’s parable (2 Samuel 12) sort of thing—“You people have lots of Bible stories you can use for your inspiration. There’s only one that applies to my situation. Why can’t you just leave it to me?”

The story of Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:9-10) is not a story about how to procure God’s blessing. It’s a story about an abused child who overcame his trauma by appealing to God. Continue reading Taking pains →

Fiction

Lee Unkrich of Toy Story 3 Talks Movies

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Unkrich: First of all, we don’t make movies for kids, we don’t think of it that way. We try to make good movies, period. We know that kids are going to be part of the audience, and we have a responsibility to make it appropriate for them, but we’re not trying to create quote-unquote kids’ entertainment. Yes, I think a lot of kids’ entertainment has gotten more antiseptic over the years, and parents have gotten more and more protective — and for a lot of good reasons — but I think it has been too much.

When you look back at the origins of children’s literature and entertainment, you have stuff like Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which are very dark, and they were about teaching kids about the world, and that there are bad things about the world, and gave examples of kids overcoming those bad things. We’re not trying to teach anybody any lessons in this film, we don’t have a message, but we do put characters in situations where they do behave in a very emotionally truthful way, and I think it’s good for kids to see something like that.

Fiction

No Ordinary Family: Good, Lots of Potential

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I’ve been watching ABC’s No Ordinary Family online since it debuted. My wife and I saw the premiere on an actual TV while on vacation, and we’ve been enjoying it. The show was given a full season in late October, so I guess ABC is uncertain of its reception. I think it has great potential. I can’t write about it here without at least minor spoilers, but even then I want to spill my guts on deeper issues too which will amount to major spoilers, so watch for the notation if you care to avoid certain things.

If you’ve seen any trailers for the show, you’ve seen about as much explanation they’ve given us for why the Powell family has super powers (which is a word the show writers’ use too much–powers. I’m using my powers right now, but I call it typing or writing. I would love to see and hear less of this word in the show.) In short, the family goes to Brazil for a vacation. Their plane crashes, and sometime after they return home, they discover they have changed. It went by about that quickly in the pilot episode.

ABC's No Ordinary Family

Jim, the father, is a police sketch artist and not respected by the rest of the department. When he becomes incredibly strong and bulletproof (nigh invulnerable as The Tick would say), it’s like a dream come true. He has said he failed as an artist before taking up the police work, but I gather he is drawn to the strength of these civil guardians. Now with his great strength, he can help them, but as it usually goes, he works undercover. He has the help of George, a district attorney friend, who is probably the kind of friend every average-man-turned-superhero needs. Continue reading No Ordinary Family: Good, Lots of Potential →