I could write about Dune if I wanted to!
Jan. 4th, 2005 02:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miko2But no. I want to write about John Bloom.
But first, a little story. I was getting ready for work today, and I was a little late because I'd taken the time to pay two bills. So I had my hands full as I gathered my things, and I dumped what was in my hands into a plastic bag that also had some cds that I like to carry to work and back home and maybe actually listen to in the car once or twice a week.
When I got outside the door I remembered to remove from the plastic bag my two letters (the check is in the mail!) and put them out for the mailman to find. I got in my car and started it up, and briefly I thought that there was something else I'd stuck into that plastic bag, but I couldn't remember what. I was in a hurry and didn't dig through the bag, only thinking that under normal circumstances I might have put my electric razor in there, but that had been in the car already.
So I got to work, and placed the plastic bag on my desk. I actually really did listen to two of the cds later in the evening -- Steeleye Span and Demon Hunter. What a lovely combination! ^_^
After six pm I called Sunny Teriyaki and ordered Sezchuan Beef. As I was putting my coat on to go get my dinner, Sandee said something about hoping cverything hadn't frozen up, like it had last night. And I said, "Yeah, it's really cold."
And the word cold triggered a memory... about something else that had been cold... a Klondike Oreo Cookie ice cream sandwich. That I'd removed from the freezer just before leaving the house, and placed in a plastic bag along with some cds and mail.
It wasn't a sandwich any more. But it was self-contained in plastic so at least it hadn't leaked over anything. I took it out, explained to Sandee what it was, and three it away. Le sigh!
There's this magazine called the Wittenburg Door (yes, it's mispelled) that I used to pick up now and again when I was in college, and maybe even when I was in high school. It's a Christian satirical magazine. As you might guess, there are not a lot of Christian satirical magazines out there, due in large part to the fact that the vast majority of people in this country who identify themselves as Christian are of the Religeous Right variety, who have as much appreciation of satire as George W. Bush or Bill O'Reilly. That is to say, none at all. My parents for example, do not understand satire, but think that The O'Reilly Factor is a brilliant, funny, and newsworthy show.
This is why The Wittenburg Door bills itself as "The World's Pretty Much Only Religeous Satire Magazine". And let's face it, there's a lot of things in Religeon to satire.
Anyway for some reason I was thinking about this magazine a month or so ago, and even though I hadn't even seen an issue in probably sixteen or eighteen years, it suddenly occured to me that I should subscribe to it. You know, in these days of the Glory of the Coming of the Religeous Right and the Rebirth of the Regan Presidency in the Person of Dubya Bush, it helps to remind myself that not every Christian in the country believes that our current president is the epitome of all that is good and holy and decent in a leader, just because he hates gays and abortion. Or to paraphrase Sarah Vowell from This American Life, when it comes to Iraq, just ask yourself, What Would Jesus Do? The answer? Jesus would not invade Iraq.
You know, that was a very convoluted paragraph. Also it occurs to me that Sarah Vowell is a very funny writer who has books out that would probably have made wonderful Christmas presents for some of my friends. Why didn't I think about that a month ago?
Anyway, a month or so ago I went online and found that I could actually subscribe to the Wittenburg Door through the Amazon.com web site. Only it was just called TheDoorMagazine now. But that was cool since I was doing some Christmas shopping on Amazon at the same time, so I ordered a subscription.
My first issue arrived today. Confusingly, the title on the front cover was "The Wittenburg Door". But this was explained inside. The founder of the magazine had died a year ago, and they've finally put together a "tribute issue" for him, and along the way they decided that for 2005 they were changing the name back to the Wittenburg Door. Apparently people always called it "The Door" and so they'd shortened the name when they did a complete redesign of the magazine, but then everyone wanted to know if they were somehow related to The Wittenburg Door, or kept asking whatever happened to the Wittenburg Door, and that sort of thing.
In the back of the magazine they have some stuff for sale, including video tapes of something called "Godstuff". I'd never heard of this but immediately realized that it was from a show that made fun of televangelists. After a little research I learned that the show had aired on Comedy Central's The Daily Show (and maybe still does -- I don't get cable so how would I know?) The host of "Godstuff" is John Bloom, who is probably much better known as Joe Bob Briggs, movie reviewer and all-around weird (but funny) Texas guy.
And it occurred to me that video tapes/cds of this show "Godstuff" would probably appeal immensely to one or two of my friends, and might have also made nice Christmas gifts. Or perhaps "weird but funny" Christmas gifts is the more appropriate phrase. ^_^ You know, today on The Conversation they were talking about language in general and in particular talked about words that couldn't be translated into English, or English words that couldn't be translated into other languages. Things like the German word "Schadenfreude" which means taking delight in the misfortune of others. (There's even a whole song about it on the Avenue Q soundtrack! Speaking of satire that too-serious people don't get...) So it occurs to me that there ought to be, somewhere in the world, a word that means, "Thinking of the perfect Christmas gift two weeks after Christmas".
Well, it turns out that "Godstuff" is produced by Trinity Foundation, which is in fact the same company that publishes The Wittenburg Door. And, in fact, Joe Bob Briggs is one of their writers. I knew they were funny so I shouldn't be surprised.
And another weird thing happened while I was doing my online research. One of the pages I was led to, which had a nice write-up of one of these Godstuff videos, had many other odd newsbits about religeous/spiritual weird stuff and I scanned through them. My eye was drawn to a line about a movie in the works... based on Barbara Goldsmith's Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull and starring Nicole Kidman.
Why would this grab my attention? Because that's the book I gave to Ieva for Christmas. I had heard Barbara Goldsmith interviewed on NPR, and bought her book about Marie Curie for Kristin, and then I checked out her other books and decided that Other Powers not only sounded really interesting but also dovetailed very nicely with Gene's Steampunk campaign. In fact, one of the interesting things I picked up from these books and the interview on NPR was that Curie and her husband and many of their scientific friends believed very strongly in spiritualism, and even tried to perform scientific experiments at seances. And when you consider things from the right perspective, this isn't really so odd. They were living in an age when discoveries about electricity and gamma rays and radiation and rado waves were astonishing the world, and the idea that one might discover a way to converse with the dead didn't seem so far-fetched.
Anyway, since the book covers roughly the same time period and deals with spiritualism (Gene's Steampunk game includes several characters with "real" psychic powers), hopefully it will provide some inspiration. But in any case it sounded like an interesting book to read. ^_^
As for the movie, I have no idea if Other Powers is still in the works down in Hollywood, but it is funny how two unrelated things like that (The Wittenburg Door and Goldsmith's book) make weird connections... it's that whole six degrees of seperation thing I guess.
Which is a scary concept, because personally I'd like to be seperated from Dubya by more than six degrees, ya know?
But first, a little story. I was getting ready for work today, and I was a little late because I'd taken the time to pay two bills. So I had my hands full as I gathered my things, and I dumped what was in my hands into a plastic bag that also had some cds that I like to carry to work and back home and maybe actually listen to in the car once or twice a week.
When I got outside the door I remembered to remove from the plastic bag my two letters (the check is in the mail!) and put them out for the mailman to find. I got in my car and started it up, and briefly I thought that there was something else I'd stuck into that plastic bag, but I couldn't remember what. I was in a hurry and didn't dig through the bag, only thinking that under normal circumstances I might have put my electric razor in there, but that had been in the car already.
So I got to work, and placed the plastic bag on my desk. I actually really did listen to two of the cds later in the evening -- Steeleye Span and Demon Hunter. What a lovely combination! ^_^
After six pm I called Sunny Teriyaki and ordered Sezchuan Beef. As I was putting my coat on to go get my dinner, Sandee said something about hoping cverything hadn't frozen up, like it had last night. And I said, "Yeah, it's really cold."
And the word cold triggered a memory... about something else that had been cold... a Klondike Oreo Cookie ice cream sandwich. That I'd removed from the freezer just before leaving the house, and placed in a plastic bag along with some cds and mail.
It wasn't a sandwich any more. But it was self-contained in plastic so at least it hadn't leaked over anything. I took it out, explained to Sandee what it was, and three it away. Le sigh!
There's this magazine called the Wittenburg Door (yes, it's mispelled) that I used to pick up now and again when I was in college, and maybe even when I was in high school. It's a Christian satirical magazine. As you might guess, there are not a lot of Christian satirical magazines out there, due in large part to the fact that the vast majority of people in this country who identify themselves as Christian are of the Religeous Right variety, who have as much appreciation of satire as George W. Bush or Bill O'Reilly. That is to say, none at all. My parents for example, do not understand satire, but think that The O'Reilly Factor is a brilliant, funny, and newsworthy show.
This is why The Wittenburg Door bills itself as "The World's Pretty Much Only Religeous Satire Magazine". And let's face it, there's a lot of things in Religeon to satire.
Anyway for some reason I was thinking about this magazine a month or so ago, and even though I hadn't even seen an issue in probably sixteen or eighteen years, it suddenly occured to me that I should subscribe to it. You know, in these days of the Glory of the Coming of the Religeous Right and the Rebirth of the Regan Presidency in the Person of Dubya Bush, it helps to remind myself that not every Christian in the country believes that our current president is the epitome of all that is good and holy and decent in a leader, just because he hates gays and abortion. Or to paraphrase Sarah Vowell from This American Life, when it comes to Iraq, just ask yourself, What Would Jesus Do? The answer? Jesus would not invade Iraq.
You know, that was a very convoluted paragraph. Also it occurs to me that Sarah Vowell is a very funny writer who has books out that would probably have made wonderful Christmas presents for some of my friends. Why didn't I think about that a month ago?
Anyway, a month or so ago I went online and found that I could actually subscribe to the Wittenburg Door through the Amazon.com web site. Only it was just called TheDoorMagazine now. But that was cool since I was doing some Christmas shopping on Amazon at the same time, so I ordered a subscription.
My first issue arrived today. Confusingly, the title on the front cover was "The Wittenburg Door". But this was explained inside. The founder of the magazine had died a year ago, and they've finally put together a "tribute issue" for him, and along the way they decided that for 2005 they were changing the name back to the Wittenburg Door. Apparently people always called it "The Door" and so they'd shortened the name when they did a complete redesign of the magazine, but then everyone wanted to know if they were somehow related to The Wittenburg Door, or kept asking whatever happened to the Wittenburg Door, and that sort of thing.
In the back of the magazine they have some stuff for sale, including video tapes of something called "Godstuff". I'd never heard of this but immediately realized that it was from a show that made fun of televangelists. After a little research I learned that the show had aired on Comedy Central's The Daily Show (and maybe still does -- I don't get cable so how would I know?) The host of "Godstuff" is John Bloom, who is probably much better known as Joe Bob Briggs, movie reviewer and all-around weird (but funny) Texas guy.
And it occurred to me that video tapes/cds of this show "Godstuff" would probably appeal immensely to one or two of my friends, and might have also made nice Christmas gifts. Or perhaps "weird but funny" Christmas gifts is the more appropriate phrase. ^_^ You know, today on The Conversation they were talking about language in general and in particular talked about words that couldn't be translated into English, or English words that couldn't be translated into other languages. Things like the German word "Schadenfreude" which means taking delight in the misfortune of others. (There's even a whole song about it on the Avenue Q soundtrack! Speaking of satire that too-serious people don't get...) So it occurs to me that there ought to be, somewhere in the world, a word that means, "Thinking of the perfect Christmas gift two weeks after Christmas".
Well, it turns out that "Godstuff" is produced by Trinity Foundation, which is in fact the same company that publishes The Wittenburg Door. And, in fact, Joe Bob Briggs is one of their writers. I knew they were funny so I shouldn't be surprised.
And another weird thing happened while I was doing my online research. One of the pages I was led to, which had a nice write-up of one of these Godstuff videos, had many other odd newsbits about religeous/spiritual weird stuff and I scanned through them. My eye was drawn to a line about a movie in the works... based on Barbara Goldsmith's Other Powers: The Age of Suffrage, Spiritualism and the Scandalous Victoria Woodhull and starring Nicole Kidman.
Why would this grab my attention? Because that's the book I gave to Ieva for Christmas. I had heard Barbara Goldsmith interviewed on NPR, and bought her book about Marie Curie for Kristin, and then I checked out her other books and decided that Other Powers not only sounded really interesting but also dovetailed very nicely with Gene's Steampunk campaign. In fact, one of the interesting things I picked up from these books and the interview on NPR was that Curie and her husband and many of their scientific friends believed very strongly in spiritualism, and even tried to perform scientific experiments at seances. And when you consider things from the right perspective, this isn't really so odd. They were living in an age when discoveries about electricity and gamma rays and radiation and rado waves were astonishing the world, and the idea that one might discover a way to converse with the dead didn't seem so far-fetched.
Anyway, since the book covers roughly the same time period and deals with spiritualism (Gene's Steampunk game includes several characters with "real" psychic powers), hopefully it will provide some inspiration. But in any case it sounded like an interesting book to read. ^_^
As for the movie, I have no idea if Other Powers is still in the works down in Hollywood, but it is funny how two unrelated things like that (The Wittenburg Door and Goldsmith's book) make weird connections... it's that whole six degrees of seperation thing I guess.
Which is a scary concept, because personally I'd like to be seperated from Dubya by more than six degrees, ya know?
