Win one for the Gimp September 28, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Software , add a commentRecently, I’ve been quite impressed with open source software. For the past few weeks, I’ve been touching up photos of a friend’s wedding in Gimp. If you don’t want to pay the several hundred dollars for Photoshop, this is the next best thing (if not the best thing).
Video treasures September 27, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Videos, Music , add a comment
After reading about some great video finds via Boing Boing, I decided to peruse Google Video myself. Though the resolution and sound are sub-par, there are some great moments captured on video. Some of the finds include a few songs from a Sufjan concert, a clip from Elliott Smith’s last concert, and a high schooler performing the entire Napoleon Dynamite dance.
Six Degrees of Pittsburgh September 25, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Friends, Pittsburgh, Cycling , 3 commentsOne of the great things about Pittsburgh, as my friends Lauren and Paul pointed out the other day, is that you continually run into people you know. Today was no exception.
My roommate Walt and I met our friends Mary, Karen, Sunny and Christian at Aladdin’s in Squirrel Hill for lunch. The latter two are getting married in a couple of weeks, so it was interesting to hear some of their thoughts and stories before they plunge into life together.
After lunch, Walt and I cruised down Forbes towards Mary’s apartment on her vintage tandem bicycle, the Green Machine. Let me tell you, it’s a pretty sweet ride: equipped with gear shifters, a bell and everything. She somehow obtained it from a free online trading post. Anyway, after returning to her house and dropping off the bike, we (Walt, another friend Ashley, and I) ran into the future mayor of Pittsburgh, Bob O’Connor.
And to tell you the truth, amidst my springtime preconceptions, he seemed like an alright guy. The two subjects of conversation were taxes and how to attract young people to Pittsburgh. I thought that taxes were one of the reasons that deterred people from wanting to move into the city. He thought that it was more one of attitude. Pittsburghers need to start owning their city. And he hoped that the planned business development, low cost of living, and some of the rails to trails programs would give more buy-in to the city.
We talked for all of ten minutes. But before we parted, Walt mentioned the bane of the North Side, the Garden theater. The Garden theater is a great old vintage theater built around the early 1900’s. The bad part is that it currently serves up XXX movies seven days a week, which deters any legitimite business from moving in around it. We were hoping that he had some sort of action plan to shut down the business.
The chance meeting encouraged me a little bit of Pittsburgh’s direction. Sure, some of the discussion was over-simplified, but it was encouraging to see the mayor take some time to talk to a few of its citizens (especially since he was on his way to the Steelers’ game). We’ll just have to see how the next few years pan out.
Identity crisis
Posted by Patrick in : Christianity, Reading , add a commentBrett McCracken has some excellent thoughts on the pendulum swing of hipster Christianity in one of his articles in Relevant magazine (via Aron Gahagan)
The problem with the Christian hipster phenomenon is not as superficial as the clothes we wear, the music we download or the artistic movies we see, nor is it that we exist largely as a reaction against something else. No. The problem is that our identity as people of Christ is still skin-deep. That our image and thinking as progressives does not make up for the fact that we still do not think about things as deeply as we should. The Christian hipster pretends to be more thoughtful or intellectual than the Podunk fundamentalist, but are we really? We accept secular art and (gasp!) sometimes vote for a liberal candidate, but do we really think harder because we are “hip”?…
Throughout history the movements and revivals of the Church have been rooted in theology. Now it seems we’ve become more concerned with image. What does a Christian look like to the outside world? How can we be more palatable to the hedonist seeker? We’ve jazzed up our worship repertoire, modernized our wardrobe and opened our arms to the masses. All good, except for the fact that we’ve thrown theology to the wind.
Again, the question of identity surfaces. The Christian community needs a view of self that goes deeper than any reaction towards its conservative counterpart. Unfortunately, McCracken admits, and rightly so, that most of the hipster attitude is left wanting.
He agrees that we should not embrace popular evangelical culture. But nor should we try to create some alter-hip one either. Because the focus is still on image. The gospel goes deeper than that. Sometimes, I think the behavior is almost like a rebellious teenager with his conservative parents. He’s trying really hard to be different - by his styles, clothing, vocabulary, etc. - that he’ll probabaly gain some acceptance from his peers; but a larger view would reveal that he’s still a young and immature lad with many years of growing up to do.
Kaleoscope September 22, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Christianity, Reading , 4 commentsDrew Goodmason has good insight about the emerging church’s identity. He helped flesh out some of the incoherent thoughts that spiral through my head. Here’s a little excerpt:
To make a Kingdom-impact on your local community and the world-at-large, you must move from Deconstruction to Kingdom Building…The common denominator is that instead of reacting against, they are building towards something. If you are an emerging church, what is your identity? As I attend ‘postmodern’ or [sic] churches that would say they are ‘emerging’ they usually can tell me what they are not. We don’t have central leadership, we don’t sing old-school hymns, we don’t have traditional worship, we don’t…[fill in the blank]. In the long run, I don’t think you can rally too many people to this cause and anti-identity.
This idea of how a church defines itself (or an individual for that matter) is crucial. If you continue to define yourself as what you are not, you are really left with an ‘anti-identity’ (as Goodmanson puts it), or no identity whatsoever. Take away those things that are anti-you, and there’s no more…you.
Lately, I’ve noticed this attitude become more and more prevalent, in myself and others. Many of the emergent blogs that I read, continue to compare and react towards the traditional/modern church. It makes me question if that helps or hurts us. Do these reactions split the two camps and alienate those on each side? Someone might say that we need to define how our movement is unique against the rest. But, then again, why define ourselves on what we are not? Let’s identify who we are and practice it.
Bowling September 21, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Sports, Friends , add a commentLauren, Matt, and I cleaned some house at bowling tonight at Arsenal. We (along with Heather) are on a bowling team with the Pittsburgh Sports League. Each Wednesday night we play three games, and somehow our total team score (and handicap) are figured onto some master list. Pins went a flyin’ during our second game, with Matt bowling a 214!
Parablic curves September 20, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Christianity, Reading , add a commentRecently, I’ve been enjoying Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming. The book was written by Nouwen after a continued fascination with Rembrandt’s painting of the parable of the lost son that’s found in Luke’s gospel.
For one thing, it’s interesting to read how a painting (a reproduction at first!) could propel a long spiritual adventure like Nouwen’s. He first noticed the painting in an office of one of his friends. This first encounter was trailed by others until he finally visited St. Petersburg, Russia where the original piece was held.
As you can guess, the book is a meditation on the parable of the lost son: the painting and the text. One of his insights that have been supported by most scholars is that the parable is less about the brash, younger, prodigal son, but more about the father and how he loved his two sons, who were both lost.
The younger son’s lostness is easily perceived by his flippant, selfish behavior by requesting his inheritance early and taking off, never to see his family again. However, the elder son’s is a little more subtle. After all, he remained home to be the dutiful son. But he distanced himself from his father, and was full of resentment. “The older brother became angry and refused to go in [to his father’s party]” (15:28).
Nouwen has terrific insight into the elder brother attitude:
The lostness of the resentful “saint” is so hard to reach precisely because it is so closely wedded to the desire to be good and virtuous. I know, from my own life, how diligently I have tried to be good, acceptable, likable, and a worthy example for others. There was always the conscious effort to avoid pitfalls of sin and the constant fear of giving in to temptation. But with all of that there came a seriousness, a moralistic intensity–and even a touch of fanaticism–that made it increasingly difficult to feel at home in my Father’s house. I became less free, less spontaneous, less playful, and others came to see me more and more as a somewhat “heavy” person.
Needless to say, these ideas have brought to the forefront many of my elder-brother attitudes. Interestingly enough, Tim Keller, the one who first introduced me to the lostness of both brothers, is blogging about this very same idea.
There is a fountain filled with boats September 19, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Software , add a commentI was looking at Google Earth yesterday and noticed that the satellite photos over Pittsburgh were different than the ones found on Google Maps.
For one thing, there were actually fans at the Pirates game. And as my coworker pointed out, the three rivers looked as if the sewers broke loose (they were extremely dirty). But that ended my curiosity. It picked up again when I showed the images to my roommate, Walt. Being the curious one, he wanted to determine the very date the photos were taken on.
And suprisingly, he nailed it within two weeks. The photo was taken in the immeadiate aftermath of hurricane Ivan when it passed through Pittsburgh last year. He’s certain of the date because he can spot his boat parked safely in the Strip district out of harm’s way. It’s shielded by a bright blue tarp that Google’s high powered telephoto lens barely picks out. Can anyone find it? (Hint: It’s not in the above photo)
L-U-V & H-Ā-T September 18, 2005
Posted by Patrick in : Movies , add a commentThe Night of the Hunter played earlier tonight at the Regent Square theater. I first heard of the film from my good friend Tim, someone who has excellent tastes in movies.
The movie was really good - nightmarish and suspenseful. Robert Mitchum plays the lead role as a diabolical pastor in search of a rumoured stash of money. The two outstanding parts of the movie were Mitchum’s acting and the cinematography. Some of the best scenes were when these two parts intertwined. One of the scenes involved an argument between the pastor and his wife in this cramped, upper bedroom. The few aesthetic bones in my body were cracking underneath its pressure.
But most importantly, it’s where Sideshow Bob learned some of his crazy tricks.