Currently Listening Little Miss Sunshine By DeVotchKa Till the End of Time see related

New music from a new movie (dvd)

Just watched a very quirky, funny, touching movie---Little Miss Sunshine. I was skeptical of whether I would like it, but it had such good reviews, the trailers looked funny and it was up for the Oscar just last week. It features a few actors I enjoy like Alan Arkin, Greg Kinnear, and Steve Carell. First off, you should know it is rated R for language (a fair amount, esp of the F word), sexual talk/innuendo, and drug use (but nothing in terms of nudity or sex). It's not for the kiddies, but you will be surprised that you can take away a message of love, support, and acceptance of your family. Make no mistake, there is nothing here from a Christian perspective and yet, all of the good in the film comes from acting upon principles that are fundamentally Christian.

The music I have listed above is from the soundtrack and is a really great ballad in a sort of Spanish-guitar style that is just great. The soundtrack features music written by this group DeVotchKa (see the MySpace page for them for more music and even downloads--http://www.myspace.com/devotchkamusic). It also features music written and performed by Sufjan Stevens. I'm thinking of getting this one....the cd soundtrack, that is. Go to the MySpace site and listen to their song "Enemy Guns".....wow....

More on DeVotchKa from the MySpace site: From Filter Magazine- "Devotchka may be the best band in America you've never heard of. This fascinating little quartet from Denver Colorado has made a wistful, beautifully-arranged something that isn't really an indie rock record, and isn't really a jazz record, and isn't really a mariachi/norteno (or Eastern European) folk record. It's the album you put on when you want to wallow, when you want to brood, when you want to shut your windows and close your blinds and lose yourself in the wistful tragedy of love and loss and hope and nostalgia that bubbles to the surface in all of your darker, finer moments. And though it could easily be the soundtrack to One Hundred Years of Solitude (what, with all the horns and guitars and the crooning Nick Urata), its actually more spiritually related to the darker and finer moments of, say, Modest Mouse...It makes you think. It makes you long. It makes you dream. And if you can listen to the aching troubador ballad Dearly Departed without feeling the suffocating sensation of tearing flesh from bone that accompanies any true loss, then you haven't loved and you haven't lost and you shouldn't kid yourself that you're better for it."---Mikel Jolet 11/19/04

And this additional info from the Wikipedia entry for them: DeVotchKa is a four piece multi-instrumental and vocal ensemble that fuses Romani, Greek, Slavic, Bolero, and Mariachi music with American punk and folk roots. They take their name from Anthony Burgess' Nadsat word for "young girl," which is itself derived from the Russian word (???????) of the same meaning. Based in Denver, Colorado, the quartet is made up of Nick Urata, who sings and plays theremin, guitar, bouzouki, piano, and trumpet; Tom Hagerman, who plays violin, accordion, and piano; Jeanie Schroder, who sings and plays sousaphone and double bass; and Shawn King, who plays percussion and trumpet.

In the meantime, I'm still working on my training regimen for swimming my channel....like all training, it's a real struggle but there will be a reward.

Currently Watching On A Clear Day By Peter Mullan, Brenda Blethyn, Sean McGinley, Jamie Sives, Ron Cook, Benedict Wong, Jodhi May, Billy Boyd, Anne Marie Timoney, Shaun Dingwall, Tony Roper, Paul Ritter, Andrew MacLennan, James MacLennan, Irene Ann Burt, Nigel Lindsay, Stevie Hannan, Ann Scott-Jones, Michelle Rodley, Carolyn Calder see related

Today's posting is something different. I hope you enjoy it and are challenged by it. If you come across this, whether family or friend or stranger, let me know what you think. In this way you help me and encourage me. Perhaps my postings here will be helpful to you. I hope so; I pray so.

I'm going to use this place now for updating people on what is happening in me and to me. I'm asking those of you who know me to challenge me about things you find here; to challenge me to stay true to this new beginning for me. Ask me the hard questions; support me in my searching and training.

Today 1/29/07

I’ve been a fool. I’ve been living the past 6 weeks as though I hadn’t lost my job; as though I had limitless funds to just go on….I’ve let myself be in charge again, instead of God. The result is the same as always and as expected. Failure. I’m in fear…fear of failure. Yet that fear paralyzes me and causes me to not try…because in trying, I might fail. What a wicked and nonsensical paradox—and so cruelly true all the same.

God got me up early this morning. He pierced my heart with His calls to come back. I cleared out the sin and read in Psalms to both comfort and challenge me. And then He used something I really didn’t expect. He used a movie. A secular movie, but with an important spiritual lesson. A movie about swimming the English Channel. A movie about not giving up and about doing things not just for the challenge—but doing challenging things to find yourself and your life. Without God in the picture, I might come away from the movie and think “that’s what I need—I need to swim the Channel.” Or I might think “ahh, what a dream. To take on the Channel like that and the training and all so I could clear my head and my life.” Well, through God’s voice to me, having read first in His word, having prepared myself in prayer, He used a movie to challenge me to swim my channel. Only I won’t be literally swimming and I won’t be flying over to England to take on that channel. No, I’m taking on the channel of my life. My fear of failure. My “easy way out” mentality that leads me to sin and slothfulness and weakness.

God has shown me that my first stage of training for the channel is to discipline myself. That’s certainly a spiritual principle. His Word reveals it to us in many places, but especially in the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. In Paul’s exhortation to Timothy in I Tim 4, he tells him to “discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” The rest of the chapter after v.7 gives us the outcome of proper discipline of self.

I’ve also just learned an important distinction: God does want us to dream and have dreams for our lives. What is a waste and what will destroy our dreams are fantasies. Fantasizing about being a success in my personal, spiritual, and public life will do nothing positive for me, and will instead, hold me back by letting me achieve my dream cheaply through just pretending. But real dreams don’t have us living as though we succeeded; they show us what we can have and be in succeeding. Real dreams are goals; fantasies are cheap imitations of dreams.

So I’m beginning my training for my channel swim. I’m going to submit to God to guide me in discipline by regulating my life in Him. Normal sleep hours; regular Bible reading and study. Reading the book The 7Habits of Highly Effective People. By applying the principles learned in that book to me, to my life. By reading Getting Things Done and applying its lessons to me. I’m going to train for swimming my channel by rebuilding and maintaining the strong foundation I have of good friends and good family. By loving my friends and family fully and openly. By letting them love me. I’m going to train literally by exercise using my exercise bike and by walking and by working to clean and restore my home so that whether God wants me to stay here or to sell it, it will be ready. Training will include attention to personal detail, to dress, to eating, to TV and movie watching. Because I want to swim my channel. I want to succeed for God in something I want and love to do. My channel—to make my life a godly success for His glory and my joy. That’s my long-term, overall goal. My immediate goal, is to get my life together, to get a job or jobs to pay my bills, to get out of debt, to serve God, to love and serve my children, their spouses, their children. To not fear.

Training begins now.

Currently Listening Hellogoodbye By Hellogoodbye Here (In Your Arms) see related

Back again after a long break. As usual with me, some new music (new to me anyway) prompted the post.....the group is hellogoodbye and the only track of theirs I've heard so far is a couple different versions of  "Here (In Your Arms)." At least in this song, they use a techno-reverb sound in the lead singer's voice, but the music says pop-rock...here's the take on them from the Yahoo Launchcast website:

Hellogoodbye are a group of quirky, fun-loving emo rockers from California who seem to take as much influence from modern pop-punk as they do from the original Nintendo sound bleeps that held children captive in the late '80s. Formed by high-school friends in 2002, their playful brand of indie power pop is infused with sugary sweetness, catchy dance beats, and enough energy to tire a group of five-year-olds. Hellogoodbye, named after a quote from Saved by the Bell's Screech Powers, is composed of vocalist/guitarist Forrest Kline, bassist Marcus Cole, keyboardist Jesse Kurvink, and drummer Chris Profeta. They released a self-titled EP in April 2004 on Drive Thru, and a music video/live DVD appeared in the fall of 2005. ~ Corey Apar, All Music Guide