DIY for the win

Yesterday I was able to fix our four-year-old "high efficiency" clothes washer myself. Besides a $79 part (the door lock - apparently front-load washers are notorious for those failing), it took all of five minutes, thanks to a video on YouTube. Earlier this year I was able to fix our dishwasher by replacing a valve and our water heater by replacing both elements plus the under-spec'ed circuit breaker that kept throwing and causing the elements to burn out prematurely. Again, in both cases it was not just the Internet that helped me figure out what was wrong, but that also showed me via pictures or video how to fix it and convinced me I could do it myself. Whatever did we do without it?

And given that I figure I have saved myself around $500 in service calls this year alone, I wonder how long before Corporate America puts a stop to it?

Dead voices

I have started reading Walter Brueggemann's The Message of the Psalms, partly for fun, partly in prep for my last assignment for the Old Testament class at the Missouri School of Religion. It will be challenging, but it looks like it may help bring some sense to what has always been for me a very difficult part of the Bible. More on that later.

Anyway, there are two quotes he puts in the preface that I liked:

Poets exist so that the dead may vote.
- Elie Wiesel

Laugh at ministers all you want, they have the words we need to hear, the ones the dead have spoken.
- Rabbit in John Updike's Rabbit is Rich

13 Most Beautiful...Songs for Andy Warhol Screen Tests

"I've never met a person I couldn’t call a beauty . . . I always hear myself saying, She’s a beauty! or He’s a beauty! or What a beauty! But . . . if everybody’s not a beauty, then nobody is."

—Andy Warhol quoted in The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), 1975

We started watching this last night and made it through the first five. We will probably watch the rest one or two at a time. It is not so much a "film" as 13 of the over 500 "screen tests" Andy Warhol shot between 1964 and 1966:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_Tests_(films)

Andy Warhol's

 Screen Tests are a series of silent film portraits consisting of several-minute unbroken shots of Factory regulars, Warhol superstars, celebrities, guests, friends, or anyone he thought had "star potential".

The films were made between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol's Factory studio in New York City. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong key light, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film at 24 frames per second. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in 'slow motion' at 16 frames per second.

Many of the Screen Tests were arranged in different compilations such as 13 Most Beautiful Women, 13 Most Beautiful Boys, and 50 Fantastics and 50 Personalities. This was done with the intention of pleasing certain audiences who Warhol was exhibiting his art to.

Over 500 screen tests were made, but not all kept.

http://www.plexifilm.com/title.php?id=36

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot nearly 500Screen Tests, beautiful and revealing portraits of hundreds of different individuals, from the famous to the anonymous, all visitors to his studio, the Factory. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong keylight, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in slow motion, resulting in a fascinating collection of four-minute masterpieces that startle and entrance, mesmerizing in the purest sense of the word. 

The music in the film is supplied by Dean and Britta (Dean Wareham of Galaxie 500 and Luna and his wife Britta Phillips). They did the project in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Museum and apparently have done live shows playing with the films.

Here is the screen test listing in order (watch/listen to the screen tests in highest resolution you can - lower right of YouTube screen):

• Ann Buchanan - screen test (the best so far - supposedly Warhol's favorite)
• Paul America - screen test
• Edie Sedgwick - screen test (followed by Billy Name)
• Billy Name
• Susan Bottomly - screen test
• Dennis Hopper - screen test
• Mary Woronov - screen test
• Nico - screen test (for both Nico followed by Herko)
• Freddy Herko
• Richard Rheem - screen tests (for Rheem, Ingrid Superstar and Lou Reed)
• Ingrid Superstar
• Lou Reed
• Jane Holzer - screen test

I would recommend watching them one at a time, and when you have time to just sit and watch for four minutes.

The Dean and Britta soundtrack fits, especially given the influence of the Velvet Underground on Wareham:

“I probably came to Warhol via the Velvet Underground, he has had a huge influence on the history of rock music. You could make a case that he was one of the first punks, in two ways. 1) He suggested that anyone could be an artist, and that an artist could try his hand at anything. 2) Punk rock celebrates the commonplace and the ugly, and elevates it, and I think Warhol did the same.”

—Dean Wareham

Since I am a fan of Galaxie 500 and Luna, I like the music, especially because of its V.U. overtones (and outright cover for Lou Reed):

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/13-most-beautifulsongs-for-andy-warholrsquos-screen-tests-the-barbican-london-2053384.html

Dean and Britta's hazy, dreamy songs are the perfect soundtrack to the soft black-and-white films of the narcotic-addled subjects. Sometimes, what might have been background instrumentals become instantly poignant and captivating, with the film as a backdrop. The dreamy "Ann Buchanan Theme" takes on more emotional depth and intensity against the film of the crying girl, especially at the point of Wareham's guitar solo, tonight timed meticulously with the tear falling from her chin. The show is given a further layer of emotion with Dean and Britta's brief between-song explanations of the tragic early fates that met many of these characters.

"Teenage Lightning and Lonely Highways" and its themes of pills and casual sex is suitably paired with the test of the devastatingly handsome speed-taking Paul America, but its gentle rendering presents an affectionate, tender portrayal of the self-conscious subject, while Lou Reed is the epitome of cool in his shades and refusal to look into the camera as the band rock out to their version of his "I'm Not a Young Man Anymore". If there is anything that jars in the otherwise cohesive set, it is in the heavier of the numbers when the viewer's focus is distracted between the film and the band.

Still more.

You can stream the whole film from Netflix, or purchase it.

Recommended.

Chili Colorado thing

This isn't authentic (because of the beans, for one), but I'm writing it down so I'll remember, because it was good. I invented it to use up a pound of grilled sirloin steak I had left over.

Ingredients

• ½ sweet onion, diced
• ½ red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 lb grilled sirloin steak cut in ½" cubes
• 3-4 Tbs chopped fresh garlic (You heard me - What? you want vampires?)
• 10-12 black olives, sliced
• 1 can pinto beans, rinsed
• 1 can tomatoes and green chilies (I used a house brand, the name brand rhymes with "hotel")
• 2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 1 Tbs cayenne pepper (it was "warm" to me - adjust accordingly)
• 1 Tbs ground cumin
• 1 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper

Directions

Preheat oven to 350°.

Saute onion, bell pepper and steak in olive oil in enamel Dutch oven until veggies are soft. Turn off heat. Add remaining ingredients. Stir well. Cover and bake for 45-50 minutes. Will feed two to four, although I ate two thirds of it myself! So maybe serve with tortillas and condiments (onions, grated cheese, sour cream, etc.)

Here's a pic:

Please don't understand me so fast

While sitting in a class on the Old Testament last weekend at MSR it hit me head-on that not even so-called fundamentalists take the Bible literally. They may think they do, but they don't. They can't.

I've been mulling a lecture by Marcus Borg I attended a few months ago in Columbia with another MSR class. He pointed out that Biblical literalism, instead of being "traditional" Christianity as it is portrayed now, is actually a modern movement, starting as a reactionary response to Darwin and other 19th century scientific advances. Before drawing those battle lines it was the metaphorical meanings (plural) that mattered most. Christians saw the Bible as full of metaphor, and that wasn't bad, it was the point. Because with metaphor, with a more-than-literal meaning, you can go to that well (note metaphor ☺) over and over again and draw new lessons from it, instead of being stuck in a "this is what it means for all time, and that's it, take it or leave it" approach.

Here's the crux of my insight during class: if anyone took the Bible completely literally there would be no point to sermons...ever. Because if taken to its logical extreme that would imply that not only is the Bible itself not metaphorical, but that in explaining it one cannot use metaphors either, because that would distort its literal meaning. If the Bible is literally what it says it is, if it literally means what it says it means, then there is no need for further explanation. Follow me here - because any further explanation is an expansion of its meaning. It is a metaphor. And literalists reject interpreting the Bible as metaphor out-of-hand. The-Bible-means-what-it-says-and-that's-it.

And yet I've never sat through a sermon that didn't use metaphors. Usually lots of them.

Interesting, isn't it? Ironic, too.

Four years ago I wrote another post related to this topic, including the following about Genesis. However, it really stands for my whole approach to understanding the Bible:

Here's how I read the God-given truths in Genesis:

• God created everything. The universe, the Earth, and everything on it.
• That includes you, too.
• God provided everything we need. He has a plan for the world, and a plan for us in it.
• God is active in the world. He did not just create it and let it spin on from there.
• God gave us free will because he wanted friends, not robots. He wanted to give and receive love, which can only come from choice.
• With our free will, we created sin.
• God wants us to reconcile with Him. He didn't create us to then be angry with us, even as we continue to give him reasons to be (repeat this last point over and over again and you end up with the rest of the Bible).

That pretty well still sums it up for me. In that is lots of room for metaphor that allows the Bible to have a much deeper, richer meaning to me than if I am to take it literally at face value. To return to Dr. Borg (from the handouts to the lecture), a metaphorical approach to the Bible:

[S]ees no fundamental conflict between Christianity and science, and considerable complementarity. They are not rivals - except when science becomes "scientism."

Which actually helps me believe more, not less.

Herein endeth the sermon. What do you think?