addison fandom

my parents gave us this remake of the "Jesus" movie -- the one that missionaries cart all over the world to show in villages where we don't have time to learn about their cultures or languages or problems, but that probably need to say the sinners prayer sooner rather than later given the impending end times and all...

(but wait, i digress, apologies to my dispensationalist friends and family for my sarcasm...)

the jesus movie is *way* better than the other two videos that my parents have given me for my kids -- the cedarmont kids & Ms. Pattycake (for these two gifts alone, i'm guessing that my parents will languish in Limbo for several years before they find the pearly gates -- who knew that there was anything worse than those dreadfully stepfordian Barney's children -- trust me the cedarmont kids are two levels of hell worse)...BUT....

Addison is obsesed with it. Anytime there is a question about what we will do next -- where we will go next -- how we should pass our collective time? His answer? Let's watch the Jesus Movie.

We were sitting in a restaurant last night and he noticed that they were playing a radio in the background...his idea -- we should go home and bring the Jesus Movie and listen to that instead.

Hey Addison -- want to go outside and play? Yeah, then we come in side, and eat and watch the Jesus movie.

Me: No, buddy, we've watched enough media this week...

Addison: Then we go to sleep and wake up and THEN we watch the Jesus Movie.

Me: Add. You've watched that movie enough. Why don't we act it out together.

Addison: we play Jesus movie, the dead part, (his other obsession -- along with Mel), THEN we watch the Jesus movie.

Me: Addison, we're not going to watch the Jesus movie right now.

His entire countenance falls into a mixture between enraged and despondent.

ADDISON: HOW we going to watch it?

Me: You mean, WHEN are we going to watch it?

ADDISON: HOW we going to watch it? We never EVER get to watch Jesus movie.

so you take that obsession and braid it with the cultural critics' obsession over the Passion -- and you have a very crucifixion centered lent....

weak ties

the other day i was blogging about how my students are all always saying that:

things used to be better than they are now.

and...

today's youth [but fill in your favorite scapegoat] are going to hell in a handbasket.

I've been under the impression for a long time that nostalgia serves a *very* important and useful function -- it helps people to relocate themselves in the social milieu in a way that is not identity threatening.

but i've also been pretty damn sure that its a load of crock. that in fact, things are not getting worse and worse...

(*not* that they're getting better and better, mind you.)

but i bumped into this post the other day where the idea of urban tribes and weak ties is Ethan Watters' way of responding to the kind of generational contempt that has been lavished upon the up-and-coming for as long as "youth" has been a commodified category in the market of media images...

He's suggesting that FRIENDS (*not* the show -- though they're a kind of an urban tribe with fewer-than-the average-number-of-weak-ties) account for milieu of political and social action that more traditional agencies and institutions used to....


These social networks are very hard to see. It's a type of "dark matter": a force that's hard to see but that holds everything together. But they can make a difference: A web of weak acquaintances resulted in the toppling of the Berlin Wall.


....weak ties.....

i love this stuff...

weak ties -- from what i gather here (not enough to know yet) -- Watters is affirming the idea of weak ties in the way that Weick affirms the value of "loose coupling" -- that there is a unique (even emergent) kind of power/resource/ability -- that pools in these kinds of connections, but it's a kind of an inverse power....

...and he goes on to write that we're lacking enough substantial narrative to explain that new way-of-being-in-the-world to ourselves...

i haven't read the book, but i'm intrigued.

i think if you've ever thought:

hmm friends today are what family was fifty years ago for people....

you may enjoy this interview.

peace~

Truth is Overrated....

(the following are characters based loosely upon an actual conversation)

Joe: We're gonna win it all. We're gonna get to the tournament and win everything.

[silence on the van.]

Joe: Well? Andrew ? Whaddya think?

Andrew: I think you've got two of the three principal virtues going on -- faith and hope -- so that seems good.

Ryan: do you really believe that those are the three principal virtues?

Andrew: Um. They're Pauline. The church affirms them. That's my tradition. I guess so.

Ryan: Well it just seems like there might be other virtues.

Andrew stares out the van window at the passing cornfields. Lots of passing cornfields. It's Ohio after all. Ryan interrupts his reverie.

Ryan: What about truth? Shouldn't that be one of the virtues.

Loud anthem-like Rock music fades up in Andrew's head. YEAH, that's the point, Ryan, he thinks. Truth is overrated.

It's not a commandment. It's not a fruit of the spirit. It's not one of the three principal virtues.

Ryan: Or integrity. Shouldn't that be in there.

Exactly, Ryan. Integrity must be understood in the shape of LOVE faith hope patience gentleness humility LOVE.

truth is contextual, relational and communal. And THAT truth is underrated, i'm thinking.

my friend cliff's film Immaterial John just got accepted at the Nashville Film Festival. I've seen it. it's great. cliff's great.

i shot pool with him yesteday and can't wait for the opportunity to make a film with my moviemaking-genius friend...