On Mortality

I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade tonight with some good friends of mine (movies with people you love is always a good thing, right?).  When we reached the scene near the end where the old guy dies horribly by drinking from the “wrong” grail, I remarked that my mom had said, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust” when we first watched this movie.  That scene gave me nightmares, not because of the scene itself but because after hearing my mother say that, I realized my own mortality for the first time I can remember.  That’s what death is in all it’s ugliness and horror.

My mom, as anyone who has met her would agree, is a kind soul and didn’t say these  words to scare me and probably didn’t even conceive that I would freak out a bit after hearing them in that context.  So I don’t want to paint her as a horrible person who scares children.  But ahouseholdkate and eclectic nerdery both agreed that I needed to post this story, particularly as it is Lent and this is a time we can use to reflect on mortality.

So when did you first realize that you would one day die?  How did it happen?  Has it happened yet?

I’d like to get this part of my life back, please

I just finished watching The Pursuit of Happyness. If you don’t want to be spoiled, stop reading. If you don’t care, click on.

A Good Kind of Dull Ache

Like the good kind of ache you can feel after a long hike or a day’s worth of satisfyingly productive manual labor, Terabithia has been working it’s way through my mind all day long.

I’ve started thinking about what I see that gets in the way of what is there. For the children in the story, it was what the mind could see that was important. That’s where the magic happened and bent the bounds of reality while still being real.

I’m going to a place this weekend named for a place of healing in the Arthurian Legend. I’m not staying in the city of Avalon, but close enough (we’ll stop there for a time Friday afternoon, good enough for me). But despite the history of the word, we don’t see a city of healers or anything else that ever bore that name. It’s a small town that some call home and others think of as a stopping point on the way to other things. Some find rest there and healing after different fashions, but does anyone see it as an Otherworld? What is there, I wonder, that we don’t see because our eyes are in the way, closing our mind to something else?

What is here? Redlands. Most of us know why it’s called that (the dirt is red, kind of), but what happens when we look beyond the history to what could be. What fables and myths are waiting to be discovered and told anew to those with an open mind to see a reality that may not be completely real, but is beautiful and full of depth and experience? What stained the earth red here so long ago?

I’m not talking about an escape. I think the story in Terabithia was good about not making the magical land a place to escape the real world, but to see it differently and so understand it better. Jess learns to help others and look beneath the surface of the bully girl to see someone very much like himself just as the troll in Terabithia surprises him by being something child-like and human: ticklish.

What do we find when we close our eyes for a moment and open our minds to other possibilities? What lies waiting for us to create in the hidden corners and folds of reality? I wonder, and the wondering feels good.

Terabithia

I just watched Bridge to Terabithia. Definitely worth the time, but now I’m wondering where my imagination went.

Fire

The Machine is Us

I better it’s even more mind-blowing with beer.

PS3 Song

Take music from The Fray, a console war, and people with too much time on their hands.  Mix together and you get something funny enough that non-gamers probably get this.

[via Joystiq]

I’m About To

Start with a dad singing a song to his daughter after she had a bad day.  The daughter (or someone) posts the song on the web.  A video podcaster picks up the song and asks for remixes from his fans while they also search for the dad to ask him if they can remix it.  Then he asks for a music video from his fas.  Then he sends the music video to the dad.

The Internet is grand.

Here’s the video.

[Not Safe for Work if you work in a place where a minor swear word that's all over television isn't allowed.]

Bad Movies

I can honestly say I haven’t seen any of these movies, though I’ve heard of them.  Particularly Plan 9.  I’m not sure where I heard that one, though.

Makes me want to get my hands on some MST3K.