Starting on Christmas day, little Gwenny decided that she would never again wear anything other than a dress.

New Blog

The new blog is up and running here: De Leporibus et Ranis

This time I'm trying out co-blogging with my cousin, so hopefully that will mean a more active blog, and perhaps an interesting Orthodox/Catholic dynamic.

Endings: Blog Finally

Perhaps it outs one as a geek to say that Battlestar Galactica is the greatest television series of all time, but that does not mean it isn't true. This is not because it is merely great science fiction or because it is "dark and edgy", Caprica had this going for it, yet was entirely uninteresting. Battlestar Galactica is great for the reason that The Brothers Karamazov is great. Both are about life, death, love, sex, betrayal, unrequited love, despair, hope, madness, and faith and doubt - the very visceral ingredients of the human experience.

Some time ago I wrote that my main issue with Marxism was that I found no beauty in it. Eventually I thought this was a rather poor reason for rejecting it and I found I liked the theory and math of Capital, especially as interpreted by Harvey, so I thought I'd take it for a spin. It was something more scientific and rational to grab hold of while doubts about everything swirled around me.

Recently a formerly popular blogger publicly aired his abandonment of Christ for the philosophy of some obscure Marxist, to little response. I am not so much criticizing him as I lament for him. A good friend of mine once told me she believes that any good author, at some level, is writing about faith and doubt, their grappling with the Almighty. I suppose some lose that struggle between faith and doubt.

One would think that death knocking at the door would be the most difficult thing about cancer, but it isn't. What may have been the most difficult was the day I shit my pants and spent a long time weeping on my wife's shoulder, sobbing and soaking her shirt with my tears - that was when I knew life would never be the same, no matter how long I make it. Life has been hard. To be sure, there are many for whom life has been harder, but either way, life became much harder for me than I ever imagined possible. People have told me that this blog pre-leukemia is radically different than after. Though I fought against it and denied it to myself, I was angry - very angry - not at God, per se, but just angry and unhappy in general. I took that anger out on some people who did not deserve my ire, or at least did not deserve it in proportion to that received, and if it was you, dear reader, I am deeply sorry. It was something I had to work through, and I think I am now through it, at least for the most part. I am enjoying life again - difficult circumstances and all.

So, recently I changed my mind on the subject of beauty. It is THE reason. What is it to live a full life? Fullness is in the visceral, the bad and the good, and that is what makes for beauty on this side of death. Faith and doubt, Christ, is all part of that. It's not in some theory of perpetual revolution of the masses, which will never take place, and never really has without the leadership of radical petit bourgeois or, in the case of Paris, the artisans. It's not all bad, a lot of it is right, but it is lacking.

So what to do with this blog? My wife forbade my closing of it. Too many things have changed too fast, she says, and she wants at least these bytes of pixilated memory to remain. I understand where she is coming from. Nevertheless, subject matter has changed too many times. Val, my strength and refuge through the dark times, has given me permission to turn this into a family blog, and so that is what it shall become - pictures of the kids and all that. Over time the other content will go "missing", and some already has.

That does not mean that I intend to stop writing, far from it. I am presently putting together a new site. This time with Wordpress, as I hear that is where all the cool kids have gone. Once I have a little content, I will supply a link for anyone who finds it of interest.

Feast

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First Bad Bass - Mantime

The Jack Johnson cover was playing on the radio during our drive to the lake this morning. It really was quite perfect. The man who did the movie soundtrack for my son's favorite children's character covering one of my favorite bands from high school. Sure the song is really about heroin addiction, but it sounds all aquatic.