Photos: Christmas Lights

Brad Bird, "The work of a critic is easy"

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new...

Food critic Anton Ego, in Brad Bird's "Ratatouille"

S'Mores Nativity Set

S'MORES NATIVITY SET OF 4
SM-617830
$15.95

This four-piece S'mores nativity set includes S'more Mary wearing a blue head piece with her arms outstretched welcoming the new S'more King lying in the manger. Joseph stands back observing the scene before him traditionally dressed in a green head piece and holding his staff. The 5.5” S'mores nativity crèche makes a magnificent backdrop for this display. This set of S'mores collectibles by Midwest of Cannon Falls is a unique way to remember the reason for the season.

Available at Santa's Depot

Photos: Vancouver

Near Pacific Theatre

Downtown

Photos: Fairhaven (later)

Chrysalis Inn

Colophon Cafe

Outside the bookstore

Photos: Fairhaven (morning)

Richard Osler, "Afterwards"

Mystery. Paraclete. God’s particular dance with the ordinary.
Usually, in the great 15th century paintings, shown as the dove.
You have to look up to see it, above the angel. Mary, sees only
the angel, holds fast the gaze of the extraordinary. It’s love,

the lover that hovers high. Waiting. Does it know the answer
she will give to the angel? Can it read already the intricacies
of the human heart? Or does it have to wait to hear from her?
Each wing beat a forever until she said “Let it be.” Afterwards

the world resumed its normal orbit – there, for a hearts beat,
it had tilted closer to the sun – the moon had wavered. All of
the old loyalties had felt the shudder, felt the blow in the feet
and up to the belly. No one divined the nature of the disturbance

but her. The one whose belly now housed the Word, a universe.
This world, now different , the Spirit, taken, made utterly human.
Word translated in a womb to the language we would dismiss or
read as truly fantastic, thrum of miracle in the blood of a woman.

Richard Osler
Advent I
December 2nd, 2007

Frederic Buechner, "The Face in The Sky"

As the Italian film LA DOLCE VITA opens, a helicopter is flying slowly through the sky not very high above the ground. Hanging down from the helicopter in a kind of halter is the life-size statue of a man dressed in robes with his arms outstretched so that he looks almost as if he is flying by himself, especially when every once in a while the camera cuts out the helicopter and all you can see is the statue itself with the rope around it. It flies over a field where some men are working in tractors and causes a great deal of excitement. They wave their hats and hop around and yell, and then one of them recognizes who it is a statue of and shouts in Italian, "Hey, it's Jesus!" whereupon some of them start running along under the plane, waving and calling to it.

But the helicopter keeps on going, and after a while it reaches the outskirts of Rome, where it passes over a building on the roof of which there is a swimming pool surrounded by a number of girls in bikinis basking in the sun. Of course they look up too and start waving, and this time the helicopter does a double take as the young men flying it get a good look at the girls and come circling back again to hover over the pool where, above the roar of the engine, they try to get the girls' telephone numbers, explaining that they are taking the statue to the Vatican and will be only too happy to return as soon as their mission is accomplished.

During all of this the reaction of the audience in the little college town where I saw the film was of course to laugh at the incongruity of the whole thing. There was the sacred statue dangling from the sky, on the one hand, and the profane young Italians and the bosomy young bathing beauties on the other hand – the one made of stone, so remote, so out of place there in the sky on the end of its rope; the others made of flesh, so bursting with life. Nobody in the audience was in any doubt as to which of the two came out ahead or at whose expense the laughter was.

But then the helicopter continues on its way, and the great dome of St. Peter's looms up from below, and for the first time the camera starts to zoom in on the statue itself with its arms stretched out, until for a moment the screen is almost filled with just the bearded face of Christ – and at that moment there was no laughter at all in that theater full of students and their dates and paper cups full of buttery popcorn and La Dolce Vita college-style. Nobody laughed during that moment because there was something about that face, for a few seconds there on the screen, that made them be silent – the face hovering there in the sky and the outspread arms. For a moment, not very long to be sure, there was no sound, as if the face were their face somehow, their secret face that they had never seen before but that they knew belonged to them, or the face that they had never seen before but that they knew, if only for a moment, they belonged to.

I think that is much of what the Christian faith is. It is for a moment, just for a little while, seeing the face and being still; that is all. Just for the moment itself, say, of Christmas, there can be only silence as something comes to life, some spirit, some hope; as something is born again into the world that is so strange and new and precious that not even a cynic can laugh although he might be tempted to weep.

The face in the sky. The child born in the night among beasts. The sweet breath and steaming dung of beasts. And nothing is ever the same again.

*

Nothing is ever quite the same again, because what we have seen and heard in that moment of stillness is, just possibly, possibly, the hope of the world. And what we feel in our hearts as we wave – maybe only with one hand, a little wave, not very certain but with his name on our lips – is the stirring of a new life, new courage, new gladness seeking to be born in us even as he is born, if only we too will stretch out our arms to those arms and raise our empty faces to that bewildering face.

Wayne Harrel, "The Camels Of Ancient Yore (As told by a forgetful Grandmother, c1600)"

And now, a story, if memory will me serve:
When, in ancient times, that brilliant star
o'er Bethlehem arose, three wise men marked
its strange ascent. This trio of sagacity
was named, as you well know, Franklin, Kent and Myrrh.
Nay, nay, Peter, James and John.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego?
Faith, it matters not what names they held.
But being wise, and also hailing from the east,
they straightway journeyed west to find the bright
star's source. Or was it from the west they straightway
journeyed east? The scriptures speak of east,
but from the east or toward the east? Faith,
they passed 'twixt north and south, of that I'm sure.
And as they padded through the night upon
their sturdy beasts, the cows of ancient yore--
--camels...camels of ancient yore, the men discussed
among themselves what gift the king of kings
might grant. Not want, mind you, but grant.
And being men of great wisdom,
you might suspect their wishes to be wiser
far than ours. But wishes are a puzzling
thing, for when a man may have the world
he'll sometimes choose a fig. And so it was
with these, I'm sad to say. The first wise man,
suffering a cold, wished that his mortal frame
would never more be chilled. That was his wish,
complete. The second man, a wealthy lord,
desired sufficient wealth to never fear
for ruin. The third wise man, a grandfather,
prayed for a home where loved ones ne'er were lost.
Those were their wishes, complete.
But while the third man's wish
still hung upon the air, the camels stopped
and shook their shaggy chins. Then one by one
each brute inclined his head and spoke to his
own master thus.
Said the first, that is, the third:
You seek a home where loved ones ne'er were lost?
How if the king should grant thy wish by giving
thee a life alone, with loved ones ne'er
to lose? What then?
Said the second:
And you would gain sufficient wealth to never
suffer ruin? How if the king should grant
thy wish by making thee a pauper?
Ruin they fear not.
Then said the third, who was the first:
And you, you who would have a perfect frame
that never felt a chill - one man I know
feels no such pain, now that he is a corpse.
My apologies, but camels always speak
their mind, without gentility.
Did the wise men wish again?
Nay. Wisdom, they agreed, could not be found
in camels. And so straight on they travelled toward
the star, debating which request was worthiest
'til Bethlehem, a stabled inn, and last,
the Christ child they did see. But when the Prince
of Peace their eyes beheld, a change swept over
them. All wishes sped away, and in
their place, a simple prayer - to ne'er forget
the Savior's face. A prayer the tiny king did grant.

Luci Shaw, "Madonna and Child, with Saints"

Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), Uffizi Museum, Firenze

Jesus looking like a real baby, not
a bony homunculus, solemn and all-knowing.
The quill in the hand of his newly minted mother
stretches toward the bottle of ink a beautiful boy saint
is holding out. He has waited for centuries for her
to write in a book the next words of her own Magnificat,
for the Gospel of St. Luke, and for us to sing in church.
Two other youths try to lower a crown onto her head.
It is too large for her, and they've held it there for so long,
but she seems bored with royalty, eyes only for
her son, and his for her. In her left hand, as she
supports the child, she holds a pomegranate
under his fingers for him to pluck, its red leather skin
peeled back to expose its packed rubies.
Centuries later the paint and the fruit are fresh
and tart as ever, glowing like blood cells.

I wonder about sound in the room - small talk among
the impossibly adolescent saints. Mary talking baby talk,
perhaps, or singing as if she has swallowed a linnet -
Mary with the pale green voice, nothing coloratura,
more like grapes glowing from a low trellis.
In the moist Italian twilight, a cricket is likely to be sawing
like the sawing of cedar boards in the work room just outside
the painting's frame - Joseph laboring on a baby bed.

But there isn't a bird or an insect. There is just this lovely girl,
waking to motherhood, humming, content, in this
moment in time, to be God's mother, to hold Jesus,
when he cries to her leaking breast.

As Botticelli lifts with his skilled hand a fine brush
to add the next word to her song, we look with him
through the lens of his devotion, into this ornate room.
He paints love pouring through her skin like light,
her eyes resting on the child as though
he is all there is, as though her knowing will never
be complete. Right from the beginning
"How can this be?" circles her mind with its echo.

Madeleine L'Engle, "The Tree"

The children say the tree must reach the ceiling,
And so it does, angel on topmost branch,
Candy canes and golden globes and silver chains,
Trumpets that toot, and birds with feathered tails.
Each year we say, each year we fully mean:
"This is the loveliest tree of all." This tree
Bedecked with love and tinsel reaches heaven.
A pagan throwback may have brought it here
Into our room, and yet these decked-out boughs
Can represent those other trees, the one
Through which we fell in pride, when Eve forgot
That freedom is man's freedom to obey
And to adore, not to replace the light
With disobedient darkness and self-will.
On Twelfth Night when we strip the tree
And see its branches bare and winter cold
Outside the comfortable room, the tree
Is then the tree on which all darkness hanged,
Completing the betrayal that began
With that first stolen fruit. And then, O God,
This is the tree that Simon bore uphill,
This is the tree that held all love and life.
Forgive us, Lord, forgive us for that tree.
But now, still decked, adorned, in joy arrayed
For these gread days of Christmas thanks and song,
This is the tree that lights our faltering way,
For when man's first and proud rebellious act
Had reached its nadir on that hill of skulls
These shining, glimmering boughs remind us that
The knowledge that we stole was freely given
And we were sent the Spirit's radiant strength
That we might know all things. We grasp for truth
And lose it till it comes to us by love.
The glory of Lebanon shines on this Christmas tree,
The tree of life that opens wide the gates.
The children say the tree must reach the ceiling,
And so it does: for me the tree has grown so high
It pierces through the vast and star-filled sky.

from "A Widening Light: Poems of the Incarnation"
Luci Shaw, editor

Photos: Jericho Arts Centre

Live Theatre

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.
Thornton Wilder

When you come into the theater, you have to be willing to say, "We're all here to undergo a communion, to find out what the hell is going on in this world." If you're not willing to say that, what you get is entertainment instead of art, and poor entertainment at that.
David Mamet, Three Uses of the Knife

The drama is not dead but liveth, and contains the germs of better things.
William Archer, About the Theatre

Our art is the finest, the noblest, the most suggestive, for it is the synthesis of all the arts. Sculpture, painting, literature, elocution, architecture, and music are its natural tools. But while it needs all of those artistic manifestations in order to be its whole self, it asks of its priest or priestess one indispensable virtue: faith.
Sarah Bernhardt

The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also the return of art to life.
Oscar Wilde

What I want to give in the theatre is beauty, that’s what I want to give.
Dame Edith Evans

What matters poverty? What matters anything to him who is enamoured of our art? Does he not carry in himself every joy and every beauty?
Sarah Bernhardt

By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.
Arthur Miller

The pit of a theatre is the one place where the tears of virtuous and wicked men alike are mingled.
Denis Diderot

Since people no longer attend church, theater remains as the only public service, and literature as the only private devotion.
Franz Grillparzer

The fact that there is always more in a work of art - which is the highest result of the embodying imagination - than the producer himself perceived while he produced it, seems to us a strong reason for attributing to it a larger origin than the man alone - for saying at the last, that the inspiration of the Almighty shaped its ends.
George MacDonald, The Imagination: Its Functions and Culture

Lilia: I like to act in plays.
Octavia: Isn't that selfish?
Lilia: I think God likes me to act in plays.
Octavia: But why? To what end?
Lilia: I don't know.
Ron Reed, A Bright Particular Star

Photos: Snow

Fifth Avenue Cinema

Granville Street

back yard

Photos: Snow

Photos: Richmond

Photos: Steveston

Photos: St. Louis

Photos: Tarp, Awnings, Dan & Morris

Donald Hall, "Ambition"

Donald Hall, acclaimed American poet, when asked at a literature conference what place success and ambition had in his life, responded, “Success? Forget about it. If I have any ambition it is for my work, not for myself.” His conviction is that an artist’s or writer’s life work is to communicate insight, experience, wisdom and truth through the written or unwritten word, rather than to seek personal acclaim or fame.
- Luci Shaw

Photos: Finn Slough

Photos: Richmond pumpkin field