oblations
Writings & Readings
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Monday, March 18, 2024
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Sunday, January 28, 2024
Friday, January 26, 2024
tom waits | radio
When I listen to old field recordings, maybe you’ll hear a dog barking way off in the background. You realize the house it was recorded in is torn down, the dog is dead, the tape recorder is broken, the guy who made the recording died in Texas, the car out front has four flat tires, even the dirt that the house sat on is gone—probably a parking lot—but we still have this song. Takes me out when I listen to those old recordings. I put on my stuff in the house, which is always those old Alan Lomax recordings.
When I was first trying to decide what I wanted to do, I listened to Bob Dylan and James Brown. Those were my heroes. I listened to Wolfman Jack every night. The mighty ten-ninety. Fifty thousand watts of soul power. My dad was a radio technician during the war, and when he left the family when I was about eleven, I had this whole radio fascination. And he used to keep catalogues, and I used to build my own crystal set, and put the aerial up on the roof. And I remember making a radio on my first crystal set, and the first station I got on these little two-dollar headphones was Wolfman. And I thought I had discovered something that no one else had. I thought it was comin' in from Kansas City or Omaha, that nobody was getting this station, and nobody knew who this guy was, and nobody knew who these records were. I'd tapped into some bunker, or he was broadcasting from some rest stop on a highway thousands of miles from here, and it's only for me. He was actually broadcasting from San Ysidro near the border. What I really wanted to figure out is how do you come out of the radio yourself.
Photos for MAGNET by Christian Lantry
Wednesday, December 20, 2023
Index: Christmas Readings
Tim Anderson | Ivory in the Desert
Tim Anderson | Loneliness Can Be Contagious
Connie Braun | A Christmas Gift from the Sea
Frederick Buechner | The Annunciation
Frederick Buechner | Emmanuel
Frederick Buechner | The Face in the Sky
Frederick Buechner | Gabriel
Robert Farrar Capon | Advent
Robert Farrar Capon | Better Watch Out
Robert Farrar Capon | Naughty or Nice
Truman Capote | A Christmas Memory
Tom Carson | Snow Angel
Nicola Colhoun | Creche
John F. Deane | Driving To Midnight Mass in Dublin on Christmas Eve
Annie Dillard | Feast Days
Annie Dillard | God in the Doorway
Dina Donohue | No Room
Craig Erickson | Christmas Rant
Lawrence Ferlinghetti | Christ Climbed Down
Paul Flucke | The Secret of the Gifts
Steven Garber | Always Winter, Never Christmas
Rev. J.M. Gates | Death Might Be Your Santa Claus
William Gibson | Butterfingers Angel
Lorenz Graham | Every Man Heart Lay Down
Wayne Harrel | The Camels of Ancient Yore
Rory Holland | Frail Humanity
Rory Holland | Nativity
Garrison Keillor | The Seven Principles of a Successful Christmas
Ron Klug | Joseph's Lullaby
David Kossoff | Seth
David Kossoff | Shem
Rudi Krause | one way
Rudi Krause | unforeseen
Madeleine L'Engle | O Sapientia
Madeleine L'Engle | The Tree
Peter La Grand | Christmas Memory
Mike Mason | Three Fools
mehgyver | thanks everyone
William Nicholoson | Christmas Drinks Party
Lance Odegard | Impossible Dream
Richard Osler | Advent Poems 2006
Richard Osler | Afterwards
Karl Petersen | Joseph's Night Watch
Ron Reed | Clay
Ron Reed | It's a Wonderful Life
Sheila Rosen | No Safe Place
Mike Royko | Pretty Well Picked Over
Luci Shaw | Advent III
Luci Shaw | December
Luci Shaw | Madonna and Child, with Saints
Luci Shaw | Mary Considers Her Situation
Luci Shaw | Presents
Sufjan Stevens | Christmas Tube Socks
Richard Tillinghast | One Night in Galilee
david waltner-toews | if he were born today: christmas 1974
winter night in palestine
clean and cold as polished steel
arabs rest their sheep
among rocks and thistles
like a patch of scruffy spring snow
on the hillside
somewhere behind them
in a desert cave
a small fire holds the vengeant night
at bay
men and women commune with clammy handshakes
and guns: the bread of death
below the shepherds
Israeli soldiers patrol the occupied city
stop to fidget at a small bar--
a sign at the city gate reads:
all arabs must register
with the military authorities
in the city of their birth
the shepherds, remembering the sign
joke about it;
they were born in tents
they do not leave their sheep
suddenly a rocket
sleek as a sacrificial blade
splits the belly of silence above them
exploding, shrieking into the streets below;
the streets answer with gunfire rattle
boots running on concrete
trucks
searchlights against the hills
the shepherds huddle behind a rock
their sheep are bleating, bleating
more rattle of guns
the bleating stops
lights out, motors choke into silence
boots stomp back to the bar
nervous laughter curls up like smoke
incense to the unspeaking
mask of night
down a cobbled alley
from the bar
in a small lean-to
anxious, calloused hands
are pushing some goats away
from their manger
nearby, on a bed of dirty straw
a palestinian woman groans
pushing with all her prayerful might
against the pain in her belly
bill bunn | away from the manger
At the beginning of December, when we decorated the house for Christmas, we set up the new manger scene. But we had forgotten about the democracy of toys. In this republic, all toys – regardless of symbolic value – are created equal. And any toy may interact with any other, depending only on the elasticity of the operator’s imagination.
Understandably, Christ and cast were popular. Everyone seemed to want him around. Christ would not stay put.
The baby Jesus ended up visiting with our Lego populace. He frequented the company of stuffed animals, despite the immense difference in scale. Another time, I found Jesus stuffed into the chimney of a dollhouse. He was helping his brother, Santa, the kids explained. I found him driving the Barbie Corvette with Barbie, down at the end of the hall.
The rest of the cast took their cue from the baby. I saw a wise man and the donkey, helping a farmer drive a tractor in a castle. I found Mary and another wise man helping a set of Lego firemen rescue animals and medieval soldiers from a train wreck. It was as if the manger was only a pose, like a picture taken at a party that the stable cast would strike for a moment, a starting point from which they would begin.
Then, Jesus lost his head. One of our children or one of his or her friends had broken the head off the plastic Jesus. He was a toy, and the heads of toys are often removable. A child had tried removing it but ended up breaking it.
In our hearts we were deeply disturbed. It was okay for Barbie to lose her head, or Ken to lose his, but not the Christ child. Who would do such a thing? Why not one of the shepherds? Why not Joseph? But the body was found headless, the plastic neck snapped.
We searched for the head in the big Lego tub. In the toy boxes in people's rooms. In drawers and under beds. No head.
Who had beheaded the Christ child? This was a deliberate act. So began our crusade.
"Who took Jesus' head?" we asked, and we heard silence. We asked the question in many different ways: calmly, urgently, sadly, happily, indifferently and with deep concern. Nothing. Or rather, everything.
Elise thought she saw it in various places throughout the house
(that made us suspect her).
May insisted she hadn’t done anything
(which made us suspect her).
Ezra got tired of us asking the question and confessed
(which made us conclude it was him),
but then his story wouldn’t hold
(which made us suspect him).
Each one carried shades of unshakable guilt. Linda and I, too, felt pangs of guilt. Maybe they hadn’t broken it. Maybe they were all telling the truth. The inquisition ended in failure.
We phoned the manufacturers and asked them to ship a new Jesus. They could make no guarantees, but we hoped that his arrival might happen before Christmas.
In the meantime, the headless Jesus was too much to look at, so my wife crazy-glued the head of a Lego person on his shoulders. The sunglassed eyes of the Lego head looked far too smug to sit on Christ's shoulders, and the head would accept different hats or helmets, all of which seemed blasphemous, but it was much better than a headless baby.
Many years earlier, Linda and I had travelled to Rome, to the Sistine Chapel, to see Michelangelo’s frescoes. I remember staring up at the roof, considering, with the rest of the mob, the space between God’s and Adam’s hands. What could that gap mean? What was Michelangelo’s thought? I think it was a practical consideration. If the two hands had touched, things would have become weird – Michelangelo’s deity might not have stayed put.
The new Jesus arrived in a small box a few days before Christmas. Was this the Advent or the Second Coming? Once out of the packaging, he was more popular than ever. Despite our sternest warnings, he consorted regularly with all toys, regardless of their shape and size, regardless of where they were made. He obviously wasn’t going to stay in the manger, though the picture on the box suggested this might happen.
It's time to set up our nativity scene again. I arrange the figurines on the coffee table, according to the picture on the box. As I lay Christ into his moulded manger, I realize he won't be here long. Within minutes, the last place I'll find him is in the manger. For in our house, God can be touched, so there's no telling where he might end up.
richard tillinghast | one night in galilee
richard waller | an engineer's christmas
mehgyver | thanks everyone
Tuesday, December 19, 2023
christmas presence | set list, mon dec 18
richard tillinghast | one night in galilee
Monday, December 18, 2023
twyla tharp | on generosity
christmas presence | set list, sun dec 17
heids macdonald | there's room
Sunday, December 17, 2023
david waltner-toews | if he were born today: christmas, 1974
Wednesday, December 06, 2023
Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Thursday, October 05, 2023
Tuesday, August 08, 2023
Sunday, July 30, 2023
Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Thursday, July 13, 2023
gary nay | vancouver paintings
sunday services
the beach store
border town
Wednesday, July 05, 2023
Saturday, July 01, 2023
ron reed | canada day in steveston
All the mixed feelings.
So Canadian. Mostly Chinese families, waving Canada flags and dressed in Canada T-shirts and Canada hats. South Asians in their teens and twenties with their dates. A few white folk, sprinkled in for contrast. A Japanese woman, gorgeous in a black kimono.Food trucks and tents from everywhere. Baba's House Polish sausages and pyrogies. Another truck with Greek and Mexican food. The Namaste Indian food truck, Persian saffron ice cream from Cazba Restaurant, pancake breakfast for Ukrainian relief, southern barbecue, grilled cheese. Salmon from British Columbia. And Japadogs and Teriaki Boys. A world's worth of food arrayed in the Japanese Cultural Centre parking lot.
The kimono woman conjured for me the memory of Steveston's fishermen, and their families who worked the cannery, rounded up after Pearl Harbor and interred far inland, far from the sea, far from the homes they could never return to. A friend once wrote a poem about the graduating class photos that lined the halls of his alma mater, Steveston High. Year after year, so many Japanese faces. Until the class of 1942.
Canada Day. I've always been wary of patriotism, which makes me as Canadian as a Canadian can be. All the more so in recent years, and much more since May 2021, thinking of the people who lived here before we showed up and shoved them aside, and worse. I was sad not to see any of those folks there in Steveston on Canada Day, Musqueam or Tsawwassen or Kwantlen people. Maybe they were there, I didn't see everybody. But maybe not. There would be more than enough reasons for that.
There was "a police presence," very Canadian cops strolling the streets, smiling, nodding to the people. I didn't see any guns. The Sikh officer with the beard, some other guys, a few policewomen, standing around in the shade of a tree having what I guess was a cop coffee break? Double doubles all round? Like the Boston Red Sox infield converging on the pitcher's mound in the bottom of the eighth clinging to a one-run lead with two Blue Jays on base, but much more relaxed. (Don't talk about the ballgame.)
A block down Moncton Street, kids gathered around a fancy cop car, a couple officers showing off all the gadgets. A few blocks north of beautiful downtown Steveston, one solitary guy patrolled the residential streets, writing enough parking tickets to offset most of the extra police department expenses for the day.
My daughter's American friend asked asked if Canada Day celebrates the day we defeated the British. I thought that was charming. As Katie said, "a very American question." In more than one way. I responded that, no, it celebrates the day we defeated the Americans! (Red Sox - Blue Jays notwithstanding.)
But I was only joshing. That wouldn't be July 1, it would be August 16. Or August 24, though we really don't get to claim that one. Or October 13. All things considered, 1812 was a bad year for south-of-the-border dudes who picked fights with Canadians. But we've mostly gotten along since then. (We won't talk about the Women's Hockey...) (Which, by the way, was called "ice hockey" on a little quiz I saw today, a test to determine How Canadian You Are. Demonstrating that the quiz was cobbled together by a Yank. ICE hockey? There's not a Canadian alive who calls it ICE hockey. That's like saying "water swimming." Jeez.)
(And also by the way, I must note that the test rated me as only 75% Canadian, because I scored only 18 out of 24 - an honest and self-deprecating admission which identifies me unequivocally as 100% Canadian, regardless of whether I've had a double double or been up the CN Tower. And the CN Tower, I must point out, is in TORONTO, which every Canadian in the rest of the country knows is NOT in fact a part of Canada. So the test was totally bogus.)
Apart from Aaron Wong's Elvis tribute, all the musicians I happened to hear today who weren't in the Steveston High School band were as white as I am, and at least as old. Probably singing their folk songs and playing their jazz in Vancouver parks and on Kitsilano coffee house stages half a century ago, long hair and bellbottoms, when they were the revolution. Now they just look like Old White Folks. Just like me. What we used to call "The Establishment." One fellow dated himself by mentioning Bobby Gimby's Centennial ditty, "Ca-na-da..." but it didn't sound like anybody in the crowd besides me had any idea what he was talking about. "Now we are twenty million..." Or the three white guys in the quiet little garden by the Steveston Museum - hey, the fiddler couldn't have been much more than thirty, a kid! - who played Irish tunes on Uillean pipes and the bodhran, and sang the tragedy of the Irish people, centuries of genocide and enforced famine and exile, and I thought, we really don't treat each other very well.
But everybody was treating each other just fine today in Steveston. There was plenty of food to go around, which helps, and nobody was at war with anybody, not here, not right now, anyhow. Bygones were, apparently, bygones. So Canadian.
Tonight, fireworks bursting in the night air. Which won't remind most Canadians of bombs, or rockets' red glare, won't be mistaken for gunfire. Unless they immigrated from Ukraine in the past year or so, or from a major American city almost any time, or served in the Canadian forces to "keep the peace" overseas somewhere, sometime.
All the mixed feelings.
sharon singleton | the dock-sitters
walked out on stiff legs
twelve to fifteen feet away
from the weedy shore,
one board after another
reaching outward, drawing
your gaze across the unblinking
eye of the lake whose color
deepens further out, to sit
on this dock which seems
to want to hold you, even
rock you a little, to dangle
your feet, whiter in the green
cool water, to gaze down
into that silent world where
minnows eddy around
your toes, where sand
has agreed to be shaped
by ripples of water,
where reeds and water lilies
witness to you as that
which endures. To look out
on that lake, as birds dip low,
as quiet men in boats peer
into the depths, cast
their lines searching for
what is shadowy, elusive;
to lie back on gray, splintery
sun-warmed boards
in the silence of light—
is to allow that tight band
constricting your breath
to loosen, is to quench
your dire thirst for
the present. To sit
on such a dock is one
of the forgotten beatitudes—
blessed are the dock-sitters,
for they shall soon feel
shriven, their humor restored
and their pant legs
cool and damp.
Sharron Singleton
Wednesday, June 28, 2023
my movie montages
I love the movies. And I like making things. So I spend a lot of time making movies out of the movies. Here are links to some of my ongoing montage projects. (Note: They're always best with headphones, or good speakers. The bigger the screen the better.)