Sunday Funnies, Olympics Edition

Did you watch the Olympics opening ceremonies? Because if you didn't, this might not make any sense:

A MadPriest masterpiece

Watch this video for context. Or just to relive the moment.

Various & Sundry: Annoyances and Olympians

I have about an hour or so before the Olympic Opening Ceremony to fling a whole bunch of mostly non-Olympic-related links and stuff at you. Let's get cracking!

Top of the list: The charming Tim Schenck has started yet another new blog project with 10 Things That Annoy Me, a satisfying little offering to which you can add your own list of 10. Mine is here. It was frighteningly easy to develop.

You know what annoys some people? The notion that "they didn't build that." I liked this article by David Frum about why this rankles people so much. His conclusion:

the president is still delivering the shocking news, as unwelcome today as it was when first propounded, that:

the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

To be sure, other politicians have declared that "life is unfair." But that instruction is usually directed to society's losers. Obama is—almost uniquely—directing the message to society's winners, including the very grand winner who will soon be nominated to run for president against him. They're not used to it, and they don't like it, not one bit.

Meanwhile, to protest the Boy Scouts of America's continued policy of excluding gays from its ranks, a number of Eagle Scouts have started returning their medals along with letters of protest. You can read many of them here. And here's one example:

Meanwhile, PeaceBang delivered a barn-burner of a rant on her blog about the completely erroneous assumptions we make when newcomers appear in our churches of a Sunday morning. Here is a sampling:

People do not attend a church service because they are interested in joining a church. They attend a church service because they are looking for something deep. They are seeking. They are searching. They are in need.  [jump]

I believe that if today’s seekers do not immediately experience a church community as a group of people who take spiritual questions seriously, they will not return. And why should they? Because we’re cool? Because we march in the right parades and support social justice causes? Because we agree with them that the Catholic Church/Bible Belt is hopelessly corrupt, and we’re willing to stand around and mock the religious right in the most spiteful language at our gatherings?

Oh, preach on, sister! And she does. I hope you churchy types will take the time to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest that one as well as the follow-up.

Finally, to bring us back to the real reason we are here today: The Olympics obituaries, I loved this one about Olympic swimmer, Ann Curtis, "who was widely regarded as one of the greatest female swimmers, winning 2 Olympic gold medals in 1948 [in London!] and 34 United States championships, died on June 26 at her home in San Rafael, Calif. She was 86."

Hers is a great story of hard work, overcoming adversity, and going against common wisdom. She also displayed a touching, almost ridiculous, modesty about her achievements. Her children only learned that she had been in the Olympics from other people. She and her husband managed a swimming pool in San Rafael until she was in her '70's. She kept swimming, as you might guess, but perhaps not as much as you think. The obit ends,

At 50, Curtis won five gold medals in the United States masters championships. She seemed unimpressed.

“My times were terrible,” she said. “I did a complete turnaround and took up tennis.”

I suspect she was good at tennis too.

And now: Let the games begin!

Review: Moonrise Kingdom

Last Saturday, I went to see Wes Anderson's new movie Moonrise Kingdom, and I'm still mulling it over.

If you like Wes Anderson movies, then you will like Moonrise Kingdom. If you do not like Wes Anderson movies, well, this is a Wes Anderson movie. If you don't know what a Wes Anderson movie is and wonder if you will like it or not, then here are some things to know.

In my opinion, Wes Anderson does sweet melancholy better than anyone in movies. His characters often seem disconnected from one another as they try to work out some secret sorrow. One of the things I liked about this movie is that our young heroes, Sam and Suzy, decide to support one another, decide that sharing the sorrow makes it more bearable. And in doing so, they break open the secrets of the characters around them. By the end of the movie, those secret sorrows that kept people apart have been to a great extent ameliorated as they make new and unexpected connections.

The point of view is fascinating. Clearly, the film shows us things the adults are doing and saying that the young protagonists cannot see, but I still get the sense throughout that the film is told from the point of view of the protagonists, an adolescent's perspective on adult behavior and motivation. The police chief is known only as "Captain Sharp." The scoutmaster is "Scoutmaster Ward." The social worker is "Social Services." They are known by function not name, the way as a kid you never know the name of your first-grade teacher.

As with many of Anderson's films, the young people in it are trying to piece together from the people around them how to be an adult, and the adults aren't really helping all that much. Actually, the adults are trying to figure it out, too.

As I think about it, this illuminates one of the things I loved about the movie: the constant return of the musical theme and composition The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten. Here's a piece designed to make sense of the "adult" world of classical music by breaking it into smaller pieces and explaining it section by section, then putting it all back together again in a new way. Which is pretty much what the movie does.

A couple more things to note: the movie is very stylized, no doubt. It makes the acting seem quite stiff when you're used to a more naturalized style. The standout in the movie--well, the standouts are the young leads, who are phenomenal--but among the big names in the movie, the standout is Bruce Willis who seems completely at home on the Island of New Penzance, like he's lived there all his life.

Sunday Funnies, July 22 *bonus cow edition!*

From my Twitter feed. Because it's too good not to share.  And what's not to like about cows?

Sunday Funnies, July 22 (and a half-assed review of I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron)

I finished Nora Ephron's book I Remember Nothing yesterday and it was wonderful. So charming. Such a fun read. Rather poignantly ends with some reflections upon mortality. I encourage you to read it.

And as a teaser, here is her reflection

Twenty-five Things People Have a Shocking Capacity to Be Surprised by Over and Over Again

1. Journalists sometimes make things up.
2. Journalists sometimes get things wrong.
3. Almost all books that are published as memoirs were initially written as novels, and then the agent/editor said, This might work better as a memoir.
4. Beautiful young women sometimes marry ugly, old rich men.
5. In business, there is no such thing as synergy in the good sense of the term.
6. Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.
7. Nothing written in today's sports pages makes sense to anyone who didn't read yesterday's sports pages.
8. There is no explaining the stock market but people try.
9. The Democrats are deeply disappointing.
10. Movies have no political effect whatsoever.
11. Men cheat.
12. A lot of people take the Bible literally.
13. Pornography is the opiate of the masses.
14. You can never know the truth of anyone's marriage, including your own.
15. People actually sign prenuptial agreements.
16. Mary Matalin and James Carville are married.
17. Bagels don't taste as good as they used to.
18. Everybody lies.
19. The reason it's important for a Democrat to be president is the Supreme Court.
20. Howard Stern is apparently very nice in person.
21. In Manhattan a small one-bedroom apartment that needs work costs $1 million.
22. People look like their dogs.
23. Cary Grant was Jewish.
24. Cary Grant wasn't Jewish.
25. Larry King has never read a book.

Various & Sundry, July 20

Interesting day today with lots of good conversations. The one that surprised me most, though, was the conversation I had on Twitter with someone I don't know personally who tweeted,"The only people who murder others with guns are those that already break the law. This is why gun control is not a solution. Very simple." It was one of those, "Are you seeing the world I'm seeing?" moments and I'm afraid I let my knee-jerk reactions get the best of me. Went a couple rounds based on my initial position and then, you know, actually decided to do a little research.

What I found, looking into it a titch more, is, boy, the numbers will let you argue whatever way you want. There's nothing I can even link to because the issue is so clouded that I have no idea what's a trustworthy source. One thing I found that challenges my starting point without seeming nut-jobby was this editorial, written after the Virginia Tech shooting. I can't say I like his conclusions (much preferring something that reinforces my original opinion), but it raises the question, What can we do to make our society and our particular culture as a whole less violent?

At any rate, my prayers are with the victims of the shootings in Aurora, their families and loved ones, and the shooter himself.

So let's talk about tea, shall we? Yes, let's. Because we have three tea-related items to share this week.

First, there's this gizmo that's a teapot with a timer built in. "No unnecessary bells or whistles (let alone a power cord) are needed for this elegantly simple tea timer-and-steeper to do its job. Just pour, screw, tip and wait." Nifty.

This next product makes the same mistake made by the folks who brought you the Tea Monkey Infuser. Namely, you don't want to put something that looks like a human or animal in your tea because said human or animal turns your lovely bath/tea water brown. And that's just gross.

But these folks gave it the good college try with Mr. Tea. You may not be able to see it in the small photo there, but the tag line is "throw some tea in your trousers." Really? "Throw some tea in your trousers"? That's simply unfortunate. Nice try, but no.

I keep trying to think what kind of thing you could make into an infuser where you say to yourself, "How lovely to soak this in my water! I was just hoping that it would turn clear water brown." I'm not coming up with anything. How about you?

I do, however, love the idea behind the Universal Tea Machine, “a gargantuan cross between a tea-making device, a primitive computer and a pinball machine.” Built to mark both the London Olympics and Alan Turing's centenary,

The Universal Tea Machine will dispense up to 2,000 free, freshly made cups of tea each week from its temporary home next to a giant screen streaming Olympic coverage in Victoria Park, Hackney — but you will only receive a nice builder’s brew with milk and sugar, as opposed to a dry tea bag with three sugar lumps or a cup of hot milk and water, if you can perform binary addition...Would-be tea drinkers will have to perform five sequential additions correctly in order to produce a perfect cuppa.

I'm sure Douglas Adams would approve.

In other literary references, Mark Twain has some wise words on how he came up with his characters.

My favorite obit of the week is one that the subject, one Val Patterson, wrote himself. Here's the part that's gotten the most attention:

Now that I have gone to my reward, I have confessions and things I should now say. As it turns out, I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June, 1971. I could have left that unsaid, but I wanted to get it off my chest. Also, I really am NOT a PhD. What happened was that the day I went to pay off my college student loan at the U of U, the girl working there put my receipt into the wrong stack, and two weeks later, a PhD diploma came in the mail. I didn't even graduate, I only had about 3 years of college credit. In fact, I never did even learn what the letters "PhD" even stood for. For all of the Electronic Engineers I have worked with, I'm sorry, but you have to admit my designs always worked very well, and were well engineered, and I always made you laugh at work. Now to that really mean Park Ranger; after all, it was me that rolled those rocks into your geyser and ruined it. I did notice a few years later that you did get Old Faithful working again. To Disneyland - you can now throw away that "Banned for Life" file you have on me, I'm not a problem anymore - and SeaWorld San Diego, too, if you read this.

But the whole thing is completely delightful and truly touching. I'm sure his friends and family miss him very much.

And with that I must add: Life can be short. Tell your friends and family that you love them.

Have a great weekend.

What exactly is the World Domination Summit?

When I would tell people I was going to the World Domination Summit, I was at a loss to explain what it was, exactly. I floundered around a bit, waving my hands and vaguely talking about start-ups and travel, but I pretty much didn't have a clue. I was mostly going to hear Brene Brown.

It's been a couple of weeks now, and I think I finally have it figured out. So for those of you who have been wondering, here it is in a nutshell:

The World Domination Summit is all about encouraging people to discover practical ways to live a meaningful life.

I use the word "encouraging" deliberately--and not just in the rah-rah sense. I'd say encouragement--giving courage--was the underlying tone of the whole conference. And as Brene Brown points out, the word courage comes from the word coeur--heart. To practice courage, she says, is to tell your story with all your heart.

So there were lots of people there telling their stories and giving everyone there permission to do the same. That was the first amazing thing. We were told over and over again in ways large and small, "You are amazing. You are enough. What you bring to the table is important."

But if it had stopped there, it wouldn't have been very helpful. In fact, Chris Gillebeau, the organizer, sent out an email a few weeks before the conference that began, "You are awesome!" and I instantly deleted it. I couldn't even read any more. I was offended by it, and am instantly suspicious of people who will tell me I'm awesome who also happen to have books to sell.

Here's the thing: it didn't stop with a feel good fest. It prodded us to ask "what does a meaningful life look like for you?" And that was very different for different people. For some it was travel; for some it was starting a business; for some it was finding a company to work for that reflected their values; for some it was service and philanthropy; for some it was using the system to your advantage; for some it was running a marathon; for some it was writing a book. You get the idea. The important thing was finding those things that indeed matched your skills, interests, and (most importantly) values.

But again, if it had stopped there, it would have been only moderately helpful. In fact, this is the part I don't have yet. If I had left with only this piece, I would have left frustrated because I would feel like a fraud, like everyone else had it all figured out and I didn't.

It didn't stop there. We heard stories from people who had found what made their lives meaningful, but we also got extremely practical advice. I went to a workshop on self-publishing, for example, and it was chock-full of which publishing platforms are good for what material and how you promote things. Another talked about how you set up your work week so that you know you get the most important things done. We heard from speakers who talked about how to best utilize creativity and how "follow your passion" isn't terribly helpful advice.

It was that practical piece that made it work for me. I don't know what's next for me, but at least I have some ideas of the next step, the next little piece that will help me figure it out. But I needed the encouragement in order to do that, and I needed to know how to ask what makes my life meaningful. It all works together, and I'm grateful to the World Domination Summit for offering that.

Bravo and well done. Here's looking forward to 2013. Maybe I'll have some stories to tell. In the meantime, my deepest thanks.

photos from the WDS Flickr Stream, copyright Armosa Studios, used by permission.