To Be Titled

Being a summary of my thoughts on The Lord of the Rings,  A Song of Ice and Fire, and The Magicians trilogy, as relates to their themes, similarities, and divergences.
Updated 2016.6.13 with Part II: "Cripples, Bastards, and Broken Things."
Updated 2016.11.13 with a few thoughts from A Clash of Kings
Updated 2017.2.5 with even fewer comments on A Storm of Swords

Delaying gratification

Last Halloween, I met a student at my new school who also shares my interest in A Game of Thrones (though she's only seen the show, and hasn't read the books), and our first conversation lasted about 45 minutes, with her writing questions in dry-erase marker on a whiteboard, and me responding verbally. (She was in full makeup as a zombie for Halloween, so she couldn't move her mouth enough to talk without risking displacing her gorey makeup.) Her questions ranged from speculation about future plot incidents and story lines to my opinion of certain characters and events. At one point, she asked about the current state of a certain character in A Song of Ice and Fire - whether a situation has been resolved or not in the books, as opposed to the show. This post will be about how that question, my response, and her reaction converged on Ash Wednesday this year to make me think about the importance of having a penitent mindset before the exultation of Easter. But for the sake of not spoiling anything for those concerned with the series, I'm going to make the section break here, so if you click to read on, you do so at your own risk of spoilers.

Undiscovered Country

I was deeply saddened to hear of Leonard Nimoy's death last Friday, and since Jess and I had already seen Wrath of Khan, we watched The Undiscovered Country on Tuesday night in memoriam. To avoid becoming maudlin, and since I've already blogged about sojourning and the city with foundations, I'll just say that the themes of walking into an unknown future while reflecting on a painful past (or present) resonated strongly with me because of what's going on in my life right now.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

The last 5 months have flown by as we anticipate the birth of our daughter in February. Never before has it seemed like a semester has gone by so quickly (not that I'm counting down the 15 days till Christmas break), or that work-week cycles ended & re-started so abruptly. It seems like having a long-range goal that's got a due date I cannot control or change has really put a lot of things in my life into perspective, or perhaps thrown them into sharper relief. As today marks the first Sunday of Advent, the season of year when Christians look back to Christ's birth and anticipate His return, I find myself pondering long-expected arrivals.

Let's go to the movies...

Growing up, I loved to emulate my heroes from the movies. I'd imagine I was Davy Crockett, the Lone Ranger, or Luke Skywalker, fighting the bad guys and saving the day. And while that common experience probably says a lot of superficial things about my personality, I've noticed over the last few years that there are some very subtle ways in which I continue to emulate the movies I like. I'm not talking about things like waving my hand like Ben Kenobi when I want to persuade someone, or asking "Do you wanna build a snowman?" in a particular rhythm. No, these are far-more subtle, geeky ticks.

Culture "Wars"

I've been bugged for a while now by the claims of evangelical Christians that America is a godless country that needs to return to its Christian origins. The dead horse of how awful culture has become - homosexual marriage, sex & violence in the entertainment industry, and of course the shame of substance abuse - is trotted out to be beaten to death on right-wing media outlets. And as a Christian, I agree, these are terrible depredations. But what of it? How are we as Christians to interact with the culture? A recently popular article on Facebook made the claim that the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) slogan should have us passing another beer to a friend who was already drunk, but is that Biblical?

Striving after wind

In ten years of driving, I have never owned a vehicle with working air conditioning. In Texas, A/C is virtually a must-have for a car. During the summer, your options are either functioning A/C, or sweat trickling down your back and soaking through your clothes before you've driven twenty minutes. So, when I got a new-to-me vehicle about two months ago, one of my first fixer-upper projects on it was the air conditioning. Buckle your seat belts; this one's a saga.