The Particles of Star Trek. Also covers minerals, energy fields, waves, grains, and other oddities in the Star Trek space-time continuum. (Found via Veer: Ideas.)
American Pig Dog!
“… and the events between the two events will fill up a paragraph at best.” I’m glad Lileks deigned to let the web permalink that one.
“A Mass Grave of One!” Hee hee.
Ugliest. Building. Evar.
Hey, MICA students, if you thought the Brown Center “Iceberg” was unattractive, get a load of the Ontario Academy of Design’s up and coming horror. (And here’s an even bigger projection.) It’s like a UFO from a Hallucinogenic Bizarro World. And they’ve already started building. Oh, the humanity. (Links via Coudal, who will soon be on my linkroll.)
Take That, Satan!
Apparently Time was just about ready to launch a big cover story on “Lost Gospels”… when suddenly Saddam was caught and the covers had to be changed. Ha! Get lost, noncanonical Mary Sue Gospels, and take your Da Vinci Code with you!
Kapital Krispy Kreme is Koming
Krispy Kreme to open its first DC store. Right outside the Dupont Circle Metro station. OH YES. I can already see the average weight and body fat percentage at Dupont Circle skyrocketing. And those Krispy Kremes get as much news coverage as Apple stores.
Update, 03/2004: I’m writing this six months later and the “Coming Soon” banner is up beside Dupont Circle Metro south exit! Yay, it’s koming, it’s koming!
Update, 08/2004:It’s open!
Saddam Photoshop Roundup
Big Saddam collection by Michael Totten. Noogie.
Myself, I have no time for any visual antics today. But let me just say that shaving off the beard was a good thing, because I did a double take at some of these news photos, and you know it’s a bad thing when these evildoers start blending into one another:
Called To Be
I’m not normally a fan of Ralph Vaughan Williams, him being one of those notoriously blaring, dissonant, Romantic-Modern transition composers; but I find that some of his work can be wondrous, especially where the English background shines through. Today we sang Today We Are Called To Be Disciples of the Lord, a hymn based on one of Vaughan William’s English country song arrangements, and it was one of those rare blends of words and music that simply reaches out of the hymnbook pages and seizes heart and mind to shake the Spirit into you. (Ironically, Vaughan Williams himself was an agnostic. The words to this hymn were added in 1985.)
The structure of the hymn is fairly straightforward: quarter notes and half notes with a 4/4 signature. A small change happens, however, towards the end of the third verse of each stanza: a rest, followed by words briefly speeding into a descending series of eighth notes, breaking the steady rhythm for a measure, as if to drum those words into the soul more pointedly before resuming the flow of music.
Today was a full day for the choir: rehearsal and worship in the morning, followed by more rehearsals, a choir-appreciation lunch (great fun, that), even more rehearsals with a brass ensemble and two visiting choral groups, and then a Christmas Candlelight Carol Service. The day was full of music and fellowship, but all said and done, the singing of this hymn was the high point of my day, and it got me thinking about things.
Today We All Are Called To Be Disciples of the Lord
Text: H. Kenn Carmichael, 1985
Music: English Country Songs, 1893, arr. Ralph Vaughan Williams, 1906
Today we all are called to be disciples of the Lord / To help to set the captive free, make plowshare out of sword / To feed the hungry, quench their thirst, make love and peace our fast / To serve the poor and homeless first, our ease and comfort last.
God made the world and at its birth ordained our human race / To live as stewards of the earth, responding to God’s grace / But we are vain and sadly proud; we sow not peace but strife / Our discord spreads a deadly cloud that threatens all of life.
Pray justice may come rolling down as in a mighty stream / With righteousness in field and town to cleanse us and redeem / For God is longing to restore an earth where conflicts cease / A world that was created for a harmony of peace.
May we in service to our God act out the living Word / And walk the road the saints have trod till all have seen and heard / As stewards of the earth may we give thanks in one accord / To God who calls us all to be disciples of the Lord.
Got Saddam
Saddam caught. Yay.
La Prima Vez
“Start focused, then spiral out madly.” My advice on Ask.MeFi for starting a classical music collection.
Note: Title of this post is a reference to a song from Songs of the Sephardim, “La Prima Vez,” or “The First Time.” I highly recommend the album.
Mind the Gap
This Tube map parody is pretty funny, even if I don’t get most of the London in-jokes. Can someone from there please explain the blue “Dee-dee-dee-dah-dah-dum” curve in the Thames? And what’s with the “gap” between Kensington and Buckingham Palace?
(Link via Kottke. Makes me want to do one for the DC Metro. Speaking of which, there were bomb threats holding up the Blue and Orange lines today.)
Update: Sparticus tells me it’s Eastenders. Now I’m interested.