September 18, 2007 by wilmington.

> I mentioned the magazine (and its online site) “First Things” last time. In the October issue, the theologian (some say “ethicist”) Stanley Hauerwas writes about the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre. I guess all involved knew I was taking a seminar on MacIntyre. Nice of them.

> N.T. Wright will be at Baylor in October. His massive study (the 3rd in his series on Christian origins) “The Resurrection of the Son of God” makes the historical case - using just about every tool available - for the reality of the resurrection of Jesus. I’ve been looking forward to meeting Wright for over 9 years…have read at least 10 of his books, scholarly and “pop,” and I still have no idea what I will say to him.

> Random recommendations from the music archives at the home embassy (now that I’ve recovered from a strange 2 year hiatus in my otherwise uninterrupted 18 years of intense jazz listening): Miles Davis “Nefertiti”; Wynton Marsalis “Live at Blues Alley”; Duke Ellington -anything from the late 1930’s; John Coltrane “Crescent”; Michel Camilo “Live at the Blue Note.”

> Remember that you can leave comments here (a quick registration is necessary) and, hopefully, start a conversation with others.

Soccer
> The Women’s World Cup 2007 is proving more dramatic than most people expected (those few, sadly, who are payng attention). The U.S. will play its final game of the group stage - against Nigeria - in about 8 hours (Tuesday, 9/18, ESPN 7:55am Eastern). If the U.S. wins, we won’t have to play Germany in the first knock-out stage.
Teams to watch (set VCR’s/DVR’s):
> North Korea is a huge surprise. Against the U.S. they were machines - velcro touch, constant movement, inch-perfect passing, tight marking. They are a threat.
> Germany is Germany, dammit, but there are chinks in the armor - possibly internal tension - and not as much swagger.
> England looked better than ever. Like the N. Koreans and many of the European teams, they’ve obviously been training with excellent men’s and boy’s teams (an observation Julie Foudy made, so don’t get P.C. on me). The dark horse.
> The U.S. is not firing on all cylinders. But…we have Lily, Wambach, Pearce, and Boxx. If you are a student of athletics or an observant fan, you cannot look at Wambach and Lily without recognizing that look that tells you: no matter what, her team has a chance to win while she’s in the game.
Positives: unlike the painful and dreadful approach that April Heinrichs used in the semifinal loss to Germany in the last World Cup (”drive up the flank, cross the ballinto the box, no matter how many times Germany just clears it away” and then I’ll wait to put Tiffeny Millbrett in until it’s too late), Greg Ryan has the team prepared to vary it’s attack! It’s beautiful!
Negatives: the technicality of the U.S. players - see above for “velcro touch, constant movement, inch-perfect passing, tight marking” - has not progressed as it obviously has for N.Korea and England. This is distressing, because if we had recruited for this and trained for this, nobody could touch us.

The single thing that will win this World Cup: confidence expressed as bold, almost arrogant swagger. It wins championships.

Next time…Flannery O’Connor.

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August 28, 2007 by wilmington.

In the matter of Mr. Beckham…

PRO: The guy has played well, he’s showed as much heart as at any time in his career, and he’s clearly chosen to lead and has been accepted by his teammates as the leader! Witness the fight he showed when getting right up in the face of players who commit nasty fouls on him…and the way his teammates sprint to his aid and back him up. The L.A. Galaxy have a chance to win a tournament championship the SuperLiga Championship[vs. Pachuca, Wednesday night, 11pm EST, on TeleFutura] because of his play last week.
CON: The L.A. Galaxy are a bad team. Several good players, good guys, but it’s a bad team that plays badly and has bad, if not cursed, luck. See the usual soccer sites for a list of reasons (scheduling, playing Beckham injured, not sticking to a clear plan). Though it is highly, let’s put that in caps and bold it - HIGHLY unlikely that they can beat Pachuca…but if they do, I wonder if a championship in such a disastrous year will pull focus from the fact that just about everything else went wrong.

One hope - they did what every serious team in the world (whether England, Spain, Italy, etc) does when they recognize the chance to win something: they wrote off part of their season and focused on winning something, anything. The Galaxy played a reserve squad against Colorado and rested Donovan, Pavon, Beckham and others. It was a blatant sign that they’ve written off the MLS season and playoffs…and probably the only good decision they’ve made in months.

U.S. Under-17 World Cup team:
The coach made tough changes, the guys battled hard…beat Belgium and made it to the Quarterfinals of the World Cup. They play GERMANY at 6:45am EST on ESPNU.

Stuff to make your brain feel good:
Politics, Religion and Theology, Philosophy, Culture: www.firstthings.com

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August 14, 2007 by wilmington.

OK - some self-study assignments for the interested and marginally motivated…

Major League Soccer (our top American professional league, for those of you who know only of the sports world presented by ESPN) is in the middle of its most interesting,and often exciting, year yet. All the Beckham drama has generated interest, media coverage, larger crowds and viewership, and merchandise sales - -  so people have no excuse NOT to be aware of the truly soccer-specific good things going on in MLS.

The Houston Dynamo, New England Revolution, and D.C. United (and a few others) play consistently exciting and often excellent soccer. With as much objectivity as I can muster as a Dynamo fan, I have to say that Houston has shown genuinely top class soccer for large stretches of its season. The SuperLiga game tonight (semi-finals in this new mini-tournament between top MLS and Mexican clubs) between Houston and Pachuca is the third time these in-form teams will meet within the last 6 months. It’s likely to be the best game played in this hemisphere this week. See it on Telemundo tonight at 9pm (central) and tell me what you think.

Finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this past weekend. It completes Rowling’s growth as a writer (or this stage, at least), and, though I won’t say yet that it’s my favorite or that it’s the best of the series - Goblet of Fire still has my vote for now - I will say that it is both satisfying and surprising. I think that’s rare for a series like this. If you haven’t already, see my previous note below for links to reviews and essays about the latest film and last 2 books (particularly the one by Thomas Hibbs).

Still letting the end of the Patrick O’Brian series sink in - but quite sure that I will never allow myself to finish two big series within a few weeks of each other. The surprising losses in the last 3 O’Brian books, reading the final book, plus finishing Harry Potter (and a graduate French class)….I’m pretty drained. Not quite verklempt, mind you, but talk amongst yourselves for a moment on a topic of your choosing.

Though it includes a “spoiler” about an important character (without mentioning the book in which the event happens), I’ll link here to an appreciation of “O’Brian by David Mamet (famous playwright, director, acting theorist, founding person in the Atlantic Theatre Company and its subsequent “movement”). http://www.nytimes.com/library/books/011700mamet-writing.html

Finally - no time for details, but I’m sending you to the Over the Rhine website to acquaint yourself with their music, writing, and attitude. You can listen to a decent bit of their stuff online, but I’m assigning a full album. Take a look and a listen at www.overtherhine.com    I haven’t been able to get the last 2 albums, but the newest seems to be something very special. I’ll suggest “Ohio,” and “Films For Radio” for a quick sense of the scope of their music and excellent writing. Often poetic and theologically interesting, great voice, great musicians, often moving.

To close with a prediction: Dynamo 2 - Pachuca 1.

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August 8, 2007 by wilmington.

Six whirlwind weeks of wordy French later, I’m in a brief break before fall classes begin.

Finished the O’Brian series (see below) but will wait to comment on that. Have also managed to - more or less - maintain a cone of silence around myself regarding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Since I’ve never re-read any of the series, I went back and re-read Azkaban, the last half of Order of the Phoenix, and Half-Blood Prince. Partially to remember the various clues and plot threads, but also to re-connect with the world of the books rather than the movies.

After only a few chapters into Azkaban, I realized how much funnier the books are - all the little throwaway bits about the portraits at Hogwarts, the absurd scenes of children in their magic classes, Rowling’s steadily improved dialogues.  She really hits her stride in Half-Blood Prince including a brilliant, long scene which manages to deliver the key moments in the Ron-Hermione relationship (for which readers have been waiting for at least 3 books at that point) all in the middle of a Herbology lesson in which the three friends are wrenching disgusting and dangerous pods out of murderous stumps…and then squeezing larvae out of them. The ridiculous situation does not take away from this dramatic payoff, and you have to marvel at how Rowling is able to balance the tone in such a loaded scene

I have my theories about what will finally happen to Harry and friends/enemies. So far - 200 pages into Hallows - I might still be right.

Some off-the-beaten-path (for Harry Potter stuff, anyway) links to Potter-related articles and reviews. Note that some should not be read until you’ve finished the books!

Some guesses BEFORE Hallows came out: http://www.christianitytoday.com/books/features/rumorsofglory/070625.html

Review of Order of the Phoenix movie: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzZmZTA5MzhhNzk1NzI4Zjk2ZDQzZGEyMWQwYzQyMTc=

Reviews of Hallows: http://article.nationalreview.com/?=ODkyNTkxZDlkNzljNjJmNzgzMmZlYzhhODJkYTJmN2Q=

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/julyweb-only/130-12.0.html

 And an article about Rowling and Christian themes:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/augustweb-only/131-43.0.html

During my farewell moments to Harry Potter and lingering thoughts about the many adventures of Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin: Cicero! Nietzsche! Calvin! See…I really am in a Ph.D. program…

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July 17, 2007 by wilmington.

TEXAS: The sky in Texas is enormous. You can imagine everything being under water (as it was long, long ago) because you usually only see skies like this at sea. As we came into central Texas during the drive to Waco, I could see the line of entire storm fronts (often scarred by dozens of spectacular lightning flashes) stretching at a diagonal in front of me for scores of miles. Now, finally here, I have made a point of eating real Mexican food at least once every 72 hours. The tortillas alone should make anyone who can’t stay here weep in despair.

CRITICISM: Much that passes for criticism today (music, art, literature, movies) is bad. Almost nobody has any real training - or even a coherent philosophy about what it is that criticism is supposed to do. There’s very little education, recognition of past or current standards/criteria, and a diminished vocabulary for expressing the one thing to which people have reduced criticism: opinion. So, get ready for this transition…it will not be smooth…

…that brings us to “TRANSFORMERS” and a great review of it at National Review online by Peter Suderman. As I’ve already written in recommendations to several friends: Suderman has an unflinching critical awareness, but he judges the movie based on what it was trying to be..not what he wishes it had been OR (even more importantly) not what he thinks he’s supposed to say about a Michael Bay movie. For my opinion of the film, I will simply echo the best line in the review: “Giant robots! Wheee!” and add that I think that Shia Lebeouf is actually quite good, very funny, and, this is something for a Bay movie, seems very real.

PATRICK O’BRIAN: I have just started the 20th and final book of the “Aubrey/Maturin” series - Blue at the Mizzen. I’m not sure yet if my reaction to finishing this massive, profound, moving, hilarious, and brilliant series will be the same as my reaction when I finished Lord of the Rings back in June of 2001 (see, I know exactly when I finished it). Over the course of the last 300 pages or so, 3 central characters have died. O’Brian hits you with the news in the most matter-of-fact way, and leaves you to recover - often by waiting in tension for the main characters to talk about it, react to it…in some way process it for you.

In my experience, most used book stores have at least a copy of Master and Commander (I suspect due to the people who bought the book when the movie came out but who then couldn’t plow through those first highly idiosyncratic and somewhat difficult chapters). Again, read these books: make some new and infinitely interesting friends. Like me, you might not get hooked for a while.

I read M&C a few months before the film came out - then didn’t read anything for about 6 months…wasn’t sure I had really enjoyed the book. But after moments and lines and characters kept returning to my thoughts, I stopped in an airport used bookstore (a very good one at RDU) and bought H.M.S.Surprise (the 3rd book). The opening is brilliant and exciting, and the twists and turns (stranded on a deserted island!) are totally unexpected.

But then, about halfway through (?), O’Brian has a passage in which Steven (the Irish doctor, an early-19th century naturalist) encounters an unexpected consequence of his friendship with a poor, Indian girl in Bombay. It is the first of many, many narrative and character development “payoffs” that you realize, only after the fact, O’Brian has been building toward for hundreds of pages. Eventually, he accomplishes similar wonders over the span of several books. This section of Surprise is only a page or two, but I read it over 5 or 6 times. I was in - part of the club. I went out and bought book #2, Post Captain, but then decided to do everything in order. So I re-read #1, then #2, re-read #3 (Surprise), and then went on to #4 and so on. Since then, I’ve re-read large portions of M&C several times, and frequently look back at several of the books to find certain passages or chapters - sometimes to track-back a character or plot thread that resurfaces many books later, sometimes to study the language, sometimes just to re-experience a moment or joke or description.

I might try to quote or describe some of the great moments in this space at some point. As several reviewer/critics have claimed: Here is one of the great novelists of any era.

COMMENTS: See the thread below (several down the list) for the helpful and hopefullly-accurate instructions on how you can comment and help start some back & forth! You have to register (keeps marketing and flaming down), but it’s free and there’s no spam.

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June 11, 2007 by wilmington.

I almost wrote that Thursday, June 7 was “the end of a chapter” in the increasingly strange and surprising life of your devoted Ambassador. But that’s not accurate. It’s more like the end of Book 2 or Book 3 in the whole series.

So: June 11, 2007 - Book the Third - “In which the intrepid Ambassador awakes from the first full night’s sleep in almost 5 weeks to find that he is on the other side of high school/middle school teaching and is now a Ph.D. candidate.”

Upcoming in this space: updates from Book III, observations and hopefully discussions about theology and film (especially since three of my future professors, Thomas Hibbs, Michael Foley, and Ralph Wood have written on that intersection), thoughts on my frequently-mentioned-but-never-explained obsession with Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels (the basis for the “Master and Commander” film), and something about the current jazz scene.

Recent enjoyments: the films “The Prestige” and “Stranger Than Fiction,” Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nelly Furtado CD’s made by former students, O’Brian’s “The Wine Dark Sea,” the Ireland v. Spain quarterfinal from the 2002 World Cup, my son yelling “You want a piece o’ me?!” as he and his stuffed animals pounce me on my bed, and creating the word ‘enjoyments.’

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