End-of-week wrapup

Yes, folks, it's the end of the week for me. I only have internet access when I'm at work (thanks to a dead power cord and my penchant for taking things apart, I don't have a laptop anymore) and I'm only at work until 2pm today. So here's some fun to keep you going: 1 video, 1 article, and 1 blog to follow. If you ration yourself, this should last all weekend.

The video:

A russian version of Winnie the Pooh. No, not Disney with Russian dub or subtitles. A Russian version, which is ever so much cuter than the other ones.

The article:

Tom Wright has a terrific piece on the recent antics by American Episcopalians. (HT The Gadfly). You should read the whole thing for yourself, but here are a few of the gems:

The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace.

We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel.

Contrary to some who have recently adopted the phrase, there is already a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”. It is called the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is now distancing itself from that fellowship

The blog to follow: How Books Got Their Titles.

For example, under "While England Slept by Winston Churchill" you will discover that

Churchill suggested The Years of the Locust, but the cable operator garbled the message and it arrived as The Years of the Lotus. Putnam’s were puzzled. They knew that the lotus was a plant famous for its soporific properties, and, in an attempt to give a sense of this, settled on While England Slept.

In a age of free, what can you sell?

People have been making a big fuss about Chris Anderson's new book, Free. Malcolm Gladwell thinks it's bunk. Chris Anderson, understandably, likes it. My friends have been cheerfully exchanging links on the issue, and I found this one from KK particularly interesting. (HT David Hoos)

The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. . . . The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free.

When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.

When copies are super abundant, stuff which can't be copied becomes scarce and valuable.

When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.

Well, what can't be copied?

KK goes on to list 8 "generatives" that can't be sold, including Immediacy, Personalization, Authenticity, and Findablity. My personal favorite, though, given my philosophical leanings, was Embodiment.

At its core the digital copy is without a body. You can take a free copy of a work and throw it on a screen. But perhaps you'd like to see it in hi-res on a huge screen? Maybe in 3D? PDFs are fine, but sometimes it is delicious to have the same words printed on bright white cottony paper, bound in leather. Feels so good. What about dwelling in your favorite (free) game with 35 others in the same room? There is no end to greater embodiment. Sure, the hi-res of today -- which may draw ticket holders to a big theater -- may migrate to your home theater tomorrow, but there will always be new insanely great display technology that consumers won't have. Laser projection, holographic display, the holodeck itself! And nothing gets embodied as much as music in a live performance, with real bodies. The music is free; the bodily performance expensive.

I buy my cd's used, or I get online versions of music from Lala.com. On the other hand, I paid $65 a ticket to go stand in line all day in Vancouver so that I can stand in a crowd of sweaty people all evening listening to U2 play in concert. He's right -- the live performance, with me standing less that 20 yards from The Edge himself, is that for which I'm willing to shell out REAL money.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

I borrowed a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, from Claire, and read it in the two days before she heads back to Canada. Here are a couple of quick thoughts:

It's about as true to the original Pride and Prejudice as the Bollywood production Bride and Prejudice, and should be taken in approximately the same spirit. That is, you don't read it because it's a classic. Really, it's just rather pulpy summer fiction, dressed in regency garments and fighting ninjas.

I almost didn't finish it because of a couple instances of very graphic violence. I'm actually better able to accept violence in a movie than in a book, because a movie doesn't involve me as personally or actively in creating the image. A movie does all the work for me of picturing the carnage; but a book requires me to create the image myself. As Emerson Cod once said, "When you say 'monkey in a bellhop suit driving a delivery truck, I have to SEE a monkey in a bellhop suit driving a delivery truck."

It's most entertaining to see how Seth Grahame-Smith is able to insert small tweaks that change the meaning of the whole dialogue: the best example is during Elizabeth's visit to Lady Catherine, when she is talking to Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy. In the original, she is playign the piano, and says something like "my fingers await your command." In the Zombies edition, she is practicing handstands on her fingertips, but the original dialogue remains exactly the same.


Overall, an entertaining read, but I probably won't bother buying it. See if your local library has a copy.

Current Frivolity

What I'm reading
(that isn't for school)

Just finished this, actually.

(been reading this one off-and-on since Thanksgiving '06)

My darling sister just mailed this to me

This was the most surprising present this Christmas. Did you know that C.S. Lewis actually corresponded in LATIN? He did.

I'm also reading incidental stuff on Dante when I get a chance, but that's not often.