-
Remember the game show host from Slumdog Millionaire?




























Actor Anil Kapoor, now playing a head of state on 24, is getting attention, according to Entertainment Weekly, for his "remarkable coif." He himself admires the hair of Elvis Presley and Robert Downey Jr. But, he notes, "At the moment, I'm only jealous of Rob Pattinson. He's my competition."

Sensible man.
-

-

I Netflixed this movie because David Slade is the director of Eclipse (the next installment in the Twilight movie). It was an incredible movie, one of the most memorable, haunting movies I've seen in a while. I also got a new camera, and so was snapping a lot of stuff yesterday, including these screen captures of the movie.

-

Love this song by the Shins. A quiet song of desperation and beauty---right up my alley.


“A Comet Appears”

One hand on this wily comet
Take a drink just to give me some weight.
Some uber-man I’d make,
I’m barely a vapor.

They shone a chlorine light on
A host of individual sins.
Let’s carve my aging face off,
Fetch us a knife,
Start with my eyes,
Down so the lines
Form a grimacing smile.

Close your eyes to corral a virtue,
Is this fooling anyone else?
Never worked so long and hard,
To cement a failure.

We can blow on our thumbs and posture,
But the lonely are such delicate things.
The wind from a wasp could blow them
Into the sea
With stones on their feet,
Lost to the light and the loving we need.

Still to come
The worst part and you know it.
There is a numbness
In your heart and it’s growing.

With burnt sage and a forest of bygones,
I click my heels,
Get the devils in line.
A list of things I could lay the blame on
Might give me a way out.

But with each turn it’s this front and center,
Like a dart stuck square in your eye.
Every post you can hitch your faith on,
Is a pie in the sky
Chock full of lies
A tool we devise
To make sinking stones fly.

And still to come
The worst part and you know it.
There is a numbness
In your heart and it’s growing.

-

-
. . . I recommend Radiohead's In Rainbows





























and Kate Bush's Hounds of Love


























for a dose of Otherworldly.

-

-
I do like Otherworldly in art. Here is Mark di Vincenzo's "Circle Dream."

-
This is the easiest bread I have ever made. It is easier than using a bread machine. And it the most delicious bread I have ever made myself.

Some time ago I realized that bread that I made at home (either by hand or with the machine) never had the depth of flavor that really good bakery or restaurant bread has. After reading up on the topic, I determined it must be because that great flavor comes through slow, long rises. I even investigated doing the rise in the refrigerator to slow down the yeast action.

Jim Lahey's "My Bread" Cookbook:






























This Christmas my mother-in-law Maggie gave me a cookbook called "My Bread" by Jim Lahey, along with a cast-iron kettle (Dutch oven). I used it for the first time this weekend, and loved the results. If you don't have a cast-iron kettle, I think you can probably use a cast-iron skillet or even just bake it on a regular baking sheet.

Lodge's Cast Iron Dutch Oven:
























So here is the recipe that can turn you into a bread baker:

Jim Lahey's Basic No-Knead Bread Recipe:

1. Mix together in a bowl:
3 cups flour
1-1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

2. Stir in 1-1/2 cups cold water (55-65 degrees, which is what comes out of my cold tap); stir for about 30 seconds until combined into sticky dough.

3. Cover and let rise for 12-18 hours.

4. Uncover and shape lightly into a round shape; cover and rise 1-2 hours more.

5. Bake (covered) for 30 minutes in a 475-degree oven. Uncover and bake about 15 minutes more.

NOTE: If you have a cast-iron kettle or skillet, put it in the oven while the oven preheats. When the oven reaches 475 degrees, take it out and put the dough in the hot kettle, then back in the oven to cook.

When I get my nerve up, I'm going to try cooking the bread in our fireplace. We'll build up a good bank of embers and snuggle the kettle in it.

-

-
Was not Conan O'Brien's last night at the Tonight Show one of the most lovely and inspirational goodbyes in TV history? Taking his injunction "don't be cynical" to heart, here are some activities to help you do just that:

1. Read Terry Pratchett.

2. Or Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens.

3. Listen to Taylor Swift.

4. Browse cuteoverload.com.

5. Do karaoke.

6. Jet ski.

-

-
Stolen straight from Deb's blog. This is a must-hear:


-

-

Sometimes religious people think that the Left is anti-religious. But the truth is that liberals get both frustrated and saddened by the way that devotion to God has been claimed by people whose allegiances are to a knee-jerk cultural neoconservatism rather than to heavenly values.

Protestant leaders like Jim Wallis have begun to change this. It's so, so refreshing to see Christian leaders who are thoughtful about politics. I particularly loved this editorial by Wallis in the Washington Post a few weeks ago:



A religious response to the financial crisis

By Jim Wallis
Sunday, January 3, 2010

One cold morning the week before Christmas, I found myself huddled with a group of homeowners and religious leaders on Pennsylvania Avenue, in the shadow of the White House and the Treasury building. The homeowners, who had all worked hard to buy their first homes, and most of whom had put enough money down to qualify for fixed-rate mortgages only to be persuaded into more exotic mortgages, were facing imminent foreclosure. We had come to stand with them.

I have been talking with people in similarly desperate circumstances more and more these days, as have pastors around the country. The foreclosure crisis has become both a personal and a pastoral issue for us, and we are struggling to make sense of the fundamental unfairness that underlies it. The banks and other financial institutions whose behavior is most responsible for this crisis have been saved from failure by the American taxpayers, while many of those least responsible are losing jobs and homes.

As I grapple with this contradiction, I keep coming back to the concept of grace. When the government tried to save the economy from meltdown, real grace was extended to the big banks -- but now the banks seem unwilling to extend grace to anyone else, including homeowners struggling to make mortgage payments. I am reminded of one of the parables of Jesus, wherein a master forgives the debt of one of his servants out of pity for his circumstances, but then that servant refuses to forgive the debt of another servant who owes him a little money. The master gets angry and throws the unforgiving debtor into prison. The money-changers in the temples of Wall Street would do well to take note.


Clearly, the financial crisis is a structural meltdown that calls for increased government regulation of banks and other financial players. Members of faith communities, such as those who joined me in front of the Treasury building, are helping to push for this sort of reform.

But at its core, this is also a spiritual crisis. More and more people are coming to understand that underlying the economic crisis is a values crisis, and that any economic recovery must be accompanied by a moral recovery. We have been asking the wrong question: When will the financial crisis end? The right question is: How will it change us? This could be a moment to reexamine the ways we measure success, do business and live our lives; a time to renew spiritual values and practices such as simplicity, patience, modesty, family, friendship, rest and Sabbath.

Faith communities can help lead the way, challenging the idols of the market and reminding us who is God and who is not. "The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein," say both Christianity and Judaism; the Earth does not belong to the market. Human beings are stewards of God's creation and should preside over the market -- not the other way around. We must replace the market's false promise of limitless growth and consumption with an acknowledgment of human finitude, with a little more humility and with some moral limits. And the market's first commandment, "There is never enough," must be replaced by the dictums of God's economy -- namely, there is enough, if we share it.

Many of our religious teachings, from our many traditions, offer useful correctives to the practices that brought us to this sad place. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount instructs us not to be "anxious" about material things, a notion that runs directly counter to the frenzied pressure of modern consumer culture. Judaism teaches us to leave the edges of the fields for the poor to "glean" and to welcome those in need to our tables. And Islam prohibits the practice of usury. (Muslim-owned financial institutions that charge fees for service rather than interest have done amazingly well during this crisis; their practices offer some interesting models.)

We need nothing less than a pastoral strategy for the financial crisis; we must use these religious teachings to develop Christian, Jewish and Islamic responses to it. What should people of faith be thinking, saying and doing now? What is the responsibility of the churches, synagogues and mosques to their communities, to the nation and to the world?

Already, pastors, lay leaders and innovative faith-based practitioners are suggesting creative answers: mutual aid; congregational and community credit unions; and new cooperative strategies for solving such problems as hunger, homelessness and joblessness. If these initiatives succeed, the economic crisis may offer congregations a rare opportunity to clarify their missions and reconnect with their communities.

At Vineyard Church of Columbus, in Ohio, Pastor Rich Nathan appealed to his congregation last Palm Sunday to help families and individuals who had lost jobs with a special offering; the $625,000 collection that followed staggered everyone. Nathan's church is using these funds to provide coaching, counseling and networking events to help both parishioners and members of the wider community find employment.

In my home town of Detroit, which has been hit especially hard by the recession, with unemployment levels over 30 percent, the Capuchin Fathers are giving away hundreds of thousands of plants, helping to seed a renaissance of hundreds of urban gardens and family farming plots, and providing healthy food, work for the unemployed and an activity for the community to gather around. It may be in the places like these -- where all that is left is hope -- that new life first shoots up.

I keep hearing about churches that are starting adult Sunday school classes on economic values, personal finances and community social responsibility. And congregations are deciding that if issues of compassion and justice were central to the ministry of Jesus, they should also be at the heart of their missions.

Moving forward, I hope local congregations and national denominations alike will begin reflecting on where they keep their money and how their investments reflect their faith. I envision congregations creating checklists to evaluate who they do business with, and national church bodies considering where they should invest their pension funds.

When I recently told a few friends that my wife, Joy, and I had decided to close our little account at Bank of America and move our money to a local bank that has behaved more responsibly, I was amazed at the response. Religious leaders and pastors from around the country called to say that they, too, were ready to take their money out of the big banks that have shown such shameful morality and instead invest according to their values, by putting money into more local and community-based institutions.

So we've decided not just to remove our own money, but to invite other Christians, Jews and Muslims to do the same. Already we are hearing reports of whole congregations, groups of churches and faith-based organizations, from California to New York City, deciding to transfer their funds to local banks and credit unions.

The banks say they are "too big to fail." So let's make them smaller. We might finally get Wall Street's attention.

Jim Wallis is the author of "Rediscovering Values: On Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street -- A Moral Compass for the New Economy," due out Tuesday. He is also the editor in chief of Sojourners magazine.

-

-
A propos of connecting emotionally to music: When Madonna put out Ray of Light, she said she wanted to make a techno album that transcended techno's one weakness---the lack of emotional underpinning. I absolutely love Ray of Light; it's the one Madonna album that (for me) is not merely pleasant or even good but actually great.






















-

-

I'd somehow managed to remain immune to the charms of Radiohead, all through Kid A and OK Computer. I always liked "Creep," but that was an anomaly.

I think I lacked an emotional connection to the music, something that changed the minute I heard "Hearing Damage" in the climactic forest scene in New Moon. It's my favorite scene of the movie---Victoria chasing Bella, the wolves chasing Victoria, the police chasing the wolves, and Bella chasing an apparition, all from the forested clifftops. The editing and camera angles are fantastic in this scene, and "Hearing Damage" has become one of my favorite cuts from the soundtrack.

Now I'm into In Rainbows, and imagine my surprise when the first cut is the song that played during the closing credits of Twilight. It's not on the Twilight soundtrack (at least the version that I have), so it was a nice surprise. I love those credits, too, and always liked that the movie ended on a kind of rock and roll note rather than the traditional romantic note that you expect.

Also: In Rainbows has great artwork:


















-

-

Pale done right on Maggie Gyllenhaal



























Pink done right on Emily Blunt:



























It's just nice to see something different:




























I tend to love Cameron Diaz, even when she looks a bit disheveled:




























I get tired of black until I see it on Glenn Close:



























And on Helen Mirren (though this photo doesn't convey how great she looked):



























Plus size done right on Gabourey Sidibe:



























Zoe Saldana ties for best dress in my book:



























And best dressed man? Who would have guessed it---Mike Tyson!!



-

-
Too colorless:



























A rare miss for Heidi Klum:




























Bridesmaid pink:




























Bridesmaid pink + fluffed out (+ ombre):




























Say what??



-

-
I hope to have many other pics up tomorrow, but this was my favorite dress of the night. I'm a sucker for steel blue/gray, and the blood red swath is just right:


-

-
Jay and I finally got to Avatar last night, seeing the 3D but not IMAX version at the cineplex. When I started seeing ads, I thought I wouldn't like it. But the reviews were consistently stellar, and I knew several people who also thought they wouldn't like it and did. And I'm a true believer in exposing yourself to stuff that you don't think you'll like. It's good exercise.
























I did like it a lot. James Cameron, the guy is just a visual genius. I'm often left speechless by video art in museums and galleries, which is uniformly visually uninteresting. Mainstream film is where video art is taking place, and it doesn't get better than this. I started searching the web for images to include in this post, and I really couldn't find many that accurately conveyed the beauty of the film.
















I also appreciated the way Cameron dealt with women in the movie. Gender is kind of a moot point. Women are just there in the same way that men are; there aren't gender politics---no one is being oppressed or fighting against it, for that matter. That's refreshing. The nudity of the Navi people is not exploitative or even that noticeable. I give the guy high marks for this---not easy to pull off.




















Cameron's big weakness, here as with Titanic, is his writing. At best, it's serviceable; at worst, it's cliched and cringe-inducing. The story itself was engaging, but every plot point was predictable, every character a stereotype. I thought Zoe Saldana was amazing; the rest of the actors did journeyman work. And while Cameron is a great visual director, his direction of the story and characters---in contrast to his direction of landscape, physicality, and action scenes---was pretty stale. I found myself saying over and over, "Next he's going to have the character do this" or "The next shot will be this."
















The last action scene could have been cut in half. Not only was it too long but it got increasingly unbelievable; I ended up losing my connection and suspension of disbelief. Still, I thought it was a great movie, and I'm so glad I got out to see it on the big screen in 3D.


-

-
The woman whom I'm sponsoring through Women for Women International is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DCR). When I looked it up in Wikipedia, I was amazed to read this fact:

"The Second Congo War, beginning in 1998, devastated the country, involved seven foreign armies and is sometimes referred to as the "African World War." Despite the signing of peace accords in 2003, fighting continues in the east of the country. In eastern Congo, the prevalence of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world. The war is the world's deadliest conflict since World War II, killing 5.4 million people."

That's a lot of people.
-

-
Here's another passage from Francine Prose's "Reading Like a Writer," in which she describes one tactic for getting unstuck from one's own sense of inadequacy as a writer:

"To be truthful, some writers stop you dead in your tracks by making you see your own work in the most unflattering light. Each of us will meet a different harbinger of personal failure, some innocent genius chosen by us for reasons having to do with what we see as our own inadequacies. The only remedy to this I have found is to read a writer whose work is entirely different from another, though not necessarily more like your own---a difference that will remind you of how many rooms there are in the house of art."

-

-
Monday is my work-at-home day, so I spent most of Monday working and doing laundry and such. It was only at the very end of the day that I remembered that my emissions extension runs out on Wednesday, and I had to have the car fixed and retested by then. Tuesday I stayed home and took the car in. Wednesday I hear that the car won't be ready till the afternoon. I'm home again. So I have to cancel my stress test on Thursday in order to go into work and make up the hours. Monday I also realized that I have also injured my nose when I wapped it with my hand over the weekend. Aches and swelling ensue. Also, we've been so negligent in getting Rocky's nails clipped that he has snagged his nails on carpet several times, and now he won't walk on carpet. Jay "had" to carry him down the stairs this morning. So Jay stayed home to take him for an emergency nail appt. today (and then take me to the garage to pick up my car).

Nothing terrible has happened, but it's just been a weird sequence of inconveniences.
-

-
Just saw this for the second time. There are a lot of art movies I haven't gotten to this year, but of the movies I've seen, this is probably my favorite.









-

-
Rosy cheeks and blond highlights courtesy of God:



-

-
Meet Westifer:





-

-
Jay and I met Ryan, Lindsey, Eve, and Chris at the foster home this afternoon when they picked up their new, one-year-old beagle Ethan. He is a sweetie-pie!

-
"Literature is an endless source of courage and confirmation. The reader and beginning writer can count on being heartened by all the brave and original works that have been written without the slightest regard for how strange or risky they were, or for what the writer's mother might have thought when she read them."

(From Reading Like a Writer)
-

-

I highly recommend the Thermaskin long underwear by Land's End.

I was out walking Rocky for 45 minutes yesterday in 36-degree weather and was completely comfortable.

(The link is to the women's crew, but they make pants and men's versions too.)
-

-
you MUST check out this list of 10 reasons we haven't read books we're supposed to have read.

-

-
I can now play "Merrily We Roll Along" on the mandolin!

-

A Lovely Image for the New Year

-
Singer Jason Mraz visiting some kids at a hospital.