from the anchor (II)

this is how I'm going to decorate my future house for Christmas

Mandy, Corey, Ams, Gambill and I spent Monday evening downtown: we grabbed drinks and dinner at Rock Bottom (I got nachos and Ams got pizza, and we split half-and-half), and then we went across the street to tour the Contemporary Arts Center. They had some awesome displays, featuring an artist who uses photography to catch the voice of the marginalized amid riots and wars. The children’s floor was the creepiest of all, highlighting a sculpture of “Shark Girl,” who was in an animated video that gave me goose-bumps because it was so akin to “Salad Fingers” of college fame. Why they featured “Shark Girl” on the children’s floor baffles me: I’m all but 27 years old, and she was really creeping me out. When it comes to art, I tend to be “old school,” and much of modern art goes right over my head (that’s a reflection on me, not on the art itself). What I’d really like to see is a display of Adolf Hitler’s art. Take, for example, this piece:

He was a solid painter, and the 1940s would’ve been far more pleasant had Hitler pursued a career in art rather than waging war against the known world. Yet another reason why our schools shouldn’t cut art programs; once you eliminate programs, you start ending up with progroms, and those never end well.

Yesterday afternoon Frank came into Tazza Mia, and we were talking about how Facebook has become the new Myspace. Reflecting on the days of Myspace, I told him, “Remember how you could always have your Top 8 friends, and it was a sort of contest to see how much people liked you? I made profiles for the minor prophets and made them my Top 8.” I’m remembering it now: “Hi, I’m Amos from Tekoa, and I used to trim fig trees! Hi, I’m Obadiah, and the Edomites are assholes! Hi, I’m Hosea, and my wife’s kind of a whore…” Eric thought it was hilarious, and Frank just looked at me all whimsically, said, “I bet if I knew anything about the Bible, that’d be hilarious.”

This past Thursday I was FINALLY able to check out the Young Adult Group at U.C.C. You pass through Roh’s Street Café, go through the door with Gandalf on it—“You shall not pass!” he declares, but you pass anyways—and then up a flight of stairs and there’s a small cramped room filled with young adults. Wow, that description was highly unnecessary. Mostly I wanted to highlight the “Gandalf Door”. The discussion sprang from Isaiah 9 with the Assyrian conquest of northern Israel in the background. I was quiet for most of it, and then I decided to answer a question on the spiritual, syncretic nature of 8^th Century B.C. with the Baal-Melqart cult, and I got a lot of stares, as if everyone was wondering who this fifteen-year-old kid was. I really enjoyed it, and I’m definitely going back next Thursday. Also in U.C.C. news, I may be volunteering Sunday mornings by providing coffee. It’d be a good way to get involved, and I’d also be able to meet people. Brandon and I were talking at the Fountain, and I told him I was well aware that it might also be a way to meet some cute Christian girls, and he quipped, “Just make sure they’re reformed, so they put out.” I told him “Reformed” in Christian circles means something rather different than his meaning, and that I’m looking for someone who’s chaste, ‘cause (believe it or not) that’s what I’m into. Sometimes it feels like I’m looking for a needle in a haystack filled with needles, but I know what I want and what’s important to me.