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Saturday, October 28, 2006 Typos Funny typos from personal ads, as they were posted: - LOOKING FOR A GIRL TO MAKE OUT KEEP WORM FOR HRS LETS MAKE OUT - Need a date for a weeding Nov 4th - Looking to MEAT a good woman - Whats up just bored is there any body out there? ^ Top | 11:06 PM | | | 
Monday, October 23, 2006 Personal Ads on Craigslist I'm rather entertained by personal ads, particularly the ones people post on Craigslist. You'd be surprised how many guys are out there with unabashed Asian fetish and how many older men are looking for college students who are "openminded and need a little help." My perusal of the posts has uncovered a few things. Things not to put in a personal ad:
looking for a cute asian girls to date they are so fine ^ Top | 11:14 PM | | |
Wednesday, October 18, 2006 Songs that Matter, Part III: Vienna Teng When I was first introduced to Vienna Teng, I wondered if I’d found my doppelganger. There was another piano-playing, folk-pop with hints of jazz, Chinese-American singer-songwriter using a name not entirely her own. And she had more notoriety than me. Hopefully there’s room for two of us in the American musical landscape, because I love her music. One summer, two of Vienna’s songs resonated strongly with me. That spring I’d been dumped by the man I thought I was going to marry and I was trying to deal with the loss of our relationship—but more importantly, the loss of our friendship. He’d been my best friend, but at that point he didn’t even know how to interact with me anymore. I longed for the depth of friendship we had, and Gravity seemed to encapsulate the entire situation. The Tower described me then—and in many ways, does even now. "She says I need not to need / or else a love with intuition / someone who reaches out to my weakness and won't let go / I need not to need / I've always been the tower." One of the reasons I write and play music is because I have difficulty being vulnerable, with allowing others to see through what are often characteristic masks, but need an outlet for emotions that I otherwise refuse to display. I hate admitting that I need help, and literally only a handful of people outside of my immediate family ever saw me cry after the age of seven. That summer I longed for someone who would see that underneath a smiling, laughing exterior, I was drowning. "Reach out / but hold back / where is safety / reach out / and hold back / where is the one who can save me / where is the one?" In the end, it took December to finally heal. ^ Top | 11:29 PM | | |
Friday, October 13, 2006 On Christian Film In one of my other endeavors, I'm the Movies Editor for RelevantMagazine.com; following my latest column for the magazine, I did an interview with Brian Orme from the Dayton Daily News on Christian film. Brian Orme: In general what do you think of the Christian Film Industry? Is it a good thing or bad? Dawn: Honestly, I haven't seen any decent work come from the Christian film industry--while I won't say that it's utterly without redeeming qualities, it frustrates me that Christians can make bad films and use God as an excuse for why they need to make propaganda. The industry doesn't take character development seriously, which is a major part of good storytelling, and the technical aspects are often bad--but not as bad as the scriptwriting and acting. They complain that they're underfunded, which may be true, but you can make a compelling story for very little monetarily by concentrating on good direction, writing, and acting. Do you think there is a market for Christian films in the mainstream? If so, what would set them apart? I think there's a market for good art, even if that market is smaller than the market for blockbusters. More importantly, there's a need for good art. Christians should stop trying to remake Bible stories or imagine Armageddon in every film; there are so many other stories to explore, stories with spiritual themes or ones that simply come from a Christian worldview (and let's be honest, doing an Armageddon story well probably requires a larger budget than most independent filmmakers can muster). Lord of the Rings is a Christian story, even though biblical characters never appear. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is an explicitly Christian story. The Passion, the only Jesus film that I've found engaging, did very well at the box office. None of these movies came from the Christian film industry, and I think if they had, they would not have been done as well. Are you familiar with films like Road to Redemption, or the new film in theaters now called Facing the Giants? If so, what are your thoughts? I'm familiar with the type of film you describe, though I'll have to say that I haven't seen either of those specifically. I actually don't watch much in the "family" genre (aside from animation, which I find is often inventive, creative); the typical family fare bores me. Do you think there should be categories like "Christian" films and "Secular" films? Are the categories helpful? What purpose do they serve? I don't think those categories help at all. The only people that pay attention to "Christian" films are Christians, who ostensibly make many of those films for non-Christians. Likewise, calling a film "secular" makes it almost dirty in the minds of many Christians. What we need is just good art, stories that matter, stories that will challenge us. What makes a film uniquely "Christian"? I'm going to take the word "Christian" here in its best sense, rather than one attached to the subculture of evangelical American Christianity. Christianity is at heart a story of redemption, of recognizing the brokenness in the world yet finding hope in spite of very real suffering and pain. It's honest. Christianity has a sense of wonder, a love of truth and beauty--truth and beauty have their origination in the Creator, so by gaining knowledge and appreciation of these things we understand a little more of God. And Christianity places importance on people, on relationships. So a truly Christian film would incorporate some of these elements, though the results could vary as widely as The Lord of the Rings to Chicken Run (made by Nick Park, who is a Christian). ^ Top | 1:48 AM | | |
Thursday, October 05, 2006 Nude Hippo Last night I was taped for an episode of Nude Hippo, a local magazine-style TV show. They've been in Chicago for a few years now, with over 200 episodes to date. Guitar in hand, I met up with Abigail, who works for the show as a booker and entertainment forecaster; we knocked on the door of the shipping dock for a computer supply company and ascended the stairs to the second floor of the brick building where Nude Hippo tapes. The floor was divided into three rooms: the Green Room, filled with old couches and miscellaneous props, the editing room, and the studio, all bright colors and interesting wall decorations. One section of the studio had bookshelves littered with vintage toys and knick knacks--what immediately caught my eye was a Star Wars lunchbox from the 70s that I wish I could have taken home. (Did I mention that I love science fiction?) We taped my segment before the rest of the cast worked on their episode for the week, the show's version of The Office, backstage drama included. While waiting for the camera crew to get ready, Seth (who would later don a banana costume for the show) and I improvised songs about Star Wars and Nude Hippo--we stopped abruptly when someone stormed into the room and announced that there would be no taping tonight. Everyone stopped what they were doing, confused--was he serious or was that part of the scripted "reality" drama for the episode? To ease the tension, Seth and I went back to making up songs, and eventually the drama was resolved and taping continued. Look for a live version of Found to air soon. ^ Top | 3:13 PM | | |
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