Thursday, September 30, 2010

The One Year Book of Encouragement by Harold Myra

Harold Myra
The One Year Book of Encouragement

The light rail stopped at the Denver Auraria Higher Education Center. The students were pushed this way and that at the light rail, we were all expecting to be taken on home Arcadia.  A place without the tinge and pain of decay and the agony of death.  
Our hopes were high, but these hopes have been pushed this way and that. People have lost faith in a turning around and stand still watching the sand granules slowly slip through the hourglass.  Americans are beginning to feel discouraged. 
Harold Myra published the book The One Year Book of Encouragement, in order to provide a life line from the traumatic state in the United States today.  Myra sees that Christians need “refreshment …in the deep authentic rivers of our Christian Heritage.”(v)  He sees the insight of our Christian Heritage as authentic because the truth from these authors was “hammered out on the anvil of life’s realities.”(v)
The book succeeds in providing encouraging and challenging thoughts for people amidst the tension of today’s economic recession.  The author includes scripture verses that encourage the reader to look deeper into the word of God.   Also the author models a prayer each day that will encourage your prayer life.  
This book is a keeper and a definite cluck.
Personally, I look forward to starting my day each day by reading an encouraging word from this book.   
I received this book free from the publisher through the Tyndale review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

A Tale of Literate America?

It was a time when everyone said that they read, it was a time when books were downloaded to the Machinery of Fine Living, It was an age of literacy, it was the age of streaming books to your frontal lobe, it was the beginning and it was the end of all things,  it was the season of symbolic meaning, it was the season of no common sense,  it was a time when people hoped for some money, but the money was dried all up, we had everything to hope for, because things could not get much worse than this, we were all going direct to Heaven, we all were on the highway to hell, the period in the future was a continuation of how things were going today, complete apathy had hit the people stone cold, Editorialist of the New York Times stood in Times Square screaming on soap boxes, just to be heard.   People did not stop and ponder a thing because time had run out.

Thank you Tony Curtis

Thank You Tony Curtis for all 100+ of your Films
Entertainment Ideas watch 5 of Tony Curtis's Best Movies, and call it the Tony Curtis Festival:

  1. Amazing Race
  2. Winchester 73
  3. The Defiant Ones (Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor)
  4. Some Like It Hot
  5. Bad News Bears Go to Japan

Tony Curtis died Yesterday: (June 3, 1925 – September 29, 2010) was an American film actor. He played a variety of roles, from light comedy, such as the musician on the run from gangsters in Some Like It Hot, to serious dramatic roles, such as an escaped convict in The Defiant Ones, which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. From 1949, he appeared in more than 100 films and made frequent television appearances.  More from Wikipedia on Tony Curtis

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Films On Location: Tattoo A Love Story

Tattoo a Love Story: the memories we live are ours
to choose to use them as we may.
Or how to lose your stuck grove and make something of your life.



Tattoo a Love Story was Shot in Boise Idaho

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Cool Comics Just Out:

Graphic Novel of the Epic Poem by Allen Ginsberg
Valkyrie #1
Wetwork Mutations #1
7 Billion Needles 


STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #1

Monday, September 27, 2010

Kirby's Pigstand Opens in 1921


Kirby's Pig Stand was the first drive in restaurant. Americans had fallen in love with their vehicles, a drivers license meant freedom. Kirby's Pig Stand was the first to respond to the teenage-need to get a steering column messy from BBQ Sauce.  The restaurant was opened in Dallas Texas, in 1921.

 Did they get their food before they headed to the first feature length film, Dream Street?
Were they reading the paper and finding out who won the First American Beauty Pageant? (Margaret Gorman of Washington, D.C.)
 Where they wearing the new perfume, Chanel No. 5?
 Were they romantically inclined or plainly thinking dirty hormonal thoughts?

 It was the roaring times, that day, when the pig stand opened in 1921. Nine years later the crash and the somber times of the great depression, but now they could enjoy the roaring times.   But what did not make the headlines was the UFO that crashed in your back yard.  First Published 10.9.2010 
Link to Story

Friday, September 24, 2010

Learning to Write Clearly

I am serious about the craft of writing. I seek clarity in my words and ideas, something I have always struggled with. I desire to read as many books as possible in the 808 section of the Dewey Decimal Library Section.  808 is where the books on the craft of writing stay when they take up residence in the library.    I want my blog to be read and understood by anyone interested in where culture and life collide.     I want to stir in others the desire to become good at what they do, with a bit of panache in how they live it.  

 We want to be understood and not make bung holes out of all of our great ideas.  I often unravel my thoughts when I speak or write.However, getting the big picture idea is very difficult for me.  I often go off like a bullet and am reeling back. I often am trying to get back and missing the flow of the conversation.  I could blame it on my ADHD!    If  Hunter S. Thompson could keep to a central theme, even while on LSD, then I can write with clarity.


From Dr. Franks Blog: GOOD ADVICE TO WRITERS THAT YOU SHOULD FOLLOW (BUT PROBABLY WON'T)

Adam Rex (whose latest, Fat Vampire, I really enjoyed) pens what is perhaps the greatest "letter-to-self" I've ever read.
Excerpt:
Understand that your brain, which is not as smart as you think it is, will file the anonymous car-shouters in the same cabinet where it keeps a review from The Washington Post. And that it will highlight any and all negative passages with ink so ostentatiously yellow that you will be able to read them in your dreams. The part of your brain which currently sucker-punches you with humiliating junior high school memories during random quiet moments is going to discover its true calling after people start publishing your fiction. It’s really going to come into its own. You know the part of the brain I’m talking about. It’s located in your gut, despite all medical evidence to the contrary.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Films Shot in San Francisco: 55 Total.

My brother Andy is getting married in San Francisco on October 24th.   Jessica (my wife) and I are excited about the visit to the City on the Bay.   To get ready we may watch a few films filmed in the city;  here is a list of the 55 Films shot in San Francisco.


4

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

G cont.

H

J

K

L

M

O

P

P cont.

R

S

T

W

Y

Z

  My dad and I were discussing a hike we took in Colorado, where they shot Stagecoach the 1939 film.   We wondered how many films were shot in Colorado.  Here is a list according to Wikipedia of movies that were shot in Colorado:

B

C

D

E

F

G

I

L

M

O

P

R

S

S cont.

T

U

V

W

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Happy Sukkot the feast of Booths.

5 Things to Do On Sukkot:

  1. Check out  Ushpizin:  A film about Sukkot and the beauty of inviting strangers in to your home in hopes of a celebrated holiday.  The link is to a movie in Hebrew just watch and enjoy the interaction.
  2. Go Camping. Get out of the house.
  3. Build a Booth from an old Sand Box, include Grape leaves. (One thing I did as a child with my mom and still remember fondly.)
  4. Invite a someone new to your house for dinner. (Be careful about this, best way to go about this is to invite someone new you know from Synagogue or Church). 
  5. Make a dinner to celebrate Fall...and drink plenty of wine.   Read tales of liberation and how that liberation and hope will never fail with God.  We are not there yet, but we are on our way. 
For more on Sukkot and Celebrating the Festival Check Out: AISH's Sukkot. 

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