Listics

Is that a Buick in your garage, or are you just glad to see me?

AKMA has some interesting observations about the “emergent church.” He’s blogging off Karen Haluza’s recent rant on the emerging church. Other bloggers in the cluster around this rant make some sweet and telling points as well. One of my favorites: “Incense is the physical and sensory representation of prayer, rising up to God. It’s not just Church Glade.”

The comments and trackbacks around these posts are wonderful and rich and demonstrate that this is no simple matter.

Disclosure: My leading to embrace Quakerism included a love of Friends liturgical practices. That’s both the truth and a joke. Get it?

Congratulations to my friend Jacqueline Houtman whose entry in the New Scientist Neologism Contest won her a bottle of pretty good booze and a copy of Climate: Into the 21st century, the overview of our weather edited by William Burroughs.

Coyotus Interruptus A momentary suspension of the law of gravity, usually accompanied by the sudden realisation of impending gravitational acceleration. The term is derived from the name of its discoverer, Wile E. Coyote (Carnivorous vulgaris), who often observed the phenomenon when, in pursuit of Road Runner (Accelerati incredibilis), he was propelled at high velocity from a precipice of sedimentary rock by an apparatus of his own contrivance or by a commercial product, such as Fleet-Foot Jet-Propelled Tennis Shoes (ACME, Inc).

Jacqueline Jaeger Houtman, Madison, Wisconsin, US

And no offense to Frank Wilczek, but I also enjoyed the - shall we say “off-colour” (hehehe!! I crack myself up) - definition of the Hogg’s Bison…

The Hogg’s Bison Undiscovered theoretical particle of matter requiring $800 billion in funding to find. If found, it really will enable pigs to fly.

David Lloyd, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK

Hell.. what really knocked me out was the solipsistic research that went into the proof of the existence of the demiverse…

Demiverse We only have eyes in the fronts of our heads, so the existence of a whole universe is an unwarranted assumption. The known fact that people turn round and walk into you after buying their ticket demonstrates that there is only a demiverse, and that there is a delay in the unobserved half re-establishing itself.

Clive Bashford, London, UK

The conceptual framework underlying the Demiverse dovetails nicely with Coyotus Interruptus, I think.

… Dr. Savory provides a moment’s paws.

I just spent three days on the road with Daniel Browne, the son of George Daniel Browne, an archbishop, who led the Episcopal church in Liberia toward self-support, independence from American Church and membership in the Province of West Africa. Daniel’s brother Herman Browne followed in his father’s footsteps. He works for Rowan Williams in Canterbury.

The Browne brothers have done well since graduating from their father’s alma mater,Cuttington University College, in the 80’s. I’m always impressed by people like Daniel who speak English as a second language. Daniel’s a technologist who knows a lot about networking systems. He’s been training IT people from across Wisconsin on a proprietary piece of software that the State purchased to administer a large network. I’m pleased to note I beat him three out of three on his own chess board. An old man can be forgiven for bragging. All the young ladies were looking at him. I was like the invisible man. Dan plays soccer. I play fetch with the puppy.

The reason for this post is to record an observation that I haven’t shared with Dan yet. This could be whack, like a white guy with an opinion on ebonics or something, but bear with me… I have African American friends who transpose “s” and “k” in words that use an “sk” combination. I kind of like the sound… really, just aks me. That “aks” thing is something that I thought came off the streets or maybe had roots in Southern black culture or whatever. Point is, Daniel is way not the least bit dyslexic, but I heard him use those “sk” to “ks” transpositions a couple of times this week. I’m thinking that — surprise — it’s an African thing. I gotta aks him tomorrow.

Blog in progress… after talking with Daniel and absorbing a Liberian history lesson, I see that I was working with wrong assumptions and it’s all more complex dan dat. Liberia was settled (on the coast at least) by freed slaves from North America in 1822 and following. While there are several native tribes in Liberia, each with its own dialect, there are also many Liberians for whom English is their first language.

More on this later as I venture down anthropological, sociological, and linguistic paths trod previously by many college sophomores.

To spare everyone a big spam sammich, I’m passing this message from Leslie Wolf along in the blog… Leslie got it from her sister who got it from who knows? Someone way too sick and twisted to sign his or her name….

Amore !!

When the moon hits your eye
Like a big pizza pie
That’s amore.

When an eel bites your hand
And that’s not what you planned
That’s a moray.

When our habits are strange
And our customs deranged
That’s our mores.

When your horse munches straw
And the bales total four
That’s some more hay.

When Othello’s poor wife
Gets strangled in strife
That’s a Moor, eh ?

When a Japanese knight
Waves his sword in a fight
That’s Samurai.

When your sheep go to graze
In a damp marshy place,
That’s a moor, eh ?

When your boat comes home fine
And you tied up her line
That’s a moor, eh ?

When you ace your last tests
Like you did all the rest
That’s some more A’s!

When on Mt. Cook you see
An aborigine,
That’s a Maori.

A comedian-ham
With the name Amsterdam
That’s a Morey.

When your chocolate graham
Is so full and so crammed
That smore.

When you’ve had quite enough
Of this dumb rhyming stuff
That’s NO more, eh ?

This is another day, and I seek the light within me. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, may I stand bravely and with intention. If I am to sit still, may I sit in quiet anticipation. And if I am to do nothing, may I do it quietly, patiently, and attentively.

If these words are to be more than words, then it will be because I am guided by the light that is in me and the light that is in each of those around me.

One pound at a time isn’t going to cut it…