I AM GOING TO SEE DAVID GRAY LIVE AND ASK HIM TO MARRY ME OR AT LEAST SCREAM SO LOUD I'LL BE ESCORTED FROM THE VENUE AND WILL HAVE TO START A RIOT TO GET BACK IN AGAIN.
OMG.
I love the man.

Also, voting is up for toon_icontest here

New vote for _beauty_icon up here.

I haven't done this in a while, so here we go: deviantART favourites, and why you should check them out.

( Because they're beautiful like Jon Stewart giggling )

New vote up for tori_icontest here.

Thankee faithful voters :)

toon_icontest has a new challenge up here.

So, like every year, I went to the annual Antwerp Book Fair, and bought too many fucking books. I don't even know how much cash I spent yesterday, but I'll know by the end of this entry, because here are the books I bought:

Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass (€13,20)
I already have Alice in Wonderland in Dutch, but this is the uebercute Collector's Library edition. I wanted to also get The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Wind In the Willows, but my sister convinced me to only take the one, and I picked Alice. It's such a fun and quirky book, that I'd probably pick it up often just to read a bit in it, like I do with LOTR or Pride and Prejudice (which I also have in this edition.

Anton de Witt & Richard Steenvoorde (ed.) - Christendom (€19,95)
This is a book with christian source texts, and some explanation with every excerpt. It contains texts from the entire catholic tradition, and it's just an awesome source book for any religion teacher. So booyah!

Guido Dierickx - De buitenkant van de religie (€34)
The outside of religion is a work on the anthropological aspects of religion, rather than the theological or philosophical aspects: how to seperate those, what problems can arise from these aspects of human cultural behaviour and how to fit rituals into a secularized society. It looks really interesting. It's also the first book of the day I bought, so - hey, it better be good!

Neil Gaiman - The Sandman: Preludes & Nocturnes (€19,99)
Neil Gaiman - The Sandman: The Doll House (€19,99)
Neil Gaiman - The Sandman: Dream Country (€14,99)
Finally did it, and bought the first three volumes of The Sandman series. I remember when I discovered American Gods and fell madly in love with it, ryvka said I needed to check the comics out; but it's always been shelved because I didn't have the money to buy them, and I couldn't find them in the library. But I spent so much money on books for school this time around, I figured I could just as well blow my entire wages on books, and buy these three. So I'm really looking forward to starting with these. After I read everything still on my shelf waiting to be read :)

Tom Hannes - Zen of het konijn in ons brein (€17,5)
Zen or the rabbit in our mind is a book about zen and mindfulness by Tom Hannes, who seems to be rather too full of himself to be an actual zen master. However, it's a smart and funny book about the art of not listening to the hyper bunny in our heads trying to rush us or force us, which makes it something I'd like to read. And the cover is soft. Bunny soft.

De Bijbel cultureel: De Bijbel in de kunsten van de twintigste eeuw (€75)
The Bible culturally: The Bible in the arts of the twentiest century is the biggest and most expensive book I bought this year (and possibly ever), but it's just awesome. It's a broad encyclopedia of the most important cultural illustrations to biblical sources of the 20th century, ordered by stories. For instance, if you look up my favourite story, the book of Jona, you get a small introduction to the source text, one larger article (in this case on Rudolf Tobias' Des Jona Sendung), and then an overview of the most important related movies (John Huston's Moby Dick), plays (Martin Sorescu's Iona), classical music (Satie's Jonas et Latude and John Tavener's The Whale), pop music (Tom Waits' Starving In the Belly of the Whale, Louis Armstrong's Jonah and the Whale, David Byrne's Nineveh and The Waterboys' We Are Jonah) and litterature (Manhattan Transfer, Het teken van Jona and De beproeving).
If I had to do all this work on my own - ouch. This is awesome. And the best thing is, I can still expand on it. If I find something new, or something contemporary, I can just stick in a post-it and add it to the list.
Also, the amazing thing is that a lot of the cultural references listed are critical of the source material and / or religion in general. So it's not the usual schmaltz genre One of Us by Joan Osborne. I mean, this is the sort of book that could contain Francis Bacon and Nine Inch Nails as well as The Passion of the Christ.
Awesome, awesome book.

Een parel voor elke dag (€24,95)
A pearl for every day is a book with 366 stories and prayers and small texts that you can use for a moment of quiet, to contemplate, stuff. I was in desperate need of one of these, and I liked the bits and pieces I read from this one, so I bought it.

I also bought one gift book, which cost me € 7,95; and a set of playing cards (also as a gift) of €4,99.

So, if I can count correctly, that means I spent €252,51. Which isn't so bad, actually. I really thought I'd spent a whole lot more.

Also, did anyone notice it's Sesame Street week on Google. Today it's Bert & Ernie in the header! I'm trying to save them all, but I missed Monday's version, so if anyone accidentally saved it, pretty please let me know?

And again (but I did make a somewhat interesting actual post before this :D): vote up for toon_icontest here.

I was looking around for some info on Legion which is an upcoming action flick about killer angels and stuff. It just looked cool. I came upon a couple of 'christian blogs' all trashing the movie: from 'oh woe is us for tolerating such heathens!' to 'these people don't know theology'. And I kept thinking: Dude, fiction.

So I posted something somewhere, and I figured I'd repost it here. As a religion teacher, I'm always fascinated by the use of christian (and any religious) symbols in popular media. From Lost to House to movies like this, it seems that the ban on christian symbols is gone, and I like that.
Symbols need to be used and abused, because that shows the many interpretations and visions of people. And symbols are only interesting when they reveal something, not when they're kept clean.

I do like the idea of this movie, though. It may be theological nonsense, but it does ask a couple of very interesting questions. For instance: in Noah's days God sent a flood. Who's to say he won't do that again? And if he does it again, will he save someone? Just Steve Carrell, perhaps?
In origin, in Jewish lore, angels are simply the messengers of God. Lucifer uses free will to rebel against God (a very human thing to do) and is cast out. God doesn't like to argue with his minions, it seems. So what would make an angel turn against God? Why do we assume that rebellion against God has to be bad? How do we reconcile the vengeful and often cruel God of the Old Testament (and yes, he has his moments in the NT as well) with the God of love and forgiveness that we find in the psalms and the teachings of Jesus? Does God ever change his mind? If we are like God, does that mean he gets jealous (he seems to be jealous of Baal) or pissed off? And if he does, does that make him imperfect? And if he's imperfect, should we stop worshipping?

Asking those questions, even in the form of an entertainment film, is never a bad thing. I'm looking forward to this one, anyway. There's not enough Dennis Quaid around these days.

Is anyone else interested in seeing this (or have you already seen it?)

Voting for _beauty_icon up here.

Seems all I post here these days are voting notifactions. I'll make a proper update this weekend! For now: voting for texture_itchall is up here. On of the stock photos was of a cute little kitten.

Voting for toon_icontest up here.

Voting for texture_itchall is up here.

Also, had a great day. Just wanted to share that.

Votes for _beauty_icon are up here

To stay within the theme of the new Editors album which is, btw, awesomely brilliant, I made a playlist with random songs that Papillon reminded me off, or that reminded me of Papillon. And I just spend a full two hours bouncing around my bedroom dancing to it. Before I head off to the shower (which I really, really need) and settle in with a book and a warm cup of tea, this was this night's entertainment. And seriously ( I would kill to see any band do this life, especially if 'any band' would be Trent Reznor on tambourine )

Vote up for texture_itchall here.

Voting for _beauty_icon is up here. This is the first time I'm participating in this challenge, so I'm curious :D

Voting up for tori_icontest here

This is the funkiest news in a long, long time; and I don't quite know what to make of it. I mean: Barack Obama? Really? My first reaction was: no way, too soon and really, he hasn't done anything yet. But then when I started to read the reactions, I noticed I got pissed off at all the criticisms - so I figured, on some level, I think he does deserve it. Or at least: I don't think he does not deserve it.

Obama was given his award for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. If you call actually talking to muslims without drenching them in holy water and apologizing for being civil to them (unless they're a Saudi), then yes: exceptional! Though: not entirely untrue.
But how fucked up is this world when we consider the act of simply talking to be something worth rewarding?

But then again, I once wrote a post on ets defending the optimism about Obamas election by pointing out that if all he ever did was bring hope and optimism to the world, it would already be a dramatic change. So yeah. Weirdness.

Voting for _tori_icontest is up here.