Illumination

(click photo to enlarge)

Your testimonies are wonderful;
Therefore my soul keeps them.
The unfolding of your words gives light;
It imparts understanding
To the simple.

I opened my mouth, and panted:
For I longed for thy commandments.
Look upon me,
Be merciful unto me,
And show me favor,
As is Your way to those
Who love Your name.

Direct my steps by Your word,
And let no iniquity
Have dominion over me.
Redeem me from man’s oppression,
That I may keep your precepts.
Make your face shine upon your servant
And teach me your decrees.

Streams of water run down my eyes,
Because men do not keep Your law
[They hear it not,
Nor receive it,
love it,
or obey it].
-Ps. 119:129-136, various translations

(My apologies for the gratuitous number of pictures of myself on this blog. I think it's gratuitous. But I can't afford models for my pictures. I'm sorry.)

Music Under the Radar

The other night, during dinner at Shabu Shabu, I noticed that one of the waiters had a U2 "Under a Blood Red Sky" t-shirt on. I thought that was cool.

I like music. Music is, to me, what poetry is to people who have the attention span to appreciate poetry (I don't have the attention span to appreciate poetry). I used to be able to listen to albums straight through; just listening, picking apart the lyrics and melodies. Sadly, I don't have the patience to do much of that anymore. But I still enjoy stumbling into new musical finds every now and then -- all the more so if they're from musicians that don't get much press. Maybe it's because I have a deep-seated need for pretentious music-snobbery, like, "ooh-la-de-daa, look'it this band that's so awesome, but you've never even heard of!" Or maybe it's just that I think that indie artists have more creative freedom than mainstream ones do. Or maybe it's both.

If you're anything like me, you'll enjoy some of these musicians that have somehow slipped under the mainstream radar. They do what they're passionate about for a living, but don't get much publicity, and I think that's pretty cool of them. Stop by their sites for a listen, why don't you:

1000 Generations--To Those Who Cry
-Worshipful pop/rock. Check out the songs "Only in Weakness" and "To Those Who Cry." Very nice.

Deas Vail--All the Houses Look the Same
-Keyboard-and-guitar-driven rock. "Shoreline" is a pretty song. Also check out "Anything You Say."

But the musical gem I really want to highlight right now is from Jacob's Well. I picked up their newest EP, I Will See You, at their concert in San Gabriel last weekend (thanks for the invite, Kiks!). Jacob's Well is tight. Their sound is folksy, upbeat, and almost exclusively acoustic (though they have an electric bass player now. Nice guy.). Elise Loomis' vocals are amazing, and the quality of her voice reminds me a bit of Leigh Nash from Sixpence (maybe that's just me). Many of their songs are Scripturally inspired, which, when coupled with the band's skillful musical chops, makes you wonder why we don't see more bands like Jacob's Well in the mainstream. But to really appreciate these guys, check them out live. This is a band that knows what they're about, and it's not themselves. These are the kind of people that will put on a free concert, pour their hearts out into their music, and then thank you for the opportunity afterward. They're not rock stars, they're worship leaders. And it shows.

If you haven't succumb to the Jacob's Well sensation yet, check out their myspace. Their new album's title track, "I Will See You," is definitely worth checking out.

I also saw this the other day, and thought it was amusing. And it involves one of my favorite bands ever:
U2 Bringing Spider-man to Broadway

Broadway, comic books, and U2. How can it go wrong??

The Duck!

Guest writers for "What the Duck's" 200^th-comic-strip celebration.

Scroll down about a dozen or so strips. The one with "William Chan" written at the top.

A Brief Word on Finding This Place

So I was talking with Kiki the other day, and she mentioned something that I had concerns about when I started this blog. I mentioned this briefly in the disclaimer post earlier (see the third disclaimer), but in case you missed it, here it is:

The more I look at it, the more my blog's name looks like it says "Ecclesiastes," which is an Old Testament book of wisdom and life experience. It doesn't teach anything about spelling, though. Or combining words. If you type in "Ecclesiastes" in front of the "blogspot.com," you're going to get someone else's blog (trust me, I tried it).

I keep a link to Blogger in my browser toolbar, mostly because I'm not very confident in being able to accurately type in my own blog's URL. But generally speaking, I like to keep the things I read together via RSS subscriptions. If you haven't bought into the RSS sensation yet, I recommend checking out Google Reader. All you need is a Gmail account, and it doesn't require anything to download. Then all you have to do is click on over to the links under "RSS Feeds" to the right of this blog page. Easy peasy. Do that for all your friends' blogs. You'll be glad you did.

And just in case you're wondering:
Eclectic -- (adj.) Selecting or employing individual elements from a variety of sources, systems, or styles.
Ecclesiastes -- (n.) A book of the Old Testament.

Ecclesiastes contains reflections of an old man, the “Preacher,” as he considered the question of meaning in life. He looked back and saw the futility (“vanity”) of chasing after even the good things this life can offer, including wisdom, work, pleasure, and wealth. Even if such things are satisfying for a time, death is certain to end this satisfaction. In fact, God's judgment on Adam for his sin (Gen. 3:17-19) echoes throughout the book (especially 12:7). Yet the person who lives in the fear of the Lord can enjoy God's good gifts. Young people, especially, should remember their Creator while they still have their whole lives before them (12:1). Traditionally interpreters of Ecclesiastes have identified the “Preacher,” who is also called “the son of David, king in Jerusalem” (1:1), as Solomon (tenth century b.c.).*

*from the ESV introduction to the book of Ecclesiastes.

Dying Flowers

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So I was editing this photo on my computer, when my mom walked by and caught a glimpse of the screen. And she asked, "What's that?"

"Flowers. I took a picture of them using the flash."

"What? You mean those dried up old flowers that were sitting in the living room?"

"Yeah."

"Wow. Even dried up old flowers can look nice."

I thought that was an interesting comment. Just the idea that there can be beauty in something that's otherwise unattractive intrigues me at times. Of course, with a vase full of flowers, you don't really have to stretch to find that beauty. I mean, come on, they're flowers. But even in the downright ugly -- the streets and the slums and the empty cookie bags sitting on a desk that no one seems to appreciate -- I think there's always a strange sense that, maybe if you look at it from a different angle, there might be a glimmer of something beautiful.

So whenever life hands you a lemon, light it from different angles and take a picture of it.

As for the picture itself, I was fooling around with this light-painting technique I read about on Strobist. Camera was on a tripod in a pitch dark room; the flash was hand-held and fired via its "Test" button. The shutter was held open as long as it could manage (30 seconds), and the light was fired off at various angles around the vase. I have to admit, I cheated a bit here. The flash beam wasn't as tightly controlled as it should have been, so some light spilled over onto the walls and my stuffed-animal Ninja Turtle. So I brought down the ambient light in Photoshop to get it solid black.

You can try it yourself at home. All you need is a camera that lets you adjust shutter speed and a light source (flashlight, strobe, whatever).

A Typical Exchange

Random person: Hey, what does "abecedarian"^* mean?
Me: What is that, English? Uhmmm... yeah, I've never heard that word before in my life.
Random person: Whaaaat?!? How can that be?? Weren't you a Literature major??
Me: Oh. Yes. Yes, I suppose I was. I'm sorry, I must've missed that lecture on "abecedarian."

A harmless exchange, to be sure. But it seems to occur often enough that I feel there should be some clarification. The University of California, San Diego has a program for the study of Literature in the field of Writing. They do not, however, have a program for Literature in the field of Vocabulary. None that I know of, anyway. The difference is subtle. Words are great, and tremendously useful. And yeah, if you're into learning a new word everyday, then that's all great fun. But vocabulary is not an end unto itself (unless of course, you're a Literature/Vocabulary major). The writer is trained to put words together in such a way as to sense make good. Words are a tool. Communication of ideas is the goal. And to that end, most of the time I can get away with not knowing what abecedarian means.

That being said, I encourage everyone to expand their vocabularies. Learn a new word once in a while. Find a way to use it. Expand your mind. And then come back and teach me what that word means.

I don't even know what a Literature/Vocabulary major would study. Dictionaries? Isn't that what Linguistics majors are for? I don't know.


*abecedarian--1) Pertaining to the letters of the alphabet; 2) Rudimentary; elementary.

Santa Monica

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Have you ever heard that song "Santa Monica" by Savage Garden? It's a charming little song, about feeling out of place in a world of false appearances. It's also about prank calling your friends and pretending that you're Norman Mailer over the phone, which seems a bit odd to me.

Anyway, this was shot at the Santa Monica Pier. This guy on the guitar was actually quite good, and I thought his voice sounded a bit like Phil Collins. I think Kim got a video of him playing "Tiny Dancer." But then, later on, we saw this other guy on the Promenade singing the exact same song! What's the deal with that? Do these people share playlists or something? Is there an academy for this sort of thing? And this guy here is playing on a Martin! Why am I giving you money, sir? But then again, I did take his picture without permission, so who am I to judge, neh? And like I said, he was pretty good at what he did.

Still trying to get the hang of post-processing in black & white. But it's okay, 'cause it's digital. And man, I dig-it-all! (I'm sorry, I stole that from Strong Bad. You can blame him.)

The Virginia Tech Massacre

Virginia massacre gunman is named (BBC News link)

Everyone's talking about it here at work, and the story's all over the news. And as far as tragedies go, I guess this one hits pretty close to home. Never once during my time in college did I ever feel unsafe or endangered in any way. And to think of the friends and families left to mourn and wonder why...

But to be honest, I can't really say that the news shocked me when I first read it. It was saddening, to be sure. But surprising? Not particularly. I think it takes a thick skin to read the news these days and not get completely depressed at the sorry state of this world. And after a while, you read these stories day after day, and you become desensitized, realizing that there is no limit to the evil that man is capable of. And you can't measure it's extent in the death tolls or the number of tears shed. It's pervasive, all around us, to the point that it stains all of our souls. And it's a disconcerting state of human nature that, when pushed to its limits, makes us all no different than the monsters we read about daily.

On a related note, it turns out that the shooter was an English major. I find this fact rather disturbing. I always said you have to be a bit weird to write, but I guess I never thought "depressed-crazy-shooting-people" weird. Messed up.

About This Blog -- A Few Disclaimers

Perhaps it would be prudent to get a few things out of the way before we get this blog rolling.

• Disclaimer the First: the author is aware that this is, in fact, a blog.
• Disclaimer the Second: as a result of the above disclaimer, the author is aware that there is a certain assumption, whilst blogging, that people are reading said blog. However, the author will not be so presumptuous as to assume that anything he writes is interesting enough to be read.
• Disclaimer the Third: the author of this blog is aware of the blog's name. Yes, Ecclesiastes is spelled wrong. Yes, eclectic is spelled wrong. But you know what? WillWrite4Food was already taken, so the author had to resort to making up words. He briefly considered the name Poofreader, but didn't much care for the prominence of the word "Poo" up front.
  

• Addendum to Disclaimer the Third: the author would like to apologize to anyone who is considering Poofreader as a really cool blog name.

• Disclaimer the Fourth: the author will provide updates to this blog sporadically, the frequency of which is dependent on a variety of factors, including (but not limited to): scheduling concerns, time of day, weather conditions, levels of ambient lighting, extent of sleep deprivation, overall health and fitness, dietary patterns, hydration levels, states of political turmoil (both local and worldwide), and of course, global economic growth.
• Disclaimer the Fifth: the topics covered by this blog are subject to the whims of the author, and are not guaranteed to be cohesive or coherent in any way, shape, or form.
  
• Disclaimer the Sixth: as can be seen with the contents of this list thus far, it should be clear to most readers that the author's writing style is often inconsistent, makes much use of cliche, and is generally rather unfunny. Please do not humor him. He needs not your pity.

All right then. Let's get writing, folks.

So Why Blogger?

I've been meaning to get back to blogging, but to be honest, the thought of going back to Xanga doesn't hold a whole lot of appeal. And after cruising around the interweb, I eventually came to the realization that "hey, blogspot has a pretty nice interface." And since I can get most of my Xanga subscriptions through RSS, I figured maybe it was time to jump ship. A few reasons I'm drawn to blogger:

- Flickr support -- allows me to post photoblog entries straight from my Flickr account.
- Commenting open to the public (not only to blog members).
- Lots of layout control and customization options.
- Availability of compatible blogging software.
- Nifty add-on options, which may or may not prove useful.

I was thinking of converting my brother's old G4 tower into a web server, but after jumping through loops to get apache, mysql and php up and running, I came to the realization that I had no idea what I was doing, and that maybe I was in a bit over my head. Best to leave the web server-ing to the web server-ing professionals. Plus I didn't want to pay for electricity or a domain name. I just found out that I owe the government taxes, by the way. Uncle Sam is a cold, money-grubbing relative if I ever met one.

New blog, new possibilities. Carpe canem!