We’re just under three weeks away from the premiere of the ninth season of Doctor Who. Last Christmas feels like a million years ago, but the hope of a quality season with the Doctor and Clara that really pushes the show forward is still there. This second trailer for the season looks to make good on that hope: lots of new things (and a few old ones) that could use some explaining.
The adventures of the Doctor continue September 19.
Last night I finally got around to watching the first two episodes of AMC’s Fear the Walking Dead. I did it primarily because Andy Greenwald over at Grantland recommended it. I enjoyed the first season of the parent show, but (like so many others, I thought) I lost interest when the show got stuck on the farm in season two. And while I’ve heard that the series has gotten better under its latest show runner, I just don’t have much interest in the characters. Or, more specifically, I don’t have much interest in their relationships.
Truth be told, I don’t know the names of the characters in FTWD yet. Part of that might be a reticence to invest. The other part is that, at least in things like zombie stories, it’s as much about the relationships as anything else (wait: the guidance counselor can only save the student by bludgeoning the principal?!). And for all of the permutations that have happened over just two episodes, those basic relationships are the core that TWD never quite had. Those relationships were too disparate, too strained from the beginning. These are clearer and a little more grounded in love (with a healthy dose of teenage angst). At this point I feel for these characters as much as I felt for Rick Grimes at first (but that’s about it).
This is the way the world ends, of course. And as one character said in the second episode: when it happens, it happens quickly. Which is both true and not. That student, Tobias, mentioned all the things that will fail because people aren’t there to maintain them. True enough. But as I watch and think and feel your way through the falling apart, I can’ help but feel that it’s because society as represented in the show has lost its center. It’s moved too far to the edges and now unable to recover. That could just be the armchair sociologist in me talking, though.
As I watched the second episode, the movie Tomorrowland came to mind. One of the twists in the movie is the revelation that forces have been at work for some time trying to “normalize” the end of the world by apocalypse. All the movies, the tv shows, the novels we read desensitize us to the world that is ending right before our eyes. As preachy as that moment was in the movie, something about it rings true. Fear the Walking Dead, at least as it begins, may be more of the same. But for those with ears to hear and eyes to see, it’s a warning nonetheless.
It’s difficult to believe that I am already one month into my thirteenth year teaching high school. At this point, we’ve already gone through the first cycle of things: first tests and projects, first homerooms and assemblies. It has been a good year so far, both challenging and comforting in different ways.
Starting again is a strange thing. It often requires a certain amount of willful forgetfulness, a kind of naivete about things, assumes that a little time away somehow makes all things new. It’s an odd optimism. And while it’s been years since I first learned the difference between (blind) optimism and hope (based on truth), I have yet to fully and effectively maneuver well between the two. These last few years have been about learning to reorient my hope, which stands opposed to forgetfulness just as much as it stands opposed to blind optimism. Hope transcends students and adults, policies and (even) possibilities. We make hope’s foundation much too slippery when we don’t see Him for who He really is.
“I need hope to start again,” the song goes. Maybe it is the hope that needs the jumpstart, or maybe it’s the person. Either way, hope is key. And whether it’s year one or year thirty-one, the good and right hope is the essential thing, a common yet uncommon thing.
The folks over at Relevant Magazine posted this (long for a) granola bar commercial this morning. It’s the heaviest granola bar commercial I’ve ever seen. Check it out.
Last week while in Tennessee, I got to be “back out in nature” some. There’s something to be said for junebugs and lightning bugs and squirrels and deer and things that grow and live that are beyond your knowledge. It takes on forms particular to locale, of course. In Hawaii it’s found in hiking and snorkeling and being on the lookout for dolphins and whales as you watch the water. All of it is rooted, though, in some sense of wonder.
I’ve been dabbling with a couple of more recent Wendell Berry essay collections, and I’m always impressed with his ability to articulate the significance of the created world and the finesse required in knowing how to treat it well. Beyond an appeal to tradition or nostalgia, this video definitely hints at something we should be careful of letting slip by. I need to make sure and show this to my students.
Over the last few months I’ve spent a lot of quality time listening to Caedmon’s Call and filling in some gaps in my music collection. Just before heading out on my recent trip to Tennessee, I found and ordered a copy of their third “Guild” album. The Guild albums were for their committed fans and often included live cuts, instrumentals, and songs that never quite made it to a studio album. When I found the album (from the year 2000), I ordered it and had it sent to Tennessee, where it waited for me to make my trek west to see some friends in Kentucky. While the collection has a number of anticipated moments and tracks (“Hope to Carry On” and “God of Wonders”), there were also a number of really nice surprised. My five favorite moments from the album:
Honorable Mentions: an early and acoustic version of “Can’t Lose You” and a (much) shorter rendition of “There’s a Stirring,” which I’ve had on my mind a lot since Texas days.
It’s an odd but encouraging thing to revisit music from this particular band at this particular place in their career. It reminds me of a more thoughtful, literate, and engaging approach to the Christian faith. It was both a simpler but more complicated time, where you often “just didn’t want coffee.” I played the album throughout the rest of my visit home and am really glad to add it to my collection. It’s also spurring on some good thoughts for me, thoughts that I hope to play with over the next few weeks and days here in this short space between summer break and the fall semester of teaching.
And here’s a clip from what most of us are assuming will be a Sherlock Christmas special. Again with the moustache, Mr. Watson.
Turns out that we’ve got just over two months before the return of the Doctor. Here’s the trailer for the new season.
I was talking to a friend recently about spoilers and my attempt to avoid them. The beauty of the best trailers (at least when it comes to a well-known property) is that it can give you all kinds of images and sensations, but they don’t really make sense until you see them in context. Some familiar faces in the trailer, but definitely more unknown things than known.
Doctor Who series nine drops in mid-September.
Whether you sing it or you say it, Augustine’s thought rings true in life as you live it.
Great are You, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Your power, and of Your wisdom there is no end. And man, being a part of Your creation, desires to praise You, man, who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin, even the witness that You “resist the proud,” — yet man, this part of Your creation, desires to praise You. You move us to delight in praising You; for You have formed us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in You.
Here’s a video compilation put together by a fan of Pixar movies in anticipation of next week’s Inside Out.
It definitely hit some of the company’s high notes (though I would’ve liked more from Brave and Toy Story 2). Regardless, it’s a great example of putting things together.
Seriously: go read the book first. Then come back and watch the trailer.
I’m a little surprised at how much this trailer actually gives away. When I was reading the book (which was an enthralling experience), I was assuming one narrative direction. Then things changed. Makes me glad I read the book first. You should, too.
Space Enough, and Time 