TheIdeaMan

Hancock: half-cocked

Caution: product may contain spoilers.

If you've seen the trailers for Hancock, you may have gotten the impression that it's primarily a comedy about a drunk superhero. They're not entirely misleading. The first 30 odd minutes are hip-hop backed episodes of drunk "heroics" by the reluctant, anger motivated "superhero" Hancock. It's a humorous, relatively fast paced, expletive-filled ride to the plot line and key characters.

]]> Generally in superhero movies there's a turning point: Spider-Man deciding responsibility comes with power, or Batman embracing his fear in order to overcome it. These turning points often highlight human struggles and present superhuman results most of us wish were possible. Hancock, however, shows us what it would be like if we had those super powers and never grew as a person.

While Hancock does turn from drinking, shave, don a "hero suit," and change his theme music from hip-hop to classical, the underlying man changes little. Though he's a bit cleaner, he remains motivated by self-image and self-gratification. The director refers to this "redemption" as "a man looking to tap into a higher version of himself." If that's as good as it gets, perhaps he should look elsewhere.

This meager change of heart produces equally disappointing results: a single successful act of heroism, after which we learn Hancock's all too Grecian back story and meet his 3,000+ year old spouse (also the spouse of his only friend). From this point on the movie is distinctly Greek. Hancock and Angel have a deities' brawl in downtown LA, love-hate their way to the final climax, and end the movie with a happily ever polyandry.

I'm sure the movie means well; there's just no hero in it.

Christians in the Arts

My wife and I have been discussing this topic for several years. We're recently back to it en force as we try to map out what's next for our family. I hope to be posting more on this topic soon, but for now, here's a link dump of some recent sites I've found:

Transforming Culture: A Vision for the Church and the Arts - this was a symposium held on the 1st-3rd of this month in Austin Texas. They'll be making audio downloads available for purchase soon. The general information they provide is interesting and encouraging.

Space for God blog's write up on the Transforming Culture symposium
the author of Diary of an Arts Pastor was one of the speakers at the Transforming Culture symposium

Imago Dei Community - a Portland, OR based church with a focus on the arts both in worship, as ministry, and as a vehicle for the communication of Truth.
International Arts Movement - Makoto Fujimura who came to Christ because of a search for Truth in art has begun this group to promote similar exploration by other artists.
Art for God's Sake by Philip Graham Ryken - a short but effective introduction to Christian art and the need for involvement. The introduction features information on Makoto Fujimura's work.

Along with these more national and international efforts, action is being taken in the Upstate of South Carolina as well:

Silver Chair Books - a local book store in Greer, SC is hosting a Christian in the Arts discussion group in the next few weeks.
Another group is going to be hosting an presentation on the Transforming Culture symposium this Friday night at Snapshot Café and Art Bar. Details provided by the organizer are below:

Where: Snapshot Café and Art Bar
110 Poinsett Hwy at Rutherford Rd.
Greenville, SC
When: Friday, May 2, 6-7 PM
Who: Any Christian in the visual arts. Bring a friend!
RSVP: stgeorgeapa [at] bellsouth [dot] net

Learning by doing...

This quote comes from the development/programming side of my life, but it likely has farther reaching application:

"when you learn something new by using it, the application you build
will contain all the mistakes produced by learning, and you don’t
always get a chance to return and fix those mistakes."

from REST and Resource Oriented Architecture

Missional Meme

Brannon recently posted a short write up about the "What Makes a Church Missional" article in ChristianityToday. Missional is a word I've used for things I want in the Church and to see more actively expressed in local Church assemblies.

The article explains a little about at least one of the origins of the word, and as we should expect, it's original definition was more accurate and even more appealing than the definition of the word today.

So, to pick up the Missional Meme, read the article, and then post below or trackback this post about the word "missional," how you see it being implemented, and how you'd like to see it implemented.

Status messages and game ending music

Recently I posted a strange status message on Facebook. For the curios, the line (roughly) comes from the music at the end of a video game (which I've actually never played) called Portal. The lyrics are sung by the computer that guides you through the game. It's a quirky, funny, weird set of lyrics. The seriousness of the computer's tone adds to the humor.

Anyway, it's a long-day-programming kind of song. :) We'd listened to it that morning and I felt it fit what I was doing that day ("science"). The song is free to download. It's video game ending music, so it's techno and weird, digitized female vocals, just so you know. :)

In researching this post, I also found a very fun 2D version of Portal built in Flash. Enjoy!

Six-Word Mottos for the US

This reminded me of the six word stories my wife told me about some months ago: Six-word Mottos for the US.

Many interesting. Others, not so much.

Pepsi Deaf Commercial

Pepsi's running a commercial in ASL and closed caption during the Super Bowl. Here's the current one (with more to come): Bob's House.

Ode to my cat, Emile

Oh where have you been,
Kitten boy, kitten boy.

Oh where have you been,
Darling kitten.

You're the terror of my life
and you sometimes scratch my wife.

You're a young thing
and never knew your mother.

Missing Will...

Whenever I say or think the word "friend" at the end of a two word sentence (ex: "thanks, friend" or "hey, friend"), I think of Will Gray.

You never realize how grateful you are for people, couples, acquaintances even, until they move away.

GTD status: the fiddler...

It's seems other people have the "grass is greener" problem when trying to organize their lives.

Check out, your gtd system isn't the problem, for more information.

So, now in search of sustainable, productive habits.

Cory Godby's Zune film...

If you haven't seen Cory Godby's Zune film you must before next year.

Cory's animation ability conveys an incredible story of grace given, received, confined, and then given again.

Congrats Gloria Repp

Gloria Repp's Mik-Shrok story of missions in Alaska made it to a list of religious missions books published in School Library Journal's Extra Helping newsletter.

Atari 2600 makes it into Toy Hall of Fame

Personally, I think its the faux wood grain finish that made this console such a hit. In any case, it will be weird to see my first console in a museum some day.

"Milton, see that massive chunk of plastic? That was your father's first video game console."

"Console? Video Game?"

New Blue Mouse

Blue, bluetooth, BigBlueHat mouse.

Seems appropriate.

Christian Art Society site

Some years ago I had an idea for a "wikipedia" style site for Christian artists. The site would include encyclopedic info as well as articles, blog posts, and links to various Christian in the arts type information.

Other demands on my time have kept me busy elsewhere. That said, the domain name for this site expires on the 2nd of November of this year. If there is anyone out there interested in the site staying around (e.g. you are willing to add content and get others to do the same), please let me know.

The site as it currently stands is available at ChristianArtSociety.org.