A quote:
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success.
If you are going to walk on thin ice you might as well dance
This is the personal website of Matthew Dellinger. I use it speak my mind on the continuing work of God in my life, our culture, the the church, and anything else that comes to mind.
I'm currently trying to move into a more serious realm. I want to use this space primarily to address the second and third topics I mentioned: culture and the church. I'm always looking for something to write about, so if ya'll think of anything, just ask and I'll talk about it.
Enjoy, or at least think about what I post.
Check out what the boys over at THG have done to your everyday bacon sandwich.
Overclocking a bacon sandwich
(4/23/07)
Ya'll've (a great south-west virginian word) probably been wondering (as much as you wonder about anything on my here) why I haven't posted anything about the shootings, since they were rather important. The reasons for this seeming flagrant oversight are as follows. A) I have been rather braindead, B) its not over yet, and so I'm still collecting things to write about, and am still being influenced by it, and C) my writing at this point is rather below its already low quality standard, as proved by all the poetry I've written this week.
This is not to say that I'm not going to post anything, its just going to be a little while. In the meantime, call me if you want to talk.
(4/23/07)
Liviu Librescu (circa.1932 ? April 16, 2007) was Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics at Virginia Tech and a Holocaust survivor. His major research fields were aeroelasticity and unsteady aerodynamics.
Dr. Librescu was murdered in the Virginia Tech massacre while holding off the gunman at his lecture hall entrance so his students could escape.
Professor Librescu was among the 33 people killed in the Virginia Tech massacre on April 16, 2007. He was killed in the Norris Hall Engineering Building. He sacrificed himself by holding onto a hatch preventing the gunman from entering the lecture hall while students attempted to escape through windows. He was 76 years old.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liviu_Librescu
This is truly heart wrenching. The man survived the Holocaust, and then sacrificed himself for his students.
(4/17/07)
Just when you think you've seen it all you find the question
Looming like a shadow overhead
Reawakens your obsession
To find the truth and put your doubts to bed
On and on and round and round
Here among the lost and found
Listen for a certain sound
Even a whisper
Until the truth brings you around
Keeping one ear to the ground
And when you finally see the light in all its glory
Shining on the truth of who you are
One more searcher with a story
A wiser fool who's fallowing a star
On and on and round and round
Here among the lost and found
Listen for a certain sound
Even a whisper
Until the truth brings you around
Keeping one ear to the ground
(4/12/07)
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?
On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
The musician did not play popular tunes whose familiarity alone might have drawn interest. That was not the test. These were masterpieces that have endured for centuries on their brilliance alone, soaring music befitting the grandeur of cathedrals and concert halls.
Read the full story
(4/9/07)
Sorry I haven't been writing much. My life recently hasn't been worth writing about. I've sort of gotten so wound up in school and stuff that I haven't really been reading my Bible or thinking or praying much, which puts a damper on the posting, since most of what I write comes out of that. Ya'll should call me at random times and be like "Matthew, have you read your Bible today? Cause you should, cause your life always goes better when you're in the Word."
Anyway, I saw a really great movie today. It was "Letters from Iwo Jima." It's a movie (obviously) about the battle of Iwo Jima, but it's done from the Japanese perspective, which is an interesting take. It was sort of nice, because it really helped me get my brain around the whole "there are good men on both sides" thing. I think we always hear about the prison camps, and the death marches, and portray the Japanese as these inhuman monsters. And some of them undoubtedly were, but the movie shows them and their motives and their struggles in a way that I understood.
The thing that stood out the most to me though, was the fact that there are I think two or three scenes in the entire movie that even have blood in them. Clint managed to make a 2 1/2 hour war movie in which you see hundreds of people die, and only showed blood twice. Hollywood, you should learn from this; the Kill Bill-style blood flowing everywhere isn't necessary. I'm not saying that it is universally wrong; Blackhawk Down is a very bloody movie, and so it should be. It's just nice to see that someone in Hollywood understands that blood is a tool in movies, and should be used as such. This is the same reason that I don't have a problem with nudity, language, drug use, illegal activity, horror, or anything else that is commonly used in movies today to provoke a reaction; they are tools, and as such, have a place in the cinema, but we must understand that place and not use them simply for their shock value, or they quickly use that place.
(4/6/07)