rose_griffes

Nearly everyone has a t-shirt that they won't mind sacrificing. That, and a pair of reasonably sharp scissors, and you can make two makes (two sleeves = two masks) from a short-sleeved tee.


(I'm guessing you could make more than two masks, but this video is specifically about using the sleeves for masks.)

I hope y'all are well. I'm participating in a worldwide fast today--Good Friday--and praying for relief from the pandemic. Probably going to watch a rebroadcast of Handel's Messiah here in a bit.

In an odd turn of events, I'm directing my congregation's choir for our Christmas program this year. (Choir is composed of anyone who will come to church forty-five minutes early for practice.)

Anyway, I selected two songs during the Thanksgiving holidays. One is an arrangement of the Polish Carol that some of you may know as Infant Holy, Infant Lowly. Or Stars Were Gleaming. It's a lovely melody, and the parts work well in this arrangement. It includes a short flute solo and a verse for children to sing.

It took me longer to decide on the second song. Finally I went with As Shepherds Kept Their Lonely Vigil, thinking that it just seemed like the best choice.

Since I was choosing the songs on Thanksgiving morning, my dad overhead all of this from my laptop, and later dug up a CD with a song that sounded remarkably like that second song. The melody to Oro'sé Do Bheathea Bhaile, an old Irish tune, has a lot of similarities to "As Shepherds Kept..." So maybe my feeling of 'just right' came from familiarity. Heh.

Anyway, the link up there for "As Shepherds Kept Their Lonely Vigil" includes a free download PDF for the sheet music as well as a link to listen to a version sung by someone named Heather Prusse, who does have a nice voice. Enjoy your free Christmas music!

( funny true story about conducting music in church )

Ooh, and it's Hannukah (started yesterday), so Happy Hannukah to those who celebrate it.

Had a (brief) discussion on another LJ about my religion and politics, so I'll link to this recent article: A Female Episcopal Priest Visits a Mormon Temple. I thought it was an interesting (although brief) perspective on my religion from an outside perspective.

fic for Person of Interest: I'm still planning Carter/Reese post-season one plotty fic. I've managed to come up with some workable ideas about, uh, stuff (plot-related stuff! motivation and character stuff!), so now I'm worried that the finale is going to throw all of my plans into chaos with some sort of difficult-to-work-around cliffhanger.

I never posted a link on LJ (though I did on Tumblr) for a Zoe Morgan/John Reese fic that wasn't written by me (I know!): A kiss can be even deadlier, if you mean it. PG, no real spoilers. It's funny and there's the tango.

fic for Battlestar Galactica: I'll post the author reveals tomorrow afternoon for the BSG remix. In the meantime, in addition to the remix written for me, y'all should read Family Matters (The Things Inside Remix). It's a remix of Nicole's Give You All. (My summary for Nicole's story: it's like Joss Whedon decided to write Kara/Lee fanfic. Everything you wanted in the worst possible way.) The remix still has the same dark premise--Lee has been taken captive on New Caprica by a Six--but now we see not only the Six's POV, but also Dee's. And it's fascinating and heartbreaking and a wee bit hopeful at the end. It's also long--about 30,000 words--but totally worth it.

livejournal stuff: Ugh, apparently they're redoing the scrapbook feature. And reducing how much memory we get, which isn't really an issue at this point (I'm waaaaaaaaaay below their old and new limits), but uploading pictures is currently not so easy. How am I supposed to have more pictures of pulchritudinous Jim Caviezel in my LJ if I'm having trouble uploading more than one picture at a time?

1. Apparently Messieurs Parker and Stone, creators of South Park and that 'Mormon' musical are going to make a movie out of that 'Mormon' musical.

( and my irritation level goes up a bit )

2. Stephen Colbert makes me laugh. Have you seen his Yahweh or No way? segment on Mormons? No? Well, here it is.
(Context, for those who aren't familiar with Colbert: he plays the role of a conservative political pundit on his talk show. Yes, he's using his own name, but it's definitely a persona, not who he is.)

3. There's a connection between points one and two. ( back to the musical (and my irritation) )

I say this every year, but it's going to be so obvious which bsg_remix story is mine. The more I wrote (finished a second draft last night) the more all of the themes I love kept popping out. It's sort of embarrassing, actually. I should write a post about id-fic and WHAT THE HECK DOES IT SAY ABOUT MY ID when I keep writing [theme redacted for an attempt at secrecy] over and over again.

(Handy part about being a mod: giving myself a deadline extension.)

I have some fun links:

Here's a trailer for a Harry Potter TV show The Aurors. I wish this weren't an April Fools joke, 'cause I would watch this.

The Bronx Zoo cobra has been recovered.. Too bad--I was rather enjoying her tweets as she was out and about NYC. My favorite tweet: Enjoying a cupcake @magnoliabakery. This is going straight to my hips. Oh, wait. I don't have hips. Yesss! Heeeeee!

Dear Wonder-Woman: YOU Will Get Arrested If You Fight Crime in That Top.

This weekend is my church's General Conference, which is what I'll be watching in a bit, sitting comfortably on the futon, instead of going to church. I love General Conference. (For many reasons, not just couch-sitting instead of pew-sitting twice a year, but hey--that part is pretty awesome too.)


To wrap up this post: I started watching Wall-E recently and I got so depressed after fifteen minutes that I turned it off. Yet people keep telling me how awesome it is. Will it be awesome enough to clear away the CLOUD OF DOOM AND DEPRESSION induced by the first fifteen minutes? Will I cry and resent all of you who loved it if I finish watching it? (Personal resentment! I'll hold a grudge, I'm warning you now!) heh

( sweet church story about prayer )

( a religious Christmas rec )

eta: Awww, I have a snowflake cookie on my profile from Sbabe!
eta2: I guess Saint Nicolas likes cookies! There are two more now waiting for him! Thanks, everyone! ♥

Good morning, everyone! This post has two ridiculous segues.

The 'flu has been making its rounds in my city. The number of absences isn't higher than what I've typically seen at the height of flu season, but this is only October; rather early to be having the absences be at this level already. The students who've been sick have missed at least a week; that's a lot of school work to make up.

It's not just school and kids. I drove to my nearby church temple yesterday and they had to close one small section temporarily because too many of the (mostly older and retired) volunteer workers were sick.

Speaking of church, I found a video online that brought back memories, a lot of giggling and some singing along. I'll Build You A Rainbow, produced by my church ages ago. It was a filmstrip--one of those with pictures and music and a beep sound when it was time to advance to the next picture. It is... well, right now it seems truly terrible. *laughs* (It was made sometime in the seventies, I believe. That should be enough explanation right there.) But I can still sing all of the song! When I was a missionary in France, we found one of the old filmstrip machines and this particular film in the closet. We probably should have left it there, but instead we dug it out and watched. It's only six minutes long, but it did make me a bit teary-eyed way back when. (Warning: if you actually watch this, it features the death of a parent. You can read the narration and hear the instrumental music here.)

It's a good example of media that tries really, really hard to make people feel something, but goes too far and I end up feeling manipulated.

Speaking of media that makes me feel manipulated, am I the only person who disliked the movie Titanic for that reason? Even though I cried at Jack's demise and Rose's feelings about it, I felt like I was being forced. After the movie was over, that feeling only got stronger. I liked all of the other parts--you know, the stuff that actually happened. That was moving. The Rose and Jack story felt artificial next to them, and I hated crying about it.

I would actually love to watch a version that edited out most of the Rose/Jack stuff.
And now I'm wondering if I'm totally alone in this sentiment... You probably all loved it! And you resent me now for my dislike of it!

And now we have a crossover of subjects in this post! Eric D. Snider, movie reviewer and Mormon, wrote a funny shortened version of the movie: Clash of the Titanic.

Augh, now I have that song "My Heart Will Go On" stuck in my head. *smacks forehead*

As I've been examining my own thoughts and feelings about the many, many different takes on the Twilight series, one thing keeps hitting me: I'm seeing the same kinds of missteps in outsiders looking at my religion that I've seen all of my life. I'll take a wild guess and say that people belonging to other less-than-mainstream religious groups see the same patterns, and maybe some I've missed.

You know how in the movie The Princess Bride there's that scene where Vizzini and the man in black are having the duel of wits (to the death!) for the Princess? Vizzini, in his moment of triumph, tells the man in black, "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia!"

In the spirit of Vizzini's list of blunders, here's my own.

( Classic Blunders in Making Statements about Mormonism (for non-Mormons) )

eta 1: I've been bookmarking Twilight meta posts on delicious.com. Some are by other LDS bloggers; I don't necessarily agree with all their opinions, but if you're curious about some LDS views of the series, look for the ones that say LDS or Mormon blogger in the description. (Oh yeah, the link! here)

eta 2: good advice from lady_ganesh

eta 3: I finished The Definitive Mormon Commentary on Twilight, Part I

Last night I was a chaperon at a church youth dance. Nope, Mormons don't forbid dancing... we actually have dances at our church gyms on a regular basis. Heh--when I was growing up all my (non-Mormon) friends in Oklahoma thought that was so weird. (Lots of small towns in Oklahoma used to have laws forbidding dancing... and some of my friends had pastors who preached against dancing, too.) Anyway--recently I was asked to work with the girls, ages 12-13, rather than doing the music-related stuff I was doing before. That means getting an occasional turn as chaperon for the youth dance.

The kids were adorably geeky and having a great time. I'm torn between feeling:
a) optimistic about the future--kids who know how to have fun and are such cute nerds!
or b) tragically old and un-hip, because I didn't know the words to any of the songs that they liked.

Change of topic! I need a pretty moodtheme. Not Battlestar Galactica. Maybe muppets or The Princess Bride? Or... cats? Puppies? Where does one find such a thing? (I realize that puppets and princesses don't exactly match the green/black and floral thing I have on my LJ, but I... don't care. I want cute funny pictures. Then maybe I'll actually bother selecting a mood for entries. and I'll stop getting 'black' as the answer for that stupid LJ moodring meme, WHAT DOES THAT THING KNOW!?!

Lastly, as long as I'm soliciting things, got any favorite Caprica or New Caprica resistance fics? I think I'm going to make a rec list of Resistance stories. (Feel free to mention your own work.)