Phil Christman

Two weeks’ vacation (actually, the much-delayed honeymoon) starting Tuesday. Rabid work till then. School starts before I return, so I probably won’t have a chance to say howdy to this blog before the 21st or 22nd of August. Sure is a good thing I don’t post enough to have much of an audience, anyway.

Warmest regards.

Never thought I’d be linking to the Alma (MI) Morning Sun. (I like to kind of not acknowledge that I was born or grew up anywhere.) But my parents’ family doctor, whom I knew mostly by stories, was one of the passengers missing in a plane crash that has gathered some national attention.

I can’t say much about the other missing persons, whose last names, at most, I recognize. (Same for the pilot, Jerry Freed, who was, thank God, found alive.) So I won’t, and this is not intended as a slight. But I do know that my family owes a lot to Dr. James Hall, who sat up most of the night with my father when my mom was hospitalized with mystery chest pains in 1985. Hall was a pillar of the community, active in everything, loved by everyone; what counts most to me is a bit of unpaid human kindness he showed a terrified man twenty-five years ago. God bless them.

This story is just stuck. I think I had figured out already yesterday that the problem is the opening line, but I couldn’t admit it, because I was so proud of the damned thing. I thought it was so clever. Now I think it’s whiny. I’m jettisoning it here in the hope that someone, Ashley or Christian or Adam or someone, will whap me on the nose with an umbrella should it appear anywhere else that has my byline.

If she loved me, that Thursday evening in my first month of college as I stared past her arched neck at the heat register and thought So this is what it feels like to lose your virginity, I never knew it.

The problem is, if the speaker is concerned about the lack of love in the world, why is he staring deadly across the room and thinking self-conscious thoughts during a sexual encounter? He seems to blame her for a problem they both share. Now, come to think of it, that might make a good story in itself, but it’s not the one I feel like telling at the moment. So out it goes.

We love you but we’ve chosen darkness.

Right now two of my characters are arguing about the existential meaning of old-time TV test patterns. I honestly can’t tell you if I believe in the exchange they’re having or not, or in anything else that has happened thus far in the story. Welcome to my life.

From Political Animal:

The people who have been laid off and cannot find work are generally people with poor work habits and poor personalities. I say “generally” because there are exceptions. But in general, as I survey the ranks of those who are unemployed, I see people who have overbearing and unpleasant personalities and/or who do not know how to do a day’s work. They are people who create either little utility or negative utility on the job. Again, there are powerful exceptions and I know some, but when employers are looking to lay off, they lay off the least productive or the most negative.

—The guy whose “utility” is best exemplified by his ability to host stupid game shows and say “Bueller” over and over again

PS: I love, love, love the bit about him “surveying the ranks of the unemployed.” Does he have a vast underground telescope that doubles as an attitude assessor? I just picture millions and millions of out-of-work Americans (we’re way into the double-digits when you consider all those who’ve given up looking) walking past some giant sci-fi eyeball hooked up to Ben Stein’s optic nerve, and, after a moment, Stein’s electro-modulated monotone yelling “USELESS. NEXT.”

But I’m sure there’s serious research behind this vast, hateful generalization; it’s not like anyone with such a secure perch in the right wing media would just pull things out of his ass.

Damn, we’ve lost another founding member of Big Star. Bassist Andy Hummel was only fifty-nine.

She posts more than I do and is more interesting. When Adam Petty and I start that literary journal, we’re going to find a way to snag her.

I always thought “Jesus Lizard” was the profane name of a grunge-era band. No, it’s an actual lizard. And it walks on water. Thank you, PBS!

… are traditionally an object of derision. Unlike the Anglican clergy of P.G. Wodehouse’s day, who could at least be relied upon to wind a stem, American Episcopal clergy are, according to stereotype, uncomfortable with preaching (though the exceptions are impressive and shouldn’t be forgotten), rushing through that part of the service with a few mumbled thoughts on Service or Taking the Larger View and then gratefully stepping aside for announcement time.

Life in the South, where going to church is still a more or less required token of Quality and Niceness, has furnished me with many examples. I’ve gone to church for much of my life, sampling several different denominations, and tasting many rich local variations on that flavor of boredom best induced by moral-spiritual blather, but I didn’t know a quarter-hour could be spent so emptily till I visited a few of the fancy, bells-and-smells Episcopal churches down South Carolina way. One Suburbanite of God told a bunch of jokes that clearly came from one of those public-speakers’ joke books, and, just as clearly, from a pre-1980 edition. The fellow who used to preach at the downtown cathedral’s evening service gave incoherent lectures on world development, the Super Bowl, and the importance of experience in a presidential candidate (he wanted us to know that he supported John McCain). These were not side notes; they were the entire content of the sermon. This morning, for Palm Sunday, I was treated to something that, roughly outlined, went like this:

1. I was getting my glasses fixed recently, and, boy, it’s just crazy what they can do these days with machines and such.
2. And that reminds me: In Today’s Modern World, All This Technology, It Sure Is Crazy. (Otherwise known as “the observation that opens every freshman paper I’ve ever read.”) It’s Scary How Fast the Pace of Life Is Nowadays. What With Cell Phones and Such. Sometimes We Forget To Pause and Just Live Life. You Kids Get Off My Lawn.
3. Now, when Jesus was riding that donkey into Jerusalem, what we forget today is (follow me closely here): that donkey was really slow. Whereas Today’s Modern World, as we’ve just seen, is (can you make the connection?) … fast.
4. But He, our Savior, He rode that donkey anyway. Yes, he did.
5. Therefore (big payoff): try to slow down this week, take time to thank flowers and smell the God, I mean thank God and smell the flowers. Remember, we have lots of Holy Week services for you to go to, which will certainly help you to take a moment and really, y’know, think, insofar as the mere sound of my voice makes time stand still forevermore.

Postscript: Could it be that the secret model for the last few generations of non-sequitur ECUSA pulpitcraft is … the Vice President of the United States?! That’s the American people, man, we’ve gotta give them light.