sun it will rise, soon enough, and other truisms

i just read this morning about an artist named jenny holzer, whose display at the museum of contemporary art in chicago right now consists of 253 LED installations, curving bands that flash the words of of her 'truisms'

reading about her exhibit made me think of a few different things. i was listening to the song 'sun it rises' when i read the article, from which the title line of this post is derived--sun it will rise, soon enough. that line, in turn, reminded me of the philosopher David Hume, who formulated this argument that would seem to oppose the fleet foxes. that the sun has risen every morning in recorded history, he would say, does mean that it necessarily follows that it will rise tomorrow morning. we cannot know until it happens, we cannot fall back on our experience of the past to dictate the content of our future.

this, in turns, reminds me of g.k. chesterton's orthodoxy, in which he produces the less philosophically sound but perhaps even more compelling idea of God's delight in bringing the sun up morning by morning, and paints a picture of the God of imagination taking a childlike pleasure in revealing the beauty of the world to us all:

Is it possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes the daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never gotten tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

interesting, too, that both Hume and Chesterton can be right on this one. perhaps it is not out of absolute necessity that the sun rises, they both say. the sun rises, and it rises soon enough, and it lights the way for all of us from millions of miles away--but as soon as we expect to see it every day and take its presence for granted, we have grown old and lost our collective imagination and our spirits are grated rather than grateful. for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

that is one of the most apt truisms i know. but so is this, and i believe it with all of my heart:

sun it will rise, soon enough.

the girl effect

i only watched it at first because michele sent it to me, katz, and anna. and now i keep thinking about this idea; and what if it really worked because people were really devoted to it? what if girls who grew up in developing countries could have the kind of freedom and equality that i enjoy, become business owners and make choices for themselves?

what a day

there are not many good words left that have not already been spoken. what a day.


and now, instead of trying to come up with something to add to the voices that already echo, i will present this humble and very funny cartoon pie graph:

the most wonderful time of the year

awards season is upon us.

the ugly duckling to the oscar's swan, the golden globes, aired last night without much fanfare. slumdog millionaire won best drama, which is good because it should have, and kate winslet swept the 'actress' category. 30 rock won stuff too, which is also good. but that is not what i want to talk about.

see, this was the 66th annual golden globe awards. incidentally, it was the 66th year in a row that i was not invited to attend. or the 23rd if you count by years i've been alive, but whatever. it all adds up to the same thing.

given the snub from the golden globe people and the fact that mr. blackwell died this year, i will now offer my own scathing fashion critique. take that, hollywood.

the five worst dressed people at the golden globes, in no particular order . . .

1.) blake lively

'oh, sweetie, no,' is, i think, the phrase that best captures this choice--as well as the first thing her stylist should have told her.

she is so gorgeous--and who doesn't love/envy serena van der woodsen? she would have been waaaaay better off choosing something from the gg wardrobe, even jenny's. how did she end up with the one dress that looked totally unflattering on her? it's seriously a mystery.






2.) eva la rue

okay, before you are all "who is this girl in the pirate shirt?" i have one word for you:

i don't, actually, because i had to look her up on imdb and even then found out that she is sometimes on csi:miami and once guest starred on 'dallas.' which seems to me like they are generationally mutually exclusive, but what do i know?

the outfit, though. where did it go wrong? skirt? great. shoes? so cute. clutch? nice.
oh, i know. the blouse. the full-on, i-was-on-dallas, i-loved-that-seinfeld-episode, puffy shirt shirt. eeeeesh.


3.) sting

i'm sorry to say it, because it's sting and all, and maybe this was just a terrible angle. but it can't be that. he looks like a terrorist from '24.' why are you so mad, sting?











4.) renee zellweger

okay, really? did someone tell her she was going to a funeral? i can't help but borrow this description from one of my favorite websites:

She looks like Crazy Aunt Ne-Ne, who's been let out of her attic for the first time since TV was black-and-white, crawled down a gin bottle, tasered her minders, and is now trying to hail a cab to the nearest military base to show our boys some real gratitude.

Couldn't have said it better myself.





5.) rumer willis. miss golden globe.

i'm sure it's really hard, being bruce willis's biological daughter and having a stepdad that you lust after and being friends with lindsay lohan and all. but don't take it out on the rest of us. that's just mean.









top 5 best dressed of the night . . . still to come.

in those days

the golden days at the end of that summer were the last i would ever see. sun slanted through the car windows and turned everything the same liquid shade of yellow, and the only music we could hear came from the blades of grass rubbing together outside. the road stretched far out ahead of us, but we were only in one place at a time and could not know where it would take us. going, going, going forward and standing still all at once. we never knew why she died. how could we? it was never really for us to comprehend, if you ask me. i don't know that she understood it, either. it happened, that much we knew, and so to forget about it and to remember it we just kept driving.

favorites

i wasn't going to do one of these, because i found myself reading so many of them and i don't know how much valuable insight i have to add, and because by january 5th, i figure the statute of limitations is pretty close to expired. but, i also figure that not doing something because everyone else is doing it is not a good reason not to do it, and that is how we got here. i also thought about how these things remind me of those e-mails that would get sent around in middle school asking you about your favorite movie and which backstreet boy you most identified with and one time, my friend chris sent one around saying that he thought that i had the prettiest hair and, well, who doesn't like to hear that they have the prettiest hair? so, again, that is how we got here.

and here we are. 2009, which is almost 2010, which means that we are almost ten years removed from Y2K and the year i turned fifteen and the new years i spend in san diego playing third wheel to my cousin and her boyfriend. and it was a really good year, 2000, but 2008 was even better, and i expect this year to be the best yet. they all are.

so, i'd like to think back a bit on this year that is behind us before moving fully toward the year to come. disclaimer, same as with all the other great lists i've read, not everything mentioned here is new to 2008, but was new to me that year.


best music of 2008

• bon iver, for emma, forever ago
• andrew bird, armchair apocrypha
  
• rihanna, everything that she ever put out every, which i realize isn't an album but if you don't realize her genius i can't help that
• she&him, volume one
• fleet foxes, self titled, especially white winter hymnal
• lil wayne, lollipop (just the song, haven't heard the whole album yet, and honestly i have learned to keep from yelling out 'i love lil wayne!' when his joint comes on in the club because half the time it's actually t.i. or someone entirely different and i am totally embarassed)
• bonnie 'prince' billy, lie down in the light
• britney spears, womanizer. duh.
  
• beyonce, everything ever, because she is the shit and she is married to jay
• antje duvekot, snapshots

i know i should say tv on the radio, and i really do like them a lot, but i'm just not there. 'family tree' gets an honorable mention, though.


best books of 2008

• netherland, joseph o'neill
• one hundred years of solitude, gabriel garcia marquez
• the will of god as a way of life, jerry sittser
• the alchemist, paulo coehlo
• alive, piers paul read (holy shit!)
• everything steinbeck ever wrote
• the entire sweet valley high series, except for 'senior year'
• snow, orhan pamuk
• downtown owl, chuck klosterman
• purity of heart, kierkegaard

shout out to p.g. wodehouse for always cheering me up

best moments of 2008

• barack.
• visiting seattle in may
• getting zack back from africa
• courtney's wedding
• jess's wedding
• watching saw i-iii with my family at christmas. an ortberg vacation, to be sure
• falling on my face with four great friends to take care of me, ensuing rum and cokes in the er, and (probably) no lasting scars
• starting at harperone
• grandma and grandpa retire
  
• sea world
• camping (!!!) in yosemite
  
• visiting chicago and having chicago visit me
• jess and josiah's wedding
• vacation in maine
• deetjen's big sur trips
  
• what the hell, barack again
  

best movies of 2008

• slumdog millionaire
• saw i
• forgetting sarah marshall, mostly for the fact that they actually pulled off a vampire musical
  
• saw ii
• milk
  
• saw iii
• surprisingly, ghost town
  
• saw iv
• moonstruck, even though cher is in it
  
• saw v (preemptive, but i'm pretty sure)
• captain blood
• double indemnity
• i guess i didn't see too many movies in 2008

favorite drinks of 2008

• champagne, preferably martini & rossi, and only in flutes
• blubeery from bevmo
  
• whiskey
• iced tea with lemon and lots of ice from portillo's, especially when accompanied by a hot dog and a slice or chocolate cake
• the TEE OFF cosmo
• whichever beer is provided for beer fridays at work
• lauren's hot toddies

so many other favorites, so many i can't even think of right now. it was a good year, a great one even. here's to smooth travels and safe transitions . . .