Imago Film Festival 2016

There are many great things I like about the early Spring.  The beginning of baseball season,  gearing up for the Blackhawks (and sometimes the  Bulls) playoff runs,  my wedding anniversary, and Easter Sunday are just a few of them.

For the past 3 years Judson University's Imago Film Festival   has become one of those great things I associate with the beginning of Spring.  I came home  just a few hours ago from the fifth and final evening of the 12th annual festival and want to relate my experience of the event.

The Mission statement for the festival states that  they showcase independent films that deals with faith issues that emphasize image and story. I attended each night of the festival this year and the 15  

official selections that were screened certainly met the missions statements criteria.  

Terrence Wandtke stated several times in festival literature and at the festival itself, that many of the years selections dealt with themes of love and loss.  He was certainly correct in that assertion, and the 4 winning films all dealt with that topic in one way or another.

My favorite film of the 4 winners,  Not the End,  won the Audience Choice award.  

The 2nd runner up as decided by the Judges was Speed Dating.

The 1st runner up was Persimmon.

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Best in Show was the Oscar Nominate short, We can't live Without Cosmos.

$2,000.00 was divided unevenly between the winning 4 films.

I am sure you will be able to find all 4 movies on line at some point, if you have interest in viewing them - perhaps even at Imago's You Tube Channel.  However, my week at Imago reinforced my belief in the importance of the communal experience of watching movies.  I encourage any of you in the Chicago area to come to Elgin next year to experience Imago 2017 with me.  

If any of you were wondering why it took me 2 hours after coming home before I wrote this review, It is because after all that film watching I wanted to do some more.  I just finish watching my first full length feature on someone else's blog post.  From time to time someone will put a link to an entire movie from you tube on their blog. On Friday I saw a link to the movie Angel and the Badman, a 1947 John Wayne film.  I had not seen it before so have been watching it after the festival for the past 2 nights.  It is a film that deals with faith issues and emphasized image and story.  So it was a perfect post Imago activity.  Perhaps soon, I'll review it here.   Before that happens, I plan to screen the film for an audience, my family.

A to Z blogging coming in April

I am going to be participating in the a to z blogging challenge in April at all 3 of my sites.





I will be revealing my 2016 theme here in 3 weeks

I am looking forward to doing it.  It will be fun and crazy.


For more information about the A to Z Challenge click  here.

News Flash: Cats Love Bacon

Two weeks ago I started posting comic strips from Go Comics each Saturday.  I call it Saturday Funnies.  The Go Comics Blog has a feature called Meet Your Creator.  The most recent installment is about Georgia Dunn the creator of Breaking Cat News.  I was really moved by the article and checked her strip out.  Here is a strip from earlier this week.

Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn, February 15, 2016 Via @GoComics: One of the many great comics you can read for free at GoComics.com! Follow us for giveaways & giggles.




Also posted at HSD #YBD=HSD

Beggars Can be Choosers

B



Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, February 20, 2016 Via @GoComics:



One of the many great comics you can read for free at GoComics.com! Follow us for giveaways & giggles.

What Republicans need to know if they want my vote in November

Six Word Saturday

My Six:

I'll never vote for Donald Trump.

Let me bullet point it for you.

•  Back in August of last year I ranked the 17 republican candidates for president. the Donald came in 17th.  
• The only reason why he comes in 6th now is that 11 of the candidates have since dropped out of the race.One of the 16 other candidates was a pro choice republican.  I am on the record of stating that I would never again vote for a pro-choice republican.  I would be hundreds of times more likely to vote for that candidate than Trump

• I don't hate Trump.  I just don't trust him.
• I don't trust anyones whose go to answer is I'll be great at it.
• I don't hate Trump.  I just don't respect him.
• I cant respect anyone whose answer to those who disagree with him is to deride them.
• I get very upset when any of the other candidates when trying to frame the discussion back to Republican versus Democrat state that any republican candidate would be better than Obama, Sanders or Clinton.
• It only takes watching 1 debate (and I have watched all but 1 of them) to see that Trump does not have the character to lead this country.
• When he is booed which is often. He assumes  The people booing are wrong.
• In the last debate he took a pot shot at Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who had been out of the race for some time.  When booed he attributed it to donors who back Jeb Bush.  The truth is he was attacking Graham in a debate in South Carolina, a week before the primary there.  
• I feel there are many people like me who will never vote for Trump.  
• But I am afraid there are more people who are willing to go along with who ever secures the nomination.
• I will not be among them.

For more six word saturday click here.

Also posted at HSD #YBD=HSD

The Pac Man Special

Frank & Ernest by Thaves, February 13, 2016 Via @GoComics:




 One of the many great comics you can read for free at GoComics.com! Follow us for giveaways & giggles.

Also posted at HSD #YBD=HSD

Songs from my cassette collection Volume I

It has been a while since I have participated in Six Word Saturday at Show My Face.  So I have two for the price of one.  

We Bought a Jeep on Monday

It has a working cassette player.

We have not owned a cassette player for sometime and once I noticed that we now did.  I pulled out my 200 or so cassettes from under my bed and have started listening to them again.  I forgot about a lot of the music down there and have decided to post lyrics from songs occasionaly here and if possible videos of said songs at Dave Out Loud.  

Today's song comes from Steve Scott a poet/musician whose 1983 album love in the western world contained this gem.

This Sad Music

The whales are dying now,
hurling themselves upon the beaches
black dice reckoned under the sun's watchful gaze

There's sweat on the preacher's brow
as he talks about damnation.
The whales are in love with no one
They wanted to die without explanation

He mops his brow and quotes Malcolm Muggeridge
on - quote -
"the collapse of western civilization"
- end quote -
and the book he waves in the air
is as black as whaleskin

He urges people to "make their decision"
and the whales have made their decision

An awful silence surrounds them
Like a ruined castle they lie
still, passive, beyond explanations

Beads of sweat on the preacher's brow
like small clear animals clinging to a rock face
or like tiny transparent whales
flinging themselves from the boiling seas of his eyes
into a slow, certain dying

The sad music in their brains, a piper's lament
from that old castle in the mist-thickened night

"FIFTEEN THOUSAND CINEMAS ACROSS THIS LAND,
DEPICTING EVERY SEXUAL ACT KNOWN TO
THE HUMAN IMAGINATION!" shouts the preacher

His voice is a door slamming shut
the sea's noise is a vast intake of breath
a gesture in a room to break the silence
now the whales have broken the silence

They are the color of the preacher's harsh words

The white foam rushes to embrace them
like mother and father
The whales do not want to know, and now

There are people sprawled on the beaches
chained together by "HUMAN IMAGINATION"
All the music has bled out of them,
drained from the ends of their fingers
splashed from the loudspeakers of their wallets

And at the end of the service, people walk forward
Perhaps it is "the collapse of western civilization"
that moves them
or the sad music of their slow, certain dying
that guides their feet

And at the end of this poem
a strange light comes off the bodies of the whales
gathering up the shadows like driftwood
and splashing them against the far walls

you would think the shadows would make
the words there hard to read
However, I find it's at a time like this
I see the writing clearest of all

(c) Steve Scott 1983

Click here to watch the video at Dave Out Loud.

Click here for more Six Word Saturday

Also posted at Home School Dad #HSD=YBD

I took a poet to lunch today.

Every day at work my boss my boss titles her group chat by the name of whatever "holiday "it happens to be. Yesterday was take a poll to lunch today. On my break I wrote this poem.

I took a poet to lunch today.

I took a poet to lunch today 

and there amid the verse 

Our flow of thought was free and light 

Not stifled, bland, or terse.

I took a poet to lunch today 

we traded quip for quip

 She scrawled a sonnet on her check 

And left it with her tip.

If you can't take a poet  to lunch 

Please do not wear a frown 

We all write poems in our own way 

Andsome just write them down.

John Piper has an excellent article on the Lottery

I enjoyed this article on the lottery by John Piper.

The article grabs you with the first line ...

"Americans now spend more than $70 billion dollars annually on lotteries."

and nails it in the final paragraph

"So, if you win, don’t give from your lottery winnings to our ministry. Christ does not build his church on the backs of the poor. Pray that Christ’s people will be so satisfied in him that they will be freed from the greed that makes us crave to get rich."

I agree with each of Pipers 7 reasons not to play the lottery. d it.  It is a quick read and one I  recommend.

That Ship has sailed.

A month ago or so, I was listening to talk radio on the way home from work.  When I got home, I decided to call the host and discuss some issues.  We talked a few minutes about various topics of the day and then started discussing the abortion views of one the senators from Illinois, where we both live.  This particular senator is pro-choice.  While listening to the radio station that day, there had been a commercial about pro-life listeners contacting that Senator  and telling them how concerned they were about the environment.  It was kind if a strange commercial, as I asked the host, if pro lifers were going to contact the Senator wouldn't they do so to ask him to change his pro choice views instead of asking about the environment?  The host wasn't sure exactly about the wording of the commercial but about discussing the abortion issue with the senator, stated "That ship has sailed," which I took to mean that the host had had numerous conversations with the Senator and that his pro choice views were rather ingrained.

I hadn't thought about that exchange since the evening it occurred until earlier today.  When I did think of it the phrase "That ship has sailed" really stuck in my mind.  I believe that abortion ends a human life. .  When I speak out against abortion, sometimes people treat the issue as it was resolved by Roe vs. Wade.  That ship  has sailed, is what they are saying.  Laws can be changed.  The people who wanted legal abortions in the U.S. didn't say that ship has sailed.  They kept fighting until they got their way.  People who agree with me that ending pregnancies prematurely should be stopped, need to continue to rally around the sanctity and dignity of the human life.  The ship may indeed have sailed, but a ship heading in the wrong direction should always be convinced to alter it's course.

Love,

Dave.

2016 wow!

Some time ago in the early to mid-80s I made my last New Year's resolution. I resolved to never make New Year's resolutions. This was very similar to the time that I gave up Catholicism for Lent. When it was over, since I was no longe Catholic, , I didn't have to take it up again.

In the same bent, I have not made New Year's resolutions as such for my entire adult life. Although, every year about this time I begin to think how would like this coming year to be different than the last. I do make resolutions I think we all do. It's just that I don't do them around a calendar.

Here is a short list of things I,d like to do more of in 2016 ...

Read more books

Blogging

Exercise

Be on the same page as my wife 

in 2016  I,d like to ...

Read 12 books I own and have not read.

Learn how a sailor cusses, so I can decide if I want to cuss like one or not.

Finish my nonowrimo novel.

Some things I,d like to do less of in 2016

Deep Sea dumpster diving.

https://www.google.com/search?q=dumpster+diving&safe=active&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS602US611&hl=en-US&prmd=vin&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiDx82iponKAhXEZCYKHb49AoMQ_AUICCgC#imgrc=NIDQhmJanVoaBM%3A

Being passive reaching family and personal goals.

Avoiding unpleasant tasks.

Saying the same thing two different ways in lists.

2015 was a good year.  it sometimes seemed there were more downs than ups, more questions than answers.  But each down made me look up to God.  Each question was answered or is being answered by the author and perfect er of my faith. 

I am sure 2016 or as I like to call it two to the fifth three squared seven will  contain change,  disappointment, and grief as all years do .. I also know that it can contain Joy unspeakable, unlimited possibilities, and utter contentment, I wish all these to you and yours in spades or the card suit or garden implement of your choice.