"Boy A"

"Boy A" is playing at Film Forum. It's quite a devastating story. The neglected geeky kid falls in with the truly bad kid who, of course, has a story and maybe an excuse to be a misfit. Not that that justifies crime. Boy A is being protected by a guy who, in turn, has neglected his son who had lived with his mother after she left the guy. Pretty tangled. My folks were deeply involved with folks in the church and other charitable endeavors they were involved with. I didn't feel neglected as I was growing up and I don't know if my older sisters did. My youngest sister and my brother (the two youngest kids in the family) do feel that the folks sometimes ignored our deep concerns while dealing with others. I guess I was so deeply sublimating my sexuality that I didn't really want the attention. Anyway the movie really resonated.

memorial moments

Randy Pausch, professor and author of The last lecture: He did, however, mention that he experienced a near-deathbed conversion: he switched and bought a Macintosh computer. (N.Y. Times, 26 July 2008)

Katherine Kinkade, founder of utopian commune: ... more pioneer than hippie ... "She was not fond of group hugs, had no interest in alternative medicine, nature-centered activities or tofu lasagna." (N.Y. Times, 27 July 2008)

everything is also possible

On the last day that I was in southern California for ALA, John Maier and I walked over to the Crystal Cathedral. I'd seen pictures of Philip Johnson's glass church for Robert Schuller in a Global architecture decades ago. I'm not sure I knew that Richard Meier had designed the Welcoming Center and I am absolutely sure that I didn't know that the first church was designed by Richard Neutra. Quite a nice complex of modernist architecture. Schuller's message is very positive and American dream -- the engraved slogan was along the lines of everything being possible.

The sculpture on the grounds is mostly pretty kitschy with several works by John Seward Johnson. The "Prodigal Son" is quite amazing. As we passed the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," a fellow was praying and crossing himself. Seemed kind of Catholic for such a Protestant place.

The Welcoming Center is a museum of Schulleriana with some speakers from the drive-in church era and a tar patch. You probably have to see it to believe it. From the third floor, you can see the hills of La Habra Heights from which Sharon Chickanzeff hails. The store is quite full of wonderful tchotchkes.

We were a bit hungry as we left and stopped at Winchell's Donuts for a snack. The slogan on the bag was "with a donut in each hand, anything is possible." They had to know they are just a block or two from the possibilities church!