mennosong press release

The a cappella male quartet mennosong will perform an hour-long concert at 7:30pm on Saturday, May 13 in the Reith Recital Hall at Goshen College. The program will consist primarily of sacred music from the Renaissance, and African-American Spirituals. Tickets are $4 or $1 for any student. Tickets are available from any mennosong member, on our website: www.mennosong.org, at the Teacher-Education Office at Goshen College, or at the door. Tickets purchased before the concert entitle the ticket-holder to $1 off a mennosong CD. CDs will also be available at the regular price of $10. mennosong’s previous performance venues have included Greencroft Senior Center, Das Essenhaus, Walnut Hill Mennonite Church, and most recently, Kern Road Mennonite Church. The current members of mennosong are Dan Horst, Jeff Martin, Adam Tice, and Michael Weins, all of Goshen. mennosong is available to sing at Church services, dinners, weddings, funerals, and other events. This concert marks the one year anniversary of mennosong’s "ministry of a cappella sacred music."

Moving day approacheth

We decided that Sunday afternoon, May 14 will be the official day of moving into our new house. Yay, new house!!!!!

You don't know the pleasure of the dark side!

From my friend "Skywalker," a highschool friend I re-connected with last week:

North Country

If I hadn't heard good things about North Country, I probably wouldn't have watched it; it doesn't seem like the kind of movie I would enjoy. But the movie sold itself to me by the intense human struggles it portrayed, and by the excellent quality of the acting that brought these struggles to life.

I never for a second thought of the people on screen as actors; they were their characters. Well okay, I thought of Sean Bean as an actor for about 2 seconds, but that's only because he's been in so many films I've seen lately. The main character is a miner, and a single mother--very different from me, yet I was completely able to understand her and sympathize with her.

I had read that this movie is about sexual harrassment. I guess it is, but that's a pretty vague phrase. I saw a movie about immature men doing cruel and disgusting things to women. I was appalled to realize that the real events that inspired this movie took place between 1984 and 1998. That is frighteningly close to the present.

I'm usually a fan of movies in which the main characters kick butt. North Country couldn't be more different, but far from being disappointed, I was inspired and awed. There were so many times when I felt the characters' inner rage, and knew they wanted nothing more than to spit in someone's face (or worse) for the evil lies being told about them. But I also felt their utter helplessness, because this is a movie set in the real world, and kicking your neighbor's butt won't really solve anything. Instead, again and again, characters showed incredible strength and did something constructive to solve their problems. The bravest thing I have ever seen any character do involved no violence or fear of death, just standing up and speaking out for justice.

North Country is an excellent eye-opener as to how far "civilized" American culture has to go, and it is a wonderful portrait of some incredibly courageous and hard-working people.

King Kong

By implied request, here is a review of pure opinion. Enjoy!

I once defined loving someone as "wanting good things for that person." King Kong is a story of this kind of pure, unselfish love, and it is an excellent movie because of it. I don't want to spoil the story for you, but suffice it to say that I now add King Kong to the very short list of movies that made me cry.

King Kong is also one of the most thrilling action-packed movies I have ever seen. I saw it on my TV twice in a week and was totally carried away by it's intensity; I can only imagine how much more exciting it would have been on the big screen!

The only quibble I can possibly come up with concerning Kong is that it occasionally stretches reality just a little bit too much. There are times, while gap-jawed with awe about a scene, when I couldn't quite still the voice in the back of my mind (or on the couch beside me), saying, "Yeah right!" This didn't make the movie any less exciting and cool, it was just a bit distracting from time to time.

Eco-friendly and cool

It is becoming increasingly popular for police units to use horse-mounted police officers. According to this article in the NY Times, horses have a number of advantages over cars or police on foot. My favorite perk isn't mentioned: they can't give me a speeding ticket!

My favorite lunch

Some people complain that the rise of consumer technology and the Internet has allowed people to disseminate a lot of thoroughly useless information. This may be an example of that:



My favorite lunch features a Dagwood sandwich, chips and salsa, an apple, and a DVD player remote. Well, I actally don't eat the remote, but I do like to watch movies and/or DVD special features while eating lunch.

Fun with pie

We enjoyed a yummy pie at the Jamie and Ryan potluck last Sunday!
Ryan especially enjoyed it :-)

National Treasure

Cool concept: There is a collection of treasure, acquired over thousands of years, that the Founding Fathers of America decided to hide.

Time-honored plot idea, well executed: A trail of clues, hidden throughout America, that lead to the location of the treasure.

Dubious physics: Pretty much anything involving fire or explosions made me wonder what sort of scientific logic, if any, was supposed to explain how X was causing Z....

Great actors: Nicholas Cage is probably near the top of many lists, some with the title "Great Actors" and some with the title "Weirdos." Personally, I think he may be a little of both. I happen to like him, and I think he does an excellent job in this movie. Diane Kruger may or may not be a good actress, but she has the advantage of being jaw-droppingly beautiful. Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings, The Island) also does an excellent job of acting, although his character is much less interesting.

Cookie-cutters (but yummy cookies!): Speaking of characters, National Treasure is filled with stereotypical ones. There's the hero, his side-kick and his girl, there's the bad guy, and the police guy, and the father, etc, etc. Same goes for the plot. It may be cool, but that doesn't mean it's original. However, this movie is so well made that I didn't care. I had fun watching it. Maybe I knew what would happen next, but I didn't care, because the characters had such an interesting way of getting there. Maybe a relationship was conventional, but then someone would say a funny line, and I would laugh and forgive them.

Opinion vs. Objectivity

My wife once told me I was star-struck by movies, saying that I never wrote a negative movie review. This is mostly true; I am quite enamored with, and fascinated by motion pictures. For the record, I have actually written a negative review, for the film Westender, but that may be the only one.

What I generally try to do is write a fair and balanced review, so that people can draw their own conclusions about whether or not they might like the movie. I've always thought that giving movies stars is a little bit silly. How do you even begin to quantify a movie's quality on a scale of 1 to 8 (or 1-10)? In other areas of my life, I've been taught that prejudice is wrong; that one should not judge based on mere personal opinion. The problem is, every time I try be objective, someone always misses the point and asks me, "So....did you like the movie?"

When I read movie reviews, I like a combination of description and opinion, but I also value objectivity. Roger Ebert usually begins his reviews describing some aspect of what a movie is about, whether that be the plot, the filmmaker's motivations, or some of the major themes of the film. It's usually clear whether he likes a movie or not, but more importantly, he gives movies credit for achievement even if he doesn't like what they are trying to achieve. For instance, I believe he hated the movie Curious George, but he still gave it 3/4 stars because he also believed that it was made for children, and that they would enjoy it.

I glean the most value from reviews I read when I know a reviewer's work well. There are only a few people I can think of that fit into this category: my friend Ryan, my sister-in-law Steph, and Roger Ebert). For one reason or another, when these people talk about a movie, I can read between the lines and extrapolate a good idea of whether or not I would like the movie. By contrast, when I read movie reviews in Entertainment Weekly, I never have any idea whether or not I will like the movie.

So what are people looking for when they read my reviews? Apparently, my opinion. I've also heard that my reviews are too long, so I've been trying to shorten them up lately. I will most likely continue to experiment with different ways of reviewing movies, and whether or not they help anyone, I hope they will make interesting reading.

House offer accepted

I don't want to get ahead of myself here, but I do want to let people know that Lisa Rose and I are most likely going to buy this lovely rustic house on South 3rd St. in Goshen! We are very excited about the probability of living closer to our friends :-)

The home is currently being inspected; if it has any "major defect" we will need to re-consider, and/or renegotiate the contract.

A History of Violence

Average citizen Tom Stall attracts a lot of media attention when he foils a viscious attack on the employees of his small-town diner. He also attracts the attention of a some Philadelphia mobsters who seem to think he is someone else.

A History of Violence follows the popular trend of realism prevalent in many recent movies. This is not a "typical Hollywood movie" with cookie-cutter characters. The characters are real, and kept me guessing at where their interactions would lead them.

In spite of the good quality of the movie, neither my wife nor I particularly enjoyed it. However, I perceived the ending as more hopeful than my she did, an issue that the filmmakers admitted wasn't necessarily clear.

The main theme of A History of Violence is of course violence. Regardless of what you think of the characters and the story, this film will make you think about the place of violence in American culture, and about people's motivation for or against violent behavior.

Angi's birthday party

It's a few weeks after the event,
but here are some pictures*:

Angi's fantastic lung-power!


Ang, her mom, Jamie, Danni, me.


Me, Yo, Michael, Ang, Mom, Jamie, Danni


I guess the birthday girl is allowed
to be a head-hunter...

*All photos by Lisa Rose Martin

Independent Video & Filmmakers Festival

Saturday I attended the last half of the IU South Bend Independent Video & Filmmakers Festival . I saw about 20 short films made by people mostly in Indiana.

I went mainly to see the quality of local, independent films so that I would have an idea of what I need to produce in order to be on par with the independent film industry in this area.

I enjoyed almost all the films; the ones I liked less just happened to be genres I didn't care for (like Horror). Two of my favorites were Boundaries, in which a woman meets a trombone player who follows her around poking her with the end of the trombone, and Teenage Superhero Pregnancy Scare, a film populated entirely by super-heroes, but with decidedly down-to-earth problems.

Assuming I hear about it in time (I almost missed it this year), I will likely attend again next year. I also might look for some other film festivals; sometime I want to go to the Toronto film festival.