Get hammered

There is an upscale Ásatrú vodka market?

National Treasure

“Hey,” says M., watching the trailer for Nicholas Cage’s new movie, “It’s a heist movie.” (She likes heists and capers.)

I think it looks more like The Da Vinci Code for Deists. We shall have to find out whose judgment is more correct.

All that I will say about the election

While Internet pundits dissect the election, I just wish to point out that neither national party seems to recognize that environmental protection is a bipartisan issue. Bush’s lame response in the last debate about off-road diesel engines, and Kerry’s failure to exploit the issue are both symptomatic.

Here in Colorado, for example, an amendment requiring utility companies to generate and/or buy a percentage of their electricity from renewable sources (wind or solar, primarily), passed even while the state went for President Bush.

Likewise, the Salazar brothers, Ken and John, who both stressed environmental protection and opposition to big, expensive water projects in their respective campaigns for the U.S. Senate and House were elected as Democrats in our “red” state.

So you want to work in a bookstore?

Then read “Tales of a Book Monkey.” It’s the English version, but chain bookstores, I suspect, are about the same on either side of the pond.

“Bookselling was weird. I spent eight long months in that nether world of overstocks and pyramids, lost souls and bipolar customers.”

Episcopalian Druids, continued

I am up to my elbows in student essays and tests, but Jason Pitzl-Waters has a good round-up of the continuing controversy, with links to more reasoned voices within the Episcopal Church. The anti-Druid reaction continues apace . . . and also here.

I do mean to respond to some of the more reasoned comments that I have received, but the job has to come first and, oh yeah, the election.

Halloween night

A Halloween storm seems to be traditional in the Wet Mountains. The forecast calls for rain turning to snow. I finished digging up and separating the day lilies and then turned to Halloween preparation.

As a little boy I lived some years on the outskirts of Rapid City, South Dakota. Our house was just a little too far a walk up the hill for trick-or-treaters, so we got very few. Nor did I get to go out much: I don’t remember why. When I was 10, we moved to suburban Denver, and for a couple of years I made up for lost time.

Here in the foothills, we have all the atmosphere: spooky shadows, the leathery leaves of cottonwood trees clattering down by the creek, cool moonlight–but very few kids. One neighbor called to say that she and her husband were bringing their 5-year-old and some other kids. They’ll probably come by car, too, which to my mind really cuts down on the experience. (Maybe the neighbors will think the same way and come on the path through the field instead, but I doubt it.)

Some people spend lots of money making their homes look scary for Halloween. I feel like my job is to make the place look less scary. Are there too many bunches of drying plants hanging from the front porch roof? Are the stairs too creaky? (Can’t help that.) The dogs will have to be locked up, so they don’t go berserk when strangers arrive. And all the porch and under-stairs clutter of stacked flower pots, tomato cages, buckets, garbage cans of compost and manure–all I can do is superficially tidy it up. And then I can hang some candle lanterns, which M. thinks offer some sort of Halloween aesthetic effect.

Meanwhile, a Catholic priest tries valiently to reclaim Halloween. It’s about the Black Death, you see. Now that’s spooky.

More on the ‘Episcopagans’

The Druid-Episcopal Church controversy has now moved from the blogosphere to the serious religion journalists at GetReligion, who summarize the whole scandal here.

I do see some bloggers gleefully tossing out the term “Episcopagan” as though they cleverly just invented it. Within the Pagan community, the term has been used since the early 1970s, at least, to describe those who like to perform rituals with lots of candles, incense, and other props.

This is all fascinating, but I have to go prune the apple tree and manure the garden now. Oh yes, and reserve a virgin for the Samhain sacrifice. And then grade student papers.

Can you be a Druid and an Episcopalian?

The controversy over “Pagan” elements on an official Episcopal Church Web site and the husband-and-wife clergy connected with them continues to bubble. Christianity Today’s blog has their bishop’s statement: the situation is “extremely serious,” but there is no rush to the stake, metaphorically speaking. Conservative Anglican bloggers continue to howl for blood. And howl and howl and howl. Notice how they blame the man more than the woman; we know that women are naturally sinful and led astray by the Devil, right?

I suspect that the Revs. Glyn Ruppe-Melnyk (Glispa) and William Melnyk (Oakwyse) are caught up in the Victorian idea of a special “Celtic Christianity,” more place-centered and mystical than the Church of England, yet not tainted with Roman Catholicism.

My earlier posts here and here.

More Pagan movies

While we are waiting to see Colin Farrell as Alexander the Great, an Icelandic-Canadian cinematic version of Beowulf is also in the works, and from the Web site Beowulf and Grendel looks visually stunning. Although the original story is set probably in Denmark, this one is filmed along the rugged Icelandic coast: read about it in their blogs, linked at the site.

Meanwhile, M. and I recently watched The Witches (also called The Devil’s Own, a 1966 thriller starring Joan Fontaine and Kay Walsh. It was better than we expected, even though the outline of the plot was rapidly apparent. (Why is so important to preserve the lovely 15-year-old girl’s virginity, hmm?)

Ah, the countryside, preserving the Old Ways under the guidance of the great families who have the villagers’ interest at heart.