I was watching clips from Britain’s Got Talent on YouTube and this guy simply blew me away. I will not say anymore, so you will simply have to watch it. Muahahaha…

You all may remember the post I made about the movie Bella a while back. While there is no news of a U.S. release date as of yet, I found some stuff on YouTube about the film. Check them out:

Trailer #1:

Trailer #2:

Story Behind Bella:

Bon appetit!

I was priveliged on Sunday to be able to see the new independent film Bella. It won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival this past fall, which makes it an Oscar contender by default (Life is Beautiful won it, as did American Beauty).

Aside from the specifics, when I saw this movie I was most literally blown away. Not only is it an amazing message, but it’s an all around beautiful film. I was impressed by every aspect of the movie, and yes, I cried. It needs to be seen.

 Here’s the brief description FUS gave on the school website:

Bella tells the story of a fallen international soccer star (Eduardo Verastegui) who reaches out to a young waitress (Tammy Blanchard) facing a life-changing decision. As their lives are turned upside down, both characters find that the healing power of family helps redeem their pasts and gives hope for the future.

So my mission from now until this film is released in the theaters is to promote this movie like crazy, and I encourage anyone reading this to do the same, even if you haven’t seen it. You will want to, and that can’t happen unless this movie shows in as many theaters as possible.

So, here’s how you can do it:

1. Help “Bella” online by giving “Bella” high scores on the online films sites like IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Yahoo!, AOL, MSN, and iVillage.
2. Promote “Bella” Online by linking to their MySpace or Facebook websites and joining or creating “Bella” websites, blogs, and message boards.
3. Hand out “Bella Commitment Tickets” - Print and hand out 500 Commitment tickets to encourage people to promote films that can have a positive impact on the world by buying 2 tickets to see “Bella” on Opening Night.
4. Encourage and organize groups to go to “Bella” - Organize a large group to go see “Bella” on Opening Weekend.
5. Post “Bella” materials in high traffic areas in your city (posters, etc.)
6. Send a press kit to your local press and write letters to national press encouraging them to give “Bella” coverage.
7. Join the “Bella” volunteer team - Work as a part time volunteer helping “Bella” from now through Opening Weekend.

If this movie is allowed to enter as many theaters as possible, it will change lives, I guaruntee it. I’ll be keeping up on the where and when of Opening Weekend so we can organize a massive exodus to the nearest movie theaters. For now, check out the trailer and other information about the film at BellatheMovie.Com.

You might be wondering what I smoked for breakfast to be able to come up with a name like Mooreeffoc for my blog. What does it mean? What does it have to do with this blog? Well, G.K. Chesterton offers a good explanation:

Dickens himself has given a perfect instance of how these nightmare minutiae grew upon him in his trance of abstraction. He mentions among the coffee-shops into which he crept in those wretched days one in St. Martin’s Lane, “of which I only recollect that it stood near the church, and that in the door there was an oval glass plate with ‘COFFEE ROOM’ painted on it, addressed towards the street. If I ever find myself in a very different kind of coffee-room now, but where there is such an inscription on glass, and read it backwards on the wrong side, MOOR EEFFOC (as I often used to do then in a dismal reverie), a shock goes through my blood.” That wild word, “Moor Eeffoc,” is the motto of all effective realism; it is the masterpiece of the good realistic principle - the principle that the most fantastic thing of all is often the precise fact.

Simply put, Mooreeffoc is taking something plain and looking at it in a new and different way. In a way it can be defined as reading between the lines. It’s the effect you get when you look past something in order to gain a new perspective on it. Tolkien also wrote about the word in his Essay on Fairy Stories:

Mooreeffoc is a fantastic word, but it could be seen written up in every town in this land. It is Coffee-room, viewed from the inside through a glass door, as it was seen by Dickens on a dark London day; and it was used by Chesterton to denote the queerness of things that have become trite, when they are seen suddenly from a new angle.

Mooreeffoc is used in literary fiction, such as that of Tolkien and Lewis, to cause the reader to look at something they hadn’t thought to really look at before, and to think more deeply on certain points they may not have thought on before. Even the parables of Scripture use Mooreeffoc to show the truth by presenting it from a different angle.

The word Mooreeffoc, I think, describes this blog perfectly. The whole point of this blog is to look at things from a new perspective, specifically literature, poetry, and any other form of writing. So that’s the story.

The end.

After much deliberation, I have finally decided upon the true focus of my blog. The idea was taken from an article by Joseph Pearce entitled The Evangelizing Power of Beauty on the topic of cultural apologetics:

Truth is trinitarian. It consists of the interconnected and mystically unified power of reason, love, and beauty. As with the Trinity itself, the three, though truly distinct, are one. Reason, properly understood, is beauty; beauty, properly apprehended, is reason; both are transcended by and are expressions of love. Reason, love, and beauty are enshrined in and encapsulated by the Godhead. Indeed, they have their raison d’etre and their consummation in the Godhead.

Remove love and reason from the sphere of aesthetics and you remove beauty also. You get ugliness instead. Even a cursory glance at most modern “art” will illustrate the negation of beauty in most of today’s “culture.” Once this theological understanding of the trinitarian nature of truth is perceived, it follows that the whole art of apologetics can be seen in this light.

As a diehard, tried and true Tolkien fan, I am familiar with this form of apologetics simply because of the Catholicism that work is steeped in. There have been so many books on the theology of The Lord of the Rings one might think it’s like beating a dead horse by now. The same with any work by C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, etc. There have been so many Catholic writers over the years who have utilized their work to evangelize. These cultural apologetics, or indirect apologetics, have effected just as much if not more conversion among readers as apologetics of reason have had on society. The beauty of language, of which I am an ardent admirer, has an amazing power to evangelize.

In Campion’s and Southwell’s day the Catholic faith was illegal. Today, in our own endarkened age, it is no longer illegal but is considered illegitimate. It is in the very midst of this darkness that beauty enlightens the gloom. Great art. Great music. Great literature. They are all great weapons. Giotto, Raphael, Michelangelo, Fra Angelico. Weapons! William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Anton Bruckner, Arvo Part. Weapons! Dante, Shakespeare, Hopkins, Tolkien, Waugh. Weapons!

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. Why not use it to draw others to Christ? In this vein, I intend to use my blog to do just that. I will be focusing primarily on the apologetics of literary works, past and present, as well as poetry, essays, and maybe a few of my own works thrown in the mix every once in a while. Along with this refocusing will come a redesign and change of content throughout. This may take a while, but I will try to post as often as possible.

In closing, I’ll leave you with a little bit of a preview. This comes from Joseph Southwell, a Jesuit matryr:

Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child
Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled.
I praise him most, I love him best, all praise and love is his,
While him I love, in him I live, and cannot live amiss.
Love’s sweetest mark, laud’s highest theme, man’s most desired light,
To love him life, to leave him death, to live in him delight.
He mine by gift, I his by debt, thus each to other due,
First friend he was, best friend he is, all times will try him true.

Lately I’ve been feeling like this blog is severely lacking in one important aspect…focus. It’s everywhere, and I feel like it’s not what I really want my blog to be. It needs to focus on something…on a common theme of some sort. And I was thinking about my title - In The Meantime - and wondering how that could be worked into a central theme. Ultimately, I think my blog needs to be Christocentric (Christ centered). So, bearing all this in mind, and also that I’m studying Catechetics and Theology and have always been a patron of the arts (if you can even call it that), I have decided (sort of) to focus my blog on the theology of art and writing and how it can all point back to Christ. As for the title, I think it works well as an allusion to the fact that we’re continually preparing for the Kingdom of God. All you theology nerds (Hi Nick) let me know of that is theologically sound. Granted, I will continue to update on my life and such happenings, but any other topic I cover will primarily focus on that. Sound good?

Oh, and I also need to work on getting more people to visit this thing…Hmm.

Everyone should be exposed to the almighty awesomeness known as…Tom, YAY!

BEHOLD

Enjoy, young grasshoppers.

Put your music library on shuffle and answer the questions with songs in the order they come up.

1. What’s my mood like right now? Here We Go - Dispatch

2. How’s tomorrow going to be for me? Live Your Dreams - Save The Last Dance Soundtrack

3. What kind of person am I? Ain’t That a Kick in the Head? - Dean Martin

4. Am I loved? Braveheart Theme - James Horner

5. How can I achieve my highest potential? Dream On - Aerosmith (Is that a good thing?)

6. What should I do with my life? Lover, You Should Have Come Over - Jamie Cullum

7. Is everything really going to be alright in the end? I Get the Sweetest Feeling - Jamie Cullum

8. What is my best quality? Tough Little Boys - Gary Allan

9. How does my sex life look? Float On - Modest Mouse

10. What’s the meaning of life? Bring Me To Life - Evanescence

11. What do people think of me? Photograph - Nickelback

12. Would I make a good lover? Art In Me - Jars of Clay

13. How crazy am I? Special - Stephen Lynch

14. Will I have a good life in general? Barrel Of A Gun - Guster

15. Can (insert name here) ever really love me? The Trouble With love Is - Kelly Clarkson

16. Can me and (insert name here) ever be more than friends? Summer Of ‘69 - Bryan Adams

17. What’s going to happen to me this week? Always Something There to Remind Me - Naked Eyes

18. Where will I be a year from now? Mi Morena - Josh Groban

19. What is my biggest wish? Holy - Nicole Nordeman

20. What is the love of my life doing at this very moment? Green Eyes - Coldplay

21. How will I die? Weary Memory - Iron & Wine (which is actually about spreading ashes…hmm)

22. What will happen after I die? Thriller - Michael Jackson

23. How do my friends feel about me? Mother May I - Coheed & Cambria

That was semi-entertaining.

RENT is amazing.

That is all.