Curses! And I Just Recycled An Altoids Tin Yesterday!

Why do I care? Or curse?

Here are 22 Manly Ways to Reuse an Altoids Tin from, of course, The Art of Manliness.

That games kit is going to haunt me. I'd best go pick up some Altoids so I can work on that ...

Why I'm Catholic: Catholic Conversion Stories

Why I'm Catholic is a website developed to bring Catholic conversion stories to the web 2.0. Check back often for new conversion testimonies from all different faith backgrounds. We hope you will join us in spreading these testaments to the Catholic faith and God's existence...

This is a great looking site that is releasing a lot of different conversion stories from people in all sorts of backgrounds and all walks of life.

It's an interesting place to look around and I can't wait until a Hindu or Buddhist steps up and contributes their story. There are some fascinating stories there, like that of revert John Pridmore who was a London East End Gangster and convert Allen Hunt who was a Methodist mega-church pastor.

Heck, they even included one from an agnostic convert of your acquaintance ... me.

They have just gotten started but I think this has the potential to really communicate to people in a personal way. If you have a conversion story to tell, consider contacting them with it.

Regardless, I think you'll be inspired by the stories so be sure to check out Why I'm Catholic.

2010 Discoveries: Movies & TV

Yes, I'm still looking back at the best of what I discovered in 2010. Here is the last list, movies! 

I couldn't really do these justice and still ever get the post done so I realize the comments below may a bit short or incomplete. I'm planning on picking up the Movies You Might Have Missed series and some of these will be discussed a bit more in that venue.

• District 9: A huge alien ship suddenly shows up over Johannesburg, South Africa but nothing happens. When the people finally muster the nerve to investigate they find that the aliens aboard are sick and dying because they are simply workers who have been left to die when their leaders ran away. The aliens, called "prawn" are housed in a government camp (District Nine) which soon deteriorates to a ghetto. Shot to look like a documentary, the movie takes place many years later, following a middle manager who has been promoted to lead the effort to move the aliens to a new camp, District Ten, further away from the city. Everyone being interviewed keeps mentioning "before the event" and "before things went wrong" so we are prepared for things to go downhill in some way for the poor fellow. However, I never would have predicted how this manager is caught up in the storyline and the discoveries of the movie.
  
  
• Moon: No aliens, big special effects or spaceships are featured in this movie about a lone worker at a moon station that monitors solar energy collection. Sam Bell is at the end of his three-year contract, the solitude is driving him crazy (almost), and then he has a serious accident when driving a lunar vehicle. Mysteriously he winds up back at the space station, healed, and without any idea how he got there. The mystery is one that he can't let go and that leads to the complications that drive the movie. It is essentially a one person play, if you don't count GERTY 3000, the robot voiced by Kevin Spacey. Yet, there is something about it that grabbed me. Sam Rockwell (who plays Sam Bell) is brilliant in this. I have long admired him and this is a showcase of his talent.
  
  
• Inception: Something is locked away in an impregnable fortress, something the owner knows by heart. Can this band of thieves replace it with something so similar that he'll never notice the difference? See my review here.
  
  
• Zombieland: A true delight AND a movie that celebrates family (still chock-full of flesh-eating zombies). Four people seem to be all that are left normal after the zombie apocalypse. Their goal: to go to an amusement park in California that they have heard has no zombies. The part that Woody Harrelson was born to play ... it's in this movie. (Rule #4: watch this movie.)
  
  
• Once Upon a Time in the West: a 3-hour epic Western about of a mysterious, harmonica-playing stranger who is on the track of a ruthless assassin. This winds up with Harmonica occasionally working with a wanted outlaw to help a beautiful widow save her land. Classic, right? Classic Sergio Leone, that is, right down to the Ennio Morricone soundtrack and the classic cast including Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, and Jason Robards. It is quite a long film and has many lingering shots of stares (hence the illustrative photo above), which Tom thought could have been cut back on. It was long but I actually enjoyed the entire thing.
  
  
• Let the Right One In: Oskar is a lonely and bullied 12-year-old. Eli is the 12-year-old girl who moves into the apartment next door. They form a friendship over puzzles and Morse code. Except that, as Eli tells Oskar, she is not a girl. He must discover for himself that those puzzling words mean she is a vampire. Naturally, one cannot have a vampire in the neighborhood without missing people and murders, which leads to an interesting and telling sideplot about someone who is attacked but lives through it. A study in evil. Read my review here.
  
  
• Mary and Max: an animated movie about an eight year old Australian girl and a 40 year old New Yorker who strike up a pen pal friendship that carries them over 20 years. See my review here.
  
  
• Sita Sings the Blues: This is a creative delight. The Indian story of The Ramayana is told three ways, all from Rama's wife's point of view ... the titular Sita.  An illustrated conversation between Indian shadow puppets is interspersed with musical interludes voiced with tracks by 1920's jazz singer Annette Hanshaw and scenes from creator Nina Paley's life. You can stream this movie free as the creator, unusually, makes it available under a Creative Commons License.
  
  
• Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: Scott Pilgrim hasn't gotten over his bad breakup with a previous girlfriend, dates a high school aged girl, and the falls for the exotic looking and exotically named Ramona Flowers who he sees walking by. Yes, he's a mess and as an insecure young man trying to find his place in the world it was probably inevitable that he is played by Michael Cera. However, this part offers Cera one of the only parts I've seen where he actually gets to occasionally be assertive. Scott Pilgrim begins dating Ramona only to find that he must defeat her seven deadly exes before they can be free to pursue the relationship properly. The movie winds up playing out like a video game (every time Scott battles a deadly ex) interspersed with a tale of young love.  I'm a fan of Edgar Wright, the director, so was among his prime audience but was still surprised to find myself smiling at bits of this movie days after seeing it.
  
  
• The Guild: this is a web-based sitcom centered around the lives of an online role-playing-game guild, The Knights of Good, who play countless hours to the point where it takes over their lives. The main character is Codex, the guild's Priestess, who begins attempting to live a more normal life after one of her guild-mates, Warlock Zaboo shows up on her doorstep wanting to date her. Because it is based around webisodes, each season is about an hour long and I have found it most enjoyable when viewed on dvd where you can "Play all". It is very funny, especially to anyone who has ever lost hours of their life playing an RPG game (not that Baldur's Gate ever stole hours of MY life or had the girls and me trying to work out puzzle solutions ... no, indeedy!)
  
  
• Flight of the Conchords: This cable series revolves around a couple of New Zealand musicians who have come to New York City to try to develop an American fan base for their band, Flight of the Conchords. They are sweet but clueless which, naturally leads to many amusing situations. What puts this over the top is that each episode has at least one song whose performance is woven into the story line. The songs are take-offs of other musical styles or artists (a favorite of mine is the one based on David Bowie's music).
  
  
• Better Off Ted: canceled after two seasons, this ABC sitcom revolved around Ted Crisp who headed up a research and development department for a faceless giant corporation, Veridian Dynamics. His supervisor (Portia de Rossi) embodies the goals of the conglomerate whose soullessness Ted must try to moderate while dealing with the erratic scientists under his management. A gentle comedy that grows on you after watching a few episodes ... and then turns into a necessity.

In the sea, once upon a time, O my Best Beloved, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. ...

Yes, indeed, dearly beloved, we have How The Whale Got His Throat featured on Forgotten Classics, read "Just So" by Will Duquette from The View From the Foothills.

You'll laugh, you'll cry ... wait ... no, you'll just laugh.

Get it while its hot.

Satan the Tapeworm, Christian Movies, and The Rite - Updated Twice

The Rite is coming, that movie starring Anthony Hopkins about priests in Italy and exorcism. John Zmirak talks about being invited to "Christian" movie previews and having been disappointed in the past.

... it bothers me that so many of the movies promoted this way are not really "spiritual," much less Christian; they're simply bland and inoffensive.

The Catholic faith is neither. In fact, like really authentic Mexican food (think habeneros and fried crickets), it is at once both pungent and offensive. It offends me all the time, with the outrageous demands it makes of my fallen nature and the sheer weirdness of its claims. It asserts that, behind the veil of day-to-day schlepping, of work and laundry and television and microwaved burritos, we live on the front lines of a savage spiritual war waged by invisible entities (deathless malevolent demons and benevolent dead saints) whose winners will enjoy eternal happiness with a resurrected rabbi, and whose losers will writhe forever in unquenchable fire. Sometimes I step back and find myself saying in Jerry Seinfeld's voice: What's with all the craziness? Why can't I just enjoy my soup?

His piece is a tour de force and you need to go read it.

What he says about movie preview presenters rings all the truer to me, having gone to the rough cut screening of There Be Dragons last week (about Josemaria Escriva's early years). That movie actually came out somewhere in between the Bosch-esqueness which Zmirak points out and the sweet unworldliness he rightly deplores that are all too often the result of "Christian" movies.

"Dragons" looks as if it will actually be a fairly good 'un though it is impossible to tell without all the scenes in it, but it was the post-movie presentation that was a turn off. I later found out it was called a "Leadership" screening, meaning that ministry leaders would be there. The presentation was aimed at them and it was all that Zmirak describes.

Actually I've begun to have faint hopes that The Rite movie might be all right (ha!) after reading this interview with Father Gary Thomas, who was the subject of The Rite book. I been interested in what Hollywood would do in the movie portrayal, since I loved the book so much (my review for Patheos is here).

One discrepancy Fr. Thomas pointed out was that he went to Rome as a 50-year-old seasoned priest with a desire to learn more about the rite of exorcism  – hardly a cynical seminarian in the midst of a faith crisis.

Despite the differences, however, he called the film “very good.”

“The human side of the priesthood is very well developed,” he said, adding that the portrayal of “the institutional Church comes out very positively.”

This doesn't tell us, of course, as to whether the movie is a good movie, a watchable movie, a movie that we want to see, but I do have my fingers crossed.

Incidentally, what Zmirak says about inoffensive, bland movies?  As my friend Scott Nehring continually reminds us, the answer to that is that we don't need is people making "Christian" movies. What we need are great movies made by artists who are "Christian."

UPDATE
Steven D. Greydanus, Catholic movie reviewer par excellence, gives context for Hollywood's depiction of exorcists in an article at Christianity Today.

The Anchoress has a comprehensive looking round up of The Rite links.

2nd UPDATE
Fried crickets? Really?

I don't know what Mexican food Mr. Zmirak eats but he needs to find new restaurants or recipes. Maybe Aztecs enjoyed fried crickets but they also had their chocolate "sin azúcar" (that's without sugar to you and me ... which is, actually, I think ... offensive because it is a sin so we don't really want to go there).

Next time you're in Dallas, Mr. Zmirak, please do say howdy and we'll grab some brisket tacos. Which are Tex Mex, but have fully enough flavor and zest to make your point. We'll even get some habaneros on the side for you.

(And yes, before foodies ask, yes, I know about the cricket-ish delights of Oaxaca. I get the point. But there's no fun in that ...)

Most Popular Catholic Blogs

Eric Sammons, whose book Who Is Jesus Christ I highly recommend, has updated his popular listing of the most popular Catholic blogs.

It is based on how many Google reader subscriptions there are for each blog and, as such, is just one way to measure popularity. Still, it is as valid a way as any others that occur to me ... and the list is interesting and seems more accurate (for one thing The Curt Jester is now included).

You can see the top 25 blogs here and there's a link at the bottom that has the top 200. It is fair to say that you'll find some good and diverse reading among the blogs in the lists.

(I was interested and actually fairly surprised to see that Happy Catholic managed to scrape into the top 25 ... which tells you the wide range of subscription numbers which goes from almost 7,000 down to 750. It doesn't really mean anything in particular but is just interesting to see the breaks in numbers.)

Brisket Tacos - You Know You Want Them

I didn't realize, though, that you may not even know you want them unless you live in Dallas.

Evidently they're a local specialty. I didn't know you even had local specialties pop up these days. Read more at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen (and, yes, you can get the recipe).

A Few Thoughts After the March for Life

Things I meant to write after marching on Saturday, but didn't get a chance to ... and now I see that others have done the work for me. (These are just bits ... click through to read it all.)

If this is how we lose, imagine how we'll win! The march is - for all practical purposes - a remembrance of a defeat. We lost Roe v. Wade, and yet we come with laughter, with smiles, with fun, and with hope. Such hope! Hope in our own humanity, our own dignity, hope in our country, hope in our world. A hope that will smash down walls surrounding human hearts, and release a torrent of compassion and love on the world. Hope that will wake and shake the oldest of human desires; to live and protect life. Hope that will conquer evil in it's very dwelling place. Gosh, this all sounds like something. Never has anyone been so victorious in defeat. And here's the beautiful thing; only when you can maintain joy in defeat can you ever be worthy of winning. The abortionists won, but there is nothing but decrepit, boring hatred in their victory.

Marc at Bad Catholic

=============

It seems like a pretty good follow-up to the March for Life, doesn’t it?  You know, that day when hundreds of thousands of ninjas march to show their support of women and babies.  I say “ninjas” because they somehow slip by the attention of the media — amazing!  It’s like they were never there.  And yet they get the job done.

Simcha Fisher at I have to sit down

Simply the best book on the spiritual life that uses the urinal for parallelism.

So says The Curt Jester about Choosing the Right Urinal. Possibly because I didn't find any interest in reading a book featuring urinals, however spiritual, I passed on a review copy. However, I'm glad to see it has good value. Here's what Jeff (a.k.a. The Curt Jester) sez:

Kyle Heimann who is half of the music group Popple has released a new micro book called Choosing the Right Urinal – A Man’s guide to life.

This is simply the best best book on the spiritual life that uses the urinal for parallelism. Okay, maybe the only book that compares the urinal and aspects related to urinal to make points on the spiritual life. Actually, it is a enjoyable and worthwhile read that is very funny while making some serious points.

Kyle has it available for free on his site in PDF format along with a study guide for a group. You can also order copies of this book.

Jeff also talks a little about what Popple is like and has a music video you can watch, so go check it out.

For a more thorough book review from The Curt Jester, check out this one on The Fathers Know Best by Jimmy Akin. (Which I am pretty sure I was never offered to review ... ahem ... but we will not get into that now ... )

Walter Murch and Why 3D Doesn't Work in Movies

Roger Ebert has Walter Murch's letter about why 3D gives people headaches ... and more importantly, why we don't need it.

And lastly, the question of immersion. 3D films remind the audience that they are in a certain "perspective" relationship to the image. It is almost a Brechtian trick. Whereas if the film story has really gripped an audience they are "in" the picture in a kind of dreamlike "spaceless" space. So a good story will give you more dimensionality than you can ever cope with.

Who's Walter Murch, you may well ask. Roger Ebert says he's, "the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema" and then goes on to quote credentials.

Murch is also very good at explanations. It is simply put, well illustrated, and fairly short. I didn't need the letter to not care much about 3D, but for those who want proof, the evidence is ample. Go read it all.

Rep. James Lankford: "The Right to Life is Self-Evident"

I found this moving and true. May we hear many more who will speak as clearly and honestly about what they really believe. It is only when we are really honest with each other in debate that we will get anywhere in changing hearts and lives ... and that is what, in the end, changes laws. When we believe in and act for life, the law will not matter any more because there will be no one who will want to use it.

(Thanks to JP for bringing it to my attention.)

Fifteen Vocalists in Fifteen Minutes

From a Facebook thing I got tagged with, but I'm sharing it here also. I found it interesting to see what vocalists swam to the surface of my mind when I was just staring at the sky and thinking about music.

The rules:  Don't take too long to think about it.  Fifteen vocalists that will always stick with you.  List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes.  And in no particular order.  Tag fifteen friends.

1. Ella Fitzgerald
2. Annette Hanshaw
3. Billie Holliday
4. Louis Armstrong
5. Paul McCartney
6. John Lennon
7. Dean Martin
8. Frank Sinatra
9. Bob Dylan (and not in a good way ...)
10. Steve Goodman
11. John Prine (also, not really in a good way, though I find him more tolerable than Dylan)
12. Bonnie Raitt
13. John Hiatt
14. Tom Petty
15. Mark Knopfler

If the Pope were to ask where he could get the best stack of pancakes in Dallas ...

... I would reply, "Your Holiness, have you tried the Cinn-a-Stack from IHOP?"*

Last Thursday was a sad day. Rose returned to Chicago, the skies were gray, the weather freezing. She and I had planned to have brunch in the hour before we had to hit the road for the airport. Yet, my mind went completely blank. I couldn't think of a local place that Rose and her friends hadn't already over-visited in their get togethers over the last month. (I know, I completely forgot Cindi's and am still kicking myself.)

It is an ill wind that blows no good though because we wound up at IHOP. Loving cinnamon rolls the way that I do, I couldn't resist the Cinn-a-stack. The pancakes were layered with cinnamon roll style filling and had a bit of cream cheese icing on top. To my surprise, they were not too sweet, with just the right amount of cinnamon and, of course, the buttermilk pancakes were delicious.

They were truly heavenly and worthy of the Holy Father, should he ever come to town for breakfast.

It was still a sad day when we finished. Yet, when you are full of pancakes and cinnamon, it leaves less room for the sad feelings. Perhaps that is why we wound up animatedly talking about Rose's idea for a Western movie all the way to the airport. And our sad feelings were forgotten until we got to the gate.

*With apologies to Roger Ebert, whose writing was the genesis of the phrase above. (If the Pope were to ask where he could get a good plate of spaghetti in America, I would reply, "Your Holiness, have you tried the Chili Mac or the Chili 3-Ways?")

January 22 - National Day of Penance and Prayer for Life

Per the U.S. Bishops today is a day of penance and prayer for life

In all the dioceses of the United States of America, January 22 (or January 23, when January 22 falls on a Sunday) shall be observed as a particular day of penance for violations to the dignity of the human person committed through acts of abortion, and of prayer for the full restoration of the legal guarantee of the right to life. The Mass "For Peace and Justice" (no. 22 of the "Masses for Various Needs") should be celebrated with violet vestments as an appropriate liturgical observance for this day.

General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 373

Tom and I are marching in the Dallas March for Life today. If you happen to see this and be there ... we will be near the blue balloons (for our St. Thomas Aquinas parish). I will be wearing a purple parka. Please come and say hello and walk with us!

And then there's another movie coming up in May about a priest

Though it is not exactly the sort of movie that There Be Dragons is.

It was mentioned by in passing reference last night at the screening as "That's a problem we all have, right? Fighting vampires."

I didn't laugh. I was too busy perking up my ears. Priests? Fighting vampires? Now that has some potential ...

Talking to Rose about it on the phone, I said, "I just hope they don't make the priest so unpriestly that I can't watch it ... sleeping with women, etc."

Rose said, "Hey, I think that as long as it isn't Paul Bettany*, we're probably ok."

I found the trailer.

Ummm. It is Paul Bettany.

It also looks like a post-apocalyptic, futuristic vampire movie that has not only Paul Bettany (who I love) but also Karl Urban. I'm not sure which I love more in this trailer. Karl Urban. Or his hat.

As Tom pointed out, the only reason for this movie to be about priests versus vampires is so that the public has an easy way to tell who the good guys are. Though it looks as if there may be only one good guy ... and a seriously cool bad guy. With a great hat.

I'm not sure what the movie will be like. I am not left with high hopes after seeing the trailer. But I've still got some hope, however slight.

*Hey, just let me say again that I love Paul Bettany. Love. Him. I don't love his role in Da Vinci Code though. Which is what Rose was joking about.

We Saw a Rough Cut of "There Be Dragons" Last Night

It was a very rough cut with scenes missing, on video instead of the final media, that sort of thing. I can't write a review but I can tell you a few things ...

It is the story of Josemaria Escriva, told through flashbacks by a father to his journalist son who has been assigned to write a book as Escriva is about to be canonized in the movie's current-day timeline. In a sense, it is an anti-DaVinci Code because it shows the beginnings of Opus Dei as God's work intended for all people. Certainly it is an interesting look up close at the Spanish Civil War from the point of view of Escriva and his childhood friend (a fictional character whose life is intertwined with Escriva's in a way that shows us the contrast between being open to love and forgiveness and rejecting them).

Tom and I both found it absorbing.

You need have no fears about a Hollywoodization of either St. Escriva or the Church. Escriva is shown as a priest in a real, human occupation (or as they'd say in the Church, vocation). He is somewhat idealized but with faults and frailties that any human experiences in their attempts to live life the right way. I was totally impressed by how often I saw monstrances in the movie, often empty but still there as reminders of the centrality of the Eucharist. As well, the Eucharist is treated in a completely respectful way, especially if a threat comes along.

It will be in theaters on May 5 and I would plan to see it. You can read more about it here.

Good Story #2: Serenity

The topic of this week's A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast, where Scott and I talk Firefly, Serenity, Joss Whedon ... and what's more to the point: belief, good marriage, humanism, confession, and love.

Something I Like: Paperback Swap

Ironically, this is something that I think I mentioned years ago but never tried out for myself. It took Scott Danielson's repeated, enthusiastic endorsement to get me to try it out, which I did just a few days ago.

Paperback Swap's concept is simple. It is a free network where you can find and exchange books across the country ... free.

What our Book Club is all about...

We help avid readers Swap, Trade & Exchange Books for Free.

• It's easy: List books you'd like to swap with other club members.
• Once a book is requested, mail it to the club member. 
• In return, you may choose from 4,943,576 available books!

- Books you request are mailed to you for free.
- No late fees. No hidden charges.

The only thing you pay for is the postage when you send out the books someone has requested from you. I was impressed to see that they even have a wrapper you can print out which has a complete address label that includes a postage estimate based on the weight of the book.

At this point I have evidently listed books which people have just been waiting for. In the last two days I have sent out about 11 books.

I plan on using the credits for times when Scott and I are reading a book I can't get at the library and to pick up some books I know people would like for gifts but that aren't in print any more. This is going to make honoring my book fast more difficult, but since this is the second year, I think I can handle it. We shall see!

2010 Discoveries: Audiobooks

Except where I mention it specifically below, I imagine that these would be just as good for regular reading as when listening. I simply encountered them via audio first.

• The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton
  At the beginning of the 20th century, in detective fiction there was Sherlock Holmes and that was all. There were other fictional detectives, to be sure, but they were only bad imitations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous consulting detective. The sleuths offered by other writers would try to outdo Holmes in eccentricity and in solving crimes that were evermore contrived and convoluted.
  
  But in 1905 a book of mysteries came along that finally managed to turn the Sherlock Holmes idea on its head. The book was The Club of Queer Trades by G.K. Chesterton. His detective, Rupert Grant, is a Sherlock Holmes-like private eye who investigates crimes and chases crooks with great self-assuredness in his powers of deduction. But he is always wrong. The hero of these stories is not Rupert, but his older brother, Basil Grant, a retired judge. In each case, Basil proves to Rupert hat there has been no crime and no crooks. (Read the entire lecture on this book, of which the above which has been an excerpt, here.
  
  This book was a delight from beginning to end, and I'm not really a G.K. Chesterton fan. I listened to the Librivox recording which was wonderfully read by David Barnes. This is an old book that is probably available free on the Kindle.
  
  
• Cleek: the Man of the 40 Faces by Thomas Hanshew
  I listened to the Librivox recording done by the marvelous Ruth Golding. Cleek is a bad man who goes right for the love of a good woman. As well he is perhaps the cleverest detective I have ever read of, putting M. Poirot's little grey cells to shame while indulging his idiosyncratic love of flowers and nature. This allows for many short, quirky mysteries with the overarching theme of how Cleek hopes to redeem himself enough to approach his true love with honor. A wonderfully entertaining story from the turn of the century of mystery, chivalry, and intrigue. Again, this is old and probably available free on the Kindle.
  
  
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
  Mr. Norrell is a fusty but ambitious scholar from the Yorkshire countryside. He is also the first practical magician in hundreds of years. What better way to demonstrate his revival of British magic than to change the course of the Napoleonic wars? Jonathan Strange discovers, to his dismay, that he is a natural magician. Because he "feels" his magic rather than depending on books as Mr. Norrell does, they wind up representing two distinctly different ways of doing British magic. Clarke deliberately used a style that calls to mind Jane Austen or Charles Dickens and thus transports the reader to a time gone by when spelling varied, footnotes could be long and involved, manners were paramount, and when it is possible to believe in such a thing as British magic.
  
  I tried this book several times but either wasn’t in the right mood or was expecting something different. Hannah read it, loved it, shoved it on my nightstand, and nagged me about it (with that hopeful, wistful, little puppy look that a mom can’t say no to…). Once I began reading I couldn't understand why I didn’t warm to it before … the writing is charmingly understated and amusing. It is about magic, English practitioners of magic, books about magic, and set in England during the Napoleonic war.
  
  However, once I was well into the book I got bogged down with the many wayside visits and long footnotes that added atmosphere but didn't seem to advance the story. That is when I picked up the audio book from the library to try (so do our children influence us!). Once I was listening, I began enjoying it immensely more than in simple reading. I think I do better with meandering books when on audio for some reason. It certainly helped with Charles Dickens when I was reading A Tale of Two Cities. Eventually I almost became addicted and couldn't stop listening.
  
  At the end the book suddenly picked up the pace with one thing happening after another. It ended in an unexpected way with some story lines being firmly concluded while others were left to drift off. Usually this would bother me but, in a sense, it was very true to real life, which makes me reflect upon the fact that the way the story was told was very like having someone tell it to you in person. They take little byways of explanation that may not have too much to do with the story and then come back to the point. In listening to the book this made for a delightful and somehow restful story. This was wonderfully narrated by Simon Preeble whose dulcet tones and perfect pacing helped make the There is no doubt that his narration is the key element that not only got me to the end of the book, but actually left me sad when it ended. Recommended but only for those who do not object to long, meandering stories with a lot of footnotes.
  
  
• Hamlet (Arkangel Complete Shakespeare)
  Distressed by his father’s death and his mother’s hasty remarriage, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is haunted by a ghostly courier bearing a grim message of murder and revenge. The young prince is driven to the edge of madness as he struggles to understand the situation he finds himself in and to do his duty. Many others, including Hamlet’s beloved, the innocent Ophelia, are swept up in his tragedy. Shakespeare’s most famous play remains one of the greatest stories in Western literature. Performed by Simon Russell Beale, Imogen Stubbs, Jane Lapotaire, and the Arkangel cast.
  
  Inspired by Chop Bard podcast, I have checked this out of the library and am now listening to this excellent audio version of the play. Wow, truly amazing and recommended to all!
  
  
• The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell
  I read this for SFFaudio, where you may find my review. I did enjoy reading it just as much as listening, as witnessed by the conversation I had about it with Scott at A Good Story is Hard to Find where this was the subject of our first episode.
  
  
• The Bellefaire: Victorian Horror in Modern Day San Francisco by M. J. Hahn
  I discovered this on iTunes and was hooked after hearing the first episode. In rapid order I have listened to all but the epilogue (simply because I ran out of listening time in the day).
  
  Yuki and her mother, who she mentally thinks of as The Doctor, are returning to San Francisco, the city of Yuki's birth although she left there when only an infant. When they move into the house where The Doctor grew up, they discover it is now partly a hotel and is called The Bellefaire. Very soon, Yuki discovers that the house's nickname is Curse Castle and there are ghost stories aplenty, mysteriously missing people in the neighborhood, and very odd happenings in the house itself.
  
  The story actually begins in the 1980s where we meet a very different sort of teenager from the obedient Yuki, Tina. Her story introduces us to some of the odd goings on in the Bellefaire. The story continues to alternate current day and past events, going further and further back in time as we discover exactly what's been going on.
  
  The author reads the story and voices the male characters. Different actresses voice the female characters and sound production is excellent overall with professional sounding sound effects.

About.com's 2011 Readers' Choice Awards: Nominations Open in Catholic Categories

I saw this at The Curt Jester's place last week and lifted it to share.

About.com’s 2011 Readers’ Choice Awards will showcase the best products, features and services in multiple categories, from technology to hobbies to parenting to religion. Nominations are now open, and will be accepted from 12:00 A.M. EST on January 13, 2011, until 11:59 P.M. EST on February 4, 2011.

On the About.com Catholicism GuideSite, we are accepting nominations in the ten categories listed below. Nominations can be entered in each of the categories using a single nomination form, though you can feel free to leave some of the fields blank; you are not required to make a nomination in every category. If you want to make more than one nomination in a particular category, simply fill the nomination form out twice.

Feel free to nominate yourself or your product for any of the appropriate awards, and spread the news to your friends. Finalists are chosen based on popularity, as long as they meet the eligibility requirements listed in each category.

Up to five finalists in each category will be announced on February 11, and voting will run from February 11 through March 8. (To be notified automatically when voting opens, simply sign up for the About.com Catholicism Newsletter). The winners will be announced on March 15.

Awards are for [Best Catholic ...] blog, podcast, site, Facebook page, Twitter user, iPad App, iPhone App, Newspaper, Magazine, etc.