tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-102192292024-03-21T18:18:19.780-04:00Jeremiah SierraJeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.comBlogger187125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-50797077940764687302013-03-01T12:08:00.001-05:002013-03-01T12:08:53.715-05:00Where I'm Writing NowJust <a href="http://rectorstreet.tumblr.com/">started a Tumblr</a> to collect religious encounters and curiosities I come across. <a href="http://rectorstreet.tumblr.com/">It's called Rector Street</a>, after the subway station near Trinity Wall Street, where I work. <div>
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I'm still writing a <a href="http://www.ecfvp.org/posts/author/jeremiah-sierra/">weekly blog </a>for Episcopal Church Foundation Vital Practices.<br /><div>
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Also, <a href="http://www.trinitywallstreet.org/news/articles/trinity-cemetery-is-final-resting-place-for-mayor-koch">this is a thing I wrote</a> about Mayor Koch for Trinity. </div>
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Some of my best work is still <a href="http://storify.com/jeremiahspeaks/watching-the-fog#publicize">on Twitter.</a> </div>
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Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-14534530537501608232012-05-28T18:41:00.000-04:002012-05-28T18:41:39.293-04:00The AvengersThe Avengers is like if Stan Lee and The Transformers franchise had a baby and Joss Whedon taught that baby to talk and then the baby came to your house and made a lot of noise for about half an hour longer than necessary.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-9075927781994633202012-04-24T12:08:00.000-04:002012-04-24T12:08:28.259-04:00Seen From My Office Window1 old man watering plants on the roof<br />
1 cruise ship<br />
1 pink barge<br />
3 guys in blue shirts repairing an air-conditioner<br />
5 water taxis<br />
Approximately 48 potted plants on various rooftops<br />
2 grills<br />
1 child's toy kitchen<br />
21 deck chairs<br />
2 gargoyles<br />
5-8 construction workers on top of the roof of the building across the street.They war yellow vests and bang and drill and hoist almost every day.<br />
The 9/11 Memorial<br />
6 helicopters<br />
1 American Flag<br />
1 Stop sign<br />
Innumerable tourists <br />
New Jersey<br />
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<br />Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-89130404964158064682012-04-21T17:54:00.003-04:002012-04-21T17:54:49.636-04:00A List of Some ClocksA list of products offered by <a href="http://www.elderhorstbells.com/" target="_blank">Elderhorst Bells</a> which I wanted to share (can't quite explain why). <br />
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Tower clocks<br />
Canister clocks<br />
Skeleton tower clocks<br />
Silhouette clocks<br />
Semi-flush front lighted clocks<br />
Sufrace mounted dial clocks<br />
Streetscape clocks<br />
Bracket clocks<br />
Post clocks<br />
Interior clocks<br />
Dimensional router cut surface mount dial clocks<br />
Executive clocks<br />
Architectural bells<br />
Cast iron bronze bells<br />
Clock and bell towers<br />
Digital bells<br />
Stationary bells<br />
Swinging bellsJeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-60998486480097212122012-04-20T18:56:00.002-04:002012-04-20T18:56:47.545-04:00The Subway Library March/AprilI spend a lot of time underground holding a book in my hand, as many New Yorkers do. I've started to keep a list of books I see in the subway.<br />
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<li><b>The Red Tent.</b> A few years ago it seemed like everyone was reading this book. Someone on the 6 train is still reading this book. </li>
<li><b>Kindle.</b> Damn you, Kindle. </li>
<li><b>A Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker. </b>This book, according to the internet, includes a dream sea called Quiddity. I am considering reading this book based on that fact.</li>
<li><b>Something in Greek. </b>I took a couple of semesters of ancient Greek in college, but a) I've forgotten everything I learned and b) the book is most likely not in ancient Greek. So I can't tell you what the name or author of the book is. </li>
<li><b>Kraken by China Mieville.</b> I listened to the audiobook. A fun thing to listen to while you are cleaning your room, though I'd recommend reading it. Crazy stuff happens in China Mielville's books, and if you are listening to it being read by some guy with a thick British accent while you are stuffing old clothes into the closet or under the bed, you might get confused. </li>
<li><b>The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edumund de Waal. </b>About a collection of netsuke. I just learned what <a href="http://www.asianart.com/exhibitions/netsuke/">netsuke</a> is! </li>
<li><b>Reamde by Neal Stephenson</b> - Wikipedia calls this "speculative fiction." I would like to announce that I am working on a speculative nonfiction book. </li>
<li><b>Hotel Vendome by Danielle Steal - </b>This book is about "ultra-glamorous world of a five-star New York hotel, and brings to vivid life the man who builds it as his dream, the girl who grows up in its loving embrace, and the colorful guests and staff who make its magic complete." Yes it is. </li>
<li><b>iPad</b> - If ever get an iPad, I will never use it to read a book. I will only read Wired and play Fruit Ninja. I promise. </li>
<li><b>The Faded Sun: Kesrith by C. J. Cherryh </b> - The first book in a science fiction Trilogy. </li>
<li><b>The Host</b> - Stephanie Meyer's book for grownups. There's going to a movie, but it's not<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0468492/"> this move </a>(which is awesome). </li>
<li><b>The Hunger Games - </b>Of course The Hunger Games. </li>
<li><b>3 eReaders in one subway car</b></li>
<li><b>PNF in Practice </b>- PNF stands for Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation stretching. Perfect subway reading. </li>
<li><b>Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion - </b>I am ashamed to say I have not read this. </li>
<li><b>The Wolf by Jodi Picault </b>- While I was working at the 92nd Street Y Katie Couric interviewed Jodi Picault. The most entertaining part was where Picault made Couric howl like a wolf, and then she howled back. They did that for about thirty seconds. It was the most entertaining part of the interview. </li>
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<br />Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-85477479360824741132012-01-27T15:41:00.000-05:002012-01-27T15:41:06.428-05:00The Art of Bi-Location<div>
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I wonder how everyone around me sits quietly at their desks for hours while I get up to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water every twenty minutes. How do they stay in one place for so long? Then I realize they are not really here at all. They are in the future at the party tonight or in the past at yesterday's football game. They are deep in conversation with significant others and in the midst of protests in Tahrir Square. </div>
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We have mastered the art of bi-location. I am here and I am not here. I am with you; I am at work. I am with my friends on Facebook; I am chatting with someone in Texas. I am diffuse and probably a little unfocused. I am not really anywhere, and I don't really want to be anywhere I am. In the future we won't die, we'll simply dissolve into the ether. </div>Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-52727054161432244852012-01-25T13:35:00.002-05:002012-01-25T13:36:00.688-05:00WednesdayWednesday. Outside the sun is shining off the steal walls of the building next door. The siding is aluminum and embossed with triangular designs all the way up the twenty or so floors. I can hear trucks idling at a red light on the street below. I can hear someone talking on the phone in the cubicle next to my office. I think I'd rather be at the library.<br />
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On an unrelated note, check out <a href="http://www.ecfvp.org/posts/author/jeremiah-sierra/">my posts </a>about church leadership issues at <a href="http://www.ecfvp.org/">Vital Practices</a>. They'll be posting them every Monday.<br />
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Lunch is over. Back to work.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-33551562066551567372011-11-22T18:49:00.001-05:002011-11-22T18:51:15.878-05:00The Foundational Theory of Chronodiegetics"Within a science fictional space, memory and regret are, when taken together, the set of necessary and sufficient elements required to produce a time machine."<br />
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- from How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles YuJeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-48451206024122632022011-07-18T23:07:00.000-04:002011-07-18T23:07:18.866-04:00Chickens"Counting up the countless number of chickens humankind has consumed. In that war of attrition between species, we must be way, way ahead of the birds...What's funny or almost funny anyway is that we know and knew all along no matter how many battles won, how many we fried roasted broiled chopped penned in coops fricasseed barbecued crushed and pulped for sausages or ground into mealie meal so they could make a Happy Meal of themselves, no matter how many of their eggs we sunny-sided up or scrambled or sucked or deviled or painted on Easter, we know that sooner or later, just as Malcolm X famously warned - though Malcolm's words were quoted out of context to seem as if he approved of the president's murder - we know those motherfucking chickens are coming home to roost." - <i>Fanon, </i>John Edgar WidemanJeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-1016895549992587752011-06-21T17:22:00.000-04:002011-06-21T17:22:32.780-04:00Seeing JesusCheck out my short essay on the Huffington Post <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeremiah-sierra/nuclear-jesus_b_875580.html">here.</a> Then go to the <a href="http://gracelaw.org/">GRACE website</a> and help them out.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-3912002810269330272010-11-30T16:04:00.002-05:002010-11-30T16:04:31.557-05:00Creepy Bunny has literary ambitions but...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zU2BAMrk7ak/TPVmg3s_x2I/AAAAAAAAAJs/iCxj4iPkW6Y/s1600/Virginia+Woolf.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zU2BAMrk7ak/TPVmg3s_x2I/AAAAAAAAAJs/iCxj4iPkW6Y/s320/Virginia+Woolf.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com51tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-83490914717582401262010-09-08T15:10:00.000-04:002010-09-08T15:10:54.083-04:00This MorningEveryone shows up at once. The Archive Committee, a group of five elderly men and women, crowd into my office as a guy with his name on his shirt is trying to explain to me how he accidentally set off the fire alarm. One of the archive committee members is offering me maple syrup ("From my property in Vermont," he says) as the phone rings and I try to explain to my boss why the firemen might show up at any minute. <br />
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I take the Archive Committee to the church and the other guys to the basement where they will shut off the alarm. We can hear the sirens outside. The firemen arrive, wearing all their gear and looking irritated, and I try to explain to them that this is not my fault, it's that guy over there with his name on his shirt, and the manager of the skyscraper next door is trying to tell them what happened, too, but he doesn't really know. The firemen keep saying "Don't tell me probably. I don't want to hear probably. Someone tell me what happened." I guess if I had to wear those coats in the summer just to find out some guy pulled the wrong lever I would be irritable, too (and if I were carrying around an ax I wouldn't really have any reason to disguise my irritation). <br />
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This is probably the most entertaining part of my work week. Certainly more exciting than folding two hundred and fifty letters and a stack of brochures and stuffing them into preprinted envelopes. <br />
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Later my boss and I are bonding over iPhones. I got one a couple months ago, he got one last week. He is very excited that he can get the weather on his phone. Outside now there are people eating lunch and there is this couple who apparently have standing appointment to stand under the Lych Gate and make out on weekdays. I wonder if the firemen will come back. Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-29228276394915595862010-09-03T15:11:00.002-04:002010-09-03T15:11:35.370-04:00Three Buck Chuck and The VoidSchool is starting, and so is the avalanche of writing assignments and books that I must read and money I must pay to the registrar's office. One of the things I'll be doing is blogging on St. Lydia's new, and very awesome, website. I just posted my first entry, Three Buck Chuck and The Void: <a href="http://stlydias.org/blog/?p=166">http://stlydias.org/blog/?p=166</a>Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-32592314998956098592010-08-23T17:57:00.000-04:002010-08-23T17:57:06.426-04:00A WeekOn Monday I count the money. I start with the pledge donations, then the loose donations. I count the money from the candle box, make sure all the presidents are facing the same direction, start with the twenties, then the tens, fives, and ones. I add up the checks, then enter them all into a spreadsheet. Monday, and the counting, always serves as a gentler reminder that I am not satisfied with the life I am living. But who is, really? It's OK, right? To be unsatisfied? If you are satisfied with your life then you are probably boring. <br />
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On Tuesday I pay the bills. <br />
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On Wednesday I attend a staff meeting and begin prepare the bulletins to be printed.<br />
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On Thursday I print and fold the service leaflets and the prayer list. <br />
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On Friday I try to be productive. I file and make phone calls. <br />
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On Saturday I write. Well I sit in a coffee shop with my computer in front of me and stacks of notes from my classmates trying to edit and then move to the library where the air conditioning is better. I spend too much time on Facebook. Some things I write are good, but it is indicative of my summer that the best thing I've written in the past two months might the be the<a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=33077579&l=c17f2f821a&id=3004995"> caption for a photo on Facebook</a>. <br />
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<div>On Sunday I watch this romantic comedy called When In Rome while playing Battle Bears on my iPhone. This is the peril of modern life: that you will spend large portions of it watching bad romantic comedies until one day you are 62 and you realize you have spent years of your life watching these terrible romantic comedies and wasted all your talent and your time watching television (not that I didn't enjoy hanging out with my new roommates) and answering the phone and giving away your writing for free.<br />
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Anyway, I'm not worried about the time I spend watching television and the time I have spent counting money and folding bulletins and stuffing letters. I will start to worry when I begin sitting at home watching television thinking about television, instead of sitting at home watching television thinking about how I shouldn't be watching so much television.</div><div><br />
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</div></div>Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-49460083659452326622010-07-27T14:20:00.000-04:002010-07-27T14:20:31.510-04:00The PassageMaybe it was just that I was packing while I was listening. I was gathering up my shirts and books and the compact discs and DVDs and cleaning out the drawers of my desk and placing them in boxes from Home Depot, and I was listening to The Passage, and it was depressing the hell out of me. There is something inherently depressing about moving - it's the way a little piece of your life is ending, and you're leaving the good and the bad of it behind, and you're left there in an empty room and there's nothing sadder than an empty room that once had furniture and books and friends in it. Or was it just the drone of the narrator's voice as he read Justin Cronin's book, whose inflections could not make up for the fact that I listened to almost the entire 36 hours in his voice, on those lonely headphones. <br />
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Not that it was a bad book. If you are looking for a summer read and are the kind of person who likes sprawling epics, a little science fiction or fantasy, this one is pretty good. But I don't recommend listening to it. Listening to it this way flattens it out. And if you are distracted, say by the woman bent nearly in half wobbling down the subway car and singing and rattling the change in her cup, you might miss the details of the book, and I think it's details that make literature. Well, actually, I just kind of thought of that and I'm not sure its true, but I do love details, the really small, specific everyday details that connect me to the story and make it tangible. I'm not really the sprawling epic sort of reader - I will never slog through another Tolkein book - but I thought this would be a good summer read (er, listen). In most ways it was. The story is compelling, and occasionally (just occasionally) surprising, and every now and then Cronin writes a sentence with unexpected grace. <br />
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I was almost an English major at Rice University, where Justin Cronin teaches, but after after two awful, stupid classes (not taught by Cronin) I decided that English was not for me. I didn't have the tools at the time (there's a whole vocabulary you have to learn, and a way of thinking about these things), and I didn't have a voice. It turns out English is all about trying to figure out why some stuff works and other stuff doesn't, and what it means, and it's mostly just an educated guess. Cronin went to the Iowa Writer's Workshop, which everyone seems to agree is the best writing school in the country, and there are people who will claim he sold out, but I think is a lazy criticism at best. Good writing is good writing, and you engage with what it is. <br />
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My point is that I don't regret reading The Passage, and I'd recommend it, but I do regret the audiobook, because I didn't really give it a fair chance.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-54467602869698086612010-07-01T19:29:00.001-04:002010-07-02T09:50:56.172-04:00Life is WeirdYou're listening to an audio book, a book about vampires by Justin Cronin except there are no vampires yet even though you're in the third chapter. There's something about the Polunksy Prison Unit in Texas and you think of the woman there you used to talk to when you had to arrange prison visits and then there is a mention of the Harris County public defender's office and you think to yourself - there is no public defender's office in Houston. And then you think, it's weird that I know that, or maybe it's just strange that you know stuff at all because it reminds you are now a person with his own history, a life with these singular experiences. Maybe this is just another one of those realizations that you sometimes have that you are an adult, a person separate from other people in the world. <br />
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Or maybe it's just weird that you are walking down the street in New York listening to an audio book about vampires because you were never the kind of person who thought to yourself, one day I should live in New York. There are lots of those kinds of people, just not you. <br />
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Then you think of the woman on the train, wearing a pink shirt and denim capri pants with big clear plastic beads on one wrist and a phone and an mp3 player strapped to the other wrist. Around her neck there was this metallic snake-necklace that wrapped around itself and came halfway down her chest. She was marking her book with a yellow crayon. That was weird too.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-3294891095758385902010-06-28T15:33:00.001-04:002010-06-28T15:45:38.999-04:00Bionic CatI think we should talk about this, this <a href="http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/06/bionic-cat-walks-on-prosthetic-legs/">bionic cat</a>. What does it mean that there is a bionic cat? I tell my friend that somewhere out there is a cat walking on little bionic legs and he says that we're doomed (actually, he didn't say doomed, but this is a PG 13 blog). Maybe that's true. There are plenty of problems in this world (starving children and global warming and oil in the gulf) and maimed pets does not seem to be at the top of the list, and yet here in America we value our pets as much as we value our children (or at least as much as we value other people's children). But that was someone's cat, and can you really blame someone for loving their cat? <br />
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Or maybe my friend is afraid that this is the beginning of the end, that one day bionic cats with robot brains and laser eyes will take over the world.<br />
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But I don't think so. I like to think that this bionic cat is a sign of hope. I'm feeling kind of tired today and a little unsure about the future, but I feel better knowing that cat is out there and, thanks to the fact that we live in an age with portable <a href="http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/facetime.html">videophones</a> and a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/20/magazine/20Computer-t.html">machine that can play jeopardy</a>, that cat can walk It can even jump on top of some toilet paper rolls. I'm so happy for that cat. And if we can make a cat's life better, then maybe we can one day clean up the oceans and cure cancer and reverse global warming and build time machines so we can finally see real dinosaurs. I'm hopeful. So very hopeful.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-24507708782629896862010-06-25T12:36:00.000-04:002010-06-25T12:36:21.529-04:00Can I help you?"I'm not a divine father or anything, but I believe and stuff," this guy in a yellow t-shirt is telling me that he only wants to see a priest so he can say a prayer for his mother and it will only take a couple of minutes. I do not suspect that he is lying. "I know that all that matters anymore is money and that you used to be able to come and see a priest but it's not like that anymore, but can't I see a priest? I mean, if he can't take the time to pray with me I would think that's almost sacrilegious."<br />
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I find a priest, and the guy in the yellow shirt asks him for money. <br />
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How can you answer the door in a city and not end up suspecting everyone of lying to you? <br />
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I read the other day that 75% of homeless people suffer from severe mental illness, and then there's the guy with 100 proof breathe and the drug addicts. 75% sounds about right. I'm thinking of the guy who stood in the my office and stuck the brochure I gave him into his pocket, which was already full of papers and cardboard and maybe cigarettes and just stared at me for almost a minute before he responded to my question "Is there anything else I can help you with?" <br />
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No. He stared into space for another minute with his bloodshot eyes then walked out the door, slowly.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-81574777675494596222010-06-16T10:23:00.001-04:002010-06-16T10:25:32.077-04:0070s Vampire<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Black blazer and a striped shirt, black and white paisley handkerchief stuffed into the pocket, bleach blonde ponytail pulled back, aviator sunglasses, faded bell bottoms, and black pointy boots on the subway at 9 in the morning, playing some game on his iPod while he stands in front of the doors. There's a big chunk of silver around his ring finger. </span></span><br />
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</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">If I wrote fiction I'd make this guy into some kind of immortal being, probably a vampire, because that's how you make money nowadays. He's been living in New York for about 60 years. Before he bites his victims he likes to talk about how much he loved the 70s. He goes on and on about the 70s, and his victims are like "Just bite me already and shut up about this disco stuff." </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Really, though, he's thinking about the end of the world. He knows that immortality is impossible, that there is a finite amount of energy in the universe and it is spreading further and further out, that the sun will consume the earth, and he wonders what happens to him then. That's a ways away, though. The seventies will have been over for eons, and maybe by then he'll be tired of drinking blood and wearing sunglasses inside. For now, he'll distract himself with this game on his iPod where you fling little birds and try to knock stuff over. He really loves this game. </span></span></div>Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-37579847570730924082010-06-15T14:34:00.000-04:002010-06-15T14:34:38.332-04:00Pathos and HumorI'm waiting for a slow little old lady to leave my office. The sun is shining in the garden, but only briefly, before the skyscraper across the street obscures it. A couple of people are circling the fountain, arguing. Or maybe they're acting, practicing - they suddenly smile and laugh. <br />
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I told a friend of mine that I had to pause for laughs at my reading last week and she seems surprised. "You write things that are funny?" <br />
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"It's a secret," I said. (Actually, I didn't. I don't remember what I said, so I made it up. That's why it's "Creative" non-fiction. Or, "It's composed" as one of my professors would say.) Most of the stuff I write is somewhere between pathos and humor. I can't seem to separate the two. <br />
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Anyway, my reading ended up being a kind of performance - something between an essay and a monologue and maybe a comedy routine. My boss seemed to like it, and his friend who came with him said "like all good comedy, it was deadly serious."Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-22665195084806302092010-06-07T15:05:00.000-04:002010-06-07T15:05:53.322-04:00What you are doing on ThursdayWhat are you doing on Thursday night? You are going to watch me do a reading, that's what. At a variety show! Yes, a variety show. Singers, dancers, a magician and me, an "essayist." But I will be funny and charming (Did you know that I am funny and charming? Most people who meet me do not suspect that I am either.) and I will knock 'em dead. Knock. 'Em. Dead. And even if I am awkward and trip over my own words (I have been known to do this before), it will be over quickly. Don't worry though, I am going to practice. Lots. It will be way fun. <div><br />
</div><div>So, if you are free, come and lend me your support. Thursday, June 10th at 1 E. 29th St (the church with the garden between 5th and Madison). Happy Hour at 7, show at 8. $10 suggested donation which supports actors in need. <a href="http://www.actorsguild.org/Events.html">http://www.actorsguild.org/Events.html</a></div><div><br />
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</div>Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-46437948111710059822010-05-26T17:06:00.000-04:002010-05-26T17:06:32.116-04:00Pentecost<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">Sunday was Pentecost and we were eating and setting things on fire. Well, just cherries jubilee, and the tongues of flame came and went in a few seconds. Emily said: "There's a spark of the divine in each of us." She said: "The gulf that we look across, that divides us from one another is real: the difference is real, and needed, and good. But the spark of humanity we share is stronger." </span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">This is what it is to be conscious: to feel our singularity, that we are alone in our skins, trapped in our skulls. Though isn't this false? Aren't we porous, full of holes (literally)? More like water or fire than stone. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">David Foster Wallace said "Fiction, poetry, music, really deep serious sex, and, in various ways, religion - these are all the places (for me) where loneliness is countenanced, stared down, transfigured, treated."<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal;">He wrote books, I said a prayers, just to feel close to another soul. </span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;">The followers of Christ stand in the center of the city and speak in one language and many languages, like a story that is not your story (the details are different), but it is your story. The theologians are really poets, and they're lying to themselves if they think that religion isn't an art, carving out a place where we can collect our loneliness and our fear and watch it dissipate a little, to dissolve it like an oil spill in the sea before it covers us in black, suffocating gunk. How else do you get close to another soul except with words and symbols and prayers and stories. And I'm the one saying "They are drunk with wine," even though I can't stop listening to the stories they tell. </span></span></div>Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-7534661960371263372010-05-26T09:58:00.000-04:002010-05-26T09:58:25.572-04:00Your cold mornings are filled with the heartache about the fact that although we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have, that it is ours but that it is full of strife, so that all we can call our own is strife; but even that is better than nothing at all, isn't it? And as you split frost-laced wood with numb hands, rejoice that your uncertainty is God's will and His grace toward you and that<i> that </i>is beautiful, and part of a greater certainty, as your own father always said in his sermons to you at home. And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough. <br />
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- From <i>Tinkers, </i>by Paul Harding. I cannot tell you how much I love this book, the mesmerizing language and the way the words and the truth of it continue to ring in your head after you've finished it. Don't do anything else, just read this book.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-49752355584195715322010-04-29T15:34:00.001-04:002010-04-29T15:45:36.445-04:00Grizzly BearChurch Lady stops by. She's going to her cabin for a week in the woods somewhere. Some place where there are bears. "Don't look a grizzly bear in the eye," she says. "You look one in the eye and you're dead. As soon as you look a grizzly bear in the eye, you're a threat, and they won't hesitate."<br />
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I go back to sitting at my desk and working on my essay. I think this piece needs a violent rewrite. I'm going to go at it like I'm a grizzly bear, and it just looked me in the eye. <br />
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The people from <a href="http://www.jeremiahsierra.com/2009/12/guerrilla-philanthropy.html">Children International</a> are roaming the intersection of 5th and Broadway again. They act like they know you and they don't have clipboards, but don't look them in the eye. They're like friendly, attractive grizzly bears, and they want your money. <br />
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I've got a professor, who is trying hard, but having some trouble getting the class to talk. She's got a class full of introverts (no surprise there, it's a class full of writers). She wanted to know why we don't speak more in class. I looked her in the eye.<br />
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Like a grizzly bear.Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10219229.post-33846361959599295332010-04-27T17:01:00.001-04:002010-04-28T09:22:53.322-04:00A Spacious PlaceSit in your apartment in your underwear eating cheerios. Watch <a href="http://htmlgiant.com/random/intersections/">this video</a> of automobiles smashing into each other for much too long. Remember that moment, a moment in the dorm bathroom that smelled like the pink cleaner they kept under the sink and the cold tiles under your feet. You're brushing your teeth and staring at yourself in the mirror with all those angry questions in your head and God so very quiet. Imagine that this was the moment the world you built out of words and faith began to crumble. You probably aren't getting enough sleep.<br />
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Burn the past like an old notebook. No, don't do that. If you're not the story you tell yourself then who are you? When you sing on Sunday, sing this: "I must tell Jesus all of my sorrow, I cannot bear these burdens alone," and feel that bit of relief inside, like something opens up, just a little. "We went through fire and through water," the psalmist says, "yet you have brought us out to a spacious place."Jeremiahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03622183777321107738noreply@blogger.com2