General Reflections

I finished reading Maus a number of weeks ago. It was the first graphic novel I'd read, besides a collection of Marvel comics, which doesn't really count. I really enjoyed it, but I'm going to avoid making any grandiose critical pronouncements. I will say that Vladek Spiegelman was a very real and endearing character to me, and my favorite part of the book.

In a weird coincidence Mark Blumenthal, editor and publisher of Pollster.com (a political polling and analysis site I've been frequenting lately) posted this today. Blumenthal's father-in-law, who passed away yesterday, has a very similar story to Vladek Spiegelman, as documented in Maus.

Michelle and I have been watching the Office almost every night. We're already half way through Season 4, which we got less than a month ago. The Office is great because it is so subtle and compelling in the way it engages our culture. I don't know exactly how to explain it, except that I watched the last two minutes of "Survivor Man" twice in a row, totally spellbound. And I need to see "The Deposition" again. I mean, it's totally hilarious, but it's the once-in-a-blue-moon, darn-that-was-poignant, out-of-nowhere-when-you-least-expect-it, rewind-that-I-need-to-see-that-again moments that have me totally hooked.

More good stuff from The Call:

For Jesus, spirituality is plainly not a life of contemplation divorced from a life of action. There is nothing in Jesus' life of either the super-spiritual "Catholic distortion" or the all-to-secular "Protestant distortion" we saw earlier. There is only a rhythm of engagement and withdrawal, work and rest, dispensing and recharging, crowds and solitude, in the midst of one of the shortest, busiest public lives ever lived.
If we are not to be dried up, our secular lives require supernatural refreshment too. But equally, if our supernatural experience is not to become an end in itself and a source of indulgence and pride, we must resolutely descend from the mountain peaks of vision to the valley of ordinary life where our callings take us. The New Testament knows no monasteries or monks, only spiritually disciplined disciples in a demanding, everyday world.

Last but not least, I'm excited to say that Michelle and I are having a girl. We went this weekend to a second hand store and picked out some of her first clothes. I learned that newborns wear pants with their onesies. Hey, it looked like a complete outfit to me.