Bulletin Board of the Brain » History

Narrative Cocktails

Kj — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 11:11:50 +0000

Time for another round up of Intiman Theatre’s specialty cocktails, some from last season and some we’re serving right now. I created a lot of these. I did not create the cute little quotes.

Try these at home.

The Year of Magical Thinking
By Joan Didion

The Gin Didion –
A mature, refreshing drink with the strength of a martini and a cool finish.
Muddle cucumber and lime and one sugar cube (peeled & blended cucumber works best)
6-count of Tanqueray Gin
Shake
Serve up
Top with Soda
Garnish with cucumber slice

The Ordinary Instant
A beautifully layered drink, pleasantly sweet but tempered with citrus and tonic.
Make directly on rocks
4-count Citrus Vodka
1.5-count Tonic
.5-count Chambord, poured over spoon to settle
Garnish with lemon

Abe Lincoln in Illinois
By Robert E. Sherwood

Drinkin’ with Lincoln
As comfortable as a slice of homemade apple pie.
Put a solid dash of bitters on a sugar cube, muddle with orange.
4-count Applejack
.5-count Goldschlager
Shake
Serve on rocks
Top with soda
Garnish with a cherry

The Mud Wagon
A drink fit for a Postmaster — or a President.
3-count Kahlua
2-count Dewar’s Scotch
2-count Drambuie
Shake
Serve up
Top with a generous amount of soda
Garnish with lemon

Black Nativity
Book By Langston Hughes
Music Direction by Pastor Patrinell Wright

The Poinsettia
Add a little sparkle to your holiday.
½ flute of champagne
1-count of Grand Marnier
Fill with cranberry juice
Garnish with lime twist

The Winter Warming
A cozy drink for a cold winter night.
Splash of honey in a cup/mug
Fill ½ with hot water
Stir with cinnamon stick to dissolve
Squeeze a lemon wedge, drop in
4-count of Makers Mark Bourbon
Stir & serve

Paradise Lost
By Clifford Odets
The Gold Standard
This smooth concoction is worth its weight in gold.
4-count Jameson’s Irish Whiskey
1-count Peach Schnapps
Serve on rocks
Top with Izze Sparkling Clementine juice
Garnish with lime

The New Deal
Find your own cure for the recession with this tart delight.
Muddle pink grapefruit
5-count Tanqueray GIn
1-count Campari
1-count Grapefruit Juice
Dash of bitters
Shake
Serve up
Top with soda
Garnish with grapefruit

The Thin Place
By Sonya Schneider 
Conceived and Directed by Andrew Russell 

The Shaken Rainier – Featuring locally-made Dry Soda
This elegant blend of muddled lime, Tanqueray gin, Green Chartreuse, and Juniper Dry Soda evokes the verdant forests of the northwest mountains.
Muddle lime
5-count Tanqueray Gin
1-count Green Chartreuse
Shake
Serve up
Top with 2-count Juniper Dry Soda
Garnish with lime (or rosemary)

The Sound – Featuring locally-made Dry Soda
Calm your senses with this delicate combination of lemon, Smirnoff citrus vodka, Chambord, and Lavender Dry Soda; rose-tinted like the sunsets over Puget Sound.
Muddle lemon lightly
3-count Citrus Vodka
1-count Chambord
Shake
Serve on the rocks
Top with 2-count Lavender Dry Soda
Garnish with lemon (or lavender)

Ruined
By Lynn Nottage

The Karibu (Welcome)
Let us welcome you with this delightful concoction. You’ll feel right at home.
Muddle lemon
2-count Captain Morgan Spiced Rum
2-count Brandy
2-count Sweet Vermouth
1-count Red Apple Schnapps
Heavy splash of cranberry juice
Shake
Serve up
Garnish with a cherry (dropped in)

The Sunbird
Fly into the sun with this smooth, refreshing mix of muddled lemon, Smirnoff Citrus Vodka, Amaretto, and Chambord. It’s like rich berry lemonade.
Muddle lemon
3-count Citrus Vodka
2-count Disaronno Amaretto
1-count Chambord
Shake
Serve up
Top with soda
Garnish with lemon

Kj’s Corner: Mythopoeia, Monsters and Jesus Oh My!

Kj — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:27:10 +0000

For my second Kj’s Corner in “Theology & the Artistic Impulse” I explored the concept of Mythopoeia as described primarily by George MacDonald, JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis. For part of the lecture, (screenshots below) I also used a scene from the documentary Monster Camp (see the trailer below) and the preview for the documentary We Are Wizards (also below), to look at some cultural examples of how we attempt to inhabit the narratives that either enchant our lives or drive us to escape our lives. Thanks again Chelle for the opportunity to teach a bit, and thanks to the class for your gracious engagement and conversation around my little corners.

(This image is “Lucy & the Lampost” by Bridget Beth Collins. I have a copy hanging on my wall.)

Suggested reading on Mythopoeia:

C.S. Lewis: “On Stories” & “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”

George MacDonald: “The Imagination” & Lillith

JRR Tolkein: “”On Fairy Stories” & The Lord of the Rings (duh)

Kristin Johnson: “Tolkein’s Mythopoesis” in Tree of Tales

The Christian Imagination edited by Leland Ryken

And That Makes 108

Kj — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:08:48 +0000

I just turned in my final paper of graduate school. I took fewer classes this spring and summer. The “extra” time went to finishing my integrative project (#1 on the list) and being a research assistant for “Theology & the Artistic Impulse.”

Also, I did some research that spanned more than one class, hence two papers that look at the same thing (Jane Eyre) from two different perspectives.

So here’s 2010, the last of these oh so listy of lists.

“WHY ARE YOU APOLOGIZING FOR BLEEDING?”
Confronting The Evangelical Embrace Of Stephenie Meyer’s
Twilight Saga

“GOD DID NOT GIVE ME MY LIFE TO THROW AWAY”
Reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre As Theological Articulation of Salvation in Light of Women’s Experience:
An Introduction

CHARLOTTE BRONTË, THEOLOGIAN:
Charting The Constructive Theology Of Jane Eyre

THE SHADOWS THAT GLORY REVEALS:
Spiritual Formation Through The Fiction Of C.S. Lewis

[SUBJECT] TO AN UNKNOWN GOD:
Postmodern Philosophy And The Transcending Of Our Human Claims On The Transcendent God

Do You Remember?: Exile, Identity and Prince Caspian

Kj — Mon, 31 May 2010 04:01:38 +0000

For the C.S. Lewis class, four of us did a presentation on Prince Caspian. We focused on the novel’s theme of exile and return, viewed through the lens of Isaiah. Since I first read the book in 1999, I’ve been haunted by the image of the Penvensie children wandering around the ruins of a castle only to slowly realize its their former home of Cair Paravel, but somehow hundreds of years have passed. That feeling of being in a place that was once home, but is now completely unfamiliar or in ruins is resonant of other characters in the book who have been living exiled from their culture or identity. The tree spirits have gone dormant, the animals have gone wild and forgotten how to speak, or hidden their speech if they’ve not gone wild, dwarves have had to “pass” for men, and even the children have trouble recovering the memories of their Narnian identity.

We wanted to offer our classmates an aspect of this experience in the context of our own lives. We did this in three ways. First we completely demolished the classroom. As people entered the room, they had to sit amongst the ruins, or as some identified, the “war zone” remains of the classroom. Then, with many people on the floor next to turned over chairs and tables, we began by hearing portions of Isaiah 44, which in the context of the Narnia story and our sitting in the rubble of our classroom, held more potent meaning than I’d expected. Here’s a bit of the text.
Isaiah 44:21-28

21 Remember these things, O Jacob,and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you, you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. 22 I have swept away your transgressions like a cloud, and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. 23 Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel. 24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who by myself spread out the earth; 25 who frustrates the omens of liars, and makes fools of diviners; who turns back the wise, and makes their knowledge foolish; 26 who confirms the word of his servant, and fulfills the prediction of his messengers; who says of Jerusalem, “It shall be inhabited,” and of the cities of Judah, “They shall be rebuilt, and I will raise up their ruins”; 27 who says to the deep, “Be dry— I will dry up your rivers”; 28 who says of Cyrus, “He is my shepherd, and he shall carry out all my purpose”; and who says of Jerusalem, “It shall be rebuilt,” and of the temple, “Your foundation shall be laid.”

Then, still in the dark and destroyed classroom, we played this video.
(It had music but we can’t seem to get it to play).
It works best (is most emotionally manipulative) if you play some wordless soundtrack music with it. We used Max Richter.
And the video ends at 3:32, but the powerpoint continues after it.

The Caspian Experience from Kj Swanson on Vimeo.

Then we led a more formal presentation and discussion time, but as we spoke, two of our group members slowly returned to classroom to its proper shape, so by the time we were done, the room looked normal again, except that no one was sitting in their usual place. Everyone was spread out along the edges or in clumps at some tables. Many of us had been “exiled” by the disruption of the space.

Hard to say how much of our ideas came across in the presentation or even in this blog post, but we loved doing it. I realized in the process that this was probably my last group project ever at MHGS, and I loved getting to work with people I’d never partnered with before. I felt like I was the old timer getting to work with the energetic whippersnappers who will be at MHGS long after I’ve graduated. Kind of like old Professor Kirke getting to hear Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy tell about the world they found in the wardrobe. It was wonderful.

I Like Getting Paid in Gift Cards

Kj — Sat, 08 May 2010 06:36:48 +0000

Because then I “have” to buy stuff.

I did a few jobs for school that resulted in some Amazon.com money. Can’t wait till these folks show up at my door!

We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rules, Partners, Rivals
By Gillian Gill

The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
By Sandra M Gilbert & Susan Gubar

Sexual Shame: An Urgent Call to Healing
By Karen A. McClintock

How (Not) to Speak of God – Marks of the Emerging Church
By Peter Rollins

Slings & Arrows: the Complete Collection

It’s all pretty much research/resources- but oh so good to have my own copies!

Of Mice and Meals

Kj — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:08:55 +0000

Redwall by Brian Jacques

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Continuing in my process of reading books for young people that I neither read nor heard of as a young person, I’ve started the Redwall series. Actually, my friend Tucker holds Mossflower as one of the most influential books in his life, and I want to read that, but it comes after this first book, Redwall, so I read ths first.

It was sweet. Can’t say I was ever at a loss for what would happen next or which cranky bad guys would turn out to be good, or what monstrous villain would suffer a vicious death or which sweet mouse girl would marry the brave mouse hero, but the world of woodland creatures who inhabit castles, belong to mouse monk orders and gather dandelions for salads, was quite a reprieve from my graduate studies.

But putting the more-than-predictable plot aside, the true delight of this book is the descriptions of food and feasts the medieval woodland creatures create. I leave you with some incandescently hunger-arousing descriptions.

“Tender freshwater shrimp garnished with cream and rose leaves, deviled barley pearls in acorn puree, apple and carrot chews, marinated cabbage stalks steeped in creamed white turnip with nutmeg.”

View all my reviews >>

We’re On The InterWebs!

Kj — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:56:10 +0000

Here’s my 9 & 1/2 minutes on my Twilight & Evangelical culture research. Click here or on the links below to see more MHGS MDiv Integrative Project Presentations.

MDiv Integrative Projects – Kj Swanson from Mars Hill Graduate School on Vimeo.

Dialogical Film Club: Rundown 2010

Kj — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:42:02 +0000

Next month will mark the one year anniversary of the Dialogical Film Club, which, considering that it all started because six of us wanted to deconstruct Twilight, that’s really pretty amazing. Here’s what we’ve been up to. And DFC members- feel free to amend my versions of things. I know I forget about 80% of what we talked about once it’s over.

December 2009: DFC Christmas Extravaganza

Stop-Animation Specials: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy
Bonus Feature: Little Women
Chosen Because: I was really curious what Rudolph would be like for people who didn’t grow up with it, and I wanted to parse out my theory of Rudolph being a pro-queer text. Also, since I’d bought a Stop-animation Christmas DVD collection, we decided to explore one none of us really knew. Little Women came out of conversation around movies we always watch at Christmas, and after sitting there quoting Christian Bale and Gabriel Byrne for twenty minutes, those of us still hanging out decided to go ahead and just watch it.
Our Dialogue: Rudolph & Drummer Boy- you really have no idea how violent and angry they are till watching it with those who have never seen them. And I lost track of my “dentist/misfit=okay-to-be-gay” subtext as we realized what an A-hole Santa is in Rudolph. Little Women–I have no idea what we talked about, but man that night made up for the two weeks of Christmas break I spent weeping at my desk alone in the middle of the night writing my thesis. We even had British style Christmas Crackers- the kind that explode with toys, not covered in cheese.

January 2010: The Nines
Chosen Because: Ian was visiting us from NYC and curated this DFC, bringing with it questions of determinism, fate, spirituality, and how the film might function well as a play.
Our Dialogue: Much prediction around the trajectory of the mysteriously bifurcated narrative, and what the filmmakers wanted us to question about our reality. Also- we got kind of scared a bit.

February (though we met first week of March): Harry Potter & The Prisoner of Azkaban
Chosen Because: Harry Potter comes up a lot, and this is one of my top ten films of all time. Plus, Chasten had just finished reading the series.
Our Dialogue: Orphanhood, identity, protection–the various ways the story explores Harry’s need for care and protection from adults, but also how those relationships enable him to learn to protect himself.

March: Where The Wild Things Are
Chosen Because: The DFC is largely counseling psychology graduates and good lord, this film reads like a DSM article on the childhood subconscious.
Our Dialogue: This was the most heated (and lengthy) DFC meeting yet. We literally took an hour and a half to get through the first twenty minutes of the film. Factions formed between those who found the boy overdrawn, overwrought and heavy-handedly hipster, and those who found his portrayal heartbreakingly true. We discovered the split seemed to exist between oldest siblings (the former opinion) and youngest siblings (the latter). There was many a battle fought over this one- which doesn’t surprise me since when I saw the movie in the theater last October, it was the first time I ever walked out of a theater and said “Now that’s a movie for the DFC.” This viewing also marked another time where we were blessed with visits from Ian and from the Pietsches as well. The DFC misses them!

April: The Graduate
Bonus Feature: Garden State
Chosen Because: I don’t know who initially suggested The Graduate, but since most of our choices center around watching and wondering about what’s most popular culturally, The Graduate was a great opportunity to reflect on an iconically popular classic. I suggested Garden State as an intertext since it’s functioned in some similar ways for our generation as The Graduate did for our parents’, not the least of which being, the significant role of soundtracks for each film.
Our Dialogue: We were shocked by how clearly The Graduate (at least acts I & II) illustrated the cycle of abuse- with seduction, manipulation, guilt, abuse of power, etc. We were all equally flummoxed by WTF was going on during act III other than that Benjamin just basically goes insane. Then those who were able to stick around, shared embarrassing and cathartic stories of why Garden State felt so amazing six years ago, and now seems absolutely ridiculous. Go figure.

That’s it for now. Here’s to another great year of dialoguing our way through some breathtaking films and some crappy ones too!

Life on Venus

Kj — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 07:27:50 +0000

This is part of my last assignment for my last spring of seminary/grad school. It’s an image showing my current theological space. I’ve been inhabiting a different planet for some time now. I could call it Planet Lent/Holy Week/Resurrection. I could call it Planet People In My Room Late At Night. Or Planet Not-Submarine.

But the easiest term has been Venus.

Voices, faces, words, stories, prayers, tears, hands, gratitude, perseverance, sunrises, full moons, icons, incarnation, conversations, photographs, papers, books, songs, hot fudge sundaes, embraces, car rides, questions, histories, movie theatres, women, men, beloved friends.

Six weeks left…I wish I could fit all of your faces on this page.

…and yes, Sofa Square made it into my theological space collage. I love you Sofa Square.

Time to Talk Twilight

Kj — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 09:31:29 +0000

For about eight minutes, at least.

Anyone in Seattle who’s interested, some of us from my MDiv cohort will be presenting our Integrative Projects

Wednesday, April 7th at MHGS from 3-5.

You would be most welcome.