Once, after I had finished confessing an episode of drunkenness to a priest, he gave me some background on AA. (Wait ... is the person Confessing bound by an oath of secrecy, or only the priest?) Anyhow, he mentioned that in Step 2 of the 12 steps you admit the existence of a higher power. Of course, the priest and I had already admitted the existence of this Higher Power, in the Triune God. But, he mentioned one case in which the only "higher power" that one of the "friends of Bill W" could think of was the air-conditioner in his full-size Buick. Apparently, this man lived in some intemperate region, such as Arizona, and his Buick's air-conditioner was the one thing in his earthly existence which had never let him down. As the priest's story went, the man eventually graduated from belief in his car's air-conditioner to full-fledged belief in God.
I was thinking, the other day as I worked on Eliot's car: If I were an atheist, what would my higher power be? I decided that it would be my Metabogrinder:
I have put this grinder through all sorts of hell for the past 10 years, and it has never missed a beat. Last weekend, I was using it to cut and grind on the shock towers of Eliot's Meteor, and I had it running almost continuously for several hours.
In fact, when it started to get hot ... I stopped and gave it a rest ... not because I thought it might not be up to the task ... but, because I had pity on an old and faithful friend!
There's this woman ... I can't stop thinking about her. The kooky things she does just drive me crazy! I know I must seem a little obsessed and all. In fact, I just made a video about her:
One of the things that makes these projects fun for me it to set up constraints for myself within which I agree to work. In this case, I set up as an Objective Function (which I tried to maximize) the number of words I was able to keep from the original song (Motorcycle Irene, by Skip Spence of Moby Grape).
I finished the music for this video nearly a month ago, but scheduling the filming, inking the cards, and post-production hassles delayed the thing until now. And, wouldn't you know it? Things are falling apart so fast in this hellish landslide called The Episcopal church that much of the content is already outdated! No worries - another song will follow hard on its heels.
Since all the other Instruments of Unity within Anglicanism have apparently failed, I humbly offer these new products which I've just invented. Liturgi-KoolTM... first name in really cool liturgical garments. Finally, something upon which the entire Anglican Communion can agree!
The recent Attempted Deposition of Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan has me too sad to comment. I thank all the faithful Anglicans who have already said the right things about what this was and what it means going forward.
So, from me, something happier! Here is a video of the world's largest Radio-Controlled aeroplane!B-29s are lovely, aren't they?
