Stromateis

E called my attention to Metroblogging New Orleans, from which I’ve gotten a much richer sense of the situation there than I have from listening to the official news sources. She also reminded me there of how unevenly the weight of calamity (and attention) there has been distributed.

I heard from storm-affected Annie — she’s OK, hosting refugees from New Orleans proper. No report from my other friends in Louisiana-Mississippi.

I’m working on the last sheet of the starter deck of Ekklesia: The Congregating cards (last sheet now done and posted). In the shower this morning, it occurred to me that I could make up some special cards as a supplement: for instance, a “Persecution” card that beat everything except a martyr, no matter what category was chosen; a “Miracle” card, that won for the person who played it the next two cards (but then it had to be discarded — only one miracle per game); a “Council” card would require the next two plays to be determined by Orthodoxy; and so on. From there, we could begin to revisit Derek’s wonderful sketch of a game more deliberative than random.

In case you were worried about Josiah, he seems to be having a great time.

Last night I watched Hook, Line, & Sinker — back in olden times, when you couldn’t just choose to watch any movie ever made, but only had available the movies that local theaters and TV stations deigned to show, I hit a streak of Bert Wheeler/Robert Woolsey movies early Saturday morning on a Pittsburgh TV station; Netflix is now feeding my reminiscences. I’ll say this: it’s no Night at the Opera or Philadelphia Story, but I think it holds up exceptionally well (and some studio would be better served to remake this than to generate yet another puerile gross-out feature).

We made the turn into Volume Three of the Theological Outlines project (relying on a first-edition copy, much different format); Chapter Twenty-Two (“The Economy of the Holy Ghost”) is online.