Archive for February 2007
This is just a random note in my Book of Mormon study.
1 Nephi 1:9 reads:
And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.
I did a scripture search on the word “luster”, thinking it might appear in the KJV. It doesn’t. It doesn’t appear in the Doctrine and Covenants or Pearl of Great Price either. It only appears one other time in the Book of Mormon, in Mosiah 13:5, which reads:
Now it came to pass after Abinadi had spoken these words that the people of king Noah durst not lay their hands on him, for the Spirit of the Lord was upon him; and his face shone with exceeding luster, even as Moses’ did while in the mount of Sinai, while speaking with the Lord.
This post attempts to be an amalgamation of two different topics. I guess I’m asking two basic questions:
1) What is your favorite Disney movie?
2) What is your favorite movie soundtrack?
I can combine these because my favorite Disney movie is “The Jungle Book” and my favorite movie soundtrack is “The Jungle Book.”
I’ve added four Jungle Book songs to the radio blog. They are: “I Wanna Be Like You” / “That’s What Friends Are For” / “The Bare Necessities” / “Trust In Me (The Python Song)” I particularly enjoy the very end of “That’s What Friends Are For” when Shere Khan comes in with a tremendously rich and royal bass voice, singing the line “that’s what friends are for.”
I’ve been working on a template for the Book of Mormon chapter study sheets and I may have come up with something that will work a lot better.
1 Nephi Chapter 1 and 1 Nephi Chapter 2 are now available on the download page. These are excel documents. Before the document for 1 Nephi Chapter 1 was too large for printing. I’ve now made it so that each of the available chapters is about 50+ pages. A person who prints these on double-sided pages shouldn’t find these too much to work with. The idea is simply to make it easy for a person to examine how each word is used in a chapter, in its verse context.
When I’ve shown these study sheets to friends, some have asked why they would want to study prepositions, conjunctions or articles. I can fully understand why someone would not want to study the use of the word “the” or “that” (or many other words) in a given chapter. However, I didn’t want to try to be the arbitrator of what Book of Mormon words are important or unimportant. Some patterns that occur could be dependent on seemingly mundane throwaway words that we typically take for granted.
Besides, if it is too annoying, it is easy for a person to delete a given word out of the document.
I hope someone will find these helpful. I’ll try to take less time to get the 1 Nephi Chapter 3 study sheets ready. It’s a very slow process but I’m patient when it comes to this sort of thing.
I’m willing to listen to any suggestions or responses people might have.
NOTE: I’m told someone who knows PERL (or LISP or Python) could write a few lines of computer script that would auto-generate this kind of thing, if it’s given the text. That would be great! I’ll be fishing around to see who might do it for me.
Years ago I tried writing some songs. Then I met a University of Utah medical student named Wayne Burton who had some recording equipment. Wayne was kind enough to offer the free use of his equipment and his time to record one of the songs - a recording which I intended to give to my wife as a Christmas gift. He was very helpful and gave me hours of his time as I learned more about the process. We ended up recording the guitar first and then I sang over the recording.
I learned a hard lesson after the process was seemingly over. Listening to yourself sing can be a very different experience than listening to a recording of yourself sing. Frankly, when I got home and listened to this recording, I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t like my singing voice. I put the recording away for about six months and only then could I bring myself to listen to it again.
Since then I’ve dealt with my initial misgivings and am grateful I had this experience. I recently purchased an acoustic guitar and hope eventually to record some more songs - even if it’s just for myself. Modern technology and computers are making it easier and easier for people to do for themselves what used to require studio time and thousands of dollars. So I hope to eventually have the recording equipment I need to do more recordings.
In general, I really enjoy the creative process. Music and artwork are a very important part of my life and I don’t merely want to enjoy what others have done. It’s a good feeling to actually make music, to draw, to paint (you can see some of my artwork here). My feeling is that a person has to accept where he/she is (talent-wise, etc.) and move forward from that point.
You can listen to the recording or download it by clicking on the title just below.
oh, it’s so late at night
sometimes this world is so dreary
sometimes things just ain’t right
oh, it’s so late at night
I can feel that you’re weary,
somber as candle light.
oh, it’s so late at night
Let your head rest on my shoulder
Let my arms hold you tight
to dark skies
‘til the sun
wakes you in the morning
when life is harder it seems
you let daytime’s demons
try to chase you into your dreams
won’t let dragons arise from the deep
I will watch and protect you
As you lie here fast asleep
oh, it’s so late at night
Let your head rest on my shoulder
Let my arms hold you tight
to dark skies
‘til the sun
wakes you in the morning
I’ve added John Governale’s “Exceedingly Curious” blog to the aggregator. I like this blog title as well as it’s tagline: “A site for the Hagoth in us all.” Awesome and original choices.
In one of his blog posts I read that John belongs to the Mountain Poets Society in Norway, Maine. While I’m not very familiar with the group, I have to say it sounds like fun. So head on over to Exceedingly Curious and check out his poems (among other things).