First Sentence of a Failed Novel

Do you have failed first sentences of novels you tried to write? Here's one:

Her skin was chalky white, but Patrick thought she was rosy. Amelia was stretched out on the bed, beneath the mosquito netting.
Please share your own failed sentence in the comments section:

Image source: the new yorker

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Quote from Don Quixote

Henry Caseroti, Cock-A-Doodle-Doo, 2010

Every cock crows on its own dung hill

Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote

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Repost: How To Get The Girl According to Movies

image source: pleated jeans

How many of the above movies can you identify?

From The Graduate to Harry Potter the above funny infographic promises to be a primer to how to get the girl — according to the logic of American Hollywood cinema. See the key below for the identity of the movies.

The Trope of the Boy Hoping, Wishing, Wanting (To Get Laid)

Movies like Superbad are representative of a certain kind of American movie: the heterosexual teen boy who will stop at nothing to get laid. It's such a staple of American cinema that not only is it a trope, but I would hazard a guess, has been the basis of many a real teen boy's playbook.

Key (From Top to Bottom, Clockwise): ⓣⓗⓔ ⓖⓡⓐⓓⓤⓐⓣⓔ, ⓢⓐⓨ ⓐⓝⓨⓣⓗⓘⓝⓖ, ⓙⓤⓝⓞ, ⓙⓐⓜⓔⓢ ⓑⓞⓝⓓ, ⓛⓐⓓⓨ ⓐⓝⓓ ⓣⓗⓔ ⓣⓡⓐⓜⓟ, ⓢⓟⓘⓓⓔⓡⓜⓐⓝ, ⓚⓘⓝⓖ ⓚⓞⓝⓖ, ⓣⓦⓘⓛⓘⓖⓗⓣ, ⓟⓢⓨⓒⓗⓞ, ⓗⓐⓡⓡⓨ ⓟⓞⓣⓣⓔⓡ, ⓑⓔⓐⓤⓣⓨ ⓐⓝⓓ ⓣⓗⓔ ⓑⓔⓐⓢⓣ, ⓣⓗⓔ ⓟⓡⓘⓝⓒⓔⓢⓢ ⓑⓡⓘⓓⓔ, ⓓⓐⓩⓔⓓ ⓐⓝⓓ ⓒⓞⓝⓕⓤⓢⓔⓓ, ⓢⓛⓔⓔⓟⓘⓝⓖ ⓑⓔⓐⓤⓣⓨ, ⓐⓝⓓ ⓣⓗⓔ ⓢⓘⓛⓔⓝⓒⓔ ⓞⓕ ⓣⓗⓔ ⓛⓐⓜⓑⓢ

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Why do people despise religion because it is, “man-made”?

In this post, I think about why religion is often disparaged because "it is man-made" — a claim often made by evangelicals who espouse their own brands of religion that typically vilifies mainstream faiths to bolster their own belief systems.

Saint Peter's Square, Vatican City image: bbc news

Why do people despise religion because it is “man-made”? Does this presuppose a form of worship that is not man-made? Doesn't it sound odd to you that someone would tout this idea that their religious practice is not religious at all but is protected from man-made shenanigans?

Conversation With a Fundamentalist Christian

I was in the Safeway the other day. Someone was talking about the Catholics next to the $1.00 jug of Sweeeeet Tea for sale.

“I pray my rosary.”

“The rosary is idolatry. It's man-made.”

“So, what isn't man-made?”

“But, it is religion. Not true Christianity.”

“Throw out that statue of Mary in your room; that's man-made and not of God.”

Is Christianity Man-made?

It seems that the crux of the conversation revolved around getting rid of 2000 years of Christian history because it is all man-made.

Don't people realize that religion, no matter what package it comes in: non-denominational, Pentecostal, Wiccan, Zeus, Anansi, Sikh, Tao — it is all man's approach to the concept of God?

Religion Is More Pervasive Than You Think

As far as I know God has not torn apart the skies and told us how she thinks. So, even if you believe your holy writ is God's word it does not place you in a nice cocoon of impunity. You're man-made like the rest of us even if you pray to God in the comfort of your room and eschew organized religion like most people eschew post-dated dairy products.

Religion and Power

Religion is about power. By religion I mean a body of knowledge that supports belief in some form of theism. Religious people bristle at the claim that religion is about power. “Religion? Sure,” they say, “religion is about power. But I'm spiritual. Religion is man-made.”

Definition of a Word: Tetchy

tetchy (adj.) 

irritably sensitive, touchy. 

N.B. tetchy is an interesting word because I hardly ever hear it written or spoken; but, I suspect, it is a useful word — considering all the tetchy people I know.

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On Whiskey Bottles, Trail Mix and Walker Percy

In this post, I recount a story of when I found a bottle with a message tucked inside of it.

Shaking Off a Feeling of Emptiness

   Do you ever get this empty feeling you just can’t shake?  It’s like the person who pulls up to their house, sits in their car and lets the engine run when they get home from work, to breathe again, before easily letting go of the ignition, sighing as the car dies.  Not that the person hates his life.  He just needs to breathe.  Again.

This reminds me of Walker Percy, a writer who searched out answers to the odd questions of everyday life – like, “what do I do with myself?” He won the National Book Award for The Moviegoer in 1961, about Binx Bolling, a disconsolate everyman in New Orleans who ostensibly has a good life, a girlfriend, a steady well-paying job, but nevertheless feels this emptiness inside the pit of his gut that he just can’t shake. One day it occurs to Binx to embark on a “search,” to discover what is missing in his life.  

As A Monk I Would Walk in the Woods
The summer of my first year in the monastery, I was twenty-two years old. I was on a search.  I escaped the monastic schedule to hike with a fellow monk who had joined the community at the same time as me. Our plan was to climb the fence along the cemetery to reach a tiny creek, full of white sand, like an ocean's front, that meanders to the Bogue Falaya River. I think we did this once or twice: took off our shoes and socks and donned a bathing suit, crinkling our toes gingerly over rough patches of pine needles and dried up Water Oak leaves until we reached the banks of the creek. A soda for each and a bag of trail mix from the house – one for each – drank 'em and nibbled on fleshy banana bits and salted cashews on the banks, on a Sunday afternoon, when the everydayness gets heavy. We knocked back a few dried apricots into your mouth; take a swig of Orangina, to reduce the despair of the early twenty-first century. The water was cool, even in the summer, and the sand was supple, sinking a few feet past our ankles, making it difficult to walk, careful to avoid the odd shard of glass or roping water snake that patrols the shallow waters. When the bag of trail mix emptied and the sodas had gurgled in our bellies, we hurried back to the monastery to attend evening prayer. To enter back into the rhythm of monastic life. On days like this, as a friend of mine told me once, you feel on par with existence.
Walker Percy's Empty Bottle 
Coming out of the woods, I spotted an empty bottle next to Walker Percy’s grave. He is buried in our cemetery. Usually, there is a flowerpot on the edge of his grave: WALKER PERCY 1916 - 1990. So not to see the usual flowerpot, but an empty bottle struck me as peculiar. At first, I thought that it could have been leftover by rowdy teenagers from the neighborhood, but on closer inspection, I saw that it was an Early Times whiskey bottle, Percy’s favorite brand; an admirer had left behind a note stuffed inside. This intrigued me. 

Why would someone come to a Benedictine monastery to leave behind “a message in a bottle”?  What search were they on?  Did they find themselves at a difficult time in life, seeking answers? Or was it an inside joke, a jocund sentiment left for a friend? Or a prayer left unanswered? Coming out of the river and finding someone else’s message situated me at a crossroads, a place of tension where the monk meets the world – a place where my disconsolation and anxiety struggled with a sense of place and meaning – for I was very much not at ease all the time, in my skin, in my monastic habit, in this place I called home – and the questioning of another seeker confirmed for me that we are both searchers on this planet, seeking and groping for answers.  For aren’t we all searchers? Aren’t we all castaways on an island? For Percy, “to be a castaway is to search for news from across the seas.”

The Self as a Castaway
I think this is the self in any generation: a castaway on an island, searching for news from across the seas, salt in his face and hair, thirsty and desirous. But at every juncture, we are not at ease in our skin, with our station in life. We do not know how to sift through the avalanche of information that bombards us, not knowing the difference between the Good News and the Daily News. Coming out of the woods is a messy business. We emerge as castaways, hoping to decipher a message in a bottle.

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