On Filling Days Filled With Snow

In which daily activities are cataloged and discussed.

We've had a lot of snow this winter.  Not as much as the east coast, but it has snowed almost every week for the last two months.  During that time we kept getting these winter weather warnings from the national weather service, and each time the amount of snow would be way less than was predicted.  On this last Sunday I checked the weather reports and saw that we were expected to get a little snow, they were calling for about an inch or two.  The school I work at is a county school and a lot of the kids live on back roads so I went to bed thinking that we might have a two hour delay the next morning.

At 5:30 the next morning my phone rang, here is the conversation that I had:

Me: Hello
Burkhart: Hey man, no school today.
Me: Awesome, thanks brother.
Burkhart: Go team¹.

When I got up a few hours later and went out to clean my car off so I could go to the gym I discovered that we ended up getting more like 3.5 to 4 inches of snow, way more than we got during any of the "warnings" the past weeks.  Monday afternoon I got another call from Aaron telling me that we didn't have school Tuesday, which wasn't all that surprising.  Then on Tuesday afternoon I got another call that we would be off Wednesday as well.  That was a shock.  Apparently Greene County, where I work, only has four snow plows for the whole county².  One plow managed to drive off a road and into a ditch, one broke down.  Due to a lack of funding there isn't enough money to pay for overtime, so when the two working plows reach the end of their shifts they have to just stop.  And thus, three days off and counting.

So what do you do with all that time off?  Good question.  Here are some of the things I did, with some thoughts thrown in for your enjoyment.


Monday

• Cleaned the snow off my car.  This is something that I always do, and I do it completely.  I don't just clean the windshield, I clear off all the windows, the hood, the roof, the trunk, the headlights and the license-plate.  It boggles my mind when I see people driving around with huge piles of snow on their roof, peering through small section of cleared windshield, headlights on but covered with snow.  Please know that if I ever pass you and you are driving a car like that I will be judging you.  Just kidding³.
• Went to the gym.  I have come to enjoy riding the recumbent exercise bike while reading a book.  It makes the time fly by faster than anything else I have discovered. 
• Watched the first half of Kingdom of Heaven (2005).  The original movie got pretty mediocre reviews.  However, I had heard good things about the directors cut.  Ridley Scott had added around 45 minutes of footage back in.  I was very impressed.  It was an ambitious looking at the roles that religion played during the Crusades, but it was able to go beyond just "Christians were evil" or "kill the Muslims."  Scott makes a point to show that both the Christians and the Muslims believed that God would show who was right through the battles they had, and yet doesn't belittle the faith that the people had.  He also investigates how some in the church used the Lords name for their own gain.  Plus the action scenes were pretty great.
• Community dinner.  I made sauteed apples and sausage and a tater tot casserole.  It was tasty.  After that we talked about the various groups throughout Bloomington that we work with and how we can be praying for them.  We ended the evening with some Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Tuesday

• Gym again.  Going to the gym early in the morning is really nice.  It's quiet and all of the machines are open.  Ran a little over two miles while listening to an audio book.
• Finished Kingdom of Heaven.  Here are some of the people in the movie.  Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, and Ed Norton⁴.  Something that I really appreciated about the movie was that it didn't spell everything out to you and left parts up to the viewer's interpretation, especially in regards to Orlando Bloom's character.
• Played Super Mario Brothers 2.  My favorite of the NES Mario games.  Though I was playing on my SNES.  It's just so goofy and fun.  Side note, it wasn't originally a Mario game, but when Nintendo brought it over from Japan they made it one.
• Fat Tuesday celebration.  The Roses and some folks from the Catholic Worker came over and we celebrated Fat Tuesday in style.  Which meant pizza and alcohol⁵.  Then we played some four player Mario on the Wii, which was way more fun, but way tougher after some beer.

Wednesday

• Egg and sausage breakfast.  Semi-scrambled eggs⁶ and frozen sausage links.  The eggs, which came from the Corry's farm, were delicious.  The sausage not so much.
• Trip to the dump.  Our trash and recycling overfloweth, thus did Tim and I trek to the solid waste station on Oard Road to remove it.  There was a nice old guy who helped us with our stuff, he even sorted our glass for us.  What a rad dude.
• Finished a book.  Patriot Acts by Greg Rucka, I had read it before but I got the book that precedes this one for my dad for Christmas.  He let me borrow it and I am going to let him read this one.  But I figured I would re-read it before i passed it along.
• Wrote a blog post.  The one you just finished reading.

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¹ This is pretty much what he says every time he calls me in the morning.
² At 522 square miles Greene County is the 5th largest county in the state.
³ But seriously, if you do this you are terrible.
⁴ Norton does an amazing job in a very unexpected role.
⁵ I had too much of both.
⁶ Crack the eggs right onto the pan and then scramble them while they are cooking.  For a bonus throw some shredded cheese on there too.

On Making Something From Nothing

In which a magic trick of sorts is performed and pictures are utilized after a brief hiatus.

Pop quiz, hotshot¹.  You've taken a vow of poverty and you only work a part-time job.  But you still want to eat a delicious, well-balanced meal that includes, among other things, fresh fruits and veggies.  What do you do?  What do you do?

No you don't shoot the hostage.  Silly Keanu, that's your answer to everything.  For a more peaceful solution I'd invite you to do what my friends at the Catholic Worker do.  They go around to grocery stores and get fruits and vegetables that the store is getting rid of².  My friend Carrie talked about it here.

Once you return from the store your kitchen table may look like this:

So you've got all this food that needs to be used rather quickly.  But even spread among four houses there are only so many apples that one man can eat.  Once solution is to bake a whole bunch of apple crisp (which was Carrie's solution) however, you still run the risk of it going bad.  Will suggested that we can a bunch of it so that it will keep on a more long term basis.  Genius.  So the next morning we got to work.

Our plan was to stew the tomatoes, make apple butter from the apples, and make a hot pepper jelly from the peppers.  Tim and I went to Will's house at about 9 in the morning to get started³.  Tim's job was to peel, core and slice the apples (I think we had like six pounds).  My job was to peel the tomatoes using the following process.  First I placed the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water.  Once the skin split I put them in ice water for a few minutes.  Then I simply peeled the skins right off.  Next I cored and quartered the tomatoes so that they could be put into cans.

After this the cans get lids and are boiled in water so that the lids seal and the tomatoes cook all the way through.

Tim's apples were cooked in pots with a little bit of water so that they softened up.  Then we through them in a food processor and back into the pot they went.  This time with cinnamon, nutmeg and a whole lot of sugar.  You bring the whole mess to a boil and just let it go until the apple butter thickens up.  Will said that it was on the stove from 10 until around 3:30 when he finally canned it, but it could have stayed on even longer.

As for the peppers, they were cored and quartered as well.  The green and red peppers had most of their seeds removed, the smaller ones kept their seeds.  After that it was a trip to the food process and then into a pot with some sugar.  After a few minutes you add some pectin so that the jelly will set.  Then boil it and can it.  If you have never had hot pepper jelly I highly recommend it.  It is great with cheese and crackers.

This was my first time canning vegetables and it was very fun, though it helped to be doing it with Will and Tim, and it was a great way to utilize the food we had gotten.  The total cost of the whole endeavor was around $13.  For that we came away with four quarts and a pint of tomatoes and something like 10 pints of apple butter⁴, unfortunately the pectin didn't set so the jelly didn't turn out right.  But hopefully we can still use it in stir fry.

So there you have it, something from nothing.  If you want to stop by for a little dab of D.A.B.⁵ come on by and I will throw a slice in the toaster for you⁶.

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¹ "I saw this movie about a bus that had to SPEED around a city, keeping its SPEED over fifty, and if its SPEED dropped, it would explode! I think it was called The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down."
² Aka they go dumpster diving, which creeped me out at first, until I realized that these stores get rid of perfectly good fruit.
³ Hooray for snow days!
⁴ A quick google search has apple butter priced at $5 a pint, so we made $50 worth of apple butter alone.
⁵ Dumpster Apple Butter.
⁵ We got a bunch of Bakehouse bread from the Saharamart if you want to double up on your free stuff.

On Fulfilling A Birthday Wish....Kind Of

In which a contractual obligation almost backfires until it doesn't.

[My friend Seth Rowe¹ recently had a birthday².  As a gift I decided to give him the option to tell me what to blog about, because, firstly, his blog was inspirational in the creation of my blog, and secondly, I'm cheap.  He wanted me to write about my second visit to Columbus (which hasn't happened) or to write about the trip that I would be going on in the next month (which was news to me).  I took his idea and ran with it...]

There is a place, not too far from here,
Where the Scioto and the Olentangy meet.
Long ago, in olden days, this was the new frontier
But now, instead, you'll find idiots not known for being discreet.

O-H-I-O they shout,
Whether you want them to or not.
You shake your head at the stupid lout
Living in this place manners forgot.

Filthy rivers make it tough
To finish a disc golf game.
Wise visitors say "That's enough."
And return from whence they came.

Columbus is a terrible place whether sleeping or awake,
And I'll tell anyone who asks of me, visiting there is a mistake.

Yet, when I think of my good friends,
Whose names are Seth and Julie,
I must see the city through a new lens,
And thus, speak to you truly.

You'll find Settlers there, a garden gnome,
And late night conversation.
I would get to see their new home
While enjoying a short vacation.

Plenty of laughter will abound
During the time that I am there,
As well as talks that are profound,
With good friends, for whom I deeply care.

So Seth, and Julie, grab a pen, and prepare a note to take.
Beware the Ides of March because I'll be there over my spring break³.


Happy Birthday Seth!


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¹ Of "The Summer of Seth and Josh".
² It was his 26th by my count.
³ Spring break runs from the 13th-21st and the Ides of March is the 15th.

On Being Countercultural

In which two responses to a similar call are considered and a challenge extended.

Have you ever had an idea swimming around in your head and it just doesn't seem leave?  That where I've been this last week.  So I thought I put it all down here on this blog.

According to my past labels I have talked about my small group before.  However, I don't think that I have mentioned that we are currently studying Genesis¹.  We are currently studying Genesis².  There now that that is out of the way we can move forward.  Last week we looked at Genesis chapter 12 in it is God's original call to Abram, who would become Abraham.

"The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave your county, your people and you father's household and go to the land I will show you³.'"

I think there are a couple of interesting things going on in this one verse.  First, it should be noted that in Abram's time, in what is now Iraq, family was everything.  Many people were nomadic traders (including, it is believed, Abram's) and you stuck with your family as a sign of strength.  The wealth and power of a tribe was dependent on its size, so one way to bolster this power was to have kids and to have them stay with you.  When the patriarch of the family died one of the sons, usually the eldest, took control and the tribe continued on.  Secondly, when traveling you stayed on the same trade route that you always stayed on making the same loops through the same areas year after year.  This is partly because you got to know the people that you would trade with, but more importantly this took place in the desert.  Knowledge of the land, where to find food, water and shelter, was integral to your very survival.

Knowing this adds a certain amount of gravity to the call "leave your country, your people, and your father's household."  The Lord was telling Abram to leave everything he knew.  To leave the safe places he was familiar with, the power and safety found in the family, the material wealth of the tribe.  In essence Abram was asked to leave his life behind, to turn away from everything he knew.  God was asking him to be countercultural (see how I brought that around).

Things only get crazier in the second half of the verse.  God doesn't tell Abram where he is to go, he simply says to "go to the land I will show you."  "Follow me" he says, with no map, no compass, not even GPS.  And Abram goes.  Pretty wild stuff, but in return God promises to make Abram into a great nation (which is a pretty bold claim when your wife can't have kids) and to bless him.  Not only that but Abram's name will be a blessing and through him all people of the earth will be blessed.

Keep all of this in mind as we jump ahead a few thousand years and see a similar situation with very different results.

In Matthew chapter 19 Jesus is teaching people, blessing small kids, basically doing his thing.  When a young man comes up to him and asks him what good things he must do to gain eternal life.  Jesus tells him to follow the commandments.  The man asks which ones and Jesus says, "'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself⁴.'"  "Done-skies," says the man, "what else you got⁵."

So Jesus tells him that he needs to sell all of his stuff, give the money to the poor, so that he will have treasure in heaven, and then he needs to come follow Jesus.  The next sentence is very interesting.  Most translations, the NIV included, say "When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth⁶."  However, in his commentary on the book of Matthew, Dale Bruner says that a more accurate translation is, "But when the young man heard this teaching, he went away heartsick, because he had many things⁷" (my emphasis).

Let's come back to the translations in a moment.  The first thing that is important is how similar this is to God's call to Abram.  While things start off a little different, with the young man essentially seeking Jesus's blessing (eternal life), the two stories dovetail quickly.  God tells Abram that he must leave everything behind and follow where God leads without telling him where that is.  By doing so his name, which is a blessing, will live on forever by blessing all the people of the earth.  Jesus tells the young man that he needs to leave behind everything and follow where Jesus leads without telling him where that is.  By doing so he will have eternal life.  Unfortunately for the young man he is unable to make the sacrifice that he is called to make.  Which brings us back to the different translations.

So often this passage is read as a rich man talking to Jesus, the heading of the section is even "The Rich Young Man" (but don't get me started on the headings in general, they drive me nuts).  When we read it like that it is easy for us to shake our heads and think, those silly rich people, making idols of their vast wealth, how sad for them.  We distance ourselves from the young man, thinking, that isn't me, I'm not rich. And you know what; I don't consider myself to be rich.  So for a long time I didn't connect with this guy.  I do however have lots of stuff.  And I'm guessing that you do as well.

We live in a consumer driven society, we are taught that it is good to buy, or more importantly, to own things.  We think that the more we own the more control we have over our lives, and the things in it.  But more often than not owning a bunch of crap doesn't give us control, it controls us.  Still, though, we buy books and movies and clothes when we don't really need them, or could borrow them⁸.  We overextend ourselves financially so that we can have the newest, most updated gadgets.  And companies are more than happy to supply us with all of this nonsense (I'm looking in your direction Steve Jobs).

By reading this passage as a story about a young man with many things it seems to speak directly to the consumer culture of America.  Because in this culture whether you are rich, poor, or somewhere in the middle you most likely have many things.  Jesus challenges us, get ride of all the crap in your life and just follow him.  Live a life that is in radical opposition to the culture of the day.  Follow him, and we will be blessed, and will be a blessing to those around us.


So that's my challenge for you this week.  Take stock of your life.  What is it filled with?  Maybe it's time for us to consume less and follow Jesus more, because you know what, that dude had some pretty awesome ideas on how to live life.  Will it be easy?  No.  But living a life that is countercultural rarely is.
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¹ That would be the Biblical book Genesis not the British rock band Genesis.
² Do you remember the song I Can't Dance, I totally had that album.
³ Genesis 12:1 NIV
⁴ Matthew 19:18-19 NIV
⁵ That may be a paraphrase.
⁶ Matthew 19:22 NIV
⁷ Matthew A Commentary, Book 2 The Churchbook, by Dale Bruner, page 286.
⁸ For some great thoughts on this very topic check out my friend Sarah's blog, she hit on the topic not once, but twice.

On the Life and Legacy of Wendell Winkles

In which a quest undertaken leads unexpected places.

Mr. Wendell Winkles¹ awoke with a start.  He leapt from his bed and muttered to himself, "I need a fish."  This thought quickly left his mind as he looked down and realized that he was stark naked; which he found odd given that he had gone to bed in a flannel onesie.  He walked to his closet to find something to wear.  Would it be the black with green dots, the blue with red squares, or the brown with white stripes?  Wendell Winkles stood starring listlessly into the closet unable to decide when a massive shiver shook his paunchy, wrinkly body.  His hand shot into the closet and retrieved the first object that it touched.  Mr. Winkles wrapped the blue and red burlap cloak² around his body and strode out of the smallish room through his living nook and out the front door to retrieve his mid-day paper.

"I need a fish!" Wendell screamed to the heavens.  The sunlight shimmered off of his blondish-black stubble, "I need a fish," he bellowed again.  His neighbors looked at him with question marks in their eyes³.  Old Mrs. Zanklebabner walked over to where Wendell Winkles stood gazing at the noon day sun, mouth agape, breathing heavily.

"Are you alright, deary?" She asked softly.

Wendell's head snapped down and met her eye-line, crazy juice⁴ pouring from his nose and mouth.  His eyes widened as he screamed in the poor old woman's face, "I need a fish," and then took off running down the street as fast as he could go, all the time screaming, "I need a fish.  I need a fish."  Every thirty feet or so the screaming would stop as Mr. Winkles would pause and ever so calmly adjust his cloak and tighten his sash so as not to expose himself to the people he was running past.  Why no one suggested to him to simply double knot his sash is a mystery to this day⁵.

The screaming continued as the frantic Mr. Winkles entered the park.  He made a bee line straight for the large pond at the park's center.  After scaling the large boulder at waters edge he screamed one final time, "I need a fish," before belly flopping into the pond and swimming to the bottom.  Minutes passed and still Wendell did not emerge from the putrid waters, a crowd slowly gathered around the shore.  Suddenly, Mr. Winkles' blue and red cloak floated to the surface.  Quincy Adam Johnson, park ranger, family man, and three time grand champion of the Ologokie County Costume Contest⁶, approached the crowd and asked them what was going on.

"A man jumped into the pond and hasn't come up," a young mother of 3.14 kids⁷ said.

Ranger Johnson sighed and sat down to remove his boots when he heard a rustle in the bushes near the water followed by a giggle.  He approached the bushes with caution, pushing his way through the foliage.  When he reached a clearing he saw a single shaft of light illuminating the glistening, well known and somewhat controversial⁸ back hair of Wendell Winkle.

"Wendell, what are you doing out here?" Ranger Johnson asked.

Wendell's head turned, grinning he said, "I have a fish."

He raised his arms and proudly showed his prize.  In his hands was a slightly moistened and severely agitated squirrel.  The squirrel bit Wendell's thumb and scampered into the underbrush.  Wendell stood up and turned to Ranger Johnson.

"Balls."

Ranger Johnson looked at the very nude, still wet behemoth and simply remarked, "Indeed."

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¹ Of the Kansas City^A Winkles.
² The very same style of cloak that Minowag the VII Sovereign Mountebank of Greater Thanperia wore at his coronation ceremony.
³ All except crazy, old Tommy "Raven Hater" Billingham, who had no eyes^B.
⁴ Snot and drool.
⁵ Though some scholars contend that onlookers may have been temporarily hypnotized by the giggling fat, why others postulate that people were to busy mentally preparing themselves for the seemingly inevitable, yet entirely accidental, dong viewing.
⁶ For his first-rate portrayal of Lando Calrissian.
⁷ Don't ask.
⁸ For years there has been a debate amongst the townspeople about what Wendell's back hair looked like. Some said it appeared to be shaped like an albatross fighting a gazelle, while others saw a mermaid riding a mastodon.

^A That would be the Kansas City Kansas Winkles not the Kansas City Missouri Winkles.
^B Because a raven pecked them out.

On Paul's Prayer

In which a warning is given, serious issues are discussed, and maybe some heresy.

Content warning:  This week I step back from the cavalcade of absurdity that is the norm for this blog.  Some of you may be disheartened to hear that, for others you may be thinking that it is about time.  For those of you in the first category don't fear, I will try and think of something extra ridiculous for next week¹.

I'm not really big on New Years resolutions.  I really couldn't give you a good reason.  In thinking about it the only thing that came to mind was that it reminds me a lot like Lent.  For a lot of people they seem to make these resolutions because it's the thing to do, and often they can barely make it a week.  With Lent people tend to give things up, not because it is supposed to signify there giving something to God but because it's just what you do.  Now I just read what I typed and it sounds very judgmental, which is not really what I was going for.  I think that, if even for a week, people try and eat healthier, or give up swearing, that it is a good thing.  But for me personally, I didn't want to have a resolution, or give something up for Lent unless I felt called to do so.

Long story short, this year I still didn't make any resolutions but I did make some goals for myself.  Which may be splitting hairs over the difference between the two but I'm okay with it.  My first goal was to exercise consistently.  It is something that I have tried to do in the past and failed at repeatedly, so I decided to kick things up a notch and threw down cash money on a gym membership at the Sportsplex.  So far I have been successful, now I just have to keep at it.

My second goal is to spend time everyday in prayer and reading the Bible.  It might not seem this way based solely on my writing here but my faith is the most important thing to me.  It plays a part in everything I do.  How I interact with people, where I live, what I do with my time.  It defines who I am as a person.  I am a different person when I am spending time with the Lord.  I don't think that it is a coincidence that my consistency at the gym is synchronous with my consistency in the Word.

Paul is probably my second favorite guy in the new testament²; he really brings it in his letters to various churches.  And despite what the Catholic Church may tell you when it comes to defining early Christianity he is probably the most influential person whose middle initial isn't "H."  I took a class on Paul when I was in college, which is really when I began to appreciate his writing more, and I wish that I remembered more of what I learned in it.  But no worries because I have something even better to share with you about Paul.

Please note:  I apologize in advance for any offense that the following paragraphs cause you.

One of the last things I did while I was on staff with Young Life was to attend Winter Institute, a two week intensive training session.  We spent 8+ hours a day in lectures discussing such topics as, child development, developing theology, cross-cultural interactions, and a variety of other topics that have since dissolved from my brain.  While I was at the training I was rooming with Josh, a staff guy from Ft. Wayne, and two staff guys from Texas.  One night when we were all hanging out, and feeling especially smart (or maybe stupid because we'd been in class so long), we started talking about all of the messages that Paul preaches in his letters.  After a while we were able do boil everything Paul says to the churches into one simple, easy to remember phrase.  It certainly didn't cover everything Paul wrote, but it was the best we could come up with.  The more that I thought about it the more I liked it.  Here is was we decided.

"Paul says, 'Don't be a dick.'"

Now again I apologize for the language, and if this is the last you read of my blog I understand, thanks for coming around.  But time and time again Paul was urging Christians to not get caught up on petty issues.  To love the Lord, to love Jesus, and to love each other.  So I think it works well.

What does all this have to do with my goal of being in the word, or of the title of the post for that matter?  Let me tell you.  The first Pauline letter that I read this year was Ephesians.  No other letter that Paul writes has this message to put aside petty differences more than his letter to the church at Ephesus.  The first day of reading I came across a prayer that Paul wrote out for the church and thought to myself that it was pretty neat.  So I underlined it so that I would remember it.  Two days later I was reading chapter 3 and there was another prayer that Paul wrote that seemed to dovetail with the first very well.  I decided to see what they would look like back to back so I did some copy and paste magic and found that they flowed together perfectly.  I first changed the personal pronouns around so that it would be a first person prayer.  Then I realized that it would just as well as a corporate prayer.  That's when it became this:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give us the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that we may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of our hearts may be enlightened in order that we may know the hope to which he has called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for we who believe.  For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen us with power through his Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And I pray that we, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.   Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen³.

I have really been digging this prayer.  I think it is perfect for the community I live in, for the small group I am a part of, for the church I attend, and for the Church universal.  I try and pray it every morning before I leave the house.  And I hope that as the year progresses it becomes less of something I say and more of something that is always on my heart.

Blessings!  And remember, Paul says, "Don't be a dick."
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¹ Maybe double footnotes?
² Psst...number one would be Jesus.
³ Ephesians 1:17-19 & 3:14-21

On the Gritty, Hardboiled, Noir Side of Life

In which we peer into the seamy underbelly of crime fiction, enjoy childhood classics, and a short story is shared.

I grew up on Calvin and Hobbes¹.  I didn't always get the jokes, or understand the words that were used, but I loved sitting down and reading Bill Watterson's funny pages masterpiece.  One of my favorite personas that Calvin took on was Tracer Bullet, rough and surly private detective that stalked the streets trying to solves mysteries like who broke the lamp?² There was something about the stark use of shadows and the callous first person narration that seemed to strike a chord with me, it resonated in my consciousness.  I had my first run in with noir fiction, and I loved it.

Noir fiction is, most simply, crime fiction that looks at crime and violence in a realistic or callous way.  It just puts it out there; crime happens, it's the way of the world.  However, noir fiction, and with it film noir, will often lead to debates among academics.  What makes a story noir, is the characters, the subject matter, the setting?  Can one story be "more noir" than another?  You are on your own to answer those questions.  But in my mind there is something about a noir story (whether film or written) that defines it as such, the only thing I can think of to describe it is an attitude that the story has.  Something that runs deep with in the story.  Clearly it is a well thought out definition that I have going here³.

Last summer I read The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.  Falcon's main character, Sam Spade, is considered the archetype for hardboiled detectives⁴.  The book was a very fun read.  It had a great story filled with sex, murder, lies, femme-fatales and some interesting plot twists.  All from a book written in the 1930's (it was originally written as a serial published in a magazine).  I think that is one of the more interesting thing about this book, written in a time that had much stricter regulations on what would be in a book Hammett had to get creative with his prose to accurately portray the criminal lifestyle without offending anyone.  Here is my favorite example:
    
      "The boy spoke two words; the first was a short guttural verb, the second "you." (Hammett, 94)

When it comes to movies that list of those films that fall under the category of noir is....extensive, to say the least.  I haven't seen as many film noir movies as I would like to, but here are some of the ones that I have seen that I have greatly enjoyed.  Ronin (1998)⁵, L.A. Confidential (1997), Payback (1999)⁶, A History of Violence (2005), Brick (2006), Momento (2000), and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (2005).  The last three all play on the conventions of the noir style.  Brick takes a noir style story and dialogue and places it in the setting of a high school, leading to a fast talking, cynical high school student attempting to solve the murder of his ex-girlfriend.  Momento's main character follows a man who is trying to solve the murder of his wife, the plot twist here is that he has no short term memory, the film makers utilize an out of sequence style of shooting to allow the viewer to experience the same frustrations that the main character has.  Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is a noir comedy that has a fictional noir story as a central lot point.  If you watch this movie you will get to enjoy Robert Downey Junior playing a thief pretending to be an actor who is learning how to pretend to be a detective.

Call them what you want, comic books, graphic novels, sequential art, anyway you say it comics don't get a whole lot of respect.  They are seen as juvenile and simple, and they can be, but there are also incredibly deep stories to be found.  And in this case an amazingly rich noir world filled with great characters, engaging stories, and wonderful art.  It is called Criminal, written by Ed Brubaker, drawn by Sean Phillips, and colored by Val Staples.  Criminal follows the world of two generations of crime in fictional Center City.  These stories are, quite simply, some of the best I've ever read, and you would do yourself a great service to check them out⁷.  Here is a sample for you from the second story line that follows Tracey Lawless as he seeks revenge for his brother's murder (click the pictures to see bigger versions):

In order to graduate from college I needed to take an intensive writing class so I decided to take creative writing.  It ended up being on of my favorite classes.  We read a whole bunch of short stories and wrote about seven of our own.  Our professor was a little weird and wouldn't grade our papers with letter grades; instead she would give checks and check pluses.  My favorite story that I wrote fits in well with this post because it ended up having a very noir feel to it.  It was not my highest graded paper, that would be the first one that I wrote which received a ✓++, this paper only received a lowly ✓+.  Here are some excerpts:

"The bar was dank and smoke filled, and the poor lighting only enhanced the drab décor.  A sparse number of age-old paper clippings were the only interruption to the primarily unadorned walls.  The entire atmosphere was designed to heighten the depression of the customers.  The more depressed they were, the more they drank, the more they drank the more money the owner made.  It really just came down to simple arithmetic.  Three men in suits sat on stools, nursing beers and staring off into nothingness, attempting to forget the day’s events.  In the back corner a man sat, anxiously looking around.  His eyes shot back and forth, scanning the darkness.  Eyes never resting, never focusing on anything in particular, neither did his mind.  One hand rested on the table, in an obvious attempt to appear casual, while the other clutched his jacket, which rested next to him on the booth’s seat.   A waitress walked over to his table."

Here is some dialogue from later in the story:

“Well yeah, I know that’s what we talked about.  But I just think that it’s worth more than ten.  If I give it to you for that then I’m just screwing myself over.”

Jackson clenched his teeth, banged his fist down onto the table.  “No, you listen to me.  We had a deal; the deal was for ten thousand.  There is no way that I’m going to pay anymore than that,” he said in a harsh whisper.

“Then maybe I’ll just take me business elsewhere,” Cal began to get up.

“Sit down, and shut up.”

Cal sat down and leaned over the table whispering fiercely, “Or what?  Are you threatening me?  That’s not how this works, Jacky.  You are the one who called me.  You are the one who was begging me to sell it to you in the first place.  You are the one who needs it so badly.  So the way I see it you are not in any position to be making demands of me.”

If you are interested in my story you can read the whole thing here.  Sorry about any formatting errors that may be there, it didn't translate to Google Reader that well.  Also, I haven't really done much to the story in year, so excuse any spelling or grammar errors.

Crime fiction, a great way to get in touch with your inner sociopath.
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¹ Images above created and drawn by Bill Watterson, found on Google Image Search, please don't sue me.
² It was Hobbes.
³ Or not.
⁴ Including the aforementioned Tracer Bullet.
⁵ Which has the distinct honor of not only having some of the best car chases ever filmed, but it is also the first DVD I ever bought.
⁶ If you want to check this movie out make sure you get the directors cut, not the original versions, it is much better.
⁷ Visit your local library.