13.03.04

Mike and I went to see Passion last night with dad and our friends, Jennifer and Josh. Besides the general media attention, this movie has been creating quite a stir in our very religious and conservative small town. I can’t say I enjoyed the movie because I don’t really think it is meant to be enjoyed but rather experienced. It was extremely powerful and very well made. I was very impressed with the acting (Jim Caviezel especially) and the use of original languages added to the movies authenticity. Putting aside all the “possible” anti-sematic undertones and the brutal tortures inflicted upon Christ over and over and over again, it is a very worthy film in my opinion.
My first impulse was that the torture scenes went on way to long and were just unneccessary in most instances. But I believe Gibsons objective here was to not only make us feel uncomfortable and squimish, but angry to the point that every human being in that theatre, regardless of religion, felt like standing up with fists clenched, yelling at the top of their lungs “Stop, that’s enough!” He didn’t make this movie violent because he has a fascination with gore, he made it because he wanted to preach something.
The historical inaccuracies are apparently numerous according to some articles I read, but it really didn’t seem to hinder the over all movie in my opinion. Except when the theif crucified next to Christ had is eye poked out by a crow. I’m still trying to figure out where that one is in the Bible. I really liked how a lot of the scenes seemed heavily influenced by Medieval and Renaissance painting, especially the crucifiction scene which brought to mind Carravagio, Van Eyke and yeah, all those other cool art dudes I studied in school and have since forgot I was perplexed when I saw Gibson had choosen to crucify Jesus through the hands, something now known to be physiologically impossible, as opposed to the wrists. But then I wonder whether he did it on purpose, since that is how it was traditionally depicted in art before modern science came along.

Spring is here and it’s time for another session of certification classes. Some ladies from work and I attended our first class last week titled Current Trends and Legislation Affecting Public Libraries. From this class I learned some shocking truths: 1) my co-workers and I and what seemed like everyone else in the class have all broken library law on several different occasions while working at our library 2) our instructor wasn’t all that concerned that we’re breaking the law because 3) there are way too many gray areas in legislation that breaking the law is just too damn easy. For instance, through some class discussion, we became aware that our library is making it very easy to violate copyright law by keeping the bypass key in the History room photocopy machine (something which is done for practicality reasons-makes it easier on the patrons when they don’t have change). By doing this, we are technically “supervising” the copying and thereby making ourselves liable when a patron happens to be photocopying something they shouldn’t or for a purpose they shouldn’t (such as commercial use). Our reference and circulation desk violate the Americans with Disabilities Act since it does not “provide adaptive working conditions” for people who are physically disabled (wheel chair, etc). The desk and chairs are too high and the only possible “adaption” I see is if we were to build a ramp and a platform. It was interesting. We spent the last half of the day discussing CIPA and the Patriot Act. Our instructor was very vocal on her disapproval of both and pointed out that although CIPA requires us to have filters, it says nothing (yet) about having filters that actually work efficiently. As long as we buy them and install them the governments happy and we get our e-rate funding for the year. I dread July 1st. What a mess it will be.

My Aunt Kathy recently had her second child–a girl, Hannah Grace Rossi. I have dubbed her, Hannah Banana. She’s a little doll, I can’t wait to go see her.

My brand spankin’ new web page is finally up! Though not complete, I have uploaded several of my still-life and portrait photographs. Anyone who had my old site bookmarked should update their bookmarks, as I had to change my hosting company, and now have my very own domain name. You can get to it by following the link that says “mike’s photography” in the menu at the right. Any updates to the site itself will be posted here on this blog, since I didn’t want to clutter my photo page with updates, which probably won’t be happening too often after I get it up and running. But keep checking back over the next few weeks, I still have two more categories of photographs to upload. And once I finally get my scanner, updates should happen much more frequently. Any and all comments, questions or concerns about the anything on that site would be greatly appreciated.