R is for Reading

If you were to ask me what my hobbies were, the one that would come to mind first would be, without a doubt, reading. I probably shouldn't even call it a hobby which implies that I do it on the side whenever I have time. On the contrary, reading is a fundamental part of my daily schedule around which all other activities - work, chores, eating and sleeping - revolve.

Having said as much, I have to reveal to you an embarassing secret: I haven't finished a book in about a year's time! (The last two books that I finished in May of last year were Disposable People by Kevin Bales - a sociological study on world slavery - and How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer - an evaluation of soccer's influence on current events.) It isn't because the books I have now are boring. Here are the books on my night stand:

Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
More Ready Than You Realize by Brian McLaren
The Way of the (Modern) World by Craig Gay
Jonathan Edwards by George Marsden
The Chinese in America by Iris Chang
10 Essentials of Highly Healthy People by Walt Larimore
United by Faith by DeYoung, Emerson, Yancey & Kim
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz
The Call by Os Guinness (a re-read)
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson (a re-read)
Ancient Wine by Patrick McGovern

So, why haven't I been reading these books? After pondering over this question for about a week now, I've come up with three reasons, or excuses depending on your perspective. First, my book reading has been displaced by journal, magazine and newspaper reading that has been so readily available with the advent of high speed internet. I probably spend at least an hour each day reading on the internet, collecting interesting articles for sermon illustrations and catching up with European soccer, but most of that time is spent on aimless, mind-numbing surfing. Do I really care about the Michael Jackson paedophile case? Not really, but I can't keep myself from clicking on his face...


Second, I normally read books right before I go to bed taking in 3 chapters in 3 different books before I knock off. But this habit has been disrupted ever since we've moved back to the States. For about a year now, the Times (London's newspaper) has been publishing online a daily math puzzle called Su Doku. As you can see, a Su Doku is nine blocks of nine squares each. The object is to fill each block with the numbers 1 through 9 without repeating any of the numbers within each block or repeating on any row or column. Try it. They're so much fun and infinitely more challenging than crosswords or cryptoquotes. Needless to say, they are also time-consuming...

Third and last, I blame my diminished book reading on - you guessed it - TV. Our local FOX affiliate shows reruns of the comedy, Malcolm in the Middle, from 11:30PM to 12:30AM. I heard nothing of this show while we were in the UK, so Carolyn and I spend our late evenings together catching up on the old episodes. Most nights we find ourselves biting on our pillows to stiffle our laughter lest we wake up the kids. We love this show! (Apparently, Malcolm is popular with 4th graders, too. I was helping out in Stuart's class one day and all the kids were mimicking Malcolm's paraplegic, asthmatic friend Stevie, "Mr. - gasp - Lee - gasp - May - gasp - I - gasp - go - gasp - to - gasp - the - gasp, gasp - bathroom?") Malcolm's humor is a bit absurd, but the cast of characters is engaging with pretty high production values: Most half-hour sit-coms settle with a routine plot and sub-plot format, whereas I have noticed that Malcolm quite frequently has four storylines.

Those that mourn the demise of situation comedy should give Malcolm a second look, but... Man! It is distracting... I have resolved today that I am going to set aside a book-reading hour in the morning. I want to make a commitment to reading books again, because it's good for me, but honestly, I don't want to tell people my hobbies are Su Dokus and watching Malcolm in the Middle. People may already think that I am a geek, but all this confirms it...

S is for Star Wars

What's the fad du jour at the Lee household? Star Wars! Only a month ago it was Bionicle this and Bionicle that, but as I witnessed in the play room the other day, those heroic toys have taken on new roles as storm troopers of the evil empire - mere cannon fodder for Jedi Stuart and Ethan.

This recent affectation began in earnest during our Easter vacation when Ethan did not want to leave the hotel room in fear that we may miss the Star Wars shorts on Cartoon Network. Since that time, we have been overwhelmed by the multi-media barrage of Star Wars paraphernalia including Kellogg's Episode III tie-in, lightsabre spoons. (By the way, does anyone know if they are going to bring back Yoda Soda?) How do you tell a 6-year-old that these trinkets will be worth more unopened, mint in the box? You can't... You just enjoy watching them eat bite after crunchy bite of Apple Jacks and Corn Pops with their glowing spoons and making the occasional light sabre sound effect - wha-wha-woo...

Speaking of sound effects, I don't know what kind of idiocy possessed me, but while watching the boys in a lightsabre battle, I started singing these stupid, made-up lyrics to the John Williams' Star Wars theme:

Star Wars!
Beautiful Star Wars!
Beautiful Star Wars!
Up in the sky...

The sad thing about it is that I can't get it out of my head. Even worse, the boys are singing it while playing... Ethan is known to hum the tune while sitting on the can...

Like all fads, Star Wars creeps into every aspect of our lives. A few weeks back we took the boys to a Renaissance Fair. They consented to go with us as we promised them that they would get to see kings, queens and knights in battle. It was a pretty good outing, though I must say that Renaissance Fair groupies are, if not pretentious, a bit too absorbed into their hobby at the expense of their sense of humor. Perhaps their tights are chaffing... Here is an exchange that Ethan had with one of them:

Ethan: Hey, are you a knight?
Man: Why yes I am. I am a knight.
Ethan: Are you a Jedi knight?
Man: What?
Ethan: Are you a Jedi knight?
Man: I do not know of these knights that you call Jedi...

I felt he was being unnecessarily rude to Ethan. Next time anyone does that to my son, I might just attack him with my sabre spoon. Worse yet, I'll sing the Star Wars theme... Talk about your purgatory...