Another Christmas Gift I Made

I gave another cousin this bird tray thing:

I bought the wood on sale at the thrift shop, so it’s marked .99 but crossed out and has a .49 written in red next to it. I think it was a little tray of some sort, as it had some deep cuts in the surface that I mostly sanded smooth. I liked the dark frame affect on the Make It Happen plaque I made before Thanksgiving, so I colored the rim and put a couple of birds on it from a stencil. I used the narrow tip again on the woodburning iron; I guess this marks growth as an “artist” to do something other than the biggest, fattest crayon available.

I did even out the bottom before I gave it to her and added some hanging apparatus on the back.

I think I might have another of these trays about, or I might have already burned a ship onto it. At any rate, I find it best to scour garage sales and thrift stores for wood to use instead of going to the craft store and buying blanks of some sort. It’s generally less expensive and more unique. It does not, however, lend itself to an assembly line style of production that would make this sort of thing efficient for profitable craft show item. But I get the sense should I do a craft show, it will be all about getting as close to breaking even on materials and cost of the table as possible.

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The Best Christmas Gift I Gave Out This Year

I have a cousin who listens to a lot of hard rock and heavy metal, so this year for Christmas, I gave her a framed hard rock album since I couldn’t find a different one at the thrift stores before Christmas.

I put it in a frame and put some text on a label, and

You know, I could make a bunch of these for craft fairs inexpensively. The album itself was a buck at the Friends of the Springfield-Greene County Library book sale. The frame was $7.49 at Hobby Lobby during its frequent half off frames sales. The label’s cost was negligible as I already had the label maker. So for roughly eight and a half bucks, I could make a bunch of these and try to sell them for, what, $20 or $25?

Assuming I could part with them, of course. It was hard to give this particular article away.

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Book Report: The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson (1962, 1970)

Book coverI bought this book last fall in Clever. I’ve recently spoken with my wife in the merits of the parish model versus the congregational model, and I talked about a whole genre of books where the parish priest takes on crime in his neighborhood (maybe I’m just fond of Robert Blake’s series Hell Town). The edition of The Cross and the Switchblade is the movie tie-in edition, so I thought it might be the font from which the genre sprung. But the pastor in the book is Pentacostal, affiliated with the Assemblies of God. So his is also a congregational model.

At any rate, the book tells the story of Wilkerson, a pastor from the country, who sees an article in Life about several gang members on trial for murder, and he is moved to go minister to them in New York City. So he hops into his car, essentially, on a day off from his church and goes to try to see them. He tries to approach the judge in the courtroom and makes a nuisance of himself and gets ejected before the cameras of the press, so he becomes a bit notorious in his own right. He can’t see the boys on trial, but he keeps returning to New York without a definite plan and finds that young people, especially gang members, are willing to talk to him because he was in the newspaper.

The first half of the book deals with this fish-out-of-water story as he makes his forays into New York, especially Brooklyn, to minister to the gang members and the drug addicts there. The first half culminates in a revival at an arena where he has an altar call, and several gang members come forward, including one who started out particularly hostile but ends up a minister. From what I can see in the photos included from the movie, the film covers this first half of the book with some dramatic revisions. Confession: Erik Estrada stars in the film, so when I read his bio mention it in TV Superstars ’81, I decided to pick up this book next.

The second half of the book is a little less focused as Wilkerson builds up his ministry and creates a center for at-risk youth. He discovers the dangers of drug addiction, particularly heroin, and that’s about the size of it.

It’s an interesting book for many reasons. It has an interesting and adventuresome narrative in it. It’s an interesting look at the dangers of the bad part of New York City in the late 1950s. It’s also an interesting look at the Pentecostal way of doing things: it’s decentralized to a high degree (certainly compared to the Catholic church and the more conservative Lutheran denominations) and features things like altar calls and speaking in tongues, which is not something you see at my church. So, interesting all around.

Unfortunately, it’s still all-to-timely, as heroin is making its big comeback and violence in our cities is reaching a crescendo even as people become even less interested in the eternal than they were in 1960.

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Guess Brian’s Favorite French Singer

As you may know, gentle reader, I have a growing collection of Spanish songbirds, including classic artists like Rocío Jurado, Rocío Dúrcal, Claudia Acuña, and others as well as pop equivalents Shakira and Paulina Rubio. I’ve also picked up a small collection of singers in Portuguese, such as Astrud Gilberto, Beth Carvalho, and Gal Costa, amongst others.

So, Brian J., you ask, what about women who sing in French? Who is your favorite French songstress?

Well, gentle reader, you know I like the breathy styling of Erin Bode, and I’m also a big fan of Herb Alpert. What about Claudine Longet, whom Alpert signed to his A&M Records back in the day and who married Andy Williams in the 1960s?

Well, not really. French is a breathy language, and the breathy singing amplifies it instead of complementing it.

What about the new hotness Alizée?

Well, it’s the same breathy vocals atop a breathy language, but this time laid over more modern pop vocals.

No, friends, my current favorite French artist is Mireille Mathieu, who can be breathy at times but mostly sounds folk rockish, like a 70s era Linda Ronstadt or Olivia Newton John, but in French.

Which is a good thing, since I bought a bunch of her records two weeks ago. Also, she is the last French singer I have purchased, and I tend to regard the most recent shiny object most highly.

All right, you probably never wondered who my favorite French singer is, but there you go.

What, I’m leaving you hanging on the Spanish and Brazilian singers? It’s because I cannot decide.

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