Pastor Gumball, by Naked Pastor

This artwork from Naked Pastor is disturbing.  (Don’t be worried by his name, though.  I can assure you everything in this post is fully clothed.)

It’s disturbing because its true.  How many pulpits in churches around the globe are more like contemporary Christian candy stores than platforms from which the great and deep truths of God’s Word are passionately and consistently expounded?  I’m afraid the answer is a simple but scary, “Too many.”

Preachers, let’s make sure that we don’t, as Naked Pastor put it, “Trivialize the truth for the sake of popularity.”

What truths do you think are trivialized and turned into “gumballs” most often?

Here’s Martin Luther King, Jr, singing his famous, “I have a dream…” speech.  C/o The Gregory Brothers.  Pretty cool.

Enjoy.

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Now this is cool.  Some guy in Australia (Rhett Dashwood) actually scoped out terrain on Google Maps painstakingly enough to find buildings and earth that form together to shape each letter of the alphabet. Very cool indeed.

Check out the entire entry here.  He’s got links to the actual coodinates so you can see where in Google maps he found each of these markings.

Let me preface this with that I do not have a really-cool, ultra-hip, super-expensive-monthly-plan iPhone.  Instead, I have one of these.  That being said, I still thought it was pretty cool when I read today where the cover of the upcoming June 1st New Yorker magazine was going to be a work of art that was produced on an iPhone.  That’s right, artist Jorge Colombo did a finger-painting on the popular iPhone app, Brushes, that will indeed grace the cover of the popular periodical. Here’s a short clip of the artist at work.

Read more about it here.

[HT: Gizmodo]

Just finished watching, The Mission, starring Robert Deniro and Jeremy Irons, with Netflix’s instant watch function.  It was fantastic.  Honestly, one of the better movies I’ve seen in quite some time.  I won’t ruin the plot for you (in case you haven’t seen it), but I will say that it adequately displays both the best and worst traits that humanity has to offer.  It’s a film about the beauty and legitimacy of sincere personal faith, as well as the dangers of corruption that have often plagued institutionalized, and better yet, politicized religion.

For more on information on, The Mission, here’s:

1. it’s trailer on YouTube
2. it’s entry in Wikipedia
3. it’s information at IMDb
4. it’s 2-Disc Special Edition DVD at Amazon (which, might I add, I just placed on my official Amazon wish list!)

Spike Jonze’s new movie version of the classic children’s book, Where the Wild Things Are, by
Maurice Sendak, is due out in October 2009.  I hope my wife and I will find the time to go and see it!

I loved this book as a little boy, and for some strange reason, I never parted with my paperback copy of it—I still have it.  The binding has come undone, but all the pages are still there.  From time to time, I still take it off the shelf and flip through it.  Great little book.  I can remember so well being fascinated with it as a child.

If interested, here are a few links to enjoy:

1. Movie’s official WB website
2. IMDb’s entry
3. Wikipedia’s entry
4. Google books info.
5. YouTube’s HD trailer
6. io9’s concept artwork/ideas for the film

Enjoyed this video of a guy who takes trash bags, cuts them into shapes, pieces them back together, and tapes them to subway grates on the streets of New York city.  When the subways pass through the tunnel, air shoots up through the grates and his magical plastic artwork is filled with life.


[HT: Deep Thoughts by Gman]

Check this guy out.  Simon Shubert draws by merely creasing paper.  Small, subtle indentations are made in the paper and this is the result.  See more of his paper-creasing artwork here.

[HT: Andrew Sullivan]