A Curious Little Blog

I was down in Georgia again this past weekend, where I discovered another interesting church name. (For others, see here and here .) Well, technically not a church, I guess; it is the Temple of Miracles Worship Center. What is a worship center, and how does it differ from a church? I presume the people who came up with this name had some reason for it. Probably they avoided the word "church" deliberately, since church can have negative connotations for some. I have even less clue about the motivation behind the "Family Aquatic Center" in Charlottesville. Okay, it's more than a pool, but we always call it a water park, because it has many of the same features (lazy river, lots of fountains, water guns, etc.). It is smaller than what you would normally call a water park, but that still seems a more reasonable name than "aquatic center." This is the kind of name you get when a committee comes up with it. I discovered another interesting chur...

I have written before about churches with strange names that seem to conceal their religion rather than reveal it. Today I received a flyer in the mail from another one, the Harmony Community Church. In the fine print, it says it is Southern Baptist, but nothing much else on the flyer would give you that idea. I'm also not too sure about the motto on the back of the flyer, "Family is everything...come be a part of ours." If you're a Southern Baptist, or any sort of Christian, it's pretty clear that family isn't everything. No doubt they are exaggerating in order to attract visitors, but it grates on me to see it expressed in such terms. Couldn't they have said, "Family is important," or even "Family is vital"? "Family is everything" sends the wrong message, in my opinion. This reminds me of one of the first churches I attended after getting married, a Lutheran church in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. They gave us a refri...

I watched "Animal Crackers" this weekend, and I found it a mixed bag. It seemed to have more good lines than "A Night At The Opera," but I still didn't find myself doubled up with laughter. At one point, Harpo dealt cards for pinochle, in what may be the only funny thing I've seen him do. Best line: "One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know." Did you know that Groucho's moustache was painted on? I never realized that. Now that I know, I can see it, but I'm surprised it's not more obvious. Probably the poor video quality makes it easier to hide; Groucho's blond wig is supposed to be red. Groucho did grow a moustache for his television show, "You Bet Your Life." And now for that other kind of Marxism, historical materialism. I was attending a history conference once when a professor (Henry Heller) began his paper by pompously declaring that Marxism provides a more ...

A couple of additions to earlier posts: I commented in an earlier post that most songs need to have a rhyming refrain. The Led Zeppelin song " Rock and Roll ," which I happened to hear on the radio the other day, is a perfect example of a song whose refrain does not need to rhyme. The virtuosity and excitement of the line "been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time" carries it; to rhyme it would almost be painting the lily. (Since it's only one line, it's not clear how it could rhyme anyway, but that's another matter.) Few refrains can match it, however. I have written previously (not on this blog) about churches with strange, non-identifying names, such as "The Rain Church" and "The Harvest Church" (both in Warner Robins, Georgia). I have since seen two more in Virginia, "The Rock Church" and "The Lighthouse Worship Center." The Rock Church has a cross on it, so I presume it is Christian of som...