Why is the movie "The Visitors" so awesome?

From a practical perspective, "The Visitors" manages to fit almost all of the most current as well as quite a few of the most archaic profanities into a time span of less than two hours.  On the other hand, it's important to remember that like many ancient languages, the profanities in French have lost a good deal of their literal interpretation.  For an American watching Les Visiteurs with English subtitling, however, consider yourself warned.  The movie itself is an entertaining romp that sees a 13th-century Norman and his squire teleported to the future, where they meet their descendants and attempt to find a way back to their own era.  Along the way, you can view some very typically French moments that evoke the French revolution, the feudal system, the modern French elite, and much more while showing the strength and weaknesses of French culture through the ages in a very situationally comedic fashion.

Do the French eat lots of French fries?

The term "French fries" probably gained purchase from President Jefferson, who described them using the phrase "Pommes de terre frites à cru, en petites tranches" ("Potatoes deep-fried while raw, in small strips") but also referred to them as "potatoes served in the French manner."  French-fried was for a time considered synonymous (in the US) with deep-fat frying.  What we see in France is that the French do not frequently eat fried potatoes, although they do like a little "McDo" every now and then--although they will be the first to criticize this "cuisine Americaine."  

French McDo's are much fancier than the average McDonald's in the U.S.  They are known for being extremely clean, with a futuristic architecture and often with high-tech automated ordering systems.  In Paris, my experience was that I ordered and paid through a slick computer interface and then picked up the meal from a human being, but this might not be the case at all locations.  It is always possible to complete the transaction completely with a human employee.

Looking to discover a new artist? Musician? Writer? I've raided our network to bring a few folks to your attention that you might not have heard of. There are many more, but these are the ones that had products AND websites that I found, although I'm sure that missed some others. If you'd like me to add your stuff, send me a message!

Artists and Artisans:

Alex and Emily Simms: http://thoughtsandbirosketches.blogspot.fr/p/sketches.html

Brea Persing: http://breapersing.com/

Roxanne Shires: http://fluenfvard.deviantart.com/

Ambrosia Slothower: http://www.ambrosia-designs.com/

Musicians:

Amy Courts: http://amycourts.com/

Anthony Cosgrove: http://www.risefromruinonline.com/Rise_From_Ruin_Online/Band.html

Brett Gibbs: http://www.youtube.com/user/UnchainedChannel?feature=watch

Joshua Peterson: http://lark-studio.com/

Evert Claesson: http://www.reverbnation.com/fakeparadise

Nick Bank: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/victory-and-vice/id380116557

Mark White: http://www.ttmbandroom.com/mark_white_music/blog.php

Ryan Chappelle: http://www.ballinthehouse.com

Steve Villa Massonne: http://stevevillamassone.fr

Video Artists:

Jamie Leigh Pent: http://www.themuse.com/companies/charitywater/people/jamie

http://www.youtube.com/user/charitywater

Bloggers and Writers:

Mike Andrews: http://imminentcrash.com/

http://www.theoquest.blogspot.fr/

Harold J Berry: http://bit.ly/10vgIFT

Preston Shires: http://www.baylorpress.com/Contributor/103/Preston_Shires.html

Free download on my creative blog via SoundCloud!

Hello everyone!  Just thought I'd start my production/creative blog off with a free download of my recent recording!  It's Leopold Mozart's "Minuet in D Minor" and I hope you enjoy it!  Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Conjugation Nation French Review

Today, I want to take a look at an iOS app (sorry, Android users, hit the bottom for a recommendation) entitled Conjugation Nation French.  It's available on the App Store for $2.99 and is designed for students of French to be able to practice their conjugations.  It is available for Spanish and Italian verbs.

So, how does it work?  Well, let's fire it up and take a look.  Here is your starting screen:

The top three options allow you to jump into a pop quiz using your most recently-defined settings.  We'll take a look at the exams themselves, but first, let's dive into the settings menu!

As you can see from my stupendous screen grab, the options they are aplenty.  Specify your tenses (from all 17), which persons/pronouns you want to use, and then select which verbs you want to practice and save your own custom lists with all of these settings.  Conjugation Nation will also save your scores and you can erase them at will.  The other options are pretty self-explanatory, I think, so let's jump into the actual test!

 Crap.  Well, it was fun while it lasted.  If you have trouble remembering what a particular verb on the test means, just tap the screen in the "chalkboard" region and the definition will come up in yellow English text.  You will be scored on correct answers/total possible correct answers and on time spent.  Any mistaken answers will incur a time penalty which is added onto your final time.  This adds a nice sense of self-competition to what is otherwise a mere pop quiz, and I liked this touch.  It also makes for geeky competitions with your beloved.  Just make sure not to win too much, or you may have to learn the French for "to sleep on the couch without one's blanket."  Your results summary will also display all of your answers.  Click on the red ones to see which ones you missed and what the correct word was.  I like to write these down and then make a superlist over time that is comprised of my weakest verbs.

 Alright, I know what you're thinking right now.

Well, I'm glad you asked, even if you need a review session on how to use an interrogation mark!  Here's the deal.  There is a lie that you have been told if you've been told in learning French conjugations.  It goes something like this:

Teacher: There are three verb groups in French.  Can you tell me what they are?
Student: Yes, ma'am!  They are the verbs ending in -er, most of the verbs ending in -ir, and the irregular verbs!
Teacher: Wonderful, Theodosius!  Have a conjugation cookie, you brilliant beast!

What is the lie, you ask?  ALL OF IT!  In reality, there are NOT merely three verb groups in French, there are 103!  103!

"How can this be?!", you ask, "Mrs. Farthingsworth was just like a teacher to me!"  Well, in fairness, she was sort of correct.  There are three VERY general categories of verbs.  The problem is that the third group contains a bajillion exceptional verbs, and the first two groups also have slight differences within them.  What's a conjugator to do?

Well, what is needed is a roadmap of all 103 groups.  See, some of them, like, say "tenir" have derivatives that will conjugate in the same way, like "advenir", "appartenir", "entretenir", "se souvenir", et cetera.  Here's the bad news: Conjugation Nation will not help you to cover all of these groups.  It will tell you the same lie as Mrs. Farthingsworth.  The difference is that she was trying to get any French at all to find a place in your school while competing with Jenny McWilliams who was the real reason that you took French class in the first place and who definitely had no interest in learning her conjugations with you.  Not even "jodler", which really is a pretty innocent one when you think about it, and its a regular first-grouper to boot!

So.......where to find these groups?  Brace yourself, gentle learner, for we are going to reference a buygone age by turning to.........................................................a book!  It is a classic and a favorite here in beautiful France and it is called "La conjugaison pour tous" and is part of the Bescherelle Deceptively Small and Pink Reference Collection.  Probably.  Anyhoo, it looks like this:

This book has EVERYTHING in it that you need to know about the verb groups, except for drills.  So, I decided to be brilliant and create lists in Conjugation Nation of 3 or 4 verb groups each to ensure that I drill all of the possible verb permutations.  And that's where I found out the one problem with this app.  48 of the 103 groups are not represented here!  Another problem?  When I make a list, I can't share it with someone (namely, my wife and another fellow student).  To give these lists to another person, I would have to recreate the from scratch.  C'est vraiment trop dommage.

Okay, this is getting depressing, what's the good news?  Well, this app works...as long as your okay with a very basic list of around 140 essential verbs!  I really have seen a dramatic improvement in my knowledge of French verbs, and the 25-word list is the perfect length to sneak a quick quiz in while I walk to my kids' school to pick them up!  I try to do the 50-word about once or twice a week (it takes about 12 minutes for me, I'm doing 11 tenses currently).  The 10-question one is very nice whenever you're just waiting in line somewhere or have a spare minute-literally!  My 7-year-old daughter has really gotten into doing it, as well.  If you fail to put accents, you get a wrong answer, which is great for ensuring proper spelling.  So, here's my breakdown and score:

Other, similar resources that you might want to check out to work on your conjugations:

Web: www.verbuga.eu
Android: Conjugate French Verbs
iOS: Verb2Verbe
Binder-friendly: French Verbs Sparkscharts
Print: Bescherelle: La Conjugaison Pour Tous (I really recommend this even if you have another drilling tool, this is really THE essential reference guide)

Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts and any recommendations you might have for learning French.  If you'd like me to review a resource, drop me a line at hudson.shires@gmail.com .  Until next time, adieu!

Hudson

Praise God and pass the ammunition!

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that it is very difficult to provide enough spiritual integration in our family life.  We are in a situation that we never thought we would face (but which is quotidian for most people): our kids are going to public school.  You see, we had really planned on being a homeschooling family.  My wife’s parents homeschooled all five of their kids all the way through, whereas my parents turned to homeschooling after running into a principal who proudly informed them that he would not allow my older brother to skip a grade in certain subjects.

We even started homeschooling and enjoyed it amidst the chaos of fundraising for our current work.  My bride taught our oldest two kids to read by the time they were six (as in, reading a couple hundred pages a month these days at 7 and 8) and got our third on the same track before we made the move to Europe.  Then, reality struck.  The Wife and I needed to enroll in full-time language programs.  Our homeschooling adventure was, it seemed, at an end.  Four of our kids are now enrolled in the public school system, and #5 is in a Christian nursery during the day.

Except, homeschooling never ends.  For any parent.  You are always homeschooling, whether you call it that or not!  I volunteer as much as I possibly can at the school.  Twice a month I volunteer at the library (la bibliothèque), which is a great way to be with my kids, work on my French, meet new people, and keep four boys there in line that otherwise love to look up every nude drawing that they can find in the library and then attempt to bump into whatever girl happens to be hanging around.  Seriously.  More on such challenges later.

I go on field trips (skiing next week!), and try to make the PTA meetings.  My wife and I read through homework and endless notebooks that serve different purposes in a language that we barely function in, and God faithfully sees us through every day.  But I feel a sense of loss.  I liked homeschooling, dangit!  I enjoyed doing flash cards to learn the timeline of the Bible and how it fit into the global timeline of history.  I enjoyed noodling on the piano with my kids and showing them what I do for work as a video editor.  I still miss it, six months later.

So, here we are.  As I type this on a school night, tired out after a couple of hours of conjugating words and according past participles, I’m listening to some choice Beatles tracks and thinking of what we are doing that seems to be working.  I thought that if I shared a couple resources, maybe some of you might find something useful in this mess and maybe give me your ideas, too.  Therefore, in no particular order, here are some of the things that we are doing to bring the presence and knowledge of Jesus into our kids’ lives.

Prayer:          

Really, can I do anything else but start with this?  If you’re not praying for your kids, I hate to say it, but you do not love them 100%.  *Cue sound of RSS feeds being unsubscribed*  Still here?  Okay.  What I mean by that is that God is the only one who loves a child more than their own…He also knows their past, present, future and purpose better than those parents.  It is the height of lunacy for me, as a fallible and feeble human being, to reject His offer to take them under His care.  /endsoapbox

Useful books:

The Bible

We use this often, but we do so in many different ways.  Even though AWANA doesn’t exist here, my mother-in-law is an AWANA leader, so our kids say their verses to her over Skype.  We also play a tabletop roleplaying game of my concoction (yes, it is set in a Christianized Star Wars universe, so sue me!) that has conversation options that include Scripture that the kids need to have memorized to be able to unlock the story tangents.  We are geeks for Jesus in the Shires household.  The Bible frequently comes up during meals, and we try to ensure that each of the children has their own in a version that they can more or less understand.  With that, I would also recommend…

The MangaBible Series

I picked these up at a conference a couple years ago to help the kids learn French, but you can get them in English.  They’re great!  The artwork is action-packed when it needs to be and poignant in other instances.  Unlike other such projects, this one tackles theological passages as well as narrative ones, often weaving the two together to provide context for the children.  Which, if nothing else, gives us the opportunity to discuss with our children why context is so important in understanding Scripture.

Nightlight for Parents: A Devotional

This follow-up to Dr. and Mrs. Dobson’s Nightlight: A Devotional for Couples is a great way to focus on how parenting is going at the end of the day.  The daily readings aren’t too long, and the questions (unlike in some other devotional books) are practical and engaging.

The Story of Me:

As I alluded to earlier, gone are the days of elementary innocence.  I was not trying to shock my dear readers in mentioning the physically and conversationally inappropriate acts that I’m encountering in public schools; in fact I (yet again) had to break up such an instance today!  And this is with seven and eight year olds!  Pray for the students in school, and pray for their parents, who have no doubt contributed to  this behavior in the environment they’ve created at home.  And put on your big boy/girl pants and face the fact that just because you want the topic of sex to not come up until Junior is 15, that this is no longer a safe assumption…and probably hasn’t been in your lifetime.  Also, pick up FamilyLife’s The Story of Me series and gently, purely, and wonderfully introduce your kids to what it means to be made in God’s image. 

Useful tools:

I don’t have a lot to put here at the moment, but in the past, we have enjoyed using the Veritas packets.  We went light on the book because it was third graders (we don’t have any yet) but the CD and the timeline cards are great for teaching kids Biblical and secular history at the same time.

Useful apps:

Okay, I have a few for my iPhone; mileage may vary with Android.  They are:

Saint-A-Day:   We’re not Catholics, but we do believe that God’s story didn’t end with the book of Acts and then restart with the Reformation (oh, I went there), so we enjoy reading stories about men, women, and children that have given their lives to serve God and share Jesus with the world.  This app is extremely readable and understandable for our children, and we just leave theological things that we don’t agree with out (such as praying to saints).  For Protestant “saints”, we have…

Foxe’s Bookof Martyrs:

We read this a little each week.  I have to pretty heavily censor some details, but I try to make it clear how-and more importantly, why-these believers met their death victoriously.  It’s always a sobering read, but I think it’s important for getting your kids to not equate serving Jesus with a comfortable middle-class life and retirement.  Just make sure to read it a bit and judge whether your kids are ready for it yet!  It’s available for free.

BibleHIStory Game:

Somewhat like a digital version of Veritas’ history cards, this app allows you to start a multiplayer game at various difficulty levels (easy is plenty for our kids right now).  A card pops up with an event and you have to compare it to a card in your “timeline” and decide whether it occurred before or after the event on the timeline.  If you’re right, the card gets added to your timeline and you get a point.  If you’re wrong, you get a strike and your opponent gets to try to add it to their timeline…which has different events on it.  This goes until someone either gets enough points or too many strikes and the game ends.  The first several rounds are rough depending on how much history your kids know, but they start to catch on as they persist.

Media:

Adventures in Odyssey:

If you’re already familiar with Focus on the Family’s children’s program, then move along, but if you’ve never heard of it, BOY OH BOY are you in for a treat!  This radio series has been going for almost 30 years and has hundreds of incredible episodes that follow the adventures of Whit, Connie, Eugene and dozens of other characters, good and evil, as they learn lessons (or don’t!) about God, the Bible, and faith in the real world.  Squeaky-clean, although every now and then they warn you that an episode is for 12 and up, it’s not just fun for kids, it’s really engaging for adults as well!  Catch it online for free!

Radio Theatre:

Another great Focus dramatic offering, you can catch it on their website to.  Listen to dramatizations such as the complete Chronicles of Narnia, Oliver Twist, The Screwtape Letters, The Hiding Place, Father Gilbert Mysteries, and many more for free online or order the discs and support a ministry that has brought talented and often famous actors together to teach Godly lessons through performance radio.

Plugged In Online:

Another FotF ministry, Plugged In provides media reviews for movies, music, and games that break the content down into sections like: spiritual content, sexual content, positive content, etc.  I don’t always agree with some of the conclusions (Gladiator is the best R-rated movie ever made, as I’m sure you would agree), but I’ve also never watch a Plugged In-approved movie only to find that the review had misled me, and that’s saying something these days!

Well, that’s it for now!  We have some other items (board games, music, etc.) that I’ll add in another post sometime, but this might be enough to get ya started!  What about you?  How are you bringing Jesus into your home in different ways?  Let me know!

La mort, l'injustice, et Dieu.

Aujourd’hui dans le monde occidental, ont trouve que la question n’est pas simplement « Est-ce que Dieu existe » ? Mais plutôt « est-ce qu’on a vraiment le droit ou le besoin de parler de Dieu » ?  Selon les chercheurs scientifiques, c’est sous-entendu qu’on ne cherche pas pourquoi ou pour qui le monde a été fait, mais par quels processus.  Selon les pensées du média, on a simplement besoin de regarder aux souffrances et violences pour affirmer qu’il y a ni Dieu, ni raison d’être dans le monde, et même dans l’univers entier.  Elie Wiesel, une victime de l’Holocauste qui avait a peine survécu cette horreur, avait dit que

« Dieu est mort au bout de la corde d’un bourreau à Auschwitz ».

Comment répondre à telles affirmations, telles tragédies, telles expériences, particulièrement quand nous n’avions pas vécu telles choses ?  Je pense que, pour le chrétien, l’essential c’est de se souvenir que Dieu nous a dit que c’est une génération perverse qui demande toujours un signe, dans cette cas, l’exigence d’une justice immédiate.  Mais Jésus dit que :

« Dieu, en effet, n'a pas envoyé son Fils dans le monde pour qu'il juge le monde, mais pour que le monde soit sauvé par lui. »

Il va plus loin et dit qu’aucun signe serai donné sauf le signe de Jonas : l’homme mort ressuscité.  C’est évident que Jésus et l’exemplaire le plus étonnant de cette idée.  On peut penser à d’autres, comme Lazare, ou le fils de la veuve de Naïn, ou Eutychus, qui avait sommeil juste à la mort.

Alors, une question.  Est-ce qu’il y a seulement une type de mort ?  Serions nous libéré seulement après être mort ?  Bien sûr, l’aveuglement, le viol, le meurtre, l’oppression, l’injustice, la perdre d’un enfant, l’affliction, l’esclavage, l’ignorance, le manque d’aide médicale, toutes ces choses sont des types de la mort.  Et maintenant, que fait Dieu comme défense contre tout cela ?  Eh ben, il nous lit un morceau du livre d’Isaï:

« L'Esprit du Seigneur est sur moi, parce qu'Il m'a oint pour annoncer une bonne nouvelle aux pauvres;

Il m'a envoyé pour guérir ceux qui ont le cœur brisé, pour proclamer aux captifs la délivrance, et aux aveugles le recouvrement de la vue, pour renvoyer libres les opprimés, pour publier une année de grâce du Seigneur (…) Aujourd'hui cette parole de l'Écriture, que vous venez d'entendre, est accomplie. »

Comment, accompli ?!  On voit toujours la souffrance et la mort, même dans la vie de Jésus, lui-même !  Mais c’est vrai qu’on trouve que, si il y a plusieurs types de la mort, il y a pourtant un type de la vie.  La vie offert part Jésus est une vie qui libérer, parfois dans le monde, parfois ailleurs.  Surtout, Jean nous dit que

« Le Fils de Dieu a paru afin de détruire les œuvres du diable ».

Je pense que c’est là qu’on enfin trouve la bonne réponse.  Bien sûr, un jour il y aura une grande libération de l’univers.  Mais avant ce bouleversant événement, « la création tout entière soupire et souffre les douleurs de l'enfantement. »

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, qui n’a pas survécu la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, aborde ce problème en disant :

« Le Dieu qui est avec nous est celui qui nous abandonne! Le Dieu qui nous laisse vivre dans le monde, sans l’hypothèse de travail Dieu, est celui devant qui nous nous tenons constamment. Devant Dieu et avec Dieu, nous vivons sans Dieu. Dieu se laisse déloger du monde et clouer sur la croix. Dieu est impuissant et faible dans le monde, et ainsi seulement il est avec nous et nous aide [...] Voilà la différence décisive d’avec toutes les autres religions. La religiosité de l’homme le renvoie dans sa misère à la puissance de Dieu dans le monde, Dieu est le deus ex machina. La Bible le renvoie à la souffrance et à la faiblesse de Dieu; … L’évolution du monde vers l’âge adulte dont nous avons parlé, faisant table rase d’une fausse image de Dieu, libère le regard de l’homme pour le diriger vers le Dieu de la Bible qui accomplit sa puissance et sa place dans le monde par son impuissance.».

Le problème, c’est toujours le même dont Jésus avait parlé au Pharisiens : ce n’est pas que l’évidence de Dieu manque, c’est que la foi nous manque.  Mais peut-être ils restent toujours des hommes, des femmes, des enfants qui sont prêtes à croire, mais qui attendent simplement la bonne nouvelle.  Peut-être que quand Jésus avait parlé du signe de Jonas, ce n’était pas seulement une chastement contre les Pharisiens, c’était la promesse que nous aurions toujours le signe de la vie ressuscitée.  C’est pour cette raison, que j’aime travailler avec les témoignages, parce que chacun représente ce promis réalisé.