Seek not orientation along the business

Viennale is the name of a film festival in Vienna. They sure seem to take themselves seriously, from the sound of their mission statement. What they don't seem to take seriously is the importance of good translators.

The VIENNALE has set itself the target to make cinema approachable in all its variety, its affluence of languages, history, and forms of narration, as well as its aesthetic and political perspectives.

The VIENNALE's intention is - in sharp contrast and opposition to the prevailing hegemonic and narrowing tendencies of a profit-orientated cinema - to spread the fan of this world's images and sounds as far, freely and openly as possible.

The VIENNALE, as well as every single one of the works shown in its context are supposed to be an offer, an invitation, a proposition. It is the individual work of art that constitutes both the smallest and the largest entitiy of the festival.

The VIENNALE does not seek orientation along the business, the daily fashions and fortuities, but along the inherent matter itself. Most ideally, the festival - just as any good film - is but the idea of one such matter.

Anything for a Toronto angle.

This story is downright weird.

...tonight the NHL will hand out its hardware.

And when Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals climbs onto the stage at the Elgin Theatre in downtown Toronto to accept the Hart Memorial Trophy, another season will have passed since Ted (Teeder) Kennedy became the last Maple Leaf, 53 years ago, to receive the trophy, awarded to the player deemed most valuable to his NHL team.

Not only that -- and here's a scoop for you, so pay attention -- but another whole year will have passed since anyone won the trophy.

Worst cutesy church sign so far

The local Anglican church is in a lovely old building, surrounded by a graveyard, and with the ocean nearby.

Unfortunately, they also have a sign on which they not only place times of worship, but also those cutesy slogans mainline Protestant churches seem so enamoured of. You know the kind: "What's missing in this ch__ch?"(answer: "u r"). There's actually a great post on the subject of these types of signs on the Church Marketing Sucks blog.

I am not a church-goer, so I read the signs with a vague, idle interest. But one a few weeks ago almost had me hitting the brakes as I drove by. It said, "Jesus is my Prozac." The local Anglicans are clearly not the first church to have thought up this gem, but that doesn't excuse its sheer awfulness.

Where to begin?

I can't really think of a more limp, milquetoast, bland approach to religion than to compare Jesus to Prozac. Is the Anglican church a happy pill? Did Jesus die on the cross to relieve our symptoms of depression? Do depressed people need church to pick them up? Are people who take Prozac being made to feel they are inadequate, and they should be in church instead? Will quitting the church potentially make you suicidal?

It's an awful, awful analogy.

If this is the best the Anglicans and their like can offer, no wonder the fundamentalist churches are booming.