Author: Richard Chonak

We’re being read in Rome

(by bloggers on holiday.)
UPDATE: I was mistaken: our Cranky Reader in Rome isn’t on holiday: he’s teaching there.

Renounce your consumerism, and get cool new-age stuff in the process!

I got some spam today offering subscriptions to a magazine about “simplifying” your lifestyle. Now I understand: buying the right stuff can help you be more detached from material things. Sounds kinda Zen, doesn’t it?
The whole pitch wavers back and forth between spending and having, and not-spending and not-having:
The first premise is that we’ve bought unneeded things that clutter our homes and scatter our attentions. Therefore, we’d like to “simplify”: to dispose of what’s not beneficial or not important.
But apparently we can’t figure out how to do this on our own, so we’re offered a magazine for $3.95 an issue at the newsstand. Now, spending $39.50 a year on (another) magazine seems an odd way to become less consumeristic. So we could obtain a discount by subscribing.
On the other hand, would doing so mean that we’re becoming more focused on money and thus more materialistic, or is frugality itself contrary to consumerism? I really must go away and figure this thing out.
On the other other hand, the pitch offers an enticement to make it an even better value: a free four-part Feng Shui kit, which includes:

  • “Feng Shui in 10 Simple Lessons,” the perfect basic book of Feng Shui that teaches you what positive chi energy can do to perfect your home and work environments.
  • “Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui,” a guide to not only simplifying your physical surroundings but cleansing your soul.
  • “Move Your Stuff, Change Your Life: How to Use Feng Shui to Get Love, Money, Respect, and Happiness” is a comprehensive lesson in living life with more purpose and joy.
  • A Woodstock Percussion FSCC (Feng Shui Crystal Chime), with which you will harmonize your audio environment and enjoy the calming effect of these fine-tuned, Feng Shui-balanced chimes.

The bottom line is that you can apparently simplify your cluttered life by getting some kitschy stuff and using some presumably dumbed-down, faux Chinese astrology to “Get Love”, “Get…Money”, “Get…Respect”, “Get…Happiness”. Because, after all, isn’t Getting what this is all about?
I guess this is what the Vatican was talking about in that document on new-age spirituality as a cultural trend promoted for commercial purposes.

Who needs all that effort?

…when you can learn to be a Christian the easy way, thanks to The Bible Osmosiser? (RealVideo stream, 02:30, 34 KB/sec)
Thanks to Eric for the link, and hats off to Caleb Cohen who produced the video. Hey, Caleb: Mark 12:34a!

Up popped the Virgin out by a billabong…

Crackpots in Australia are venerating this fence, which if you look at it from a certain angle and squint just right, forms a vague shape kinda like a picture of Our Lady would look if you were squinting at it. Not that Our Lady would really want us to squint at her: I think if she gave us an apparition someplace, the least we could do is to look at her in the ordinary human way. I wonder what the message is? O, moy people! Wot has led yoo astroy? Crikey, you’re in for it!
By the way, the sheila seen here with “Our Lady” is a good example of how not to dress for an apparition.