The Dada spirit.

PARIS (Reuters) - A Frenchman who attacked and damaged "Fountain," a urinal declared a work of art by Dada pioneer Marcel Duchamp, was ordered Tuesday to pay a fine of 214,000 euros ($262,700).

A Paris court also gave Pierre Pinoncelli, 77, a three-month suspended sentence for taking a hammer to the absurdist artwork, the second time he has attacked it since 1993. The attack last month left the ceramic urinal slightly cracked.

Duchamp was a leader of the Dada movement, an avant garde "anti-art" school of the early 20th century that mocked conventional standards, and "Fountain," made in 1917 -- is considered one of the most influential artworks of its kind.

"This was a wink at Dadaism," Pinoncelli told the court in his defense. "I wanted to pay homage to the Dada spirit."

Banished in Oklahoma.

52 degrees. Front porch of a Beavers Bend cabin on the Lower Mountain Fork River. Partagas, Spaten Oktoberfest, fresh peanuts from a local farm, new goat-skin gloves from the Piggly-Wiggly grocery/tack shop, and Diarmaid MacCulloch's book, "The Reformation: A History".

Ahhhh.

The Kingdom of God is not about ME.

But I must be about the Kingdom of God.

Got MLK?

To be born of the Spirit.

John 3 (The Message)

Born from Above

¹There was a man of the Pharisee sect, Nicodemus, a prominent leader among the Jews. ²Late one night he visited Jesus and said, "Rabbi, we all know you're a teacher straight from God. No one could do all the God-pointing, God-revealing acts you do if God weren't in on it."

³Jesus said, "You're absolutely right. Take it from me: Unless a person is born from above, it's not possible to see what I'm pointing to--to God's kingdom."

⁴"How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this "born-from-above' talk?"

⁵Jesus said, "You're not listening. Let me say it again. Unless a person submits to this original creation--the "wind hovering over the water' creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life--it's not possible to enter God's kingdom. ⁶When you look at a baby, it's just that: a body you can look at and touch. But the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can't see and touch--the Spirit--and

Coffee at Murray Street in Deep Ellum

Live blogging.

Nice little place. Good coffee, nice music (mostly), artsy (some good art, some BAD art, copy of Art Forum in the reading rack).

Sorta HP bohemian.

Recommended.

103 Murray Street
Dallas, Texas 75226
2146552808

Is this the greatest obstacle/threat to Christianity?

Problems:

• One Day a Week discipleship
• Denominational identities
• European/Western Jesus
  
• Overhead costs
• Hierarchical organization
• Nostalgia and sentimentality
• Focus on buildings and things
• Self-righteousness
• Hypocrisy and judgmentalism
• Cheap Grace
• Pharisaism and Law Righteousness
• Entitlement
• Quenching of the Holy Spirit
• Me
  

More later. I'm still thinking.

Do you have any ideas? Let me know what you think.

Give this child a war toy, and no one gets hurt.

Blue. Period.

Intelligent Debate.

The Nairobi Trio

P.M. Summer, Tom Moody, Dennis Scharnberg: scattered to the winds.

Ernie Novak: RIP.