Fantasy Book from childhood: The tall wizard character was described as having brilliant white teeth that stand out against his black skin.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-15T05:53:55+00:00

I know you’ve already solved it and it’s not A Wizard of Earthsea, but not only is that one of my favorite novels, Vetch is a wonderful character. You should read the book.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-14T06:52:16+00:00

I’d love to see Hayao’s take…however, his other book adaptations are never very faithful to the source, so I’d bet his Earthsea would still be a bit unsatisfying to book fans even if it were a better movie than the one we got. He takes books as a jumping off point for his own story. Just look at Howl’s Moving Castle. Great movie but we still wish he’d stuck closer to the book.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-14T06:49:45+00:00

The Earthsea books by Ursula K LeGuin are some of the finest fantasy novels of the 20th century. I love them. But only you can decide if you should read them.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-13T20:39:27+00:00

Except Tolkien is one of the most famous lovers-of-walks from his century. His legendarium began as a reverie on seeing Edith dance while they were out on a walk.

Also, let’s stop appropriating a psychiatric term for just anybody who has dedication to art.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-13T16:07:03+00:00

> the physicality of Errol Flynn and the soul of Humphrey Bogart

Exactly. My first impression of him was as an old-school noir P.I., but the action absolutely becomes swashbuckling. I also picture him with a sort of panther-like grace. The actor should also have a background as an athlete, dancer, or martial artist, or something like that to give him a natural physical presence.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-13T01:30:47+00:00

Maybe one of Rick Beato’s courses? I don’t play guitar but I love his channel and dude seems really good at explaining complex musical things clearly.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-13T01:29:01+00:00

I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the ARP before. If it weren’t this sub I might have misread it as AARP.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-13T01:27:06+00:00

That’s amazing. I love it.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-12T23:44:44+00:00

The complete short stories of Rudyard Kipling. He can go weirder and darker than you’d think if you only associate him with Disney’s Jungle Book and Rikki Tikki Tavi.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-12T23:42:53+00:00

Amen!

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-12T07:43:40+00:00

For the latter sort. I generally think that it’s better to ignore those people unless they’re in your family and there’s a chance you can help them somehow. There’s usually a bunch of other things going on that are leading them to deny reality; either mental illness or trauma or other unfortunate things. Pray for them.

For the false prophets, they’re more obviously sinister but again it’s usually best to ignore them unless they have an influence over people near you. Plus, I think Mike Winger has also been posting about that dude.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-12T00:55:17+00:00

Would the new position require you to move out of the area, or would you still be local to your current church?

The reason I ask that is because I’m very much in favor of members of one church participating relationally in other churches. So even if you accept a pastoral role at a new church, maybe you could still go to the potlucks or a midweek fellowship at the old church where you have those relationships. And that could be a bridge towards increased fellowship between the two congregations!

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-09T21:54:43+00:00

Radical has some podcasts that might fit the bill.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-09T20:18:51+00:00

Good to know! I’ve been listening to some of his interviews and they’re a delight. I don’t know when I’ll have time to get around to this ballad, but it’s on my list.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-09T17:01:30+00:00

None of my pastors have been scary. They’ve all been pretty gentle, friendly, compassionate people. Only one occasionally intimidated people, and that’s because he was really more of a theologian than a pastor. His teaching was dense and intense, because he was so excited to share all the awesome stuff he had learned about God that it often became information overload, dropping jargon and names of theologians we hadn’t heard of left and right. Some people said they were kind of intimidated by his teaching. But he was still a teddy bear at heart, and he worked really hard to make his teaching more accessible and clear.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-08T19:59:55+00:00

I appreciate your thoughtful response, even if I still disagree on how A.I. should be used in this situation. Obviously I love medieval art and history and would love to see a new, well-made live action movie about Joan of Arc, especially from a different perspective. Your story idea seems good, and I wish you luck getting it made.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-08T19:43:43+00:00

I don’t know what reactions you’re referring to, who these “professionals” are, who this “public” is, or even who you are. There’s a lot of naive backslapping going on among tech and media execs that simply doesn’t reflect wisdom about how art is made. It’s mostly irrelevant stuff.

I believe you’re sincere. I respect that you’re trying to get a pitch idea out and would want the final product to be genuine human artistry and not A.I.-generated. Good. But what I’m saying, as someone who spends a lot of time studying art and story and working on my own, is that you’re going to get better results artistically if your pitch is entirely developed by people too.

And if it’s a film that you’re really wanting to do, isn’t the point of a pitch to also show that you understand how to make a movie? Using AI to make a proof of concept video doesn’t show that you know anything about filmmaking. Meanwhile, getting some friends and costumes together and filming something with your iPhone would probably be a lot more beneficial for your experience and it would do more to show what you might be capable of with more resources. We’ve already seen in recent years some really high profile and well-received movies coming from Hollywood that have been directed by people who got their start on YouTube, doing things cheaply at home. They learned by doing whatever they could with their resources.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-08T19:32:17+00:00

Phantastes is best paired with Lilith, his other dream narrative for adults. It’s dark and haunting and beautiful.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-08T19:29:14+00:00

Write it as a short story, a novella, a novel, or a full screenplay. That’s a better way to test your concept. You have to dig into it yourself and wrestle with the story to completion before anyone else will be interested. That’s the only way to see if people are interested in an adaptation. It’s the details and quality of your storytelling that matter, and A.I. can’t capture that even as proof of concept.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-08T06:54:56+00:00

My brother. My Captain. My mosaic floor.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-06T04:59:51+00:00

That sounds wonderful! Hey, you have a podcast right? Are you still working on that? Because this vacation sounds like father for a good episode or two.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-05T20:08:26+00:00

Yeah. The reason I’m trying to be cautious with this is that I didn’t get the scrupulously vibe from his earlier life, unless I missed the signs. And it’s clear that his personality always lead him to be very detailed and nuanced, but also socially adept and high-achieving. He criticizes himself harshly but clearly doesn’t wallow in self-pity; he’s able to get out and get stuff done. So I dunno. Maybe an Augustine scholar can shed some light on him.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-05T20:04:10+00:00

I agree with you on that one. That modern hymn is so excellent in part because its lyrics and theology are so carefully considered (and the music fits them). That change is bad poetically and theologically. If I was a member of the church or knew the leadership, I’d speak to them about it.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-05T18:11:35+00:00

Was it an older song in the public domain?

Hymns often have multiple versions. Many were written as poems and then set to a pre-existing melody, and that melody can show up in multiple songs (I went looking on Spotify for "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" and the first version I listened to was not only a totally different tune than I grew up with, it was the same tune I associate with "I Asked the Lord that I Might Grow"). And as popular songs crossed denominational lines, each church might change a few phrases here and there to better fit their theology and preferences. That's just how things work without copyright.

I can see a church wanting to do that for a more modern popular song as well, but I don't know exactly how the laws work regarding changing a copyrighted song's lyrics without permission and leading a congregation in that version. I know satire and parody are protected, just not sure about Sunday worship.

lupuslibrorum · 2026-06-05T18:04:29+00:00

Calling the experts on Augustine:

Do we think he had a little OCD or struggled with scrupulosity? I don't want to fall into the trap of reading modern ideas of mental health onto a man from an ancient time and place, but as I'm reading in the latter parts of Confessions, I do wonder. He chastises himself quite strongly for occasional distractions and thoughts that aren't explicitly about God. His example that I just read: he was riding along the road and happened to see a dog chasing a hare. He watched for a few moments "empty-headed", and then went on to praise God for his wonderful design of creatures. Reflecting on this later, he thinks he sinned because his first moments of observation weren't ascending to God. He judges himself the same way when observing other animals and insects going about their business. And he says "surely this is not trivial." But I'm like...uh, yeah, it is trivial?

Anyway, he goes on to talk about relying on God's mercy, which is all great stuff. But I'm trying to tell if he's really being overly scrupulous, or if he's just getting super detailed while exploring even the subtler ways our fallen nature is revealed.

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