Fireproof
Lou and I saw Fireproof last night on my parents' very nice widescreen TV. Mom and Dad had seen it before, but they watched it again with us--Dad used to be a firefighter himself, after all.
It was an unspeakable relief to watch a movie that didn't savage things I believe--so much a relief that if there was much of the particular cheesiness that tends to creep into films with a strong salvation message, it generally missed me. It was a delight to know that it was his wife Chelsea, not lead actress Erin Bethea, that Kirk Cameron was kissing in the big yay-they-make-up scene, and I enjoyed seeing an honest-to-goodness happy ending.
Honestly, I think we can look to independent filmmakers like the Sherwood Baptist Church and Metanoia Films (makers of Bella) for many--if not most--of the best films of the future. Hollywood seems to be running out of plot ideas and making up for it by throwing around a lot of CGI. Give me a good story any day.
* * *
Twitter
Some months ago I signed up for a Twitter account, which seemed the thing to do at the time. I have since logged in approximately thrice. The Twitter logo should be the picture in the text-speak dictionary next to TMI (Too Much Information, if anyone reading this doesn't recognize the acronym.) I've never met anything so annoying as the possibility of logging one's drollest mundaneities in short blurbs for all your friends to read, and then reading all theirs. I haven't the time. I have not unsigned myself, so if you want to follow absolute silence, look up "librarylily" on Twitter and follow away. Feel free to post your own tweets. I won't swear not to read them, but the chances are very good that I won't.
* * *
Books
In case you really did want to hear about my drollest mundaneities, here's one for the day: My reading list has become something like the challenge of Everest for a mountaineer. Out of the usual desire to overachieve, I have gotten myself stuck climbing the following pile "Because it's there":
The Divine Comedy by Dante. Hell took me many months to escape; Purgatory is a slow climb, but much more pleasant. Heaven sounds intriguing. No one as interested in literature as I am should find poetry so shamefully difficult to read.
The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis. Lewis is smarter than I am. Not fair.
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. I love MacDonald's work--couldn't put Phantastes down--but must have gotten distracted somehow, because I'm only one chapter into this.
A Study of Literature by David Daiches. This was a Cornell University publication, written by one of their English professors, and so far it's much easier reading than Lewis's book.
Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West. I just heard most of this book in speech form, having listened to his CDs with Lou during our engagement, but my book club is reading this. At least it's an easy (and excellent) read.
The Deer on a Bicycle by Patrick McManus (his book on writing). Mom and Dad got this for me for Christmas. The preface and first chapter are hilarious.
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, again, because I always have to have out at least one book that doesn't absolutely require the 'capacity for abstract thought.' Unfortunately, my brain works against itself because there is depth of thought in that book, and I find it fascinating.
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, again. Superb.
A Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris. I read most of this immediately after my friend Naomi gave it to me, but have been slowly making my way through the rest of the book by discovering it at odd moments. Good stuff.
Biographia Litteraria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. That one is online, so I keep forgetting that I'm reading it, but it's interesting.
And that's just the stack I've started ...
3.30.2009
3.26.2009
Spring
Lou and I took a walk tonight. A bush across the way is turning yellow with little flowers. The tulip trees have visible buds, and green is creeping up the fronds of the weeping willow down the street. We even found a few open blooms on a couple of the ornamental cherry trees.
It had just better not snow again.
It had just better not snow again.
3.18.2009
Great Information
I have found myself. There might be as many as two paragraphs in that entire description that don't particularly apply to me.
Which of the Four Humors are you? (Caution: If you already know you're a phlegmatic, I must warn you that your personality type description was written by someone who doesn't like you.)
I have also found the best internet quiz ever:
I am Anne Elliot! Want to know which Austen heroine you are? Take the quiz here.
Which of the Four Humors are you? (Caution: If you already know you're a phlegmatic, I must warn you that your personality type description was written by someone who doesn't like you.)
I have also found the best internet quiz ever:
I am Anne Elliot! Want to know which Austen heroine you are? Take the quiz here.
3.10.2009
Artistic Emancipation
My mother, a master artist, has begun doing some artwork for her church. A fellow artist recently loaned her a copy of the book Spaces for Spirit, lamenting that people don't seem to "get" the sort of thing represented in that book.
Mom and I share a love for art, and though my bent is more literary than visual, we enjoy the exchange of ideas as the same basic principles make for good visual art, good writing and good music. She did not have to ask my opinion to know how I would feel about this particular book, but she showed it to me and asked my thoughts. After ranting for half an hour, I asked to borrow the book for the purpose of responding to some of the ideas.
The art itself was not all bad, although it often detracted from its surroundings--origami mobiles hung in front of stained-glass windows, long swaths of watercolor-on-nylon swung between the faithful and the high arched ceilings, etc. Other work had more of a directly negative effect on my mind: paper cut into lacy jungle scenes, surprisingly feminized portrayals of St. Michael the archangel warrior, and faceless, sexless, ghostlike figures intended to represent the four elements, painted on sheer fabric, swooping down upon the congregation. I have no problem with four-element philosophy, but its appropriation into bland and formless figures and the association of those figures with globalism, environmentalism and feminism means that such use in art makes much more of a political statement than a religious statement.
Contrast that with Michael S. Rose's three main building blocks of religious architecture: "verticality (reaching to the heavens), permanence (transcending space and time), and iconography (the building itself as art)." Rose wrote a book called "Ugly as Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces and How We Can Change Them Back Again" (hat-tip to my husband, who told me about this), which points out the ideas and purpose behind church buildings that work. It is true that Rose is specifically dealing with architecture, not decorative art which may change with the seasons. Yet the author of Spaces for Spirit might have benefited from understanding these principles, as the art itself tended to get in the way of the architectural focal points.
The words of Spaces for Spirit bothered me more than the art itself. Exempli gratia:
"Making art is a process of letting go of expectations and living in relation to materials, living with confusion and an iconoclastic attitude toward assumptions everyone else seems to hold. This stance is a commitment to the non-rational, intuitive, uncontrolled, emotional side of knowing...
We artists destroy conformity. We demand plurality. And that can be very threatening."
Iconoclasm is a strange word for an artist to use--connoting a closed-minded, usually volatile reaction toward the symbolic, mysterious, or complex. Iconoclasts saw the presence of representational art as idolatry, literally that described in the Ten Commandments: "You shall not make for yourself an image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth ..." That attitude never seemed to take into account the God-dictated glories of the Israelite tabernacle, which contained images of cherubim and pomegranates, among other things. What, in all that narrowness, provides an effective simile for relating to popular assumptions of any sort?
But the problems in these lines are greater than overreaching adjectives. One of the great failures of the last few decades of art education has been the right-brain/left-brain concept, the false dichotomy between the creative and the rational. The tendency of true art is toward order, not chaos, and order presumes both rationality and control. This is not to say that the abstract has no place in true art, but that art, in order to convey meaning, is typically more ordered than the world itself and not less. As a novelist, this principle is always a part of my subconscious. Whatever a story chooses to portray, it cuts the parts of normal life's disarray and directionlessness that are unnecessary to the story's development, tension and resolution--at least, unless its only goal is an obscure award and the possibility of being used as course reading for a couple of literature classes taught by overeducated postmodern professors.
The modern concept of freeing the creative right-brain from the domineering logic of the left-brain does not result in better art; it results in less communication between the work itself and the intended audience. The author claims that "our response to art is liminal, not rational"; my concern is that modern art seems to provide liminal experience only to those who have some training in that response, while traditional art is not a respecter of persons, and can be appreciated by people of any class to the utmost of their capability.
Further, modern artists busy "destroying conformity" have become surprisingly conformed to one another--like young people trying desperately to stand out from the crowd: one person with pink hair is startling, but once every other person is dying their hair blue and purple, they all start to look the same. The new artists have forgotten that nothing creates sameness more than absence of definition. And in their demand for plurality they notoriously fail to accept traditionalists as intellectual equals.
A failure of education in general shows in the following:
"Much of Christian symbolism in the visual arts takes words to interpret it. This means that the art is dependent upon a filter of intellectual content if its meaning is to be understood. What the art means is limited to a truth that the viewer "gets". Of course, the problem that artists have with this approach is clear: Once the viewer "gets" the meaning, the work is reduced to a mere container for an intellectual idea, and its impact is also reduced to a predictable emotion. It ceases to have meaning apart from these predictable responses. It becomes a visual cliché."
This is an utterly mistaken idea of symbol. It's like looking at The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and saying "Aslan is Jesus and Edmund is one of us" and coolly assuming that one has unravelled the secret of that particular piece of literature. Symbol does not mean 1:1 representation, and neither Narnia, nor other great works of fiction, nor the saints and their assorted paraphernalia in a stained-glass window are that bland or explicit. Symbolic art works on multiple levels; it is first a comprehensible surface, and then it may have a recognizable moral purpose, a typological representation, and a deeper, anagogical meaning. Most people never get consciously beyond the first and second level, but they may be subconsciously touched by the other levels; they may not know what is represented by the lily in St. Catherine's hand, but they recognize the pure beauty thereof. In the modern art, it is often difficult for the uninitiate to gain an understanding or appreciation of the surface level, let alone what else might be interpreted from the piece. Rather than inspiring the "diversity of interpretations" desired, it may just bring small variations on the general "This crap is in the way".
Worse yet:
"we hear the name of that revolution. It is love--my love of you with your loyalties, your love of me with my passion, our love together of our creator God, your love of my brokenness as an artist, of my imperfections, my love of your resistance and compassion for the cost of change for you."
The condescension in this paragraph is appalling, but the concept of love is simply wrong. Love is not a playful indulgence for someone's weaknesses, nor is passion something belonging exclusively or even primarily to those who consider themselves revolutionaries and rulebreakers. Love does not insist on change for the purpose of change, on unbridled creativity for creativity's sake alone. We love people, not brokenness; truth, not "resistance"; and insistence on change, even while having "compassion" for its cost, is as tyrannical as any tradition could be.
Spaceship and warehouse architecture, poorly-designed art, and an eggshell-walking spirit of welcome have dominated American churches for several decades now. The result has been almost complete loss of interest among the male members of the church, a generation of Christians-in-name who have no idea what they believe, and as much mockery and misrepresentation from the outside world as ever.
I remember visiting the cathedral basilica in St. Louis--a concrete monsterpiece that appeared heavy enough to sink into the ground where it stood. But if you've ever considered the symbol of a room or object having an "inside bigger than its outside"--used so well by C.S. Lewis in The Last Battle--you'll know something of what it was like to step into that church. I walked through a vast world of beauty: intricate mosaics on the distant domed ceilings, depicting Scripture scenes and people; graceful carved statues, golden tabernacles, pillared corridors; and at every corner I wanted to fall on my face and worship.
The demanding of freedom by the modern artist is a misapprehension of freedom itself. Freedom without rules is like change without reason; a directionless, wandering, unfortunate thing that cannot lead anyone into truth or meaning.
"The strongest argument for the divine grace is simply its ungraciousness. The unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people. The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within."--G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Mom and I share a love for art, and though my bent is more literary than visual, we enjoy the exchange of ideas as the same basic principles make for good visual art, good writing and good music. She did not have to ask my opinion to know how I would feel about this particular book, but she showed it to me and asked my thoughts. After ranting for half an hour, I asked to borrow the book for the purpose of responding to some of the ideas.
The art itself was not all bad, although it often detracted from its surroundings--origami mobiles hung in front of stained-glass windows, long swaths of watercolor-on-nylon swung between the faithful and the high arched ceilings, etc. Other work had more of a directly negative effect on my mind: paper cut into lacy jungle scenes, surprisingly feminized portrayals of St. Michael the archangel warrior, and faceless, sexless, ghostlike figures intended to represent the four elements, painted on sheer fabric, swooping down upon the congregation. I have no problem with four-element philosophy, but its appropriation into bland and formless figures and the association of those figures with globalism, environmentalism and feminism means that such use in art makes much more of a political statement than a religious statement.
Contrast that with Michael S. Rose's three main building blocks of religious architecture: "verticality (reaching to the heavens), permanence (transcending space and time), and iconography (the building itself as art)." Rose wrote a book called "Ugly as Sin: Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces and How We Can Change Them Back Again" (hat-tip to my husband, who told me about this), which points out the ideas and purpose behind church buildings that work. It is true that Rose is specifically dealing with architecture, not decorative art which may change with the seasons. Yet the author of Spaces for Spirit might have benefited from understanding these principles, as the art itself tended to get in the way of the architectural focal points.
The words of Spaces for Spirit bothered me more than the art itself. Exempli gratia:
"Making art is a process of letting go of expectations and living in relation to materials, living with confusion and an iconoclastic attitude toward assumptions everyone else seems to hold. This stance is a commitment to the non-rational, intuitive, uncontrolled, emotional side of knowing...
We artists destroy conformity. We demand plurality. And that can be very threatening."
Iconoclasm is a strange word for an artist to use--connoting a closed-minded, usually volatile reaction toward the symbolic, mysterious, or complex. Iconoclasts saw the presence of representational art as idolatry, literally that described in the Ten Commandments: "You shall not make for yourself an image, or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, or on the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth ..." That attitude never seemed to take into account the God-dictated glories of the Israelite tabernacle, which contained images of cherubim and pomegranates, among other things. What, in all that narrowness, provides an effective simile for relating to popular assumptions of any sort?
But the problems in these lines are greater than overreaching adjectives. One of the great failures of the last few decades of art education has been the right-brain/left-brain concept, the false dichotomy between the creative and the rational. The tendency of true art is toward order, not chaos, and order presumes both rationality and control. This is not to say that the abstract has no place in true art, but that art, in order to convey meaning, is typically more ordered than the world itself and not less. As a novelist, this principle is always a part of my subconscious. Whatever a story chooses to portray, it cuts the parts of normal life's disarray and directionlessness that are unnecessary to the story's development, tension and resolution--at least, unless its only goal is an obscure award and the possibility of being used as course reading for a couple of literature classes taught by overeducated postmodern professors.
The modern concept of freeing the creative right-brain from the domineering logic of the left-brain does not result in better art; it results in less communication between the work itself and the intended audience. The author claims that "our response to art is liminal, not rational"; my concern is that modern art seems to provide liminal experience only to those who have some training in that response, while traditional art is not a respecter of persons, and can be appreciated by people of any class to the utmost of their capability.
Further, modern artists busy "destroying conformity" have become surprisingly conformed to one another--like young people trying desperately to stand out from the crowd: one person with pink hair is startling, but once every other person is dying their hair blue and purple, they all start to look the same. The new artists have forgotten that nothing creates sameness more than absence of definition. And in their demand for plurality they notoriously fail to accept traditionalists as intellectual equals.
A failure of education in general shows in the following:
"Much of Christian symbolism in the visual arts takes words to interpret it. This means that the art is dependent upon a filter of intellectual content if its meaning is to be understood. What the art means is limited to a truth that the viewer "gets". Of course, the problem that artists have with this approach is clear: Once the viewer "gets" the meaning, the work is reduced to a mere container for an intellectual idea, and its impact is also reduced to a predictable emotion. It ceases to have meaning apart from these predictable responses. It becomes a visual cliché."
This is an utterly mistaken idea of symbol. It's like looking at The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and saying "Aslan is Jesus and Edmund is one of us" and coolly assuming that one has unravelled the secret of that particular piece of literature. Symbol does not mean 1:1 representation, and neither Narnia, nor other great works of fiction, nor the saints and their assorted paraphernalia in a stained-glass window are that bland or explicit. Symbolic art works on multiple levels; it is first a comprehensible surface, and then it may have a recognizable moral purpose, a typological representation, and a deeper, anagogical meaning. Most people never get consciously beyond the first and second level, but they may be subconsciously touched by the other levels; they may not know what is represented by the lily in St. Catherine's hand, but they recognize the pure beauty thereof. In the modern art, it is often difficult for the uninitiate to gain an understanding or appreciation of the surface level, let alone what else might be interpreted from the piece. Rather than inspiring the "diversity of interpretations" desired, it may just bring small variations on the general "This crap is in the way".
Worse yet:
"we hear the name of that revolution. It is love--my love of you with your loyalties, your love of me with my passion, our love together of our creator God, your love of my brokenness as an artist, of my imperfections, my love of your resistance and compassion for the cost of change for you."
The condescension in this paragraph is appalling, but the concept of love is simply wrong. Love is not a playful indulgence for someone's weaknesses, nor is passion something belonging exclusively or even primarily to those who consider themselves revolutionaries and rulebreakers. Love does not insist on change for the purpose of change, on unbridled creativity for creativity's sake alone. We love people, not brokenness; truth, not "resistance"; and insistence on change, even while having "compassion" for its cost, is as tyrannical as any tradition could be.
Spaceship and warehouse architecture, poorly-designed art, and an eggshell-walking spirit of welcome have dominated American churches for several decades now. The result has been almost complete loss of interest among the male members of the church, a generation of Christians-in-name who have no idea what they believe, and as much mockery and misrepresentation from the outside world as ever.
I remember visiting the cathedral basilica in St. Louis--a concrete monsterpiece that appeared heavy enough to sink into the ground where it stood. But if you've ever considered the symbol of a room or object having an "inside bigger than its outside"--used so well by C.S. Lewis in The Last Battle--you'll know something of what it was like to step into that church. I walked through a vast world of beauty: intricate mosaics on the distant domed ceilings, depicting Scripture scenes and people; graceful carved statues, golden tabernacles, pillared corridors; and at every corner I wanted to fall on my face and worship.
The demanding of freedom by the modern artist is a misapprehension of freedom itself. Freedom without rules is like change without reason; a directionless, wandering, unfortunate thing that cannot lead anyone into truth or meaning.
"The strongest argument for the divine grace is simply its ungraciousness. The unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people. The outer ring of Christianity is a rigid guard of ethical abnegations and professional priests; but inside that inhuman guard you will find the old human life dancing like children, and drinking wine like men; for Christianity is the only frame for pagan freedom. But in the modern philosophy the case is opposite; it is its outer ring that is obviously artistic and emancipated; its despair is within."--G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
3.07.2009
Raindrops on Roses
Beth suggested I make a list of my favorite things, as she has done a couple of times on Facebook. I got started and couldn't stop for a very long time. Here is the result:
Watching my husband, especially when he doesn't know I'm watching him
Kneeling in Adoration
Talking things over with my mom
Texting back and forth with Dad in Yoda-speak
IM conversations with Beth
Coffee with Melanie
Church bells
Mary
Love and affection, especially the cuddling sort
Books about wizards and vampires and talking creatures, oh my!
Litanies ... no, I'm not joking
White lilies
Wedding pictures, especially mine
Great-Grandma Reilly's ring
Relatives
Feeding the ducks
Writing: journals, fiction, music, essays, various bloggery
Love letters
Words, especially English, though other languages are fascinating too
Back rubs. Lou gives great ones; so does my dad.
Babies ... I want one
Cinnamon rolls and coffee with my in-laws
Gregorian chant
Lou singing in Latin
Lou singing Elvis
The Internet. Here's to research without using telephones or the inter-library loan.
Libraries. I'm trying to make home as much like one as possible, without the shushing.
My big bookshelf
Blogs. People are funny.
Long phone conversations with Briana ... though visits are better
Friends that are family, and family members that are friends
Lunch with friends
Funny or meaningful quotes
Lamps and candles and Christmas lights
Brahms' second piano concerto
Sunshine, oh, sunshine
Summer
Holidays from work
Spring
Ornamental cherry trees
Lilacs
Birds, birds, birds
The sky, in all its moods
Christmas
Family get-togethers
The Bible ... especially Psalms, the gospel of John, and Esther
Gothic steeples
Byzantine domes and mosaics
Alabaster angels
Lauds, Vespers, and especially Compline
Old books
Re-reading
Studying literature at Dante's four levels of meaning
G.K. Chesterton
Walking in the surf on white-sand beaches in Florida ... in February
Singing, especially rangey stuff ... I love being a soprano
Wrock
Over-commercialized "Celtic" music
Techno and electronica, especially in foreign languages
Drinking green tea and wishing I spoke Chinese
Cooking in a wok ... or at least my stir-fry pan, which is almost like a wok
Frosties and Blizzards
Easter
America, especially when I can forget about politics
Fairies and unicorns
Little babbling brooks
Being in and on water, even though it frightens me
Fresh-squeezed orange juice from fresh-picked oranges
Bellingham, WA
Airplane rides and road trips
Bozeman, MT
Statues
Jane Austen
Corona with lime
Mocha frappucino and similar things
Putting fun pictures up as backdrops on my computer monitors
My Korg Triton, old Guild guitar, microphone and mixer
Flare jeans and long, short-sleeved, fitted stretch-cotton shirts--especially if they're decorated
Things junior-high girls like: butterfly earrings, snap barrettes, turquoise and coral, Disney songs
Dancing
Good dramedies ... no, I don't mean dromedaries, although those are interesting
Bright colors
Houseplants
Home
Watching my husband, especially when he doesn't know I'm watching him
Kneeling in Adoration
Talking things over with my mom
Texting back and forth with Dad in Yoda-speak
IM conversations with Beth
Coffee with Melanie
Church bells
Mary
Love and affection, especially the cuddling sort
Books about wizards and vampires and talking creatures, oh my!
Litanies ... no, I'm not joking
White lilies
Wedding pictures, especially mine
Great-Grandma Reilly's ring
Relatives
Feeding the ducks
Writing: journals, fiction, music, essays, various bloggery
Love letters
Words, especially English, though other languages are fascinating too
Back rubs. Lou gives great ones; so does my dad.
Babies ... I want one
Cinnamon rolls and coffee with my in-laws
Gregorian chant
Lou singing in Latin
Lou singing Elvis
The Internet. Here's to research without using telephones or the inter-library loan.
Libraries. I'm trying to make home as much like one as possible, without the shushing.
My big bookshelf
Blogs. People are funny.
Long phone conversations with Briana ... though visits are better
Friends that are family, and family members that are friends
Lunch with friends
Funny or meaningful quotes
Lamps and candles and Christmas lights
Brahms' second piano concerto
Sunshine, oh, sunshine
Summer
Holidays from work
Spring
Ornamental cherry trees
Lilacs
Birds, birds, birds
The sky, in all its moods
Christmas
Family get-togethers
The Bible ... especially Psalms, the gospel of John, and Esther
Gothic steeples
Byzantine domes and mosaics
Alabaster angels
Lauds, Vespers, and especially Compline
Old books
Re-reading
Studying literature at Dante's four levels of meaning
G.K. Chesterton
Walking in the surf on white-sand beaches in Florida ... in February
Singing, especially rangey stuff ... I love being a soprano
Wrock
Over-commercialized "Celtic" music
Techno and electronica, especially in foreign languages
Drinking green tea and wishing I spoke Chinese
Cooking in a wok ... or at least my stir-fry pan, which is almost like a wok
Frosties and Blizzards
Easter
America, especially when I can forget about politics
Fairies and unicorns
Little babbling brooks
Being in and on water, even though it frightens me
Fresh-squeezed orange juice from fresh-picked oranges
Bellingham, WA
Airplane rides and road trips
Bozeman, MT
Statues
Jane Austen
Corona with lime
Mocha frappucino and similar things
Putting fun pictures up as backdrops on my computer monitors
My Korg Triton, old Guild guitar, microphone and mixer
Flare jeans and long, short-sleeved, fitted stretch-cotton shirts--especially if they're decorated
Things junior-high girls like: butterfly earrings, snap barrettes, turquoise and coral, Disney songs
Dancing
Good dramedies ... no, I don't mean dromedaries, although those are interesting
Bright colors
Houseplants
Home
3.06.2009
Bozeman Explosion
My best friend called me yesterday morning to tell me about this:
It appears to have been a gas explosion in one of the restaurants; it destroyed three Main Street buildings and the six businesses within. According to the above story, "witnesses in the area reported seeing the roof of the building fly hundreds of feet into the air." The blast shook Briana's apartment--she can walk from her place to the site--and was apparently felt across town.
Thankfully, it happened before business hours. One person is still missing as of last report; otherwise, there were no casualties and no injuries reported. As Briana pointed out to me, if it had been even an hour later, the story would have been far worse.
We likewise used to live within walking distance of the place, and though I'm pretty sure the Boodles place went in since then, I seem to remember at least the Pickle Barrel being there.
The image is directly from the news story.
It appears to have been a gas explosion in one of the restaurants; it destroyed three Main Street buildings and the six businesses within. According to the above story, "witnesses in the area reported seeing the roof of the building fly hundreds of feet into the air." The blast shook Briana's apartment--she can walk from her place to the site--and was apparently felt across town.
Thankfully, it happened before business hours. One person is still missing as of last report; otherwise, there were no casualties and no injuries reported. As Briana pointed out to me, if it had been even an hour later, the story would have been far worse.
We likewise used to live within walking distance of the place, and though I'm pretty sure the Boodles place went in since then, I seem to remember at least the Pickle Barrel being there.
The image is directly from the news story.
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