The Place of Prayer

Posted 3:30 AM by Gerald So

I've been watching a YouTuber who's had a kidney removed and other organs partially removed due to cancer. He claims to believe in God and Jesus and to have seen an angel during a childhood hospital stay. As his current condition worsens, though, he feels all his prayers and those on his behalf have been for naught. He wonders why God is letting him suffer when he's already suffered much in life.

I have no answers and I'm no prayer expert, but I don't think all prayer is immediately or eventually supposed to yield physical affirmative results. If it were so transactional, everyone would do it, as often and necessarily as they put money in the bank. Whatever power we pray to would simply be a fulfillment department. Does that sound correct or fair to you?

Photo by Rodolfo Clix via Pexels

I've seen loved ones suffer and have prayed for their healing and eventually have seen them die. I don't think their deaths were my prayers going unanswered. I pray to understand, accept, and respond correctly to what happens. Prayer is spiritual, not physical. No one wishes to suffer, yet we all suffer in some way. I think prayer is supposed to help us mentally endure, so ideally what harms the body doesn't scathe the intangible part of our existence.

Even in death, only the body is gone. We remember our loved ones and if you believe their spirits achieve their reward, who could ask for anything more? If you believe this life is all there is, when we reach the end, any suffering ends.

Next Bond Unknown?

Posted 11:30 PM by Gerald So

According to Deadline, Denis Villeneueve is looking to cast a fresh-faced British actor in his 20s or 30s as the next James Bond.

I like casting an unknown. It brings to mind how special past Bond actor announcements felt. The only drawback is Amazon won't be able to market its first Bond movie on the actor's fame.

On a side note, I made the James Bond text logo above and the Superman text logo for my latest movie review to display in my social media posts.

SUPERMAN (2025)

Posted 6:00 PM by Gerald So

I didn't get to see James Gunn's SUPERMAN in theaters, but I've just watched it on 4K disc. It meets its mandate of reviving the superhero movie for DC. It's rooted in Clark and Lois's love story yet full of far-out science fiction. Its two tones work because Superman in concept is both: the space alien raised in America's heartland.

As casting news dripped out, I wasn't sure about including heroes besides Superman, but they let viewers compare and contrast. Without then we'd only have Superman's version of doing good, and we might not grasp its nuance. Multiple heroes also let the plot be epic in scope. Superman couldn't be everywhere, but he didn't have to be. I also liked Gunn's fresh take on Eve Tessmacher.

In my Christmas 2024 post about the teaser trailer, I wrote I wasn't onboard with yet again riffing on John Williams' theme. I also could have ditched the Richard Donner-style swooshing credits. I give them a final-paragraph mention because neither detracts much from the movie. Gunn uses them like Bryan Singer before him, to show this is the Superman familiar to us from the Donner movie. From there, Gunn shows that brand of Superman can meet this moment in history. Neither Singer nor Zack Snyder did.

Passing Thought

Posted 5:00 AM by Gerald So

A fan of mystery and crime fiction, I'm wary of the genre trivializing murder and gun violence, the inciting incidents of many stories. Later in my time with the Short Mystery Fiction Society, I proposed changing the group logo, a derringer pocket pistol illustrated by a past president's relative after the Society's Derringer Awards.

Well before my time, the group had chosen the derringer as a metaphor for the short mystery. I grew concerned the public would primarily see the gun and assume it represented a gun rights group. Members spoke up dismissing my concern. I left the Society in 2021 and the awards and logo remain, but I still hope they change one day.

To what, you ask. How about clocks, nonviolent imagery of short mystery's tradition, brevity, and urgency?

What, then, would the awards be called? The Stoppers, as in stopping to recognize winners; as in stopping crime, not capitalizing on it.

The current physical Derringer awards are medals with the illustrated logo in the center. The physical Stopper awards could be wall clocks matching the logo, showing category and year.

Why Don't I?

Posted 2:00 AM by Gerald So

My post yesterday mentioned a life avoiding alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. This extends to caffeine and drugs, including performance enhancers.

Why? As I wrote for Disability Pride Month, I want to see what I can do without it all. I don't want it to impair me on top of cerebral palsy. I want to think and move as well as I can, whenever I may need.

To show I'm not overthinking, a memory:

During Bouchercon 2013 in Albany, a police officer stopped me walking from my hotel to the con venue around 7:30 AM.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Gerald," I said.

"Gerald?"

"Yes."

And he drove on.

I'll never know, but I guess he took my gait for drunken.