The Angel Cried

A beautiful hymn sung once at the beginning of Lent, and then again on Holy Pascha and throughout the remainder of the bright season until Ascension (40 days). Here sung in old church Slavonic with the English translation.

The Angel cried to the Lady Full of Grace:
Rejoice, O Pure Virgin!
Again I say: Rejoice!
Your Son is risen from His three days in the tomb.
With Himself He has raised all the dead.
Rejoice, all ye people!
Shine, shine, O New Jerusalem,
The glory of the Lord has shone on you.
Exult now and be glad, O Zion,
Be radiant, O Pure Theotokos,
In the Resurrection of your Son!

Holy and Great Friday

"When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, 'Woman, behold your son!' Then He said to the disciple, 'Behold your mother!'"

We worship Thy Passion, O Christ!

File under: sometimes truth is stranger than fiction

While my beard is fairly non-descript, the flowing mullet-mane pictured to the left is most decidedly not. The wearer of this mullet seems to derive Sampson-like powers of Donkey Kong video game ability as well as supreme levels of arrogance and condescension. King of Kong: Fistful of Quarters is a documentary that chronicles the clash between twenty year Donkey Kong point champion Billy Mitchell (Mr. Mullet pictured to the left and according to Wikipedia, christened by Maxim magazine as "Dweebus Maximus Dorkus of both the 20th and 21st centuries") and challenger Steve Weibe. Weibe, "the nice guy," nevertheless ignores the poopy-pantsed pleas of his son for wiping aid during his record-breaking game attempt and weeps openly on camera when he is mistreated in a video game competition.

The documentary is fascinating and manages to evoke an intensity that belies its subject matter. Still, I found the rabid intensity of the adherents to this video game reality-world to be disconcerting, as wrapped up as they are into classic arcade video games. At times, watching the documentary was analogous to the morbid fascination that won't let you pull your eyes away from a train wreck. Nevertheless, as a study in sociology and my own past (at one time I was pretty heavy into video games sans mullet) King of Kong was well worthwhile.