Been thinking recently about the double thing as well because my friend has a Thomas Pynchon anthology from the 1970’s where it’s the back of a man’s head on the cover. And I’ve never read any Pynchon, but the person depicted on the cover of this book most assuredly matches the back of my head - my haircut and beard - with 100% accuracy. Its really freaky

The Book of 2 Kings, Chapter One

I’d hoped that 2 Kings would be like Spider-Man 2—smarter, bolder, sexier, and more fun than the first one. Unfortunately, it seems more like Jaws 2, a dumb sequel that lamely retreads the best bits of the original and then adds a bunch of new junk.

…

This reminds me of blogs such as Slowly Boiling Frog, a favorite of my friends which provides witty or sly commentary on shows such as 24, Lost, Heroes, etc. Often times the commentary is more enjoyable than the show itself. I’ve seen quite a few blogs like this recently… and I guess it is no surprise that the same sort of the Bible variety are popping up.

One thing I always noticed, personally, has been a sense of rage or aggression that has boiled up whenever I’d see someone who looked just like me (which happened only 2-3 memorable times in the last many years). I was once at a Maryland football game, with my double sitting exactly 10 rows below me, right within eyeshot. The entire game I couldn’t take my eyes off him… or, myself, I should say…. I felt like I had to be “on the ready” to take him down at any time.

This has lead me to a much-thought-about scneario…. what if I saw myself walk around the corner? I would be freaked out, shocked, frightened, and threatened — all of these things putting me on edge, ready to pounce into a to-the-death fight at any second (which otherwise is unimaginable, I’m very laid back). Yet, my twin would surely react the same way, wouldn’t he? WOuld this dual tension doom us both to an instant to-the-death battle? Part of me thinks so, yet another (higher?) part of me somehow knows I have to avoid that, somehow. It would be tense, that I can tell you.

I participated in a carol service last night. It was very cold, and by the final sermon my mind was in an interesting (if chilly) place. The speaker mused on why there was ‘no room at the inn’. His take was that to this day, there is still no room at the inn. In the world of Stuff and Things to Do, there is no room. It’s full.

Which made me think of your post a few weeks ago about finding Christ under a rock. It suddenly made sense: in a chock-full world, that’s /exactly/ where you’d find Him. In the places between the Stuff, that you don’t ordinarily think of. And a carol service in the bitter cold, in the stillness between days and years, also made a kind of sense.

So: stories about nothing happening? Perhaps there is a confluence of half-formed ideas here.

Might be a little while before I get to read this again, so Merry Xmas in advance.

Rescuers: No one found in snow cave
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/12/17/missing.climbers/index.html

That strikes me as an odd and intriguing juxtaposition of stories. This sort of self-referential thing about “you” being the person of the year - which itself is almost like a hollow empty “snow cave” in which no one is found. Also appropriate is that the news event is actually a non-event: nothing was found. Since when do they write news stories about nothing happening? “Today nothing happened.”