Yours portly is hard at work on Spooky Season IV and it’s nearly done. I don’t have an official release date yet, but I hope to have it out by Halloween (preferably about a week before).
That said, here’s one of the pieces from the release, which features a number of colorful ghosts.
When I was very, very young, I saw Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), probably recorded to a VHS during one of the rare free Disney Channel weekends, and it terrified me. The images from the film, particularly the scene where the demonic circus’s parade searches for two young boys through the streets of Green Town, have always stuck with me.
Based on the novel of the same name by Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes blends fantasy and horror elements with an ostensibly child-friendly story into a spooky tale of friendship, fear, courage, and resisting sin.
Perhaps one of the biggest revelations since the assassination of Charlie Kirk is that the Left is fundamentally committed to destructive political violence—and the Right is fundamentally opposed to it. The common and relevant contrast is the difference in reactions to the deaths of George Floyd and Charlie Kirk. In the former’s case, we saw cities burned and looted in an orgiastic display of criminality masquerading as “social justice.” In the latter’s case, we’ve seen peaceful vigils and a Christian revival.
I’ve written quite a bit lately about the Left’s love of violence. Here are some of those posts:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
Hi Readers and Subscribers,
I’m taking a day off from writing to spend with Dr. Fiancée. I had an extremely busy and exhausting week, and I crashed hard last night.
More content coming soon.
Yours portly,
TPP
For the first time in awhile, I have a proper, full-sized Phone it in Friday with three videos. It helps that I’ve been recording myself playing hymns a lot more.
Here are three recent videos of yours portly playing hymns; each is played on my maternal grandmother’s Kimball piano, which I had moved to the house this summer:
Monday was the first day of autumn—hurray! I’m unapologetically in the pro-autumn camp, and love all the hokey stuff that comes with the season: pumpkin spiced everything, Halloween, leaves, fall festivals, apple orchards, crisp mornings, etc. If I were a woman, I’d probably get a PSL at Starb’s everyday (assuming that, as a woman, I’d have my reckless spending bankrolled by the various beta orbiters around me).
I have core childhood memories of fall that further enhance the coziness of the season. I have a vivid-yet-fuzzy memory (a self-contradictory paradox, yes, but I hope you take my meaning, dear reader) of coming home from school one overcast autumn day to fresh-baked cookies. I can still remember the soft lamplight emanating from homes and the way the colors of the season popped in the grey afternoon. I can faintly remember the smell and the warmth of the cookies.
It’s a season for gathering closely with family and friends, of preparing for the long, dark winter with joy and merriment. It’s no coincidence that yours portly is getting married in late autumn!
What are your favorite autumnal activities? Let me know in the comments.
With that, here is 26 September 2024’s “TBT^256: The Joy of Autumn“:
My little church has been hosting revival services all week. Tonight is the last night of services.
For those that are not familiar—and even here in the Deep South, I am finding lots of churchgoing Christians who have no idea what a “revival” is—revivals are annual or semi-annual events during which churches hold additional nights of services, usually with a guest preacher or preachers. The purpose of revival is twofold: 1.) to revive the congregation (as the name suggests) with inspiring teaching and preaching and 2.) to encourage additional evangelism in the community. While Jesus Calls Christians to the Great Commission all the time, revival makes going to church a bit more of an event—“come hear this dude from the town over preach tonight!”
My pastor has an extensive network of other pastors and Biblical scholars in the area, so he always finds some great preachers. Some of them are the old-school Pentecostal types—lots of vocal crescendos and emotionalism—while others are more scholarly, with deep theological insights. I tend to prefer the latter, but it’s always a good variety, swinging from passionate piety to intellectual rigor.
If you would, dear readers, say a prayer for revival tonight. I have invited several people—some former students, mostly—to attend. A number of them indicated they’d likely be able to come out tonight. I know how these things sometimes go—not wanting to offend, vague quasi-commitments are made, only to be broken—often at the last possible moment—with various sudden emergencies and such. I understand, but I would ask your prayers that these young men and women make an appearance, and that the Word delivered tonight strikes a chord and/or fulfills a need. I don’t know the hearts of all of these invitees, nor do I know their spiritual condition, but if any are lost, please pray that for their salvation, either tonight or in the future.
I’m trying to evangelize more and to plant the seed of the Gospel in the hearts of others. I’ve failed to do so far more often than I care to admit. Please pray that the seed falls on fertile ground.
God Bless!
—TPP
Following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I was not sure how to process the tragedy. I sat down at piano and decided to play some hymns.
As I flipped through my Cokesbury Worship Hymnal, I came upon “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” and decided to play it. The horrible assassination had already awoken thousands to Christ, and social media was abuzz with posts noting that individuals and/or their family members had a.) planned to attend to church on Sunday; b.) had purchased or planned to purchase and read Bibles; and c.) accepted Christ. It was clear that a powerful national revival was breaking out.
It was also a powerful reminder of how Christ Uses even the most wicked events to His Good. There is power in Jesus’ Name!
As such, I decided to add my voice to the outpouring of prayers for peace and salvation, and shared this brief piano performance of the piece.
Yours portly is kicking off the Halloween season a bit early this year—after all, it’s the first day of autumn! I’m doing so with a classic Universal Pictures monster flick, 1935’s Bride of Frankenstein.
Prior to seeing the flick for the first time a year or two ago, I only really knew about the plot from Young Frankenstein (1974), which spoofs key scenes from Bride and Frankenstein (1931). Shudder had Bride back on its service as of last week, so one night I watched it again, and really enjoyed it.
Bride of Frankenstein moves in a more comedic direction than its bachelor predecessor, with Frankenstein’s Monster smoking (and becoming addicted to) cigarettes and humorous homunculi—like an overly amorous king—offering up some laughs (and padding out the film’s refreshingly swift seventy-five-minute runtime). But it still offers up some classic scares.
Demons are real. Fortunately, so are angels—and Jesus Christ! We are engaged in a spiritual war, so it’s worthwhile to look back at some posts about that struggle with powers and principalities:
Happy Sunday!
—TPP
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
The Portly Politico 