Culture on a Budget: religion

Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts

04 April 2010

Where Are They Now?: Jesus Christ Superstar

My family doesn't have many traditions, but one of the few that we do have is to watch Jesus Christ Superstar at some point during Lent, usually on the night before Easter. We are bizarre, I know. This particular post is coming at you from a suggestion of Severe's; he was curious if anyone had ever done a "Where Are They Now?" kind of thing for the stars of the movie. Well, I love a good research project; I am such a nerd. So, despite the fact that I have been researching for a law enforcement paper on Neighborhood Watch, literally all day, I present to you:
Where Are They Now? - Jesus Christ Superstar

Ted Neeley
Jesus Christ
Born: 20 September 1943
Last role: Rip Tide: Larry Bloom (1985)
Current projects: Neeley is still touring in JCS. Some suspect that he believes he actually is our Lord and Savior.
Website: Neeley On the Road

Carl Anderson
Judas Iscariot
Born: 27 February 1945
Died: 23 February 2004
Last role: Mello's Kaleidoscope: Dr. Klip (2002)
Current projects: None. Anderson died of leukemia in 2004.
Website: Carl Anderson

Yvonne Elliman
Mary Magdalene
Born: 29 December 1959
Last role: The Passion- Films, Faith, & Fury: Herself (2006)
Current projects: Elliman occasionally reprises her role in JCS, but she is primarily focused on her own music.
Website: Yvonne Elliman

Barry Dennen
Pontius Pilate
Born: 22 February 1938
Last role: Dragon Age: Origins: Various voices (2009)
Current projects: At present, Dennen is keeping busy doing voiceover work for video games.
Website: Barry Dennen

Bob Bingham
Caiaphas
Born: 29 October 1946
Last role: The Nostril Picker: Unknown role (1993)
Current projects: Bingham seems to have fallen off the grid after his 1993 film, The Nostril Pickers. I shit you not.
Website: Wikipedia

Larry Marshall
Simon Zealotes
Born: 3 April 1944
Last role: Soul Food: Jeremiah Joseph (2000-2002)
Current projects: Marshall has played a few bit roles on television as of late, but nothing very major.
Website: Wikipedia

Josh Mostel
King Herod
Born: 21 December 1946
Last role: State of Play: Pete (2009)
Current projects: Mostel played a modest role in the Adam Sandler films Billy Madison and Big Daddy, and has also been on Law & Order, as well as a few other television shows.
Website: Wikipedia

Kurt Yaghjian
Annas
Born: Unknown
Last role: Hair: Ain't Got No (1979)
Current projects: To say there is little information about Yaghjian is an understatement. After the '70s, he just disappeared.
Website: Wikipedia

Paul Thomas (Philip Toubus)
Peter
Born: 17 April 1947
Last role: Imps*: Roger (2009)
Current projects: After JCS, it seems that Thomas became a porn star. The most interesting career move I've uncovered all night.
Website: Wikipedia

Andrew Lloyd Webber
Playwright
Born: 22 March 1948
Last role: Live From Studio 5: Himself (2009)
Current projects: Love Never Dies, the highly-anticipated sequel to The Phantom of the Opera, was released in October 2009. How I didn't hear about is a mystery to me, seeing as I'm an ALW fanatic.
Website: Andrew Lloyd Webber

Tim Rice
Composer
Born: 10 November 1944
Last project: Nutcracker and the Rat King: Songwriter (2010)
Current projects: Rice's songs have been far busier than he has; while they have been making the rounds on television shows both in English and Spanish, he hasn't done much significant writing as of late.
Website: Tim Rice

Happy Easter! Enjoy your colorful chicken embryos!
~Sushi

24 December 2009

Bah Humbug

Call me a Grinch, or a Scrooge, or even a green llama, but I hate Christmas. I'm pretty sure that I've felt this way since I was eleven, when, in a temporary lapse of parental judgment, my mother spilled the beans to me about Santa Claus, three days before Christmas. She also told me about all the other mythological creatures that I was brought up to believe in: the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, St. Nicholas, etc. I know that Santa Claus and his rampant gift-giving are not meant to be the true meaning of Christmas, but it was a disappointment that I haven't forgotten in eight years, and probably still won't forget for a while. In fact, it makes me unsure as to whether or not I should tell my children, whenever I have them, about jolly ol' St. Nick and his ilk. In my pre-familial, teen-aged mind, it doesn't seem fair that parents can lie to their children, in the "spirit" of Christmas and various other holidays and occurrences, while children are never allowed to lie to their parents, for any reason at all. It's a trust-breaker. Sure, my parents have done other things that have shattered my trust in them, but I choose to bring this one up for the sake of so-called Christmas spirit.
Therefore, I offer up this list of different December holidays, many of which having nothing to do with Santa, or any other mythological figure.
Twenty-five Alternatives to Christmas
_{Thank you, Wikipedia, and various other wikis!}
1. Bodhi Day [Buddhist]
2. Winter Solstice [Celtic/Wiccan]
3. Signature of the Constitution of the Republic of China [Taiwanese]
4. Yule [Germanic]
5. Hanukkah [Jewish]
6. Eid ul-Adha [Muslim; sometimes occurs in November]
7. Holiday [Pastafarian]
8. Yalda [Persian]
9. Saturnalia [Roman]
10. Zamenhof Day [Esperantist]
11. Festivus [Seinfeldian]
12. HumanLight [Humanist]
13. Kwanzaa [Pan-African]
14. Hogmanay [Scottish]
15. Karachun [Slavic]
16. Decemberween [HomestarRunner]
17. Chrismahanukwanzakah [Paygoism]
18. Freezing Man [opposite of Burning Man]
19. Agnostica [agnostics, I suppose]
20. Kwansolhaneidmas [Facebookers, myself not included]
21. Alvistide [Sealab 2021
22. Wintersday [Guild Wars players]
23. Feast of Winter Veil [those loathsome WoWers]
24. Starlight Celebration [FFXI players]
25. Hogswatchnight [DiscWorlders]
Happy/merry various winter-time holidays!
~Sushi

29 November 2009

Enlighten Me / CONTEST: Day, uh, I lost count....

My family moves a lot, and whenever we do, and even occasionally when we haven't, we do what my mom has dubbed "church shopping." We are Missouri-Synod Lutherans, and there are a lot of our denomination's churches in my state, despite the fact that it's not actually Missouri. Every time we go to check out a new church, there are always a gaggle of supposedly-Christian people staring at us like we're outsiders, unwelcome in the house of God. I'm a paranoid person to begin with, and having people that I'm supposed to be in fellowship with staring at me like I'm oozing pus does not help the fact that we change churches quite a bit. Add in the fact that my sisters don't know how to behave, and it's a nightmare to go anywhere.
I bring this up because today, Spock and I went downtown to Chicago to visit a Buddhist temple, as part of my world religions class. Instead of the glaring that I am so accustomed to receiving whilst "church shopping" in the Christian community, the Buddhists welcomed us, and were very accepting, even though neither of us had ever practiced before. As a part of their meditation practices, first-timers are required to go through a short instruction. Spock and I learned how to properly meditate, as well as the proper mudras [hand positions] to do at certain times, and then we joined the Buddhists in a 35-minute meditation period, followed by chants and a dharma talk. Dharma talks, from what I experienced, are the equivalent of a sermon, though instead of reading and interpreting one book of scripture, it would seem that Buddhists take lessons from a number of different books, by many different authors. More interesting still, these books weren't all written thousands of years ago; some of them are quite contemporary. For example, today's dharma talk was an interpretation and discussion of some passages from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki; it was written in 1970. Following the talk, we all participated in cleaning the zendo, which is the place of meditation, as well as the rest of the temple. Each person does their part to clean the temple silently, in reflection. It's very peaceful. And then, in a tradition mirroring that of Lutheranism's "cookies and coffee in the church basement" tradition, we all had tea and cookies in the kitchen, which also serves as a lending library and fellowship hall. If you are picturing great amounts of people, you are sorely mistaken. Including Spock and myself, there were nine people present.
During the tea and cookies, I talked about my background, and asked the Buddhists about theirs. They were very cheerful and open about it; that was relieving. I've always heard not to talk about religion and politics, but religion seemed to be quite an wasy subject for them. They had stories about experiences with Christianity, about how they came to Buddhism, and even offered to e-mail me with more answers! This is definitely going to help me write that paper.
Spock enjoyed himself as well, and I think he was glad that I woke him up at 4AM so we could get there on time.

On a different thread, this contest is going very badly. There have been no new entries, so I'm going to assume that six is all I'm going to get. The poll will be opening on December 1st.
I'm not really up to a list today.
~Sushi

10 November 2009

Less QQ, More Pew-Pew

World Religions class, if it is good for nothing else, is a source of great entertainment. For example, we just began the chapter on Christianity, and learned that the Gospels [i.e. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John] were written, with the possible exception of John, by a person identified only as Q. As I told Spock, I was completely Trekking out. For those of you who are unaware, Q is a character from Star Trek. I am still fairly new at being a Trekker, so I looked him up on Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki that I am so desperately fond of. Have fun with that.