Friday, March 17, 2006

Poptarts - Cold, Lukewarm, Burning Hot and Analogous

Anthology of poptart related drivel. The drugs don't work.

Poptarts: Cold
The toasters in halls were so ancient, they couldn't accomodate a poptart. It was built in an era Before Poptarts. So we used to eat the tarts cold. And a cold poptart on a dreary English morning was never a good thing.

Poptart: Lukewarm
Poptart at the Esplanade
For those who're asking how it was, Poptart at the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre last night was lukewarm. Things started slow with everyone on their skinny-jeaned bottoms (some looking extremely underaged), fagging away and staring stonily at wee.like.me doing his warmups. It was obvious they weren't quite at Home. Zaidi fiddled with his records and bottled water and smiled encouragingly into the crowd. Only one girl rose to the bait and danced alone upfront.

Then Erlend Øye, the pale ginger-mopped half of Kings of Convenience, leapt onto the stage from the side, and bounced happily about all over it, gawky and geeky. There were screams of delight as the inspired hordes rushed to the front and started bouncing too.

Oblivious to this obvious show of affection and recognition from the crowd, and blessed with the inability to identity the coke-bottled face that stared gigantically out of most Mosaic Music Festival posters, Mosaic security grabbed the Øye boy firmly by the arm and attempted to hussle him off the stage.

Adrian intervened just in time, and Erlend spent the next few songs smiling fondly at the bopping crowd.

There was some Franz Ferdinand. And there were some lian-beng cliques leaving hastily in aural shock.

When the painkillers wore off, I left under the dark cover of Joy Division, missing, apparently, The Libertines, The Strokes, Interpol, The Postal Service, The Smiths, Placebo, The Mars Volta and Green Day (indie meh? At least this time no smartass had the opportunity to sing-shout laughingly in one ear "my shadow's the only one that walks beside me").

Poptarts: Burning Hot
Famously, burning hot strawberry poptarts in toasters make spectacular kitchen blowtorches. Remind me of this nifty DIY device when I need to caramelise the top of my crème brûlée.

The Poptart Analogy
Once, at breakfast in the same halls that boasted the ancient toasters that, given half the chance and a stubborn poptart, would have torched the ancient building, the question was raised of why one should trust the accounts of history recorded in the Bible.

The answer was this: how do you prove that you ate a strawberry poptart for breakfast? There's a poptart wrapper in the trash, but that doesn't mean anything. We could pump out your stomach but it may not mean that the poptart mush was put there at breakfast.

The best you can do is to appeal to eyewitnesses, the lot of us at this long dining table who saw you eat the strawberry poptart at brekkie.

So it is with the Bible. The writers were either eyewitnesses or obtained their information from eyewitnesses. They were neither naïve nor credulous but were concerned with the certainity of their evidence:
  • Luke's aim in writing his Gospel was this: "inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught (Luke 1:1-4);
  • said Peter:"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty" (2 Peter 1:16);
  • Paul implied that any doubters can very well go and verify his claims with other corroborating eyewitnesses: "[after his death, Jesus] appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:6); and
  • John said "that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life...we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 John 1:1-3).
The Christians in earlier times needed to know that what they believed in (that they were sinners under the judgement and wrath of God, that only Jesus' death on the cross saved them from this judgement and wrath and therefore, that the only way to be saved was to trust in him) was true because they were being persecuted for this very same belief. Why hold on masochistically to something that was false if it caused so much pain and suffering to themselves and their children?

And after much investigation, they continued to hold on to their faith, and some died in the hands of the Romans for it.

PS: For KOC fans, accounts of the KOC gig in Singapore may be found here and here (complete with song listings), here, here and here.

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