1923

Maddie had Youth tonight which was fun as always - it's a great service mid-week, and it was nice to see friends pop in to enjoy church with worship, a good message from Pastor Jacob, games, food and some socializing afterwards.

It's been a good day, but a busy one.  We're really gearing up for Easter, which of course is a lot earlier this year than usual.  Easter in March?  Who does that, right?  Anyway, we had plenty of Easter meetings today, and meanwhile Mom is plugging away at various dresses for the dance team, new creations that are turning out pretty well.  You'll see pictures eventually.

We had other meetings too - including one to discuss Summer Xtreme 2024.  We're working on a logo, destinations, messages and all of that.  Also scripts too.  I think we really hit the gas pedal after Easter is over with.  Right now we're overwhelmed with Easter... but there's also a new series in April at KidPak, a visit back with "Hang 10," which we haven't done in a long time, back in 2010.  Maddie was super young back then, three years old about to turn four.  But she was ready to surf back then!  We'll see if we can get in any surfing now.  

In the meantime, here's our new look for "Hang 10," created by an outside graphics artist we asked to do this for us, as we're all pretty busy.  We sent him some other things for a general look, and this is what he sent back.

Looks good!  It's a series that's dedicated to the Ten Commandments, and it should be a lot of fun, hopefully.  It's just after Easter, so we can't give as much thought to it until we get there.  But it does make me want to try surfing again.  In the meantime, we're still in Exodus, and of course that's where the Ten Commandments first appear.  

For research, I had one more movie to check out.  We went to 1923's "The Ten Commandments," which is on a DVD, part of the set that includes the 1956 movie we watch every year.  The 1923 version is a silent movie, and honestly I wasn't expecting as much but wow!  The set pieces in this movie are huge!

This movie is huge.  The first hour is an abbreviated version of the Exodus story, starting pretty much right after the ninth plague and moving on through the Passover story, through the Red Sea, and straight to Mt. Sinai and the Ten Commandments.  The second hour of this movie is a movie that features two brothers, one of which decides he is going to break all Ten Commandments.  Of course, some things - like murder - he doesn't intend to do for real, but inevitably events happen, and as a result, his life goes terribly wrong.  Meanwhile, his wife repents and finds healing and salvation in one of the earliest appearances of Jesus on a big screen movie.  This was the highest grossing movie of 1923, which was one hundred and one years ago.  The movie's opening titles tell us of a world population no longer turning to God, that is until the world was at war.  1923 would mean world war was only four years ago... and an even greater world war was sixteen years away.  Just as devastating - in only six years, the nation's economy would collapse in an unprecedented way that would affect us all for decades to come.

It's a fascinating slice of time here - and add to this the fact that movies were still silent.  There was the accompanying Wurlitzer piano, played live while audience members watched this movie.  Could you imagine that?  The restaurant we visited on the Disney Cruise was themed to 1923, when Walt and Roy Disney got things started so long ago.  It's an interesting year - President Harding passed away in August, and by the time this movie released in December, we had Calvin Coolidge serving as President with the Roaring Twenties truly roaring along.  One hundred years ago, here we are in a different sort of Twenties.  Time will tell how historians view it, but of course the pandemic, inflation and social issues of the day are painting a different picture than any other decade.  And yes, there are quite a few more Dan McTavishes out there.  That's the guy laughs in his mother's face, riding away on his boat called "Defiance."  Anyway, all that said, it's a great thing to watch from a historical perspective - I've not seen a silent movie since the one Mel Brooks made many years later.  And the quality of the movie is really good for it's time.  Imagine trying things out like the parting of the Red Sea, and using special effects to accomplish that in 1923.

Okay, moving on.  Tonight we had a few episodes of "The Bad Batch" to watch, some of the best episodes of the season for sure.  And we had some of that green mint chip ice cream too.  Yummy!  Afterwards, we got to bed at a reasonable hour - Maddie still has school tomorrow, but just a half-day.  We read a few short chapters of our latest book, said our prayers, and then it was off to sleep.