Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies, the screwball comedy that comes in candy-fruit colors, returned for the first of its final three episodes. All was right with its world: there were two murders to be solved, but also a new complexity between the show's essential romantic triangle of pie-maker Ned, his love Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, and Olive, the Pie Hole restaurant waitress. Plus extensive study of the double-negative as a clue to the true meaning of love.

Personally, any time a major subplot involves Kristin Chenoweth's Olive, the happier I am with Daisies, and last night's was Chenowonderful. We saw a glimpse of Olive's childhood (unloved, neglected) and met two men who were once accused of kidnapping her. They were played, to my delight, by George Segal and Richard Benjamin (two stalwarts of 1970s cinema and television -- look them up on YouTube in Johnny Carson-era Tonight Show videos, and in films such as Blume in Love and Goodbye, Columbus). Both men played these two shady characters (not really kidnappers but petty thieves) as slapstick bumblers.

Meanwhile, back at the Pie Hole, Olive was being courted by David Arquette's Randy Mann. Olive, of course, spent much of her time mooning over eternally-unattainable Ned, parsing his every remark for signs of affection. (That's where her study of the double-negative in grammar came in.) When Ned kissed Olive, we got a brief, lovely musical number, with Olive/Chenoweth trilling the Lionel Richie hit "Hello," a song I thought I never wanted to hear again until that moment.

Whistler SL500

Whistler SL500: I met DE-1732 back in Toronto. I’d been wanting to start a band for a while, but I’m kind of a no-frills guy. Not much of a rock star, you know? So I was at our church beaver roast one Friday when I saw this really cool-looking radar detector with this wicked smile. When he told me he was VG-2 undetectable, just like me, I knew this was the guy.

Whistler DE-1732: That’s actually what our first song together was about. “Immunity”, it was called. “Uniformed inspector / Seeking your detector / His idea of fun is / Seeing you punished / But you’re immuuuuuune!” Whistler SL500: We oughtta do that one again. Whistler DE-1732: Yeah, it was pretty rough. For one thing, we’re illegal in some states, so that was kind of a hassle. And we missed a bunch of gigs ‘cause we couldn’t use our GPS.

Whistler SL500: The tour bus only had two DC jacks. We call it a bus. It’s really more of a minivan. Anyway, me and DE-1732 had to use those jacks. So no GPS, no gigs, no payment. Nobody wants to pay you in this business. Whistler SL500: Now we got this deal going with this discount deal-a-day web site. I think it could totally turn things around.

Pentecost Sunday

Pentecost Sunday with Christmas and Easter, ranks among the great feasts of Christianity. It commemorates not only the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and Disciples, but also the fruits and effects of that event: the completion of the work of redemption, the fullness of grace for the Church and its children, and the gift of faith for all nations.

After Jesus had ascended to heaven from Mt. Olivet, the apostles and disciples returned to the Holy City. They remained together in the Upper Room or Cenacle, the place where Jesus had appeared to them and which may well be called the first Christian church. About a hundred and twenty persons were assembled there. They chose Matthias as an apostle in place of the unhappy Judas; they prayed and waited for the Paraclete.

Ten days had passed, it was Sunday, the seventh Sunday after the resurrection. At about nine o'clock in the morning, as they were together praying fervently, the Holy Spirit descended upon them. Note how all the great theophanies in Christ's life occurred during the course of prayer. After His baptism, for instance, when Jesus was praying the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove; likewise, it was during prayer at night that the transfiguration took place on Tabor.