Okay, so before I continue, I feel like I should explain what these two things are. The window is just the window that you have, right? So let's say, for example, this terminal, that's a window. The renderer, I think the best way to think of it for now is just to think of the renderer as the canvas onto which you're going to paint all of your graphics and fancy textures. So when you actually draw something, you're going to draw it to the renderer, and then the window is just there to show it to the user. I think that's the best way to understand it. So let's just continue. Okay, so now that you have those two things declared, you are going to want to initialize SDL. So you're going to do SDL in it. And SDL has a bunch of constants for how you can initialize SDL, right? So you can either initialize the video, you can initialize the audio, you can initialize any number of modules that you want. For now, we're going to keep it simple. We're going to just initialize everything because we don't really care about whatever, you know, nuanced things go on the background or like this startup time or anything like that. So I'm just trying to show you how this thing works right now. So SDL in it, SDL in it, everything, yeah, that should be fine. Okay, now that we have these two things up here declared, we are actually going to initialize them to some value. And we initialize them by running the create window and renderer function. So we're going to call SDL create window and renderer. And I'm going to create this window to be 640 by 480. This may be a little small on your screen. So if it is definitely increase the resolution or just set the renderer scale to be higher. Then we are going to pass in the window flags. We don't really need any window flags, I'm just going to pass in zero. Then you're going to pass the address of the pointers. So you're going to pass the address of the window pointer and you're going to pass the address of the render pointer. Okay, perfect. So now what we're going to do is we are actually going to set the draw color. We're going to set the draw color of what the color we're going to use to draw to this renderer.  Then we are going to supply the color values using the RGBA format. A is the alpha, so this is the transparency. This is the RGB. So we essentially set our draw color to be black. If you want to think of this conceptually, think of we took our brush and we dipped it in some black ink. Okay, now we're going to tell our program to actually draw, actually no. We're going to clear the screen to some color, right? And the color we're going to clear it to is going to be the draw color that we just set. So we're going to say SDL render clear. And we are going to pass in a renderer again. Keep in mind this is a C library, so it doesn't have all of the luxuries of an object-oriented library. So there are some things like this that are kind of annoying when it comes to a non-object-oriented language. So definitely I don't like the way that the SDL makes you pass in a renderer every single time you want to do some operation on it. But it's C, it's supposed to be faster, so it's up to them. So now that we have the SDL clear that ran and what that's going to do is it's going to clear the screen to black.  You won't really see anything because we didn't actually show this to the user yet. So we just clear the screen to black. But in memory, supposedly it's supposed to be black. So now what we're going to do is we're going to set our draw color to be white. Same deal as before, pass in your renderer, set your RGBA to be 255, 255, 255. This is setting the RGB to be white, so color is going to be set to white.  Okay, now what we're going to do is we are going to actually draw something to the screen and we are going to draw a point. We're going to draw a single pixel onto the screen and we do that by doing STL, render, draw, point, render and then we are going to draw it to the center of the screen. And I'm going to draw it to the center of the screen by just taking our screen resolution and dividing by two. Okay, so we have those things all done. Just a quick recap. We declared our two structs. These two structs are STL, window and STL renderer. We initialized STL. We created our window and renderer, so we initialized the value of those two structs. We set the draw color to be black. We painted our screen to black using the STL render clear function. Then we set our draw color to be white. Then we painted the screen to be, or we didn't paint the screen, but we painted a single pixel onto the screen at the center of this canvas. Now what we're going to do is we are going to present our renderer through our window and we do that by doing STL, render, present, render and here's the problem. If you run this program right now or if you compile this program right now, it's just going to open a window and it's going to immediately close the window. To fix that, we are going to delay this program by 10 seconds just to give it some more time to, just give it more time to, you know, just show on the screen. So we're going to do STL, STL, delay and we're going to delay for 10,000 milliseconds, which is 10 seconds if you didn't know. Okay, so now that our program is finished, we can actually compile it. Now to compile this program, we are just going to run g++, use whatever compiler you want on your end, but I'm using g++ here and then we are going to pass in basic.cpp. We are going to compile it over, we're going to link the STL library, so we're going to say L, STL2 and we are going to output as basic, okay, that compiled, it's run basic. Okay, I'm not sure if YouTube is going to pick this up, but there is a pixel right here on the screen. Yeah, so thanks for watching and in the next video, I'm going to go over some basic things you can do with rectangles and I'll see you then. Okay, so from the last video, I've modified the code a little bit just to make it easier to see on YouTube. I looked over the last video, the pixel I drew to the screen wasn't that visible, so what I did in this video is I've added this render set scale. I made it so that the render is going to scale by 2x and because of that, I also multiply the resolution by 2x. If on your computer, the way that everything is going is fine, you don't really need to add or modify any of the code here, but just so you know, between the last video and this one, this line and this line are different, so keep that in mind. Okay, so let's do rectangles. Let's talk about STL rectangles. Okay, so STL rectangle, how do you declare a STL rectangle? Well, you declare a STL rectangle like this and give it a name. I'm going to give my rectangle a name called rect. And what a rectangle is, is basically a structure that contains four values. It has width, a height, and a position. So the position is going to be, well, not a position, but it has width, height, and x position, and y position. So what you want to do is you want to set the width and the height of your rectangle. Then what you want to do is you want to set the position of your rectangle. And we set the width and height like this. So you basically just say rect.w, which is just stands for width is equal to, let's say 100. Then rect.h is equal to 100. And basically what I did here is I defined the width and the height of my rectangle. Now what we want to do is we want to set the position of our rectangle and the position, if you know the Cartesian coordinate system, x-axis, y-axis. So we're going to say rect.y is equal to zero. And then rect.x is equal to zero. So it's going to be at the top of our screen. So it's going to be at the top, it's going to be at the top left of our screen. In computer graphics, the y-axis actually begins at the top, not at the bottom. So I just say no. Okay, so now that we have our rect defined, what we want to do is we actually want to draw our rectangle to the screen. And we draw our rectangle like this. We are going to say stl.  This function is called render, draw, rect. And to draw our rectangle, we need to specify which render we want to draw to. And we are going to specify the render we defined in this program. And then we are going to give it the address of this rectangle. Okay, I should set the draw color up here to be white. Okay, so what we're going to do is we are going to actually compile this and see what we get. Okay, so now we have our rectangle, or is the outline of our rectangle here. And we still have our pixel here. Okay, that's good. So what we can do now is we can draw another rectangle the same size, but it's going to be maybe to the right of this one. So we are going to, we are going to define a new rectangle, we are going to call this stl, rect. And we're going to call this rect to a very creative name I know. I'm going to say rect2.width is equal to 100. rect2.height is going to be 100. And then we are going to, we're going to move our rectangle to the right and to the bottom of the original one. So we're going to say rect2.y is equal to 50. And then we're going to say rect2.x is equal to 50. Right, actually, I forgot to draw it.  So we're going to say stl, render, draw, rect, render.  Right, let's compile this again. Okay, so now we have our two rectangles. We have, well, I mean, these are squares, but it's going to call them rectangles. So basically, we have these two rectangles. And as you'll notice, they're overlapping each other. And one of the great things about stl is that in stl, you can do collision detection in the library itself. So it's not, it doesn't only do computer graphics also does collision detection for you. Well, it's a very basic collision detection. So the way that you can do collision detection in stl is by getting the intersection of two rectangles. I believe you can also do the intersection of a line and a rectangle. I believe there are several geometric intersection functions you can use. But for this video, I'm going to show you how to do, how to test the intersection of two rectangles. And the way you do an intersection of two rectangles is like this. So we are going to do stl, we're going to define a third rectangle, and this is going to be the intersection. We're going to define a rectangle called intersection, and we're not going to actually specify anything for this one. Then what we're going to do is we are going to run the function stl, stl, not an intersection. I think it's called intersect, rect. And then what we're going to do is we're going to pass in the address of the two rectangles for which we want to test the intersection of. So we're going to pass in rect, and then we're going to pass in the address of rect2. Now, this function is going to return stl true or stl false based on whether or not there's an intersection. But since we already know there is an intersection, we are just going to pass in the third argument, which is going to be our, which is going to be our intersection. We have to pass in the intersect, oops, we're going to just put it. Okay, so we're going to pass in the third argument, which is going to be intersection, which is our rectangle that we are going to store the intersect data in. So we're going to say intersection. And basically what this function is going to do is it's going to take the first two rectangles, it's going to test whether or not they're intersecting. Then it's going to, it's going to populate the third rectangle's data to be the intersection of the two rectangles. It's also going to return stl true or stl false based on whether or not these two rectangles are intersecting. So to show you how this works, we are going to do another draw function. Actually, let's just set the color to stl, set render draw, draw color. And I'm going to set it to red.   So we're going to say stl render fill rect. And again, pass in your render, this is your canvas onto which you're painting. And then we're going to pass in the address of our intersection. So we're going to say, and for section, write this, and then we're going to compile this. And let's see what we get. Okay, so as you can see, this is our rectangle, this is our second rectangle. And this is the intersection point between the two. Okay, so that's a very basic overview of rectangles. I do recommend you check out the wiki for this for this library is actually pretty interesting. It has a lot of stuff in it that a lot of people I've noticed don't really use when they teach it. So definitely look it up. It has a lot of interesting things. And I'll see you in the next video. I think in the next video, I'll teach you more about drawing functions. I'll see you then. Okay, so for this video, I thought I would just do something a little bit more interesting than just drawing things more in time. So let's draw like 100 things at the same time. And to do that, we're going to use the vector library. Or should I say the vector container, but whatever. Okay, so we are going to include the vector. And then what we're going to do is we're going to create a vector of 100 points. A point in SDL is just a struct with an x and a y position. We're going to create SDL point. And we're going to call it V. And what we're going to do is we're going to do four and I is equal to zero. I is less than 100. I plus plus. And what we're going to do here is we are going to place back a new random point. In place back, essentially, it's just adding something to a vector. And we're going to do modulus 640. And then I'm going to do random modulus for 80. And that should be fine. Okay, so now that we have that, we can now draw all of these 100 points to the screen at the same time using SDL render. And then we're going to say draw points. Make sure you include the point. There's a function called point. Don't confuse it with points. Okay, so the first argument is going to take is obviously a render. Second argument is going to take is the points. It's going to ask for an array of points. It's not going to ask for a vector of points. So because of that, you need to get the underlying array from the vector. You get the underlying array by doing v dot data. And then since arrays do not contain any other information about them, you need to pass in v dot size so that it knows how many points there are inside of this array. Okay, save that. Now let's compile this to compile this you are going to need to use C++ I believe C++ 11 or higher. So we're going to do std is equal to C++ 20. Link, link stl2. And then we're just going to say draw that cpp. That's the file I'm using. And then I'm going to output this as draw. And we're going to execute this. Okay, let's see. What did I include vector? Okay, let's do that again.  And those are just the random points that we generated in this for loop up here. So this isn't the only thing you can do. You can also draw lines. So for example, if you wanted to lines, they work pretty much the same way you can just do stl render, draw lines, and then just pass in a render v dot data that v dot size, right. Okay, so as you can see, now we have a whole bunch of lines, they are all connected. So if you don't want connected lines, you would have to use a different function for that. What else we can do is we can also do something similar with rectangles.  So for example, you can do something like std vector, stl, rect, and then we're going to say RV stands for rect vector. It's just a brace, so we can add a new line here.  With a vector, we are going to in place back the position first, then we're going to in place back. Well, okay, so basically, it's going to take rand modulus 640. So the first argument is going to be the position the xy, and then rand 480. Then we are just going to, we're going to make the size standard so they don't look too crazy. So we have a random position for this rect, and then we have the size 10. So it's going to be a whole bunch of size 10 rects. And what we can do here is we can say, we can say stl, render, draw, rects, render, not the RV data. And then we can say RV dot size, right, let's compile this again. Okay, so as you can see, we have a whole bunch of rects here.  If you want to, you can go crazy, and you can also include stl, render, fill, rects, data, RV dot size. Okay, let's compile that. And as you can see, your rects are filled down. So this is pretty much all of the basic drawing operations you can do in stl. There are a lot more that I didn't cover, but they're all pretty much the same thing as I showed here. You can go and look at the wiki page for the documentation. I strongly recommend looking at the wiki, because there are a lot of functions that are not really talked about in tutorials that are on the wiki that could be pretty useful. So for example, one of them was stl intersection. That is like one of the functions that I didn't see in any tutorial when I was like learning about stl. Again, highly recommend looking at the wiki. In the next session, I'll probably be playing around with the event system. And yeah, I'll see you then.


Well, good afternoon, everybody. My name is Jose Gonzalez. I'm just a little bit about myself before we dive into the presentation itself. So I am a graduate of this university. I graduated in 2002, and I think that was the last time I was in this room. So this is a little trippy because I spent a lot of time in here as a student. I was a theology with religious ed concentration major. So before Catechetics existed, I have worked some very good friends with a lot of the professors still here. After I left here, I graduated here, and I ended up in Wichita, Kansas, where I taught high school religion at a Catholic high school for 10 years. I actually did two five-year stints. I took two years off in the middle and moved to Denver, where I got my master's at the Augustin Institute, met my wife. And while I was in Denver, I was a part-time youth minister. I used the air quotes because in the church, there's no such thing as part-time anything, only part-time pay. And then additionally, I coordinated a summer catechetical program called TOTUS Tuis, which many of you might be familiar with all over the country. So I've done a little bit of everything. So then I moved back to Wichita. I taught for five more years. And then in 2014, I left teaching and went to work for a nonprofit called Sophia Institute for Teachers, where I run catechetical professional development workshops for Catholic school teachers all over the country. So I travel the country and I run workshops. I always say the Lord has a sense of humor because I loved teaching. I loved teaching high school. High school kids are, in my opinion, amazing. They're the biggest pain, but they're the biggest joy, too. They're just absolutely loved it. And I thought I would die in the classroom. But the Lord had other plans. And I say he has a sense of humor because the thing I hated the most about teaching was going to PD in services and workshops. And now I run them for a living. So the Lord just kind of laughs in those situations. So that's me professionally. I've been with Sophia now for nine years, which is sort of how I came to be here. And Dr. Amy Roberts has presented for me. It works with me. So all the workshops I do, we contract catechetical and theological scholars to present alongside me. And so Dr. Amy Roberts, Sister Johanna, James Pauley, Dr. Scott Solam, Dr. Ashley, who's in the theology department here, all present with me at least once a year and some multiple times a year. So in building those relationships back up, I was invited to come back and present at this conference here in the Catholic school track. Can I just get a show of hands? How many in the room are Catholic school teachers? Awesome. And how many are parish catechists are serving in the parish level? Okay, wonderful. Good mix. Hopefully this will be applicable to both sets. Personally, on a personal level, I always like to introduce my family. So this is my crew. I went from teaching high school where I was literally obsessed with, not obsessed, but I was so, I would lose sleep over the salvation of the souls of my students to now all that energy is transferred. Once you have kids, it's like, it just all goes in that direction. So my wife, Mary Beth, and I have been married for 13 years. We just celebrated 13 years a couple weeks ago. Our oldest up there, the tallest one is Sophia Rose. She is, she's 11 years old. And then she's sort of my drama queen. I knew I was in trouble when we were in a store and when she was seven years old, she pointed at something and said, Daddy, can I have that? And I said, no, sweetie, not today. And she goes, pling, that's the sound of my heart breaking into a million pieces. And I thought, seriously? Okay, I'm in big trouble when you're a teenager. Kiara is next and Kiara turns nine this Saturday.  So when she was three years old, we were watching the movie Bambi, right? And you all know Bambi, right? If you haven't seen it, I'm sorry, spoiler alert, the mom dies, right? But they show nothing.  Well, the gunshot goes off. Sophia, my drama queen, screams and jumps in my lap and Kiara goes, takes her pizza and goes, well, she's dead, takes a bite of it. So that kind of sums up the difference between these two girls to a T. The next one is Dominic, Carol with a K, Francisco. He got two middle names and it's a good thing because he is a boy, so naturally, like you need more names to yell when you're frustrated. And so the relief just ends.  Dominic, Carol, Francisco, Gonzalez, but also because we couldn't decide, he had to be Dominic because my wife was gonna be Dominican sister before we got married. So that was off the table. And then I wanted to incorporate John Paul II and Francisco of Fatima into the name and we couldn't agree so we just gave them all three. So that's him, he's total boy. And then the last one is Faustina, she's three, Faustina Violet. My wife's grandmother was Polish and had a huge devotion to Faustina and her name was Violet so we named her after her Faustina Violet.  I'll just say that. So anyway, that's my crew. All right, so I wanna begin a conversation about art. When I say art, I almost wanna lump it in and talk about beauty because I'm not just talking about paintings, I'm talking about the big picture of the beautiful. So to begin that conversation, I wanna just do briefly talk about the transcendentals. I'm assuming many of you are familiar with the transcendentals, but we'll do a quick rundown, okay? So the transcendentals, truth, beauty and goodness. This is really the root of what our education, our catechesis should be about, right? What our Catholic schools, what our parishes are trying to do in informing and educating our young people is to lead them to truth, beauty and goodness. These transcendentals are timeless, they're enduring, they're uniting, they are really the lens through which we should evaluate the things that we consume. Because again, we all live in the secular world and so not everything that we consume and look at is gonna necessarily be directly Catholic or directly Christian, but to think to ourselves is what I'm consuming here, is it true? Is it good? Or is it beautiful? Or is it all three, right? Because if not, why am I consuming it? And why are we even putting it in front of our kids and our students? Because that really is sort of the criteria. I always say anything that is true, good and beautiful is Catholic, whether the artist or the creator intended it to be or not, right? And so we can garner, we don't wanna throw out anything that's secular, but we wanna kinda have that as an evaluation piece. Is it true, is it good, is it beautiful? It's not something that is self-focused, these transcendentals are not focused on the self, they're focused on the transcendental, things that come from out there. We really need a Christian anthropology to understand what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful, which is why it's so hard in the secular world for people to discern these things because without a Christian anthropology and a basis for who we are and how we're made, it's hard to discern what is true, what is good and what is beautiful. And really, and we can get going a whole lot of different directions, but if we think about it, there's a trend, right? Right now, particularly in creating content for children, that the villains from when you and I were kids, are now good guys that are misunderstood or the heroes of the story, right? Take the movie Maleficent, for example, if anybody's seen that. Like, it is an attempt to make this really beautiful film, like visually, and then it twists and takes the most evil of all Disney villains and makes you misunderstood in the hero of the story, which might seem like, oh, whatever, but it's kind of this subversive mentality where we are even, it's getting harder for our kids and our children to recognize the beautiful, the good, and the true, because it's all sort of being distorted and played with, right? And what's most frightening about some of these films is they are visually appealing, they are visually beautiful, and then they insert a message that is not true, we're not good. The transcendentals really is what gives us this Catholic approach to education, right? Because we, the whole focus of Catholic education means to be an aiming at heaven, an aiming of creating saints, not just education for the sake of education. And I think we all fall into that. Most of us, I mean, I remember having arguments with teachers on my faculty, on the faculty that were not religion teachers about what the purpose of education was, and they would reply with, well, to make our students go be productive members of society, I'm like, no, it's to form disciples, it's to form saints, right? The whole college readiness thing is an added bonus, but it is not, it should not be the focus for us as Catholics. So let's go through each one briefly. So goodness, how would we define goodness? That which helps something be true to its purpose. So that which helps something to be true to its purpose. Kinds of goods, there's two kinds of goods, goods of pleasure, goods of utility, and honest goods, right? Goodness, we all desire it. We're all attracted to it. Even those things that are not good that we desire, we desire them because they're apparent goods. So when we desire them because we think in our minds that they're good, even though they may not be. We are naturally drawn to goodness, we naturally desire goodness, but to seek true goodness and to understand goodness that requires virtue and virtue, the cultivating of virtue is what points us to goodness, to points us to good things. It's almost another way of saying goodness, we can equate almost to with happiness, right? Every person desires and craves happiness. The fullness of goodness is of course what we find in the incarnation, right? That the incarnation in the fullness of time, God becomes man to redeem us, to save us. Goodness sat, which makes us more like Christ and moves us closer to our purpose, the attitude. The beatitudes in the Catechism is described as the key in the path to happiness, right? This is where our goodness lies. But again, oftentimes our students and even ourselves, what is it we are tempted by sin because the sin comes across as an apparent good, right? The devil's a genius because none of us would sin if it actually looked bad, right? Sin is made to look attractive, otherwise nobody would do it, right? So it's masked there. Truth, conforming of our mind to reality, we have the truth when what we believe and what is are the same. And right now, so it's interesting, I was having a conversation with a friend, right now the biggest struggle, I think for us as Christians is for a long time, there was an attack on us as Christians as is Christianity true? And people, well, is it true? Is it really true? That's the culture's attack. But I think in recent years, what we're starting to see is not only is Christianity true, is Christianity good? There's an attack on the goodness of Christianity. And so we are really left with a very difficult dilemma in our educational system and we are at a point in our culture where not only is the truth of Christianity being questioned, but now it's goodness is being attacked, right? And I thought there was a really, I only had that conversation a few months ago and when my friend brought this up, I thought that's really insightful. And so, but truth, truth first, that attack was actually a really smart attack to go at that attack first, because you have to make it not true, you have to make people, you have to discredit it first and then you can attack it more clearly. But this is the biggest thing, I mean, I don't know, it drives me crazy, you guys probably, if you've watched any kind of TV in the last 15 years, you've probably heard the term, speak your truth, right? What is your truth? No, there is not your truth, there is not my truth, there is the truth, right? And in Christianity, that truth is a person. We can know the truth through our reason, faith and reason or faith in science never contradict and both have the same goal, to understand the universe as it really is. If two things contradict, at least one as well. This is the biggest thing, a lot of what I've discovered in my time of teaching, this was very, the kids that were totally bought in and were super intellectual, would attack the church from the perspective, they would think science in the church just didn't mesh, but faith and reason, as John Paul II so brilliantly said, those two things are what lead the human mind to truth, that we need both, we need faith and reason to lead us to truth. So truth, goodness, truth, and then the last one which is gonna be the main focus today is beauty. The radiance of something well-ordered and true to its nature, integrity, proportion and clarity. Guys, beauty, I'm gonna say something that, I actually heard this for the first time and it blew my mind when I was in undergrad, sitting in Sister Johanna's class, she looked at us and she goes, beauty is not subjective, it is objective. And in that moment, I'd never heard that before, but it's true.  The whole beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We can say, there are things that this world calls ugly, which are in fact beautiful. And there are things that this world deems beautiful that are not, okay? Beauty is objective. It evokes wonder and delight. This is the language, right? I think this is why I'm most excited to talk about this topic is because this is the language that speaks universally. So my brother, who is a self-proclaimed atheist, still remember we're in Ireland, that we were in Ireland in 2016, my sister got married in Ireland. We are standing at the cliffs of Moher and I hear my brother under his breath go, wow, God, this is so beautiful. And I looked at him and I go, what did you just say?  It just, it evoked this wonder and delight, which points us to this universal truth. And then here's this, we often respond to beauty before we think about it. That's what my brother did right there. He responded to beauty. He pointed into something transcendental before he even realized it was pointing him to it. My wife and I just got back from an Alaskan cruise and let me tell you, like the pre-ration, like I just sat, we had a balcony on our thing and I just sat outside with like my jaw dropped the whole time. Look at that mountain, look at that glacier. Oh my gosh, oh look, there's a sea-op. Like it was just this constant stimulation of the beautiful, right? Without even thinking about it, I was evoked. But it's the same thing with cathedrals and churches and man-made beauty as well.  Like they were just, because why would you get rid of something that beautiful whether you, like they recognize the natural beauty. My mom who stopped practicing the faith, I'm the last remaining practicing Catholic in my family. My mom and my aunt who were just in Europe, they had to go see the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Spain, they just had to get there. It doesn't represent anything you believe in anymore or does it, and you just don't want to admit it because you're seeing something truly beautiful, right? Beauty is not just the arts, but math and science can also be beautiful when it's presented with elegance, simplicity, purity and truth, right? And this is one of my favorite quotes from Pope Benedict XVI. I have often affirmed my conviction that the true apology of the Christian faith, the most convincing demonstration of its truth, are the saints and the beauty that the faith has generated. Beauty and saints, I think that's the key to really opening people up to conversation and certain, particularly our students who might come in with a grudge. Put something beautiful in front of them and give them an opportunity to look at it and discuss it and you might see some walls come down. So this is just an interesting way to look at Catholic education. So goodness is affiliated with the faculty of the soul with the will and the theological virtue of love. Beauty, the faculty of the soul of the memory and the imagination and the theological virtue of hope and truth, which is affiliated with the intellect and the faith, right? So if we look at this Catholic, if we have a Catholic approach to education, we are teaching our students goodness by helping them form their wills and helping them to love. Beauty by helping them form their memory and their imagination and giving them, that gives them the virtue of hope and truth is the formation of the intellect which gives them the life of faith, right? So those things there. So in the school culture, right? Goodness, for example. You don't wanna form students just in anti-bullying which is sort of the secular trend. It's about forming them in the virtues of friendship. Beauty in the arts, like a Catholic school should have art, music, decor, the dress code, the liturgical year, all of those things evoke beauty. Again, I echo a lot of what I learned here. Sister Johanna used to tell us in class, she used to say, in your classrooms, your walls should be catechetical tools. What does that mean?  I mean, really, I'm pretty interesting. How dare they, right? Well, no, they're gonna wander. So let them be catechized while their eyes are wandering and being distracted. Let them be influenced by what they see. And I'm talking here, beauty. I am probably, I'm great at recognizing beauty. I don't create beauty, okay? I'm bad at all that stuff. I'll never forget the first year I taught with a classroom and I actually was married at that point, right? Prior to that, I'd been single. My wife comes in one day, I'd been sitting in the classroom in the summer, she comes in and she looks at the bulletin boards and she's like, oh no, no, no, no, no.  That looks so good. She's like, yeah, now that's appealing to the eye. So thankfully, I needed a feminine touch to fix that. So, but whether if you're bad at bulletin boards, find someone to help you. Find someone who's good, good, who can make your classroom beautiful. And then truth, intellect, faith, science. And this is where, as Catholic schools, we have to emphasize everyone is a religion teacher. Everyone, right? I still will never forget my first day as a first year teacher, our principal at the time. I was in there, she had all the first year teachers stick back for like a lunch meeting. I was the only new religion teacher, all the other ones were teaching other subjects.  However, the primary goal in this school is to form disciples and you're all religion teachers. And if you're not on board with that mission, there's the door. And I thought, I'm in the right place. Because that's really, unfortunately, some of you might have the situation where you are literally undoing what the science teacher did in class down the hall earlier that day, right? But it's this understanding that a Catholic school who is focused on truth is focusing every teacher is a religion teacher. All right, so let's get into art and then we're gonna start digging into some practical things and doing a couple activities. So again, at the beginning, I sort of said this, what do I mean when I say art, when I mean teaching with beauty? Use paintings, sculptures, icons. And I'm not just talking sacred. If you teach history, there's beautiful pieces that replicate moments in US history. There are beautiful pieces of art and sculptures that replicate pieces of literature, right? Beautiful photographs to use to emphasize a point in science class, right? So visual, so that's painting, sculptures, icons, photography, natural beauty, nature. I was actually just talking to a friend while we were, we went, before we got on our cruise in Alaska, we spent two days in Anchorage with a good friend of mine who I used to teach high school with in Wichita who now teaches in Alaska at a classical school. And she says one of the things that she does with her classes is she found a nature trail close enough to the school that she takes them on that nature trail three times during the year. Fall, dead of winter, and spring. And she has them like observe and write down things that catch their eye, that they find beautiful and that speak to them about God as they're on that trail. And she says it is so amazing that these kids see something different every time by doing the exact same trail in those three different times of year in Alaska, particularly the one that they did a winter, it's dark outside because it's dark all day, right? So just natural beauty being able to use that is important as well. Music and then literature and poetry, right? Anything that evokes beauty I think is important. Film, theater, and dance as well, okay? Now, okay, some practical considerations. I wanna, this I'm gonna start, these are more practical considerations when doing things with paintings. Don't just look at the image, look into the image. Don't just look at the image, look into the image. And this is something I would tell your students. And give them a moment. Don't just look at it, look into it. Give time for silent gazing and pondering before any discussion begins. Take out the image, project it. You can distribute copies, I'm gonna distribute copies of some of the images we're gonna use as well as have it projected up here to help. But give a moment of quiet to just, okay, everybody just look. We're gonna take 30 seconds to a minute and nobody's allowed to say anything or contribute, anything to discussion till we've taken 30 seconds to a minute to just look. Be okay with awkward silence and allow them time to get the discussion going. If they're not used to doing this, it might take a while to get it going. And that's okay. Just let them sit and stew in the awkwardness for a minute, particularly middle school, right? Middle school, we all know middle school kid discussions and even high school, you gotta let the awkward silence and eventually they will get there, right? Which is why when I say this, I'm giving you these tips is hopefully you're not just doing activities like this with art, one and done. But it's a regular thing you're gonna do in class. Be open to the Holy Spirit and allow the conversation to go in unexpected directions. So when I taught with art, when I teach with art still, I always have discussion questions to go with it. But I always tell people those are there as a guide. You're not using these questions like you do a worksheet and you're trying to get through them all and answer all of them and make sure you have something to say about all of them. No, you're gonna use them as a guide and if the Holy Spirit prompts you in a different direction or another question pops up that you wanna ask or say in conjunction with the art, let it go. Let the Holy Spirit take it where it's gonna go. Within reason, obviously sometimes you gotta rein it in. But have art music as one of your regular learning tools. Hopefully you'll come away with some ideas to do that. Okay, so if everybody could get, I don't, I might have close to enough, but if you all could get into just small groups of like three to four people, you can turn chairs and chat. I'm gonna start with, we're gonna start with just with this first image. I'm gonna come around and I'm gonna hand out a copy to each group. If I have more, I can give extra copies and there are questions on the back of this image again as a guide. So the gold, right, I wanna talk about that. What is she actually wearing? What's she have around herself? Emergency blanket, right? And what color are those typically? Silver. But in this depiction, it's gold. Why? What color is gold affiliated with? Royalty, right? So even though she's not very adorned, like you said, that's a really good point that you see she's very regal, she's very simple, but yet she has this very ordinary thing, the emergency blanket, which is typically, it's associated with people who are marginalized, with people who are struggling, with people who have been hurt and abused and it's gold, right? What's the learning goal here, right? The learning goal here is a reminder that we're all, our dignity is, we're all clothed in royalty because we're all sons and daughters of the King of Heaven. And it's a reminder that guess what? Also, those who are marginalized and suffering have the same exact dignity and our royalty just as you and I, right? So it's a pointing to that, that, yeah, any other thoughts with this one? What else do you see? Yes. So one of them is her eyes. Yes, yes, right, yes. That is a very unique element. The foot, which we're so used to seeing that foot crushing a serpent's head, but it's also here, this sign of strength, this sign of one foot in front of the other. I'm gonna keep going. And you look at her face. Again, I see so many artists, particularly the other place where it strikes me is the pieta, the other artists who do the pieta. The emotions that are captured with one look, like that face in that image, you see worry, you see anxiety, but you also see hope and you see strength and you see peace, like there's so much, like the artist I think does a brilliant job of capturing a whole ton of emotions that are present in her, right? So again, this is a great piece of art that you could use to talk about a theme of Catholic social teaching. Like this could be an intro into a lesson on immigration or it could just be a lesson on the blessed mother, have it be an image that's drawn in amongst all the others that we have of the blessed mother, right? What I love about this image too is you look at it and you're like, that's Mary, that's Mary. Like, we actually, we discovered this image when we started, we were doing workshops on helping schools kind of address the racist shoe after all the George Floyd stuff happened and I just think this image just beautifully kind of fits into those discussions and those conversations because you don't look at this and go, wait, that's a black lady. How can that be Mary? No, it's Mary, period, right? Like she, yeah, the humanity is there, the beauty is there, it's just a spectacular image. It's a newer image, but spectacular. Okay, the next thing I wanna do is you all, I just passed out while you were working on these two others' images. So we're gonna go one at a time. The first, I gave you two different depictions of the crucifixion. The first is this one and it is the crucifixion by Van Dyke. What is the first adjective word or phrase that comes to your mind when you see this image? You can go ahead and shout it out. First adjective word or phrase that comes to mind when you see this image, go ahead and, pain, agony, surrender. Okay, let's go to this one for a second. We're gonna come back here to both in a minute, but this is same event, completely different depiction. This is the Raphael, Raphael's crucifixion. What's the first adjective word or phrase that comes to mind when you see this one? Strength, what else? Glory, redemption, offering, okay, so here they are side by side. I want you to take a couple of minutes and in your small groups, I want you to come up with three differences and three similarities for each. Go, three differences, three similarities for each. Ding, ding, ding, you got to my learning goal. Like, yes, no. So now I wanna talk, really, art, this is also the other beauty of art, is particularly these two images, you can have all kinds of learning goals when it comes to art. And you can use pieces multiple times if they got a lot out of it once and you bring it in. There's a subjective nature to the discussion of art, particularly in like a religion classroom setting or in a non-art classroom setting, right? In an art classroom, you might study these pieces of art more for, well, here's the angle and this is the way this is drawn means and traditionally, and you'll get into the history and like the concept of art, which is great to do, but then to have it more in a subjective nature that allows students to draw truth from it without you kinda spoon feeding it, right? There's a, art is a great way to sort of get them to pull truth on their own and have these realizations. It's also okay if, like a piece evokes something in you that it doesn't invoke in somebody else, right? And there can be a subjective experience that's okay there. But yeah, so the human and the divine. So I actually use this when teaching about the sacrament of anointing of the sick and let me explain why. Anointing of the sick is a sacrament that very easily, it's sort of one of the sacraments you kinda get through that this is why we do it, here's the matter, the form, okay, so now what else? Anointing of the sick is a great opportunity to talk about redemptive suffering, right? And if we look at the human and divine natures here, right? The human side, the divine side. This is the human side of suffering. This is what, if anybody in this room has ever experienced intense suffering or have seen somebody in your life go through intense suffering, this is what it looks like. It's ugly, it's awful, it's horrible. But as Christians, what do we believe? What does Christ do to suffering? Christ redeems suffering. Christ takes that suffering and makes it redemptive. This image almost points more to the resurrect. Yes, it's a crucifixion depiction, but it points almost to the resurrection in some way. There's hope here in this image. And so in the anointing of the sick, Jesus may not come and heal you of this human suffering. It can, that can be an effect of it. But if you are not healed physically, it's Jesus' way of going, I'm here with you. I suffered too when I'm continuing to suffer alongside you and there will be an end to this on the other side. It may not end in your healing here, but it will end in your glory in heaven, right? That this is, it's appointing the human and the divine. Just to share a somewhat personal story briefly. So my father passed away in December of Alzheimer's. He had a very odd, a very rare form of it that attacked his speech and his motor skills, but not his memory. And so he knew what was going on and you could tell he looked like a prisoner, trapped in his own body. It was the most awful thing to watch. But in a weird way, I love how Jesus works. He, I think that it was his suffering. Like I saw a redemptive suffering. I saw his redemption at the end. I was blessed to see it, which is why I'm so at peace. My father left the faith. He was a very influential man in the faith for me. And then when I was like half, when I was halfway through college, I'm like in my early years of teaching, he left the faith. He decided he was atheist and kind of walked away, which was very jarring for me. But I kept praying and praying. Well, when he got to this stage in the disease, his mind is not at capacity. So Sunny Boy gets to give him the sacraments and I said, mom, can I have dad anointed? And she goes, I don't care. He wouldn't have wanted it, but whatever, if it makes you feel better. Like, well, we have no way of knowing whether he'd want it or not. So I had him anointed at Thanksgiving and my aunt, who was helping take care of my dad, had been wearing a necklace of the blessed mother. And she was sharing with me that she could, that my dad would, in the last couple of weeks, had been clutching, had been trying to clutch at her necklace of the blessed mother, like trying to grab at it. And that she would hear him say the Hail Mary in Spanish and she would finish it for him and then she could hear him mutter, amen. So then he's anointed. So then less than a week after Thanksgiving, we think he's, I thought he had a while still, like he'd just gotten into a hospital. So my mom calls me and she says, you gotta come back. He's going. So I came back and I thought, I had a friend say, well, have you gotten him the apostolic pardon? And I was like, no. That's a good idea.  Sure. So he comes and he anoints my dad, he gives him the apostolic pardon. I had never seen the apostolic pardon before, but part of the apostolic pardon requires a profession of faith as part of the formula. Well, he couldn't do it. So father said, why don't you stand in right here and I want you to reply back. So I did the profession of faith as part of the apostolic pardon and I literally gave my dad the gift that he gave to me at my baptism on his deathbed. He went home the next day, which was December 8th, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception after clutching at that blessed mother necklace. And that was also the name of his grade school in Peru because we're Peruvian originally, that was the name of his grade school and the name of Peru was Immaculate Conception and I thought, holy cow.  I don't want anything religious, nothing, nothing, nothing, no religious, no mass, nothing. And she's pushing for it so I'm in charge of the funeral stuff. And she's like, I want the first day available. I'm like, mom, it's Thursday. She's like, I want it on Saturday. I'm like, we're not gonna have a funeral on Saturday when he, she's like, no, I want it now. So I said, the soonest day is Monday. She said, okay, Monday. What was Monday? Our Lady Guadalupe. So I was like, all right, Mary's got the last laugh. So it's all, it all worked out. But anyway, okay, how much time we got? I might have to skip over some things. All right, I want to jump to, so I wanted to share a couple things that I was going to do so you kind of have ideas. I was going to do a little Lectio Divina with you guys, which I think this is a great way to incorporate the art. What I mean was have the Lectio Divina and this was gonna be on the blind man. On the healing of the blind man. And so the idea is do the Lectio Divina so that they visualize it first. Don't show them any art first. Have them go through and do the visualization that the step we're like, okay, imagine the scripture verse in your head. What do you see? What comes out? And after they've kind of shared from the scripture, then you bring out the piece of art. Okay, how does this image compare to what you pictured in your mind? How does the artist's version compare to what you pictured in your head? What did the artist see that you did it? What do you see that the artist doesn't? Okay, great exercise to kind of get him into the scripture, but also you're incorporating that art. I want to jump to, you all got two handouts and I'll explain the other one in a minute, but you got how great thou art. All right, we're gonna all sing acapella, okay. Might be sound terrible, but that's okay.  And if he doesn't like, if you don't like your voice, just give it right back to God. We're gonna start by singing this. We are just going to do, for the sake of time, the first two verses in the chorus, and then I'm gonna have you do a little bit of discussion and you can kind of like read through the lyrics briefly in that discussion point. Okay, so again, I'm like a teacher, I planned way too much, but we'll, but so then the idea here would be, and I know you may not get kids who would sing this, I get it, so maybe the other option is if they're not gonna sing, you find a YouTube version or you bring it and you listen to it with the lyrics in front of them and then have them discuss these questions, right? You look at it and what does the author of this hymn see God's greatness? What causes the author of this hymn to bow in humble adoration of God? What does the word wonder mean? What causes you to wonder? And if you look at this, the lyrics here, right? If you keep going, it talks about the pascal mystery. I mean, you can use a hymn like that, like this hymn in particular, you could use it to talk about creation. You could use it to talk about the pascal mystery. You could use it about talking about, simply about praise, like praising God, right? And obviously this is just one example of a hymn or a piece of music that you can do something with to pull out doctrine and incorporate into whatever you're doing. Listen to it, sing it, if you have kids that are willing, et cetera. So just sort of some additional ideas. We've done a couple of things with art today. So the first, we just focused on one image, right? That's a very simple way to kind of introduce it, focusing on one image. Then you've got to compare and contrast what we did, right? I think that's another great way to generate the conversation. Let's take two images, different depictions. You can do two images of totally different things that have similar themes and have them pull those similar themes out. So for example, sometimes I've done, when talking about the sacraments of healing, I'll do a comparison of the prodigal son by Rembrandt with that healing of the blind man that I showed you earlier. What similar themes can you draw from these? They're two totally different stories and depictions of what are similar themes. So the compare and contrast works well. Another thing that I have done and I absolutely love, this is a little trickier logistically, but if you can make it work in your building to print multiple images almost poster size, put them up and have them walk around like an art gallery, play reflective music or give them questions to discuss, get them getting groups. They can walk in groups and stop images and discuss and give them a good chunk of time to kind of roam. That's also great for getting those students that need some movement during the day. They're moving, but they're also kind of engaging. That's a great way to kind of incorporate art too. That one takes a little more planning, a little more logistics, but a great way to do it. Use it for prayer, especially if you don't have access to a chapel. I get images for the Rosary or the Stations of the Cross even to have those projected as you're praying, as you're praying those things. For music, again, we just did this saying to him or give him time to discuss the lyrics or reflect on it, play music quietly in the background and really do not be afraid of using secular music with caution, because again, anything that expresses truth-beating goodness is Catholic, whether the artist intends it to be or not, and so keep an eye out for those secular things that might be able to speak some truth into your students' lives with music. I gave you all the other handout. So this is kind of just a free lesson to take with you. If you're not familiar with us, so we have lots of free resources. I'm not here to sell you on anything that Sophie Institute for Teachers does, but I do wanna share with you, we have free resources on our website that I encourage you to check out. This comes from a series that we did for a little while. Unfortunately, we're not still doing it, called The Call of Beauty, and it has little art activities. So this is a great one that reflects on the Blessed Mother, and it has a music component, as well as an art component to it, and everything you need is in here and describes it. So this is just something to take with you, use it if you like. Any questions or comments or anything before we're up? Yes, sir. So yeah, so I think, yeah, I think obviously, if you're having like third, fourth and fifth grade, or multiple age groups, you just have to kind of be creative as far as what your learning goal is and what your image you're using. But I think there's ways. The beautiful thing about art and music is it's a very universal language, and it is the level of discussion might be different. What you might wanna do in that situation, especially if you're gonna like, you can break them up, try to like here, the third graders go over here and here's a set of questions. Use the same image for all of them, but maybe have a slightly different set of questions for each age group and based on their ability. And then when you share in the large group, those third graders will learn from some of the insights of the older kids and stuff like that. So that would be my advice. And yes, sir. I would say try for once to twice a week if you can. I would say in general, at least if you can, find a way to incorporate, when I say art, like some kind of beauty, once per like unit slash lesson if you can. That might be more difficult with some topics than others, but to find ways, I mean, I would also even like include with caution pop culture into this, right? So like if there's a video clip to a movie, they can speak to them. These are great ways to sort of, they're kind of the good hooks. They're the warmups to really, before you get into the like full content. And so any way you can do this, I think sometimes that hooks them and keeps their attention for the rest of the class if you start with something like this when you can. So yeah, I would say once to twice a week if possible, but yeah. Yeah, I'll go back and if anybody wants to, it's five, so I don't wanna keep anybody here that doesn't want to, but if you wanna stay back, I will go back to any slides and stick around for a moment. God bless you all. Thank you for coming. Have a wonderful and I'll be back here tomorrow in the morning doing biblical catechesis. So all right, thank you all. God bless.


Welcome folks, we have the Dow Industrial trading down $364 and Nasdaq is off $68, S&P is down $35, Gold. Gold contract flat $17.21 an ounce, we have Silver up $13 cents, $20.68 an ounce, Light Sweet Crude up $74, $88.50 a barrel, notes and bonds, a 10-year note, down $18.00, trading $111.30, 30-year bond, down $15.00, $126.10 an King dollar, King dollar is on the move once again going top side, King dollar is up $1,033.00, the Euro is trading at $97.00, the yen is at $145.00 and the British pound is at $111.00 to $1.00 USD. Now we get over and we take a look, this is going to be really intriguing out here today and the reason being is bearish, it's a bearish call, I'm going to do here folks, but what's really intriguing is the spy is actually weaker than the X100, so let's take a look at it. So we have what the spy is this, you're still going to have a failure in price and volume, bottom line, we go back to Tuesday, I mean Tuesday was the year, Tuesday had 103 million shares, you get over it yesterday when 88 gave it up, today is even going to less than 88, right now we're at 58 and you couldn't even make the high of yesterday in the spy, yet you're going to probably close under the 378, yeah I mean we're at 373 right now. So that's in the spy and the X100, the Q's, and you can see the Q's the best bottom line stronger than the spy out here today, that being said you've got a failure in price and volume. You know if we go back to Tuesday, Tuesday it did 66 million shares, yesterday we did 55, you're going to probably do 55 or something today, got over the highs, under them right now we're at 279.84 and this setup, so now we go back into putting them on the daily, this is really a dangerous setup coming into the jobs of a man because what you can see is that as you got higher, you gave it up on spades big time, so that's telling me we're going to go right after the lows once again. Gold, gold contract out here, bottom line, we got a sideways move out here today, 1714 was the low, 1721 that's what we're trading right now, so they rejected the lower price once again, really a sideways day though, and it's all about that good old dollar again. What you have with the dollar, that thing just keeps snapping back man, you know, this could be an ABC up man, you've got to remember 121 is the swing point, last high is 114 is 778, if this is an ABC up your price projection is about 117.500, stay right there folks come right back.


Welcome to church of the chair where you guys speak and I listen. I'm your host E and today we're talking about 20 Yes, 20 of my favorite books since you guys have been enjoying the discussion videos. I got another one for you I mentioned redoing my top 20 books of all time and several of you commented and said you wanted to see that so I'm gonna do this like an old-school discussion video cut into two parts and Why this is a discussion video is because I want your input on what your favorite books are I'm hoping that I get whole threads of just people listing their favorite books. That's what I want from you guys So let's go ahead and jump into this There will be no cuts in this video just me talking about 20 books that I love in no particular order Until we get to the top 10 in to sorry the top five in tomorrow's video So I'm doing 15 today 5 tomorrow and tomorrow's video will probably be much longer and more in-depth than this one But first look what I got for Father's Day You guys if you guys don't know if you guys can't tell I'm a huge fan of the nightmare before Christmas And my kids pitched in together to get me zero. He's a coin bank But also they figured out that if you take out the plug down here You can put a light in there and he lights up So once he's finally all lit up and everything I will have him back here. Let's see here I'm gonna put him over here for right now Any cool any cool anyways Yeah, I always show off the stuff that my family gets me and I wanted to share that with you Hopefully you find it as cool as I do but let's jump into the list a book that I've talked about numerous times over and over and over again and you're probably gonna recognize Most of the books on this list is the gargoyle by Andrew Davidson.  He doesn't even have the dingle the dangles, you know and he ends up falling in love with a sculptor and The stories that are in this book because it's it's kind of like an anthology Like an anthology movie Where it has four different stories and then the framing story of the love story between the sculptor and The injured burnt up man. He's burnt all over from head to toe and he's lost his you know Reproductive organs, but yeah fantastic weird odd Majestic magical it's absolutely fantastic next up. We have one that I have heard numerous times if you like this book Your your opinion doesn't matter or whatever whatever it may be but I read this book with my wife It took us nine months to read it and ever since then I Daily this is no exaggeration. No hyperbole daily I think of scenes from this book just little things in life will will remind me about this book and that is David Foster Wallace's infinite jest. It's an absolute behemoth of a book It is a very difficult read especially because David Foster Wallace Wrote it with the intention that he wanted you to be hands-on with the book He wanted you to to break the monotony of reading and flip back and forth to the end notes Some of the end notes are short story length to novella length There's all quite a bit of stuff and you can lose your place. It's it's intricate It's beautifully woven together and I've never read anything like it The next one is an absolute classic of horror literature And that is ghost story by Peter Straub my friend Jessica sent me this beautiful absolutely gorgeous first edition and It's even it's got the plastic and everything on it, but there's the price tag But yeah, she sent it to me as just a gift because whatever so Jessica if you ever see this I haven't talked to you in a really long time not since I left Twitter, but if you see this I love you. Thank you so much for this It is of course It's a ghost story but it's not your average ghost story and it goes to some pretty wild places the Story goes that's that's why Stephen King. This is the book that made Stephen King want to write with Peter Straub Because and I don't agree with this. He said he was amazed to find someone who wrote like him I don't think these two authors write anything like each other and it's hella obvious in the talisman and black house But uh, it's uh that I remember there's very specifically in this book the tar paper shack and the scenes With that and of course when this after the snow falls and everything then the town's cut off It's absolutely amazing visual sequences. The next one is one that I talked about recently also is Elinor by Jason girly I don't hear nearly enough people talk about this book. It is a A representation of depression and grief in literary format It has striking visuals gorgeous scenes Where and it's a story is about these I believe they're twins. I haven't read it in quite some time But these twins Either one or both of them die and the other one goes looking for one of them in in like limbo kind of deal Um, maybe one is still alive. I can't really remember but I I remember the striking images of like the dinosaurs and the meteors and the The pitch black abyss that one of the characters is in the mother's Grief is personified into a whole world. It's absolutely amazing. If you love Neil Gaiman, you definitely definitely need to check this one out Unfortunately, I went over to amazon. It looks like it's out of print But they do have some used copies available for relatively decent price, but I couldn't find anything New um, it doesn't seem like the publisher which is crown publishing pretty big publisher Um, I I couldn't find whether or not they were the book is still available on like bookstore shelves Uh, next up we have another one that I spoke of and the reason why all these are placed together is because I had them You know, of course in a stack from the other video I did the books that I love that you've probably never heard of I will link to that video at the end of this one But palisades park by alan bernard brennard, I always get that wrong. It's b. R. E brennard and this is a story about the real life palisades park. I believe it's a fictional Retelling of the family who owns it and everything that they go through I Cannot stress enough how beautiful and wonderful this book is it is a family saga and alan brennard has an affinity for hawaii And there's a lot of that here also. He's written other books like uh, molokai and Daughter of molokai son of molokai. There's like a whole series. He's also written other books in the speculative fiction uh, genre, but this one is Based wholly in the real world. There's no supernatural anything, but I am an absolute sucker for anything amusement park circus Uh carnival anything like that. You're gonna see several of them on this list I'm a sucker for those types of stories. So yeah palisades park Another thing before we continue on if you want to read buy any of these books and help out the channel There's an affiliate. There's affiliate links down there in the description that you can click on Run over there grab them. Also, there's an affiliate link for uh, it's not really an affiliate Maybe kind of is but a scribd link. Uh, if you click on that Numerous of these books are on Scribd, but if you click on that you get a free month. My kids get a free month. It works out Well for everybody next up is a recent read of mine that absolutely had to go on this list And that is black leopard red wolf by marlin james. This is hands down My favorite fantasy novel of all time. I've tried I have I have quit more fantasy books than I have actually finished And that's including robert jordan Uh, brandon sanderson joe amber crombie all that stuff. In fact going back through tokeens lord of the rings I didn't get past the opening chapters of the two towers before I quit it This is unlike anything i've ever read. Like I said, that's going to be a theme for this video and tomorrow's video This is a wholly unique experience unless you're really really up on your african lore Um, and I wasn't so everything in here was new to me and it was brilliantly written Brilliantly plotted. There are twists and turns action adventure love all everything that you could possibly want out of epic fantasy Is in that book Now we have one that is the most recent addition to this list I was going to keep his first novel on this list But I got to thinking about it. I was like no because The first ohio is the name of the book that was on this list I have changed that because this one is going to stick with me far longer than ohio Uh, because it it was so much more meaningful to me and that is the deluge by steven markley And no, I have no idea why the video artifacts like that when uh with blue colors I don't know it just happens. But yeah, this one is about, uh, a race to save the planet But not in a speculative fiction Fantasy sci-fi kind of way. It's all based in real science So if you are a fan of things like the martian by andy weir Definitely check this one out. It is a chunker. A lot of these books are on this list It is 880 pages, but I believe it is worth every single page Next up is a thriller. I do not read too many thrillers. I have a problem with figuring out the twists I have a problem with the suspense not really Not not really working for me Because most thrillers are very one note the cardboard characters or they use the same characters over and over and over and over again This series does that but I've never read anything like the original book or its sequels And that is you by caroline keppness Easily the best thriller i've ever read And one of my favorite literary characters of all time is joe goldberg I am currently reading the fourth book in the series for for you and only you I'm reading that to my wife and we are absolutely loving it every single book Something different happens. It's not all the same thing And in this in the fourth one, it's getting it's it's getting wild. We have 150 pages left. Sorry 130 pages left and I just I'm constantly surprised at how she keeps this series fresh Even authors like john connelly, which I absolutely love none of his books are on this list But even care, you know with his character charlie parker. It gets old sometimes It feels like the same old same old with this one There's always always something fresh coming down the pipeline. The next one is a book I almost Removed completely from my list But I went back and I read certain sections that made me fall in love with the book to begin with And I had to keep it on there. I have definitely fallen out of love and out of trust with this author I have disliked his past three books And that's that's worried me off because I have disliked as many as I've liked from him at this point And that is nos for a two or nose for a two. Yes. I know that's what it's down for Sorry, I got a comment. Someone goes. Did you know that it's pronounced? Yes. I I do know that But uh anyways by joe hill Is something special about christmas land man. There's something absolutely just just special about it and While there are numerous easter eggs for steven king's books I still feel like this is wholly a joe hill book The same cannot be said for uh the fireman for strange weather for full throttle All those feel What is it reductive it feels It feels like the the only reason they exist is to pay homage to his father And I really liked his first three books so much so that I'm drastically disappointed and I won't be buying any of his stuff Brand new anymore. I'm going to wait a while. But yeah, um, I don't even know if he's working on a new novel He's been busy with comics But yeah, this one's on the list if I had to rank it numbers number wise it would be all the way down number 20 It just happened to be here in the stat next one is I would say this is my favorite strictly horror novel of all time as far as a novel that is meant to horrify disgust cause dread to to Whatever you say that places horror In a horror novel in the horror genre This would be my favorite one and that is the ruins by scott smith One of my favorite tropes is bad things happening to bad people And this book has it in spades, man If you don't know it's about a group of 20 somethings I believe I don't think they're teenagers who end up in uh, what was it? Mayan temple or something like that they find out in the uh Out in the I believe it's mexico. I could be wrong But they find an old temple and they end up Being picked off one by one and they end up getting stuck on the top of the temple The movie is not all that great, but the the novel is absolutely fantastic. So if the only Experience you have with the ruins is that movie that was made. It's not a terrible movie It's not great either Definitely pick up the book because I watched the movie before I read the book not knowing I read the book not knowing that it was the book version You know that the uh, that adaptation was adapted from I read that not know I read it not knowing that even though I'd seen the movie I was okay. I was on the fence about the movie, but I absolutely fell in love with the book now the next one is blood meridian by cormac mccarthy We recently lost cormac mccarthy. He passed away at 89 years old And this book has been on this list since since since I read it. It's not going anywhere It would definitely be in my top 10. Uh, this is a truly horrifying brutal Even beautiful at times literary experience And if you have not read it because you hear that he doesn't use quotation marks Or he doesn't use punctuation someone and so forth I beg you to try this one at least give it a shot if it annoys you I I can't help that Everyone has their own personal preferences, but yeah, definitely give this one a shot. It is a masterpiece but This one is tied for my favorite mccarthy with child of god But I had to pick this one because this one I believe has just a little bit more Literary merit, especially with the judge character Next up we have I had to pick a hiruki mitakami this entire shelf over here this entire top shelf Is hiruki mitakami. I have limited editions. I have all of his what I call his rainbow Years or whatever all the reprints of his stuff with very colorful popping covers Um, I also have a couple alternate editions of them one of which that I'm going to show you now Um, but I was I was torn between one q84 and this book which is after dark I think I have read this one more than I will ever read one q84. I've already read this one six times I've read one q84 twice. I listened to the audiobooks book and then I read it also But this one is the one that made me fall in love with hiruki mitakami Everyone said if you want to start with him start here and that's what I tell everybody because this is definitely a gateway drug Um, I know you can say that about most of his books, but for me There's nothing else like this one one q84 is this is this this isn't gonna be right It's more of a portal fantasy kind of deal like you can feel that you're outside of the world In this or outside of the real world in this one It feels like you are in the real world, but weird stuff is happening um, and what I mean by that is there's a There's a camera that's a character in the book It's told from the the camera's point of view like the camera pulls back almost like in a script Um, but this one also has some of the best dialogue. I have read There's a scene where these two characters are just sitting in a diner talking back and forth And it's my favorite part of the book. There is some slight thriller elements But that's not why you read hiruki mitakami you read hiruki mitakami for his characters for his themes that kind of thing So yeah, I had to put after dark on there. All right, we got We got three more before we cut this off and then we tomorrow you will get my top five and those will actually be numbered Next up we have sing unburied sing by jasmine ward The vast majority of this work feels grounded in reality until you get to the end And the ending still haunts me to this day It is a it's not only gorgeous. It's not only beautifully written, but it is very upsetting at times and that's jasmine ward all over the place jasmine ward really Ames for your heartstrings and this is one of those books it won the national book award She's won twice. She won the national book award in 2011. I believe and the year this book came out um I there's another one that there's a scene in here Where somebody ends up getting sick like to their car sick to their stomach and I remember how Striking the visuals were in that scene and how Concerned I was for the characters and it's such a very very small scene in this book But those are the things that make me remember books It's the small scenes how they're how they're treated how they're delivered and this one absolutely nails the small stuff Next one is one that I tried to do a review on I lost the footage and then I ended up posting just the audio You guys didn't like that whatsoever. I got like 50 uh dislikes and that's fine Because I was upset also and I didn't have time to refilm it But that's amber gris gris gris gray whatever it might be I I know how it's supposed to be pronounced, but my my mouth don't work that way Anyway, so this one is Kind of cheating because it's a bind up of the city of saints and madmen finch and uh Let's see here. Hang on Uh, what's the other one? Oh, yeah shriek and afterward and finch City of saints and madmen is a mosaic novel finch No shriek is an novel length afterward that is written like the afterward of a book And finch is a noir detective story All of this happens in this fantasy world that is lush and glowing and absolutely horrifying I was surprised at how brutal and gory and horrifying This book was especially with how beautifully it was written. I've never read anything like it Take a drink every time I say I've never read anything like it. But yeah, not now you're drunk But anyways, this is this is one of those books. I had so much fun with it. Absolutely devoured it He writes relatively short books, um normally and these are only about 200 300 pages apiece But this chunker is 800 some odd pages So yeah, definitely if you can get this version of it get this version of it and I got the link down there in the description Finally finally We have one that almost made it into the top five I I debated a long time. I was like no no no the other ones are far more important and they are especially to me But it would be number six on this list.  Yes the pilo family circus by will elliott Never read anything like it take another drink. Uh, this is a story about a young man who goes into an alternate universe where, uh Feels like the entire alternate universe is a circus Uh, and I I don't want to tell you anymore. It's crazy. It's wacky wild surreal It's amazing I hear that the author had a nervous breakdown or a mental break after writing it And all of that stuff comes off in the pages I remember the way he describes grease paint and being absolutely in awe of his Word smithery or whatever you want to call it his prose is is wonderful Uh, but it's also hella fun and that's two things that I need in a book I need beautiful writing and I need to have fun But that's all the time I have for you today tomorrow come on back. We'll talk about my top five books Um, if you've read any of these books, let me know what you thought of them down there in the comment section But also like I said at the beginning of the video I want your picks for your favorite books Because I might come across something that I haven't even heard of before so definitely please You know throw all that stuff down there and until next time You're not editing you're not editing this is why I like editing because I even screw up my outros Until next time. I'll hail the chair


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What's going on everyone? Sam here with late in sports card, Drippin' 22, Panini Flawless, football hobby, 1 box break, number 6, random left side serial numbers. So look again at your random results. As always, you can find those on the website under the results tab, as well as the link in chat. It's good luck everybody. Let me organize these. Again, as always, if you didn't miss that, you can always find them over on the website before we get started. Number 7, coming up next, our last, or our second to last, 8 to go on number 7. 8 to go. Dante picking up a personal. Good luck guys. Let's do it. See something big out of this. 8 to go on the next break. It is left side serial numbers, as well as the second to last of the first batch of left side serial numbers breaks. Ease, dude. We're killing it right now. Bye, Bryson. Oh, Vaughn. We got a Vaughn card in here. That is going to be a Damian Pierce. Going to the 7 spot, 7 to 10. Matt T. Matt T. Congrats on that. 7 to 10. Damian Pierce. Nice one here. Going to the 12 spot. 12 to 15 is Lenny C. Congrats, Lenny. That's Roger Staubach. Player warns, Staubach. Oh, we got a Sean card right here too.  Going to the 2 spot. 2 of 3. Zach Thomas. Matthew B. Congrats, buddy. Zach Thomas. 2 of 3. Yeah, it's your guy.  He was just wrecked. He did just wrecked. Tiny dude. Going to the 5 spot. 5 of 8 is Randy White. No, 6. 6 of 8. Excuse me. Jason H. Congrats on that, buddy. 6 of 8. Nice one there. We've got going to the 10 spot. 10 of 20. That is going to be Jamison Williams. 10 of 20. Jaymo. Jamison Williams. Nice, Jaymo. Jaymo Draftkings. This is nasty. Going to the 7 spot. Matt T. Flawless performances. Adrian Peterson from 2021 Flawless. That's awesome. Adrian Peterson. 7 of 15. That's so cool, dude. I know. Bring back to Teddy Baruskis. Yeah, we need more linebackers with bulky pads. More latent vander ashes with the neck pads too. Going to the 12 spot. That is going to be Lenny C. Mark Brunel. 2 color to patch auto. Player warn, Mark Brunel. Congrats on that. Yeah, Thomas and the Zach Thomas and Jason Taylor combo and then the Lewis and Suggs combo. Nice one here. Going to the 1 spot. 1 of 20. Garrett Wilson. Congrats, Jason. Nice rookie diamond. Rookie diamond. Garrett Wilson. We've got nice one here. Going to the 1 spot again. It's going to be Joe Nameth. 3 colored patch player. Warn on that. Congrats again, Jason. Little Broadway Joe. Steve with some mosaic spots. Hunter with a spot in 7. We're down to 7. Thank you, Hunter. Acres to the Vikings for 26 draft picks swaps. Wow. And who's got them? Another huge card, dude. Going to the 10 spot. 10 of 10. Brock Purdy. Rookie auto, man, with the color match on the red. Congrats to Oren and the 10 spot. That is nasty. Congrats, buddy. Since we're getting a little closer, I'm not going to do a recap from here on out. Thank you guys again for getting this filled up. Again, this break is only 4 minutes, so it's pretty easy, which is good. Next up is number 7, guys.