Tongue Twisters
While entering doctors' information into a database I have created some tongue twisters in my head. You will notice an overall theme. They all involve languages spoken by one doctor in particular.
Say the following phrases to yourself as ridiculously quickly as possible. You might find that they have a pleasant ring to them:
Spanish Spinach- spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach spanish spinach
Urdu Underwear- urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear urdu underwear
Hindi Hyundai- hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai hindi hyundai
Terrible Arabic- terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic terrible arabic
Last Saturday's Ride
"How was it?"
It wound up being 76 miles.
I'm not going to lie...76 solitary miles are tough.
Almost 5 hours of myself, my mind, my bike and that's about it.
The relatively short section where I wasn't sharing the road with cars was mercifully broken up with some music, but it didn't last for very long.
Turns out I need people.
Why wasn't this an issue with running? Probably because I could have my tunes for the whole time, I suppose.
Friends of the blog--if you own a bike and haven't forgotten how to ride it, please consider getting up early on a Saturday soon and breaking up some of the monotony with me!
This Saturday's Ride...
I'll be biking this 74 miles on Saturday if anyone wants to ride along for some of the miles. Overholser and Hefner are pretty popular legs. But if you want something more challenging, the early hills in Yukon will make for a pretty good workout, [and a hellacious workout if the wind is up.:-)]
I'll be rolling out at 6 am and I'll have my phone with me if you want to synchronize.
Abondoned Ideas Volume 3
Back in the days when I was in the band Grandpa Griffith I had a fleeting glimpse of marketing genius.
Some background: When you self-finance an album, it actually costs about the same amount of money to make 1000 copies of your album as it does to make 500 copies. You wind up with boxes and boxes of CDs that, unless you're Kid Rock, will probably remain unsold, resting very safely in your closet for the rest of your life.
(If I ever move out of my house to another one at some point in the next two to sixty years, I will have to face a pretty big decision--namely, do I even bother to move all of these boxes of _Electric Scooter Holiday Blowout_ and _Jay_? Maybe I should place them on the curb for the garbagemen or leave them in the closet for the next homeowner or renter to discover, like a rare archaeological find...)
Back in the day, I thought a good way of selling the album, (besides the tried-and-true hard work of playing a lot of shows and developing an audience, etc.), would be to take a cue from the Girl Scouts and sell them like so many boxes of thin mints.
Stake a claim by a busy roadway, (I always had the corner of NW Expressway and Meridian in my head), make some signs and play an all-day marathon concert to draw drivers' attention.
Those CDs would sell like Straford Peaches! In my head, at least.
A Pretty Good Way to Start the Day...
And now I present to you the results from my latest blood draw with notes from the doctor and nurse...
My New Road Bike!
I recently (i.e. since the marathon in April) started training for my first bicycle century--100 mile ride. As of yesterday, here is the bike I'm going to do it on--a 2008 Giant OCR C3! I've put 82 miles on it in the last day and a half.
Upgrades over my
other bike (the flat bar road bike which I shall now use exclusively for the daily commute to work):
-5 lbs lighter
- clipless pedals
- a more aerodynamic riding position
Life is good!
Abondoned Ideas Volume 2
For all of the video-game-designing readers that might be out there, I offer the following concept free of charge.
The name of the game in my head is
Ted Nugent's Rock n' Roll Safari.
For those that don't know-- Ted Nugent, also known as "The Motor City Madman," was a rock n' roll guitarist and bandleader in the 70s and 80s. Ever heard the song "Cat Scratch Fever?" "Stranglehold?" Ever heard of the early 90s band Damn Yankees? That's him shredding on the guitar. Ted is also a vocal conservative political voice, a gun nut, avid hunter and sportsman. Pretty weird dude.
In my head, the game was a first person shoot em up type a la
Halo or
Wolfenstein 3D. (Remember that one? I played it obsessively in my early college days!) Endorsed by Ted Nugent, it would feature shooting up animals in a variety of environments: the African Plains, the swamps of the Southern United States, the Rocky Mountains, outer space? That's the "safari" part. The "rock n' roll" part was originally that it would just feature a sweet awesome soundtrack.
But now, since the invention of
Rock Band, I have rethought it. I think that the plastic guitars should be involved somehow. Maybe
equate the guitar playing to taking the lives of animals? Like, if you get so many notes correct in a row, the guitar shoots a zebra on the screen? I don't know.
That's about as far as I got before abandoning the idea.
A Month of Sundays Part VII
Yesterday was Sunday, which has meant a new church experience as of late.
Against my better judgment I went to a friend’s church. (Why “against my better judgment?” Well, what if at the end of the service all I could think to say is “Dude, that was weird!” I’m not looking to be in the business of offending people. Better to avoid the possibility, I thought.)
Anyway, from what I could tell it was non-denominational. An 11:00 start time is absolutely perverse, but I have dealt with that in other posts already. This was the second service of the day and was one of those “multiple campus”-type churches.
My friend Joe plays guitar. I really got more out of watching him do his thing during the music than anything else. There were about 25-30 people in attendance, which made the high-energy rock band and dual screens showing video of the musicians and singers feel a little superfluous. I felt like I was attending the “little mega-church that could.” Perhaps the earlier service was a bit larger.
Things I liked: I like walking up to a building and someone opening a door for me and saying hello. Bonus points when their skin is a different color than mine. That was one thing I noticed about this group of young-ish (ranging from 10- late 40s in age): they weren’t all pasty white like me.
The music was the sound of “contemporary praise and worship,” which means rock drums, electric bass, acoustic guitar and Joe doing his best impression of The Edge from U2. As I watched these people up front, leading worship, singing with eyes closed, hands lifted, dramatic and all-- I wanted
so badly to feel the same feelings…to tap into whatever it is that they apparently are tapped into. But even more than that, I wanted even more badly to believe that these people were truly in the moment like they seemed to be.
Is it really possible to be this excited?
Is it not just a conjurer’s trick? (I spent many years in a band. I know that the best way to invoke a response from people was usually to “fake” that emotion yourself. Move around to make people want to move around. Thrash about to make your audience want to thrash about.) Does praising God through music work the same way? Through the power of suggestion? “Act ecstatic or reverent to elicit the same response?” I hope not!
I don’t know if there is a reason behind it or not, but I noticed that the band played improvisationally behind announcements at a couple points, which proved to be an exercise in focus for me. My ear naturally gravitates toward musical sound. (This is why I sometimes fade in and out of conversations at restaurants or anywhere else there is "background music." If you have experienced this weird quirk of mine...now you know
why at least.)
Things got weird for me after the musical time. The sermon or message was delivered on the giant screens, a video I presume. As I listened to the middle-aged guy talk about change and the gospel, wondering where he actually was, I had an argument with myself inside my head:
“Mike, this is really weird. There’s this talking head up there, speaking authoritatively and every now and then he asks people to repeat. As if he can hear them. It’s like George Orwell. Institutionalized passivity. The Great Oz.”
“I know it seems weird, Mike, but this is how many, many people do ‘church’ now. Anyway, it’s really not all that different than listening to a live, in-person speaker. It’s not like you’re interacting with a pastor when they’re delivering a sermon anyway. For that you need to go to an African American church!”
After basically watching TV with these folks for what seemed too long, (I find that I get antsy more frequently with my new active lifestyle), it was time for the response, which seems to always come down to deciding to be a Christian of some sort.
After that were some amazingly well-produced, high-energy videos promoting upcoming events involving the other “campuses” throughout the city and we were dismissed to the sound of funky music from the band.
A Month of Sundays Part VI
On Sunday I visited another church.
This time it was different, though. The other times I went to churches I had never been to before. This time I decided to do a Thomas Wolfe-ian experiment and visited my first childhood church experience- the Lutheran church. Unable to go back to Savannah, Georgia and recreate my ABSOLUTE first church memory, (getting yelled at by a lady for running around and playing hide-and-seek in a darkened church sanctuary!) I visited the little Lutheran church that we went to for about three years off and on when my family first moved to Oklahoma back when I was in fifth grade.
Childhood is obviously a powerful time for people- all kinds of new experiences, neural connections being formed in the brain, new habits unrolling, a worldview shaping, etc. And the idea of God and church being thrown into the mix at this time? Pretty overwhelming when you look back!
And “look back” I did. Since I had insider knowledge I realized that some things don’t change much. The building and grounds are all largely the same- four walls, a steeple and a parking lot surrounded by a lot of land. Over the last twenty or so years this church never built on an additional wing, never added services or offered choices of worship styles to accommodate an influx of new people or made any of the changes typical of a “successful” church. They still recite the Divine Order of Worship, (I can still sing the tunes in my head), they still sing every verse on hymns and stand on the last one. They may have switched out more comfortable chairs for the wooden pews and gotten a new pastor, lost some of their folks to old age and the regular movements of life, and Lord knows I’ve changed since my junior high years, but Sunday felt like I had travelled back in time.
The strange thing was that there were still some older people left who remembered the thirteen year old version of me, which I didn’t expect.
“How are your mom and brother Todd?”
“Where is your mom now?”
“Are you living here?”
“You used to play the guitar…”
The best line I heard... when I said that I have a church family of Nazarenes here in town, a lady slyly said “They’re good…but we’re better!”
I really wonder how a church like that has survived through the generations. There were about 50 people present in that sanctuary (which seemed so much larger to my shy, childhood brain.) The average age was the oldest I’ve seen yet, probably in the mid to late sixties (probably due to the fact that the church is very close to a couple retirement communities), with a handful of children present.
Let me speak for a moment in crass commercial language. How does a church like this compete in what is unfortunately a marketplace? In the last few weeks I’ve seen what draws the young and hip- the excitement and energy. I’ve also seen the church situations where one can advance in social standing by immersing themselves into a larger pool of like-minded folks. This unassuming building, this small group of folks, can offer neither of those two things.
I looked around, wondering what has kept these people together through those changing tides and times? The couple young mothers with their noisy kids sharing the same air as octogenarian choir members...what has kept this thing alive? If I were indeed writing a book I would have interviewed some of these folks and gotten some of their stories.
So, what was the service like?
Lutheran worship is by the book. Literally. Everything is written out as if the congregation and pastor were speaking the lines of a play, (“the most boring play ever written,” if you asked some folks.)
A Diversion:“Thy and My”
One important note on theology and memory: There is a point in the liturgy where you are supposed to sing “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation.” Turns out I remembered the tune correctly over these years but the words slightly incorrectly “…the joy of MY salvation.” That’s a big difference, theologically-speaking, contained in less than a syllable: God’s salvation vs. My salvation. Hopefully God has not been offended over the years for my incorrect thoughts!There were some very strange feelings welling up in me. “This used to feel so normal, so routine.” No longer. I’ve already discussed my problems with reading things aloud, even if they have had been passed down over hundreds of years. And then there were the silences- waiting for people to walk from the back of the room to the front to read the day’s scriptures, waiting for the pastor to walk from the altar to the back to sing with the choir, and then back, the un-polished-ness of it-- the silences were brutal. I realized for better or worse, that I am used to a pretty well-oiled machine of continuity in church services.
I also realized how hard these people are working to make even this simple worship service happen. Go to a larger church with some “professionals” around and you can hide or blend in and go months or years without anyone asking anything from you. Not so in a church this size. (Within five minutes after the service I was recruited to play guitar!)
Again I am left with questions: why would someone engage in this activity on a Sunday morning? Is it a convenient, regular meeting place and time for your friends and support network? Is there something to the liturgy or the act of performing the liturgy? Is it just what they’ve always done? Is it the sermon? The hymns?
I shall continue to think on it…
"Admit That the Waters Around You Have Grown"
I was at the grocery store the other day and heard the absolute classic (and still very much relevant) Bob Dylan song “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” It was shocking to hear a work of prophetic importance and depth in that context: strolling through the pasta isle.
Why is that, I wonder?
Grocery store music probably sounds a lot like it did twenty or thirty years ago. In fact, most of the stuff that serves as background music at Crest and Buy for Less, (my two primary haunts) was released in the late 70s or 80s. Interspersed among that faire might be a Backstreet Boys or Celine Dion ballad that takes me back to junior high bus rides.
I’m sure there have been all kinds of research studies performed to determine the exact types of musical elements that make people want to purchase more stuff. Apparently unobtrusive pop music performed well in those tests, for I hear an awful lot of comforting, numbing sounds whenever I’m buying food. (Strangely, though, the music that makes you want to buy food apparently is not the same kind that makes you want to buy pants. To buy pants in a department store, you need actual muzak versions of hits without vocals.)
But then there was Bob Dylan!
I like living in a world where I can be surprised like that.
A Month of Sundays Part V
So, Sunday morning turned out to be an experience EXACTLY like what I was looking for when I set off on this little experiment of mine. I went to a Divine Liturgy service at a Christian Orthodox church and it was something totally different!
I’m not going to even fake like I know the ins and outs of Orthodoxy and their theology and history and branches and all that hoohaw. Those kinds of academic minutiae become less significant to me with every passing year anyway.
Here’s what I can tell you. Yesterday was pretty much the exact opposite of what I witnessed the week before at the mega-church. When I walked in the door I was overwhelmed by the art in the sanctuary. It was all over the place—iconography. I did enough research on the internet beforehand to know that you are not supposed to talk upon entering the church. I saw a guy silently shush! some whispering people in the atrium area as I was getting my bearings.
Looking into the sanctuary I saw priests in robes, I heard what sounded like cantilation coming from one corner of the sanctuary, (cantilation: you know how in movies that take place in the middle east, there is that “foreign” sounding singing going on? Or in movies where a kid has to sing for his bar mitzvah? Kinda sounds like that…) a platform and then behind it another room containing an altar in a “holiest-of-holies” kind of configuration where the priests and altar boys hung out. On the left was a choir.
I found a place to sit just in time to stand up and this thing was off and running and I was pretty much lost in space and time for the next hour and a half or so, never knowing when to sit or stand or cross myself. I just watched a family in front of me who really seemed to know what was going on. The dad sprang up out of his seat when the time came to stand and we got quite a workout through the duration of the service.
The liturgy was printed out and it was in English, but here’s the thing—it was sung! And these weren’t strophic “songs” (i.e. verse, chorus, etc.) where you could catch on with the repeats. This was more like chant. So, even if I did know where we were in the service, which wasn’t guaranteed, I had
no chance of participating, having not had the tunes ingrained in my head since childhood as I’m sure some people present had. (And even if I
had grown up with the tunes I
still would have struggled to participate since I somehow managed to sit in front of two of the most tone deaf women I’ve ever heard! It was like I had two devils sitting on my shoulders, each one determined to distract me from the beautiful sound of the choir leading the congregation!)
After the lengthy time of call and response type stuff, one of the official dudes in robes read an epistle, the Gospel text was sung (!) and then there was a short homily delivered by a guy looking like one of the Byzantine paintings come alive—lanky with a short beard…His message was about the unity of Christians—pretty abstract stuff about how all Christians are unified by the name of Christ, how it’s a symbol of God’s character and how to find God’s plan for your dating life (just kidding about that last part.)
Then, a really interesting thing happened at communion time. This is when I really lost track of what was going on. Basically all of the “official” guys in robes paraded from the altar with the bread and cup and banners and cross and went to the back of the room and then back to the altar, signifying (I hope) the love of God shed abroad to all the world.
In preparation for the communion, the choir was singing, priests were praying, there was incense slung, all these voices over one another. It’s funny to me that this was just as overwhelming to my senses as the loud drums and rock spectacle from the week before.
At this point I might as well talk about the music and other aesthetic matters. The music I heard in this service was probably many hundreds of years old and its models were probably close to a thousand years old. There were no instruments played, other than the human voice. I also noticed that there was no “us and them,” no musicians and an audience watching. It really felt more like one big choir, some people knowing the music better than others. The choir was more of a device to keep everybody in the same key. The melodies employed ancient modes (different from those used in the Catholic church) that bring to mind deserts of the Middle East and time. It is foreign to my musical experience and probably the experience of most Americans outside of the Orthodox community.
Which I found kind of cool.
This was not the sound of trying to make the Gospel hip or “relevant” through catchy pop music or emotional string pulling. People in some churches get up in arms about how out of date hymns are because they were written in the 1800s. Well, go back in time another, I don’t know, 400, 500 years? and place yourself in a non-Anglo Saxon culture. That’s the musical scene we’re talking about here. Its irrelevance to pop culture, and even to regular life was strangely attractive to me. To me it was the sound of people doing what they have done as a worship practice for centuries. That’s deep.
And then there were the paintings covering the entire, beautiful room. Icons of Bible stories and sad-eyed saints with circles behind their heads depicting halos and skinny, six-pack abs Jesus. Why do saints never smile? There was writing in both English and Greek? maybe Arabic? Visually, it was all quite beautiful to me, and I’m sure all of my head-tilting and golly-gee gawking at the ceiling and walls and stained glass made it clear I was a visitor.
Speaking of which, come communion time, I know enough to realize that when visiting a church it’s safest to assume that I am not invited to the Lord’s Supper. The guy to my left was invited and when he came back, he slipped me a piece of bread! Now, I don’t know how regular of a gesture that is in a church like this, but that small, silent act by a complete stranger was very meaningful to me. Here I was an outsider. Here he was- an insider, bringing me back a piece of the love of God as he knew it. I like that.
After all the rows had been served, there were a few announcements, just like at any church, and they moved to the ending bit, dismissed by rows to approach the altar, kiss a handheld cross and the priest’s hand and file out. Which I assumed was similar to how other churches shake hands with the pastor on the way out.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it! Mike Stutzman kisses the hand of no one, priestly garb or no! :-) I tried to summon the courage to do something so far out of my comfort zone, but failed. I watched each row file down there, hoping to see just one person merely pass by, or just kiss the cross, which would give me tacit permission to do likewise but wound up leaving into the hot, bright noon time sun, still curious about what I had just experienced.
A Month of Sundays Part IV
“Congratulations on your decision to commit your life to Christ! Here’s what’s next:
-Fill out this card
-Pick up your What’s Next Kit today”So, on Sunday I went directly into the belly of the beast (according to some friends) and attended a service, no an “experience,” at one of the local “.tv” versions of church.
I know. I know. I
know.
“Consumerism.” “Plastic.” “Fake.” “Watered down.” “Marketing.”
I’ve heard/read just about every bit of vitriol people have to spew against mega-churches. Luckily, since I’m not out looking for the “ideal church” and defending it, but rather out looking for new, unique experiences for myself I feel absolutely no need to join in the raging arguments.
So, with that in mind, some observations: Once again, crossing the threshold of an unfamiliar church, not knowing anyone is a little bit of a mental battle. But I walked in to a giant cavernous space which was merely the “coffee” and hawk-the-programs-and-services area. Even though I was a little early, the idea of mulling about in that area was unappealing to me so I went in and found a seat in what took the place of a “sanctuary,” feeling more like a concert hall.
As this was one of four services that day, I expected everything to run like German clockwork. Get ‘em in and out. And I was right.
After an introductory rock-out song, the place went dark and the “praise and worship” time started straight up at 10:00. I got the impression that this block of time is one of the big draws of this kind of church. Clearly lots of behind the scenes time, energy and money had to be poured in to the process of making this happen. It was loud. High energy. Lights. Smoke machine. Distorted guitar and big, busy drums. “Give it up for Jesus” was said more than once. And behind the words on the screens was some sort of digital milky white shape floating through space. So, pretty much a typical Sunday morning for yours truly! [The preceeding sentence is to be read with sarcasm.]
I listened to the music with a bit of jealousy: everyone on in-ear monitoring and live sound production on par with what you’d expect to hear at any kind of touring band’s concert—all kinds of digital delays on the voices and drum loops, etc. All very slick and polished. If anyone around me was singing along it was impossible to hear them. Musically, this was the sound of people who are paid to rehearse, not the sound of people who volunteer their time. Like I said, as a musician I was a tad jealous. That’s a pretty posh gig: being able to hear yourself on fancy equipment and play music that, let’s be honest here, doesn’t require much in the way of technique. But the really interesting thing I noticed, as I looked around at those assembled: mostly hip-looking 16-30 year olds, was that a lot of them looked just as bored and distracted as the 16-30 year olds I’m used to seeing. Amongst all the lights? The pounding subs? The smoke? Still bored? Of course, there were also the folks for whom this kind of music (or more importantly these words, I presume) really resonate. They were the “jump up and down and raise your hands”-type of folks.
So, high-energy, rock n’ roll show…check.
The only things left to do to call it church after that were deliver a message and invite people to become Christian or more Christian or Christian again or Godly or who knows what it is that people have in their heads at those invitation moments?
One other little observation-- as the official people spoke about the goings-on during the week and in the future, everything was “awesome.” As in “This concert/evangelical event is going to be ‘awesome.’” “That small group activity is ‘awesome.’”
If everything is awesome, NOTHING is truly awesome I thought to myself.
After the official videotaped “blessing” from the great Oz, we were off and running with the teaching moment. The message, delivered by a pretty young (I’m thinking late 20s to mid-30s) hip-looking guy, in jeans and designer T-shirt, was flawless as far as presentation technique is concerned. He didn’t use big, difficult words, used humor and examples from television and was an energetic speaker.
But as I listened to the topic “The Power of Prayer” I must confess I felt like I was being tricked a little bit. It seemed that in preparation, the message was put together with some general points: “Prayer is effective when it is X, Y, and Z” and then the supporting scriptures sought out. This type of teaching is one of the big criticisms I have heard of this and other mega-churches but I was more surprised by the underlying assumption of the message, namely that prayer is the method by which you get the things out of God that you need/ want for yourself: to conceive a child, a mate, etc.
True confession time. I don’t pray. Ever since I was a child I have had the assumption that if my creator is up there or out there or in here or wherever, then God knows what I need/want before I tell Him about it. And I don’t see much use in reminding myself of these needs and wants. I’ve been trying to focus on the overabundance of good in my life, not the lack of niggling things that would make it “perfect.” As I’ve always heard, “ ‘Better’ is the enemy of ‘good.” Of course, this leaves out the state of the world and others, which I’ll bet God knows about as well. But it surely wouldn’t be a bad thing if I were more mindful of the world outside of me and mine.
After the message was the requisite time of invitation to make a change and raise your hand with atmospheric, dreamy synth music playing in the background.
After that there’s nothing else left to do, apparently. We were dismissed and I checked my watch as I walked out the door. 11:00 EXACTLY.
Another realization I had during this time was that I’m afraid this project of mine is going to prove useless. What can you really know about a group of people by how they worship God for an hour or two on a Sunday morning? In that room were probably three hundred people. Three hundred stories, three hundred collections of successes and failures, cruelties and compassions. THOSE stories are the identity of the people of God for me. The rest-- musical choices, choir robes or lack thereof, preaching, prayers—those are just window dressing.
Right now I know this much. I’m not looking for an “awesome” hour of holy goose bumps or an hour of intelligent, Biblically-correct interpretations of reality or an hour to “recharge the batteries.” I’m starting to think that the things I want from a church are generally what EVERYONE (who isn’t a psychopath) wants from life, regardless of God talk: to love and to be loved. [Which, yes, I have largely known for the last 13 years…]
So, a big question I now ask myself is--"What place does a worship service have with respect to this perceived need?"
After church #3 it appears I’m still no further along than when I started!
I Love You, Beth Cooper by
Larry Doyle My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
As I was reading this humorous, sometimes clever take on high school life, I often thought: "why isn't this a movie?" especially as it bears a striking resemblance in form to the movie "Superbad." And then today I read that it is coming out as a motion picture in a couple months.
It's a fast read, a story of one incredible night in the life of a couple geek-ish senior boys and their unbelievable penetration of cool high school elite society.
Although the author unapologetically deals with cliche characters: the jock, cheerleader, nerd, etc. it is apparent which world was most familiar to Him when he suffered through those years.
A very funny, quick read.
View all my reviews.
A Working Class Hero is Something to Be
Nancy Gibbs has a great essay in this week's
Time magazine called "Do-It-Yourself Heroes" where she discusses three regular people who have been catapulted to hero status in the media as of late: Captain (Sully) Sullenberger, Captain Richard Phillips (the guy who offered himself up to pirates), and Susan Boyle, the English Youtube singer-lady.
Best passage:
"It's so much better to discover that Superman could be anyone; that everywhere you look,
there are hidden reserves of majesty and honor and genius and luck. [emphasis mine.] The stories wouldn't have worked if Susan Boyle had been a yuppie barrister or Phillips a SEAL himself. Their normality gives them wings."
Happy Friday, everyone!
A Month of Sundays Part III
The tour amongst the devout continued yesterday morning. Once again I marveled at how late church starts for a visiting person. (Granted, as of now, I have no plans to attempt Sunday School at these places, which would admittedly push the start times up an hour or so), but a relatively leisurely morning has been the best benefit of these experiments thus far. I went to the city’s most notoriously political, liberal Congregational United Church of Christ (whatever that means) service on Mother’s Day and it was quite an eye opener, intellectually-speaking.
Size: I’d say probably in the 300-400 range? [Caveat: I am horrible at judging numbers of people. My markers are my living room, which can contain about 8 people and Owen Stadium, which can hold 75,000. Any groups larger or smaller than that and I get overwhelmed by estimates.]
Service style: Kinda old-school—featuring hymns, a little bit of the “written out prayer” and “responsive reading,” sermon, end. The highlight for me was a focusing device which I had never heard of: the singing bowl. It’s basically a handheld, resonating bell that was struck with a mallet a few times and was VERY effective for yours truly to slow down his mind and adopt a less critical, analytical mindset and enter into a more trancelike, prayerful, reflective, reverent state. Listening to the oscillating overtones slowly devolve to silence was a beautiful, sparse moment for me. It turns out that I’m the kind of guy who craves silence. I could go on and on about how much our culture fears silence and blah blah blah. I won’t.
The People: this group of folks trended about 10-20 years older than the gathering at the last church I visited. Still, well-dressed and pasty white.
Unlike last time, I did have one exchange with another human. I present the drama in its entirety for you right now:
Me: "Is this seat saved?"
Guy about my age, with two kids: "Nah. No, of course not....saved it for you!"
Me: "Well, all right!" -THE END-
The Sermon: I don’t imagine anyone goes to this church’s services and leaves unaffected by the sermon in some way, based on anecdotes I have heard in the past. This is definitely a pastor who harps on social justice issues and is unafraid to talk of politics and government from the pulpit. While the idea of the people of God working for social justice is nothing new to me, this type of presentation, without talk of Jesus and salvation WAS new. Granted, this is a rather sweeping generalization to make upon just a single listen to a sermon.
Here’s what I was really thinking while the preacher talked about Mother’s Day’s origins as a radically anti-war American observance: “What if I were sitting in this very same pew listening to a preacher deliver an equally persuasive polemic from a conservative standpoint?” Well, I would have been ready to burn down the building of that bizarro church! “How dare they fire up the base by sullying religion’s name with crass politics!” I would have said to myself. But since I agreed with the thrust of what those old women were saying back in the 1800s when they were inventing Mother’s Day and what Mr. Preacher Man was reading from his script, ‘twasn’t that big of a deal.
I also found it kind of odd that such a “progressive” message (at least in Christian circles) was delivered in such a “traditional” feeling place- among wooden pews, a center aisle, choir in robes, organ and piano- amidst “traditional” music and amongst some grey-hairs. Context is so important.
But I left with one big question and one big lesson for myself.
Question: Do people ever listen to a sermon so as to disagree? Or do we like one preacher over another when they say what we already believe? Do we like having our ideas confirmed?
Lesson: On liturgy- I have finally figured out how to talk about my problem with responsive readings and reading prayers. I’m still fiercely independent. I loathe the idea of reading aloud someone else’s words as if they were my own. This is why I tend to not personally utter a script written out for me at least not until I’ve had a lot of time to review the words, think about them and decide if they are reflective of something I really do believe or even aspire to believe. For what good is served if I lie to both God and myself? And, on a purely aesthetic level, the sound of people monotonously reading aloud is absolutely chilling to me and not in a good way.
Yet another interesting day amongst strangers, but in the grand scheme, not strangers.
Whatcha' Listenin' To/ Watchin'? (Special Wagnerian Edition)
Let me tell you about one of the many cool things about the library. Imagine this scenario:
All through high school and college I hear about this humongous cycle of operas by Richard Wagner called
Der Ring Des Nibelungen. I am reminded of it when reading Alex Ross’s
The Rest is Noise (on loan from the library.) When checking to see if the library has recordings, or even better, videos of the operas I find out they don’t. I suggest the title, never thinking they would actually purchase them (we’re talking about one standard length opera and three super-sized operas, probably close to 15 hours of material in total!) Well, two weeks ago I was notified that they came in and were on reserve for me. Wow! When systems actually work like this I get excited.
Last night I finished watching the entire cycle, which has taken a little over a week to fit in the time. Let me start with some basics:
1) This kind of stuff is not for everyone. In fact it’s only even marginally for me! After all, this is OPERA we’re talking about! And I don’t even like opera. But I’ve always been curious about this Ring cycle for several reasons, as I’ll discuss.
2) The four operas tell a continuing story and were meant to be staged over four consecutive nights. The titles:
Das Rheingold,
Die Walkure,
Siegfried, and
Gotterdammerung. Have you ever heard the terms “epic” or “spectacle?” I can think of no better words to describe Wagner’s intent with this massive work of art. It’s the story of gods, goddesses, humans, dwarves, supernatural heroes, there’s a dragon…(Sound like another Ring-ish work, maybe?) Wagner had about 50-60 years’ head start on Tolkien, but I found some striking similarities between the two story lines. I have reason to believe they were drawing from the same well.
3) I watched all of this with a combination of: a)
awe at Wagner’s sheer artistic ambition- imagine it, imagine writing hours upon hours of musical score for a giant orchestra with scenes connected by instrumental sections, writing the libretto (lyrics), envisioning stage directions and practical matters like visually creating HEAVEN BURNING DOWN!- and b)
frustration- does it really take half an hour for two characters to say goodbye? On one hand, this continuous work of art is the absolute height of human creativity and ingenuity and labor. It’s THE example of a Romantic artist with something to say. On the other hand it’s an overweight, bloviating bore. One thing is for sure. This Wagner fellow would be out of place in our world. I wish I could bring him here in a phone booth time machine like Bill and Ted and introduce him to this Twitter thing that is all the rage.
4) The actual production (from the 80s) on the DVDs felt a little bit odd. One, the conductor was Pierre Boulez-- Mr. 20th century, anaesthetic, math-as-music guy. Probably has never had a Romantic impulse in his life. And he’s French--not the guy I immediately associate with German Romanticism on this loud of a scale. Two, the production design seemed to be a bit of a departure from the horned helmet and long pigtails that you normally see as the caricature of this music. I was a little distracted by the purposeful anachronisms—ancient looking, dark, foggy sets looking like a primordial Middle Earth and suits and ties for the men at points. Obviously this was the set- and costume designers’ attempt to present this story as timeless yet timely and relevant to today as well.
5) Unlike in other versions of musical theater there really isn’t any “acting” as we typically think of it. There are no spoken lines. Every bit of plot and emotion has to be expressed through singing and music. Due to the sheer size of the sets the “acting”, as it were, winds up looking a lot like it used to in the Greek theater where the characters wore giant masks to portray emotions over a large distance. While Wagnerian opera doesn’t have masks the performers are really insignificant in comparison to the giant landscape behind them.
Until you hear the voices. Good Lord, the voices! It’s another one of those dichotomies. The sheer lung capacity and power required to be heard over a large orchestra including drums, trumpets, horns and strings is quite impressive. It is almost “musical technique as athleticism.” It’s also piercing and not the kind of thing you’d like to relax to.
So, all in all, I’m glad I exposed myself to this monstrous work- this impressive, impractical, frustratingly slow, ambitious, sometimes glorious work of art that reminds us exactly what human beings are capable of.
A Month of Sundays Part II
So, it turns out that regular church-going people that maybe don’t play guitar or maybe don’t teach a class or maybe aren’t on staff at a church really have it easy. They roll out of bed at whatever time on a Sunday morning, maybe have some breakfast, probably read the paper and watch the news at a leisurely pace before they have to arrive.
Yesterday I went to church by myself, an anonymous stranger for the first time in my life. The first thing which struck me about yesterday was just how
late 10:30 in the morning is! No wonder people can fall into a pattern of shopping around for churches. When you are unconnected or have no responsibilities or both, church-going is easy! (Of course I realize that for the average family with kids a Sunday morning is anything but leisurely. You can’t make the start time late enough for those frazzled folks.)
I went to a medium-sized non-denominational church yesterday on the northern side of town. Just like at my home church the service started with music and the musicians started pretty much on time, but the majority of the congregation, casually-dressed and ranging in age from babies to early 50s, were straggling in about five or ten minutes later.
(Note: If I wanted to I could probably write an entirely different blog, separate from
Sic Semper Tyrannis purely about church music and my experiences with it, aesthetics, etc.) Therefore I will limit my musical remarks to two things I know for certain:
1) I do not get excited about “Christian” music, by which I mean BOTH “praise & worship music” and traditional hymns with the organ, choir, orchestra and the whole nine yards. It’s just not the kind of music I listen to at home, at the gym, in the car, or anywhere outside the walls of a church, (other than when someone specifically asks me to learn a song as an accompanist.)
2) I do not expect a church’s musical selections to be consistent with my aesthetic preferences. If I did, I would be a miserable, miserable person. For the church that sings Radiohead, Red House Painters, Frank Zappa and Steve Reich or plays John Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” (all artists or compositions that I would say have struck me on a very “spiritual” level, if I even knew what that means)
most likely doesn’t exist.
Having said that, the music was pleasant enough- a couple acoustic guitars and vocals and rock band rhythm section, nothing too loud, distorted, or fast. I enjoyed watching people react to this music, everything from stone still statue, (a page out of my book!) to the requisite lifting of hands, closing your eyes, etc. I also thought it was sweet to see a couple little girls dancing at the front, as if they were having fun. Fun? Anyway, I get the feeling I will always feel like a foreigner during the musical part of a church service.
After the music there were a couple baptisms of kids. Of course with as many churches as there are in the world, that’s probably how many ways you will hear people talk about baptism. One thing I thought was interesting was how the baptisms were performed not by the pastor, but by either a parent or someone influential in their lives, (a small group leader, etc.) Scandalous! Thus, the talking during the baptisms was very off-the-cuff and unpolished.
Then came the pastor’s sermon, pretty basic stuff about how we need God and that we need to realize that fact.
And of course, it’s not church if the congregation isn’t invited to respond to the message. I was intrigued by how “low-pressure” the invitation to “come forward” was. For some reason, I guess to avoid coming across as some kind of salesman, the pastor seemed almost apologetic that they follow the sermon with soft music and a prayer time.
And then church was over. Really not unlike hundreds of other services I’ve been to in the grand scheme of things.
While I had some trepidation walking into a church by myself, (as I would have in walking into
any social situation by myself), I will say that I was very comfortable in this place as an observer. I spoke to no one. Nor was I spoken to. That’s an easy morning. I know at my home church, they try to make that an impossibility-to be completely anonymous as a visitor. However, it didn’t bother me one bit this first time out. “Other people” are a blessing and a curse in my worldview anyway! But I would think that too many weeks of that on end would start to feel a little hopeless, however.
But this talk of social interactions leads me to think about why someone decides to go to a church service in the first place. I know why
I have gone all of these years: to see my friends at this easy, predictable meeting place and time... to play music...to be of service...and (when I’m of the mindset) to hear about God and his people. But why would someone else go to church?
I’ll let you know when I figure it out…
OKC Memorial Marathon Report: It's No Walk in the Park
(I apologize for the length of this post. I just finished doing the most difficult thing I've ever tried in my 32 years, so you're going to have to read every damn word I have to say about it!) :-P
Hey, so I ran a marathon the other day.
Wait a minute,
I ran a marathon?
I ran a marathon.
Here’s how I know I did it. The tops of my legs are absolutely screaming in pain! Even after spending half of Sunday and all of Monday laid up on the couch I am still really sore... Walking like a duck or Frankenstein and trying to find routes into buildings that don’t involve curbs or stairs.
Common questions from people at this point:
How far is a marathon, anyway? A true marathon is a fixed distance: 26.2 miles.
How long does that take? Well, it took me 6 hours and 4 minutes. Some people can do it in far less time, like in the two hours and minutes range for world class marathon athletes. Friend of the blog
Charlie had a really disappointing day and finished it in under 4 hours. By “disappointing” I mean, “awesome” by most normal people’s measurements! Some people take even more time than I did, looking at 7 or 8 hours. But that’s just the thing. This is a very personal undertaking for most people that do it, really only racing with yourself.
Anyway, I finished about a half hour faster than I expected. Since I normally have been doing a half marathon in about three hours, this means my pace was fairly steady through the whole course, something I really didn’t expect. I started with the early start slowpokes at 4:30 Sunday morning. Yeah, that’s early, but actually I’m used to my long distance runs starting well before 6:00. My body is better at this stuff earlier rather than later in the day.
Eating? Carb-loading. I think regular people love this idea for some reason. And yes, I had pasta the night before, a great homemade baked crab-spinach bow-tie pasta. And I was instructed by the staff nutritionist here at the hospital (who happens to be a marathon runner) that the whole week should include some carbs. “Yes, ma’am.” I said.
I had been training with
GU over the last month or so. Basically they are 100 calorie shots of jelly to give your body energy. I went through five of those little buggers, one every 5 miles.
So, now that the basic info is out of the way, how about some more grand, “reflective” type thoughts:
1) Since we were running in the dark on city streets for a couple hours, early starters were warned to not use headphones with the threat of being disqualified (and their results not posted.) Big problem for me. I gotsta have my tunes! I have many times said that “without my ipod I couldn’t go five minutes.” Well, that all changed on Sunday. I wanted to see how far I could go without music as a distraction for my mind and to hopefully last until daylight when it wouldn’t be a safety issue. Well, it turns out I can go 13 miles without music! And as I saw each water station coming up I would cut the music so I could hear the crowds and cheering. (Best waterstop: 20 miles. A huge, loud group of folks that made you feel like a superstar.) Speaking of 20 miles, it’s often said to be “the wall” for marathoners of all skill levels. And I felt something happen in my left shoe exactly at that point, (later turned out to be an awfully large blister on my heel popping, as evidenced by a bloody sock. Gross!) But I didn’t really hit a wall at 20. In fact, at that point I was re-motivated, as I knew I only had 6.2 miles to go, a distance I do every day. Much more critical for me were miles 18 and 19, since I had never done over an 18 mile run.
2) Some key moments along the way: Miles 9-12 were wonderful for me. I had separated myself from the walkers and the faster runners had long since disappeared from my view. It was quiet. Peaceful. The sun finally coming up. Running through neighborhood streets after the Chesapeake water stop. “This wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a morning,” I thought to myself, glad to have some time to myself without having to think about other runners. Probably one of my favorite stretches.
Another key moment was around mile 14 or 15 at Lake Hefner when the leader from the 6:30 start came zooming by. I don’t know if he wound up winning but it is impressive to see a finely-tuned running machine like that working at full capacity.
Then of course, there is the finish line. Seeing it up ahead with both sides of Broadway jam-packed with people, Debbi McCullock yelling at me from the right side, it was all a welcoming sight. I turned off the ipod for the last mile and picked up the pace the last minute or so, just to truly experience the moment.
3) A moment of self-realization--I expected to be overwhelmed with emotions and flashes of life for me over the last couple years of struggle and all that after about mile 22 or so, this being the capstone of an amazing journey for me and all. Well, the movie version of a marathon never happened. I realized I am a task-oriented guy. Mow through. Get done what needs to get done with focus. There is time for crying and emotion later.
4) Nobody has been rude enough to ask me this, but I’ve been asking myself for about the last three or four months, when I began preparing in earnest for this by adding a long distance day to my weekly schedule…”why?” Why have I forced myself into this vision? Why have I required brutal things from myself, from my body for months on end? Why not just sleep in? Well, I can’t say I know exactly why, except to the last question: “why not just sleep in?” I’ve
done life “sleeping in.” I’ve
done life lazy. I’ve
done life fat because of those choices. I lived life many years as a totally different, miserable person who had given up. I am determined to distance myself from that former person, as far as the earth is from the sun.
So, with this one under my belt, this thing which many people never do in their lifetime, will I do another one?
While I’m certainly not ready for another one anytime soon, (I’m going to fall in love with my bike again for the summer), I will say that I definitely like the residual effects of training—keeping my weight down, feeling strong, waking up with purpose, confidence.
I should probably always “be in training for a marathon!”
A Short Story
Here it is.
It's called "Percival". Hope you like it!
Download
here.
(Thanks go to
Scott Allen for the encouragement and mind-melds over the last few months.)
A Month of Sundays
I am a church-going, God-fearing guy. I am also walking around, looking at life through different eyes these days.
Here’s the deal. I have gone to the same church for something like 13-14 years now. In that time I have missed maybe a couple handfuls of Sunday mornings.
Obviously this means:
1) I enjoy this group of people, the things they talk about, the things they do and aspire to be.
2) I feel like they took me in as a friend during my darkest days.
(Both of the above are blessings that I dared not hope for.)
At the same time I feel like I have been living the same Sunday over and over and over and over and over: get up early for musical practice and play guitar.
I have decided to “shake up my life” a little bit for awhile by taking a sabbatical from church life as I know it.
I have decided to use this time off to also see how other people live their Sundays. Visit other churches. Perhaps go to the mall, a park, sleep-in. All options are available and I don’t even know how long I’m going to be gone. (Full disclosure: Yes, I’m also on the lookout for the future Mrs. Stutzman. Maybe she’s not in the place I’ve been looking for 1/7 of every week! :-))
If you have a church or other house of worship that you would like me to check out for you, please let me know. Think of it as Research into the family of God!
The sabbatical started yesterday morning as I slept in for the first Sunday in years. Yesterday was a beautiful, relaxed day of no responsibility short of meeting friends for talking about life.
Friendship Business Saturday Night TIME CORRECTED (7 PM)
Public Service Announcement:
I will be playing electric and acoustic guitar with a band called The Friendship Business this Saturday night at a great little hole-in-the-wall coffee house called Starbucks. It's on NW Expressway and MacArthur. I imagine the music will start at 7-ish.
End transmission.
The Gauntlet
A bit of a change in plans is in the works as of today.
Rather than do the half marathon in two weeks for the Memorial I will be doing the full marathon! I was planning on my first marathon being the Andy Payne in May, but realized while looking at the info online that the OKC Memorial Marathon is much more friendly to a beginner, (and a slow beginner at that!)
Reasons: 1) I can take an early start, 2) Last year’s results had plenty of people much slower than my pace, 3) The course is WAAAAY more interesting than laps around Lake Overholser.
Training-wise I feel a little bit at a midpoint: very much over-prepared, distance-wise, for the half and perhaps a little under-prepared for the full. My long-run to date is 18 miles. Another 8.2 miles sounds like an awful lot, and it is. But it doesn’t feel like an awful lot in my legs. (Especially considering the brutal weekend I did a couple weeks ago of 33 miles on the bike one day and a 17.5 mile run the next day.)
If you’re free on the morning of Sunday April 26th I would love to see you at the finish line or somewhere close to end, when I will really need to know that someone cares. If all goes well I should be crossing the finish around 11 am or so!
For more info on the Memorial events, go
here
The Red Bud Classic
Wind.
Ancient people called it “pneuma,” and equated it to this amorphous thing called “spirit.” What spirit does the wind really contain?
Well, over the last couple days of biking and jogging long distances, the wind has been whispering, no, it has been
screaming “You Will Fail.” Biking into a head wind uphill is a peculiar exercise in futility that is simultaneously humorous and makes you want to cry. Ironically, a 40 mph gust of spirit-wind can pretty quickly kill your own spirit and suck away your initiative.
I did the red Bud 33 mile bike event on Saturday morning; my first time to do that long of a biking distance and I am happy to report that the wind did not get the better of me! Thankfully the bulk of the course is East-West and the wind on Saturday was coming from due south. I discovered that there is a big difference between an event like that and biking around Lake Hefner-—namely, other riders and HILLS. You have to be very intentional in gear selection on a longer course for the terrain includes inclines of all shapes and sizes. You never really notice incline here in Oklahoma when you are driving these roads in your car.
Fellow beginner Brandon and I felt like aliens in a spandex-clad world of “serious” cyclists. (Best moment for me—slowly pedaling my way up the largest, windy-est hill past people in spandex walking their bikes. I REFUSED to get off the bike. Also a great moment: well-earned pancakes at the finish line!)
To make this weekend absolutely brutal, I went ahead with marathon training plans the next day and continued with my longest run to date into the same spirit-killing wind!
Today shall be calm and restful. I think I earned it.
All Men are Great in Their Dreams...
…except for me.
Last night I experienced a variation on a recurring dream. I am often visited by this nocturnal vision where I am backstage at a theater, waiting in the wings and preparing to go on and deliver my lines in a play.
Only problem: I have no idea what the play is!
I run around fiendishly backstage, (all the while trying not to attract attention from the stage manager and other actors), searching for a script so as to figure out who I am, who all these other people are, and what my lines are and to try to hastily commit them to memory so as not to embarrass myself in front of an audience.
I’m pretty sure this terrifying dream is about measuring up to expectations-my own, others’- and the fear of failure, the fear of “being found wanting.”
In last night’s variation, it wasn’t just a play. It was a
musical!
My subconscious has now gone one demented step further. I now have to sing a song I’ve never heard in a musical I’ve never seen.
Abandoned Ideas...Volume 1
Over the last, I don't know, 20 years? I have had the pleasure of being best friends with a true "Ideas Man," a visionary in the truest sense of the word. A guy who tosses out energy of pure inspirations like lightning, unbounded by restraints of practicality. Jeff Logan is a concept-generating machine.
I am not an Ideas Man. I am an implementation type of guy. I am bound to the earth by thoughts like: "How could I/we actually pull that off?" or "How much money/time/effort would that require?"
But, I once had a vision for a retro-looking, black and white television show called "Leave It to Devo," starring the guys from the 80s band.
Never really got much further than the name, however.
Whatcha Listenin' To?
Wow. So much stuff. I might as well just get to it.
Midnight Drive Tommy Emmanuel
You know how people sometimes say that listening to music “takes them away” to a special place? We have this way of associating certain sounds with memories and locations? Well, when I heard the music on this album I was instantly transported in my mind…to trying on dress shirts in a Dillard’s dressing room. Emmanuel has a reputation for being a finger-picking guitarist supreme- a “God With Us” of the six string. While I don’t doubt his technical skill, this was some of the most hideous “jazz” I’ve heard in many years. Whether or not you want to argue its genre classification, this is the music for soulless people who want soulless sounds to ignore. Perhaps he recorded this stuff for a big royalty payoff with Muzak. I don’t know. But it made me sick to my stomach from the initial sounds of overly polished keyboards and lack of anything remotely resembling human emotion.
I will pursue other albums by this guy, however, in the hopes that this one is just an anomaly.
Forever Changes Love
This is one of those albums from the 60s that is regarded as a cult classic. I was hoping for a monumental surprise like The Zombies’
Odeyssey and Oracle, but apart from the opening track “Alone Again Or” (and its inclusion in the film “Bottle Rocket,” I believe, or one of the Wes Anderson movies anyway) this music didn’t really register.
After reading up a little bit, it turns out that so much of this album’s charm is wrapped up in context, (isn’t it always thus?) as it was a departure for the band sonically and a harbinger for the end of Flower Power. I would propose that the end of the magical 60s is more interestingly displayed in the music of Hendrix, the Who and Zappa. Acoustic-ey soft rock does not depict an end to hippie-dom.
Violence of sound does.
The Sea Hawk and Other Film Scores of Erich Korngold London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andre Previn
I heard a performance of Korngold’s Violin Concerto at a Philharmonic concert about a month ago and was blown away. You know how when you’re watching old black and white movies and they start with a brass fanfare and Romantic-sounding violins in unison playing a soaring melody over titles written in fancy script? Well, this is THAT kind of music, really interesting when decoupled from the pictures. The more lyrical moments were absolutely perfect for our little dalliance with Spring that we had a couple weeks ago. Windows down, sunroof open. Life is good…
The Essential Emerson, Lake and Palmer Emerson, Lake and Palmer
I first heard most of the lesser-known works in this collection as a music major in college. ELP are at the top of the list of bands associated with the movement known as “Progressive Rock.” Keith Emerson might as well have been a mad scientist for all of the crazy innovations he helped bring about in the world of synthesizer technology, (along with actual, real mad scientist Bob Moog.) and Greg Lake’s voice and bass playing can also be heard on the early King Crimson albums.
ELP often wore their classical influences on their sleeves. See for instance direct “rocked up” arrangements of Copland’s “Hoe-down” and “Fanfare for the Common Man” and my favorite, their adaptation of Janacek’s “Sinfonietta.” This is the perfect music for nerdy music majors who still like their rock n’ roll a little too much and reminded me of a strange time in my life.
In my mind there are no better musical moments than when Emerson’s synth comes forward for a solo in “Lucky Man” and “In the Beginning.”
Gold B.B. King
The legendary relationship of King to his guitar “Lucille” has been written about ad nauseum. I am interested in one thing about the man’s playing: its simplicity. If you were to somehow extract just his lead lines from these recordings it would probably not sound very impressive- single note lines, mostly pentatonic. But somehow, it just sounds like “him.” I realized the strange difficulty of this when learning (just the bass line) of the tune “Why I Sing the Blues.” This is music of feel, not impressiveness.” A distinction I will probably have to make for the rest of my life.
One Kind Favor B.B. King
The song “See That My Grave is Kept Clean” was recommended by blog-stalker Willie for its “voodoo” and I definitely hear it. I love a song that has a groove that’s not instantly recognizable. It takes a couple bars from the beginning of the song to figure out what the drums are doing- when what used to be chaos begins to take form.
Continuum John Mayer
I continue on in my respect of this guy. While I prefer the version of “Gravity” with the horns off the Live in LA album, there are some very strong hooks and fabulous guitar playing on this album.
Back East Joshua Redman
Given to me as a gift, this music was a surprise. Redman is much more of a traditionalist than I had imagined in my head, which in the case of jazz is a good thing, to my ears. He has a crazy amount of technique, plays all over the horn in flights of fancy like John Coltrane, but never seems to stray too far. Then there is the interesting choice of performing in a trio with no piano. Unlike with my experience with Ornette Coleman, however, I never missed the harmony being filled in. It takes a very special bass player to fill in the holes, but whoever it is on this album does a fantastic job.
I think that should suffice for awhile. There is much more I’m listening to. Maybe next time.
On Skiing- A Study of Ratios
I will start at the end. I had a spectacular crash while skiing at Monarch a few days ago.
While it wasn't one of those where they drag you behind a snowmobile in a body bag, and I was only on the bunny slope, I am currently laid up on the couch recovering. And the doc said I shall feel the pain from this for at least a couple weeks. Deep muscle bruising in my back and chest. Perhaps a rib was affected as well.
I tried skiing for the first time ever. It shall be the first and last time. I have given it the old college try, took a group lesson, gave it my best, and found that it is not for me.
The whole trip I was visited by thoughts of proportions, namely the ratio of Work:Fun.
Day one-Work:Fun ratio----95% work, 5% fun.
Day two-Work:Fun ratio----80% work, 20% fun. (Surprisingly, this was the day of my spill. I was going so fast and pretty much STRAIGHT down the slope and thought to myself "Wow. I'm going really fast down this hill. I wonder why I haven't crashed yet..." And then in an instant I was laid out in the snow with skis ten feet downhill and poles ten feet uphill.
Important side note: I never did learn how to turn right in my two and a half days of attempts.)
Day three [not even a half day]-Work:Fun ratio----90% work, 10% fun. I hit a wall that morning, metaphorically speaking. In pain, contemplating taking the beginner lift all the way to the top rather than half way, I realized an important truth in my life at this point. I want to be able to run the 1/2 marathon in a month and perhaps the full marathon in May MUCH MUCH MUCH more than I want to be able to say that "I skied greens." From that point on, I was done.
Ketchup
Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, my darlings. Here’s what’s been happening instead of my writing for the blog:
1) As you might already know, it was exactly a year ago that I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. You may also remember my basically saying at the time “Don’t worry. I’ve got this one covered.” Well, it turns out I was right as of last week’s appointment with the Good Doctor. Based on my blood work results, he jokingly accused me of masquerading as Mike Stutzman. My blood work was perfect! Not just diabetic perfect, but regular, healthy person perfect. At which point in my appointment Dr. Cruzan pointed at his computer screen at two numbers, (my weight over the last couple years) and started to praise me for a bunch of hard work and “grabbing the bull by the horns.” Then he asked me when I’m going to write my book. I kind of chuckled and he looked at me and said- “No. Seriously. When are you going to write your book?” An intriguing idea…
In the prophetic words of a friend a year ago—“You are going to make this disease your bitch.”
2) Over the last couple months, under the encouraging words of a writer friend I have been writing a short story for the first time since, maybe junior high. As of last Friday, I have a finished rough draft. Maybe when it’s done I’ll let you all read it. I have been reminded how much fun the process of writing can be. The kinds of things I find myself considering, the kinds of minuscule choices I find myself faced with in editing—it’s a hoot and a half.
3) I read my first graphic novel last week.
Watchmen? Maybe you’ve heard of it? I don’t really feel qualified to discuss its merits in comparison to the genre, and truth be told I wasn’t blown away by it. As a work of fiction, apart from the graphic component, it employs some interesting devices. Namely, the insertion of seemingly extraneous material like a book within a book, psychological profiles of characters and magazine articles that serve as a handy way to get a lot of background information into the story in quick bursts. And the book raises the question of why costumed crime fighters and “super-heroes” do what they do. Pretty unconventional answers are given in addition to the regular pragmatism that we’re used to from guys like Spider-man and Superman, from kinky sexual responses to the costume to the love of “adventure”, to pure determinism in the case of the God-like Dr. Manhattan. However, I’m still not sure why this book is so revered.
4) I’ve been listening to lots and lots of new music as of late and I’ll probably get to telling you about that in a week or two. In the meantime, go outside. Spring is becoming more and more of a reality! I think my soul may be coming back after going south for the winter!
Labels: Diabetes
Good Lord! What a beautiful morning!
Hey.
The next time you want to inject a little bit of transcendent joy and well-being into your life, do this: Go outside when the weather is just about perfect...sunny. Calm. No wind. Fairly warm. Now, listen to the piece "Elizabeth the Queen" from Erich Korngold's score to the film_The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex._
You will feel the same ageless peace that I do right now.
You're welcome.
Writing Like a Bastard
The Catcher in the Rye by
J.D. Salinger My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
So, there is an important decision we, as readers, have to make when reading this stream-of-consciousness screed against humanity. Namely, we have to decide how seriously we will take the seemingly endless complaining on the part of the narrator Holden Caulfield, as we do with any teenager in real life.
It is important how much or how little we let his observations on the "phoniness" of people into our heads. I would posit that the more thoughtfully you take his complaints, the more opportunity this book has to affect you as literary art. I would say the dangerous decision is just to say that the narrator is crazy and dispense with him from that point. Indeed that would make reading this book a waste of time.
But, what if Holden's right? What if the world really is full of phoniness? What if loss of innocence is something to bemoan? Well then, the idea of a foul-mouthed, alienated, know-it-all who yet defends the innocence of children and who values protecting their youthfulness...well that character becomes SO MUCH more poignant, so much more human in his duality, so much more interesting. Brokenness is always more interesting.
The other thing I liked about this book is Salinger's creation of a kid who "speaks" so interestingly. You want him to keep going just to hear what he'll say next.
View all my reviews.
Someone Make the Case for Me...
I caught most of the President's press conference tonight and one thing struck me as odd.
In the midst of such godawful economic news: of layoffs, of Wall Street's near collapse, the credit crisis, an 800-something BILLION dollar plan to MAYBE fix things in the mid-term and about a thousand other financial things I don't understand..it seemed perversely out of place that one reporter asked the president's views about steroids in baseball.
Someone make the case why I should give a rat's ass about who used steroids in an entertainment industry when the world seems to be crashing down around us..
And...go!
