10.4.06
Come On Feel the B-Sides
Funky Presbyterian's most beloved artist of 2005 promises release of outtakes from Illinoise, the neo-folk masterpiece hailed by everyone and his brother as the best album of the last year. I am giddy with anticipation.
8.4.06
Phone Calls I Don't Make to Radio Talk Shows
Last night the boys and I had our own official men's night out which consisted of lots of jumping, running, and falling off of the big plastic spaceships and planets in the play area of the Tuttle Mall (as Jack's t-ball game was cancelled due to rain), some time at the book store, and of course the official eating of the ceremonial cookie which has traditionally marked the adjournment of the men's night out festivites. It's all very dignified. Next time we hope to incorporate pyrotechnical elements into the closing ceremonies. And probably dancing bears with little hats and vests on, carrying umbrellas. Or midgets boxing. The committee has not yet reached full agreement.
Anyway, as we were driving home and the boys were nodding off in the back seat, I was listeing to local talk radio wherre they were having a Final Four of annoying celebrities. The concept was some kind of bracket, whereby annoying celebrities and public figures were pitted against one another in order to determine just exactly who holds the distinguished title of most annoying person. The names callers proposed were largely predictable: Michael Jackson, Bill O'Reilly, Anna Nicole Smith, Barbara Streisand, Michael Moore... you get the point.
As I was listening, I couldn't help but think how totally awesome it would be to call up and suggest the names of individuals who are regarded with virtually universal respect and admiration. How hilarious would that be? Of course the trick would be to maintain an aura of complete sincerity:
"Yeah, this is T-Bone from the southside. Long time listener first time caller- Love the show, man. Thanks for taking my call. Alright, here's my Final Four-
Nelson Mandela- Ok. We get it. You were wrongfully imprisoned. Get over it already. And what's with the big baggy crazy print shirts? So when you got out of bed this morning you put on regular pants, but left the pajama shirt on? Nelson, buddy... it's called the Men's Wearhouse. Look into it.
And how about that Stephen Hawking guy- could this guy get any more pretensious? 'Oooh, look at me! I'm so smart. I've made greater contributions to mankind's understanding of the universe than anyone in the world and I did it all without the use of my lower extremities'. He's always doing that robot thing with his voice and he's all like 'I-INVENTED-BLACK-HOLES-AND-TIME-MACHINES-AND-I-CAN'T-EVEN-MOVE-MY-NECK-BUT-YES-I-WOULD-LIKE-FRIES-WITH-THAT-HA-HA-YOU-RETARDS-E=MC2' And what's with the wheel chair? Shouldn't he be able to levitate or something?
Next, I got Ghandi. Dude wait wait wait. It's totally not just cause he's a muslim. Seriously, dude. It's just a fashion thing. Whose this guy's stylist? It's like this, if you're going to roll with the whole "second-century tunic and sandals" vibe that's cool, but then you can't wear the little wire rimmed glasses. It totally breaks character! It's like that guy from cheap trick who wears a suit and tie with a baseball hat. You can't do that. Ghandi, my man. Either lose the glasses or get a coduroy jacket with elbow patches and a turtle neck. And grow a soul patch. You'd look like an english professor or something. Clothes make the man, my friend. Clothes make the man.
Alright and here's my last one: Mother Theresea. 'I help poor people. I give food to people who don't have any. I'm all short and old and whatnot'. I'm kidding! I'm kidding! No, really- I'm all about helping poor people and stuff. She's nice. But Theresea, I've got one word for you:
MOISTURIZER.
EXFOLIATION.
MICRODERM ABRASION.
I mean seriously... yikes.
That's it, dudes. Love the show. Catch you on the flipside. T-bone out!"
But I didn't call and say any of those things.
Anyway, as we were driving home and the boys were nodding off in the back seat, I was listeing to local talk radio wherre they were having a Final Four of annoying celebrities. The concept was some kind of bracket, whereby annoying celebrities and public figures were pitted against one another in order to determine just exactly who holds the distinguished title of most annoying person. The names callers proposed were largely predictable: Michael Jackson, Bill O'Reilly, Anna Nicole Smith, Barbara Streisand, Michael Moore... you get the point.
As I was listening, I couldn't help but think how totally awesome it would be to call up and suggest the names of individuals who are regarded with virtually universal respect and admiration. How hilarious would that be? Of course the trick would be to maintain an aura of complete sincerity:
"Yeah, this is T-Bone from the southside. Long time listener first time caller- Love the show, man. Thanks for taking my call. Alright, here's my Final Four-
Nelson Mandela- Ok. We get it. You were wrongfully imprisoned. Get over it already. And what's with the big baggy crazy print shirts? So when you got out of bed this morning you put on regular pants, but left the pajama shirt on? Nelson, buddy... it's called the Men's Wearhouse. Look into it.
And how about that Stephen Hawking guy- could this guy get any more pretensious? 'Oooh, look at me! I'm so smart. I've made greater contributions to mankind's understanding of the universe than anyone in the world and I did it all without the use of my lower extremities'. He's always doing that robot thing with his voice and he's all like 'I-INVENTED-BLACK-HOLES-AND-TIME-MACHINES-AND-I-CAN'T-EVEN-MOVE-MY-NECK-BUT-YES-I-WOULD-LIKE-FRIES-WITH-THAT-HA-HA-YOU-RETARDS-E=MC2' And what's with the wheel chair? Shouldn't he be able to levitate or something?
Next, I got Ghandi. Dude wait wait wait. It's totally not just cause he's a muslim. Seriously, dude. It's just a fashion thing. Whose this guy's stylist? It's like this, if you're going to roll with the whole "second-century tunic and sandals" vibe that's cool, but then you can't wear the little wire rimmed glasses. It totally breaks character! It's like that guy from cheap trick who wears a suit and tie with a baseball hat. You can't do that. Ghandi, my man. Either lose the glasses or get a coduroy jacket with elbow patches and a turtle neck. And grow a soul patch. You'd look like an english professor or something. Clothes make the man, my friend. Clothes make the man.
Alright and here's my last one: Mother Theresea. 'I help poor people. I give food to people who don't have any. I'm all short and old and whatnot'. I'm kidding! I'm kidding! No, really- I'm all about helping poor people and stuff. She's nice. But Theresea, I've got one word for you:
MOISTURIZER.
EXFOLIATION.
MICRODERM ABRASION.
I mean seriously... yikes.
That's it, dudes. Love the show. Catch you on the flipside. T-bone out!"
But I didn't call and say any of those things.
4.4.06
We Home School...
...but we've never suggested that it is the right choice for others. When considering the deicison to home school, private school or public school your children, there are many variables to consider and each situation is unique and there is no "one-size-fits all" correct answer for everyone. However...
THIS---> http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060403/NEWS01/604030389/1002/OPINION
is ridiculous!
THIS---> http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060403/NEWS01/604030389/1002/OPINION
is ridiculous!
3.4.06
2.4.06
Strung out on St Paul's Epistle to the Romans.
I'm so sleepy I can't sleep. I feel all grumpy and tired and wired simultaneously. Who needs drugs when you can just preach every sunday night and have a giant adrenaline high followed by a crash? Tomorrow AM at 7:30 i've got men's prayer group. I'm just about good for nuthin' on Monday's. I feel like I'm emotionally and spiritually drained and like I have nothing left to give anyone. Like my battery is just empty. I should make little beeping sounds like my cell phone just before it's battery dies. That way everyone would know. By Tuesday I'm usually back up to speed. One thing that still surprises me is the toll Sundays take on me physically. On Monday's I physically hurt from preaching on Sunday nights. I move slower. My joints ache.
I can always tell when I need some time off because Sunday nights feel just like this. I even took two days off last week, but I stayed in town and so it didn't really feel like I was off. I wasn't "working" but my brain was still in "go-mode". I know everybody works a lot. I'm not complaining. Just telling.
Goodnight.
I can always tell when I need some time off because Sunday nights feel just like this. I even took two days off last week, but I stayed in town and so it didn't really feel like I was off. I wasn't "working" but my brain was still in "go-mode". I know everybody works a lot. I'm not complaining. Just telling.
Goodnight.
31.3.06
My Blog Has Recieved A Lot More Hits...
ever since I published a post with the words "Britney Spears" and "Naked" in it. ATTENTION 14 YEAR OLD BOYS: DON"T YOU KNOW YOU'LL GO BLIND?
30.3.06
Is You Is Or Is You Ain't? (An Article From Emusic.com)
Is You Is Or Is You Ain't?: Christian Indie-Rock
by Michael James McGonigal
Eight years ago, a reedy-voiced genius from Athens, GA, sang the words "I love you Jesus Christ/ Jesus Christ I love you, yes I do" in a crazy, fuzzed-out pop song. Over a chaotic and beautiful backing music that sounded like a marching band from inside your very best dreams, Mangum stretched those 15 syllables out into many dozens. It was just two lines in one song, "King of Carrot Flowers Part Two," off an album called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea that is filled with alternately disturbing and blissed-out, Blake-ian imagery. Mangum had written much of the album in just a few days after he read Diary of Anne Frank for the first time and "kind of lost it," which is of course the only rational response to the Holocaust.
But seeing as Aeroplane was among the best albums of that year, those lines had a pretty large impact in the indie rock community. Expressing a sincere love, even just a potentially sincere love, for Christ was perhaps the last taboo in indie and alt-rock. The Danielson clan had been doing it since 1995, but they were misunderstood as some sort of outsider/joke band (perhaps aided by the quirky nature of their songs and the fact that they all performed in nurses' uniforms).
I interviewed Mangum for a cover story for alt-rock quarterly Puncture, whereupon he allowed that "a song about God was inevitable, because of my upbringing and the intense experiences I had... at church camps." He continued, citing the age-old divide of God versus church. "My love for Christ has more to do with what Christ said and believed in. The church put this bullshit around it and made it this at-times really evil thing. If you attach man to anything, he's gonna fuck it up somehow," he continued, adding, "You think that's too cynical?" Such words do have a ring of truth for those of us who went to church and never once heard a sermon on why it would be harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to enter a needle's eye or whether it really made sense to spend so much of the church's money on these big fancy buildings rather than on outreach, not to mention those of us who still have trouble reconciling such actions as the Holy Crusades (the old ones and the more modern versions) with the words "thou shalt not kill."
But this isn't a freshman religion class, and of course there are a multitude of churches and denominations from which to choose, so, um, back to the music.
Whatever the impact of that one song by Neutral Milk Hotel, it was just one song. Today, though, some of the most interesting and celebrated musicians in the "secular indie" scene are devout Christians. But is the music they make Christian music or not? How to address this stuff from the vantage point of Christian music? Should it even be addressed at all? I'm feeling particularly fed up with genre definitions as I search for ways to address the strange but devotional music of the promising new band Page France and the celebrated musician Sufjan Stevens.
I'd already decided to write about this subject of Christian music being made in the indie-rock commuity, when Chris Dahlen wrote about this very thing in a column for the influential website Pitchfork this past January. "I don't know why hipsters hate Jesus," he began. Of course, that's not true, that hipsters hate Christ, though the problem with discussing hipsters is that you'd be very hard-pressed to find a hipster who'll acknowledge he or she actually is one.
Dahlen ends his piece by suggesting folks be more open-minded, to not "shoot the messenger," which sounds good to me. It does concern me that some of the most talented musicians of our day — who are Christians but not operating within the CCM community — do not feel comfortable discussing their faith for fear of being thought of as "stupid, or worse," as a musician friend of mine (who is amazingly talented and worshipped on websites and touted by NPR as a great talent and who unfortunately wishes to remain anonymous) put it while visiting last week.
What I am asking for is an expansion of the definition of Christian music, to also include amazing devotional songs that might not even be written by people within the CCM community. I want more weirdness! I want more questioning! I want better music! I want rock bands that are as great at being rock bands as the Swan Silvertones were at being a vocal quartet! Knowing that God is everywhere, and yeah it's a crazy cliché but that God works in mysterious ways, I'm more interested in hearing amazing songs of devotion than the purported great faith of this or that person. I'm not here to take inventories. I'm less concerned with whether or not Amy Grant had an affair or not, but when it comes to her music, is it any good, as gospel? Does it inspire joy, or make me think about faith in a new way? As such, I would rather listen to the Velvet Underground's gorgeous ballad "Jesus" (a song written by a junkie New York Jew!), or Sufjan's pretty and plaintive "Oh God, Where Are You Now?" than anything in, say, dcTalk's catalog. (Let's face it, they were an important band in the evolution of CCM, but their music was as ridiculously hokey as the best of Vanilla Ice crossed with the worst of U2.)
One of the latest songs to cause ripples within the indie-rock community is "Jesus" by the band Page France. Page France has the makings of greatness, as a single listen to the song "Spine," will attest, seeing as it brings to mind Elf Power playing with Tom Verlaine during his instrumental period. And while some of the band's work is too precious, too twee, as if the group were really holding something back, with time they could be the equal of their influences. They always have interesting lyrics that are clearly Biblically inspired, with blood from stones and burning bushes and angels and lines like "You were made out of my ribs/ We share a heart."
Anyway, this song "Jesus" might upset your mother, but it's clearly a spirited, spiritual song. The three and a half minute number begins with some pleasant acoustic guitar and organ before heading into these sweetly-sung words that have confused many listeners: "And Jesus will come through the ground so dirty/ With worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy/ To call us his magic, we call him worthy." Some might bristle at the tune and call it sacrilege, but I find it one of the more interesting, if not a tad literal, interpretations of the Resurrection.
Perhaps we need a new category for this kind of stuff? We could call it Alt-Alt-Christian rock? No, that's awful. Think of a name and send it in, I beseech thee
by Michael James McGonigal
Eight years ago, a reedy-voiced genius from Athens, GA, sang the words "I love you Jesus Christ/ Jesus Christ I love you, yes I do" in a crazy, fuzzed-out pop song. Over a chaotic and beautiful backing music that sounded like a marching band from inside your very best dreams, Mangum stretched those 15 syllables out into many dozens. It was just two lines in one song, "King of Carrot Flowers Part Two," off an album called In the Aeroplane Over the Sea that is filled with alternately disturbing and blissed-out, Blake-ian imagery. Mangum had written much of the album in just a few days after he read Diary of Anne Frank for the first time and "kind of lost it," which is of course the only rational response to the Holocaust.
But seeing as Aeroplane was among the best albums of that year, those lines had a pretty large impact in the indie rock community. Expressing a sincere love, even just a potentially sincere love, for Christ was perhaps the last taboo in indie and alt-rock. The Danielson clan had been doing it since 1995, but they were misunderstood as some sort of outsider/joke band (perhaps aided by the quirky nature of their songs and the fact that they all performed in nurses' uniforms).
I interviewed Mangum for a cover story for alt-rock quarterly Puncture, whereupon he allowed that "a song about God was inevitable, because of my upbringing and the intense experiences I had... at church camps." He continued, citing the age-old divide of God versus church. "My love for Christ has more to do with what Christ said and believed in. The church put this bullshit around it and made it this at-times really evil thing. If you attach man to anything, he's gonna fuck it up somehow," he continued, adding, "You think that's too cynical?" Such words do have a ring of truth for those of us who went to church and never once heard a sermon on why it would be harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than a camel to enter a needle's eye or whether it really made sense to spend so much of the church's money on these big fancy buildings rather than on outreach, not to mention those of us who still have trouble reconciling such actions as the Holy Crusades (the old ones and the more modern versions) with the words "thou shalt not kill."
But this isn't a freshman religion class, and of course there are a multitude of churches and denominations from which to choose, so, um, back to the music.
Whatever the impact of that one song by Neutral Milk Hotel, it was just one song. Today, though, some of the most interesting and celebrated musicians in the "secular indie" scene are devout Christians. But is the music they make Christian music or not? How to address this stuff from the vantage point of Christian music? Should it even be addressed at all? I'm feeling particularly fed up with genre definitions as I search for ways to address the strange but devotional music of the promising new band Page France and the celebrated musician Sufjan Stevens.
I'd already decided to write about this subject of Christian music being made in the indie-rock commuity, when Chris Dahlen wrote about this very thing in a column for the influential website Pitchfork this past January. "I don't know why hipsters hate Jesus," he began. Of course, that's not true, that hipsters hate Christ, though the problem with discussing hipsters is that you'd be very hard-pressed to find a hipster who'll acknowledge he or she actually is one.
Dahlen ends his piece by suggesting folks be more open-minded, to not "shoot the messenger," which sounds good to me. It does concern me that some of the most talented musicians of our day — who are Christians but not operating within the CCM community — do not feel comfortable discussing their faith for fear of being thought of as "stupid, or worse," as a musician friend of mine (who is amazingly talented and worshipped on websites and touted by NPR as a great talent and who unfortunately wishes to remain anonymous) put it while visiting last week.
What I am asking for is an expansion of the definition of Christian music, to also include amazing devotional songs that might not even be written by people within the CCM community. I want more weirdness! I want more questioning! I want better music! I want rock bands that are as great at being rock bands as the Swan Silvertones were at being a vocal quartet! Knowing that God is everywhere, and yeah it's a crazy cliché but that God works in mysterious ways, I'm more interested in hearing amazing songs of devotion than the purported great faith of this or that person. I'm not here to take inventories. I'm less concerned with whether or not Amy Grant had an affair or not, but when it comes to her music, is it any good, as gospel? Does it inspire joy, or make me think about faith in a new way? As such, I would rather listen to the Velvet Underground's gorgeous ballad "Jesus" (a song written by a junkie New York Jew!), or Sufjan's pretty and plaintive "Oh God, Where Are You Now?" than anything in, say, dcTalk's catalog. (Let's face it, they were an important band in the evolution of CCM, but their music was as ridiculously hokey as the best of Vanilla Ice crossed with the worst of U2.)
One of the latest songs to cause ripples within the indie-rock community is "Jesus" by the band Page France. Page France has the makings of greatness, as a single listen to the song "Spine," will attest, seeing as it brings to mind Elf Power playing with Tom Verlaine during his instrumental period. And while some of the band's work is too precious, too twee, as if the group were really holding something back, with time they could be the equal of their influences. They always have interesting lyrics that are clearly Biblically inspired, with blood from stones and burning bushes and angels and lines like "You were made out of my ribs/ We share a heart."
Anyway, this song "Jesus" might upset your mother, but it's clearly a spirited, spiritual song. The three and a half minute number begins with some pleasant acoustic guitar and organ before heading into these sweetly-sung words that have confused many listeners: "And Jesus will come through the ground so dirty/ With worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy/ To call us his magic, we call him worthy." Some might bristle at the tune and call it sacrilege, but I find it one of the more interesting, if not a tad literal, interpretations of the Resurrection.
Perhaps we need a new category for this kind of stuff? We could call it Alt-Alt-Christian rock? No, that's awful. Think of a name and send it in, I beseech thee
Is Charlie Peacock writing songs for Sheryl Crow & Sting?
Today I heard a song on the VH1 by Sheryl Crow and Sting called "always on your side" and though I've never heard the song before, Im telling you it HAD to be written by a guy named Charlie Peacock (real name Charlie Ashworth). Who can confirm this for me?
It's got his melodies and chord changes and even some pretty distinctively "Covenant Seminary/ Presbyterian" turns of phrases in the lyrics. I'm telling you Charlie either wrote it or whoever DID write it was listening to or hanging out with Charlie when they did write it!
I need confirmation. First to confirm wins... um... something cool. Maybe a statue of Charlie Peacock on a bear skin rug, fully clothed and eating cheetos or something.
FP
It's got his melodies and chord changes and even some pretty distinctively "Covenant Seminary/ Presbyterian" turns of phrases in the lyrics. I'm telling you Charlie either wrote it or whoever DID write it was listening to or hanging out with Charlie when they did write it!
I need confirmation. First to confirm wins... um... something cool. Maybe a statue of Charlie Peacock on a bear skin rug, fully clothed and eating cheetos or something.
FP
27.3.06
Hooray for Naked Statues of Britney Spears
Today a friend emailed me expressing disapointment that I had not yet commented on the new pro-life monument that was recently unveiled in Brooklyn. It is a scuplture of Britney Spears. Naked. And giving birth. You can click the title of this post to read an article about the work, and you can keep reading this post to hear my two cents.
Here's what I love about it:
First it's pro-life, which is great. Second it is a very well executed sculpture. The Pro-Life movement is of course linked with the political right, which is not known to be a friend of the arts, so to a see a pro life work that has actual artistic merit is encouraging to me as a pro-lifer and as an artist.
In addition, I especially love that the work is mildly provacative. It would have been so easy for someone to have done a nice safe sculpture of a fully clothed mother cradling her child (ala Mary Cassat or whatever). But what would be the point of that? The fact that this work is mildly provacative removes it somewhat from the sphere of the political right & especially from the "Christian" right. Let's face it. Minature models of this statue are not going to be sold as pewter bookends in any Chrisitian bookstore, with the proceeds going to a pro-life organization. So the very nature of the work cleanses the pro-life message from the ideologue stigma often (unfairly or fairly) attached to it by more liberal opponents. Ralph Reed ain't making naked statues of Britney Spears.
Which is the other thing I love about this piece. The fact that it is Britney Spears works fantastically on a number of levels. First, if the provacative nature of the work removes the accusation of "conservative ideologue", identifying the woman as Britney Spears removes the whole "frou-frou- too-cool-for school-artsy-fartsy-wine-and-cheese-pretense" from a work that could otherwise be seen as merely high culture sophistication. Britney is as low culture, as pop culture as it gets. Even better, Britney is pop culture icon ten minutes past her prime, which is the worst of all possible crimes in our culture.
The fact that the scuplture is Britney Spears also works to make it accessible to folks who aren't artsy fartsy. Everybody knows who she is and everybody knows she had a baby. So the work maintains it's creative integrity while becoming completly accessible at some level to everyone from 12 year old girls to gallery curators in soho. Virtually everyone can engage with the work on some level. So in that sense it is absolutely brilliant as an apologetic for the pro-life position.
The other thing I love about it being Britney Spears is that she has in recent years become the whipping girl of the family values set, who seem to be relieved to have found a replacement for Madonna- ever since she got married and started writing children's books. So for the pro-life movement to honor her for making the surprisingly counter-cultural and potentially costly decision to become a mother rather than aborting, despite the fact that the conservative evangelicals (the Pro-Life movement's primary constituency) have demonized her (for dancing naked with snakes on MTV or whatever it was) is a particularly courageous & admirable choice on the part of whomever commissioned the work.
The last thing I love about this statue being of Britney Spears is that it connects with those whom the pro-life message needs most to connect. Even more so than with voters and law makers. That's girls. We need to contunally lift up examples of women making life decisions for our daughters to see. We need to herald those decisions for our daughters to hear. This statue does that.
A last, slightly more delicate point we could discuss is the way in which child birth and motherhood are shown to be sensual and even sexual in nature >blush<. This is a healthy message as well. Motherhood does not remove sexuality! Healthy images of sexuality should be encouraged and applauded wherever we find them. Here is an image of sexuality that actually demonstrates that conception and child birth are the natural prducts of active sexuality! This is a piece of art that does not live in the land of sexual makebelieve like most sexually charged artwork in our culture does- this piece doesn not divorce sexuality from relationship, from commitment, from parenthood, from personhood, or from the beauty of birth and the costly changes it brings to career and lifestyle. This statue is NOT pornography. Also this work argues that the choice to give birth does not transform a woman into an undesirable, asexual, being. How many girls contemplating abortion, or being pressured into abortion by their boyfriends, need to hear that message? How many mothers need to hear this message? Who else is saying it?
Not the conservatives. Cultural conservatives want to protect the unborn, but give the impression that sex is bad or dirty.
Not the liberals. Cultural liberals promote sexuality, but it is a "liberated" sexuality of radical individualism that refuses to acknolwedge that sex is inherently a communal act with communal repercussions that range from the conception of other human beings to societal issues like an overabundance of fatherless children.
Not the church. We mostly pretend like sex doesn't exist, except for the times we are telling people not to have it.
This statue will have none of it. Sex is relational. It has consequences. Sex and parenthood are necessarily linked. They are beautiful and difficult and expensive and fascinating and invigorating and ought to be celebrated.
Hooray for naked statues of Britney Spears.
Here's what I love about it:
First it's pro-life, which is great. Second it is a very well executed sculpture. The Pro-Life movement is of course linked with the political right, which is not known to be a friend of the arts, so to a see a pro life work that has actual artistic merit is encouraging to me as a pro-lifer and as an artist.
In addition, I especially love that the work is mildly provacative. It would have been so easy for someone to have done a nice safe sculpture of a fully clothed mother cradling her child (ala Mary Cassat or whatever). But what would be the point of that? The fact that this work is mildly provacative removes it somewhat from the sphere of the political right & especially from the "Christian" right. Let's face it. Minature models of this statue are not going to be sold as pewter bookends in any Chrisitian bookstore, with the proceeds going to a pro-life organization. So the very nature of the work cleanses the pro-life message from the ideologue stigma often (unfairly or fairly) attached to it by more liberal opponents. Ralph Reed ain't making naked statues of Britney Spears.
Which is the other thing I love about this piece. The fact that it is Britney Spears works fantastically on a number of levels. First, if the provacative nature of the work removes the accusation of "conservative ideologue", identifying the woman as Britney Spears removes the whole "frou-frou- too-cool-for school-artsy-fartsy-wine-and-cheese-pretense" from a work that could otherwise be seen as merely high culture sophistication. Britney is as low culture, as pop culture as it gets. Even better, Britney is pop culture icon ten minutes past her prime, which is the worst of all possible crimes in our culture.
The fact that the scuplture is Britney Spears also works to make it accessible to folks who aren't artsy fartsy. Everybody knows who she is and everybody knows she had a baby. So the work maintains it's creative integrity while becoming completly accessible at some level to everyone from 12 year old girls to gallery curators in soho. Virtually everyone can engage with the work on some level. So in that sense it is absolutely brilliant as an apologetic for the pro-life position.
The other thing I love about it being Britney Spears is that she has in recent years become the whipping girl of the family values set, who seem to be relieved to have found a replacement for Madonna- ever since she got married and started writing children's books. So for the pro-life movement to honor her for making the surprisingly counter-cultural and potentially costly decision to become a mother rather than aborting, despite the fact that the conservative evangelicals (the Pro-Life movement's primary constituency) have demonized her (for dancing naked with snakes on MTV or whatever it was) is a particularly courageous & admirable choice on the part of whomever commissioned the work.
The last thing I love about this statue being of Britney Spears is that it connects with those whom the pro-life message needs most to connect. Even more so than with voters and law makers. That's girls. We need to contunally lift up examples of women making life decisions for our daughters to see. We need to herald those decisions for our daughters to hear. This statue does that.
A last, slightly more delicate point we could discuss is the way in which child birth and motherhood are shown to be sensual and even sexual in nature >blush<. This is a healthy message as well. Motherhood does not remove sexuality! Healthy images of sexuality should be encouraged and applauded wherever we find them. Here is an image of sexuality that actually demonstrates that conception and child birth are the natural prducts of active sexuality! This is a piece of art that does not live in the land of sexual makebelieve like most sexually charged artwork in our culture does- this piece doesn not divorce sexuality from relationship, from commitment, from parenthood, from personhood, or from the beauty of birth and the costly changes it brings to career and lifestyle. This statue is NOT pornography. Also this work argues that the choice to give birth does not transform a woman into an undesirable, asexual, being. How many girls contemplating abortion, or being pressured into abortion by their boyfriends, need to hear that message? How many mothers need to hear this message? Who else is saying it?
Not the conservatives. Cultural conservatives want to protect the unborn, but give the impression that sex is bad or dirty.
Not the liberals. Cultural liberals promote sexuality, but it is a "liberated" sexuality of radical individualism that refuses to acknolwedge that sex is inherently a communal act with communal repercussions that range from the conception of other human beings to societal issues like an overabundance of fatherless children.
Not the church. We mostly pretend like sex doesn't exist, except for the times we are telling people not to have it.
This statue will have none of it. Sex is relational. It has consequences. Sex and parenthood are necessarily linked. They are beautiful and difficult and expensive and fascinating and invigorating and ought to be celebrated.
Hooray for naked statues of Britney Spears.
23.3.06
Free Live Show From Tim Easton!
Follow the link to a free live show you can download from Tim Easton. Tim is in LA and hangs with the Lucinda Williams set in Nashville from time to time, as well as the M Ward faction.
But he is from Ohio and spends a portion of the year right here in little ol' Columbus and often drinks Coffee at the Cup O Joe in Clintonville which the Funky Presbyter has been known to frequent. Easton's new album is due to be released on May 16th of this year, which is another thing we've got in common. I was "released" on May 16th in 1974. Guess what I'm buying myself for my birthday this year?
If you've not heard Easton I highly recommend him. My friend Nand turned me on to him and one thing I've learned is if a guy named "Nand" tells you to listen to something, then do it especially if the guys named Nand also has a silent "L" in his last name. That is a sure fire sign of good musical taste. It's like genetic or something. He is heads and shoulders above all the other singer songwriter, alt country, pop, folk guys out there. (Tim, not Nand. I've never heard sopng written by Nand, so I can;t speak for his songwriting). I'd put Easton in the same camp as Ryan Adams' best work. At times even better. He's got what SImon Cowell would call the "it" factor. Yes, I've been watching American Idol. shut up.
But he is from Ohio and spends a portion of the year right here in little ol' Columbus and often drinks Coffee at the Cup O Joe in Clintonville which the Funky Presbyter has been known to frequent. Easton's new album is due to be released on May 16th of this year, which is another thing we've got in common. I was "released" on May 16th in 1974. Guess what I'm buying myself for my birthday this year?
If you've not heard Easton I highly recommend him. My friend Nand turned me on to him and one thing I've learned is if a guy named "Nand" tells you to listen to something, then do it especially if the guys named Nand also has a silent "L" in his last name. That is a sure fire sign of good musical taste. It's like genetic or something. He is heads and shoulders above all the other singer songwriter, alt country, pop, folk guys out there. (Tim, not Nand. I've never heard sopng written by Nand, so I can;t speak for his songwriting). I'd put Easton in the same camp as Ryan Adams' best work. At times even better. He's got what SImon Cowell would call the "it" factor. Yes, I've been watching American Idol. shut up.
22.3.06
lyric of the day
From Home Again Garden Grove by The Mountain Goats...
I can remember when we were in highschool
Our dreams were like fugitive warlords
Plotting triumphant returns to the city
Keeping tech nines tucked under the floor boards
Now we are practical men of the world
We tether our dreams to the turf
And cruise down the alleys for honey to feed them
Like jelley fish riding the surf
I can remember when we were in highschool
Our dreams were like fugitive warlords
Plotting triumphant returns to the city
Keeping tech nines tucked under the floor boards
Now we are practical men of the world
We tether our dreams to the turf
And cruise down the alleys for honey to feed them
Like jelley fish riding the surf
21.3.06
Do Not Panic
Those of you in the central Ohio area know that for the last two days, all media reports have been bleeping and screeching their warnings to us: Severe Winter Storm Advisor.
I'm afraid the time is now upon us. News reports are now calling for... (brace yourselves)... one to three inches. Yes, the situation is very grave. Perhaps now would be a good time to say parting words to your loved ones and make peace with your maker.
The WHITE DEATH is upon us.
I'm afraid the time is now upon us. News reports are now calling for... (brace yourselves)... one to three inches. Yes, the situation is very grave. Perhaps now would be a good time to say parting words to your loved ones and make peace with your maker.
The WHITE DEATH is upon us.
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