Disorientation: Thoughts falling

like soft rain of late Spring, those afternoons when the sky can't decide who to have over for dinner. Burnt umber in the sky and late day golden sunlight on the grass as rain falls lightly, muting the scent of lilacs. But now I'm sitting in a dark room with curtains drawn, trying to trace the lines between thoughts, to connect the dots in the coloring book of my subconscious. I've been having thougts about a lost life of the mind, and why it suddenly feels like it is returning. Mystic and spiritual writer Teresa of Avila wrote about the Interior Castle that has seven mansions. Avila was writing about the process of the soul becoming perfected through prayer, contemplation, and religious practice. Today my thoughts turned to a different kind of interior castle. In my case the castle is more of a heap of scattered rubble of what was once an unfinished edifice gracing some hillside where the aqueducts perhaps dried up and the tribe had to move on. But it almost feels like I came across it today. I place long since uninhabited, but newly discovered, like a tourist might discover an ancient ruin. I have some sense today's attentiveness, ideas, and articulation thereof has to do with engaging a text this weekend. Karla asked me to speak at her weekend retreat at Big Bear. Part of the experience I am drawing on now it seems is earnest engagement with a text. Today I'm thinking about the role of art in society in general and my own life in particular and the way in which some of my old values have become bastardized or rendered trivial or faded completely. The necessity of giving a kind of sermon to 20 some odd college students forced me to get into a text and wrestle with it, to make some order of it, give it some structure in my own mind, and then communicate that structure. This act, of engaging, organizing, and communicating may be called the essence of internalizing. You learn best what you teach most thoroughly. I'm sitting in a moment of grace right now, reconnecting to a part of myself internally, a lost life of the mind, and literally, listening to Red River Shore by Bob Dylan, an unreleased track from his Time Out of Mind album which may have been the most necessary album I've ever owned. Ironically, I spoke half heartedly to a college group about the possibility for transformation when you enter into Christ's presence this weekend, when you present yourself fully, in humility (which I rarely, if ever, do), with no part left out (a phrase I hijacked from a zen poem). I also spoke to a small group of young men and urged them not to be discouraged if they felt nothing palpable, took away nothing tangible from the time. They had submitted themselves to process, I said. They might realize the benefit much later. Here it is, three days later and I am enjoying the secondary effects of having engaged a text. It's like an archeological expedition has uncovered a corner of the Babylonian gardens. I'm remembering what it was like to have an internal castle, an internal edifice, built through the spiritual act of reading, following word upon word like brick upon brick of the castle. After school today I went to Borders (!) and flipped among Dylan's Chronicles, intellectual devotional bathroom books, history books, looking for something on Albrecht Durer, Dylan's new release, which I purchased, along with a copy of the Economist. At the same time, I was reawakening the pleasure of pursuing truth. Walking around, flipping through the music magazines, National Geographic and Parabola, I realized the strange dynamic of my life now. With more money, more means to engage the contemporary world, I feel less connected than ever perhaps. Buying into the superficial dross, playing video games, watching netflix, desiring more video games, more netflix, I become completely disconnected to underlying truth, ultimate reality. Building wisdom is the antidote for being carried away in the tepid, opiate-laced waters of contemporary culture. I remembered the reason I loved art in the first place. It serves as a mediator between us and truth. Contemplating art, like good worship, builds an interior castle. Ceasing to contemplate, to direct attention both internally and externally is to desert the castle and leave it to be ravaged by the elements, to fall into ruin. The small sense of dread I have today is that time, responsibility, circumstance, work, relationships, pull me in a thousand directions, and direct my attention away from what I hold to be essential: attending to art (primarily the literary) as a means of pursuing truth and actively seeking artistic expression as a means of organizing and reflecting on experience and relating to the world. It is a means of becoming oriented. In recent years I have been decidedly disoriented. This has to do with obvious things like increased demands on time. Mammon must be appeased. As an aside, I have a worn and tired anti-capitalist question: can we serve art and Mammon? In LA at least this is not much a question on anyone's lips. The draw for prestige, the lure of fame, of an external castle somewhere in the Hills, that's the promise, even the Silver Lake people want success in the conventional sense of recognition, it seems to me. What of art as a means of deepening the soul, articulating a communal vision, and expanding that vision? This gets at the heart of the less obvious corrosion that has taken place, the acid rain that has eaten away at the cornerstones of my interior castle: The Red Eyes. I was in a band that had, at core, desire for commercial success, at least some moderate form of it, this orientation greatly influenced songwriting decisions, choices in listening preferences, choices in dress and attire, musical direction, etc. On a far smaller scale, some early recordings I made with my brother were shown to my parents and their response was "that's great! what are you going to do with it?" The implication being, it had to be popularized to make it successful. It had to be affirmed by the totalizing monolith of the market. It was not critiqued on its merits in communicating some truth, or whether it expressed emotion in some unique way, only whether it could "succeed" as a commercial product. This is the assumed complicity between business and artistic expression that has overtaken the American psyche. As Lee Siegel suggests in Falling Upwards "Making art now often serves as a means to advancement; the artists - or the people presenting themselves as artists - seem more like ambitious entrepenuers who have turned the self into a small business." (Siegel xvi). Pop culture comes to mind, mostly musicians, but also writers, who label themselves "artists," but are really shrink-wrapped brands, well marketed, broadly distributed. This most clearly articulates the process I underwnet internally in abandoning the interior castle for the echoing laughter in the forest. Thus unmoored I found myself awash, completely disoriented. Now there are two things to say at this point. The first is that my wife is often seen as a primary reason for this shift. Some of the ways I build the bricks for the castle are tedious to her; she sees no beauty in them. I listen to music. I listen to new music. I listen to music I used to know. I immerse myself in it, in reading, in solitude, ideally for hours, such is the tortoise pace of my capacity for organizing these thoughts, of reconnecting. I might need to watch Apocalypse Now for the 100th time, in pursuit of some thought, some essential thought. I may need to watch, even re-watch Rosselini's Flowers of Saint Francis. This is not connective for her. The first thing to say is that there is a balancing act here. The partner at the center of my life will not be pulled for long into this interior space. She resists its impracticality, its inefficiency, its murkiness, and its internal focus. She is far more stream-lined, both at work and at leisure activities. For me, building the bricks for the castle can be a kind of alchemical process with a variety of obscure ingredients and associations thrown together, and out of the morass emerges something valuable, some kind of gold, some truth. Another truth is that I have been poor at setting boundaries to protect my personal space, setting aside regular time regardless of external pushings and pullings, some kind of Sabbath space, whether spiritual or intellectual (can they be split?). The result is susceptibility to all manner of desire. The third thing to say is that I am realizing the extent to which I have forfeited responsibility for this space, letting the direction of the band corrode it, allowing my occupation to corrode it, and blaming the relational dynamics with my wife for it. Hers is a different kind of interor castle. Its rocks are hewn of different stuff. She will not, at 33, begin devouring Shakespeare and Chekhov, but this need not ruin my relationship with Shakespeare, Chekhov, or even Jack Kerouac for that matter. The emphasis here is a kind of intellectual (if not moral) conservatism. Conserving a space, staying anchored, being in pursuit of truth, not as an idea, but as an act, as a commitment. The absence of this act, this commitment, put in the most concise term, is disorientation. The daunting news is that, it seems to me, you are either building the castle, shaping the bricks, laying them in place, constructing, or you are buried beneath it, or at least wandering, like Dante, alone through a dark wood. May we stay in the castle.

Heroes

So Heroes is now officially Lost's bitch step-child. Sure, it jumps backwards and forwards in time and place (who's that? wait, wasn't he dead? wait, don't they know each other, um, wait, what happened last season anyway? wait, what is this show about?) How does a show manage to look expensive and cheap at the same time? How many cliches, vapid characters, horrible scenes and shallow re-tread from other, better-written shows and films can possibly be crammed into one season opener? Why does the dialogue sound like it was written by the screewriters of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2, The Secret of the Ooze?" And why does every scene look as if it were not only obviously shot on a sound stage, but on the cheap leftover corner of Sunset/Gower or wherever. After the Summer of the intelligent superhero flick, who's watching this schlop? A lot of people apparently. Is Heroes the worst popular TV show on television? I say yes. "Oh God! If that crappy show fell into the wrong hands! Millions of people could waste hours, perhaps even entire days of their lives! Peter ParkerPetrelliwhoever with the crooked face. Do something!"

The Wire

So, obviously, I'm white. As such, I like The Wire. Now, I've heard so many superlatives about this show: "best show ever," "best show on television," best show in the history of television." You get the gist. Now, I enjoy a gritty look at the underbelly of society that portrays the good, the bad, and the ugly of one of America's "forgotten" cities in a serial format as much as the next HBO fan. I'm finishing up the final season on DVD and I have to say, by now, there may be one too many subplots. I just finished an episode and I feel like a nine year old coming down from a Ritalin high. My head hurts. But there's something else that's been gnawing at me about the show and I couldn't quite place it until now. Sure, it's groundbreaking, gritty, labyrinthine, unflinching, intelligent, detailed and all that. But one aspect lauded by critics and fans alike (see the complaints about the lack of Emmy nominations in the making of docs) that I just can't quite affirm is: the acting. I decided who better than myself, a card carrying know it all, to critique the series' acting, actor by actor. Given the number of characters, this is quite a task. I'll try to stick to characters with a lot of screen time, so as not to get bogged down. Maybe let's go season by season. I'll give the character names instead of the actor, cos that would take too damn long. For a full list and some interesting backstory on the characters, the actors, and the real people the characters are based on, click here.

Season 1 -
first, the mainstays:
McNulty: credible job all the way through. Struggles at times with American accent. But overall, very good. Creates a lasting and memorable character B+

Judge Phelan: Not too much screen time, but solid job. Nothing to criticize here. B

Bunk: Very good job all the way through the series. By turns lovable and despicable, but always dapper. Great chemistry with the McNulty character. Especially the investigation scene in Season 1. A-

Sydnor: Understated. Does not lend much gravitas, nor ruins any scenes. B

Bubbles: Maybe the best actor of the series. Carried emotional scenes. Draws in the viewer. Creates one of the most memorable characters. Might not be overstated to call his character iconic. A+

Carver: Same as Sydnor, but a little more high strung. B+

Herc: character arc not quite believable, but that's not the actor's fault. You get the feeling he more or less played himself. But lends a certain likable dopeyness to the scenes he's in. B+

Kima Greggs: her first scene is atrocious, but her acting improves somewhat as the series progresses. C+/B-

Lester Freamon: bravura performance as the thoughtful introvert case-buster. A

Daniels: Not many gears. Often scene clenching jaw, opening mouth noisily while blinking, preparing to say something to put his underlings in their place. A tad overkill and monotonous performance. Memorably physique and physiognamy, at times underwhelming performance. B-

Rawls: The boss you love to hate. Great job in every scene. A

Pearlman: An interesting choice. Chin aquiver and looking incredulous, most of the time. But lends some spunk. B

Jay Landsman: Some of the weakest moments in season one come from this character, although he has some well written parts. Simply not believable acting in many scenes. Like Kima, improves somewhat as the series progresses. B-/C+

Burrell: A serious weak spot in the cast. Timing and inflection consistently off. C-

Presbylewski: Starts off as an annoying cast member, but the part is written that way, and really starts pulling his weight in Season four. B

Stringer Bell: Superb acting. A

Avon Barksdale: Ditto. Knocks his parts out of the park. A

Brianna Barksdale: interesting casting, but more than pulls her weight. A-

D'Angelo Barksdale: One of the highlights of Season One. A

Poot. OK B

Body. Consistently engaging performance. Not self conscious at all while acting. A

Wallace. OK B

Wee-Bay. Consistent and believable B+

Omar: Michael K. Williams in certainly one of the most memorable and iconic performances of the decade. A juicy character full of contradictions that Williams sinks his teeth into. You only lament that he never gets the chance to take out Marlo, Snoop, and Partlow for killing Butchie. But the show isn't about being "satisfying" in that way. The one "Robin Hood" character you root for the whole way through. The series would have been much less memorable without this character and this performance. A+++

Season 2

Prop Joe. Very good at slipping into Baltimorean. A-

Royce. OK B

Beedie good, vulnerable. B+

Valchek. wonderfully despicable. B+

Frank Sobotka. solid. a little overkill. B

Nick Sobotka. Fine job all around. B+

Ziggy Sobotka. Low point of season two. Whiny overacting. The part didn't give him many redeemable qualities, but the overacting made his scenes almost unbearable. So much so that he's back in Generation Kill. Hm. Oh well. He's not quite as bad in that series. Has he taken some classes in the meantime? D

Vondas. Believable. Unflappable character. His scenes witht he gray outside the window and his slow pronunciation created scenes of, well, boredom. Not the actor's fault though. Season two dragged at times. B

The Greek. He's not even Greek. B

Boris/Sergei. Struggled to make it through his speaking parts. Struggled with his Russian accent. Just Struggled C


Season 3
Bunny Colvin. Fine actor. Well written. Puts his scenes to good use. A-

Clay Davis. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Overactor par excellence. The poster child of overacting. Annoying voice. Timing is off, even on his catch-phrase (catch-word?) Yes, you despise the character. But he is so self-consciously and horribly acted, you just want the scene to be over with. F

Carcetti: Weird casting. An Irish actor who stumbled over his inflection time after time. At times just plain awkward. But could still sell a scene. B-

Partlow: Stoic. Quiet. Deadly. Didn't do much "acting" in the dramatic sense, but was a presence. B

Snoop: The feel good story of the Wire. So authentic. So Baltimore. So incomprehensible. B

Marlo: Boyish. Smug. Mostly understated, but menacing at times. Solid performance. B+

Dennis Cutty: So slow at times, he seemed retarded. Improved throughout seasons 3 and 4, but never quite gets over the hump into what we might call "acting." C

Slim Charles: Not the kind of actor that would normally be seen. This, I assume is one of the selling points for people who truly love the show. Imporved by leaps and bounds as the show went on. Was sort of lame at first. The "now he home" line from the end of some episode in Season 3 stuck in my head for some time due to its severe lameness. Like Partlow, more of a presence than an actor, except the actor portraying Partlow had some acting experience, it seemed. C+

Cheese - Method Man was miscast. Too recognizable. Overacted the part. C

Season 4

Duquan
Michael
Namond
Randy

Each does a fine job with what they're given B+

Season 5

Gus Haynes - By the time we get to him, we're thankful someone in the newsroom can act. A-

Templeton. Sort of forgettable. B

Alma. Needs lessons. C

Walon. What can you say about Steve Earle. Interesting idea. There's an understated celebrity/authenticity factor. He is one of the finest lyricists of his generation. But this isn't a song, it's a TV show. His head kept bobbling side to side in a strange fashion, and even though you kind of sense the authenticity (before I found out it was THE Steve Earle, I assumed it was an actual Baltimore social worker or soemthing, for authenticity purposes. C

Now, I know there is much more to The Wire than the acting. The story is first rate. The social issues are hugely important. But there are times in the series that the quality of the show suffered because of crappy acting. That's all I'm saying. The problem with that is bad acting takes you out of a scene, out of the story, makes you aware of its "contrivedness." Landmark series. Great. Sure. But if we're talking "all time best TV shows," I'll still have to go with Six Feet Under with The Wire a distant second.

Speaking of which

If Carrey is in the Eddie Murphy stage of his career, is De Niro in the Jim Carrey stage of his? Seriously, last good film De Niro was in? Anyone? The Deer Hunter? This movie looks about on par with Carrey's post Liar Liar work, or, say, The Holiday. The script looks a little too pop culture savvy. Bluetooths abound.

Say it ain't so

Two words for Jim Carrey: Eddie. Murphy. This movie looks about on par with a Rob Reiner film.

One more note on Dostoevsky

So Karla felt sick last night and wanted me to grab something for her crom the library. Fair enough. I picked up a 1956 copy of Winter Notes on Summer Impressions and am pleasantly surprised by Dostoevsky's misanthropic non-fiction voice. Skewed slavophile to be sure, but has some fun ripping on the French. Even more surprising was Saul Bellow's foreword. Writing about his own experiences living in Paris for a year, he contrasts the American attitude toward possessions with that of his meticulous French landlady. The passage was so insightful, so contemporary, I"ll have to quote at some length:
"In America, we have a slovenly attitude toward possessions. Most of us could not give a list of the objects we own. We are decidedly more interested in the things we do not own. We lust after them, acquire them, and after we have rejoiced in them a little while drop out of sight. Our glance passes half blindly over them, on the wall, on the table, on our own persons. Very likely we serve our social order by this mixture of desire and blindness. The goods our industries produce must be used. They are advertised. We desire them, and work and earn in order to buy them. It is our duty. Manufacture is prodigal. Consuming, we follow it as well as we can. The goods of the inventaire are different. They are finite. There is a shore. The owner rules over his kingdom of things, whereas we Americans are in the grip of boundless desire. Perhaps this accounts for the prevalence of the true-love quest in our country, and for the rise of the divorce rate. Who knows? I make the suggestionin, as Dostoevsky calls it, a spirit of idleness...That our desires are infinite does not mean that we are spiritual; it means that we are not sure what satisfaction is. We are astonished and confused by the profusion of things around us, we do not know how to choose among them, we are ill at ease and fear for our souls."

Dr. Doug Thorpe: Mensch

So, to my pleasant surprise on this fine Monday, I find my mentor and friend Dr. Doug Thorpe, a man with some insight into the Mysterium Tremendum, has a fine, if sparsely posted, blog up. This will likely have something to do with his recently published book of essays "Rapture of the Deep." As a Blake scholar, I'm hoping he can give some guidance on my current Swedenborg fetish, if fetish it be. But anything written by him is worthwhile. Depth of wisdom. Depth of insight. Depth of humility. And just plain depth.

Connections: Swedenborg

Alright, hold on a second. A morning of reading and google searches has revealed the interconnectedness of four giants. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. Just trying to read up on Swedenborg, looking for conservative counterarguments actually, to sort of see what's in the quiver against him. On the contrary, I find feeble arguments against him (and simultaneous attacks on Helen Keller for being influenced by him, hmm, NO, not that satanist witch Helen Keller again, will we never be safe from her spiritual tyranny?) In addition, Czeslaw Milosz, you know, the Nobel Prize winning poet? Yeah, him. He has an article tracing Swedenborg's influence on (wait for it), Fyodor friggin Dostoevsky, my most favoritest of authors. Another link expans on Milosz's article to locate Swedenborg in the voice of Father Zosima of Brothers Karamazov.
A second search reveals that there's a book of correspondence between Milosz and (wait for it) Thomas friggin Merton, the Trappist monk and contemplative. There's four towering figures interwoven by the threads of the universe. People that somehow occupy vastly different spaces in my academic cognitive map, but are, for now, inextricably linked, and why shouldn't they be? All four possess some awareness or interest in mystical experience and transcendence. Color me excited about something for a change.

Story ideas

So, as you might expect if you're trying to come up with a plot for a story you've started writing, I've come up with an idea that has nothing to do with what I'm working on. What if there's a guy, let's call him "a dude." What if there's a guy, say, early twentieth century England, who befriends a family of privelege. This guy, however, is no social climber, as the cliche would have him, but instead has no ambition whatsoever, but to get drunk or stoned and flirt with the high society types, but keeps getting stuff put in his lap. And then I saw this trailer, an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic, and I realized, It's "The Dude" from Big Lebowski meets Brideshead Revisited, with perhaps a little Forrest Gump thrown in. Hmm. Although maybe it should be set a little further back, a kind of male twist on the porn for uptight females that is Jane Austen. Feedback? Thoughts? Anybody? (by the way I already mailed a version of this to myself, so if you're thinking of turning this into the Oscar winning screenplay that it obviously is, then your going have to pay, and pay big)
N.B. Evelyn Waugh is a man? Who knew?!

Fascinating: Emmanuel Swedenborg

So, I've probably been away from other human beings, sunlight, etc. for too long, but I found myself veering off course today. And by "course" I mean writing my novel. I'm roughly on page seventy of my first draft, looking for a plot (heh. heh. heeeyyy.) and generally taking a break in the second basement of a certain local library, when I randomly start leafing through books, and come across a reference to a certain "Swedenborg." The name sounded familiar, so I kept reading, was interested, and then did a library search. Fascinating man. I found seeds and antecedents for such diverse writers as Goethe, Luis Borges, George MacDonald (and therefore C.S. Lewis, and other Inklings) and, obviously, William Blake. Interestingly, there are also seeds for the Book of Mormon and certain elements of New Age movements. He was dismissed by Kant as a madman and hailed by others as a mystic (or dismissed as a mystic, depending on your view of the term). He did groundbreaking work on anatomy and physiology as well as astronomy before a mystical experience in mid-life left him writing "in search of the seat of the soul." I read up on his fascinating life story and found his prose lucid and engaging. I noticed his tone is less confrontational than, say, Blake. He writes in a kind of rational, even-keeled, almost simplistic tone, which Blake at times mimics, and perhaps mocks somewhat in his own "Marriage of Heaven and Hell." I did find it odd that, after three years at Seminary, I had never heard of him, or never less than an aside, dismissed with other heretics, such as Arminius or Michael Servetus. But these figures occupy a different space relative to modernism and, as such, Swedenborg is supremely fascinating. He doesn't fit neatly into mystic ascetic categories, heretic categories, gnostic categories. He was by all accounts a warm, charming individual, devoted to the faculty of reason, but not exclusively so, argued for the necessity of holistic apprehension of both a priori and a posteriori. He had an inclusive, ecumenical sensibility, praising and criticising both Catholic and Protestant churches, where appropriate. He had mystical visions, but was a devoted scientist. His influence alone of pseudo-Christian sects (like Mormonism), poets, scientists, mystics, and (through Inklings and others) of orthodox Christianity, however indirect, makes him worth more than just a look. He outlines heaven and hell with scientific detail to be taken literally, but advocated interpreting life experiences with symbolic meaning. He is dismissed as a crazed, New Age heretic and supported by people who claim to have had Near Death Experiences that support his vision. Truly unique. He's too orthodox for radicals like Blake and too spiritual for rationalists like Kant and too out there for the organized church. There's something about his writing and tone, warm, measured, common-sensical that makes what he writes somehow inviting. He didn't want to start a church, he wanted to integrate his visions and teachings into the church. Of course his assertion of inclusion of people of religious backgrounds in heaven suggests at once to me the intuitive truth of his claims and their utter clash with orthodoxy. That today's Christians will readily take Lewis' "The Great Divorce" as food for thought, but have on occasion dismissed Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell" as folly is somewhat ironic. Haven't read enough to form a solid opinion, but one way or the other, fascinating.
I came across a book of essays comparing Blake and Swedenborg on amazon. Should be fun.

The title of this blog is "Title"

Heh. I've been reading up on Saussure and semiotics and I can tend to get caught up in the moment. Anyhoo. Every now and then when I have a bit of time on my hands, I check out Barry's Blog which usually has short, interesting entries and is updated pretty faithfully. Through his link I ended up reading up on Noah Levine's Dharma Punx movement, a combination of, let's call it "New Buddhism" and slick self promotion, and his Against the Stream community I'm respectful of the Buddhist practices of meditation, mindfulness, silence, compassion, and frequently listen to Thich Nhat Han's Deer Park Podcast, but this is clearly decidedly Eastern and Levine is up to something else, maybe worth checking out. Maybe I'll swing by for a Sunday morning Dharma talk. The reviews of his first book "Dharma Punx" on amazon seem to be lukewarm, but his more recent "Against the Stream" seems to have been received more warmly. Interestingly enough, these reviews led me to quite a different web site, or maybe not so different, in its spiritual response to those disillusioned with...well, disillusionment. I'd be interested in Barry's insights on this, but I'll order a copy of this book by Punks turned Eastern Orthodox Christians called Youth of the Apocalypse. I'm also reading Michael Chabon's immensely enjoyable and obliquely inspiring book of essays "Maps and Legends." Insightful, erudite, funny, one of the first books in a while I could hardly put down.

Star Wars

Ok, this might necessitate a longer posting than this, but it has to be said at some point. So, I found out today there's going to be an animated Star Wars feature film out in August. This seems like a shameless cash-in on the few die hard fan base that actually enjoyed the prequels. I'd like to pretend that Lucas didn't sully his reputation with these annoying films. Maybe a study in contrasts would be needed. The first trilogy, let's call it the "real" Star Wars, this is before the digitized re-release in the 90's, was mostly about mythology and was heavy on characterization. Sure, there was cool fanboy action stuff, but this also served the story. There were new surprises every film and new worlds to explore. Everything since seems like cliches and formulaic re-tread, while the spirituality and mythology has been replaced with a kind of scientific mumbo jumbo (midi-chlorian count). The heavy dose of mysticism and mythology of the first films, the archetypal spiritual quest of the hero's journey, has given way to, well, crap. We get lame duck characters in lame duck stories having banal conversations (that's my word for the month, it seems). Hell, Timothy Zahn's books were more original, more compelling. Lucas, it seems, got in his own way, and didn't have anyone to tell him how crappy his scripts were, not to mention the directing. He could have had the pick of the Hollywood litter to write scripts, direct, whatever, but instead he chose to write and direct himself. Too many yes men? Did anyone suggest handing the project over to someone who had written a script in the last twenty years? Either way, bad decision. Now we're stuck with a few special effects in digital surround sound. Wasn't it Lucas himself who said "a special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing?" Hmm. Should've listened.

Eco's Head Revisited

As you may or may not be able to tell, I've been on a mild Umberto Eco kick lately and would like eventually to get around to reading his work. A kind of constructivist postmodernism (?) as the link below suggests, as a response to Derrida/Foucault/Lyotard's deconstructivism. At the same time, I'm reading Dostoevsky's "Demons," seeing some clear parallels between Dost. and Eco, in terms of their response to prevailing "liberal" thought of the time (the term is somewhat misplaced for Eco's contemporaries), pointing toward hope in the face of meaninglessness. Anyhoo, can't wait to jump into this fairly thorough page, based on Cambridge lectures on Eco.

A good word

for American culture in general is "banal." We are drowning in end of Empire banality. I miss thorough conversation of some depth where a position is advanced and discussed. Does that happen anymore outside of classrooms around here? Maybe it's a German thing. But I remember quite a few satisfying conversations, like 5 course meal conversations that lasted for hours and fed the soul. Wither art thou gone, thou conversation, thou? I guess every now and then I get to hang out with Rob and Eric, so it's not like I've been sent to Siberia or anything, although, on occasion, it gets to feeling that way, relationally speaking. Also, want to give a small shout out to Donald Capps, whom I had never heard of, until I leaned back in my chair in the bowels of Fuller library, which actually has a name, Mcsomething or other, which escapes me at the moment. Anyhoo, I came across a book of his where he analyzes Denise Levertov and other poets from a therapist's perspective. He's got a slew of other titles and it's kind of good just knowing he's out there, taking her easy for all us sinners.

Wherefore I Know Not...

I have of late, like some Danish prince, lost much of my mirth. This has to do with several things. First, the school year has been taxing, and I have been short of exercise, the kind of things that will release stress and provide a sense of balance. Second, I have lost connection with a life of the mind. Forget culture, forget elegant arguments of re-enlivening the imagination as a force to counter the spiritual malaise of the modern world. I can barely find the time and space to read in a disciplined way. Who usually bears the brunt of this is my wife. I feel confined by duties of job and "family." I feel confined by a city where there are two hour parking limits for every overcrowded, overlit, excessively loud coffee shop, while at home, the internet, the neighbors, the television, and a pile of laundry provide too much distraction. There is no respite save for a 25 minute swath I have tried to carve out of my morning for silence and breathing. The sweltering 100 plus conditions scorch the landscape and the ground is as as parched and inhospitable as my own soul. There is little in a given week to look forward to, except for the droning, infantilizing, sentimental and melodramatic voices of popular culture, entertaining and stupefying as they may be. To follow up on von Balthasar, there is even much beauty around me, but it is beauty devoid of truth. There is nothing behind the mask. In a given day, we visited the pompous new cathedral of capitalism, the new Vatican of the self, the consumeristic chapel called Americana. How appropriate that what passes for "Americana" is essentially a large parking structure and pseudo-luxurious, immersive shopping experience. Taking their cues from Disneyland's pseudo-nostalgic Mainstreet USA, developers have planned immersive shopping experiences in overpriced stores strung together below "luxury apartments" encircling a manicured turf area, and in the center a kind of golden man, coming up out of the water, his hand extended to chase a fish(?) Apparently, this is a golden replica of the spirit of American youth, memorialized for those soldiers who lost their lives on D Day. We've now placed it. embossed with gold, at the center of our billion dollar, corporate sponsored brandscape. "Americana on Brand" is the all too ironic title for this new cash cow, the success of which, according to the LA Times, "defies the current economic downturn." We have branded Americana like so many Norman Rockwell prints in the bargain bin at the mall. This high-end shopping experience feeds our inner version of the American Dream, the need to seem glamorous, not even buying any of the high-end brands available, just grabbing a Starbucks and a movie: preferably Iron Man, that latest and most attrative, aesthetically pleasing, that superficially beautiful Hollywood opiate du jour, and being in close proximity to it, which seemed to suffice for the large crowd of ethnic minorities and after church crowd, still salivating from the scent of American pie on display, the promise of self transcendance, of transformation. Somehow, I don't quite think this is what Emerson or Thoreau had in mind. On the way home, we stopped at McDonald's, and I greedily scarfed down a cheeseburger. To have human needs in America means to participate in the very structures of dehumanization by default, by association. I fill my gas tank with the blood of Iraqis, of American servicemen and women. I eat the flesh of cows slaughtered in sterile, inhumane factories. I couldn't wait to get back to Europe for some rest, when I remembered looking out from Mars Hill next to the Akropolis looking out over the city of Athens, that bastion of reason, and seeing a towering, larger-than-life figure standing out amongst the architecture, that new unknown god of the pantheon, maybe the one Paul really had in mind, Ronald McDonald. I went to see Shane Claiborne discuss "new monasticism" and intentional urban Christian communities to revive the neglected places of the Empire. It's encouraging to see a committed person of conviction living out their beliefs in a constructive way. The worship experience, however, seemed to mirror our culture and was less palatable to me: more melodrama, more sentiment, more hyperbole. Crowds whipped up into frenzied groupthink. (I did have an eerie moment of inverse self-recognition when a plain-looking European man got up and wondered how this pacifist understood the Armageddon: would Jesus simply negotiate his way out of it, or would he fight and conquer, as saith the Book of Revelation? Claiborne skirted around the juicy millenialism debate and gave instead a picture of a grace filled Christ as he understands him. The questioner stood unmoving and unmoved during worship, arms folded...he wasn't buying it. Could all these people really not understand the importance of standing up to fight during Armageddon? They just didn't get it. I was standing one row back, in a similar posture, for different reasons). We get home to Ty and the gang for a season finale of the uplifting "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition:" more melodrama, more sentiment, more hyperbole, and the excessive use of the term "hero." What is it with this country and the myth of the hero figure. We're so constantly ready to elevate others and ourselves to hero status, and then bask in the satisfaction of the humility that is uncomfortable with the title. It's all prescripted: you're such a hero, no I'm just a regular guy who feels responsibility toward his fellow man, wow, you're so humble. And we all love a humble hero. Aaaaand cut. Print. Now this is not to say that there isn't positive, constructive things going on through such shows, but it is distorted, trivialized by its excessive sentimentality, its perpetuation of the perverse American manifest destiny myth, its design, at least in part, to increase Sears' and Ford's bottom line, there's Americana for you. We rounded off the night with a two hour season finale of "Desperate Housewives." It's not quite Dostoevsky, hell it's not even Kerouac, but after so much soul-corroding Western bile, who really cares? Or maybe I can relate, as a desperate house husband.

Moral Storytelling

Ok, ok, so I ranted against the mindless summer movie season, and all my posts since have been about movies. So sue me. I did meditate, clean, and cook today if it makes anyone feel better. Ahem. Anyway. There are two main fantasy worlds a kid is allowed to read if they grow up in a conservative Christian home. Most stuff involving wizardry, sorcery, magic, and such is off limits, whether the ultimate lesson of the story is moral or not. Harry Potter would have probably been off limits in my house, because there is no clear association between Rowling and the organized church. Enter Lewis and Tolkien. Most Christian kids are allowed to read Lord of the RIngs and Narnia, but not much else in the way of fantasy literature. Too prone to the occult, the satanic, and the always vaguely defined "New Age" mentality, or what have you. This presents some interesting dilemmas. For one, Narnia represents clear allegory of Christian myths. It's pretty straightforward, saccharine Christian fare with a clear moral lesson, and what might pass for a "spiritual realm" in Narnia. While Gandalf is also clearly a Christ figure, he's not quite the Christ stand-in that is Aslan. Lord of the Rings, therefore, presents a different myth, and while there are clear Christian themes of sacrificial love, etc. the world itself is not superficially Christian, but really pre-Christian. None of the characters prays or acknowledges a supreme being of good, and Gandalf, finally is too grumpy to be a Christ stand-in, and he smokes, on top of that. But the differences don't end there. The drama in any good story is the moral dilemma faced by the character, and consequences of choices, and then dealing with those consequences. In this sense, LOTR is a far more grown-up story as it presents a greater depth of drama and moral choice. This has made the recent LOTR films far easier to enjoy for grown-ups than the simple childish morality of the Narnia franchise. Rolling Stone's Peter Travers notes "There's no reason to criticize Narnia for being Lord of the Rings-lite. That's the point." Roger Ebert, who clearly grew up in a different home than me, has the following astute insights:

Character is not destiny in the "Narnia" pictures. Destiny is. Which creates some moral and dramatic dilemmas for the viewer. With all the dramatis personae Lewis has crammed into his filagreed fantasies, few of the players have the opportunity to leave much of an impression, or acquire significance, beyond what the tale demands of them. (Who's that badger again?) They do what is asked of them -- in the story and by the story. And once we realize that even the leads are predestined to play their parts in fulfilling prophecies, and that all they have to do to meet the requirements is to abide by (or guess) whatever certain mystical authority figures want them to do, the tension deflates a bit.
The moral options, as set forth in the movies so far, are fairly clear-cut: believe the beautiful lion and the friendly beavers; don't trust the sepulchral ice queen bearing Turkish Delight or the hideous dark demons extolling the forces of hate. What could be simpler? A child could do it. And what kind of lesson does that communicate to the child who can? That it's easy to tell right from wrong? Not a wise maxim.
What responsibilities do the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve (how does that work?) bear for their own decisions, and the consequences of their actions, if everything can eventually be set right by some deus ex machina -- the healing properties of supernatural potions, or the corrective powers of magic lion's breath? What becomes of free will, of meaning itself?

This leaves me wondering about the many people I know who grew up in Christian homes and have a tenuous relationship with Christianity or have left the faith altogether. Or even if they remain Christians, genuine or nominal, their lives didn't quite turn out as squeaky clean as their parents would have had for them. They were immersed in a simplified moralistic myth, in which "it is easy to tell right from wrong" and if it isn't "Jesus/Aslan will show up and get you out of the bind."

Gregory Wolfe of Image Journal fame has some words of discernment in this regard, essentially painting Lewis and Tolkien as part of a greater project of Romanticism, and that a sole literary diet of Tolkien and Lewis tends to a kind of infantilism. Hear hear. Although, for my tastes, Wolfe places too much emphasis on the work of Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor and T.S. Eliot, but at least he presents a well-argued, erudite reason.

I also came across some interesting blogs regarding this discussion:
first, Gregory Wolfe's exquisite editorials Agree or disagree with him, this is territory worth mining.

Also, a blog from some lads at Regent in Vancouver. Judging by their insights, I should have gone to Regent instead of Fuller.

And finally, another blog with links and entries aplenty that taps into a similar vein. I kid myself that I would have sounded something like either of these blogs if I had stayed in academia. Instead, I let my mind atrophy in the sun-drenched sidewalks promising fame and the self-promotion projects of even the Christian marginalia here in Tinseltown, and plan mediocre lessons on grammar for the terminally uninterested. O me, o life.

Upcoming Movies Expounded Upon

Speaking of upcoming flicks, we've been bombarded recently by Speed Racer commercials, which opens just a week after Iron Man. Looks like some nice special effects, can't say much about the story. Remember when the Matrix came out, and all we pretty much knew about it was the tag line "What is the Matrix?" An example of undersaturation, so to speak. And then the movie was pretty spectacular and groundbreaking, with a kind of subtle hype around it. Well here, we know what we're in for pretty much, even though it looks cool and all. Maybe the Wachowskis or whoever they have marketing this one should have gone for the subtler approach again instead of beating us over the head with it and the inevitable corporate tie-ins. And, at the risk of sounding hypocritical by continuing to write about films after ranting in the previous post, I definitely enjoyed The Diving Bell and the Butterfly last week (check out Max von Sydow in French! who knew?). And I started I'm Not There last night, which was so allusive and interwoven and suggestive of myth in general and the Dylan myth in particular, definitely worthwhile. Heath Ledger takes a turn as one of "the Dylans" and does a credible job, as he mostly did.

I Wonder If...

I wonder if we'll all be bombarded by movie trailers and commercials in the next few months. I wonder how much vapid, self-referential, indulgent humor will be in them? I do not wonder how the box office take will stack up to the same time last year. I do wonder how much of that take will go to organized crime. I wonder if corporate magazines will have their movie reviewer bless us with their Summer Movie Picks, prioritizing our tastes for us. I wonder if we'll give each film an entire evening's worth of thought and conversation, eagerly awaiting our next escapist fix. I wonder about the value of popular culture. I wonder about $6 boxes of popcorn. I wonder what we value in film, what we want to get from it, what values we take into it, what values we come out with. I wonder if we learn anything applicable, or just some generic, fuzzy, already held values. I wonder if anything offered up for mass consumption challenges us to grow, individually and collectively. I wonder if we actually want to.

Writing and Ambition: In Which I Realize I'm Not Rilke

So I've decided part of my literary inertia is related to a literary schizophrenia (bear with me). While I am something of a Renaissance Man, a sometime teacher, and all around muckamuck, I have some sort of literary ambition. To date these have resulted in roughly 5 poems published for student publications and one poem accepted in a literary journal of small note. I have yet to finish a respectable short story, and have been planning a novel for some time, which I plan to start this summer. Now, I have also recorded music and one song has been picked up by a television show, apparently the best way to earn some cash if your band is not on the Vans Warped Tour (or maybe even if it is), but somehow this raging success hasn't quelled my literary ambitions. One of my problems is certainly lack of focus. I recently finished reading a novel, (see previous posts), have begun another one (Updike's "Terrorist," which is slow going so far, not as easy to get into, and frequently puts the word "diss" in the mouths of contemporary teen characters, a term that went out of use sometime in the last decade, but which the boomer generation still uses when they want to sound "relevant"). But this opens up new questions regarding the relationship between reading and writing. This must be a question every writer has to answer for themselves. Is it helpful to read a lot while trying to write? Is it helpful to read selectively? To read widely? Does it affect tone and style drastically? With my sponge-like personality, this is an almost definite "yes." I suppose the dictum "novels aren't written, they're re-written" must come into play here, with tonal wrinkles getting ironed out in the third and fourth drafts, roughly. I have also dipped into Billy Collins, Li-Young Lee, begun (again) Northrop Frye's study on William Blake called "Fearful Symmetry" and set aside two books by a former professor to read, which I couldn't find this morning precisely because I had "set them aside" to read today. And yet this "sode reading" takes up roughly all of my free time alongside grading student work, laundry, and catching the occasional Lakers game. Now, I would also like to improve on the guitar, perhaps record a demo of original material, learn the piano, etc. In addition to which my impatience suggests to me I should have all this done by the end of the month, instead of by the time I'm forty, which is the more likely scenario. I often like to think to myself "wait until Summer," during which I certainly will have more time, but, it must also be said, results in a reduced sense of urgency, seeing as I won't be waking up at 6 am every day, with a jolt of coffee to allow me to keep pace with the 9th grade student's energy level. I also don't mind the occasional blog entry to keep the juiced flowing. Then I think, hm, my clearest writing seems to get done when I am in shape, which I certainly am not, so I put frequent exercise on the agenda as well. In addition to which I will be going to an IB conference in late June and to Frankfurt through much of August. You see the problem. I am pulled in too many directions in a three day span, let alone the time it would take to fashion a coherent narrative of considerable length (a paraphrase of EM Forster's definition of the novel). And yet, a kernel of hope remains. Can I prioritize well enough, in terms of reading (research for the novel before random forays into side reading...although this could yield unexpected results). Part of writing, or producing any kind of substantial piece of art, must be the ability of exclusion, of blocking out that which is not essential. Ah, to be Rilke, and utterly crap on all that is not our art (see marriage to Clara...which sounds dangerously close to "Karla," phonetically speaking, that is, eh heh, heh eeehhh).

Preaching to the Choir: America and Ideologizing

Listening to NPR on the drive home, they were doing a piece on Grand Theft Auto IV, the new installment of the controversial video game line. Whatever negative elements exist in the game (or in video games as a whole), one aspect of the game is its skewering of contemporary culture (even as it is itself seen as asocial evil, how postmodern.) Anyway, what struck me was the short sound byte they played from the video game itself, when the avatar gets into a car, the player can select a faux radio station, one of them being an NPR spoof. The background music was sort of an angelic choir and a sepia voiced announcer saying "Preaching to the choir...you're listening to NPL" or some such. But this idea of preaching to choir. As we live in a consumer society, we tend to seek out venues of entertainment and community that reinforce our values and preconceived notions. This is certainly true in my own life, although I tend to project that quality onto others. Another spoof television station in the video game is the Weasel News Channel, pandering to a conservative audience. One of the values I learned through some of those old literature classes was a kind of resolution, or at least potential resolution to this polarization, which is brought to the fore in times like presidential elections, when reds demonize the amoral blues and blues make fun of uneducated reds. Thankfully, the dialogue seems a little more intelligent in this election cycle, but not by that much. How do we avoid this polarization within ourselves? How do we acknowledge our need to expand, to see others' points of view without somehow losing track of our own. For myself, I am particularly sponge-like and tend to absorb whatever I am immersed in. This would seem to be a kind of immature approach to the world, in which we can only stand to be around likeminded people for fear of losing our values. This may have something to do with how I was raised (for this is the deepest education, it seems), but I also had a "formal education" in which a sort of rewiring took place. But, it seems, this rewiring has to be practiced continuously, or the old patterns will simply reemerge. This can be especially daunting in a city like LA, where there are all kinds of pocket communities with their own particular take. Sometimes I sneer at the complacency and what I take to be the false assuredness of all kinds of fundamentalists, be they conservative or liberal, but have I not myself succumbed to a kind of comfortable complacency? How do you fight that? How do you walk that middle road of openness. Encounter with text is certainly one way of this expansion. I was humbled to read a bit of the debate between Anglican Bishop Rowan Williams and novelist Philip Pullman, during which Williams had the following quote:

What you learn, I think, after absorbing a really serious piece of fiction, is not a message. Your world has expanded, your world has enlarged at the end of it, and the more a writer focuses on message, the less expansion there'll be. I think that's why sometimes the most successful, "Christian" fiction is written by people who are not trying hard to be Christian about it. A bit of a paradox, but I'm thinking of Flannery O'Connor, the American writer, my favorite example here. She's somebody who, quite deliberately, doesn't set out to make the points that you might expect her to be making, but wants to build a world in which certain things may become plausible, or tangible, palpable, but not to get a message across.

As an English teacher in the ninth and tenth grade, I am repeatedly trying to "teach texts," but I am so concerned with basic things like comprehension, vocabulary, spelling, structuring a basic essay, coaxing students to actually care about their grade and their future, that I tend to speed through class discussions, teasing out whatever the main message seems to be, in a fairly didactic way, not allowing the fiction to breathe. And I am left wondering, to what extent am I failing as a teacher of literature, and to what extent am I bound by circumstance? I am left thinking the fault is not the kids but myself. I haven't done a good enough job of challenging myself to live a mythologically inflected life. I've come down on one side of a spectrum and I filter the truth down to what lines up with what I already believe and I try to reproduce that in others. I'm on a search to educate myself on how to move toward a middle way, but here again I feel caught in a human bind. The choice of exposure to something, even something new, different, other, is ipso facto a choice to exclude billion other things. You see the problem we find ourselves in. Even a decision to be open is itself extremely limited. I suppose instead the question is how to cultivate an open heart and open mind. How to experience, or at least open ourselves up to, the daily resurrection?

Red Lion and Golden Compass

Sooo, a friend of mine, from Oxford no less, highly recommended the His Dark Materials trilogy (which includes The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife and The Something Else) a while back. I have fond memories of children's fantasy lit. Tolkien, Lewis, L'engle, what have you, and I gave some feint interest and shrugged and went on with my life. Then, I bought a book by an old professor and friend, Doug Thorpe, who for me represents a worldview, a time and place of searching, and some proximity to truth. In the book, he has an essay that recounts a camping trip with his wife and daughter during which they discuss the books, the symbolism, its relevance, and I was slightly more intrigued. I didn't want to settle for the movie experience, so sure enough I read the thing, right after re-reading the Hobbit. I had some awkward experiences reading the Hobbit, including shortness of breath, for reasons difficult to describe. I had some memory not only of the story, but in the way I read it the first time, that is, as an 11 year old or so. I had vivid memories of not visualizing the scenes for long stretches and penetrating no further than the printed page, and being bored. Now, going back into a state of childhood ignorance even for a few seconds at a time, just that sense memory, touched some kind of primal fear. On top of that, I'm sure this is the experience of many of my High School students and I feel I have my own mountain to climb. At moments like these I simply want to curl up in a fetal position with some hot cocoa and listen to the rain patter on the roof, but I live in LA, so there is no rain, nothing to till the dry dusty soil, or the dry dusty soul. But anyway, another point to be made is that the reading level of much of the Hobbit is roughly 3rd or 4th grade, spot on for my 11 year old self, but sort of disappointing now. Two many real world referents for a fantasy (the names of the trolls, for example), and a kind of latent classism in the portrayal of the villains. The tone of the whole book is excessively childish until the Riddles in the Dark chapter, when Tolkien finds his voice, which doesn't really come into fine focus until toward the end of the book, where we begin to get lush, detailed descriptions. In more ways than one, this really provides the set up for the Lord of the Rings, not just in terms of story and mythology, which doesn't even quite line up, but in terms of Tolkien teaching himself how to write and finding his voice. Phillip Pullman, by contrast, is an accomplished modern author, who knows how to weave a story together. As much as the story follows the hero's journey formula almost self-consciously, there's good stuff here. Pullman, an English professor in England, posits a kind of poetic worldview, in which symbols and their interpretation lead to truth. Lyra's process may be a kind of divination, and so have parallels to, say, shamanism, but it also parallels the process of close reading. In literary criticism, you let the interrelating symbols of a given text suggest an underlying meaning. The compass also has gears and levers, suggesting that, for Pullman, science can be put to use in service of truth (unlike, say, Tolkien, a sort of Luddite) I haven't finished the series of course, but there is some hint of gnosticism, certainly an anti-organized, oppressive religion message, God does appear, but he is apparently "an aged, spent force" to quote Thorpe. Pullman has received flak for his religious views and the movie was heavily edited to mitigate the criticism, or was it? On a figurative level, the Magisterium still resembles a state church. Yet many of the practices for which they are criticized are hardly modern, such as castrating children to sing for God in the choir, such as abducting children in medieval times. Certainly the church has perpetrated acts of evil over the centuries. I do believe Pullman does the Church some disservice in highlighting a few abominable practices and pretending this encapsulates the church as an institution. One easy counterexample is Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams praising the work. The desire of the establishment to suppress "dust" and Lyra's intuition that it is a good thing, suggest it is itself embodied physical human experience, sensuality, for some, that which makes us essentially human. This is, if anything, a deeply humanist voice. And even if it were blatantly anti-Christian, why silence and suppress, why not engage and respond? This suggests, as Roger Ebert points out, an insecure faith. Why do we treat new movie releases as if they wield some all-persuasive power? If we develop critical skills, we can engage it, taking the good, leaving the bad?
Anyhoo, I'll have to wrap this up later.
links to consider
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=16-08-042-f
http://www.powells.com/authors/pullman.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21595083/
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/relig/enc/stories/s510312.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/03/17/bodark17.xml

May approaches

April is the cruellest month. Well, right now it just seems damn hot. Another week comes and goes. Interesting, to be sure. I went on Wednesday to Blair High School to get information on their IB program(me). My principal wants to get one off the ground at our school and having done the IB diploma, I'm a likely candidate to help out. This may mean a trip to Lake Tahoe in June, but that doesn't sound so bad, not, does it. Let's see, what else. The Weepies have a new album out this week that I was slightly disappointed by. Say I Am You was probably my favorite release of '06. Been waiting for this one for a while. Had diversity integration training or whatever it's called on Tuesday. Went to Blair on Wednesday, the principal who called himself the "prince of pow" and could sell ice to eskimos (based on first impressions), let's say he had the "gift of gab" a la Don King, and looked dangerously like Keenan Wynn, which is only funny if you know who that is. Ahem. Anyway, then scrambled to school for periods 3 and 5. Raucous crowd these days. Bought a copy of Juno as well. Ah, capitalism. Consumption is salvation. Things for a novel rounding into some kind of shape. I predict a three year process trying to write this novel, although I should probably round it down for motivation's sake. Still reading Golden Compass from the Dark Materials trilogy. Interesting counterpoint to Lewis and, to some extent, Rowling. Went to the LA Times festival of books, about which more will be written tomorrow.

Wow! An Encounter with Conservatism

It's been so long since I've been in a crudely conservative context that self-righteous people seemed almost a conjuration, a mental construct, a straw-man or phantom from my past that I could use as a foil to gauge my own ideological development. But I forgot that someone, somewhere is listening to Rush Limbaugh right now and nodding and clapping vociferously like an autistic child singing the alphabet. Legalism and being pharisaical is so consciously avoided by those I know, Christian and non-Christian, that I have forgotten how appalling they can be. I do not think much about right and left, but obviously, someone does. I had entirely forgotten what "brow beating" looked like. Just about everything on this web site smacks of those clothed in religious certitude, the stagnant Pharisees whose religious constructs were stifling Christ's movement, his love, his transformative intention, his shalom. I know I am in a daily "den of iniquity" in this foul blue state with its liberal whackos with their political correctness. I wish some of the conservatives would simply interact more with people who aren't like them. Here in LA (often considered "not really America") or in any urban center for that matter, diversity is a fact and interaction with people of different stripes is unavoidable. How would people be changed through this exposure, I wonder? Would their definitions of certainty, truth, love, compassion, essentials of faith, would these things change? I am tempted to draw things in simple terms, to assume none of the people who write on such web sites have gone to college, something striking like that, so there's an excuse for the lack of compassion in their tone, for the lack of critical thought and strong sense of judgment for others. But the truth is, they probably have gone to colleges, but have been trained to think in fearful, exclusivistic ways theologically and psychologically. That which does not fit their narrow, rigid, reductionistic mind set has to be an attack from Satan on this edifice called "truth." I don't hate conservatives, but I am somewhat ashamed of them, if I can even say "them." How often do I tend toward discriminating others based on their views? Maybe the real enemy is not conservatives (who are trying to conserve what they hold to be essential, and largely attacked views), nor liberals, but polarization. And still, I wonder where the fear and hatred come from. Is it from having adopted a metanarrative from a small, persecuted people from ancient mesopotamia? How do we, as Americans, get the feeling that we are constantly being oppressed, that we are somehow under siege from the forces of Satan and immorality. By any standard, if anything, we are the Romans. We are the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, the superpower politically and economically. But to see ourselves as the Jews of the 1st century? Hardly. I suppose the shift takes place when you start to spiritualize the story. "Well, yes America is a power, but principalities and powers refers to spiritual reality." According to this thinking, we are constantly besieged by temptation and, as Christians, constitute an ethical monotheistic minority, clearly defined by following the letter of the law of God, Jesus, and Paul, whereas Hollywood, media, and other conjured phantoms represent the occupying force, trying at every turn to pry us loose from our "hard won" salvation. Again, in this view the Bible sort of plopped out of the sky in finished, divinely inspired form, and communicates its truth simply "for those with ears to hear" but will constitute "foolishness to the Greeks." What you are left with is a bitter tautology. "I'm right. God said it. I believe it. Anyone who disagrees just doesn't get it." This means whatever we think, no matter how colored by culture, language, or even misunderstood is by definition being "on God's side" and differing opinions are "of the devil." Interesting to think of God's metaphor for effectiveness: by fruits you will know them. The fruits of these writings are exclusivist, not inclusionist, they smack of hubris, certainty, and fear, not compassion, humility, grace, and shalom. So, to recap, how do you feel besieged and oppressed while living in one of the wealthiest and most powerful countries, not just in the world, but in all of freaking human history ? How do you manage that? First, adopt the story of a minority people from the ancient world as your own. Check. Second, spiritualize the story so it doesn't emphasize caring for the orphan and the widow, God's creation, preserving shalom, but rather on personal and collective religious piety. Check. Third, refuse to acknowledge the way in which our thoughts and biblical interpretations have been affected by the Enlightenment and individualism. Do we need to save Jesus from the petty tyrants and black friars who, in Blake's words "bind with briars my joys and desires?" What does it mean to have life and life abundantly? Does it mean turning into the Morality Brigade? Is that the sense we get from Luke? From any of the Gospels?

Infallibility, innerancy, insatiable curiosity.

Remember Rudyard Kipling's elephant's child with the insatiable curiosity who was always getting spanked for asking too many questions down by the banks of the great grey green Limpopo River? And he finally got his nose pulled long? Yeah that guy. Is it just me or is that what church is like? This somehow came to mind when looking for a witty title line for this blog. Hm. Karla recently went before session to be grilled on theological issues and one of the things they asked was whether she thought the Bible was inerrant or infallible. After years in the church, in a Christian home, in college, in seminary, I think I've figured it out: who freaking cares? Does the Bible work? Does it communicate truth in the sense of "applicable truths that practically change your life and relationships?" Well, then. Good. If not, if it's being used or has been used for brow beating, self-righteousness, and you have negative associations with it or parts of it, it might be good to take a Bible fast for a while, let the old weeds die, then reapproach it freshly later, maybe in a new context or with a fresh community of thoughtful, critically thinking, open people. It seems like meaning is created out of a dynamic between reader and text. Any engagement with the Bible sets up a relationship between reader and text. This might sound horribly post-modern and all, but it seems like the Bible doesn't "just say" anything. Context and interpretation, where we stand in relationship to the text affect its meaning. I'm sure I'm copping this off some well known writer or other I've forgotten about, but it seems fairly self evident. Of course the question becomes "well, then, it is just open to any old interpretation?" Well, if we stay in the purely categorical, abstract, Euclidean, logical, left-brained, rational, reason-based arena, where everything only exists as defined, where the rules are arrived at through argument, logic, and linear thought, then maybe so. But we live in a real world, governed by natural laws. We have experiences, delights, moments of suffering, and we measure our experience by the Bible and measure the Bible by our experience in a reciprocal dialectic. To say the Bible is infallible or inerrant or whatever is to concede somehow that the Bible's meaning is fixed and that it is our job to align ourselves with that fixed, unchanging, perfect truth. Acquired wisdom is a valuable thing, it helps us become mature, healthy individuals, but treating the Bible as a fixed quantity or perfect rulebook is not the only way to deep wisdom.

Bon Iver

Can I just say that this album is absolutely sublime. I've been listening to it over and over for days. I need a way to relax after a stressful day at work, to be ushered into reflection, contemplation. Take your Madonna (can she go away now, please?), your Gnarls Barkley, your Lil' Wayne, what have you. All I ever ask for is an album where I don't have to skip any tracks with beauty, a melodic pop sensibility (well, sometimes), and some substance or depth. There are precious few that hit on all cylinders. Bon Iver does it in spades. Although just for the sake of fairness to alternate points of view, Karla asked me to turn it off because it makes her anxious. Too slow, I guess. Ah, well, different strokes. But seriously, listening to this album is enough to make me believe in common grace if I didn't already. Something Keats said comes to mind...

Dualism

Karla and I had an interesting conversation after a long walk through downtown heading from the convention center, past Staples, past a brand new Ralph's (reurbanization anyone?) to a lovely organic (ah, LA) restaurant/diner called the Tiara Cafe. Understated flamboyance, that's my take. Anyway, we somehow got on the topic of dualism. Family dualisms, personal dualisms, etc. This is probably because she is taking the Ordination exams for the Presbyterian Church soon and I grew up in a theologically dualistic household and am constantly in a state of narcissistic self-reflection. She was trying to figure out if she could be considered reformed, orthodox reformed, or what, and we ended up getting on the subject of dualism. For her, dualism can be defined as splitting the sacred and secular, pre-judging who is "in" and who is "out" of salvation. What this comes down to is how you answer the question of whether or not common grace exists or not. In the churches I grew up, there was a very exclusive, insular mentality, in which salvation meant saying a sinner's prayer, belonging to a church or a community of "born-again" believers, preferably baptized in the holy spirit, you get the drift. But there was a fundamental view of reality as dualistic, somehow bifurcated. Holiness over here, evil over here. Kingdom of darkness out in "the world" or in "the flesh" and kingdom of God "in here" or "with us" or "in the spirit." Part of my path, my struggle has been wrestling with that duality. Even when I cast it off intellectually and embrace a different theology, I tend to fall back into it, encoded as it is into my spiritual DNA, unless I am actively a part of a community that believes otherwise. This one central element is huge in understanding theological differences within Christianity. If you believe in Common Grace, that is, that God is active in the world and calls it good even though there is sin, then you can embrace mystery. The downside is, perhaps, lack of accountability, not even to narrowly defined morality or what have you, but a mature life, open to God. I guess that opens up a question, how do you define spiritual growth outside of a rigid belief system with propositional truth and an emphasis on "the moral life?" What is a "deep well?" maybe it involves the same discipline, except that the discipline is not coerced nor out of fear. In my own journey I see so much the role of dualism. Now, this might work well for the Jesus People (my parents' generation) who were into this and that and then had a radical conversion experience as young adults. If you come "from" abuse, neglect, alcoholism, drug abuse, and you find life, find God in a church or through some faith tradition, then you are likely to see the split quite clearly, the shift from sprawling, selfish, ungoverned, random life to governed, ordered life as part of a religious community (I know, I know, it's "relationship with God" not "religion" well, ok, if it makes you feel better about it). But what if you're born into a religious community, Most of what you hear is to pray a sinner's prayer, to forsake your former life, to turn to God, away from sin, etc. In my case, although I'm sure I did some stupid things when I was 3, that is, before I said the sinner's prayer, and then many more times out of fear the first one didn't stick, I'm not sure the same message applies, although I heard it a thousand and one times. In this dualistic context, God has somehow given over the world to Satan "the prince of the power of the air" and condemned everyone to be his slaves. The contrast is so striking. I now walk about, not afraid the devil is around every corner in downtown Los Angeles, but interested in people, wondering where they're from, where they're at, what I could learn from them, what they could learn from me. I'm no longer afraid that all these streets, cars, this architecture, the people are somehow agents of Satan out to separate me from God because misery loves company. But this is exactly the kind of thinking the dualistic mind-set tends towards. What a revelation is Common Grace in this context. God just loves people, even though we do stupid stuff. The earth is his. I'm not waiting on the Millenium. I'm not worried about Hal Lindsey, don't care about Left Behind or any other scare tactics narrow minded people are controlled by and want others to be controlled by. Now who's scary? I had a kind of image of an open tent in the desert, like Burning Man or something. Thousands of people gathered round, some closer, some farther away from the center. The tent is open, not closed, and people are moving toward it, and some away from it, but there is energy there, and life, truth, transformation, transcendence. Where is judgment here? you might ask. What about "kingdom of darkness?" What about "gnashing of teeth?" You tell me. I don't know. Maybe there are people up in the hills, hiding from the light in fetal positions gnashing their teeth, only some of them have built their own little tents in the hills and some haven't, but they're all cold and naked and I think sometimes I'm one of them and nowhere near a tent. Common Grace means I can find God where I couldn't find him before, lost in stunted-graceland. I wrestled with this dualism all through college. I couldn't articulate it or identify it, but I knew it, felt it. I loved Blake, Dante, but was God really there? Couldn't possibly be. There was no invitation to salvation, not in the sense I was raised up to acknowledge. Instead of resolving the dualism, I suppose, I just hopped the border. The reasoning being, well, if I'm screwed anyway (and if our goal is nothing less than "to be perfect like our holy father is perfect" then, of course, we're all screwed) then I might as well enjoy myself. This is the logical conclusion of the dualistic mindset, at least for an aesthete such as myself. I have friends raised in similar circumstances who were better behaved, the difference being they didn't move to Germany when they were nine but stayed in exclusivist Christian subcultures that reinforced the dualism, moralism, and guilt. I, instead, was dropped into German school and then international school, which, you might say, is the opposite of moralistic. From the conservative American mindset, it seems horribly depraved and hedonistic. From the other side, it just seems like fun. On occasion, I would feel guilty about my lifestyle and repent, but any change was short term at best. My reasoning went that the high standards are impossible, and if we're going to be permissive, we might as well go all the way, you know, short of death and harm to others. In this mindset, sin is sin, and if you steal a dollar you might as well steal a million, because both will land you out of favor. So I didn't play by the rules, but I never really relinquished the dualism either. Maybe it took getting married to have enough perspective to see this. I don't know. It'll be interesting reconstructing a healthy theology and trying not to screw that up, too. =)

Moving...to Spokane?

So for the bi-monthy post. Hm, Karla applied to a position in scenic Spokane, WA and I've been thinking naturally about the implications should she get accepted. A dramatic upheaval to be sure, and not necessarily a welcome one, although in terms of purchasing power, and a slower lifestyle, it could even be a welcome one. Of course we would be extremely isolated from our previous communities and identities and this has to be reckoned with. Los Angeles by contrast, as much as I harp on it, also offers a variety of activities and temporary identities, a proximity to "happenings." For example, every white person under 40 is either in a rock band or trying to act, sooo you have options if you know anyone basically. Yesterday, a friend of mine from Kairos had a show at 14 below in Santa Monica, for example. Saturday Karla and I watched a lovely film called Under the Same Moon - a little predictable, but good moments and it made fun of white people, so what's not to like - at the Laemmle next to Vroman's. But most of the hipster/scenester stuff happens on the West Side. Which actually brings up another point. I rarely venture out to the West side from Pasadena, too much traffic, and the argument could be made that watching Netflix in Spokane will be every bit as fulfilling as watching Netflix here, which is the activity of choice most days, not going to the Huntington Library or the MOCA or even reading Barry Taylor's blog. (More on that later) While I do miss the seasons, this last week has been absolutely beautiful in LA. I'm slowly getting the hang of my job, have found a sense of community at this Kairos place and have our favorite restaurants and everything. Hm. On the other hand, do I really want to raise a child in Los Angeles?