Against the Stream

Jesus Save Me

My friend Jo's listing of "Jesus Songs" on her iTunes inspired me to do likewise. So, here's my "Jesus Save Me Playlist" for my iPod:

"Jesus Walks," Kanye West       
"Hey Jesus," Indigo Girls
"Jesus Christ," Cisco Houston
"Strange Waters," Bruce Cockburn       
"The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing," Frank Zappa
"Quality of Mercy," Michelle Shocked   
"Forgive to Forget," Michelle Shocked   
"Heaven's Here On Earth," Tracy Chapman   
"Calling All Angels," Jane Siberry With K.D. Lang   
"Sheep Go To Heaven," Cake
"Selling The Drama," Live
"Get Ready For Love," Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
"Losing My Religion," R.E.M.
"The 23rd Psalm," Bobby McFerrin   
"The Face of Love," Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan with Eddie Vedder
"Feel So Different," Sinéad O'Connor   
"Dear God," XTC
"Sunday Bloody Sunday," U2
"The Needle's Eye," Gil Scott-Heron
"Superman's Song," Crash Test Dummies
"Messiah Ward," Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
"Counting Blue Cars," Dishwalla   
"Hymn 43," Jethro Tull   
"Pride (In The Name Of Love)," U2
"I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow," The Soggy Bottom Boys
"Visions And Dreams," Carrie Newcomer

Computer Nostalgia

From today's New York Times -- a mediatation on computers and writing:

I gave up in the spring of 2002. Eighteen years of Microsoft operating systems was enough. I had been through every version of DOS and nearly every version of Windows up to that point. If I knew as much about my tractor as I did about the fine points those systems, I would be able to rebuild its hydraulics from scratch. It made no difference. As Windows grew more and more complicated (or kludgier and kludgier) - and as Microsoft tried to make it seem simpler and friendlier to novices - it also got uglier and uglier. So it seemed to me. I moved my last Windows desktop to the basement, where I hope the mold is eating its hard-drive. I bought an iBook and have lived happily ever after.

It was just the right time. The iBook came with OS X 10.1. That's what I use. I never glanced at OS 9. I wanted nothing to do with the past - even Apple's past. I now no longer have to worry about crashes or screen freezes, regular occurrences in my Microsoft days. This has nothing to do with writing, I know, but it has everything to do with allowing me to keep my composure. The real reason for switching platforms, though, was to recover some of the pleasure of using a computer, which had almost vanished for me. The stability of my 12" iBook (and its successors, a 12" PowerBook and a 20" iMac) was important and so was ease of use and a sense of inventiveness. But what has won me over is the esthetics of the Apple cosmos. It's a fine-grained universe with smooth, clean edges. The world within the screen appears to recognize, and obey, the laws of gravity. Solids appear solid, not pixilated and porous. My Apple seemed surprisingly willing to leave me alone to do my work. It never nagged me. It never panicked. It had made a clean break with the past and it let me do so too.

I still write in Microsoft Word, I know. I'm happy with Word X for Mac, which hasn't been updated in a couple of years, and I will not upgrade to Office 2004. Even the name makes me nervous. Every now and then I hit just the wrong combination of keys, and the Office Assistant pops up. I loathe the Office Assistant - even the Mac version, which is far less annoying than the Windows one. Animated assistance is the last thing I want. It's as useless as a grammar checker. I suspect that after 21 years I've nearly come to the end of the Word road. I suppose I'll miss it when I find the right replacement. And yet I haven't missed Windows - or MS-DOS - yet. I don't think I ever will.

This, too, has nothing to do with writing. And yet everything has something to do with writing. That's the nature of the job.

This all describes my own state of mind when I switched from Windows to Mac Os X this past summer. It finally got to the point where I simply couldn't stand the clunkiness of the MS operating system any longer, and it became an impediment, rather than an aid, to my work.

He's got some good stuff on the nature of writing itself. It makes me feel pretty good about my own difficulties in "getting it done" when it comes to writing. But the difference is that journalists have the threat of the deadline hanging over their heads constantly. For academics, the deadlines are there, but they're often not so deadly, and so fiddling around instead of getting things done can be a real danger for a scholarly writer. Still if Verlyn Klinkenborg can do it, I'm sure I can too.

Three Reviews

In another of my occasional attempts to add some aesthetic depth to this blog, I'd like to offer up a few brief reviews of some new music that I've been listening to a bit lately.

Aimee Mann, The Forgotten Arm

Regular readers of this site will know that I'm an absolute star struck freak for Aimee Mann. Bachelor No. 2  remains on my Top 5 Desert Island album list (and long may it wave!), and Lost in Space was absolutely brilliant. I particularly like the live pieces and B-sides from the limited edition.

Unfortunately, while I like The Forgotten Arm, it doesn't measure up in terms of inspiration, depth or range to those other two albums. While there are a number of good songs, and perhaps one truly great one, it doesn't measure up to Mann's best stuff. I like the concept album approach, but Mann doesn't offer enough story to keep the listener interested in the tale she's weaving, and the usual Aimee Mann tone of transcendent despair is undermined by her attempt to wrest a somewhat happy ending from the mess she makes of her characters' lives. Don't get me wrong, I'll gladly listen to this album, but if I'm in the mood for Mann, it'll definitely place third behind Bachelor No. 2 and Lost in Space.

Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine

I'll confess that I wasn't one of those who hopped on the Fiona Apple bandwagon when she was big back in the late '90s. I liked "Criminal," but I wasn't rushing out to buy her albums. Neverthless, when I got wind of the shelving of Extraordinary Machine and the availability of some phantom tracks on the internet, I decided to check and see what all the fuss was about. I have to say, I was pleased with what I heard. I like the rough, raw edge of the cuts, and the effects and instrumentation that John Bryon brought to the music. It got to the point where it was probably the most frequently played album on my iPod.

So, I felt duty-bound to purchase  the "official" version when it was released earlier this month. My reaction: Feh. It's okay. Many of the songs are virtually identical to the "unofficial" version that I downloaded earlier, and insofar as others were different, they weren't enormously different. So, I wasn't repulsed, but I wasn't impressed either. Much of the rawness of those earlier tracks was taken away. Her voice is less husky, the melodies less edgy, and the whole thing just slightly more, well, commercial. Again, still a worthy album in it's own right, but I'll still listen to the rough cut tracks over the official release any day.

The Decemberists, Picaresque

This is really just a review of three songs. I happened to stumble across an interview with these folks on NPR one afternoon and immediately went hunting for them on iTunes. The two songs featured on the NPR piece, "The Infanta" and "Eli, the Barrow Boy" were great, and I was hooked, but not enough to buy the whole album. I love these two songs though. But then, I happened across the video for "16 Military Wives" and I realized I was onto something big. This was a band with a wicked political sense of humor, an ironic take on the stupidity that is the Iraq war, and a compassion for those who are caught up in and mangled by its bloody machinery. I haven't yet knucked under and bought the rest of the album, but at this rate, I may have the whole thing before I'm through.

Jim Wallis

Last week at the Values, Vision, and the Via Media conference, we had the privilage to hear an address by Jim Wallis. As usual, Wallis was stirring, charismatic, inspiring, and frustrating (occasionally, he was inspiring and frustrating simultaneously).

I'm glad that progressive Christians have Jim Wallis. Unlike many of us, his activism is rooted in a concrete decision to live his life in accord with his deepest principles. So, he lives among the impoverished in Washington, D.C., he remains, as near as I can tell, a committed pacifist, and he's been arrested more times than he himself can probably count in the name of his faith and his principles. He's travelled the world witnessing to the idea that an active faith in Christ requires of us that we care for the poor, feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned. In the sheep/goat dichotomy, he's a sheep if anyone is, and we goats ought to be glad he's around to keep us honest.

But (you just knew there was a but, didn't you?), Jim's vision of the future of progressive Christianity is inextricibly intertwined with the world of Sojourners. When pressed on how we go about building a progressive Christian movement, he made continual reference to Sojourners Magazine, Sojomail, Call to Renewal, etc. Now, in a world where Sojourners is the only voice willing to speak out for progressive Christian faith, this is understandable, but it's time for Jim to look around and see a new generation of progressive Christian activist, ready and willing to speak and act out of their conviction that faith in Jesus Christ requires committed social action in the name of justice.

Who do I mean? All you need to do is read this site. We have the brilliant Jo Guldi and Kety Esquival, each of whom was brave enough to challenge Jim on his narrow focus. There are the other members of the CrossLeft Advisory group, all of whom have committed themselves to growing this movement. There are progressive Christian bloggers of all shapes and sizes, out there on the internet proclaiming like lonely prophets in the midst of a desert.

Let their voices be heard! Let them rise to leadership! Raise them up and place the future in their hands! They are the ones who will lead us forward into an era of progressive renewal, when Christians can recognnize that their moral responsibility for society includes those who are cast out by the powerful, and non-Christians can recognize that we who follow Christ are not defined by the constricted and bigoted pseudo-theology of the Religious Right.

This is what we need: We need Jim Wallis to look beyond his own staff to see the next generation of leaders. The leaders are all around us, in every corner of our nation, already organizing. If Jim Wallis will reach out and embrace them, nourish the movements that they are building, and proclaim their presence, their power and their number will increase, and they will flourish.

Been Sleepin'

Hey there folks,

Sorry, I've been off relaxing on the sunny shores of Key Bisquane for the past several weeks, and *sigh* just haven't had time or energy to keep up with the blog. The life of leisure is a burden, I tell you! A burden!

No, the truth is I've just been a busy bee with school stuff. I plan to be back in the swing soon. Right now I'm at a very cool conference in Washington, D.C. More on that later.

By the way, check out the new feature on this 'ol blog: Streaming Christianity. It's over there to the right.