Kultur

A Limerick About...Vain Relatives

2009-06-30T14:41:00Z

Amnesia’s a symptom of vanity

Evidenced by my S-I-L’s (in)sanity

She thinks what she says

Should be accepted without quiz

That she’s really a Barbie not a manatee

A Limerick About...Liberals

2009-06-23T02:30:00Z

Forever a pernicious rumor
That liberals have no sense of humor
Politically correct
They say, "What the Heck,"
And not with a bang, but a murmur.

A Limerick About...Jon & Kate Plus Eight II

2009-06-23T02:26:00Z

The problem with young Jon and Kate
Is not that they can't procreate.
With the best medical science,
And TLC finance,
Their marriage now belongs to the state.

A Limerick About...Jon & Kate Plus Eight I

2009-06-23T01:00:00Z

And what of Jon Gosselin and Kate
Whose want of celebrity won't sate.
With a lack of humility,
And store-bought fertility
The world they would repopulate.

A Limerick about...Nosey Neighbors

2009-06-11T02:25:00Z

There once was a stout little guinea;

So tight he could shit just one penny

Not one who mingles,

But complains about shingles

Of his own business he doesn't mind any.

(About) 100 Words on...Cadillac Records

2009-06-10T01:58:08Z

Cadillac Records

Darnell Martin, Director

Tristar Pictures

2008

Darnell Martin's biopic of Leonard Chess and Chess Records absolutely blows with regard to historical accuracy and the use of every romantic cliche possible. As a movie it ranks with the worst one could waste his or her entertainment dollar on. As a vehicle for individual performances, like Kiss of the Spider Woman (Island Alive, 1985) before it, Cadillac Records shines. Adrien Brody is a serviceable Leonard Chess, but his performance quickly pales once the musical icons enter, introduced in a character crescendo. First is Jeffery Wright's Muddy Waters. Wright's Waters is a Mississippi Delta sharecropper cum city slicker with a fierce and corrosive dignity and pride. Columbus Short's Little Walter Jacobs captures that self-destructive genius savant self immolating during his personal Gotterdammerung. In the first of the three finest performances Eamonn Walker portrays Chester Burnett, AKA Howlin' Wolf. Where Wright's Muddy Waters was suavely sensual, Walker's Wolf is steaming animal sexual as seen in his studio serenade of Water's innamorata with a salacious "Smokestack Lightening." Rapper MC Mos Def presents a show-stopping Chuck Berry while Beyonce Knowles slays Etta James' "At Last." Forgive the film for being bad and wish there had been much, much more of Eamonn Walker' gigantic Wolf.

Theology for the Criminally Insane: The Shack, A Review

2009-06-07T13:39:00Z

The Shack

William Paul Young

Windblown Media, Los Angles

2007

I judge books by their ability to provoke conflicting thoughts and feelings. The more conflicted the thoughts and feelings, the better the read. The Shack is such a book. I finished it being very much of two minds: one of disappointment at the inelegantly applied theology, particularly regarding the beginning of things and the other, of a profound awe at the perfect concept of the Holy Trinity and Its grand unified field theory of Love.

I want very badly to dislike William Paul Young's tome of loss and redemption for leaving the job it starts half done. The book has achieved impressive sales numbers among the churched and unchurched alike and has been the discussion topic for countless church small groups. While a heartfelt and serious book, The Shack nevertheless suffers from a painfully applied theological formula, yellowed with cliché and stubbornly defying any meaningful effort at updating (however, this is a part of the Christian charm). Its dramatic architecture comes off as an attempt to fashion a "workbook" for the Bible to be used in the non-denominational "Bible" churches that are virally replicating themselves in the United States and abroad.

The Shack's theological paradigm is frankly post-Protestant. There is neither a whiff of Catholic Marian apparition or Augustinian Original Sin or Calvinic sulfur here. The Trinity is the book's theological center and Young does all he can to cast Tertullian's divine paradox in as many lights as possible, revealing the philosophy's manifold nature. This is the book's greatest success. By addressing the Trinity first, Young does not need to consider the the three parts separately. In fact, the author makes every effort to present the Trinity as a single unit, even when the book's protagonist Mack Philips spends time with each entity ostensibly alone.

The plot is a more satisfying rendering of Job, though with a more narrow focus. Mack Philips loses a daughter in a horrible way, descending into a gray miasma confused negative feelings. Several years later he receives a mysterious note from God to meet Him at The Shack, the last place of any trace of Philip's daughter. While there, Mack meets a large black woman, Elousia (The Father); the Hebrew Jesus (The Son), and a sprite Asian woman Sarayu (The Holy Spirit). Young uses these three characters, together and separately, to guide Mack through grief, acceptance, forgiveness, and redemption. As ham-handed as this politically correct trio is and as brutal as Young's attempt to smash stereotypes with blunt force, this assembly of characters works surprisingly well.

This laudable presentation of the Trinity is almost completely sabotaged by the old-school treatment of the Eden story and the Fall of Man. As a myth in the strictest sense -- a story (not factual) that presents a fundamental truth -- Eden remains a durable, if not arcane, vehicle. But from a literal interpretation, the story can only be viewed as a superstition, replete with black cats, open umbrellas, and broken mirrors. Augustine compounds this divine cartoon by linking the Fall of Man and the concept of Original Sin to the sex act, thereby ruining the healthy, natural sexuality for generations. The Trinity addresses these matters with the protagonist Philips still cast in the old school garb. Philips would have been better served perhaps with a more Darwinian view of "Original Sin:"

Humans are animals like all other animals, biologically programmed to act in ways that will prolong the individual human's life. If left to his or her own devices, humans tend toward the egocentric and self-centered without real concern for the whole. If "Original Sin" is anything, it is this. Young does address humans' longing to be the "individual" acting alone, self sufficiently and how this position lessens that of the community of humans, humanity. Jesus tells Mack that it is the death of the individual that He longs for so the individual will join the collective whole with He, God, and the Holy Spirit. This path ushers in the idea of "community:" that thread or remnant that extends through written Scripture and history, ostensibly creating the "church community" and thereby amplifying the concept that we all need each other. This presentation of the Trinity itself in The Shack, magnifies this idea of community to its infinite conclusion.

Where a more open-minded theological position is presented is in Jesus' dialog with Mack regarding Christians Christian in name only. Jesus points out to Mack that He (Jesus) is not a Christian and that the idea of Christians is an affectation of Humans. Jesus goes on to say:

"...my life is not meant to be an example to copy. Being my follower is not trying to "be like Jesus," it means for your independence to be killed. I came to give you life, real life, my life. We [The Trinity] will come and live our life inside of you, so that you begin to see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and touch with our hands, and think like we do. But, we never force that union on you. If you want to do your own thing, have at it. Time is on our side."

It is here that Christ gratefully transcends human's flawed attempts to organize man's religious thought. It is just not that complicated. Jesus finishes his thoughts with His proper egalitarian flare, emphasizing that it is about the community and not what one calls the community that is important:

"...Those who I love come from every system that exists. There were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims, Democrats, Republicans, and many who don't vote or are not part of any Sunday morning or religious institutions. I have followers who were murderers and many who were self-righteous. Some are bankers and bookies, Americans and Iraqis, Jews and Palestinians. I have no desire to make them Christian [emphasis mine] but I do want them to join in their transformation into the sons and daughters of [God]."

Young is not the first to stake out this position. Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer offered his concept of "Religionless Christianity" in his writings from prison shortly before his martyrdom at the end of World War II:

"Our whole nineteen-hundred-year-old Christian preaching and theology rest on the "religious a priori" of mankind. "Christianity" has always been a form--perhaps the true form--of "religion." But if one day it becomes clear that this a priori does not exist at all, but was a historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression, and if therefore man becomes radically religionless--and I think that that is already more or less the case (else how is it, for example, that this war, in contrast to all previous ones, is not calling forth any "religious" reaction?)--what does that mean for "Christianity"? It means that the foundation is taken away from the whole of what has up to now been our "Christianity," and that there remain only a few "last survivors of the age of chivalry," or a few intellectually dishonest people that we are to pounce in fervor, pique, or indignation, in order to sell them goods? Are we to fall upon a few unfortunate people in their hour of need and exercise a sort of religious compulsion on them? If we don't want to do all that, if our final judgment must be that the Western form of Christianity, too, was only a preliminary stage to a complete absence of religion, what kind of situation emerges for us, for the church? How can Christ become the Lord of the religionless as well? Are there religionless Christians? If religion is only a garment of Christianity--and even this garment has looked very different at different times--then what is a religionless Christianity?

The questions to be answered would surely be: What do a church, a community, a sermon, a liturgy, a Christian life mean in a religionless world? How do we speak of God--without religion, i.e., without the temporally conditioned presuppositions of metaphysics, inwardness, and so on? How do we speak (or perhaps we cannot now even "speak" as we used to) in a "secular" way about God? In what way are we "religionless-secular" Christians, in what way are we those who are called forth, not regarding ourselves from a religious point of view as specially favored, but rather as belonging wholly to the world? In that case Christ is no longer an object of religion, but something quite different, really the Lord of the world. But what does that mean? What is the place of worship and prayer in a religionless situation?

The Pauline question of whether [circumcision] is a condition of justification seems to me in present-day terms to be whether religion is a condition of salvation. Freedom from [circumcision] is also freedom from religion. I often ask myself why a "Christian instinct" often draws me more to the religionless people than to the religious, but which I don't in the least mean with any evangelizing intention, but, I might almost say, "in brotherhood." While I'm often reluctant to mention God by name to religious people--because that name somehow seems to me here not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest (it's particularly bad when others start to talk in religious jargon; I then dry up almost completely and feel awkward and uncomfortable)--to people with no religion I can on occasion mention him by name quite calmly and as a matter of course."

This is what the imperfect book, The Shack, achieves perfectly: a vision of instinct and behavior that reflects The Trinity's love and compassion. My mentor and friend told me of The Shack, "You will l wish it was this way." I contend that it is our obligation to make it so.

(About) 100 Words on...Funky Kingston by Toots and the Maytals

2009-03-27T00:54:15Z

Funky Kingston

Toots and the Maytals

Mango

1973

There is a reason that Rolling Stone magazine selected Funky Kingston as one of the 500 Greatest Albums. It is because it is the best Reggae album recorded. going on 40 years old, Funky Kingston brims with joy and happiness. If Bob Marley is Reggae's Dr. Martin Luther King and Peter Tosh its Malcolm X, then Toots Hibbits is its Louis Armstrong, Jamaican musical ambassador. "Pomp and Pride" alone makes this a perfect recording. If this song does not pull one from the depths nothing can. Follow this with "Louie, Louie" and one has a party in six minutes. I wonder where this disc was when I was in 1973?

(About) 100 Words on... La Linea del Sur by Renaud Garcia-Fons

2009-03-24T01:48:35Z

La Linea del Sur

Renaud Garcia-Fons

Enja Records

2009

Bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons fancies a five-string double bass as his ax of choice. Judging by the composition of his band (accordion, flamenco guitar, percussion, and voice) one might believe that this is a Tango outing. But No...Garcia-Fons has his sights set on a synthesis of the Mediterranean, Latin America, flamenco, and jazz. Eleven compositions comprise this fine recording, which touches two hemispheres. Garcia-Fons arco and pizzicato playing are exemplary. David Venitucci's accordion recalls Piazzolla without copying him and Esperanza Fernandez's humid vocals will cause may dry mouths. This is beautiful and honest acoustic music meant for mass consumption. Drink Deep.

(About) 100 Words on... Jeff Beck Performing this Week...Live at Ronnie Scott's

2009-03-24T01:35:29Z

Jeff Beck, Performing this week...Live at Ronnie Scott's

Jeff Beck

Eagle Vision, Eagle Rock Entertainment

2009

The eternally youthful Jeff Beck appeared at London's famed jazz club Ronnie Scott's. His working band in tow, including exquisite bassist phenom Tal Wilkenfield, Beck conjures his typical set, heating it, pots on gas on high. Opening with Jimmy Page's tribute to him, "Beck's Bolero," Beck proceeds to reveal his pared down guitar wares that throw off magic like sparks. Beck eschewed electronic gimmickry years ago, opting to bend his note with his fingers, volume knobs, and wammy bar. this has made his guitar playing immediately identifiable. Cue up the Beatles "A Day in the Life" and see a genius in action.

(About) 100 words on...An Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Letter to the Editor

2009-02-15T21:22:20Z

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Sunday, February 15, 2009, p. 5J

Voter's character shown - One of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen just left the White House. As he left, he was booed. That shows you what kind of people went to the polls and voted. Scum.

Hot Springs Village

This letter redefines the meaning of not knowing where to start.

While the majority is not always right, it might be a bit disingenuous to refer to it as "Scum."
If this is the kind of people who went to the polls to vote, exactly what does that make the letter's author?
It was opined over and over again that the conservatives would just stay home from the election when it was realized their cause was lost for 2009. Perhaps that is what the letter's author did. Stay at home. That's the spirit.
Considering George W. Bush as "One of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen" is hyperbole as imbecilic as those talking-heads touting President Clinton as "One of the greatest presidents this country has ever seen."

(About) 100 Words on... Patricia Cornwell's "Book of the Dead"

2009-02-10T18:59:59Z

Book of the Dead

Patricia Cornwell

Berkley, 2007

In Blowfly (Putnam, 2003), Patricia Cornwell switched from the Kay Scarpetta-First Person point of view to a third-person omniscient narrator. The result, through Trace (Putnam, 2004), Preditor (Putnam, 2005), and culminating disasterously in Book of the Dead, is to reduce her quartet of protagonists, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, Dr. Benton Wesley, Lucy Farinelli, and Pete Marino into snivelling, spoiled characatures of their previous selves not fit for an episode of Power, Privilege and Justice. From Scarpetta' perception, these characters are all fallible human beeing deserving our concern. Cornwell's third person perception is unforgivingly sterile and black and white, even of Scarpetta. The plot is beside the point save for the nuclear detonation that occurs among the series' protagonists. Cornwell attempts a redemptive psychobio in Scarpetta (Putnam, 2008) that largely fails to restore the characters to any level where we might give a damn about them. Pete Marino should have sledded the asphalt long ago.

(About) 100 Words on... Jake Hertzog's "Chromatosphere"

2009-02-06T19:50:27Z

Chromatosphere

Jake Hertzog

That's Out Records, 2009

Jake Herzog has scads of schooling in how to play the jazz guitar having graduated from Berklee. He is fortunate enough to attracts support talent like bassist Harvie S, pianist Michael Wolff, and drummer Victor Lewis. Forget all of the original compositions here, save for the very fine and rocking "Bonding" which indeed makes Herzog "...a jazz guitarist of and for the 21st Century." Herzog's full-bore treatment of "Almost like Being in Love" breaks tonal ground in the standards department, his lines clean and sharp as razors. His "In Your Own Sweet Way" is truly a marvel, perhaps one for the ages, as is "Falling in Love With Love." Hertzog needs a standards recording.

(About) 100 words on...Arkansas House Bill 1237

2009-02-05T22:00:10Z

The joke goes like this...

A hillbilly couple from Crawford County walks out of divorce court.

The wife is crying her heart out

The Husband says,

Oh Hell, shut up, we's still cousins.

Arkansas elected officials have added one more means to an already pregnant list means for Arkansans to appear borderline intelligent: Arkansas House Bill 1237: AN ACT TO REMOVE CHURCHES AND OTHER PLACES OF WORSHIP FROM THE LIST OF PROHIBITED PLACES FOR A PERSON LICENSED TO CARRY A CONCEALED HANDGUN TO CARRY A CONCEALED HANDGUN; TO ALLOW A PERSON LICENSED TO CARRY A CONCEALED HANDGUN TO CARRY A CONCEALED HANDGUN IN PARKING LOTS OF CERTAIN PLACES; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.

This makes one pine away for the days of Prosecutor Dan Harmon, Sheriff Marlon Hawkins, Congressman Guy "Mutt" Jones, Mary Lee Orsini, Sheriff Tommy Robinson, Creation Science, Intelligent Design, forced integration, outhouses, and taking a leak on an electrified fence in the dark.

Two Views of Early Jackson Browne

2009-01-29T13:36:33Z

Two Views of Early Jackson Browne

Jackson Browne - Ultrasonic Studios 1973 (Hempstead, New York, 10/09/1973)

Jackson Browne - Nashville 1978 (Nashville, Tennessee, 02/22/1978)

Unauthorized Live Recordings

Live recordings are revealing with those recorded earlier in an artist's career typically better. Jackson Browne is a case in point. These two early live bootlegs reveal two very different Brownes while both illustrate the absolute necessity of David Lindley to Browne and his signature sound. Ultrasonic Studios 1973 and Nashville 1978 bookend the release of Browne's masterpiece, Late for the Sky (Asylum, 1974); magnum opus, The Pretender (Asylum, 1976); and greatest commercial achievement, Running on Empty (Asylum, 1977). Both performances are anchored by "Take It Easy," "Rock Me On The Water," "Doctor My Eyes," and "These Days," all from his first two recordings Jackson Browne (Saturate Before Using) (Asylum, 1972) and For Everyman (Asylum, 1973).

And it is with these songs that the two performances differ. The Ultrasonic Studios show (a radio show) have Browne in a quartet format with David Lindley playing guitar, lap steel, violin and viola, Larry Zak on drums and Doug Hayward on bass. The performance of these four core songs are played with much for authority and assertiveness than the later Nashville set. Lindley is incendiary in both his violin ("Take It Easy") and lap steel playing ("Doctor My Eyes"). Browne's passion is palpable.

The only thing that the 1973 show lacks, at a minimum, are the Nashville selections from Late For The Sky ("Fountain of Sorrow," "Before the Deludge," "For A Dancer," Walking Slow," though an instramental version on the 73 show anticipates ...Sky, and "The Road and the Sky") and at maximum those from The Pretender ("The Fuse," "Here Come Those Tears Again," "Your Bright Baby Blues," and "The Pretender"). The Nashville show employs a larger band and slicker performance. Browne and company were well on their way to becoming business men-artists in 1978 rather than the hungry artists in 1973.

Both of these shows are necessary to understand the early Jackson Browne and why he is such an important songwriting presence then and now. He is the yin to Warren Zevon's yang and a deadly serious Lowell George. I'm am not sure Browne has had a thing to say since The Pretender, but up to that time is introspectively brilliant.

(About) 100 Words on... Liam Sillery's "Outskirts"

2009-01-27T03:20:30Z

Outskirts

Liam Sillery

OA2, 2008

Trumpeter Liam Sillery seeks the aural confines outside of the comfortable ordinary. He extends this journey in the title of his third OA2 release, Outskirts. This disc is about exacting composition within non-standard time signatures, making for craggy, inventive music that satisfies without bewildering. It is an evolution from his previous On The Fly (OA2, 2005) and Minor Changes (OA2, 2004) where Sillery's stark, tart trumpet chips precise pieces from the compositions he is sculpting. Alto saxophonist Matt Blotstein likewise follows Sillery with a precise and defined tone, nevertheless providing Sillery is musical foil. Sillery's rhythm section is top notch, as would be required for such richly complex music.

(About) 100 Words on... Chet Baker's "Peace"

2009-01-22T03:56:19Z

Peace
Chet Baker

Enja, 2006

Chet Baker recorded Peace with David Friedman's vibraphone-led trio in 1982 performing a collection of David Friedman original compositions (plus Horace Silver's "Peace"). Rarely has Baker demonstrated the complexity of his talent on a recording. Not known for his technical expertise, Baker navigates Friedman's clever charts, infusing them with that trademark Baker coolness. This is Baker at perhaps his most stripped down and vunerable and it is this creative vunerability that makes this disc the success it is. Buster Williams provides splendid swing to these pieces, gently propelling them toward their creative destination, something between sublime and perfection.

(About) 100 Words on... The Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading"

2009-01-22T03:47:21Z

Burn After Reading

Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

Alliance Films, 2008

A common criticism of the Coen Brothers' Burn After Reading is the shallowness or dimensionless characters. This film is not No Country for Old Men (2007), which is more like Miller's Crossing (1990) with its emphasis on language use than The Big Lebowski (1998) which, like BAR, is about character caricature. Brad Pitt and George Clooney demonstrate uncommon comic ability while Tilda Swinton is unconvincing. J.K. Simmons continues to emerge as a comedic everyman while moonlighting away from Turner Network Television's The Closer. No, the Coens are right on time with BAR.

What Was The Biggest News Event to Occur In You Life?

2009-01-20T04:43:44Z

Bryant, Arkansas: Monday, January 18, 2009

Interviewers often like to ask those they interview, "What Is The Biggest News Event To Occur in Your Life?" Having been born during the Eisenhower Administration, the newsworthy items that have occurred since deserving consideration are legion:

The Desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School

Hawaiian Statehood

The Cuban Revolution

Election of the First Roman Catholic President

Vatican II

The Bay of Pigs

First Manned Space Flight

Construction of the Berlin Wall

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech

John F. Kennedy Assassination

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wins Nobel Peace Prize

The Six-Day War

The Monterey Pop Festival

Robert F. Kennedy Assassination

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassination

Chicago, 1968

The First Moon Landing

Woodstock

Watergate

Munich Olympics

Withdrawal from Vietnam

Chinese Cultural Revolution

Yom Kippur War

Nixon Resigns

The Death of Mao Tse-tung

Death of Elvis Presley

Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II

Jonestown mass suicide

Margaret Thatcher elected British Prime Minister

Pope John Paul II. was shot in Vatican

Iran Hostage Crisis

Space Shuttle Challenger explodes

Destruction of the Berlin Wall

Nelson Mandela was released from prison

German re-unification

Desert Storm

End of Apartheid

Soviet Union dissolved

Bill Clinton Elected President

World Trade Center Bombing

Civil War in Rwanda

The 2000 Election

9/11

Michael Phelps' Perfect Olympics

While all of these events are noteworthy, they will all be replaced tomorrow when Barak Obama, the first Black Man elected President of the United States takes the Oath of Office, Tuesday, January 20, 2009.

(About) 100 Words on... Chet Baker's "Live at Rosenheimer'

2009-01-20T03:55:15Z

Live at Rosenheimer

Chet Baker

Timeless, 1989

Live at Rosenheimer is billed as "Chet Baker's Last Performance as Quartet." Recorded April 17, 1988 at the 5th Rosenheimer Jazz Liv(f)e Tage, this recital took place a mere three weeks before Baker's May 13th death. This is the show that immediately preceded what would eventually become The Last Concert, Vol. I & II (Enja, 2004) and would remain the last recorded testament. The quartet is drummerless with flautist Nicola Stilo. The sound is very cool. Seventeen humid minutes of "Funk In A Deep Freeze" make is performance necessary. Baker is chilling on "I'm A Fool to Want You."