zoecarnate

A couple of tantalizing tidbits from the news this week, certainly not the most meaningful but definitely interesting.

Quoth Wired:

The recording industry and U.S. radio companies have squared off for decades about whether AM and FM radio broadcasters should pay royalties to singers, musicians and their labels. Broadcasting music without payment is akin to piracy, the industry says.

What?? And here I thought this was satire…Wired continues:

But now the debate is getting meaner; there’s more at stake as the recording industry seeks new income avenues in the wake of wanton peer-to-peer piracy and declining CD sales in part due to the iPod and satellite radio. A U.S. House subcommittee could vote as early as Thursday on a royalty measure.

Taking it to the House of Representatives? Yawn. C’mon, guys. Can’t you do something more, y’know, creative? Well apparently, yes you can!

On Monday, the recording industry sent the National Association of Broadcasters — the trade group representing the $16 billion a year AM-FM broadcasting business — a can of herring to underscore that it believes its arguments against paying royalties are a red herring. The NAB says its members should not pay royalties because AM-FM radio “promotes” the music industry. [Emphases mine]

Red Herring - get it? Well if you don’t know what words and colloquialisms mean, their next gift should clarify things for you:

The herring present followed another gift — a dictionary, a bid by the recording industry to explain what it saw as the difference between fees and taxes. The NAB describes the latest royalty proposal as a tax.

Those cads! A can of herring, and a dictionary? Could they possibly top those?

And two weeks ago, the recording industry, under the umbrella group musicFIRST, sent the NAB four digital downloads: “Take the Money and Run” by the Steve Miller Band; “Pay me My Money Down” by Bruce Springsteen; “Back In the U.S.S.R” by Paul McCartney and “A Change Would Do You Good” by Sheryl Crow.

As Dave Barry would say, I’m not making this up. Kudos to you, recording industry. While I find your argument (as I have most of your technology-restricting arguments since around 199 draconian and stultifying, at least you’re saying it with some real flair and panache. You can read the full article here.

Moving right along, when I read the headline (again from the fine folks at Wired) British Police in High-Speed Chase … With UFO, my interest was piqued. When I read the opening line,

In a close encounter with the future of transportation, a police helicopter almost hit what its crew insists was an alien spacecraft. And then they chased it. Seriously.

I wanted to say “Heck yeah!” and “Finally!” Something you probably don’t know about me: As a teenager I was a huge UFO and conspiracy theory buff. I knew a lot, then, about the state of alien abductions and UFO sightings ’round the world. As one friend in my house church community here likes to say, “You used to be cool, Mike, and into UFOs and stuff. Now you’re just into theology.”

Oh, how we’ve fallen.

So this article! The original, from the Telegraph, sez:

A police helicopter crew gave chase to a UFO after it almost collided with their aircraft near a military base. The pilot was forced to bank sharply to avoid being hit by the mystery aircraft as the helicopter was returning to the Ministry of Defence base of St Athan, near Cardiff.

The helicopter crew are said to have crossed the Bristol channel in pursuit of the UFO, but lost sight of it and had to turn back due to a fuel shortage.

I don’t often utter phrases like this these days, but those police officers are my heroes. Having the cajones to give chase to a flippin’ UFO is amazing. I salute you, Brittian’s finest! Full story here and here.

So I’ve blogged for ages and ages about retooling sung worship, and adding more of the earthy and mystical and poetic and ancient and future into the lyrics, melodies, etc…pretty funny ’cause I’m not a songwriter per se.

As I said recently on Dan Wilt’s blog:

I’d love to take a lot of the practical developmental wisdom from Christian writers in the contemplative/mystical tradition, when they wrote of the disciple’s spiritual ’stages of ascent’ toward the ‘renewing of the mind’ and one’s conscious union with God. (Also the East Orthodox tradition of ‘theosis’ or ‘divinization’) I’d like to take some of this poetry, this wisdom, from writers from Meister Eckhart to Hildegard von Bingen (herself a composer) to Francois Fenelon to Evelyn Underhill, and put it to music, put it to worshipful poetry that will itself be a transformative contemplative experience, by God’s grace.

Well, now I’m putting my moolah where my mouth is, and am showing you, with fear and trepidation, a reworking/word-play of a revered hymn hagiographically attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux. I emphasise that this is a rough cut; it’s probably off-meter and incoherent and heretical and in need of cuts, rearrangements, and additional verses. If it helps you with the tune, read along with the instrumental video, below. Give me your thoughts - and additional/reworked verses! - in the Comments below. We’ll write us something good, uh-hunh.

O Sacred Wound, Now Headed

O sacred Wound now headed, with momentum unbound
Here so fully sustaining, G-D’s absence presence now
How thin the lines of aging, on his receding face
Molecules rearranging, in every moment’s grace

My G-d, what abyss endured, within her hollow eyes
Plunge in the darksome cavern, its here we realize
How long do we see faces ‘ere facing what we see
Vouchsafing quiet courage, for Others simply Be

Omega, now receive thee, G-dhead from you does pour
Lo, here we fall, Redeemer! Plunged outward and before
Our outstretched hand does meet yours, in emptiness delight
Our glasses flicker dimly dissolving light from light

Update: John Crowder responds!

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V - Final

What in the name of Pete & Kester is going on? Avant-garde “Holy Ghost house parties” filled with dancing, drinking shots of blessed holy water, and getting “stoned in the Spirit.” Pop cultural references - both muted and obvious - to Cheech & Chong, and Talladega Nights from the pulpit…er, the dance floor in which the speakers convert staid sanctuaries into the threshing floor for something quite different.

So what am I describing? A bleeding-edge European emerging church, like iKon or Moot or Vaux? An alt.worship collective? Perhaps the postmodern revivalist Church Basement Road Show?

Nope.

It’s John Crowder, occasionally joined by his friend Ben Dunn, provoking their native charismatic milieu and (it would seem) making more than a few emerging types squirm while they’re at it.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. See how a couple of these strike you. The first one, from a meeting with John and Ben:

Now this one, which I think they would see as a ‘prophetic satire’:

Whaddaya think? Steve Knight, in his post The New Charismatics? sums up what I think is a typical (and for him as a non-charismatic, quite generous) take on all this:

“I’d like to introduce you to John Crowder. I’m tempted to describe this guy as an “Emergent” pentecostal…[he] represent[s] a stream of Christianity that I, frankly, have very little experience or contact with: the charismatic, speaking in tongues, no-holds-barred, barking like a dog “in the Spirit” stream…The Crowders’ tagline, “a postmodern prophetic ministry,” is another emergent connection that I find intriguing (although I’m not exactly sure what is “postmodern” about the Crowders’ ministry)…John Crowder literally acts “high on Jesus,” laughing awkwardly and squinting as if his eyes have become dilated, etc. At one point, he says he’s “possessed by joy.” One has to wonder if he isn’t “possessed” indeed…As an emergent Christian, the last thing I want to do is put God in a box and say, “God can’t operate this way.” So instead, I’m simply asking some questions (as good emergents do): “Does God really operate this way?” Or rather, “Why would God operate this way?”

Continue reading ‘Charismatic Chaos or (Holy) Spirited Deconstruction?’

You get me?

…for those of you into that sort of thing.

Download here.

HT: Sarx

Some on Christ, the Eternal Tao

PoMoMusings on pluralism

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted a music video on the ‘ol blog. It’s the weekend, so what the hey. I like Serj–I wish I could sing like him.

Whaddaya think? Empty flamboyance or prophetic action-art?

Hee-hee-hee. Courtesy of The Wittenburg Door. Serious commentary on Archbishop Rowan Williams, Islam, and sharia law in Europe from Alan Jamieson and Maggi Dawn.

As I stroll through Glenwood Avenue in my adopted hometown of Raleigh, I realize that there are about five decades of history in a several-block radius. Like many healthy historical downtowns, there is a mix of old, new, and anticipatory. Let’s take a walk down the street.

Walker’s Drugs looks like it was built in the 1930s; it remains a functioning drug store, with architecture intact. Beside it is NoFos, a trendy restaurant converted from a Piggly-Wiggly grocery store from the 1940s. Inside, classic meets contemporary in the trim-carpeted floor and art nouveau lighting that itself hearkens back to a bygone year, reimagined in Fifth Element-like cyberpunk yearning. Beside this is a bank. Wachovia. All banks, unless they try really hard, seem stuck in the 1970s—all brick and beige. (As an aside, my time in the Bahamas last October for a conference were like being in an alternate-reality 1980s. The hotels, the fonts used on signs—everything was 80s! It was surreal.)

Moving down the street a little bit, there are a series of building that look as though they were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s. They retain much of their charm and are now cafés, dessert parlors, or clubs. The gym where I work out, Peak Fitness, looks like the 1990s, in the best aesthetic sense (at least according to my palate), all industrial with pipes and wires showing in the roof and concrete floors. Now if only they’d play more ‘90s music. There are condos going up in three places across Glenwood, no doubt drawing from the urban chic that already emanates from this street, and hopefully adding something of a forward-looking element.

But what? Why is it that what we find most pleasing in architecture is rarely right now? Quite possibly it is because we live in a tumultuous time nationally and globally, and the same cultural impetus that gives rise to an increased appetite for fantasy fare in entertainment propels us to want to transport us to another time in our buildings. As the disconnect between our nation’s actions and the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves increases, cynicism will increase as well as our desire to “escape” right now. Just as art in this era is largely derivative—whether satirical or in homage—so is our architecture. Positive, credible images of future in every quadrant of the human endeavor could go a long way toward redeeming our cultural milieu. Hopefully we’ll be able to be progressives and conservatives simultaneously, transcending our pasts but including them. Even in our buildings.

A fun song for the weekend. The sad thing is, most of the YouTube videos archived right beside it are bona-fide heresy-hunting extravaganzas.

I recently got Myspace message from a young man (does that sound condescending when he’s 21 and I’m only 28? With marriage and a child later, I certainly don’t think so) who saw my Myspace profile and decided that I was apostate. Sigh. It happens. But this guy (despite his frequent use of exclamation points) didn’t seem as angry as some people who have “confronted” me, so I decided to write him a lengthy reply. I’ve withheld his name (’cause posting that here would be tacky) but here is our conversation. [Regular readers please note: I am in many respects 'speaking his language'--I don't normally talk like this!]

Hi brother,

Thank you for taking the time to send me such a lengthy email. You are obviously concerned for me, and I appreciate that. I’m sorry that my life (or at least, the version of it represented on Myspace) seems to be vexing you so. Let’s see if we can take your message point by point. You are in italics.  Continue reading ‘Agree With Your Adversary Quickly: Getting Along with Those Different From Us’