why i am a huge fan of austin.

I went the one day pass route for the ACL Festival this year, choosing Sunday as my day in the sun. Wow. What an afternoon. I started the day with Eisley, before moving on to Rachael Yamagata, Doves, The Arcade Fire, The Decemberists, Franz Ferdinand, and Coldplay. It was hot (a point continually harped on by most every performer) and it was dusty, but it was a day filled with the kind of auditory delights that make you forget such things. Besides, lukewarm water has never tasted so good.



I was feeling pretty good about my ACL experience, actually I was feeling great about it, even though I missed the first two days. Then I got a call this afternoon from my friend Sean: Brett, are you on campus? Me: No. Sean: Oh. Well Blues Traveler is doing an Austin City Limits taping, and it starts in about 10 minutes, and there are still seats. Me: I'm coming to campus.

So I parked, walked over to the communications building, and walked into the studio just after their first song ended. I hadn't heard from Blues Traveler in a while, but they're really entertaining. It was a great way to cap off the weekend. Never underestimate a man with a harmonica.

This is why I am a huge fan of Austin. It's the mix of big and small. 80,000 people at a Texas football game on a Saturday afternoon, 10 people at Jo's Coffee on a Sunday morning. 60,000 people in a field watching Coldplay one night, 100 people in a studio watching Blues Traveler the next afternoon. Events you plan for months ahead of time, things you show up at on a few minutes notice. Thanks Austin. Big pats on the back, and maybe a full-frontal hug or two.

[visit Paul's blog for some ACL pictures and other marvelous things]

Austin May Have It's City Limits...

But Jacksonville has it's City Nights.



A certain Ryan Adams is releasing his second of three albums this year, Jacksonville City Nights on September 27. It should be a good way to wind down from the ACL Festival and from all of the resulting chaos induced by a certain Rita.

I spent the past two days in Los Angeles, and on the flight back I found myself watching the sunset from 30,000 feet (or however high airplanes fly, exactly). It was beautiful. Have you ever seen something so beautiful that it makes you sad? It made me in the mood for music that was sad, old, and country sounding so I pulled some Neil Young Harvest out of my trusty iPod.

My sad, old, and country mood has been sticking around today, and low and behold trusty Stereogum came through in the clutch with a little Ryan Adams sneak peak. Stream the new album here [care of Scenestars] or at least check out a song or two:

The Hardest Part [care of My Yellow Country Teeth]
Withering Heights [care of My Yellow Country Teeth]

I'm attending ACL on Sunday. Who should I see?

short but oh so sweet

I'm quite the fan of this song.

[care of Paul via The O.C. via Bloc Party]

subvert --or-- the dangers of assimilation.

"If I, even for a moment, accept my culture's definition of me, I am rendered harmless."

Eugene Peterson wrote this in a book my staff team is reading right now: The Contemplative Pastor, and I found it to be both a profound and sobering thought. Few set out in this life with a desire to be harmless. We each hope to affect the world, in ways spanning large to small. Large enough to leave a legacy or small enough to at least be noticed and liked. We want to be applauded, or at least sufficiently accepted.

Herein lies the problem. It's my attempts at applause and acceptance that yield me to what the culture expects, or still worse, what it demands. I run to stereotypes - Austin Texan, Relevant Christian, Compassionate Conservative - not because these titles affect change, but because they provide much of the glory with little of the rejection and work.

We hate stereotypes of ourselves but demand them of others. Labels keep people in clearly defined categories, in boxes that free us of angst and uncertainty. I know that engineers are smart but nerdy, and that sorority girls are beautiful but not brainy. I don't actually know these things of course, but the definitions free me of further thought. They safeguard me from the uneasiness of not knowing.

I'm auditing a class this semester. In it, there are upwards of 400 students, far too many to ever really know. The content of the course centers around relationships and communication, and in the middle of the lectures, of the questions and answers, I've begun to feel an emptiness. As my professor asks people personal questions about themselves - whether they have boyfriends or girlfriends, what they do for fun on the weekends - I gather expectation from his tone. He expects lots of drinking and sex. He expects cramming for tests and the occasional challenge of coming to class hung over. He expects to have encountered the very likenesses of MTV and The O.C.

The responses and relieved laughter of my classmates do little to subvert these cultural definitions. Instead they raise them on a banner high. I have to wonder how many actually value the culturally mandated lifestyle of a college student, and how many just value the acceptance that comes in embracing what the culture is preaching. I know I do. My culture is different - it's post-collegiate, post-modern Christianity. It's expectations are different - to be moral but still relevant, spiritual but still rational. I find a safe place there, rather than in the grace of God.

It turns out that a man in safety is rather harmless. Easily defined, without much in the way of personality. This makes for a safe person and, in turn, a lousy friend. Culturally defined, I demand but feigned glances. I must deal in the anxiety that comes from being accepted by my world, a world of shifting values.