The Westification of the Situation: December 2005

Pass

Back in October a few of us spent some time in Pass Christian, MS helping some people piece their homes and their lives back together after Katrina. I pretty much fell in love with the town and the people there. The destruction was simply unbelievable and I can't communicate it aside from taking you there.

For those that went, or others that are interested in the continuing clean-up process in Pass, the New York Times has an interesting article, with an accompanying video story, and a series of pictures:

In Mississippi, Canvas Cities Rise Amid Hurricane's Rubble
[NY Times, December 20]

I really want to get back there ASAP.

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If Only Emails Were As Highly Personal As Letters...

Prolificacy & Friendship

29 is out today. On first listen I'd rank it after Cold Roses and before Jacksonville City Nights. One of my favorites: Starlite Diner. [savefile follow link]

I've gotten a bit tired of every single Ryan Adams interview or review referencing how much music he releases... but here's an actual interesting article in that vein: The Sound and the Fury. (Thanks Tracy.) This article has a Ryan Adams quote that belongs in a pantheon of some kind:

"I figure, you know, Mom makes too much meatloaf means we got leftovers. It doesn't mean that she did something wrong."

And now Jeff Tweedy gives us a test of true friendship. (Thanks Paste):

"I think Wilco is never going to accomplish this goal, but I would love for more people to listen to music as a sole activity. I think it’s a really transformative way that that art form can touch you. Aside from live music, which I think is really important to being human—to be a part of a crowd experiencing music—recorded music is like literature when you allow yourself to sit and listen. I mean, you know. That’s all you did when you were growing up; that’s all you needed to do. You found friends that could sit and be quiet and not...ruin it; those were your friends, you know? If somebody couldn’t do that, you couldn’t hang out with them. I don’t care how cool they were; they were not cool."

Or, if you prefer something more historic, here's George Washington:

"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."

Make Austin Proud

I just realized something while listening to Explosions in the Sky. A snipet from their song The Only Moment We Were Alone appears in Walk The Line. It's at the beginning of both the movie and the trailer, right until the film cuts to a shot of Joaquin Phoenix's playing with the blade of a circular saw in Folsom Prison.

Explosions in the Sky are some of Austin's finest. They're playing at Emo's (outside stage) on 1/27. You can pick up their albums on eMusic, on iTunes, or at Waterloo.

Walk The Line trailer (Apple)

On Not Grocery Shopping

I'm going home for Christmas in a day or two and I've been avoiding going to the grocery store. For one thing I don't really like going to the grocery store, and for another thing I hate to buy food right before I leave, and for one more thing I like to think that making do with what I have is developing character of some kind.

Today's ingredients:

Brown Rice

Campbell's Tomato Soup (Condensed)

Jalapeno Jack Cheese

The Finished Product

The taste? Uhhhh...like crunchy tomato soup.

In The Sun

Coldplay put on an excellent show last night on Austin City Limits. Thanks to Doug's TiVo capabilities we were able to skim through the telethon parts (don't tell PBS).

One of the highlights (for me at least) was when Chris Martin brought out Michael Stipe (REM) for a few songs, one of which was a Joseph Arthur song In The Sun. You might remember Joseph Arthur from Honey And The Moon fame. In The Sun is off of an earlier release: Come To Where I'm From. A live version of In The Sun can be had here.

High in the 20's

Well the early reviews for Ryan Adams' 29 are in, and, per usual, some love it and some don't. 29 releases on Tuesday, as Ryan Adams rings in the birth of the Messiah with a dark, haunting exploration of the death of his twenties. There's nothing quite like a good contrast.

Early reviews, assembled by the crack marketing team at Lost Highway:
Q (Review)
Q (Top Albums of 2005)
Uncut

And also:
Pitchfork

I'll be picking it up. But then we all knew that already, right?

Chesterton & Dylan

I finished off Orthodoxy earlier today. It's a bit difficult in places, but it should be read. A few of us have spent the semester talking about the Gospel in terms of Creation, the Fall, and Redemption. I think Chesterton has some good thoughts on the reality of the Fall. From the last chapter, Authority and the Adventurer:

"The primary paradox of Christianity is that the ordinary condition of man is not his sane or sensible condition; that the normal itself is an abnormality. That is the inmost philosophy of the Fall. In Sir Oliver Lodge's interesting new Catechism, the first two questions were: 'What are you?' and 'What, then, is the meaning of the Fall of Man?' I remember amusing myself by writing my own answers to the questions; but I soon found that they were very broken and agnostic answers. To the question, "What are you?' I could only answer, 'God knows.' And to the question, 'What is meant by the Fall?' I could answer with complete sincerity, 'that whatever I am, I am not myself.' This is the prime paradox of our religion; something that we have never in any full sense known, is not only better than ourselves, but ever more natural to us than ourselves."

Some more Dylan Greatest Hits - The Times They Are A-Changin':

"The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'."

Sufjan vs. Sufjan vs. Seay

I'm not much of a Christmas music sort of person. It all strikes me as a bit over the top, and well cheesy. I am, though, a big fan of Christmas hymns. I see no need for them to be relegated to the days between whatever day Thanksgiving is on and the 25th of December. If it were up to me the Herald Angels would sing "Hark" year round. Quite possibly one of my top songs of the year is a Christmas hymn: O Come, O Come Emmanuel. I'm not sure if it's valid to have a song from the 9th century as one of your top songs of the year, but I've been reading a lot of Isaiah and liking ancient of late. An excerpt:

O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight.

By way of infusing some good, pre-capitalistic Christmas music into this world [savefile follow link]:

Sufjan Stevens - O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Sufjan Stevens - O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Shorter, Sweeter)
Robbie Seay - O Come, O Come Emmanuel

The Robbie Seay song is off of an EP called December, which I highly recommend. It includes a cover of the Patty Griffin song Mary. I don't see the album for sale on his website so I don't feel too badly about giving it to you as well. Besides, it's Christmas:

Robbie Seay - Mary (Patty Griffin cover)

Chesterton & Dylan

Some more Chesterton. The Gospel (and life) becomes much more intricate and interesting when we consider it as story and not simply as math.:

"...a story is exciting because it has in it so strong an elment of will, of what theology calls free will. You cannot finish a sum how you like. But you can finish a story how you like. When somebody discovered the Differential Calculus there was only one Differential Calculus he could discover. But when Shakespeare killed Romeo he might have married him to Juliet's old nurse if he had felt inclined. And Christendom has excelled in the narrative romance exactly because it has insisted on the theological free will. It is a large matter and too much to one side of the road to be discussed adequately here; but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making a prison mearly a hygenic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not. If you say that you are going to cure a profligate as you cure an asthmatic, my cheap and obvious answer is, "Produce the people who want to be asthmatics as many people want to be profliages." A many may lie still and be cured of a malady. But he must not lie still if he wants to be cured of a sin; on the countrary, he must get up and jump about violently. The whole point indeed is perfectly expressed in the very word which we use for a man in hospital; "patient" is in the passive mood; "sinner" is in the active. If a man is to be save from influenza, he may be a patient. But if he is to be saved from forging, he must be not a patient but an impatient. He must be personally impatient with forgery. All moral reform must start in the active not the passive will"

And some Dylan, It Ain't Me Babe. I watched Walk The Line for the second time today and thought this was amazing as a duet, sung by Johnny Cash and June Carter. I think it speaks to the idea that no man (or woman) can be a stand in for God. Either that or it speaks to the idea that some guys are jerks.:

Go 'way from my window,
Leave at your own chosen speed.
I'm not the one you want, babe,
I'm not the one you need.
You say you're lookin' for someone
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an' defend you
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain't me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain't me, babe,
It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

Coldplay on (as opposed to at) ACL

Coldplay taped Austin City Limits last Friday. The good folks at ACL usually like to sit on their tapings for a few months, but this one was apparently too hot to sit on. It was threatening to start a fire, and no one wanted that. In light of that, the Coldplay ACL show will be aired this Saturday, December 17th. Aired at 7pm in Austin, at other times elsewhere. (Be sure and check your local listings kids.)

My love of and caring for Coldplay increased much after the ACL Festival this year. They played a downright stunning show; if you were close enough to see through the dust storm. I'm a little unsure about how they'll translate to the small screen and to the small (though friendly) confines of the ACL studio. I did watch this promo clip, though, and it gave me one or two chills.

Viewing party at my house.

Austin City Limits Website
ACL Local Listings
ACL: Coldplay, 10 minute preview

Coldplay - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas [savefile, follow link]

Chesterton, G.K.

I've been reading Chesterton's Orthodoxy and found this passage to be pretty poignant, and fairly true of our world, though it was written almost 100 years ago. I ask your good faith with my use of ellipsis:

"We need not debate about the mere words evolution or progress: personally I prefer to call it reform. For reform implies form. It implies that we are trying to shape the world in a particular image; to make it something that we see already in our minds. Evolution is a metaphor for mere automatic unrolling. Progress is a metaphor from merely walking along a road - very likely the wrong road. But reform is a metaphor for reasonable and determined men: it means that we see a certain thing out of shape and we mean to put it into shape. And we know what shape.

Now here comes in the whole collapse and huge blunder of our age. We have mixed up two different things, two opposite things. Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to suit the vision. Progress does mean (just now) that we are always changing the vision. It should mean that we are slow but sure in bringing justice and mercy among men: it does mean that we are very swift in doubting the desirability of justice and mercy: a wild page from any Prussian sophist makes men doubt it. Progress should mean that we are always walking toward the New Jerusalem. It does mean that the New Jerusalem is always walking away from us. We are not altering the real to suit the ideal. We are altering the ideal: it is easier.

Silly examples are always simpler; let us suppose a man wanted a particular kind of world; say, a blue world. He would have no cause to complain of the slightness or swiftness of his task; he might toil for a long time at the transformation; he could work away (in every sense) until all was blue. He could have heroic adventures; the putting of the last touches to a blue tiger. He could have fairy dreams; the dawn of a blue moon. But if we worked harm, that high-minded reformer would certainly (from his own point of view) leave the world better and bluer than he found it. If he altered a blade of grass to his favourite colour every day, he would get on slowly. But if he altered his favourite colour every day, he would not get on at all. If, after reading a fresh philosopher, he started to paint everything red or yellow, his work would be thrown away: there would be nothing to show except a few blue tigers walking about, specimens of his early bad manner...There was a time when the Established Church might have fallen...It was because Radicals were wise enough to be constant and consistent; it was because Radicals were wise enough to be Conservative. But in the existing atmosphere there is not enough time and tradition in Radicalism to pull anything down...ours is an era of conservation and repose. But...ours is only an age of conservation because it is an age of complete unbelief. Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same."

-Orthodoxy, Chapter VII: The Eternal Revolution.

the GRE: my bane and yours.

I partook in a few GRE good times this morning. Here are five or so things that I strongly dislike about the GRE:

1. It's on a computer. The GRE takes place on a computer - in my case an ugly mishmash of parts from the likes of Dell, Compaq, and HP. I think my computer monitor was circa 1985, the year of my sister's birth. How can I be inspired to think rightly about anything in such an environment. (At the beginning of my test there was a tutorial on how to use a mouse. Where am I?)

2. Once you answer a question, you cannot go back to it. This has something to do with the computer and the scoring and it's terrible. My test taking strategy for the whole of my existence has been to do the easy ones first and then work up to the more difficult questions, regardless of where they fall on the test. The GRE told me to take my test taking strategy and throw it away, away where there is both weeping and the gnashing of teeth. ALSO, the first few questions matter way more than the others. So you have these conversations with yourself: "I must know the antonym of the word carapace, it's really important that I know this, it's got to be in the depths of my brain somewhere," and the computer just stares at you while you waste your time thinking, "this guy has no idea how much time he's wasting." Three minutes later I've still got nothing but a guess, a wrong guess.

3. The GRE is lonely. One of the great things about tests is the ability to take the same test at the same time as other people, people that you probably know. That way, during the test you can hear the occasional groan or sigh and remember that, hey this is a difficult test, people are groaning and sighing, I can totally beat these people. There's no one to beat when you're taking a test in a cubicle in a drab industrial complex on the way to the airport. I'm not entirely sure anyone would find me if I were to pass on to the next life. Also you can't complain about the test with anyone after it's over or during the breaks. That is one of my favorite things about taking tests.

4. The GRE is a one-upper. The GRE is caught in this nasty game of cat and mouse with all of these test prep companies. I'm pretty sure the GRE stopped testing smartness a long time ago. Some people published some books on how to do well at the GRE, things you should know and what not, and so the GRE just decided to start tricking people instead. It's not about how smart you are, it's about how much smarter the GRE is than you. I bought one of those Making the GRE Your Personal Slave and Chauffeur to a Better Life books, and as I was skimming through it I kept thinking - what if I didn't have this thing with all of its secrets? There's not a chance you would know some of these "need to know" things without these magic tricks.

5. The GRE still matters. The GRE is like that kid on the playground that no one likes but still has to deal with. The kid that's always saying stuff like, "Oh yeah, well my dad is the boss of your dad," when no one ever said anything about his dad in the first place.

also...

I've been listening to the new Ryan Adams album 29 quite a bit lately. It comes out on December 20, just in time for stuffing in stockings. Get your children started on Ryan Adams early, some would say he's prolific, and they'll need a lifetime to digest all of the good music he puts out. You can stream the album, by way of preview, here. [care of scenestars]

The concept? Ryan Adams, in a Pitchfork interview:

It has nine songs, and all the songs are nine minutes long, they're all story-songs. And it's basically just me and a piano, me and a guitar, with Ethan. It's really cerebral. The theme of it was that I wanted to write a record where I could write myself out of my twenties. So for each year of my life, in my twenties, I kind of assigned different parts of my character, I gave them names. The last song is a song from the perspective, believe it or not, of a ghost. When it's just passed out of a body, and it goes "Don't go to the light/ I'll show you how to haunt." This spirit is trying to conjure this dead child, this dead person, back to the house where they died. So they can haunt it.

Early favorites of mine are Blue Sky Blues, Starlite Diner, and Voices. Elizabeth, You Were Born To Play That Part has a bit of a Damien Rice feel to it, which is kind of interesting. Does anyone else feel the need to listen to Damien Rice when it's cold out like this?

a few thousand words

After a moment of silence to lower your expectations*...

I'm writing a blog post, which means that I probably am avoiding doing something more necessary and less exciting. Here are some pictures from the last few weeks, complete with captions!

November 19: The last day of existence for Peet's Coffee (and Tea) on the Drag. I was sad for a while, but now I'm mostly past it. I think I went through the five stages of dealing with death in the process: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.