Summer Lovin'! (Well, May lovin')

I don't often have steamy love affairs with music, but boy howdy am I plunged deep into one right now. The album is Thistled Spring by Horse Feathers, which came out in early-ish 2010. Let me tell you right now: you would be best served by just dropping this, hopping over to iTunes or a vinyl store or whatever shady music-acquisition service you use, and get this album.

The brainchild of Jason Ringle, this album is a set of beautifully, beautifully composed songs every bit as ornate and sun-dappled as the album title and cover might suggest. Classical instruments and sensibilities lay melodies and counter-melodies, so that the songs feel like they're grown organically or captured in flight. Ringle's voice flits among the instrumentals so naturally that I just listened to the album's music about three times through before realizing that I should probably pay attention to the lyrics. And they're wonderful, too; "Belly of June," one of my favorites, opens with the delightfully mysterious "It's noon, in the belly of June/Let's wager with bodies, the night's coming soon." Ringle's lyrics, like Sam Beam's when he's not solipsistically obscure, draw the attention like that fascinating girl with pretty eyes you see across the lawn at a spring barn bash (because we've all been there, right?). Inviting, promising reward for the one man enough to ask her to dance.

Since my iPod crashed a week and a half ago, this has been the only album I've bothered to burn to CD for my car. Its complexity and beauty make it resistant to feeling overplayed, much like Sufjan Stevens' albums. Now, shoo! Go buy it! You've spent enough time without listening to this album. This is my first taste of Horse Feathers, and I'm excited to see what work they have prior to this.

The Postmodern Condition: or, "Hey baby, what's your metanarrative?"

Jean-Francois Lyotard saw truly when he posited the exposure and collapse of the great Enlightenment metanarrative; over the course of the twentieth century, we saw Enlightenment rationalism and empiricism become a monomaniacal tyrant wielded by an empowered few to dominate others. This also happened to the Church/State at the end of the medieval era, and to divinized Roma over the first centuries CE. Each of these collapsed as much from within as from without; I believe that each also collapsed when each metanarratival institution (or institutional metanarrative) reached a point where it alienated and disgusted a large enough number of people that they rejected it, concluding that it violated some fundamental principle of humanity.

It seems that the brief bright explosion of Islamic fundamentalism may be experiencing this same collapse; it may just as likely gain momentum, however, proving to be a narrative-spawning Big Bang. Time will tell.

To analyze these is not the point here. I want to examine where we are now. In the wake of the collapse of optimistic Enlightenment modernism, we flail like drowning rats and cling to what we can, shivering and white-knuckled. Or, more: the existentialists showed us that we never really had a ship; our bits of driftwood bobbed together in the semblance of one, and we told ourselves that the water that drenched and chilled us would get handled by the management presently. Now, we clutch dogmatically what is in our reach, hissing and spitting at anyone who tells us that our bit is worthless.

We can see this more clearly when we see how many ways people seek something outside of themselves nowadays: travel, Eastern mysticism, pop psychology and self-help, service, communal living, politics. "Tolerance" may be the biggest new metanarrative we as Westerners have lashed together; the chief goal of many social help enterprises and legal campaigns is to enable individuals to self-actualize in freedom, as long as it does not impinge on the self-actualization of another (the philosophical equivalent of the "right to swing your fist"). However, Lyotard claims that the only legitimate goal we can rationally assert for any individual or organization is power. Can there be self-actualization for all without anyone infringing on the existential spheres of another?

This is complicated when I look in the mirror honestly and see the self-centered bastard in front of me, who's spent decades tirelessly "self-actualizing" by chasing after the good opinions of as many people as possible, trying to be buoyed up by popularity and respect. Popularity and respect don't hold water, though. Nor does self-respect, because who can honestly say that he or she respects him- or herself according to his or her own standards? We always fail them; or we meet them, and find that they fail us, because they don't provide the hope that we expect.

We long to self-actualize, to have individual meaning. Unfortunately, if we're honest, that meaning often includes a healthy dose of individual power. At the same time, we have an incredible need to belong to something bigger than ourselves, to be a part of something that lasts beyond our "brief lives" (to borrow from one of my favorite authors). What are we to do with these? We must balance them; something in us must bend or break.

I will lay my cards on the table. I have found myself joined to a metanarrative; at first against my will, but now joyfully. That metanarrative is that all humanity was made to be in experiential fellowship with the God who self-revealed as the self-existent "I AM" (Hebrew YHWH), but that we broke that fellowship and continue to break that fellowship on a daily basis. We who would make ourselves or our personal causes into kings are doing so in active and willful rebellion against the self-existent being behind the universe. This being stepped bodily into the world at the turn of the Common Era as Jesus of Nazareth, incarnating the will of the self-revealed God to mankind. Being God and man, Jesus was, in his own words, "the way, and the truth, and the life:" the way to reconciliation with God, the philosophical truth of the world, and the means to live as humans are truly meant to live. Mind, he did not just show the way: he was and is the way, in this metanarrative. He made a way for us to come to God through him, and through him alone, in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension (i.e., tansition out of empirically observable reality). In a sense, Jesus of Nazareth is my metanarrative- not a principle, but a person. And I mean metanarrative in all its powerful, exclusive sense; as the metanarrative of Christianity, Jesus stands above and critiques all else according to himself.

Including me. I seem most often to be the enemy of my own metanarrative, not the hero, or even a great assistant manager. I daily find myself to be a traitor, a terrorist even, to the ruler I profess. Our metanarrative predicted this, thankfully; Jesus had some pretty great insights into human nature.

I would be doing you and my metanarrative both disservice if I didn't tell you how much value I find in it. Jesus doesn't allow me to be the ruler of my own life; that's the part that was broken and has to be rebroken, like a badly set bone. However, his life and death show me that he has value for us broken and crooked rebels, and love for all who are willing to end their rebellion and acknowledge him as king. I find also that, though my psyche must be rebroken and mended constantly, there is a deep inward sense of rightness that no amount of personal success or popularity ever provided for more than a moment (I'm not famous by any stretch of the imagination, anywhere, but the lives of most publicly famous and successful people don't give me much confidence in the security of gaining more success, popularity, or power). Personal peace is not the point of Christianity--the greatness of God is the point--but it is a by-product of it, a gift of God. Thoreau wrote, "All men lead lives of quiet desperation" (we could probably qualify that by adding, "if they do not lead lives of loud desperation"); though I can promise that my life is not at all free of wrongness, I no longer live in that quiet desperation. And no one has to do so, who would place themselves at the mercy of Jesus of Nazareth.

If any of this sounds disagreeable, insane, or boring to you...well, it's because we have different metanarratives. And anyone who knows me knows that I love to talk about metanarratives, so I'd love to hear about yours.

In the hope that you find a ship; or, better yet, land,

Joseph

Jumpin' On the Bandwagon '08 Top Ten Lists

As my favorite music-aggregating sites are displaying more and more "Top of '08" lists, I've been thinking more and more about my own favorite music from this year, both of albums released during this year and music I've just discovered this year. This gradually shaped itself into three lists: top five albums released in 2008, top five albums I've discovered in 2008, and a discovered-in-'08 playlist (conveniently cd-sized).

Top 5 Albums released in 2008:

Viva La Vida (Coldplay): Coldplay has not ceased to impress since their debut album "Parachutes," and "Viva La Vida" is no exception. Compelling melodies, engaging lyrics, and grandiose instrumental work. Favorite songs: "Lost!," "Viva La Vida"


Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) [Cloud Cult]- With unflinching optimism in the face of the tragedies of life, Cloud Cult bring their creative take on the human condition with an entertaining and oddly poignant spirit. Plus, any band with a string section automatically earns a place in my heart. Favorite songs: "Everybody Here Is a Cloud," "When Water Comes To Life"


Vampire Weekend (Vampire Weekend)- Boldly fusing Ivy League, New England college themes with, of all styles, Afropop, Vampire Weekend made a ballsy record of clever, ridiculously fun pop music. Favorite songs: "Oxford Comma," "Walcott"


Fleet Foxes (Fleet Foxes)- Fleet Foxes captivated the blogogentsia with their gorgeous Sun Giant EP early this year and did not disappoint with their full-length debut. Incredible harmonies, Baroque-influenced folk melodies, and beautiful sparse melodies make this band uniquely stand out among this year's releases. They also happen to win the "Band-I-Most-Want-to-See-Perform-In-a-Cathedral" award. Favorite Songs: "White Winter Hymnal," "Blue Ridge Mountains"


For Emma, Forever Ago (Bon Iver)- Yet another indie darling, Bon Iver's debut album deserves all the hype it has received and more. Gorgeous falsetto harmonies deliver understatedly beautiful lyrics in folk-based songs that stick to your skull like a good steak does with your ribs. Favorite songs: "Skinny Love," "Flume"

Bonus: "For Emma" isn't my favorite song on the album, but this live version done for La Blogotheque would be if it were ever recorded.

This took longer than expected, so look for the next lists to come soon!

Some incredible poets: Dylan Thomas, Octavio Paz, Gerard Manley Hopkins

Dylan Thomas is one of the most powerful wordsmiths I have ever read. His language is absolutely, stunningly gorgeous. Here is my favorite example, the pretty well-known "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night:"


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Octavio Paz is a Mexican poet and also an awesome writer. He mainly works in Spanish, but here is one of his simpler poems I've translated. It's called "Dos Cuerpos," or "Two Bodies"

Two bodies front to front
Are sometimes two waves
And the night is ocean.

Two bodies front to front
Are sometimes two stones
And the night desert.

Two bodies front to front
Are sometimes roots
In the night entwined.

Two bodies front to front
Are sometimes knives
And the night thunder.

Two bodies front to front
Are two stars that fall
In an empty sky.


Lastly, Gerard Manley Hopkins was one of the first writers of modernist poetry; he never published his work, and it was only published posthumously after the modernist movement had begun. His use of language, rhythm, and imagery are incredible, and his final line is a ridiculously poignant depiction of the effects of God's presence in the human life.

“The Windhover”

to Christ our Lord

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin , dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing ,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend : the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

This isn't going to be primarily a music blog, but I had to share this delightful little cover. This is Nickel Creek covering the Jackson Five's "I Want You Back." I saw them do this at what has been the latest in a series of "Farewell for Now" tours, and in three Nickel Creek shows this is the only song (including "Toxic," mind you!) I have ever seen the crowd get up and dance in the aisles for. Incredible.