Canned Dragons

A lot of times, when I watch movies that pit good vs. evil in easily distinguishable sides, I wonder about someone actually choosing a path that is clearly evil. Take Star Wars, for example. Why would someone choose to be on the dark side, with all the available evidence that it's just evil? There are moments when I have trouble suspending my disbelief. George Lucas tried hard to make Anakin's descent into the evil persona of Darth Vader believable, but it was still rough around the edges. The depiction of evil in movies can be so exaggerated as to be cartoonish.

Most people don't just set out one day and decide that they are going to be bad. So, in the movies, when some kind of transformation happens, it's hard not to give it a little extra scrutiny as a plot device. Good films usually show some slow decent into evil. We say, “The path to hell is paved with good intentions,” and it’s usually one little thing that leads to another. A kind of breadcrumb trail that a person follows until they find themselves out in the middle of the dark forest, lost and confused, and they think that wrong is right.

Then, it turns out, some people are okay with embracing evil. Madison Cawthorn, who just lost his reelection campaign to the House of Representatives, is calling on the power of Dark MAGA to avenge him. Dark MAGA refers to a group whose main political platform is revenge. The reason the third (oh okay, call it the sixth) Star Wars movie was retitled The Return of the Jedi from The Revenge of the Jedi was that revenge is not a virtuous pursuit. The realization was that truly good people, as represented in the films by the Jedi, do not seek revenge.

The Dark MAGA adherents are consumed with the destruction of their perceived enemies. They are, in the mode of high fantasy like Star Wars, choosing the dark side, the side of the Sith. It’s all as ridiculous as it sounds. It would be laughable, except when you think of the reality that Cawthorn was elected once, and not trounced in his reelection bid. Now it’s a little too close to be humorous.

The 1980s was a decade that started with an album called The Age of Plastic. The band that released the album, the Buggles, captured the spirit of the age by announcing “Video Killed The Radio Star” in a nod to the rise of MTV (Music Television). They had their fingers on the pulse of the American music scene that was springing up in the wake of disco and the long tail of the rise of punk. Plastic was an appropriate metaphor for an embrace of everything synthetic. Synthesizers captured the popular imagination and even stole some thunder from the guitar.

The Covers EP from Mint Julep features mostly reworkings of 80s tunes. There’s a startling principle at work here, though — that these tunes from the age of plastic simply didn’t have enough synths. Even the cover of aughts-era band Headphones track “I Never Wanted You” layers more warbly synths than the original, and that band was created specifically as a synthesizer-based side project!

Though these were recorded a decade ago, the songs on the EP tread familiar territory with Angel Olsen’s covers from her Aisles EP. Many of the tracks have slower tempos than that originals and walls of synths that are so dense as to be almost impenetrable. Whether a song is from Depeche Mode or When in Rome, Mint Julep bends the track to sound like it’s theirs, making this EP a cohesive listening experience.

A couple of weeks ago, the NY Daily News, after yet another mass shooting in the US, posted a provocative cover blasting politicians for offering prayers instead of concrete action.

The cover featured tweets from Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul and Paul Ryan, offering their prayers for the victims and families affected by the shooting that occurred in San Bernadino, CA. The text accompanying the story excoriated those politicians for offering kind words but no solutions.

As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes

Incendiary, to be sure, but then people are being killed at an alarming rate. There has been, to date, almost no movement, on the part of many politicians, to curb the violence. As the old saying goes, “actions speak louder than words” and the silence on this subject has been deafening.

I believe strongly in the power of intercessory prayer. I make it a daily practice and believe it is one of the most important things that I can do. Being able to move the heart of God is a blessing and a truly beautiful aspect of our human condition. Having expressed that, I can understand the frustration being conveyed in this cover story. Without calls to take measures to prevent gun violence that mars the national landscape on a weekly and sometimes daily basis, the invocation of prayer rings hollow and disingenuous. Let us not forget that even Jesus himself criticized those who offered public prayers in order to be seen by others as pious.

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (Matthew 6:5–8)

There are also biblical references to those who profess to faith but do not back their faith up with deeds. The book of James speaks fairly extensively about this issue.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. (James 2:14–17)

In other countries, when faced with similar problems related to easy access to guns, leaders have reacted, with responses appropriate to the scale of such tragedies. In contrast, the current crop of US lawmakers appears to be nothing short of completely indolent. David Branes relates how in 1996, when a lone gunman in Dunblane, Scotland killed 16 five-year-old children and their teacher in a classroom, then took his own life, most handguns were subsequently banned in the UK. Though guns are used in crimes there, he states, they do not have the same threat of mass shootings. The same pattern played out in Australia after a shooting at Port Arthur in 1996. Gun laws were strengthened and there have been only 3 shooting sprees in Australia since, with only one that was seemingly random. My assumption of the politicians in those countries is that, if they offered prayers, they also offered of themselves, to carry out the will of a God who desires peace among people. Within Christianity, we refer to this desire to bring the Kingdom of Heaven closer as participatory eschatology. In this theology, we as believers are called to action, in order to further God’s will and make the world a better place.

The difference in political reactions between the US and the UK and Australia seems to be at least partially attributable to a powerful and well-funded gun lobby in the US. Shannon Coulter recently wrote an informational piece on the 46 US Senators who voted against universal background checks on gun purchases in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. The piece contains the amount of campaign contributions 43 of those senators took from the gun industry. It is worth acquainting yourself with this list. I would like to believe that those with power and responsibility who trade our safety and security for campaign funds will find themselves facing increasing opposition from peace-loving people of all faiths. Especially as Christians, though, we need to call out those whose response to tragedy is “thoughts and prayers, but keep the checks coming.”

A new book entitled Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia examines how more conservative and even far-right Christians are flocking to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). The phenomenon is detailed by Odette Yousef in the NPR piece Orthodox Christian churches are drawing in far-right American converts.

Those who have followed the influx of extremists into American Orthodoxy agree that those individuals are fringe within the church and are mostly concentrated in newly founded ROCOR parishes. But they also warn that it would be foolish to ignore them. Of particular concern are the ways in which these individuals are networking with outside extremist groups and broadcasting their ideologies in the name of Orthodoxy.

I have to wonder to what extent Christians are leaving mainline or evangelical churches for Orthodox Christianity overall. The traditional American churches have changed in substantial ways to align with contemporary American cultural values. The piece on the book points out what a small minority the extremists represent within the Orthodox Church several times. However, it doesn't get at the number of people who are making the conversion to Orthodoxy, but who couldn't be painted with that brush. I suppose that wouldn't help with the narrative that is being woven here.

After the last service I attended at a Greek Orthodox Church, I asked a member of the clergy if he could tell me one thing that has changed in the last fifty years. At first, he struggled and couldn't come up with an answer. Then, you could see the light bulb flicker on in his head. Some lines in one of the hymns in their hymnal had changed in the recent past, he told me, beaming with pride. That was all he could come up with, and he was clearly satisfied. There's a path of continuity in the Orthodox tradition. Even Catholicism, that ancient faith which traces the first Bishop of Rome back to Peter, the rock on which Jesus said He would build his church, doesn’t match the allegiance to tradition that is present in Orthodox Christianity.

It makes some sense then, as we watch other churches argue about traditional versus contemporary services, or whether worship should be changed to incorporate more gender-neutral language, that a certain segment of Christians would be attracted to the stability of Orthodoxy. The Reformers once accused the Catholics of innovation, but it’s now mostly protestant churches that change elements of belief and worship. From the perspective of this believer, the changes are sometimes helpful and sometimes not. “Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda (the church reformed, always reforming),” is the rallying cry, but when do the reforms go too far? It can seem like, each time a substantial change is made, a schism — seen or unseen — takes place in its wake and a new church is born. It reminds me of dubbing cassette tapes as a kid. Whenever a copy of a copy was made, there was a palpable loss of fidelity. A little more noise to go with the signal.

The Orthodox Church is not without its critics among its own ranks, particularly for its reticence to speak out on atrocities unfolding in Ukraine as vociferously as it condemns issues like abortion. It seems as if the faith leaders could take a page out of Pope Francis’ book when speaking with a more comprehensive moral clarity. Whether former Protestants are moving to Catholicism or Orthodoxy, though, it’s interesting to see the shift to high-church alternatives that are more historically consistent in how their traditions are expressed.

As I witness this happening, I'm reminded of a story that has haunted me since I read it. The Green-Eyed Christ by Adam Roberts is a cautionary metaphorical tale of church splits and new doctrines. The story takes place in the fourteenth century (pre-reformation) and follows a painter, Mijnheer Jacco Heuschrecke. Heuschrecke unknowingly gains a power by which anything he paints will be created in Heaven. As is the custom of the time, he paints mainly religious works and soon there are 12 new Christs in Heaven, all trying to decide who is the real deal. When the painter runs out of blue paint, he paints a Green-Eyed Christ, who, being the 13th and by virtue of his difference from the others, claims to be the true Christ. He comes to visit the confused painter to tell him only to sketch fourteen representations of God — that an angel has told Heuschrecke to fully paint — and give them colored eyes. Heuschrecke is troubled by sketching more beings in Heaven to add to the confusion.

‘They are already in Heaven,’ said the Green-Eyed Christ. ‘But weakly: like spectres, potentless, wandering here and there. A dab of paint will give them more substantiality in the eternal realm, but not so much as to be able to reassert the old, stifling order. And from this point the grace of God will pour down upon the world in a new way — in ten thousand variants, in new religions and new sciences, in a great flourescence of culture and life and possibility.’

‘Will it be so?’ Heuschrecke asked. His initial shock, at having an intimate conversation with the saviour of all humanity, had settled, and now he found himself uncertain as to the merits of what this Green-Eyed Christ was saying. ‘Must it be so?’

‘It is a new dawn, my friend,’ said the Green-Eyed Christ.

‘But what of Holy Mother Church?’

‘She will persist.’

‘But broken — fractured?

‘Oh yes. Broken as white light is broken into the rainbow.’

‘Heresies will prosper, like rank weeds in a beautiful flowerbed? No, Lord, surely not! Rival churches will challenge the oneness of faith?’

The painter flees, vowing to finish the paintings of God and, therefore, bring balance back to Heaven. It is hinted that Heuschrecke never finishes his paintings, but we already know how the story ends.

I love how Hollie Cook is able to blend reggae and dream pop vibes on her new single, “Full Moon Baby.” I enjoyed Cook's first album, Vessel of Love when it came out in 2018, but there's something unique about this track.

This is how you do crossover. It feels like the way forward when even pioneering genres are beginning to retread the same ground over and over again. Almost no stone has been left unturned in even some of my favorite musical styles. I'll always enjoy the familiar, but I'm eager to hear new ways to blend styles and create something that speaks of novelty.

I've never been a huge fan of reggae, but I've never disliked it, either. Even if it was a crutch for some of the early music by The Police.

Sting: The other nice thing about playing a reggae groove in the verses was that you could leave holes in the music. I needed those holes because, initially, I had a hard time singing and playing at the same time. So if we had a signature in the band it was…

Andy Summers: Big holes?

Not too long before my grandfather died, he offered me his collection of reggae cassettes. I declined the offer (cassettes were not the coveted items they've now become, at the time). What if I had accepted the offer? Would my music tastes be totally different now?

Hollie Cook's new album, Happy Hour, will be out 6/24 on Merge Records.

I have decided I need to introduce some changes to how I post online. I typically write a lot of link posts because I read quite a bit online and want to share things that I think are interesting. This comes from a desire to add my thoughts to what is put out there by others, and — let’s face it — comment sections are a pretty bad way to do it. Lately, though, a lot of what I see online has to do with the outrage of the week. “Outrage of the week” sounds like some cute embellishment, but it has become literally accurate. Every week, the people on the internet collectively lose their minds about a particular subject. Then, everyone gives a hot take on that subject. When the next week hits, there’s a new subject to write about. It has become an all-too-familiar standard pattern.

I’m not saying that these subjects aren’t truly outrageous (the war in Ukraine being a particularly potent example). With so many people writing about the same thing, though, adding another voice to the chorus doesn’t always feel appropriate or effective. Former religion advisor to President Obama, Micheal Wear, recently tweeted about this.

I want to continue to read about these issues, I’m just not sure that I wish to write about them. Even in the vastness of the World Wide Web, escaping “the outrage” and reading and writing about something different can be difficult. So, I’m going to slow down on link posting in the way that I have been doing it. I’ll still be blogging. I just don’t want to commit to a weekly email, in case, on any given week, I just can’t find enough that I want to write about. At least not enough to write about without getting sucked into the outrage.

Luke Harrington writes about how the outrage of the week drove him off social media. He understood that there were good people on either side of the issue.

I knew, though, that social media would not show me evidence of this. I knew the moment I opened Facebook or Twitter, I would be assaulted by a bottomless column of self-righteous gloating from one side and self-righteous screeching from the other. That I’d be forced to re-read the exact same shouting matches I’d seen rehearsed ad nauseam for decades. That panicky, breathless misinformation would spread like chlamydia, and the most ignorant, unthinking voices would be amplified to deafening levels.

A news story, told by a mob of idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It's hard to write about what's going on in the world when social media is bringing us down to the lowest common denominator. Even long-time blogger Jason Kottke is taking a sabbatical from his general purpose blog.

Does what I do here make a difference in other people’s lives? In my life? Is this still scratching the creative itch that it used to? And if not, what needs to change? Where does kottke.org end and Jason begin? Who am I without my work? Is the validation I get from the site healthy? Is having to be active on social media healthy? Is having to read the horrible news every day healthy? What else could I be doing here? What could I be doing somewhere else? What good is a blog without a thriving community of other blogs? I’ve tried thinking about these and many other questions while continuing my work here, but I haven’t made much progress; I need time away to gain perspective.

It will be interesting to see if Jason comes back, or if he decides that having to follow what is going on around the internet is too mentally taxing and not worth the effort and the return.

Similarly, I won't be doing "Week on the Web" digests for the foreseeable future. I would rather not have to be tethered too tightly to what is going on in the web version of purgatory. I'm not some alchemist who can turn the lead of internet sentiment into the gold of something edifying. When I was using HEY World, I was writing longer posts and sending them out through email, RSS and the open web. That process didn’t require that I follow current events so closely.

HEY World

Using HEY World by 37signals worked pretty well for general purpose ad hoc blogging, but it is a very limited tool. That's mostly a feature, not a bug, but in some cases, it can be frustrating. For example, when HEY added scheduling for emails, they left it half-baked into their implementation of HEY World. You get an error, though, when you try to use it. I messaged their support folks about it, and it sounds like they have no plans to fix the bug. I find that strange, since the whole point of HEY World is that it makes blogging as easy as sending email. You would think they would want to keep the email features, like scheduling — that make sense for blogging — intact for HEY World.

There are other, more important ways, that HEY World feels like an experiment that 37signals is not pursuing further. For instance, when you export your data out of HEY, you only get your standard emails, and not the ones that have been sent to the web. This means that any blog posts you write in HEY are stuck there and disappear when you leave the service. If you spend time on your writing, and attach some value to it, that should be a deal-breaker. It certainly is for me. So, I won't be using HEY World for blogging anymore, unless I can find a good way to back up my work. Given my picky nature about blogging and the fact that HEY is lacking in customization or the ability to use your own domain, it was always a long shot that it would stick, anyway.

Newsletters

Something that HEY World gets absolutely right is the ability to post across delivery mechanisms and have it look virtually the same on every client. However, I don't need HEY to do that. Both Micro.blog and Ghost do something similar, just a bit differently. For the purposes of this post, I will stick with describing Micro.blog, since that is currently my blogging platform of choice.

Micro.blog gives you three options for how to implement newsletters, and I think they are all well-designed for different use cases.

1. Send email for each long blog post with a title
2. Collect all short microblog posts and long posts into a weekly email
3. Collect posts from a category into a monthly email

I have been using the second option to produce an email digest each week, for folks who may not be following my blog via RSS. I'm going to switch to sending out long posts via email, like I was doing with HEY World. This means I can take the time to write longer posts with greater thought put into them. I won't feel as if I need to fill the week with link posts while dodging the outrage.

Moving forward

I love writing out my feelings. It's cathartic, therapeutic and most of all, fun. I want to continue to do so, but I need to focus more on less. This was the idea I had when I briefly shifted to HEY World, but there's no reason I can't do it on Micro.blog. That platform allows me to post whatever I want and distribute that content in the ways that make the most sense.

Lois M. Collins has a profile of Elizabeth Bruenig, whom I’ve long admired, for Deseret News. The basis for the piece is Bruenig’s unusual (for these days, anyway) blend of faith and politics. She doesn’t fit neatly into the proscribed categories that we have packaged up for easy consumption and advocacy. She’s strongly left on economics but somewhat to the right socially. As a staunch Catholic, she's pro-life and has done quite a bit of investigative journalism on the death penalty.

Elizabeth Bruenig makes no apologies. Not for her progressive politics, not for her Catholic faith and certainly not for having children at an age some of the left intelligentsia find unfashionable.

Though Bruenig’s blend of progressive economic politics, socially conservative politics and Catholicism seems out-of-place in the modern zeitgeist, I personally don’t find it inconsistent at all. After all, progressive politics tends to be much more supportive of serving the poor and disenfranchised, which was one of Jesus’ major concerns. He taught us to serve the poor in particularly urgent language in parables such as the one commonly referred to as The Sheep and the Goats. While some Christian sects like to talk about people going to hell if they don’t accept Christ as their savior, Jesus himself indicated that you would be headed that way if you don’t help your fellow human beings who are struggling in this particular parable.

Jesus was pretty conservative on social issues like marriage. He believed that, for instance, divorce was to be avoided in all but the most extreme situations. Historically, this has been the position of the church and the governments that came from majority Judeo-Christian backgrounds. It wasn’t until California instituted the no-fault divorce just decades ago that it became easy to get a divorce in the United States.

She likes to quote Lena Dunham (in some ways, her political opposite), who said, “I’m not for everyone.”

In fact, Bruenig’s alignment with the values of the early Christian church shows how disordered our modern political divisions of left and right really are when compared against a background of religious faith. To paraphrase a recent statement by blogger Robbie Sapunarich, I’m not sure we should take our terminology from the French Revolution. The modern political binaries are arbitrary or sometimes practical, like drawing boundaries for a state or town. They are only there because we have erected them for the purposes of lowering cognitive load and making it easier to digest complex issues. Why think individual issues out – with all of their nuances and different applications to different people – when you can just get a whole package of beliefs handed to you?

I read posts from a lot of people who are either cleanly on the one side or the other. You can guess what their opinion will be on any given political issue, based on the package they have accepted. While I like these people (or I wouldn’t be following them in the first place), I have to take what they are writing with a lower expectation that they’ve actually thought the issue through. Maybe they have, but it’s more likely they’re just regurgitating what their favorite political team’s talking points. It’s going to be somewhat less interesting to me at best (frustrating, at worst) if someone doesn’t have their own, unique take on things.

As Bruenig has discovered, mostly through her presence on social media, a lot of people don’t like independent thinkers. Peter Wason didn’t pull the theory of confirmation bias from nowhere. Most people have a reactionary view on hot button issues, and like to read whatever confirms their initial view. They don’t like challenges to that view, which put them in a defensive posture. Online, this defensiveness can come out as rage.

It’s good that Bruenig doesn’t put too much stock in the social media outrage machine, because she wouldn’t have lasted this long in the online world if she did. She likes to quote Lena Dunham (in some ways, her political opposite), who said, “I’m not for everyone.”

Captured Tracks recording artist Scout Gillett covers the standout Broadcast track "Come On Let's Go" on her newest covers EP, One To Ten. I liked the original version of this song, despite the fact that I am always feeling like I'm going to get Broadcast mixed up with Stereolab (it's the same sixties space age bachelor pad vibe). It’s an interesting choice for for Gillett, who also covers Brenda Lee’s “I’m Sorry” on the EP — which sounds completely fitting for her retro country-pop feel.

Here Gillett doesn't shed the Broadcast sound, but adds some punch to the track. There’s a noisy but slow guitar solo that heats things up. Gillett mimes shredding the guitar using a broom in the video. It’s obvious she’s having a lot of fun with this recording, which was originally done in September 2020, at the height of the COVID pandemic, for a tribute compilation to the late Broadcast singer, Trish Keenan. Since the order of the day was to stay home and stay well, any movement outside of out that space was carefully calculated. So the lyrics to the song, which go: “what’s the point in wasting time, with people you’ll never know,” really spoke to Gillette about the current state of affairs. You had to be judicious about who you spent time with and the song, written decades ago, pointed straight at that situation. Gillette's voice sounds less coy than Keenan's does on the song, and she compensates in the video by nodding affirmatively during the chorus. As she sings "come on let's go," heaven help you if you aren't at least curious to see where Gillett is going to take you.

My first thought when read (at the end of a long day of work) that Elon Musk had purchased Twitter, was some measure of disbelief. I'm almost embarrassed to admit the second thought that popped into my head after reading the news. Yep, it is definitely with some shame that I tell you my disbelief was quickly followed by relief. I'm aware that may be surprising. It surprised me, too.

I'm not certain that I've ever really spent much time writing about Elon Musk, but my feelings toward the man are not very positive. I have spent a lot of time (maybe too much) writing about Twitter, and its many faults. Recently, I took a Lenten break from Twitter and, when I came back, found it pretty unappealing. Someone once joked that the game of Twitter was to not be the person who was being talked about on Twitter on any given day. On the day I came back — Easter Sunday — that person (or those people, rather) was a crew of zealous, evangelistic Christians singing songs about Jesus on an airplane. My whole timeline was filled with what the extremely online call "takes" about this incident. It didn't leave me wanting more. After seeing recommendations from Twitter, which, as usual, seemed designed to spark outrage, I felt even less inclined to log in. So, I just haven't been on the platform much during this Eastertide.

In the midst of my neglect of the Twitter timeline, though, one thing that has been weighing on my mind is Twitter's financial future. You see, I'm a TWTR shareholder, conflicted about my distrust of the platform and being financially intertwined with its fate. I have been waiting for a chance to sell my shares at a reasonable price and get out. I now have a way to cash in my chips, not having gained much over the years, but at least some. If I wanted to wash my hands of the whole affair, I could be done with Twitter today. It is somewhat liberating.

When I started writing this post, I thought I was probably mostly alone in my feelings. Then I read this from M.G. Seigler.

And with the market now in a state of turbulence, the chaos of Elon Musk must have in some ways felt welcoming. A chokehold that felt like a warm embrace.

I can't come up with a better metaphor than "a chokehold that felt like a warm embrace." An online place that I used to love has fallen into the hands of a billionaire with an ax to grind, and I feel fine.

Sometimes Apple Music inspires me by algorithmically playing fitting sequential songs after a self-made playlist. This happened recently when I had been listening to some tracks I had stuck together and it followed them up with a Chromeo and then a Cut Copy song. I never would have thought to put the two together, but the combo worked really well. I could imagine myself DJ’ing — spinning those tracks back to back to get people moving. That was the inspiration for this playlist, Dance Music For Introverts. It's a bit of a misnomer, since some of it is just straight up dance music, but it works.

I continue to be amazed by how tightly Apple Music has been tuned since it first debuted. Obviously, whenever you are dealing with machine learning, the more data you have, the better the recommendation engine can be. In this case, after listening to the first few songs I added to the playlist, I was literally thinking, "I need to put Toro Y Moi’s 'New Beat' on here." Before I could even do that, Apple Music played the song when the playlist had ended.

That's entertainment.