Dancing about Architecture

I think I’m finally wrapping up this book report.
I’m working on Theodore Gracyk’s Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock for a little project, and enjoying the read. His initial assertion is that the “what,” or text, of rock is not a genre or style, but distinguished by being a recorded work. This is something [...]

Read Full Post »

World Music Pretend

This site is all about asserting my unsubstantiated hunches (and making self-referential qualifiers), so here’s one. When I was last aware of what was happening to pop music in the rest of the world, non-Western top 10 lists were made up of 4-5 American or European hits, 3-4 indigenous acts that basically made Western pop [...]

Read Full Post »

7028

From the erratically surfed getreligion.org re: Newsweek’s DaVinci Code feature on Mary Magdalene:
“At least we can be thankful the story doesn’t indulge in hysterical Gospel of Judas-style predictions that Sunday-school teachers will have to rethink the entirety of their message because a Gnostic text preaches Gnosticism.”
heh heh heh.
I love how every year at Easter and [...]

Read Full Post »

Look at Gabe!

Gather ‘Round, Children: Recalling the good old days since 2006.

Read Full Post »

6454

“At this moment in the Church’s history in this country (and in the West more generally) it is less urgent to convince the alternative culture in which we live of the truth of Christ than it is for the Church to tell itself its own story and to nurture its own life, the culture of [...]

Read Full Post »

6359

One of the things I appreciate about Fuller: the president and a church history prof urging Christians to see and read the DaVinci Code, from the front page of their website.

Read Full Post »

Little Red Asphalt Hood

I love a good cringe at an original Grimm’s or Hans Christian Andersen story, where the severe moral message trumps a happy ending. We’d no sooner tell the young’un these stories than have him watch Scarface before bedtime. It occurs to me that about the only place where cautionary tales are a la mode is [...]

Read Full Post »

Marching to Olympus

Three words to start a paragraph everyone will want to read:
In a lecture, a prof made a comment about the Greek Olympics being intended for the pleasure of the gods, developing the idea that their athletes were trained to impress the divine, and to compete for the gods’ enjoyment. This got me thinking about some [...]

Read Full Post »

Undelicious

In the context of a discussion about changes in the relationship between American culture and food (see “McRib”), someone brought to my attention James Lileks’ The Institute of Official Cheer and his fantastic “Gallery of Regrettable Food,” with online excerpts from the book.

Read Full Post »

Baking Cakes for the Ennui

Mmmm. The new Dresden Dolls is like
1 cup Regina Spektor
1 cup Hedwig & the Angry Inch
1/4 cup Amy Mann
8 oz Ben Folds Five
1 tbs butter
Preheat oven to Hot Hot Heat. Mix Spektor, Hedwig and Folds until batter is moist. Bake in 8″ square pan for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, melt butter, and stir in Mann. [...]

Read Full Post »