music | Discuss A Song: The National's "Start A War"

You know the rules: I select a song I love, you listen, you comment on the song. Simple enough. Let me know what you think.

For those who aren't on my email list, you can find this track online at eMusic or iTunes. I couldn't find the track free online, but there is a decent live version available for download here. [I like the studio version better; you can also check out the slightly crazy live video below.] If you want to hear other tracks, visit their MySpace site. If you happen to like what hear, find a local music store and buy an album.

Notes: The National gives us yet another reason to love Brooklyn. I like this track for the delicate guitar which contrasts nicely with Matt Berninger's baritone. "Do you really think you can just put it in a safe behind a painting lock it up and leave?" I kind of wished the song peaked a little more, but enjoy it as is.

Song to Discuss:


"Start a War"
by The National

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[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Music][Mp3][The National]

humor | Video Of The Week

HT: The Weblog

[America's Young Theologian][Humor]

life | Aberdeen - Paris - Durham

A month ago I was planning to go to Paris for the the month of July. I say planning instead of going because there were several things that needed to transpire before that could actually happen. I needed a new passport. My old passport that I obtained in 1997, which included a picture that made me look like Vanilla Ice if he had taken up an academic career, expired in May. I needed a flat in Paris. I simply didn't have it in me to stay in a dorm or some such accommodation. Last time I did that in Freiburg, Germany, I shared a room with a much younger American who soaked his foot in an upside-down frisbee and would note his daily recovery in his journal. [Oddities aside, he was a good guy.]



I also would need a flight to Paris. Normally this would not be a problem, but my gargantuan cell phone bill, which ended up being almost as much as my rent for the month, was making things a bit tight.

Now I'm going; all hurdles have been cleared. I bought my plane ticket. The U.S. Embassy mailed my new passport, the pictures alone cost £10 ($20) as the U.S. now requires a square 2" by 2" photo instead of the previously standardized size. It's probably the most patriotic object I'll ever carry in my pocket. My friend Scott on seeing it quipped, "That's idolatry." I'm inclined to agree, or at least say its ugly. The pages are now decorated with sweeping images of American scenes (think: Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, or two cowboys on the plains) and capped with 'inspiring' little quotes about freedom. It makes me think of an e.e. cummings poem. Thanks to Craigslist, I found a flat in the 10th arrondissement that I'll be sharing with two gents from Scotland's first university. There aren't many loose ends to tie up now.



Before I leave I'll take the train down to coast one more time to the place where my year in Scotland began. I'll again spend a day or two in conversation with Reno, who promises me he'll dust off his blog soon. Then it will be back up the coast, over the Firth of Tay, past Dundee and Stonehaven, arriving in Aberdeen for another pint at The Prince of Wales, or maybe a late breakfast at Old Blackfriars. Sunday it's off to Paris. I first needed a passport when I visited Paris in 1997 at the age of 20. Since then I've graduated three times, made a lot of unlikely friends and was even married once. It always surprises me how quickly familiarity can grow between a person and a place, how people one did not know only a year before will be so dearly missed. After my month in Paris, I'll return to Duke; as for my friends in Aberdeen, I'll hope for many happy returns.

[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Travel][Poetry]

news | Back To Duke University

Returning to the Gothic wonderland for the school year 2007-2008, I'll be a special student at Duke University while researching my Ph.D. dissertation. It also has the benefit of closing the distance on my long-distance relationship. So look to find me in Durham, NC come August.

[America's Young Theologian][Theology][News]

poem | On Returning To The United States

In a month and a half, I should be back in the United States. I have a lot of mixed feelings when I think about the United States. Chuck Klosterman wrote that he once sent out a mass email asking about patriotism:

I gave everyone two potential options for a hypothetical blind date and asked them to pick who they'd prefer. The only things they knew about the first candidate was that he or she was attractive and successful. The only things they knew about the second candidate was that he or she was attractive, successful, and 'extremely patriotic.' No other details were provided or could be ascertained.

He continues writing, "Just about everyone immediately responded by selecting the first individual. They viewed patriotism as a downside. I wasn't too surprised; in fact, I was mostly just amused by how everyone seemed to think extremely patriotic people weren't just undateable, but totally fucking insane. One of them wrote that the quality of 'patriotism' was on par with 'regularly listening to Cat Stevens' and 'loves Robin Williams movies.'"

I have an uncle who likes to remind me that the United States is the best country in the world. Generally it seems like he makes this claim on the basis of wealth and opportunity. Of course, we don't think a person is a good person simply because of wealth. If we did, we'd think highly of Kenneth Lay (of Enron infamy) or your average drug kingpin. It is not, quite frankly, all about the Benjamins and even if it were, Luxembourg has the highest GDP per capita in the world. To me the United States just seems like spoiled eleven year old -- full of energy, possessing money without understanding responsibility, culturally unrefined, and burning ants with a magnifying glass without any semblance of a good reason. Most parents will admit, however, that they love their eleven year olds even if they periodically having the flashing desire to sell them into slavery and move to the Bahamas.

However, it would be dishonest to fall into the rhetoric of those who cannot recognize the civic virtues of United States. It would be wrong to lose hope that the United States will grow up and wrong not to work towards forming, as the preamble of the US Constitution says, a more perfect union. One should not fall into silly optimism, the steady diet of campaign speeches, but stubbornly refuse to give up, to be lazy, to confuse pecuniary gain with human flourishing. Often I may sound like an exasperated parent when I talk about the United States, yet it is hard to witness silly antics and not occasionally smile. I was reminded of that by Barbara Hamby's poem "Ode to American English."

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Ode to American English

I was missing English one day, American, really,
     with its pill-popping Hungarian goulash of everything
from Anglo-Saxon to Zulu, because British English
     is not the same, if the paperback dictionary
I bought at Brentano's on the Avenue de l'Opéra
     is any indication, too cultured by half. Oh, the English
know their dahlias, but what about doowop, donuts,
     Dick Tracy, Tricky Dick? With their elegant Oxfordian
accents, how could they understand my yearning for the hotrod,
     hotdog, hot flash vocabulary of the U. S. of A.,
the fragmented fandango of Dagwood's everyday flattening
     of Mr. Beasley on the sidewalk, fetuses floating
on billboards, drive-by monster hip-hop stereos shaking
     the windows of my dining room like a 7.5 earthquake,
Ebonics, Spanglish, "you know" used as comma and period,
     the inability of 90% of the population to get the present perfect:
I have went, I have saw, I have tooken Jesus into my heart,
     the battle cry of the Bible Belt, but no one uses
the King James anymore, only plain-speak versions,
     in which Jesus, raising Lazarus from the dead, says,
"Dude, wake up," and the L-man bolts up like a B-movie
     mummy. "Whoa, I was toasted." Yes, ma'am
I miss the mongrel plentitude of American English, its fall-guy,
     rat-terrier, dog-pound neologisms, the bomb of it all,
the rushing River Jordan backwoods mutability of it, the low-rider,
     boom-box cruise of it, from New Joisey to Ha-wah-ya
with its sly dog, malasada-scarfing beach blanket lingo
     to the ubiquitous Valley Girl's like-like stuttering,
shopaholic rant. I miss its quotidian beauty, its querulous
     back-biting indignation, its preening rotgut
flag-waving cowardice. Suffering Succotash, sputters
     Sylvester the Cat; sine die, say the pork-bellied legislators
of the swamps and plains. I miss all those guys, their Tweety-bird
     resilience, their Doris Day optimism, the candid unguent
of utter happiness on every channel, the midnight televangelist
     euphoric stew, the junk mail, voice mail vernacular.
On every boulevard and rue I miss the Tarzan cry of Johnny
     Weismueller, Johnny Cash, Johnny B. Goode,
and all the smart-talking, gum-snapping hard-girl dialogue,
     finger-popping x-rated street talk, sports babble,
Cheetoes, Cheerios, chili dog diatribes. Yeah, I miss them all,
     sitting here on my sidewalk throne sipping champagne
verses lined up like hearses, metaphors juking, nouns zipping
     in my head like Corvettes on Dexedrine, French verbs
slitting my throat, yearning for James Dean to jump my curb.

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Bob Dylan once said, "I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged." I could say the same, but just the same, I'm looking forward to being back in the U. S. of A.

[America's Young Theologian][Theology][Politics][Poetry]

misc | Grammar Is Badass

I love grammar. When I speak, I often construct elaborate sentences with far too many dependent clauses. I like words. Sometimes when I drink this turns into strange juxtapositions, e.g. last night I said, "That's morose shit." Sometimes my thoughts are quicker than my speech which leads to odd pauses as I try to figure out how to express properly what I've just thought. I misspell words frequently, but that in neither here nor there. All of this is to say that I just spent ten minutes trying to figure out the grammatically correct sentence:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" [more info]

[America's Young Theologian][Grammar]

music | The AYT Jukebox: 2007

I've not posted about the new music in the ole jukebox since August, when I was living in Washington, D.C. and getting ready to move to Scotland. I get most of my music via various online music services. I like eMusic a lot as a low-cost DRM-free solution. However, not having an internet connection in my flat while not having permission to install programs on my office computer has slowed down my churning through new music. It has also made it difficult to catalogue tracks via last.fm. Further complications came when I closed my iPod in a car door on a crisp November day in Chicago. Two months later, I had my replacement iPod and Shure was nice enough to replace my E2c sound-isolating earphones (which had started to produce static in the left ear) and as most of my music was backed up (though I did manage to loose all my Regina Spektor tracks), I was back in business. Since I put all my music back on my iPod in January, sorting my music by add date only tells me what I've gotten since then. Below you'll find listed the albums I've picked up in 2007 so far (some new, some new to me).

The albums I like the most are probably The National's "Boxer" anchored by Matt Berninger's deep baritone, The Arcade Fire's "Neon Bible", I'm From Barcelona's poppy but sometimes lyrically infantilizing "Let Me Introduce My Friends", and, to my surprise, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's sophomore "Some Loud Thunder". Brother Reade is an extremely talented MC and DJ hip-hop twosome that I highly recommend.

New (or New To Me) Albums for 2007 (So-Far)

Bright Eyes - Cassadaga
Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
Joanna Newsom - Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP
The National - Boxer
Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings
Brother Reade - Northcack Aphonicrobotickillatrackatronic EP
The Clientele - God Save the Clientele
The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Menomena - Wet And Rusting
Tom Waits - Blood Money
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
SXSW 2007: Breakout Bands That Tore Up Texas
Okkervil River - The President's Dead EP
Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
I'm from Barcelona - Let Me Introduce My Friends
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Living With The Living
Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury
Nouvelle Vague - Nouvelle Vague (Limited French Version)
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder
Bloc Party - A Weekend In The City
The Shins - Wincing The Night Away

[America's Young Theologian][Music][Brother Reade]

humor | Life Explained

Found this photo here, using my StumbleUpon toolbar. I'm not sure what I think of StumbleUpon yet, but I'm using it for now. You can send links to particular friends and find random sites based upon the recommendations of friends or categories you select (e.g. last week it gave me a site where you had to guess whether a photograph was either a computer programmer or a serial killer. I did quite well distinguishing the two, but have ever since worried about the logic of it takes one to know one.)

[America's Young Theologian][Humor]

news | Dick Rorty Dead at 75

Richard Rorty, whose inventive work on philosophy, politics, literary theory and more made him one of the world’s most influential contemporary thinkers, died Friday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 75. NYTimes.com obituary.

Not to be quickly dismissed or forgotten.

[America's Young Theologian][Rorty]

quote | On History and Time

"Every conception of history is invariably accompanied by a certain experience of time which is implicit in it, conditions it, and thereby has to be elucidated. Similarly, every culture is first and foremost a particular experience of time, and no new culture is possible without an alteration in this experience."

--Giorgio Agamben, Infancy and History

[America's Young Theologian][Politics][Agamben]