Spoonfreude

Consuming the Corpse--with Relish

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 05:47:00 +0000

“Art is dead; Godard can’t change that,” the Situationists proclaimed in 1968. “Comrades, stop applauding, the spectacle is everywhere.” Jean-Luc Godard must have anticipated both of these sentiments when crafting Pierrot le Fou (1965). Quoting literary art at every turn, the titular Ferdinand-Pierrot insists that art remains very much alive. With Pierrot, Godard creates a marvelous mashup of genres—a spectacle worthy of applause. Indeed, it seems that Godard was bent on twisting the Situationists theses against them; Godard’s appetite for the whole body of western art proves insatiable.

Pierrot opens with a rather lengthy voice-over exposition on the painter Velasquez. What we mistake for a narrator’s voice turns out to be that of the protagonist, enjoying a bath and a cigarette and reading a passage of a biography to his young daughter. Aside from injecting humor into situation, Godard takes an early opportunity to make a serious point. That is, how can art be dead when part of its essential nature just is to be disseminated, received, and reinterpreted in a new context? In fact, Godard himself has already been enacting this three-fold process in the opening montage. The printed pronouncements of the biography come alive over images that interpret and inform them; Pierrot speaks the word “twilight” and Godard presents us with an image of sunny afternoon tennis game. Several shots later, he presents twilight over water, but now the voice informs us that “space reigns supreme.”

For a corpse, art is doing quite a lot of work here. Or perhaps it might serve us better to say that the sound and images are doing a lot of work to create a work of art. The juxtaposition of quotation with new images, of “twilight” with light, and of twilight with “space” suggests (1) an ongoing dialog with art of the past and (2) a continuing struggle to create something that interprets our experience in space and time. But what is art if not the latter? And how does a work dialogue with its predecessors if it is not one of them itself? One might answer that the critic or essayist partakes in both but does not create art. But the critic’s craft operates in the intellectual domain; the artist’s spans the sensory, emotional, and intellectual. Pierrot le Fou assaults the senses with fireworks, gunfire, and flashing neon, pricks the emotions with a love affair, a journey, and a betrayal, and invites the intellect to apprehend a barrage of images and plot points that can only be understood in context.

The context of Pierrot comprises not just the Situationist state of affairs and the state of cinema itself, but the whole of performance spectacle dating back to at least the 16^th-century Commedia Dell’arte, from which Godard's protagonist receives his nickname. In that comic tradition, the trusting Pierrot pursues the love of Columbine; she betrays him for the affections of the agile Arlequin. In Pierrot le Fou, if fickle Marianne plays Colombine to Ferdinand’s Pierrot and to dancing Fred’s Arlequin, Ferdinand’s fate should come as no surprise. Yet Godard surprises us because he closely associates Pierrot with himself (via quotation), Marianne with the state of French culture (she wears the colors of the flag), and Fred with violence and war (suggesting the collapse of French imperialism). Pierrot's betrayal occurs at the last minute, leaving the audience with sensory exhaustion and a strong emotional charge, but still chewing on the meaning of every quote.

Indeed, the ability to inspire affect and introspection in its absence proves to be one of art’s most powerful qualities. Art lives in Godard’s film, and he clearly wishes to spread it around. That he co-opts his opposition’s terms—especially, spectacle—makes Godard’s artistic food for thought all the sweeter.

Webb 3.0

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:54:00 +0000

I saw Derek Webb at Austin's legendary Cactus Cafe tonight. You could call this the third incarnation of Webb--after Caedmon ensemble guy and solo acoustic folkster--and I gotta say, the new show is pretty rad.

I'd only heard a song and a clip or two from the new album, and what I'd heard shocked me. Derek went from folk-acoustic to synth-electronic. I worried that D Webb wouldn't be able to pull off the electronica live, but he, his drummer, and his everything-else guy put on a great concert. (They even had a little bit of a light show that added to the experience.)

In good Webb form, they played the new album in its entirety, including the "controversial" What Matters More. While I like that song's lyrical ballsiness, I thought it a musically a bit weak in context; everything else on "Stockholm Syndrome" is even better. I especially liked "Freddie Please". Most of the show tended toward drum-and-bass with Webb's signature vocals, which worked in spite of the fact that at times it proved a difficult to separate Derek's vocal style from his acoustic self.

He did a solo acoustic set, too, taking requests as is his custom. My only real complaint is that he did the acoustic set in the middle of the show and it sapped the momentum that they had built with the more electronic stuff. Still, it was great. The PA died during the last song, but Derek finished strong, unplugged and unmiked--quite moving, actually. Oh, and the opening act, Marc Scibilia, did a fantastic job, too. All in all, a wonderful evening.

* * *Derek Webb plays Mokah Coffee Bar in Dallas on Sunday, October 25 at 7pm* * *
Support independent music and independent coffee!

P.V.I. Me, ASAP

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:07:00 +0000

In the middle of giving a counter-intuitive answer to the Special Composition Question (when do xs compose a y? If and only if they compose an organism), Peter van Inwagen pauses to acknowledge his argument's affront to common sense:

"A good many philosophers...may want to accuse me of a philosophical ploy that Saul Kripke has described in these words: 'The philosopher advocates a view apparently in patent contradiction to common sense...Personally, I think such philosophical claims are almost invariably suspect....The real misconstrual comes when the claimant continues, "All the ordinary man really means is..." and gives a sophisticated analysis compatible with his own philosophy.'"

Inwagen then proceeds to (1) deny that there is any such body of belief as common sense and (2) answer Kripke's philosophy-of-language-informed charge by denying that he is proposing an analysis of language. Up to this point, Inwagen has been saying something analogous to this: "When the ordinary man says the sun has moved behind the elms, what he really means is that the earth has moved in such a way that our position relative to the elms and the sun has changed such that the elms now block the sun." But then he seems to switch gears and claim that the ordinary man really does mean the sun has moved behind the elms and that furthermore, "this sentence is sufficiently empty of metaphysical commitment."

Prima facie, Inwagen's move smells like a blatant contradiction. One philosopher that I know, however, suggests that it's possible that Inwagen is stepping outside the metaphysics room momentarily to address Kripke. Perhaps there's even more to it. Maybe Inwagen is pointing out that statements of this sort constitute "protocol" sentences which, in contrast to "system" sentences, are about primitive, immediate perceptions and not scientific fact. And since such protocol sentences are never really false, what's the problem? In short, PvI gives a linguistic rebuttal to a linguistic objection and continues doing metaphysics as if he's just swatted away a fly. Personally, I take his remark as a kind of F you to philosophy of language on the whole (and, as such, humorously endearing), but decide for yourself [here].

Casting a Dream Net

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:58:00 +0000

Question for all of you: What themes or events recur often in your dreams? For about as long as I can remember, I've had dreams about weird things happening with elevators--doors not working properly, the car stopping between floors--usually ending in a cable/brake failure and a terrifying free fall. But lately it seems the dreamland lift engineers have figured out a way to put emergency brakes on those things, however, and I survived the two elevator-free-fall dreams I've had this month. Anyone else have recurring, evolving themes/events that have endured through the years? It's not the one-time weird dreams that are worth pondering; it's the ones that keep coming back that are intriguing.

C.S. Lewis is Alive and Well

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:06:00 +0000

In reading a mere twenty pages of Lewis's A Preface to Paradise Lost, I have discovered two rhetorical gems that are, today, as true and relevant as when he wrote them.

The first regards a recent debate in the literary world as to whether Shakespeare ought to be translated into Present Day English just as Beowulf and Chaucer have been. John McWhorter fired the first ghastly salvo, D.H. Lawrence fired eloquently back, and Alan Jacobs called in the air support. Both replies are well worth your time, but it appears that Lewis had seen it all before and planted this delightful time-bomb in his defense of the lost art of solemnity: "The desire for simplicity is a late and sophisticated one. We moderns may like dances which are hardly distinguishable from walking and poetry which sounds as if it might be uttered ex tempore. Our ancestors did not. They liked a dance which was a dance, and fine clothes which no one could mistake for working clothes, and feasts that no one could mistake for ordinary dinners, and poetry that unblushingly proclaimed itself to be poetry. What is the point of having a poet, inspired by the Muse, if he tells stories just as you or I would have told them?"

The second struck me because it explicates in a sentence what Charlie Kaufman demonstrates in his brilliant two-hour mind-scrump, Synecdoche, New York. "The attempt to be oneself," Lewis writes, "often brings out only the more conscious and superficial parts of a man's mind." Indeed, that one line comes close to summing up the thematic and artifactual whole of Kaufman's work; the thread of superficial self- and consciousness-feedback runs through all the films of his that I've seen. And yet I wonder whether Kaufman also understands what Lewis says immediately following: "working to produce a given kind of poem [or in the case of Synecdoche's Adele, a given kind of painting] which will present a given theme as justly, delightfully, and lucidly as possible, he is more likely to bring out all that was really in him, and much of which he himself had no suspicion."

String Theory: Shoe-String Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 06 May 2009 04:40:00 +0000

Pardon me while I go all Andy Rooney for a minute here.

What the hell is wrong with shoe companies these days? Every pair of shoes I've owned since like 2002 has had the same problem: the damn laces won't stay tied. Before '02, all I ever had to do was tie a simple bow and my kicks stayed tight all day long. But the last, like, seven pairs of shoes I've bought inevitably untie themselves--sometimes in as little as twenty steps.

Really, Skechers? Seriously, Puma? Et tu, Asolo? Shoe-lace technology has had what, 3000 years of research & development, and you still find a way to screw it up? Did the secret recipe for laces that stay tied get classified after 9/11?

I wouldn't make a big stink out of it except that the obvious solution--double-knotting--is a big pain in the ass. Pain in the ass to tie when a man's running late in the morning, pain in the ass to untie when a guy just wants relief from sweaty sneaks. Even when I double-knot, my stinking laces undo themselves half the time anyway. And the less-obvious solution--velcro--is really expensive (85 bucks for canvas Vans!) or really ugly (you're not helping anyone, Wal-Mart).

I can't remember the last pair of shoes I bought that stayed tied...until now. I picked up a couple pairs of Chuck Taylors last month, and those puppies haven't untied on me once. So the moral of the story is this, apparently: in the age of iPhones and Large Hadron Colliders and the mapping of the human genome, the only shoes that stay tied are ones that were designed 92 years ago. Sometimes, the simplest designs prove the most excellent and enduring.

The Carbon Motors E7

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:22:00 +0000

The new standard in law-enforcement awesomeness:

Part KITT, part Airwolf, the E7 has 75+ features that you won't find on a retrofitted Crown Vic, including
-18" wheels
-300hp clean-diesel engine
-6-speed automatic transmission
-50/50 front-rear weight distribution
-75mph rear impact crash capability
-Body-integrated ram bars
-Heads-up display
-Video/audio surveillance of rear passenger area
-Integrated "laptop" computer
-Forward-looking infrared system (FLIR)
-Suicide rear doors for easier perp entry/exit
-Hoseable rear passenger compartment
-Integrated flashers/spots/takedown lights
-Remote start
-Nightvision-compliant interior illumination
-Radiation and biochemical weapon detectors

Dude, I want one!

Dante? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:57:00 +0000

Or, EA Ruins Everything.

I should be writing a paper on Copernicus right now, so I'll try to keep this short. Electronic Arts, the biggest, mediocrest video game publisher in the world, is making a video game out of Dante's Inferno.

You would think it could be done without fundamentally screwing up the story. But you would be wrong if you think EA could do it. Among the horrific violence they are working on Dante's masterpiece: Lucifer he actually rules Hell; furthermore, he is free to roam around the cosmos; and most ridiculously of all, he kidnaps Beatrice's soul as she dies. Dante, "a man who knows no fear", pursues Satan into Hell to rescue his beloved. Need I go on? Oh, and (spoiler alert!) as the game progresses through Hell, it "gets more hellish."

Look, I know a close adaptation would amount to little more than pressing X to snap a twig off a Suicide tree now and then, but come on, this is more than I can take.

Witness the horror for yourself here.

Can a Self-Aware Moriarty Hologram be far Behind?

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:39:00 +0000

The one thing I thought that the Star Trek: TNG holodeck stories never adequately accounted for was how people could walk around in there without bumping into the walls. They weren't just walking in place, after all, but running through dark alleys and up stairs and whathaveyou. Well, apparently the Japanese have been puzzling over the problem, too, and have come up with a prototype solution. Behold: the CirculaFloor.

Justin McElroy on 50 Cent's Video Game

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:56:00 +0000

"50 Cent: Blood on the Sand blends terrific gameplay with really bad ... well, practically everything else to create a final product that I love -- not like, love. I suspect you'll love it too ... just in that dark, secret way we love the things that are almost certainly making us stupider."

So...the way we love all video games?

Hard to think of any video game I've played that didn't make me stupider--except maybe for Clyde's Adventure.

Homer on Middle Knowledge

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:30:00 +0000

The Simpsons conduct an experiment in counterfactual conditionals.

Conclusion: "If you could live in the sauce, don't you think I'd live in the sauce?" Yep, that pretty much captures it. But what if it turns out that the messed up world as we know it is the sauce?

(Full episode here)

Ah, this is the life (is this the life?)

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:11:00 +0000

A Little Hopeful Arm-Chair Theology

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 06:31:00 +0000

"Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." I think about this Proverb often as I watch my childhood friends, one by one, drift from the Faith. Is that axiom really true, or is this one of those "generally speaking" proverbs that happens "most of the time." Will my friends really come back; can I count on it? How old is old? How long do we have to wait to see results? What to do in the meantime?

Then again, the author doesn't say anything about turning away in youth and then coming back in old age. No, he just says, "Hey, at least she won't turn from the path when she's old." What about those that lose their way in youth? My gut says there's hope for them, too. But I don't think that gut feeling is founded on that proverb. Rather, I think it's founded on a kind of Platonic notion that a soul really cannot unlearn what he already knows. I'm almost certain that once God gets under one's skin, he's impossible to shake, but I don't know how to argue that theologically. So maybe this isn't arm-chair theology. Maybe it's philosophy. Or wishful thinking.

Can one really unlearn the truth? I mean sure, go to school, learn a completely different epistemology with no room for true religion, but you'll always be trying to prove your old knowledge in terms of the new, I'd like to tell 'em. As if that proves something. Still, I know that friends A, B, C, and D will come back around, someday. Maybe I only feel that way because sometimes I suspect I'm following them down that road, but at a more cautious, reasonable speed. I had this conversation with a buddy on Thanksgiving, and we parted with hope, but never nailed down exactly why we hoped.

A few days later, I came across something Flannery O'Connor once said: "Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not." I think maybe she's saying the same as the author of that proverb, but she says it in a way that puts the question outside of the worrisome dimension of time. I'm pretty sure she's right. I hope she is.

Everything You Need to Know About Texas

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 05:11:00 +0000

(AMK)

Peter Singer on Obama's Phone-a-Friend Shortlist?

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:50:00 +0000

Firelance posts an interesting, provocative bit about how Barack Obama, as an Illinois state senator, helped kill a bill that would have required attending physicians to give medical attention to aborted fetuses born alive. In fact Obama voted "present" the first time the bill came up (it failed to pass) and "no" the second time a year later (it failed again). After Congress passed its own Born-Alive Infant Protection Act in 2002, the Illinois senate sent another version of its bill to the Health and Human Services Committee, chaired by Mr. Obama, where it died.

The only senator who took the floor against the 2001 version of the bill, Obama argues, "Viability is the line that has been drawn by the Supreme Court to determine whether or not an abortion can or cannot take place." In other words, doctors only give medical attention to human persons. Conversely, by law, we do not abort viable human persons. It makes no sense to pass a bill that requires doctors to give medical attention to a fetus that has already been determined to be previable. Obama argues that the bill up for discussion represents an attempt to define previable fetuses as viable human persons, which would, essentially, make it an anti-abortion bill.

I think his argument works. But I think he arrives, brilliantly, at the wrong conclusion. 1093 was written as a result of one nurse's effort to make medical attention available to fetuses aborted alive. She noticed that wanted babies born at the same developmental stage as those being aborted were given medical attention. She wanted the aborted children to have the same shot at life as those whose parents wanted them. Read her story here. Read the context of Obama's statement here, and the entire discussion of SB1093 here.

Henry's Story

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:20:00 +0000

As part of my training at Houston's, I had to write a short bio on one of my co-workers. Hank/Henry is one of our better servers. He gets a lot of crap because he's Colombian; he gives me a lot of crap because I'm the newbie. But what makes Hank Hank? I rolled silver with Henry a couple nights ago and asked him a few questions. Here's what I learned.

Henry left Colombia after a friendly game of dominoes went south, way south. Nineteen, high on life, Henry had gone all in against the neighborhood jefe, keys to his prize possession—a 1984 baby-blue Honda moped—on the table. Only Henry didn’t know that his buddy Tellez had been paid off by the jefe, who had been pressuring Henry to sell. The fix was in, and Hank knew it as soon as he drew double nines and double sixes back to back. He peered through the rich Cohiba smoke at his friend’s eyes when that double six came up; he saw the weakness. The guy who was supposed to be rounding this game with him had sold him out—probably for a couple of chickens and sack of rice. Hank did the only thing he could—he flung his burning habano into the jefe’s face and fled on the Honda. He never looked back, kept it cranked wide open, through the colonial streets of La Candelaria, around San Felipe de Barajas, past Ciudad Perdida. All the way to Venezuela.

Venezuela would be where Hank made his first million—his first legal million. He sent for his girl Blanca, and she arrived a week later on the bus with the $180,000 pesos—barely a hundred bucks—Hank kept hidden below the cajica carpet. They moved into a hotel and Hank got a job delivering pizzas with the Honda. That lasted a week, enough time for Henry to meet the right kinds of people on the west side of town. Hank got into the oil drilling gig just long enough to learn the ropes and save up enough for a down payment on a drill. Henry had always been more lucky than charming, and he struck a big, untapped field within a month. Mind you, this was long before Venezuela nationalized its oil; Henry savored his first true taste of capitalism. But Henry came home one night to find Blanca in the arms of another man, watching Amores de Mercado. Henry calmly lit his Cohiba, then kicked over one of the many barrels of crude that he happened to keep in his living room. He tossed the cigar into the inky mess and walked away. A hard year’s cash was tucked away in the nooks of that house, and the Honda was parked in the garage, next to a couple more drums. But Henry just didn’t give a damn.

He had to get away. He withdrew all his savings from his Swiss bank account and bought a sloop with a Bermuda rig. Shoved off at El Tablazo, cursed the waves, spat into the wind, let the sails do the rest. He landed at St. Martin, on the French side. He didn’t speak French, at least not at first, but he quickly found a job shaking appletinis for American tourists on one of St. Martin’s thirty-seven gorgeous beaches. Island life proved calm, lazy even. Henry grew restless. One night, a year after he’d landed, Henry locked up the cabana bar, threw the keys up on the roof, and hopped into his sloop. But this time, Hank knew where he was going.

The land of opportunity. The United States of America. Specifically, Florida. He’d heard about Texas, fuerte entre los fuertes, as the Venezuelan oilmen had called it, and he knew that he’d fit right in. But his little sailboat wouldn’t take him that far, so he had to settle for the Keys. Henry didn’t know a soul in the States, but at twenty-one, he knew two English words: appletini and adventure. He had no problem meeting people. He missed his family often, but he became so tight with his peeps in Miami that he couldn’t tear himself away. Spent seven years there, but never gave up on his dream of moving to the America of America, the Republic within the Republic: Texas. He gave all his belongings to a family of Haitian refugees and bought a one-way ticket to Austin.

All the pieces were finally falling into place for old Henry. What’s more Texan than Austin? Just to be sure he was completely immersed in Texas culture, Henry got a job at a joint named after another Texas city, Houston. And dammit, Henry loved it. Loved everything about Austin, couldn’t believe his good fortune. Hank figured there were millions of people out there who would kill to be in his position, but Hank had grown weary of his expat status. The choice to become a US citizen came as no real decision at all to Henry. As far as he could tell, only benefits awaited him, and hey, he didn’t have to renounce his Colombian citizenship, so why the hell not? The process proved difficult, but as of two weeks ago, Hank’s a bona-fide United States Citizen. Took the oath and never looked back.

Now I'm Paying Attention

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Sat, 24 May 2008 05:54:00 +0000

No more Mavs or Stars playoffs action for now, and our beloved Bulls haven't had a prayer since the whole program was sold for parts...but I like the NBA post season this year. Lakers and Spurs, the past decade's most dominant WC teams--classic match-up. Detroit, yeah, sure. Every story needs a villain.

But Boston? Man, I hate that town's other teams, but I kinda wanna get behind these guys, especially if it means more Gino.

A Word to the DFW Crew

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 04:39:00 +0000

Somebody please go dance your socks off with Z-Trip at Suite. I can't. I have two exams the next day.

Things that Make Me Go "Hmm"

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:48:00 +0000

This passage contains one of the most apt (aptest?) metaphors for time that I've ever encountered. I thought I'd share it with you; this comes from William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily."

"They held the funeral on the second day, with the town coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years," (emphasis mine).

Augustine argued that one couldn't measure time because it's always slipping into the past--it "pertains to non-being." A few hundred years later Einstein came along and explained its slipperiness as relativity to space. Those guys dealt with the mechanics of time, if you will, but I think Faulkner tells us something about the meaning of time. He tells us how time works not in objective terms, but in subjective terms--as it pertains to the only creatures that consciously experience it: human beings. We all experience time like those old men; only the size of our meadows differs.

My Monohybrid Cross to Bear

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 05:03:00 +0000

Here's the problem that's been getting me down at least since the Cup came to Austin to visit: How in the hell do I reconcile biology with theology?

As a child, I was taught a literal, miraculous, six-day account of creation. God spoke the world into existence one literal twenty-four hour period at a time. If one takes the Bible literally (whatever that means), it seems like a stretch to take "evening and morning" to mean anything but a calendar day. Evolution was dangerous and at the same time a mere "theory."

But in scientific parlance, a "theory" is a pretty big deal. A theory "summarizes a hypothesis or group of hypotheses that have been supported with repeated testing." Evolution is not just one hypothesis, but a unified system of hypotheses, each supported by evidence. And as it turns out, the evidence for the evolutionary theory is overwhelming. Bacteria evolve to become drug-resistant, alleles become fixed or lost, DNA mutations occur at predictable rates (varying across locii), natural selection lurks in every corner, etc. In any case, I don't think I want to debate the merits of creationism vs. evolution vs. intelligent design here. The point is, I'm convinced. Perhaps more to the point, it's depressing to be convinced.

But before I tell you why it's depressing, I feel like I have to make a preemptive defense against anyone who supposes that maybe the liberals at Richland College and the University of Texas have somehow corrupted me and stolen my faith. Not so. I don't remember when I began to doubt creationism, but I do know that I chucked a literal interpretation of the Genesis account in church. I took a Genesis Sunday school class a few years ago taught by a DTS professor. Forget geology, paleontology, and biology. A close textual criticism of Genesis lends some pretty strong evidence to the notion that the Hebrew creation story is fundamentally theological--not historical--in nature. Thank God--I think we're all better off with a Bible that aims to teach us something about the Creator rather than the creation.

It would seem I've answered my own question. The first few chapters of Genesis employ myth to teach the truth of YHWH's cosmological authorship. So science and theology are discrete disciplines, and gosh darn it, they probably complement each other somehow. But things start to get sticky right around Romans 5: "For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." If you're a DTS professor teaching a Sunday school class, you solve the problem by saying that yes, evolution occurred, but there was an actual Adam. Science meets theology and the two play nicely.

But the scientific community begs to differ. Probably the population of Homo sapiens sapiens that displaced all other hominids consisted of about a thousand individuals. No literal Adam. Can we have original sin without Adam? (Do we even need it?) And what about H. floresiensis or even H. sapiens neanderthalensis? Were they not created in the image of God? Do we push Adam farther back in the fossil record, perhaps even before hominids developed the genetic basis for language? Does it seem likely that such a creature could sin?

Maybe what really gets me down is that the magic rug of teleological biology has been yanked from underneath me. There is no "purpose" in biology, only "function." And H. sapiens is just one link in the chain. Hard to draw a line between the morally accountable "us" and the animal "them." Even harder to make sense of a theology that seems to lean heavily on sin entering the world through one actual man. I mean, if there's no Adam, I feel bad for Paul for making that embarrassing analogy. (Oh, and Never mind Scriptural inerrancy while we're at it, but can we still have infallibility?)

So, theologian and arm-chair theologian friends, what do you got for me? If you're a six-day creationist, I wonder, could you suppose for a moment that the Evolution wins in the end?

Because the BIG question is this (assuming, as I do, that Evolution turns out to be not just theory, but reality): if Christianity can't tackle the evolutionary theory head on and come up with a theology that accounts for it, then what is it worth?

Mo' Music Mo' Music Mo' Music

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:38:00 +0000

...and mo' everloving music.

Welp, I saw the Shackeltons again tonight. They played an altogether too-short show at Beauty Bar here in Austin--just a little over an hour of rockin' and emotin'. Even with an encore, I think the smallish-but-enthusiastic audience would have stayed for another forty or so. I would have.

What I didn't realize when I saw these guys the first time is that two of the band members aren't even old enough to drink. That's right, bassist Justin and drummer Sean were sporting big black Xs on their hands tonight. Justin graduated high school this year, and Sean's only 17. The latter played most of the show in nothing but boxer-briefs. Not sure how that relates, but it seemed significant.

I'm gettin' behind these guys. I've seen 'em twice. I bought the CD. Dallas people, get on board with me for the sake of your own souls. The Shackeltons play the Double Wide tonight (Tuesday the 22nd). Give 'em some love.

Break for Book Meme

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:54:00 +0000

The 123 Book Meme (thanx TRP):

1. Open the nearest book to page 123 (No 123? Get a bigger book.)
2. Skip the first five full sentences
3. Post the next three

And away we go:
"Hence, by repeated and serious reflection, try to acquire a firm and felicitous habit of being on guard against the springs and inner promptings of your false and deceptive modalities. No endeavor is more worthy of a Philosopher. If we distinguish the replies of inner Truth from what we say to ourselves on our own, if we distinguish what comes immediately from Reason from what comes to us by way of the body or on occasion of the body, if we distinguish what is immutable, eternal, necessary from what changes at every moment, in short, if we distinguish the evidence of light from the vivacity of instinct, it is almost impossible for us to fall into error."

From Nicolas Malebranche's Dialogues on Metaphysics.

South by Southwest 2008 Mix

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:35:00 +0000

SXSW Recap: Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 01:24:00 +0000

Or: "One Helluva Night in Austin"

Day 3 actually started during the day. I met my buddy Ben White and a few of his coworkers down at the Hotel San Jose to hear Black Joe Lewis and the Honey Bears. With a name like that, it has to be good, right? Yes, especially if every member of the band wears a Star Trek uniform. With songs like "Bitch, I Looove You," Black Joe Lewis's James-Brown-infused blues kept us smiling.

Once one has listened to funky soul-blues in a small venue, what's the next logical step? How about a hip-hop show with 20,000 people in attendance? We walked down to Auditorium Shores for an evening with Talib Kweli and Ice Cube. That's right, Kweli--the lyrically creative, socially-aware rapper--was opening for the star of Friday. We missed Kweli and caught some in-between act. Didn't matter, because when Cube took the stage, it was on.

Now, the extent of my previous contact with the Ice Cube oeuvre had been the films "Three Kings" and "Barbershop." I didn't know much about his musical contribution to the world. But early on in the show, Cube posed the question, "Nigga, we started this gangsta shit, and this the mothafuckin' thanks I get?" Now that I could relate to. Seriously. Dr. Dre drops that line on "2001" when he's commenting on what gangsta rap has become since his days with NWA (Niggaz With Attitude, of "F*** the Police" fame) with Easy-E. Then I put it together: Ice Cube was the third member of NWA. OK, I guess he has some credibility.

Not that his set was meaningful, but it was really fun. The performance was laced with so much profanity it became comedic. The attempts at dramatic effect only upped the comic ante. At one point in the show, Cube implored the audience to "get your dubs up!" (make the west-side "W" hand sign). All the lights went down except for a spotlight on Cube. When they came back up, there were two ten-foot-tall inflatable hands on stage making the W-sign.

Nobody really wanted to stay for the whole show, so our little group disbanded. My disappointment at not seeing the whole show would turn into the promise of an extra-fun evening, however, because when I left the Shores, I hopped on a bus to get back home, and that bus was where a certain happy sub-plot of my SXSW experience started. I think I'd rather tell you the details in person, but let's just say that there's even more to South By than great music and free booze.

Let's get back to the music (and the booze). Ben met me at the Moon Tower for what I'd been told would be the best night of them all. I was certainly looking forward to it; the Cool Kids were gonna play a set. I had heard of the Cool Kids, and I had seen pictures of them, and sometimes that's enough to know a group's going to be legit. The Cool Kids dress like it's 1989: real Nike hightops, slim-leg jeans (or sweat pants), neon colors, etc. Ben and I moved up to the barrier. Mikey and Chuck came out and ROCKED. Well, technically, they rapped. Their beats are nice and fat, and their rhymes are carefree and funny. Even their guest MC, Mickey Factz, could hold his own. Ben was impressed. I was eager to buy the CD.

In between shows, on a drink run, I spotted a guy, a white guy, standing off to the side sporting a huge afro and dressed in footie pajamas. This was no small dude, either; he had to have been six feet tall. And these were no regular footie pajamas, they were ass-flap pajamas, the holy grail of PJs. I told Ben what I had seen. Turns out, Mr. Pajamas was part of the next group.

He went by the name of Fat Jew, and he along with Fonda and Machine comprise Team Facelift. Team Facelift's music played less like hip-hop and more like party fuel. You might say they are to hip-hop what early Chili Peppers were to rock. Their beats bumped and so did the crowd. And everything that came out of their mouths proceeded entirely tongue-in-cheek. They pleaded "I wanna have your baby" as sincerely as if they didn't know that men can't get pregnant. And all the while, Fat Jew's butt-flap hung unfastened, revealing the flesh-colored boxers underneath.

Next up: Crystal Castles, a guy-girl duo. He provided huge beats laced with alternatively sweet and chaotic 8-bit blips and boops. She sang from beneath a hooded sweatshirt with an abandon that the strobe lights and sound system amplified to incomprehensible proportions. This was the loudest show I have ever heard in my life. I wore earplugs and the beat still managed to punch me in the brain. Ben moved to the back. I made for the bar. Crystal Castles blew a fuse, and the stage went silent for about thirty seconds before a couple of roadies ran back and reprimed the aural violence. Would have been a great show, I'm sure, but I could not hear it for hearing it.

Finally, at about 4am, DJ Z-Trip took the stage for the final set of Moon Tower '08. Every record he threw on upped the adrenal and emotional volume. He started out with typical DJ fare, but quickly moved on to more meaningful mashups and sophisticated programming. I mean programming in the sense that Z-Trip seemed to be constructing a plot, a dance narrative with broad strokes of ecstasy entwined with moments of quieter passion. At one point, the beats hushed and Cash's "Ring of Fire" trumpeted forth. Gradually, Z added beats until the crowd was jumping even more than before. When he threw on "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the crowd whipped into a frenzy. We were soaked with other people's drinks. No matter, we kept dancing. (And by "we" I don't mean Ben and me; he had left to take care of his dogs.) Z-Trip could do no wrong; every track he played fit the moment perfectly. I understood why he went last. This DJ's musical epic was not just a story in itself; it was the climax of the meta-Moon Tower. At about 5:15, with no signs of stopping, Z put on Rage's "Bulls on Parade," and the crowd went absolutely nuts. He knew exactly what he was doing. We received another round of flying drinks and a few body checks. It couldn't get any better; we made for the exit.

About an hour later I got a text message from Anthony, who had been valeting downtown all night. "Wanna go for a ride in a Porsche?"

photo credits
Black Joe Lewis: Birkley3030
Ice Cube: RickyRicky
The Cool Kids: Miss35mm
Team Facelift: USB TourCo

SXSW Recap: Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Spoon) — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 04:02:00 +0000

I think I stayed in bed until noon on Friday; I didn't even try to go to any day parties. The Auditorium Shores concert didn't interest me, either. And even though nobody I knew could make it for Night 2 of the Moon Tower, I sure as hecks wasn't about to miss out.

When I got there at around 11pm, the line was about 100 deep. TABC had made a surprise visit and was hanging around to make sure only adults got free adult beverages. Friday night got rolling with American Bang, a Nashville band so good I broke the promise I'd made to myself that if I ever found myself at a show where a dude in a band rocked shirtless, I'd leave on principle. No, I stayed, and American Bang reminded me of just how much of a good time a good-natured, no-frills rock concert can be. Between shows I met the singer from Delta Spirit whilst talking to some Red Bull friends.

My favorite new band of the night were the Shackletons, a kind of neo-punk band from Chambersburg, PA. I stood in the front row for this one. I've always found small-town Pennsylvanians to be some of the most agreeable people on earth, and by golly, the Shackeltons didn't disappoint. Adding to the greatness of the music was the ecstatic, trembling performance of singer Mark Redding. He spent half the show bouncing around on the precariously tipsy subwoofers that stood immediately in front of the stage - talk about tension. They held, though, and at one point he reached out and shook my hand.

White Ghost Shivers took the stage next. These guys I can't say enough about. They are at the top of the Austin music heap and draw huge crowds--and their music sounds like it should be about 80 years out-of-date. Instead, it's entirely fresh. They call their style "hokum," a mix of Dixieland jazz and Vaudevillian theatre. The theatre is the thing; listening to a recording of the Shivers doesn't capture the sheer joy of the performance. It's more musical revue than anything. The Cast of Characters (among others):
-Cella Blue - Vocals and skirt-lifting
-Smokebreak Slemenda - Vocals and lead guitar (actually, he never ever takes a smoke break; he plays the entire show with a lit cigarette stuffed between his pick-hand fingers)
-Shorty Borgasm - A seven-foot tall banjo player with a predilection for fake moustaches and the brier.
I've seen the Shivers twice now, and I would gladly pay to see them again.

Anthony showed up at about 3:30, but was only able to catch Dragonette, the last act. Time of departure: 4something.

A couple of day 2 highlights @ my Tumblog.