Noli Me Tangere

Conducting Midterm

The first 2 pages of our Intro (Intro!!) to Conducting midterm, which we must conduct in class Tuesday morning.

Heritage, USA

When I was a young boy, my mother would sometimes have The Praise the Lord Club on the tube. I began to recognize Jim Bakker's face, and my young mind saw his cherubic good looks and the reverence given to his words and realized he was obviously somebody special. Eventually, I asked my mother to confirm my suspicions:

"Mom, is that God?"

This story resides today in the "kids say the darndest things" pantheon, but it probably says something about what was being communicated--intentionally or not--through that TV. Needless to say, I also remember the scandal breaking. I remember the air-conditioned doghouse. I remember the nervous breakdown during the trial. I remember Bloom County taking some vicious shots at the Bakkers. "TV church", as we cynics call it, never recovered. It was a classic fall-from-grace tale, with characters that are awfully easy to mock, until you remember that that was a real family, not a cartoon. A screwed-up family, perhaps, but a real family nonetheless. So I came to church yesterday with piqued interest, curious to hear what Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye, would have to say to us. Surely he's had a uniquely dramatic childhood. I can't imagine how something like that would shape you as an adult.

Jay is a good speaker. He's prone to tangents and escalating ironic jokes, but he's engaging, unaffected and candid. He doesn't seem like a showman, but he's very comfortable behind a mic. His chosen passage: Luke 15; the parable of the prodigal son. It suits him because his life is one of where the distinctions between grace and good deeds have been brought into unusually sharp focus. The images that caused me to mistake Jim for the Almighty were straight out of the older brother's recipe for success. Except that they were just images. Meanwhile, Jay began to abuse alcohol and drugs and was convinced that God hated him because he fell so far short of those images. He took his cues from the younger son.

I don't think he said so specifically, but it's easy to imagine that this story carries special meaning for him. The parallels are there: squandered blessings, humiliation, and for Jay, a dawning realization of God's grace. Now, his message seems to be primarily one of Grace. He seeks those who would grasp it most readily: the paxil and ritalin-dependent; the cultural outcasts; the oppressed; the profoundly dysfunctional. Jay's life took a turn when he grasped that God's love, unlike that of His followers, is not contingent.

My story doesn't have quite the same dramatic arc, but I can relate. It took me years to see that behind my good behavior--I never took more than a sip of alcohol in high school [pats self on back]--was geniune dysfunction. I don't necessarily mean the familial sort, or the emotional sort. I just mean an inability to do what I should, and to love the way I am supposed to. It became increasingly clear to me that something is profoundly wrong with the way I relate to God and the world around me. As the good kid, I used to wonder, 'what's so amazing about grace?' But when my rough edges came into clearer focus, so did Grace. "Oh, wow, I'm really f---ed up. How is it that I'm still loved?" Sitting at the great banquet, the younger son must have had this same sense of joyful bewilderment.

A couple points from Jay's sermon stood out for me. One, he admitted that he easily adopts a bad attitude toward evangelical culture. While it's understandable why he would feel this way, to acknowledge it as an ongoing blind spot shows a lot of maturity. There's a good dose of humility mixed in with his rebellion, without which you end up angry and isolated.

The second highlight was his application point. He said most people identify with one brother or the other. I nodded my head in agreement; I can relate to either, depending on who I'm comparing myself to. But we ought strive to be the father, he said. It struck me that lately I've neglected this. It's easy for me to get caught up in my own goodness or even my badness and forget that there are people who need compassion. It makes me grateful for Jay's sense of mission. Somehow, out of the ruins of that sordid affair came a genuine life-giving ministry. With his tatoos and piercings and "Religion Kills" sweatshirt, Jay probably won't be mistaken for God anytime in the near future. But if the erstwhile prodigal son grows up to be anything like his compassionate Father, that would be even better.

Underrated Simple Pleasures, vol. 2

I think I might have failed my first music history test. That was bad. But I nearly forgot my troubles while riding home on MARTA. Between the Lindbergh and Lenox stations, there's a long stretch of track that runs right alongside 400. I couldn't help but notice that my commute was progressing at a clip about 15-20mph faster (on a good traffic day) than all those poor shmucks in their SUVs and sport sedans. This, my friends, is a good feeling. You heard it here first; Abe will take body odor at high speeds over leather seats in traffic.

From the Archives

These are Wests, but it reminds me of high-school, when my classmates repeatedly pointed out that picture of the dustbowl migrant "okies" in our history textbook.

See if you can spot anyone who used to change my diapers.

how to have a good summer:

-1 book-heavy class to keep the mind sharp
-1 practice-oriented class with immediate career benefits
-1 touchy-feely class that values "discussion" and "diversity" over "studying"
-make a raawknroll CD
-ride your bike to school

While they both are recommendable in their own ways, GSU and CSU occupy very opposite ends of so many spectrums. I cannot adequately describe, in the space I have here, the difference between them, but if I had to try...

CSU______________GSU
small town--------------urban
white-bread-------------multi-grain
perm-----------------------dreadlocks
diet pills------------------weed
rednecks------------------panhandlers
duck droppings--------pigeon poop

Assuming I don't lose too many credits, I'm leaning towards making GSU my permanent home after this summer. One reason to love it is the setting. The music school is located NW of the rest of campus, in a sea of clubs, cafes, and eatery patios. If the scruffy urban dives scare you, there's also Starbucks, Smoothy King, and Dunkin Doughnuts on the same block. I invite you all to come down and have lunch with me.

Woodruff Park is like having an alternative universe next door. Today, I saw a middle-aged white man in an Open Door t-shirt holding a protest sign and screaming at the local law enforcement officers patroling the park, declaring injustice for the homeless. We also had this guy, who's probably best described as a transvestite baton-twirler.

~~~

After a week of classes, I think I've got one class that will take a lot of study, one that will take a lot of practice, and one that will take a lot of B.S. The latter, World Music, is taught by a woman who somehow fits every preconceived notion I had of what a World Music prof would be like. We sit in a circle--including the prof--and listen to her read passages from books. Occasionally she'll toss out a question and then the arguing begins. We are not allowed to use such ethnocentric words as "primitive" or "weird" when describing any music. On the first day of class we tried to define music. Does it have to be pleasurable? Does it differ from noise? How? I said it had to be auditory, but then someone brought up John Cage's 4'33" and described the things you "hear" when you are "listening" to it. It's a bold idea, but it's not something I'm really interested in studying, Erin.

Speaking of which, thanks to everyone who suggested topics for my fieldwork project. After declaring that I wanted to study the African origins of popular American music, I asked my prof if I could change my topic and she agreed. I've decided to study aesthetics and associations. Specifically, how do aesthetic values vary across culture? The Nazis outlawed "negroid excesses of rhythm". A man at my parent's church once theorized to me that you could praise God with pretty much any music except rap or heavy metal. I don't "get" rap. The folks in Woodruff park don't "get" folk. Japanese pop, for reasons I can't fully explain, strikes my eardrum as somewhat less pleasant than nails-on-chalkboard. The associations and the aesthetic sense they form are fully intertwined, and I want to unravel them a bit.

This topic also has bearing on my life outside the politically-correct classroom. The role of aesthetics is one that I wrestle with all the time in my work for the church. Every time we choose a note we are making an aesthetic decision, but at face value it's a purely humanistic choice: "What sounds best to me?" The less self-absorbed church musician might ask, "What music will most effectively communicate to this congregation?" I never ask myself what note God prefers, yet I hope and claim to make this music for His glory. There's a strange disconnect there, but I fall back on the idea that our most fundamental ideas of beauty are inherited from our Creator, not our parent's record collection. We may disagree as to what's beautiful, but beauty is beauty. And for the Christian, beauty is reflective.

So I think I'll enjoy this class. Fundamental questions about the essence of music are ultimately theological ones, in my view. The continued presence of music in a culture that is increasingly rational, imaginationless, and obssessed with efficiency requires some explanation, and I hope by August to be able to offer a better one.

Fieldwork Project

More on this later, but I'm required (or I get) to do a fieldwork research paper/presentation for my World Music class this summer. I've got til tomorrow at 1pm to choose a subject area.

I've got some ideas about what I'd like to study, but it's likely there are some fascinating areas that I'm forgetting. Any ideas? If you had 6 weeks to study any musical form and its cultural significance what would you choose?

News you cannot use

Leave it to CNN.com to keep us up to date on the world's most pressing stories. This was on the FRONT PAGE, mind you.

Report: Paris Hilton to Retire in 2 Years

Retire from what, Paris? From your work as an "actress"? Is it hard work playing yourself? You've been doing double duty, playing the dual roles of "blonde idiot" and "spoiled brat", and each so convincingly! By all means, you deserve a break.

No, wait, I guess that's us.

Cahoots

I feel I must recommend The Band.

I just got my first album last week, but I already feel like I've been listening to them my whole life. They might look like extras from Little House on the Prairie, but it doesn't get any better than long-bearded Canadians singing "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". These songs are so instrumentally rich, full of accordian and tack piano and brought to life by these shady American mythological characters like Virgil, Fanny, and Robert E. Lee.

It also occurs to me that Counting Crows did a decent impersonation with "Long December".

interpretations welcome

My friend informed me that I would be receiving an inheritance check. But I had to go to the bank to claim it. So I went to my local branch, only to find a line wrapped around the lobby, out the door and down the sidewalk. People were camped out like they were waiting for UNC basketball tickets.

"Oh no," I thought to myself. "It's going to take forever to get my inheritance."

While waiting in line over the next few days, I made friends with the people nearby, including a group of 4 college girls behind me. They seemed to be on their spring break, which they chose to spend waiting in line at the bank.

Then it occurred to me that I had no way to prove that I was the rightful heir. "Why should these people give me money," I wondered to myself, "when they have no way of knowing who I am?" Then, I was comforted to know that my inheritance numbered only a couple thousand dollars, not millions, as is often the case. I was genuinely relieved to have a smaller check coming.

Later, apparently out of boredom, I began to kiss a girl who was waiting in line. She became aggressive and began to grind her teeth into mine until it hurt. Her lower teeth clenched up against my premolars, so that her chin was in my mouth. She pushed harder, as if she was trying to force my teeth down my throat, and I could hear the harsh grind of dentine on dentine. I felt that at any second my teeth would break, and I'd feel the bone shards scatter around my tongue. I panicked and tried to push her off, but for some reason was too weak to move her.

At last she relented. I couldn't close my jaw fully. My upper and lower molars no longer meshed well together, and it felt like there were tooth particles floating around. It wasn't clear whether or not she was trying to hurt me or merely thought this move was sexy.

Then I woke up, and it still felt like my teeth didn't fit well together, but this could have been my imagination.

for the record (vol. 3)

since i seem to have completely run out of witty or substantive things to blog about, here's a couple more for ya.

these are probably my favorites, for the moment, at least. and that drummer on "stick around"! he's like a machine!

for the record (vol. 2)

i added a couple demos to my download.com page. these are candidates for the sessions that start next week, and represent at least a subconcious attempt to get away from the girl-gets-away-mope-fest. speaking of which, since the lyrics came out so stream-of-(sub)conciousness, i didn't edit them at all. sang it right off the waffle house napkin.

while there are some things i find interesting about these two, i'm not crazy about that vocal. got a little carried away on the bgvs. but i think mike does a great job on the guitar, which is mostly untouched.

if you have a suggestion for a better title, let me know.