20/20

Lately I have been in a nostalgic mood and today I was looking through my iPod for some music to accommendate these feelings.

I came across Moneen's album "Are We Really Happy With Who We are Right Now?" which my friend Emo Ian from The Goodbye Kiss introduced me to at church camp way back in the summer of 2004. Scrolling through the tracklist, I played "Closing My Eyes Won't Help Me Leave"

At the time I first started listening to this group, that song in particular appealed to me for several reasons. Stylistically, it is very much in the same vein as early Thursday or Alexisonfire; the song is pure chaotic emotion. The conflicting guitar riffs are strummed with an intricate intensity which might cause a casual listener to mistake dissonance for carelessness. Dual vocal lines, which switch between soft crooning and coarse screams, seem to care little what the other is doing.

Looking back on this song I better understand my identifying with it. In the midst of chaos and uninhibited emotion, the vocalists, representing a single entity, strive to find some meaning in a failed relationship. All the post-modern poet has is chaos, from which he must justify his existence.

The song ends with an extended breakdown in which both vocalists bemoan, "Don't Say you're sorry, because sorry means something is wrong." Even in the midst of this relational failure, the vocalists refuse to attribute any intrinsic moral value to the relationship.

The entirety of the song's lyrics are as follows:

Closing My Eyes Won't Help Me Leave

Where's my love? It's fallen and I'm bound to it
Where's my heart? It stopped, then why am I still here?
Something's missing

Wrong...gone? Would you say it's too late?
Say something now. Say something's wrong. Say sorry.
Wrong...gone? Would you stay? It's your fate.
Something's missing

Wait this out...a promise kept ends suddenly
Close my eyes...relax, lay back and try to breathe

Decide my fate
Is it too late?
To change it all
And mend mistakes

As if I would have such thoughts
And scream so loud for all it's not

Don't say you're sorry cause sorry means something is wrong
Don't say you're sorry...don't say you're sorry now
And I've changed...those thoughts rang out...

Aberdeen

Graduate Studies? Lately Kam has got me thinking in this direction.

On Considering Birds

Like any self-respecting Calvinist, I am prone to preface any conversation about future plans with a sincere "God willing" or perhaps throw in a "if the Lord wills" at the end. Really not at all unlike how my Muslim friends end such sentences with "Inshallah".

Sometimes our desires, even biblical ones, turn out not to be God's will. Situations like these can really be the defining moments in one's faith. This is the stage of life that I find myself in and the question I am forced to ask myself is, "Do I really believe that God's plan for my life is better that the one that I desire?"

James speaks to this in his epistle. He writes in 4:13,

"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit'- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'"

Thankfully Christ gives us an alternative to a life focused on fulfilling our own desires and following our own plans,

"Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them." - Matthew 6:25

He continues,

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." - Matthew 6:33

When our deep desires are not given to us, we can take comfort that we have been granted something greater: participation in God's kingdom, where what God wants done is done.

I know these things to be true.

"I believe! Help my unbelief." Mark 9:24

Miguel De Cervantes

The pranking collective once operating under the pseudonym "Miguel De Cervantes" has been revealed.

Becky Hayko, Anne Pittman, and Holly Pittman (no relation) have come forward as the masterminds behind the recent spree of pranks, which have included hundreds of fake party invitations being distributed across campus and over 4 dozen crickets being set free in the hall outside my room.

The ingenuity of the pranks centered on their use of Facebook to befriend their victims and even inform them prior to the prank, all under the previously mentioned fake identity. Pictures and clues about the pranks were also posted online.

It remains to be seen how much retaliation will take place.

Sick

Sickness always seems to strike at the most inconvenient times.  

Work today was pretty miserable with a sore throat and severe sinus pressure.  It also sucks the joy right out of commuting to work on my bicycle. 

Thankfully a masterfully made caramel latte from Sunergos does a good job of assuaging the dull, steady pain in my throat.  Properly steamed milk is pretty critical for providing soothing relief and the caramel helps everything go down nice and smooth. 

Man I love Kenny Smith. 

Magical Mystery Tour

The John Lennon Educational Bus came to Mom's Music today. It essentially is a mobile state-of-the-art recording and video editing studio equipped with all of the latest and most expensive technology. Road trip anyone?

Musical Abundance

Sufjan may have admitted that he probably won't release an album about every U.S. State, but these guys succeeded in writing a song about every U.S. President. Mark Kozelek, Denison Witmer, and Marla Hansen are just some of the contributors.

Speaking of Denison Witmer, his new album, Carry the Weight, may not be released until November, but for now you can download him covering Band of Horses for free.

Paste Magazine may be too elistist to appreciate the polished shoegaze of Copeland's new album You are My Sunshine, but I'm not. Check out their latest music video and see who you side with.

Same cup - different tables.

Before

After

Live Lunch

Yesterday I played with the Muckrakers on WFPK's Live Lunch. You can listen to the broadcast here.

The song I played on is call "Paris to New York" and is about 13 minutes into the broadcast. My parents even get a shout out from Rob, the lead singer, on live radio! Who would have thought?

fitty cent

After a decade of waiting, my beloved home state of Arizona finally has a state quarter- a fact I discovered while counting out change at work today. I think the dual images depict well the beautifully diverse landscape of the Grand Canyon State.

Columbus

I spent the weekend in Columbus, Ohio with Paul, Darren, and J. Jackson.

Saturday afternoon, we met up with Nick Nye, pastor of newly launched Veritas Community Church. He took us for a walk around his neighborhood, the Short North, and told us about his vision and heart for the city. The Short North is essiently the arts district in Columbus and has emerged as one of the most influential cultural centers in America. To Louisville residents, I would compare it to the Highlands, only much cleaner. The neighborhood is filled with all the trendy stores and restaurants one would expect from the city with America's largest university. Hookah bars, American Apparel clothes, vegan cafes, and fixed-gear bike shops were seemingly on every corner- each with recylcing bins in front.

Saturday night, Paul, Darren and I went to see the Columbus Crew play the L.A. Galaxy. Unlike the game from last year, David Beckham, the best dead ball player and possibly the most beautiful man on earth, was there. Thankfully for the Crew, Beckham's amazing finesse and agility proved insufficient to carry the rest of the struggling Galaxy. The Crew won the match one - nil.

Sunday morning we jumped on our bikes and went for a spin around the Short North and downtown. Beautifully smooth payment was well complimented by a nearly complete absence of traffic, so needless to say the ride quite delighful. We found an empty parking garage in the middle of downtown which offered a panoramic view of the city- and plenty of smooth concrete for some superfluos skid-stopping. The highlight of the weekend was without a doubt the launch of Veritas. Nick preached a very gospel centered message on 1 Corinthians 2. The three of us Sojourners were encouraged to see many of our liturgical elements to be present in the gathering, including the weekly celebration of communion and the different movements ( adoration, confession, and so forth) during worship. Joe Byler and the rest of the band sounded great, especially their take on In the Shadow of Glorious Cross and There is a Peace. I eagerly anticipate seeing how God uses this church in spreading his gospel.

Birthday Cards

Albums

Calexico recently released a new album, called Carried to Dust. I recently acquired it and it is a very musically diverse, pleasant album.

I also have been spinning The Fleet Foxes recently. The track "White Winter Hymnal" is dangerously catchy.

TV on the Radio just released a new album, Dear Science. I have not listened to it thoroughly yet, but what I have heard might actually deserve the rave reviews this album is getting.

Hipster: the Anti-Culture?

Adbuster magazine recently featured an article called Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization. Well worth the read. The writer's concluding paragraph is especially insightful:

"We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us. The hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture so detached and disconnected that it has stopped giving birth to anything new. "