Last night I wrote a fable. It’s fabulous. And by that I mean it’s a fable.
With me?
Words really mean things. I want to be someone whose appreciation of this fact fuels more intentional investigation into word origins.
I only have one book on my shelf that I can think of right now about word origins in English. That book is pretty amazing (now I’m thinking of what amazing history the word “amazing” might have), but I ought to have more. I almost have aught.
I remember hearing Ken Myers talking to some fellow about how he was grading a student paper where it was said that a boat had “arrived half-way across the ocean.” The fellow was objecting to this use because the word “arrive” has in it the notion of coming ashore. So one cannot arrive half-way. It means to get there. Specifically to “come to shore.” Read the rest of this entry »
This is an attempt to collect all the posts out there referencing the inaugural Hutchmoot. It also attempts to present websites/blogs of Hutchmoot attendees. It further attempts links to those weirdos what made some kind of presentation at the 2010 Hutchmoot. I’ll continue to update it, so just comment if you wish to be included. I hope it’s helpful. –sam
Note: Travis Prinzi loved the Lost finale. Others didn’t, for reasons illustrated as only S.D. Smith can. –Pete Peterson
Jellybean Highfive stood at the entrance of the house called Diffident Manor. He walked in reluctantly, stood in the doorway in an unassuming fashion. He had been invited here by invitation.
‘Place looks odd,’ he thought inside his mind, with his thoughts.
“Hello, stranger,” a voice said from in front of him. The voice belonged to a woman–a curvaceous, vivacious, hellacious woman.
“I’m Vivica Hellen,” she said, drawing on her cigarette like a smoker, “but my friends call me ‘Curvy Vivica Hellen.’”
“Lewis once suggested that literary critics are, and have always been, neglectful of ‘Story considered in itself.’ They have been so focused on themes and images and ideological commitments that they have failed to notice the thing that decisively differentiates stories from articles or treatises. If we then try to consider the seven Narnia stories as a single story, what is that story about? I contend that the best answer is disputed sovereignty. More than any other single thing, the story of Narnia concerns an unacknowledged but true King and the efforts of his loyalists to reclaim or protect his throne from would-be usurpers.” –Alan Jacobs
And what are we? We are partisans for the unacknowledged King. We are exceptions to the total, cosmic treason of mankind. But this is from grace, for people who would be rebels.
St. Francis of Assisi is widely quoted as saying, “Preach the gospel, if necessary use words.” There is debate about whether or not he actually said this, but my beef with it is more than authorship. It’s content. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember the Michael Jordan commercial where he recounts how many buzzer-beaters he’s missed, how many games he’s lost, and the other failures in his career? I love that. Because of the inspiration? Nosir. Because I’m not a Michael Jordan fan and grew up despising the bandwagoneering of suddenly-now-Bulls-fans because of the dunking guy with the tongue out who gets foul calls when people make eye-contact with him? Si senor. I am a bitter, emotionally crippled, hermit of a man.
Actually, though I don’t give a fig about the Bulls and never was an MJ fan, I do see the value of such a commercial. It’s kind of brilliant. The point being that those whom we all see as Incredible Successes, were not always and are not always so.
Failure is essential to success. Stick that on a poster with a mountain, or a hang glider, and bam. Maybe the hang glider is crashing into the mountain. Yes, that’s it.
J.K. Rowling was rejected 8 million times by several billion publishers before one took a risk on her. (Note: Slight hyperbole.) (Note the second: Did you see where there was hyperbole within hyperbole there?) Read the rest of this entry »
This is not unusual. I am one of those writerly dads who fills his children’s minds with many different tales. Poor babies.
I’m sure many of you do the same. Our stories include The Girl with Golden Wings, The Rabbits at Jupiter Crossing, A Polar Bear Named Fray, Clive the Mouse, and many, many more. I tell them these little stories (usually works of immediate improvisation, sometimes not) mostly to delight.
Now, I don’t see stories as merely a vehicle for communicating truth. In fact I have been one who has argued against allegorical, message-infested stories. They often really stink. But I’m beginning to be less and less certain about what might be an impossible divorce of story and meaning. And meaning means truth. And truth is not neutral. It is from an actual, particular God.
Literary Agent Steve Laube talks about the hyped-up notion that “print is dead.” In movies, agents end up behind enemy lines spying, wisecracking, and listening for details of what is happening. And getting wounded. So, we should definitely trust them.
Laube argues that, while things are definitely changing, the notion that print books are over with is silly. He employs all caps, which I assume he doesn’t like to see in proposals. (MY BOOK IZ GONG TO SALE LIKE HARRY POTTER!!!!!) Here’s part of what he has to say. I call it a “quote.”
“I see the royalty statements. I know exactly how many digital versions of my client’s books are being sold. And while there are a lot more sold than there were two years ago (of course there would be) the volume is still less than 1% of the print version sold. LESS THAN ONE PERCENT.” Read the rest of this entry »
Can I end every sentence in this post with a question mark? Do you think I can?
Is Andrew Peterson’s blockbuster book (which literally busted several blocks with its head) being made into a movie? Is this a movie where Mel Gibson stars as a guy who appears really upset and like to break sundry items? Gibson’s new film, Edge of the Edge of Darkness, is a movie which, I believe, is based on Andrew’s book, On the Edge of the Edge of the Dark Dark Sea of Darkened Darkness, is it not? Read the rest of this entry »
4. What is the most important insight you would have for artists who are praying for discernment in how to properly balance imperatives like personal worship, church serving (local), Church serving (the Bride entire), family, art (intake and output), rest, and asking famous musicians really long questions?
Balance is not exactly my area. Can’t you ask someone else?
All those things are spokes. Christ is the hub, the center. I know when I acknowledge Him as that, and rely on Him as my inner source of goodness, my relationships with family, other people, and work, are put right. When I get out of sync there, everything else begins to wobble and spin.
We need to take time to reflect, to be alone with God, to worship Him privately as well as with other believers. God wants us to experience our union with Him, to abide, to walk in reliant trust. Without taking time for that relationship, we’re just setting ourselves up for more self-effort, more frustration, more failure.
Ron Block is an amazing musician and a regular smart alec. Also, he’s got mad insights. This is part one of two posts featuring a mere 5 questions for RB.
1. I made fun of Twitter, then joined. You made fun of it (called me a Twaitor), then you joined. Is there a group that ends in “Anonymous” for guys like us?
I, uh, joined because I got free air miles on..uh…Southwest. Yeah, Southwest. I find 140 characters to be extremely limiting to my inner child, who has a very copious supply of words and phrases and doesn’t like to edit. By the way, it’s RonBlockAKUS. Not that I ever use it, except every few days.
2. Is it more important for artists who are Christians to convey truth or to create with excellence? (Note: Answer may not contain the words “False” or “Dichotomy.”)
There is often a false dichotomy constructed between those two concepts.
On creating with excellence: Artists who are Christians should first of all create art that is excellent. It should resonate with realness, honesty. There are many secular musicians who do this; Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Pat Metheny, Tony Rice, to name a few.
I have a friend, a great musician. A songwriter gave him a cd of a gospel song and told him, “The Lord gave me this song.” When my friend listened to it later, he said his first thought was, “Wow, God must be a really crappy songwriter.”
That’s technique. We should do our best to play, sing, write, paint as well as we can, and go on improving the talent we’ve been given. That songwriter may have had a real God-moment, but the technique didn’t allow it to come through. I’ve, uh, never experienced that, myself.
On conveying truth: If an artist experiences truth on a regular basis, rather than merely reading about it in the Bible, and is honest, his work will begin to show it. It will be conveyed. I hear this a lot in the music of Andrew Peterson and his Square Peg buddies, and also Fernando Ortega.
My eldest –though, not-elderly- son recently stomped through the house singing “…with the angelic host proclaim, Christ is born, in battle home.” He likes weapons, so I guess he has militarized the Holidays. He warns us all, with gentle pleas and political rallies, to keep the longbow in Christmas. We’re making bumper stickers and getting mad at people who try to take it out.
Speaking of holidays, like I was just doing, after the New Year everyone is trying to get “in shape” (which is really misleading, because everyone is in shape form). I aim for the form of a broom-stick, and my 32 year-long bouts with an unfriendly stomach have helped me maintain my stickish figure.
But for those with normally-functioning stomachs there is the possibility of swelling beyond desired bounds. According to Twitter and Facebook research, 106.3% of my friends are engaged in an activity called “P90X.”
As a pretend investigative journalist, I decided to get to the fat bottom of this “P90X” phenomenon without asking anyone anything about it and without using the internet search engines for accurate help. Pretend I’m in China.
As a reader of books who also writes, I often feel a distinct, conflicting emotion when I read great books written by great writers. There is the delight, of course. Here is a person made by God doing something beautiful.
Then there is the (often very slight) tinge of despair as I recognize I could never do this. This is less pointed when the genre and style are out of my own vein of writing (such as Patrick O’Brian’s books, which are, for me, an unmixed joy I hardly experience in any other fiction).
I have written before on, and firmly believe in, the well-worn wisdom that it’s no use in copying others, or feeling bad about how you compare. It’s best to find your own voice and write what only you can.
But still that feeling comes. “Am I kidding myself? I can’t write like this. This is art. This is compelling.”
I guess part of it is simple envy, ordinary coveting. This of course, like all sin, must be rejected.
I want, rather, to be the kind of man who says in his heart, like Robin Hood to Little John in the Errol Flynn film, “I love a man who can better me.”
This runs quite counter to the self-important manure which passes for a philosophy of life in our envy-based culture.
I love Luke’s “orderly account” of what has been accomplished by Yahweh in the first advent of Christ.
We remember the true tale of how the angel Gabriel came to two people (in Luke’s account), one was a priest and the other a virgin.
The priest’s wife, Elizabeth, and Mary both get a lot of time in the early part of Luke.
Both are women whose station in life is in relationship to their husbands (or, in Mary’s case, her betrothed). One woman’s husband has a “secular” career, the other a religious one. Both have a humble calling, a vocation for the lowly of spirit.
Elizabeth might have had some status as the wife of a priest, but she describes herself as having a reproach upon her from her people (because she was barren).
Mary would have likely had almost no status at all on her own.
What makes for great art? I won’t say I have no idea, but I am certainly on the shallow end of the pool, treading slowly and carefully deepward. One thing that does appear essential to me is the idea of limits. Without limits, and maybe more importantly, contrast, we don’t have much to show that will harmonize with reality on any level. Never mind delight. Read the rest of this entry »
Ron Block promptly called me a “Twaitor.” That is one of the most brilliant rejoinders I have ever been on the receiving end of. He should have tweeted it on Twitter so someone could actually read it. I guess he can still share it in one of his thirty-or-so Facebook Status Updates a day –which is veeerrryyy different than a Twitter tweet. Read the rest of this entry »
This is one of those scribbles that starts off in the toilet then proceeds into heaven. “I hope,” he says, scratching his beard.
There is a bathroom a certain man frequents. When this man first enters the dark and private chamber the lights do hesitate, and then do come on–even while the baffled first-timer gropes along the wall for the usual trigger. Having found none, he thinks to himself, “Ah, automatic lights. What would Jules Verne think?” And he proceeds to enjoy the meaning of lighted, lavatorial convenience. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, just a quick note to announce the winner of the new Eric Peters record Chrome(pictured left). It is signed (by Eric) and the post-it note is signed by me. So, might want to hold on to the whole thing (for tax purposes).
Congratulations, Danielle of South Carolina!
I’m glad you enjoyed this secretly brilliant interview (1, 2) which was waaaaaayyyy over Russ Ramsey’s head.
Sadly, due to your acceptance of this prize (which is in the mail) you have now been bumped into a new tax bracket and will pay enough in new taxes to afford about 1,200 copies of the outstanding album.
Sorry.
Has anyone not purchased Chrome yet? It will fix the economy like a trip to the vet’s office. It also cures humidity.
Eric Peters and the staff and management of Eric Peters Fashion Line, Inc. do not necessarily endorse stupid statements made by people who like EP’s music.
This is part 2 (and the conclusion) of our interview with our very own Eric Peters (though he is a free man). Part 1 is right here. Read it and watch out for the unicorns. Stay tuned at the end of this interview for a chance to win your very own copy of Chrome for free.
SDS: How can those of us who are “way in” support your work and is there anything in particular we can pray for you and your family for?
EP: Sure. Work. Preferably in the form of shows and concerts. I don’t want to rehash a dead horse (a rather disgusting and ghoulish image) here, but 2009 has been something akin to sheer crumminess, work-wise, for me. If I’m supposed to be doing this with my life — I’m still trying to figure that one out — then encouragement (not to mention income) comes in the form of bookings. To know that somewhere out there some person connects enough with my songs to invite me to play at their home or church or chili cook-off, that is affirming and edifying. The lack of those bookings combined with what seems like the effect of running into a brick wall in terms of approaching other folks (inviting myself) to play at their church or wherever, has been less than sweet dreams. Personally, it’s been a roller-coaster year; from career, to finances, to news of marriage troubles. I sure don’t want to wish away the days, but I can only hope that 2010 brings brighter light.
How can you pray for me and my family? Pray that I can find identity in Christ. Alone. I’m no good to my wife and my family if I don’t know and believe the richest things that God says about me, how he sees me, how safe I am with him. I need to rely, depend, and rest in this. I’m struggling to do that what with the ongoing conflict of faith, art and commerce. Read the rest of this entry »
Note: As I am about to demonstrate to the world, I have no idea how to do a real interview. But Eric Peters, in his mercy, agreed to do one with me. Now I’m thinking of a lot of questions I should have asked, but they aren’t really good ones either. So the dumb stuff is my fault. Yet I love that this interview does reveal Eric’s sense of humor and humility and made me even more of a fan than I was previously. EP is rare indeed, like a bloody, tasty steak. If you haven’t bought his new album, Chrome, yet (which I somehow failed to ask enough about) then you should remedy that soon. Some of the songs will appear on the soundtrack for the upcoming film Smith/Peters directed by Opie Taylor. The interview will be posted in two parts. The films will be an endless franchise making millions of buckskins. –Sam
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SDS: All right EP (this is SDS, by the way), some easier questions may follow, but first things first. What is your favorite color and what do you want to be when you grow up?
EP: Red in the fall. Black in winter. Green in spring. Purple in summer.
I’d like to be you when I grow up. You’re Sam Shepard, right? Do I have to grow up?
SDS: Sam, I am. Occupation: Shepherd. And, keep aiming high; follow your dreams and any unicorns which you may see. Speaking of unicorns, on a scale of one to two, how fun/effective was it to work with Ben Shive in making the new record, which, correct me if I’m wrong, is called “Life in Puebla Georgia As Seen From A Book-shaped Heap of Coal?”
EP: Few people know this about Ben (Shive), but he’s an avid unicorn hunter. It’s slightly different than snipe hunting in that the hunter must first offer a reed of salt-cured bamboo to the male unicorn, otherwise, you’ll get no closer than 100 yards to either sex. Or, wait, maybe it’s a Twizzler. Read the rest of this entry »
If you, like me, are a fan of the film Once (our stalwart and giggly Proprietor reviewed that one here in yon days), and the music of The Swell Season, then you will enjoy this desktop concert from NPR. They have a new record which is, somehow, not called “Once Again.”
Here’s a video from Once, which features great folk music and a fascinating story.
Note: Both the film, and this little concert have “objectionable language.” Most of it is in English, but contains words which can be offensive (which we call “swear” words, or “cursing,” –not always with a great deal of biblical accuracy in my view).
Note on the Note: I think it is fair, right, and appropriate for Christians to think critically about what they take into their minds and hearts (violence, pornography, unseemly language) and reject perverted trash that is not helpful enough and is harmful aplenty. Call me crazy. Seriously, call me crazy right now. Thank you.
The Fiddler’s Gun, A Review: Making History Come True
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Shive Arrives: A Song by Song Commentary on The Ill-Tempered Klavier
One listen to Ben Shive’s debut The Ill-Tempered Klavier will provide obvious evidence of why this young man has secured the respect of peers and colleagues on the inside of the Nashville music community. With The Ill-Tempered Klavier, Shive’s skills are now planted in the public garden.
Heretofore, there have been unsubtle hints: Andrew Osenga pronouncing Shive as his favorite songwriter, Andrew Peterson naming him as producer of The Far Country, his ubiquitous presence as a studio piano ace on a wide range of mainstream CCM records, Sara Groves choosing him to produce her next record, and the majestic arranging of the strings for Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God, The True Tall Tale of the Coming of Christ. Like a fast growing wildflower, Shive seems to pop up everywhere, though always in the background. Now, the secret is out. Raise the curtain on Ben Shive.
I just stumbled on a copy of O’Connor’s complete short stories at a used bookstore here in Nashville and listed it in the Rabbit Room store. Years ago a friend bought me this same edition and I read it with a sense of creepy amazement; it was like nothing I’d ever read. I knew Chris Slaten was a big fan of her work so I asked him to write a recommendation for the book. We only have one copy, so if you click here and can’t find it, someone beat you to the punch.
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This collection is essential to both long time fans and first time readers interested in the work of Flannery O’Connor. My first time to read a handful of her short stories I was helpless to interpret them. One would expect that reading the 1950’s work of a female “Christ-centered” southern fiction writer would be a simple, modest or at least predictable experience.
Several people in the last few weeks have commented to me about how glad they are that they discovered Wangerin’s The Book of the Dun Cow here in the Rabbit Room. It really is a remarkable book, and I still can’t recommend it highly enough. It won the prestigious National Book Award when it was first published in 1978, and was only the beginning of Wangerin’s career.
I just stumbled on his most recent novel, Saint Julian, and was so captured by it that it bumped aside the other four books I’m reading. Last Sunday afternoon–a perfect Spring day–I sat on my front porch swing and read the last half of the book, savoring the careful prose, the pastoral tone, and even the look and feel of the book itself. The cover illustration fits the epic, vivid quality of the story perfectly, and the fonts (I’m a sucker for a great font) added just the right atmosphere.
RELEASE DAY REVIEW: On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
But once a year the Sea Dragons sing just off the coast of Glipwood. With their song, life reasserts itself in the hearts of Skreeans who have long since learned to numb themselves:
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
Arkadelphia from Randall Goodgame: Music in Motion
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Walt Wangerin is a name I’ve seen in print many times. My dad had Ragman and Other Cries of Faith lying about at home for years and I remember thumbing through it at Christmas or Thanksgiving, reading bits here and there, and being intrigued by the style of writing; the words on the page had a canter to them, and a sparseness that gave them strength.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Do you have any CD’s in your collection that will be forever associated with some event or season of life—like the soundtrack to your last high school summer or what you listened to over and over again on that one road trip to wherever it was?
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.
Last night I wrote a fable. It’s fabulous. And by that I mean it’s a fable.
“Lewis once suggested that literary critics are, and have always been, neglectful of ‘Story considered in itself.’ They have been so focused on themes and images and ideological commitments that they have failed to notice the thing that decisively differentiates stories from articles or treatises. If we then try to consider the seven Narnia stories as a single story, what is that story about? I contend that the best answer is disputed sovereignty. More than any other single thing, the story of Narnia concerns an unacknowledged but true King and the efforts of his loyalists to reclaim or protect his throne from would-be usurpers.” –Alan Jacobs
Remember the 
Yesterday my son heard a story.
My eldest –though, not-elderly- son recently stomped through the house singing “…with the angelic host proclaim, Christ is born, in battle home.” He likes weapons, so I guess he has militarized the Holidays. He warns us all, with gentle pleas and political rallies, to keep the longbow in Christmas. We’re making bumper stickers and getting mad at people who try to take it out.
I love 
What makes for great art? I won’t say I have no idea, but I am certainly on the shallow end of the pool, treading slowly and carefully deepward. One thing that does appear essential to me is the idea of limits. Without limits, and maybe more importantly, contrast, we don’t have much to show that will harmonize with reality on any level. Never mind delight. 
This is one of those scribbles that starts off in the toilet then proceeds into heaven. “I hope,” he says, scratching his beard.
A.S. Peterson has crafted a work of compelling historical fiction which begs the question, “Can this really be a debut novel?” With dogged fidelity, Peterson captures the spirit, manners, and social conditions present during the American Revolutionary War. We meet colorful, credible characters who navigate the high seas of life and love, dependence and independence, war and peace, truth and consequence, and despite forays into dark places, The Fiddler’s Gun is beautiful, lyrical, and redemptive.
Walt Wangerin, Jr. strikes again.
Janner Igiby lives in Glipwood, a nothing little village in the land of Skree, on the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. Manhood is on the horizon, but Janner finds it hard to feel much hope for the future. Skree is ruled by foreign oppressors, snake men called the Fangs of Dang, servants of a shadowy emperor named Gnag the Nameless. The Skreeans are weak and weaponless. They’re even tool-less. Any Skreean who needs to use a hoe has to borrow one from the Fangs (and fill out the requisite paperwork). And from time to time, the Black Carriage arrives in Glipwood to carry young Skreeans toward an unknown fate across the Dark Sea.
I am not a fan of Civil War literature; in fact, I have always thought of it as one of those weird sub-genres for obsessive types. They’re almost like Trekkies with their re-enactments and maniacal devotion to detail. It’s just not my thing (although I’m secretly jealous that they get to dress up and shoot cannons).
A Randall Goodgame song is like a great independent movie. Characters deliver lines like they were lifted from a break room, a truck stop, or a downtown diner. Seemingly incongruent scenes are juxtaposed and plot isn’t obvious; in fact, narrative–a good story–is often more evident than linear plot lines. An indie movie, like a Randall Goodgame song, seems to tell itself. Rather than being rudely yanked by a chain through a sequence of contrived events, with a Randall Goodgame song, I have the sense that I’m being allowed a willing, but vicarious sneak peak into the real lives of his real characters.
Sara Groves irritates me just a little bit. With each album she makes, she moves from strength to strength and is always raising the bar with the quality, depth, and lyrical ambition of her work. And as a fellow artist, that’s just a little irritating since it means the rest of us are going to have to work harder if we hope to keep up.
I am outside on my front porch. The yellowed leaves are methodically falling from the black walnut in the yard, my breath is chalky visible in the recent cold snap, and lately I have been exploring the unpleasant nuances of the dark night of a soul - my own, to be exact. It is a strange passion we live out on this over-glorified orb of rock hurtling through space at some rate that I’m sure would astound me were I to know what it was. It is an odd series of days, I am realizing, when you question your own faith more than you question your own doubt. And, indeed, it is these nagging questions which have prompted me to share my thoughts on Andrew Peterson’s 2003 album, Love and Thunder.
11-year old Reuben Land, a character in the 2001 book Peace Like a River, provides narration that is clear-eyed and insightful, yet retains the magic, wonder, and innocence of youth. I found it easy to entrust my imagination to the author’s clever method of telling the story through the sensibilities of a pre-teen boy. An author with lesser skill would have either made the boy too smart-alecky for his own good or impossibly cute.
I just finished a book that upon closing it, I felt like it finished me in a sense. A quiet meditative book that reached down and stirred the deep waters in me. It’s Marilynne Robinson’s 2005 Pulitzer prize winner Gilead, given to me by my friend Andrew Peterson.
Eric Peters’s body of work addresses a diverse range of topics, but hope is a recurring theme that gently percolates in the midst of it all. And yet, somewhere between the 2001 masterpiece Land of the Living, and Scarce, the flavor of hope that Peters’s work emits has evolved closer to a tone that is more resolute than what came before. And though the complexion of hope has a broad range, the lyrics from Scarce–while intermittently contrite and timorous as in previous efforts, are now strengthened and bolstered by roots that have grown deeper, radiating an underlying grit and security.
Having read The Great Divorce many times over the years, I’ve found this classic from the great C.S. Lewis to be full of startling clarity and depth on the differences between Heaven and Hell. The only thing both have in common is that both begin in the human will; we can either let Heaven enter us and rule in us to blossom into love and goodness, or allow Hell to infect and reign in our hearts by the daily refusal to submit to Heaven.
Even if you haven’t heard Room to Breathe, its still likely you’ve heard Andy Gullahorn. He’s what I’d call a heavy lifter by trade. He writes lyrics, plays guitar, arranges vocals and adds production help to the work of artists like Jill Phillips and Andrew Peterson.
Allow me to preface this by telling you that I am a great despiser of gushing reviews. I’d much rather write (or read) a scathing dismemberment of the latest Brett Ratner film or Terry Goodkind book than suffer through four hundred words of overblown hyperbole about even the best of things. But when asked to write some thoughts on Frederick Buechner’s Godric, no amount of distaste for high praise was able to intervene. I hope you’ll take what I say with the understanding that I do not say it readily or lightly.