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Pete Peterson
author
A Different Kind of Lonely
by Pete Peterson 19
[Stephen Lamb (no stranger in these parts) recently had an essay featured on the Art House America blog and it's too good not to share. Is it a record review? Yes, sort of, but it's also a lot more. The opening paragraphs are posted below; click over to Art House America and read the entire piece. It's great.]
The day I turned thirty, I met some friends for drinks and celebratory cigars at a smoke shop across the street from one of my favorite restaurants, an Asian bistro where the sushi bar offers a roll that uses raw filet mignon instead of rice to hold everything together. After a couple of beers, and halfway through my cigar, I responded to the question someone had posed, asking what I wanted from the future. For one, I said, I hoped I’d be married before another decade had passed. “I’m not looking for someone to take away my loneliness. I know another person won’t do that. It’s just that sometimes I think I’m ready for a different kind of lonely.”
* * *
I listened to Leonard the Lonely Astronaut seven times in a row the first day I heard it. A concept album from Andrew Osenga, it tells the story of a man named Leonard, set in the year 2365. While in the process of finalizing his divorce, his wife and child are killed in a car accident. Crippled by grief, Leonard decides to volunteer to pilot a transport shuttle to a distant planet. The trip will take a year—six months there, six months back—but due to the laws of relativity and such, everyone he knows will be dead by the time he returns to earth. “I’ll make some new friends / maybe with their grandkids,” Andrew (Leonard) sings, ready for a new start, hopeful things will turn out differently this time.
I loaned Andy my old 60s Rogers drumset for the project and helped him build the spaceship in which to record it (yes, you read that right), so he sent me a copy of the record as soon as he had the final mixes. A couple days after my first listen, still hitting repeat over and over, I read Terry Tempest William’s new book, When Women Were Birds: 54 Variations on Voice, in two sittings. A beautiful book, equal parts reflection on her own relationships and meditations on the ways women find their voice in a world that often says their voice is unimportant, she has this to say about her marriage: “I have never been as lonely as I have been in my marriage. I have also never been more seen or more protected.” That night, I e-mailed the quote to Andy (one of the friends who had been around the table when I’d answered that question), saying I didn’t think I could come up with a better short summary of Leonard, no matter how hard I tried.
The Vaster End of Blood
by Pete Peterson 29
[This Good Friday, I commend to you the following excerpt from Chapter 4 of Robert Farrar Capon's most outstanding The Supper of the Lamb.]
In the Law of the Lord,
Leviticus, the eighth chapter, the fourteenth verse: Aaron
and his sons laying hands upon the bullock’s head, blood
poured at the bottom of the altar to make reconciliation;
the caul above the liver, and the two kidneys and their
fat—all burnt by fire for a sweet savor.
Smoke, incense,
wave breast, heave shoulder, rams of consecration, the
pomegranate and the golden bell, sounding upon the
hem of the robe round about; priest and temple, death
and holocaust, always and everywhere.
Why?
It is tempting
simply to write it off as barbarism, nonsense, superstition;
to fault it and forget it;
But the fact of blood still stands,
reproving materialist and spiritualist at once; gainsaying
worlds too small and heavens too thin.
This superadded killing,
this sacrifice, these deaths which work no earthly inter-
change, this rich, imprudent waste
Witnesses
The City’s undiminishable size:
Man wills to make of earth,
not one Jerusalem but two; this sacramental blood de-
clares the double mind by which he wills to lift both
lion and lamb beyond the killing to exchanges unaccount-
able and vast.
Man’s priestliness therefore
bespeaks his refusal of despair; proclaims acceptance of
a world which, by its murderous hand, subscribes the
insupportable dilemma of its being—the war of lion and
lamb having no other likely outcome here than two im-
possibilities:
The one,
a pride of victors feeding on the slain; but leaving the
lion as he was before, trapped in ancient reciprocities by
which at last all power falls to crows;
And the other,
a hymn to despair no victim will accept; it is not enough,
in this paroxysm of martyrdoms, to stand upon the ship-
wrecks of the slain and praise the weak for weakness; the
lamb’s will, too, was life; he died refusing death.
Sacrifice therefore
Not written off, but recognized,
a sign in blood of the vaster end of blood; a redness
turning all things white; an impossibility prefiguring the
last exchange of all.
The old order, of course,
unchanged; the deaths of bulls and goats achieving
nothing; Aaron still ineffectual; creation still bloody;
But haunted now by bells within the veil
where Aaron walks in shadows sprinkling
blood and bids a new Jerusalem descend.
Endless smoke now rising
Lion become priest
And lamb victim
The world awaits
The unimaginable union
By which the Lion lifts Himself Lamb slain
And, Priest and Victim,
Brings
The City
Home.
Hutchmoot 2013 Special Guest: Leif Enger
by Pete Peterson 04
We’re both excited and honored to announce that the special guest for Hutchmoot 2013 is author Leif Enger. Over the past decade, Enger’s two novels, Peace Like a River (discussed here in 2007), and So Brave, Young, and Handsome (discussed here in 2008) have found their ways into what many might consider the hallowed halls of American classics. They’re the kind of books whose voices settle in and stay with you like welcome friends inclined to linger. They’re the kind of books that you find yourself still talking about and recommending years after you first met them, the kind of books you pull off the shelf time and again to smell and smile over and reread. Good books, like good folks, are glad company, and we couldn’t be more pleased to have Leif Enger at the Moot this year.
Movie Discussion: Amadeus
by Pete Peterson 19
My wife, Jennifer, and I sat down and watched the film Sunday night and I’m really looking forward to hearing your thoughts. I’m going to throw out a few things that jumped out at me and from there the floor will be open. Feel free to jump in and join the conversation. Let’s try to keep the discussion away from technical critique and aimed more toward an examination of story, character, and theme. Here we go . . .
What’s a Hutchmoot?
by Pete Peterson 15
Mark your calendars. Hutchmoot 2013 will convene on October 10-13. That’s a holiday weekend so we’re hopeful that travel plans will be simplified for return trips and everyone will be able to stick around for the closing session this year. The Hutchmoot website has been updated with preliminary schedules, dates, and (final) pricing. Look for registration to begin in early March.
Thanks to Nathan Willis and William Aughtry (makers of the “Rest Easy” video), here’s a couple of short videos from Hutchmoot 2012. I got a little teary-eyed the first time I watched them. Enjoy (and please share them with your friends).
Hutchmoot 2012 Highlights from The Rabbit Room on Vimeo.
What is a Hutchmoot? from The Rabbit Room on Vimeo.
Let there be mugs
by Pete Peterson 14
[Note: We're SOLD OUT of everything but the O'Connor, better hurry!]
And then there were was “The Epic.”
Tow’ring tall as titans old o’er lesser vessels wrought of clay, shaped by strength of learnéd hand, and long by kiln-fire glazed and made, this massive* stein may well inspire deeds of heroes fell and fair, songs of skald and bard alike, meter bold and rhythm right in e’en the poorest poet’s mind.
*24oz
The Epic comes in two varieties: Dante (top) and Milton (bottom).
These and 4 other mugs styles are now available in the Rabbit Room store. Supplies are limited. Get them while they last.
The Molehill: What Did You Think?
by Pete Peterson 11
One of the projects I was most excited about last year was The Molehill Vol.1. Putting it together was exciting and challenging and, in the end, hugely rewarding. I’m proud of it and I hope readers have enjoyed it.
We’re now beginning the process of putting together The Molehill Vol.2, and I thought it might be fun to collect some feedback that could potentially give us some guidance. So I’m turning to you: the readership. What did you like about Vol.1? What do you want to see more of in Vol.2? What do you want to see less of? If you didn’t buy Vol.1, why not? What would make you interested in Vol.2? Did anyone decipher the elvish and dwarvish quotes? Did anyone wonder where the Governor of Ohio’s leg lived?
The floor is open. Let us know what you think.
Anatomy of a Joke
by Pete Peterson 06
I’ve had a long-time fascination with and love for stand-up comedy. It’s every bit as much an artform as songwriting, painting, or swordsmithing. In this short video, Jerry Seinfeld (one of the great ones), pulls the curtain back and shows us a little of how the machine works. (If you enjoy the behind-the-scenes of comedy, you might also enjoy the 2002 documentary Comedian, which follows Jerry on his first stand-up tour after leaving TV.)
Movie Night: Amadeus
by Pete Peterson 05
Rabbit Room Movie Night? Yep. Find time to sit down and watch (or re-watch) 1984′s Best Picture-winner, Amadeus. Then on February 19th drop by the Rabbit Room to join in the discussion. Don’t forget popcorn, and don’t miss the chance to come to Nashville and see Blackbird Theater’s live performance of the stageplay on March 9th. (Tickets available here.)
Paperman
by Pete Peterson 02
I love animation. Here’s one good Oscar-nominated reason why, courtesy of Disney studios.
Featured
Facing the Truth
I went to the doctor yesterday for the first time in years. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been sick; it means I’m the kind of stubborn fool who doesn’t like to take an ibuprofen for a headache, the kind of crank who would rather walk around squinting and snappy than to take the blasted aspirin. I just don’t like medicine. I prefer sweating it out, however inconvenient that is for the people around me. So after ten days of coughing and sniffling and whining I finally decided it must be a sinus infection. I have a show in a few days, and I can’t afford to be sick. So I bravely did what any man in my shoes would do: I asked my wife what to do. She told me which doctor to visit and I drove to the offices with a steely resolve. The nurse behind the sliding glass window handed me the clipboard with the dreaded New Patient Paperwork, and then the thing happened that made me want to write this.
The questions began. “Do you have any allergies?” “Do you drink caffeine?” “Do you use tobacco?” “If so, how often?” “Do you exercise regularly?” “Is there a history of heart disease in your family?” “Have you had any surgeries?
Rabbit Room Radio
You can now listen to Rabbit Room artists and podcasts every waking hour of your day—assuming you have a good internet connection. Rabbit Room Radio is available through the player below, through iTunes (look in the “Religious” category), or through any internet radio player. Sunday morning programming coming soon, as well as Saturday morning kids’ music. Let us know what you think.
