What are you looking for?

Do you ever find an album that so inexplicably captures you for a season that it’s all you can listen to? That’s what has happened to me with a recent little EP I discovered by Thad Cockrell called “To Be Loved”. Thad is a Nashville transplant who writes songs that feel like modern day gospel hymns. His songs are part folk, part alt-country, part Americana, part gospel, and even part ambient, but in the end the songs always add up to more than the sum of the parts. My first gut reaction was that it reminded me of a blend of Chris Isaak, Paul Simon, Martin Sexton, Daniel Lanois and Ryan Adams. There is a disarming simplicity to the songs. I’ve heard the ideas he sings about many times before, but the sentiments that ought to feel threadbare find a quiet revival in Cockrell’s unassuming voice. What I love about it is how comfortable he seems to be with himself and what he does. These songs aren’t trying too hard to be anything other than what they are – simple testaments to the truth, beauty, and longing that Cockrell has known. I found this little record refreshingly earnest. Let me say that I usually recoil from earnestness in music – it distracts me and leads me to suspect that the artist probably takes themselves too seriously. This is especially true in Christian music. And yet, there’s no denying that Cockrell is earnest. However, there’s an invisibility to his earnestness that registers more as a winsome humble sincerity. It seems to be less about him and more about the truth of what he’s singing about and feels refreshingly devoid of an agenda. If an overbearing earnestness is one of the ditches that runs along the well worn path of this kind of gospel music, then the ditch on the other side is what we hear when the performer doesn’t mean the song at all, but sings the songs he sings for aesthetic reasons, like: “Hey look, I’m singing old-timey gospel songs!” Cockrell manages to avoid both ditches. It’s because of this that Cockrell’s music captured my attention. It did more than that: it made me present again to the goodness of the good news that I’ve all but grown too accustomed to. When he sings “There’s Going To Be A Great Rejoicing” I was brought to tears by the lyric: “One day you will find me guarded in his fortress Open heart and wings that never touch the ground One day we will gather in a grand reunion Debts to this old world are nowhere to be found…” And it was like hearing it for the first time when he sang “O To Be Loved By Jesus” “He knows the name of my sorrow…” What a comfort to hear that thought and be given a chance to believe it again. I love, too, the simple clarity of “The Master’s Calling” with it’s Lanois like production of swamp gas ambient electric guitar tones set against the old-school country sensibilities of the melody and lyric. “Listen while you still can hear Listen while you still can hear the Master’s call… Bow down while your knees still bend Bow down while your knees still bend, the Master is calling…” This track I think would appeal to anybody who loved Emmy Lou Harris’ “Wrecking Ball.” My favorites are the first three tracks, starting off with “Pride”: “Pride won’t get us where we’re going It’s made a life of standing in the way Of all the beauty this world has worth knowing Pride won’t get us where we’re going…” Next is the hymn-like “There’s Going To Be A Great Rejoicing” whose warm electric guitar tones wash over you like warm water, followed by “A Country Of My Own” with its Paul Simon-esque delivery of lyrics like: “I’ve been looking for a country of my own When I see her face I know I’ll finally be home Full of mystery and kept surprises A vast expanse where a rich man pays, but to me she sympathizes I’m searching for a country of my own…” I don’t know a lot about Thad Cockrell and I couldn’t find much on the internet, but I understand that he comes from a family of pastors in North Carolina and that he started playing coffee-houses while he was going to Liberty University. Somewhere I believe I read that he’s one of the only men in his family who didn’t become a preacher, but I think the truth of it is that his songs preach plenty and his winsome delivery is bound to win many converts. While not all of his lyrics are self-consciously clever or ambitiously original (compared to some of the progenitors of the new folk movement like Sufjan Stevens, Damien Rice, etc.), I think in Cockrell’s case that would be a great detriment. The beauty of this record is in its unassuming and humble simplicity. In Thad Cockrell I was treated to sweet spirited anthems of truth and beauty that stirred my deeper waters and reminded a jaded music listener and world-weary Christian like myself not only of why the good news is good but also that it can still sound fresh to someone who thought they had heard it all before. Besides, with a name like Thad Cockrell you know you’re going to get something good. Listen to Thad or purchase his new record at www.myspace.com/thadcockrell

I chose this song because I was was around during its pregnancy. Randy started with the first few verses and played them for me one afternoon while we were cowriting (working on a song of mine called “Alaska or Bust”, in fact). Charles Schultz had just died, and Randy wasn’t sure if the verses were good enough to turn into anything. I loved the verses, I said, and asked if I could try my hand at finishing the song. He agreed. To my delight, one of my lines made it to the final version: She always wore that same blue dress ‘Cause she fancied Schroeder liked that color best My own personal connection to what I consider to be a truly Great Song. A song for the ages, Randall.

Matt: We ended our last conversation with the ‘sleeper’ category and it got me thinking – what is my favorite absolutely sleeper pick out there? Now, let me clarify what I would say a sleeper pick is. I don’t mean an Oscar winner that didn’t make much at the box office. I’m not talking about a cult movie. So when I write sleeper, I’m talking about a movie that wasn’t a critical fave, a commercial fave or really anyone’s fave at all. And yet it’s on your list. So with that said, I’d love to talk about cinematic sleepers with that as our definition. This should be an interesting back and forth in the comments. And if someone says something like English Patient or Spider-Man, I’m done. Curt, do you have your top ‘sleeper?’ Curt: I have many, but the first that comes to mind is Timothy Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, from 1990. It made money, but not much. While there were a few critics that embraced it, it was decisively pummeled by critics overall. Edward Scissorhands is a movie that touches me, but in ways that I can’t easily define. It’s not that I understand why and can’t communicate it effectively; it’s that I simply can’t put my finger on why it touches me so deeply. I’ve considered dissecting and sorting my thoughts about it, but always choose to let the aura it gives me remain somewhat vague. I can tell you that Danny Elfman’s soundtrack provides the most amazing mood music I’ve ever heard in a film. Do you remember the Proprietor’s post, Sigur Ros Makes Me Cry? Many were deeply stirred by this video, but couldn’t explain why. That’s how it is with me and the film Edward Scissorhands. What about you, Matt? Matt: Okay, this is a bit off-the-wall, but… Event Horizon. Probably most have never heard of it or even seen it. It’s a horror movie in outer space from 1997 which should relegate it to b-movie status. But Laurence Fishburne and other recognizables pull this off wonderfully (in a horrifying, creepy, sci-fi way). It’s Paul W.S. Anderson who directed Resident Evil and Alien vs. Predator (neither movie I even care to see), so it’s not like I have a ton going for me by recommending this movie. But horror movies are so stupid and predictable and this movie could have went the wrong direction. Instead, I couldn’t sleep well for five days. So this movie does what it should and fits the ‘sleeper’ category perfectly for me. Do you have any others, Curt? Curt: Yes, here’s another one, Matt: Love Song for Bobby Long. Most critics were indifferent or unapologetically hostile towards this movie. It was a big fat box office belly flop. It’s a character driven movie in which plot is secondary to the lives of its characters. Unexpectedly, it drew me in and though in retrospect it sometimes wandered aimlessly, I was riveted by the characters. For a variety of reasons, including salty language and alcoholism personified, I don’t recommend it to those that are sensitive to such. Still, in my mind it’s an excellent piece of moviemaking. Here’s a quote from one of the characters, Lawson Pines, which provides a tidy little summary of why this movie appealed to me: “Some people reach a place in time where they’ve gone as far as they can. A place where wives and jobs collide with desire. That which is unknowable and those who remain out of sight. See what is invisible and you will see what to write. That’s how Bobby used to put it. It was the invisible people he wanted to live with. The ones that we walk past every day, the ones we sometimes become. The ones in books who live only in someones mind’s eye. He was a man who was destined to go through life and not around it. A man who was sure the shortest path to heaven was straight through hell. But the truth of his handicap lay only in a mind both exalted and crippled by too many stories and the path he chose to become one. Bobby Long’s tragic flaw was his romance with all that he saw. And I guess if people want to believe in some form of justice, then Bobby Long got his for a song.” Not to get all weird with theolo-vision ™, but read that paragraph again, with the thought–other than the part about jobs and wives–that it’s about Jesus, not Bobby Long. And I don’t mean that Bobby Long is contructed as a Jesus figure. Only that Jesus looked at the world and life through divine eyes. And though Bobby Long ended up on the wrong path, it wasn’t because he didn’t see right. It’s because he didn’t choose right. Here’s a movie that simply assumes its viewers are well read. I was intrigued by John Travolta’s Professor Bobby Long. He loved literature and art and used them as a vehicle to seek truth. Despite that, though he flirted and danced with truth, it was often too painful to embrace, so he was usually paralyzed by the romance of it all. Indeed, in his life, the romance prevailed over raw truth. More to the point, he embraced form rather than substance. I thought about choosing Flatliners as another sleeper–as a very bad joke–but decided the better of it. What else do you have up your sleeve, Matt? Matt: One movie that I still believe to be absolutely endearing, charming, graceful and quite stunning is In America. It chronicles the tale of an Irish family immigrating to New York and the struggles for the father of two young daughters to make a new life for themselves. It will make you laugh and cry and absolutely nobody has seen it. Curt: That includes me, but not for long. I’ll check it out based on your recommendation (believe it or not, I have seen Event Horizon). The number of books and movies I’ve experienced as the result of Rabbit Room recommendations continues to grow. As we continue to learn, our readers and fellow Rabbit Roomers never come up empty when it comes to recommendations, so let’s open up this thread for discussion. Remember Matt’s criteria for a Sleeper–not an Oscar winner that didn’t make much at the box office or a cult movie. Matt wants us to take it a step further. To qualify the movie should not be a critical or commercial favorite. Nor anyone’s favorite. Except yours. Bring it on!

Take a few minutes and listen to this pretty, sad, hopeful song by Jeremy Casella. It was hard to choose just one song from his newest album RCVRY, but I landed on this one because of the story it hints at. I’m intrigued by songs like this–songs that convey an emotion, paint pictures of a time and place, but don’t come right out and smack you in the face with their deeper story. Not only does it give you something to think about, it allows you to superimpose your own story into the song, and sometimes it helps you to feel less alone. Listening to this record today reminded me all over again what a great piece of work it is, from start to finish (it’s available in the Rabbit Room store and on iTunes, not to mention Jeremy’s website. BORN AGAIN Words and Music by Jeremy Casella I never thought too much about it It didn’t seem like it should matter all those years ago It was buried under Florida sand And frozen under Pennsylvania snow I was fine to leave it all undone Until I looked in the eyes of my own son And everything was born again… Promises get broken Still too young to know the difference Oh but time would tell What was lost in all those silent years Uncovered in some secret fear I’ve known Facing the past to understand My father’s voice, my mother’s hand And everything is born again… What does it mean to give and live and lose and win Then end up dying to preserve a vow you made? Sometimes it helps to name what marks you most of all The things that shape your deepest places And I’m not taking sides I just think it’s sad that’s all That’s all

My wife hates my desk. And this is completely understandable. My personality type is “Selfish”. The test results may tell you I am a ‘Lion’ or ‘ENFP’ but one quick look through my actions on a daily basis and it’s clear I was raised an only child. When I am working (or playing for that matter), I hate to be interrupted. Headphones on, laptop bright, fingers pressing all point to a world meant for one. And my talented, multi-tasking wife wonders what my problem is. It happens all the time: she peeks her head around the corner wondering what I think about a certain issue and I respond as if I was writing the Magna Carta. The ensuing arguments and hurt feelings aren’t worth the quick lapse in work and you would think I would know this lesson by now. The latest form came through a neighbor. I live communally with four married couples (my wife and I being two of the eight) and some of our housemates had agreed to help a neighbor move some old junk from his basement. Some old, heavy junk. So I am busy writing and studying when they come in saying they need help. And my response was, well, predictable to say the least. I ended up helping. And it ended up not being so bad. But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t completely upset and ticked off at everyone involved. Which is silly… I end up more upset at myself than anything else. Why? Because I realize that we’re all called to the interrupted life. I am the disciples or religious leaders constantly urging Jesus to keep going toward the mission that we’re all in together. “Jesus we need to get going.” “Jesus, we’re going to be late.” And yet time and again, whether it was an old woman who touched the edge of his garment or some children drawing near, Jesus’ life was one full of interruptions – living in the beauty of a moment and allowing that to be the place where he was most present. I get tired of my selfish attitude and yet nothing seems to have changed much in the last 30 years. Perhaps it’s being continually cognizant of my own issues and asking God to change things. But it has to start somewhere…

Ron Block has written several of Alison Krauss’s most popular songs. In 2003 the two of them were a part of the annual Behold the Lamb of God Christmas show, and played “There is a Reason,” one of Ron’s finest. I wish you could have heard the way the audience gasped when the first notes of Alison’s voice rang out–she really is a rare treasure, and there was no denying it that night. But without great songs, like Ron’s in this case, her great voice would only be that. The combination of excellent, meaningful writing, impeccable musicianship, and that angelic voice are enough to level a room.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ThereisaReason.mp3 Notice how solid and tasteful Ron’s guitar playing is. When someone like him is capable of cutting loose (see the video below, for example), it makes you appreciate the simple, intentional undercurrent his playing provides. It may not sound like it, but trust me–the simple stuff is the hardest to play. That’s the difference between a Ron Block (or a Buddy Greene or an Adam Steffey or a Stuart Duncan) and the bluegrass band in a Kentucky bar. They can tear it up, sure, but reigning it in takes work, and talent, and taste. I love this music. I’m including the video below because it’s hard not to smile and tap your foot while you watch. That’s Sierra Hull sticking her tongue out and playing the guitar (and here I just thought she was a mandolin ninja–or ninjette). Not sure who the rest of the ninjas are–can you help with that, Ron?

Last night I had the pleasure of attending (with novelist and Rabbit Room contributor Jonathan Rogers) the second taping of Tokens, a journey through books, music, humor, and theology in the spirit of A Prairie Home Companion. This week the special guests included Buddy Greene, band leader and consummate musical genius Jeff Taylor, Annie Moses Band, Native American singer Bill Miller, and the excellent Julie Lee. I visited the website today to see if they had posted any of the clips from the show (they haven’t yet), and stumbled on this great performance by Buddy Greene and company from the first show. I know this Mark Heard song from the Pierce Pettis album State of Grace. It’s such a rousing song that it’s easy to miss how great the lyrics are.https://rabbitroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/RisefromtheRuins.mp3 RISE FROM THE RUINS Words and Music by Mark Heard Nobody asks to be born Nobody wishes to die Everybody whiles away the interim time Sworn to rise from the ruins by and by The engines are droning with progress The pistons are pounding out time And it’s you and me caught in this juggernaut jaunt Left to rise from the ruins down the line We will roll like an old Chevrolet The road to ruin is something to see Hang on to the wheel For the highway to hell needs chauffers For the powers that be Go and tell all your friends and relations Go and say what ain’t easy to say Go and give them some hope That we might rock this boat And rise from the ruins one day Ever try to carry water in a basket Ever try to carry fire in your hand Ever try to take on the weight of the everyday freight Til you find that you’re too weak to stand Why so pale and wan, fond lover Why so downcast and desperately sad We can walk, we can talk We ain’t yet pillars of salt And we will rise from the ruins while we can

I write and speak for a living. Sometimes it is my own story that I communicate while many times it is the stories of others – of friends, Biblical characters, interesting people past and present. It is honestly a fun way to spend my time and I enjoy what I do. But every job hits a wall and I recently retreated from my own life to the wonderful countries of England and Ireland. During my two weeks there, I found myself writing and reflecting about my own job and my role as a storyteller. I began to think about the health of a storyteller and what I am finding to be true. Here’s part of what made its way into my journal: “I’m reading in a cafe. NLA. No Laptop Allowed. This is nice. I’ve watched four movies in four days. I’ve spoken with total strangers and made new friends. Other people’s stories. It’s nice to step into them. I need to step into them. After all I am a storyteller by trade and my own story isn’t nearly enough to propel the heart of a storyteller. “I’m learning that the health of a storyteller is directly tied to his or her (in)ability to move both inward and outward. To move inward is to move into my own desires, motives and behaviors enough to understand them. It’s asking the Spirit to search the heart and then actually opening the heart up instead of leaving the door secretly closed at the same time (which is my normal routine). “To move inward is also allowing the deeply seeded dreams to bloom, to tap into the river flowing underground. It’s as if the world of ‘Me’ was already created with fossils under the surface, waiting for the external busy archaeologist to actually start digging. “The move outward means for me to step into the lives of others, to become unselfish and find beauty and whole-ness in the community I have been blessed with. It is spending time with my wife, my family, my neighbors and finding their story as interesting as my own. It is also helping them to find their story as we share life together. “Balance is needed for both and I usually move too far in one direction or the other, later wondering why I am feeling so disjointed. I hope I can return with a fresh sense of the importance of each and make the proper time to live in both worlds.”

If there ever was a fan of Narnia, it’s me. I first read the Chronicles as an eight year old boy, and I have read and reread the books so many times I can’t even begin to count. What those books awakened in me was longing, a longing for I-knew-not-what, a longing I could not shake or rationalize or hide, a burning desire that turned into a lifelong search for truth as I spent my teens and twenties devouring the C.S. Lewis catalog. I’ve said that to make it clear that I completely understand the comments of others who are irritated and frustrated at the changes made to the story by the moviemakers. I agree with all of that and could easily list the changes. It is frustrating to go to a movie that is supposed to be an adaptation of a dearly loved book and find that it’s only loosely based on the story. When I saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I had many of the same expectations as everyone else and was duly frustrated. I went to see Prince Caspian for the first time on Monday, with a friend who had never read the books, and I went with a completely different mindset. I knew it would be loosely based on the book, so I tried a different approach; I received it as a stand-alone movie, not as an adaptation. On Tuesday I saw it again with my kids, then yet again on Friday with my wife and both kids. The benefit of doing so was that I was able to truly receive it, rather than constantly battling the comparison in my mind between book and movie. One of Lewis’ books, An Experiment in Criticism, was especially helpful in this regard as it has taught me to make the effort to fully receive a work before evaluating it. That’s hard to do, but this time I did it. I received Prince Caspian for the most part without evaluating. And in receiving it so openly a strange thing happened. I was seriously moved by it. At many points in the movie I was prompted – no, driven – to commune with God. When Edmund comes up to Peter at the end as all looks dark, tosses away his spent crossbow, looks sideways into Peter’s face, unsheathes his sword, and they both run forward yelling “For Aslan.” Edmund’s character throughout this movie, in contrast with the dark, selfish Edmund of LWW, is beautiful all the way through – and I love how it is performed. When Peter’s self-effort attitude, his trying to be a king, fails. It’s the same thing I see when Neo fails the jump program, and when Morpheus says, “Stop trying to hit me and hit me!” and when Yoda says, “Try not. There is no try. Do – or do not.” And the Apostle Paul: “When I will to do good, evil is present.” Self-will, striving, trying to be, is not the same as Christ-reliance (or Aslan-reliance), resting/abiding, stepping out in faith, and knowing who you are in Christ. I also love the contrast at the end of Caspian when Peter really begins to live in the “faith which works by love.” His motivation at the end is not to prove himself or “be somebody,” but to simply do what must be done for love’s sake. He starts shouting, “For Aslan” when he leads a charge rather than “For Narnia.” He is really stopping the nonsense about “I am a king, can’t everyone realize that?” and is simply being one. I loved the moment where Lucy says to Aslan, “The others wouldn’t listen to me” and Aslan replies, “Why would that stop you from following me?” and Lucy repents immediately without any rationalization. But the biggest thing that happened was that as I watched the credits roll, as I walked out to get in my van for some errands, a huge and inconsolable sense of longing came rumbling up from my inmost being. It was a question that has no answer in this world, an ache with no balm, a desire with no fulfillment in this world. It was a grown up version of what I experienced reading the Narnia books as an eight year old boy. As I drove to Costco I wept. I wept in sheer desire for this world’s paradigm to be totally over and to have a reigning King established – a King I can see, touch, love, worship face-to-face. I wept for the battle of faith to be cleared away, the devil shut down, and total unity established between all. I gave myself over to God in a more complete way because I watched this movie unguardedly, as a child, with no preconceived notions of what it should or ought to be. What rose up in me after, as the longing quieted, was battle-perseverance – based on the unalterable fact that this world’s paradigm, Satan’s dark masquerade, will come to the guillotine, and all creation will be set right again in beauty and simplicity. I want to take as many people with me as I can. I want to cut a wide swath in the enemy lines. I want Jesus to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I want to fight the good fight of faith and finish the race well. Back to the movie. We naturally desire things that we love and adore to remain the same. But things in this world change. Times change. Human consciousness has changed. For one thing, American audiences in general are not as literate as they used to be. I remember after the first Narnia movie going into Borders and seeing lame Narnia rewrites in the children’s section. Some dullard parent there said, “I’m so glad they put these out for children” and I thought with no small irritation, They were written for children in the first place, you dufus! If you check the difference between the BBC and American versions of Pride and Prejudice you’ll find the American version to be a lot more about great camera shots of the achingly beautiful Keira Knightley in various gorgeous settings; the BBC version is much more about the dialogue. I love both versions, but my point is that to some degree moviemakers are considering the American audience and changing things according to their perceptions of that audience. I’ve often encountered people’s desire for things to stay the same – in bluegrass. Bluegrass is a music form that for some people is very nostalgic and moving, and for that reason they want every band that has a banjo in it to play it like Bill Monroe and Flatt and Scruggs. Thus, reviews in bluegrass mags and blogs sometimes read like this: “Here are my expectations. Did your record meet my expectations? No. Therefore I’m giving it two stars out of five.” What they don’t realize is that human consciousness changes. There is no way to truly recreate Bill Monroe’s music. We can have the outer form down. We can learn from it, learn deeply. But his music was from a consciousness that went through the Depression, early Jazz, a low tech world with no iPods or TVs or cell phones, community music and dances, cabins in the hills, model T Fords, early radio, roots blues, and fiddle tunes brought over from the British Isles. It was the era of the Waltons. For most people these days, songs and emotions about horse-drawn buggies and the little cabin home on the hill are mere nostalgia rather than real life. Back to Narnia. It’s not that the original Narnia books aren’t relevant exactly as they are. But society has changed; perseverance in reading and the ability to read complex sentences are dropping in America like a Yukon thermometer in late October. Many people think Lewis’ books – his grown-up ones written for the average reader in the mid 20th century – are too hard to read. But they’re not too hard. We get better at hard things by doing them persistently. But for the most part we’re a microwave society, and reading is just too much work; TV and video games are a lot easier than having to actually think. As a result we’re seeing an imprecision in language, lazy speech, and many words changing meanings entirely. It’s ironic that in a nation more and more obsessed with “Expressing Myself” people are less and less able to do so except by listening to music that is “cool” and wearing the “right” clothes, buying the hippest new gadgets and vehicles, and imitating the banalities of godless, empty, but famous people. Like, they’re all, like, so “” and so I’m all, like, going, “Know what I mean?” and stuff and everything. I hope the next director sticks closer to Lewis. I’d love to see real adaptations of the books. But expectations and preconceived notions have to be set aside in order to receive, experience, and truly evaluate any work of art. I managed to do that with Caspian, and had a beautiful experience – and I’ll be doing the same with the next.

One of the first times I stayed at Andrew Peterson’s house, he insisted I watch Band Of Brothers and made me take his DVD box set of the HBO miniseries home with me, assuring me “It’ll change your life.” He was right. World War II veterans are currently dying at a rate of more than a thousand a day, and it was in the interest of honoring and remembering their extraordinary courage and sacrifice that this series came to life. Even if you’re not a fan of war films, there’s much to love about Band of Brothers – just ask my wife, Taya, who refuses to watch these kinds of films but loves it as much as I do. I think that’s because the series is less about the war than it is the personal stories of individual people and the deep bonds of friendship that carried them through one of the darkest times of the 20th century. Band of Brothers is more than just a film, it’s an experience and an invitation to be witness to the kind of community, brotherhood, and love I think we all long for, but rarely know. You can get more in depth information on wikipedia, but in short the series focuses on the exploits of Easy Company whose men were among the first paratroopers in military history. They dropped behind enemy lines on D-Day to help take Normandy, fought the Battle of the Bulge, and engaged several other high profile missions including the taking of Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest”. The most rewarding aspect of the series is the depiction of the relationships between the characters and the lengths they go to to watch out for each other. When given an opportunity to leave the front line, many of the soldiers would insist on staying – even in the face of imminent danger and suffering – in order to be there for their fellow soldiers. There are some characters that you come to know a little better than others, but the real star of the series is the brotherhood that these young men shared and still share to this day. Before each episode you see snippets of interviews of the soldiers as old men, and their deep love for each other is still apparent as many of them are still choked up as they share their experiences. With a running time of nearly 12 hours over the course of 10 episodes, there is time to develop these characters and bring them to life. The film maker’s canvas is colored subtly and blessedly absent are the broad strokes of red white and blue nationalism. Instead we’re treated to unexpected and nuanced colors, even as we witness some of the callous cruelty of our own troops while dignity is given to our enemy. It’s been said that one of the spoils of war is the right to record the history, and the film makers have done so empathetically. While the film’s rendering of World War II is uncompromising in it’s depiction of the evils of Hitler’s Germany, it also lends an occasional humane eye to some of the young German men who were caught up in a war that was theirs to fight by virtue of living in the wrong place at the wrong time. A moving speech by a General in the German army towards the end is one of the more memorable moments in the series. This filmic empathy is mirrored in many of the interviews with the real life soldiers now as they look back on the war. “Under different circumstances, I might have been friends with some of those young men” says one veteran. Speaking of veterans, another reason I love this series is because I’ve been blessed to become an acquaintance of one of its more prominent heroes: Buck Compton. Buck’s character looms large in the episodes he’s in, and we learn that his exploits during the war are only the beginnings of an extraordinary life as he went on to be the lead prosecuting attorney in the trial of Sirhan Sirhan. Though he’s been depicted in at least three different films (at different stages of his life), he’s a humble and gracious man and I’m grateful to know him. I was inevitably moved to tears in every episode of Band Of Brothers, as much for the story on the screen as how the story revealed a poverty in my own life of the deep kinds of friendships that the series pays tribute to – friendships that I have failed to cultivate (because I’m on the road all the time? Because I’m afraid to let others get too deep inside my life?). In spite of the hardship these men endured, I still couldn’t help but feel they were somehow blessed to need each other the way they did. I could be in danger of romanticizing their adversity, I know, but in the interviews with the actual characters that we are treated to at the end of the series these men bear witness to the fact that they have an unusually deep friendship with one another that lives on to this day. It makes me want to work harder to forge deeper friendships and to be a better friend myself. I think of Andrew Peterson’s song “Tools” and the lyric: “it ain’t war, but it’s a fight…” I don’t mean to be melodramatic, or in any way diminish the sacrifices of the soldiers of Easy Company by equating their battles with my own, but the truth remains that each of us has our own battles to fight – the fight to be faithful and true in our own adversity, the fight to tell the truth and not lose heart, the fight to not fall back into complacency or be ruled by our fear and insecurity, The fight to remain hopeful, and maybe most importantly the fight to not give in to cynicism and hurt, letting our hearts harden when in fact God has given us hearts that were meant to feel, to break, and to love – especially when it hurts to do so. Band of Brothers reminds me that we are not meant to fight alone, and that the Kingdom of God is made up of brothers and sisters who fight together, and in whose weakness and brokenness God’s strength is perfected. Against this Kingdom the gates of hell will not prevail. This memorial day weekend, you could do worse than to pick up this DVD, engage these men’s story, letting it speak into your own story, and remember that nothing worth living for comes without a fight. And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remember’d; We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. – Shakespeare, King Henry, V (PS – for any who’ve already seen Band Of Brothers, I’d love to read what some of your favorite moments were in the series.)

A few days ago, we had our first Weaklings meeting in more than a year. If you’re not familiar with the Nashville Weaklings, it’s a collective of songwriters not much less diverse than the group of contributors here in the Rabbit Room. Randall Goodgame and I decided a few years back to try and emulate the Oxford Inklings by meeting with other singer/songwriters for the purpose of…what? Well, for one thing, for the purpose of getting off of our rear ends and really working. There were other considerations, like community, encouragement, critique and the like, but for me at least, having some kind of accountability on a regular basis was a big plus. Knowing that a Weaklings meeting loomed on the calendar meant that I’d better stay up that extra hour or two to make sure I had my newest song in the best shape possible before I sat in a circle with these formidable songwriters and laid it out for inspection. One of the fun aspects of the meetings is the Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader writing assignment. We open a Bathroom Reader to a random page and read it aloud. Then we all have until the next meeting to write a song tied some way, however tenuous, to the article. I wrote a song called “Love is Blind” in response to a Bathroom Reader article about the infamous Maginot Line (if you’re wondering what it is, Google it. It’s a pretty interesting story). Eric Peters wrote a song inspired by the same article, and it ended up on his record Miracle of Forgetting. (You can buy the song here, at iTunes.) Our next assignment was on the Legend of Pope Joan (again, Google it). I wrote a song called “Over My Head” (a live version is on Appendix M), Ben Shive wrote a fun Lyle Lovett-like song called “I’m Your Man”, and Randall Goodgame wrote, of course, “The Legend of Pope Joan”. There were others, but you get the idea. So a few days ago when our friend David Wilcox was in town, we arranged a Weaklings meeting so he could take part in our little community. The call went out. The call was answered by myself, Eric Peters, Andrew Osenga, Randall Goodgame, Ron Block, Andy Gullahorn, and David. The article from the Bathroom Reader was about a telephone repair man who on a random house call discovered a valuable piece of furniture underneath piles of newspapers and dishes. He called the landlady and asked her to sell it to him, but she declined, saying that she needed the furniture for the tenants. Ten years later, the phone man (an antique hobbyist) finally convinced her to sell it, and the furniture fetched a million bucks. Eric, Randall and I all made attempts at writing a song about it, and while none of them were really finished (or very good–yet), they all were the result of our talent and time being put to good use. I was up until 4 am working on mine, and had the distinct and horrible honor of playing first. It was kind of a nightmare, given the company I was in. When I was writing the song I thought about Jesus’ offer of abundant life, and how we balk and make excuses, unable (or unwilling) to believe that he’s as good as his word. I remembered the C.S. Lewis quote about our desires and how they aren’t too strong but are too weak. “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” Then I thought about the famous Walt Wangerin, Jr. story called Ragman. In it, Jesus walks through the streets trading his fine clothes for the rags of the homeless, trading his health for sickness, his joy for tears and so on until he’s so ragged and wounded and broken that he dies. I thought about the way I cling to worthless junk, refusing to believe that Jesus’ offer of his love in exchange for our broken lives actually yields new life. Here are the words that came out: Get out of my kitchen Get out of my life I don’t want to sell what you’re buying no more I don’t want to listen Don’t care if you’re right Just what kind of fool do you take me for? (I don’t want to let go) Oh Ragman, how can you come here Telling me things too good to be true? Oh Ragman, how can you come here And make me an offer that I can’t refuse? I know it ain’t pretty It’s charming at best But the spell that I’m under is appealing to me So spare me your pity I know it’s a mess But it’s mine from the floor to the ceiling, you see (And I don’t want to let go) Ragman, how can you come here Telling me things too good to be true? Oh Ragman, how can you come here And make me an offer than I can’t refuse? Your love is a loaded gun So hard to deny I’ll give you what you want But please, I don’t want to die So take all the chaos All the clutter and crap Take all that’s left of the life I have Even if you have to pry it from my cold dead hands (I don’t want to let go) Ragman, how can you come here Telling me things too good to be true? Oh Ragman, how can you come here And make me an offer than I can’t refuse? When a song is only a few hours old it’s hard to know what to think about it. I played it (shaking like a leaf) and the reaction was…silence. Maybe it was because it was the first song and folks hadn’t loosened up enough to feel comfortable offering any critique. Or maybe it was because I played the song so badly they couldn’t really listen to it. It is what it is. But my point is, whether or not the song will grow into anything I’d ever perform, I learned a lot in the process. I was forced to think about grace. I was forced to exercise my imagination. I wrote a song that I never would’ve written otherwise. And hopefully, I’m a better writer because of it. Later, Eric and Randall played their songs about the article, coming at it from two other angles. Wilcox didn’t write anything new for the topic but played a cool version of “A Touch of the Master’s Hand” because it fit so well. Osenga and I talked about it on the phone tonight, laughing at how horrifying it is to play something new for someone, especially when that performance exposes the glaring problems with the song. But that’s the most valuable part of the experience. He played a new one and after our comments went home and rewrote the whole thing. So if you’re a creative type, I’d highly recommend tracking down a bunch of artists who are better than you, meeting with them as often as you can, and welcoming their criticism. It has to be people you respect, otherwise you’ll ignore their advice. Of course, sometimes you ignore their advice even then.

Around this time last year, Eric Peters played a concert in Murfreesboro, TN that I was planning on attending, but bad weather, a long work week, and sickness conspired against me and I wasn’t able to make it. So when Eric posted on his website a couple months back that he would be playing at the same church again this past Friday, I immediately added it to my calendar. I’d heard Eric play a good bit back when the Square Pegs were playing weekly in-the-round shows at the now defunct Radio Café here in Nashville, but hadn’t seen him play a full concert until now. It was well worth the drive over from Nashville. A neighbor of mine, Paul Eckberg, joined Eric on percussion for a twelve song set that included “Save Something for Grace”, “You Can Be Yourself”, “Long Road (to Nowhere)”, and “Bus 152”. I was hoping to hear him play “Tomorrow”, my favorite song from Scarce: angel of tomorrow say a prayer tonight when we find ourselves alone afraid of being known and holding on for life But since the recorded version is accompanied by Ben Shive on piano, Eric doesn’t usually play it with just a guitar. Last month, I attended the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, and one of my favorite speakers I discovered was Kathleen Norris. Going into her sessions, I didn’t know anything about her. Not until I got home did I notice that Eric had a quote on his Facebook page from her book The Cloister Walk that is the central thought of his song “Save Something for Grace”: “We try to be holy without being human first.” I’ve heard Eric sing it many times, but listening to him on Friday, the first verse jumped out at me like I was hearing it for the first time: midnight at the stroke of noon when the lights go down and it’s you against you quiet eyes in a blaze of shame like a beast of burden you could never tame we try to be holy without being human first In the chorus, he tells us that its okay to be human, that grace is real. save something for grace /she’s raising the sky save something for faith / there’s hope still in her eyes save something for grace And in the bridge, my favorite part of the song, he sings, we live as though mercy were frail and forgiveness merely a tale we condemn ourselves to a fault when we fail, when we fall we find we’re human after all Eric sang one new song that he wrote for his son, Ellis, “I Will Go With You”, that I hope makes its way onto his next recording. And speaking of his next recording, he is planning on heading back to the studio sometime this summer with the illustrious Ben Shive producing, which gives me great hope for the record. Stay tuned to Eric’s website for updates on what is happening on that front. If you don’t have any of Eric’s CDs yet, you can purchase them on this very site (after saying penance). And be sure to check out Curt’s review of another EP concert recently (with Randall Goodgame), and his review of Scarce here at the Rabbit Room.

I’m deeply grateful that Jason Gray mentioned this movie in the reply of a recent post. It won an Academy Award in 1987 for Best Foreign Language film. I’ve intended to see it for a long time and Jason’s recommendation was the final inspiration that brought me to move it up in my Netflix queue. It’s a movie of understated beauty. The Danish landscape is filmed with muted browns, grays, and yellows. Though the topography is overgrown and rough, its muted colors seem an appropriate backdrop for the grave, ascetic characters that inhabit the small Danish fishing village in which the the film is set. Young and pretty sisters, Martina and Philippa are courted by two handsome and apparently honorable men. When it appears each respective relationship may advance, their father–a fervent Protestant clergyman–subtly manipulates circumstances to keep his pious daughters home. And there they stay, even when their father passes on. It’s as if he controls their choices, even from the grave. The sisters are part of the kind of religious community, a sect really, which on the surface, is hard to fault. There are pious meetings, weighty hymns, and significant devotion to caring for the sick and poor. Collectively, this group seems to live a life of self-discipline, self-denial, but little obvious joy. We see few children in the community, no great surprise. Rigorous religious observances are never missed, but celebrated with little pleasure. Years go by. Then, one night in a raging storm, Babette (Stephane Audran) knocks on the front door of the cottage shared by the sisters. She carries a letter of introduction from one of the sister’s long lost loves, the famous opera singer Achille Papin, now retired, who sent Babette from France. Having lost both her husband and son in the Paris Commune, Babette, he explains, needs political sanctuary. At first, the sisters kindly refuse to bring Babette into their modest home. But when Babette offers her housekeeping services for free, their last objection disintegrates. The arrangement works. The three women mesh in a relationship which benefits all. The sister’s beliefs prevent showy forms of affection, but it’s obvious that the years generate reciprocal respect and love among the women. Fast forward fourteen years. The sisters wish to acknowledge the 100th birthday of their highly esteemed father with a simple, unpretentious dinner. Anything more would be too ostentatious. Meanwhile, Babette wins a large sum of money in an early version of the lottery (the lottery’s modern form can be traced to 15th-century Europe). Babette offers to prepare and finance the meal for the sisters, with one caveat; that the feast be a French extravaganza. Reluctantly, because Babette insists, the sisters finally agree. Later, fueled by the ernest admonitions of their congregation and second thoughts of their own, the sisters implore their group to ignore the lavish meal. To enjoy such a functional endeavor such as a meal would be inappropriate. They may eat, but nothing must be said of the meal. It must not be acknoweleged; certainly not praised. On the day of the celebration, they receive word that a member of their group, Mrs. Lowenhielm will bring her nephew, none other than Lorens Lowenhielm. He’s the long lost boyfriend of one of the sisters, from the early years, and now an esteemed decorated general. He, of course, knows nothing of the group’s covert plan to behave matter of factly about the dinner. His presence at the meal is the mechanism by which I was most moved, both by laughter and poignancy. How can the preparation and serving of a meal be the effective centerpiece of a film? Just watch. As Babette prepares the feast, with expert timing, skill, and artistic flair, somewhere along the line I realized that the preparation and serving of the meal was transcendent. As the best art defies category and rigid definition, so Babette’s feast becomes more than food on the table. Her seven course masterpiece of fine food and drink is expertly crafted. Contrasted with the staid fish of the day the townspeople endure, the culinary explosion of Babette’s feast is palpable, even for an observer. Watching members of the sober congregation deflect Mr. Lowenhielm’s effusive praise of the meal with their own references to the weather or anything but the food, brings plenty of laughs. There’s a pink elephant in the room, which nobody acknowledges. That is, until the general speaks up. After he can bear it no more, the general taps his glass and rises to his feet: Mercy and truth have met together. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another. Man, in his weakness and shortsightedness believes he must make choices in this life. He trembles at the risks he takes. We do know fear. But no. Our choice is of no importance. There comes a time when our eyes are opened and we come to realize that mercy is infinite. We need only await it with confidence and receive it with gratitude. Mercy imposes no conditions. And lo! Everything we have chosen has been granted to us. And everything we rejected has also been granted. Yes, we even get back what we rejected. For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss shall kiss one another. The general’s eloquent words reflected thoughts that were gently percolating in my mind as I enjoyed this film. I can’t say that it was the filmmakers intention, but as I observed the wonderful feast I saw it as a picture of divine, unmitigated mercy (after watching the film, I read at least six reviews, none of which mentioned this). At this representation of divine character, I felt the release of tears. Here we have an unseen culinary maestro, hidden in the kitchen. Her masterful design is happily and graciously bestowed upon her guests. Their nonchalent attitude doesn’t change her. She’s graciously doing what she does because of who she is and the love she has for the sisters. In this wonderful world, we are given devine freedom to partake. We are given much to choose. Often, decisions are approached with tripidation, not gusto. Like the members of this largely kind-hearted congregation, appearances and the mechanics of behavior take precedence over expressions of the spirit. The heart is shackled and subdued by lies. Meanwhile, it wants to soar. Leave fear behind. Come. Eat. Taste. Savor. Enjoy! As the movie draws to a close, it is revealed that Babette spent all of her lottery winnings on importing and paying for the expensive ingredients. When the sisters learn this, one gently admonishes Babette, suggesting that she will now be poor for the rest of her life. Babette’s reply encapsulates one of the film’s themes: “An artist is never poor.” Indeed. And one doesn’t need specific artistic skills to be considered an artist. An artist is one that looks at life with passion, distinction, and nuance. He has a desire to discover beauty in the nooks and crannies our world. No. He is driven to discover beauty in the nooks and crannies of our world. Like an artist that uses his God given imagination to create beauty, so the passive artist uses his creativity to notice beauty in the world. Those that choose such a perspective possess great riches.

I just got off the phone with my brother, who really liked the movie. He challenged my opinion (see the comments from the previous post), but ended up solidifying it. The conversation also reminded me of a few more issues I had with the changes the producers /director /screenwriters made. (I’m almost finished waxing opinionated, so don’t worry that you’ll have to read Caspian rants all week.) The thing that made Caspian worthy to be king was his deep love for Narnia. His nurse filled his head and heart with stories of Old Narnia, and he longed for it to be true. When Caspian finally meets Trufflehunter and the dwarfs, his wildest dreams come to life before his eyes. This sense of wonder and ache for a truer, better world seems to be one of Lewis’s themes, not just in this book but in much of his writing. Where was that in the film? And about the nurse. Remember the scene at the end of the book when Aslan heals her? She sees his great lion-head and weeps with joy because she’s beholding the One she dreamed of all her life. Aslan carries her to Caspian and they’re reunited at last. How, oh how, could the filmmakers have cut this? It was one of the few things in the book that would’ve translated to film quite easily, it would seem. And what was the deal with the conversation in the film between Lucy and Peter about seeing Aslan? “I wish he’d just given me a little proof,” Peter says, to which Lucy replies, “Maybe he was waiting for us to prove ourselves to him.” Huh? Jesus isn’t hiding from us, waiting for us to prove ourselves worthy of the beatific vision. As Paul says in Romans, evidence of his existence surrounds us. Yes, our faith gives us new eyes, but we are often faithless and yet are confronted with Christ at every turn. Aslan wasn’t concealing himself from Peter–Peter was unwilling to see him. The reason Lucy could see him was the disposition of her heart. She walked through Narnia with a child’s wonder that allowed her to see things with greater clarity–it wasn’t Aslan that changed and made himself visible, it was Peter who looked with humility and faith and could finally recognize him. It’s a subtle difference, but a significant one. Then Lucy for some reason races to the forest where she finds Aslan standing around, apparently waiting on someone to come and get him. Again I say, “Huh?” Now, I realize that this is only a movie. Some of you may think I’m making mountains out of molehills. My brother told me that my expectations were too high. But why shouldn’t my expectations be high? They spent millions–millions of dollars on this film, and they’re working with material that is beloved by millions of people. Why shouldn’t these storytellers be held to a high standard? I got the feeling when watching the Lord of the Rings films that, while they weren’t perfect, the filmmakers did a better job than anyone could’ve hoped. I had the feeling today that the filmmakers of Prince Caspian cared more for their film than they did the story itself, or for the fans of the story, or even for Lewis. Do they really think he would’ve approved of the changes? Really? Years ago when I heard they were adapting John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany for the screen, I groaned. I love film as a medium, but some books should be left alone, for goodness sakes. A great book does not always a great movie make. Sometimes the very things that make a book worth reading are the things that only work on the written page. The changes necessary for Owen Meany‘s translation to film so bothered the author that he demanded the name be changed. They came up with Simon Birch, and whatever you think of that movie, you must trust me: compared to the book it’s a waste of time. I have a feeling that Lewis would’ve had a few alternate titles to suggest. Rant complete. Moving on.

Many thanks to the fine folks at Trinity UMC in Murfreesboro, TN last night for hosting me a second time. This was originally scheduled to be a show this past December, but one I had to cancel due to a severe cold, possibly the flu, the first I’ve ever had to cancel on account of illness. They were kind enough to let me reschedule, and though it was a small-ish crowd (apparently it was graduation night across the land), Paul Eckberg and myself were able to make some music that I felt came off sounding fairly decent considering we were both getting over (more) various sicknesses ourselves and hadn’t played or practiced together in nearly a year. Paul is absolutely tremendous and is the consummate professional musician, ever prepared and as tasteful in his playing as the summer day is long. It’s nice to have utter confidence in the musicians one occasionally gets to play music with. I don’t get to do it often enough, but I do love playing music with Mr. Eckberg. Also, many thanks to Stephen of the SPAdotnet who showed up to support myself, Paul and Chris Lee. Please be kind in your assessment, Stephen. On the 40-minute drive home, I tried praying, but quickly realized I had no idea what to say since it felt like it had been so long since last I earnestly (and honestly) tried communicating with God. I tried being quiet but my mind was wiry and busy. I said staggering things like, “I pray for…”, “I pray this, that….” and realized how stale it all sounded, how inhuman, how robotic. I could muster no flesh or blood or simple honest words to simply talk, one friend to another. So, in retreating response, I asked God to give me a thankful heart, while in the back of my mind I fully feared the very proposition: “What if having a grateful heart means having everything I cherish – the people AND the accumulated stuff – ripped away from me?” In no way do I want that to happen, so I sheepishly murmured the prayer, secretly hoping He wouldn’t hear it and might disregard it the way a sleeping cat ignores a buzzing housefly. How fearful and strange it is to be fearfully and wonderfully made. I doubt the prayer will be ignored. I pulled up to the house at 10:03 pm and, after lugging in my gear, sat on the couch with Danielle, already 40-minutes into the 1990 film Awakenings (Robert DeNiro, Robin Williams). I’ve maybe seen this movie once before, probably circa 1990-91, but had forgotten the vast majority of the plot. There is one scene where DeNiro’s character, Dwayne, having awoken after 30 years of being in a nearly catatonic state (I’m unclear on the actual disease: Parkinson’s or encephalitis?), is courting a beautiful young lady who has been regularly visiting her own father in the sanitarium. This particular scene, Dwayne, who has been showing signs of his slow digression back into this unresponsive state after a summer of “awakening”, is in the cafeteria eating lunch with the red-headed woman. He is attempting to tell her he will never see her again and is saying his final goodbye. He stands to leave and offers her his hand to shake, himself trembling and ticking from the oncoming illness. She takes his hand but refuses to let go of it. She gets up from her seat to stand near him, takes hold of his other hand and proceeds to dance with him in the middle of the hospital cafeteria, a whitewashed room, with only the onlooking hospital staff, various patients and visiting families as witnesses. As she continues to press him close and dance, his spastic trembling subsides and he at last rests his head on her shoulders as the scene fades to black. We hold so much dear, and yet let so much go. The touch of another human, so kind, so gentle, so caring, so compassionate, so purposeful, constitutes humanity as the beacon and image of an infinitely greater mercy. Combined in that movie scene and my post-concert drive home I was reminded of hope, how much of it I seem to have lost in my “adult” life with all the treading of responsibilities, the martyrdom of self, the threshing of grain, and how the presence of people, my wife and my son in particular, whom I need more than time itself, who are a salvation of sorts — a grace upon and within my world to keep me from losing hope altogether and to keep me from utter fear and shaking, to see in me someone worth saving, someone worth holding onto, worth touching and worth calming. I’ve never been much of a dancer, but, God, please give us thankful and awake hearts to hold so much dear, yet cling to what is worth clinging onto.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I just finished reading it again to my children. Now, if you know me at all you know that I’m a cry-baby. For example, I got choked up tonight when I was watching Indiana Jones II with my boys for the first time. (It was when they cheered when Indy snapped out of his creepy trance by the lava pit and winked at Short Round. Woot!)  So of course my chin quivered when I read parts of Prince Caspian. The book is full of moments that give me a window into the heart of the author and convince me all over again that something miraculous happened in C.S. Lewis’s life, and that something could only have been Christ. These aren’t stories that I read for their action or their plotting. I read them for the magic. For the old magic that reminds me again and again to be young at heart, that the Kingdom is made of such as these, that the stories I grew up on were true stories. As Pete wrote in his post about Indiana Jones, hints of that magic sometimes translate to film (though in a far less specifically Christ-centered sense).So the movie releases today to mostly positive reviews. And some of the negative ones come from Christians, particularly the ones who have a deep affection for the books. (Jeffrey Overstreet’s blog references a few of them.) Now that you’ve seen the movie, what did you think? Did they pull it off? Did you get the sense that the filmmakers realized which parts of the book made it more than just another book? Does it even matter? Can I stop writing questions? I don’t think so? Who ate my cheeseburger? Yes?

I know what you’re thinking…well, I know what I’m thinking. “A review of a movie involving a sex doll? In the Rabbit Room??” But we are all safe because, well…suffice it to say, I recommended this film to my mom. My mom. I knew I was going to like it, because hey, his name is Lars Lindstrom and he wears fair isle sweaters — what’s not for a good Swedish girl to like? What I didn’t know was how the film’s quiet, stealthy tenderness would move me, or how Ryan Gosling’s nervous facial tics would immediately endear me to his character, or how sweetly this strange story would unfold and lay itself bare. Disclaimer: I’m afraid to write this review. Why? Because I know, I know, I KNOW, like a mama bear knows her bear cub, like a pianist knows middle C, like a Canadian citizen knows the national anthem, that I will inevitably leave out scores of reasons why I loved it so. I’m still stepping out in faith and trusting that you will fill in the blanks and show me mercy if you do decide to see it. Okay, I feel better now. Lars lives in the cold, whitewashed North in the garage apartment of his parents’ home which now belongs to his brother, Gus (Paul Schneider) and his pregnant wife, Karin (Emily Mortimer). He is painfully shy and socially awkward. He is usually found clinging to a grey blanket his mother crocheted for him when she was expecting him. His mustachioed, apprehensive smile is clouded with sadness. The family are worried about him — concerned that he’s slipping further from reality every day, only confirmed by the fact that he orders a, um….doll….named Bianca and introduces her as his girlfriend. (This is where I’ll go ahead and tell you that it never seems to occur to Lars to make use of the doll for her original purpose. You can breathe now.) Bianca is wheelchair-bound, she conveniently lost her luggage, she ‘doesn’t speak much English’ because she is ‘from the Tropics.’ He explains that, since they are both God-fearing young folks, he would like for her to sleep in the main house’s Pink Room, which belonged to his late mother. When Bianca is taken in to see Doctor Dagmar (played graciously by the lovely Patricia Clarkson), Lars’ brother and sister-in-law are basically told that, to be most helpful, they must go along with his delusion. Their conflict is at once excruciating and hilarious. The townspeople rally (albeit reluctantly for a handful of them) and offer a heart-warming display of support for this unusual relationship with understanding, emotion, and true class. (Oh friends, you MUST see this movie!!….aaaahhhhhh!!!!!….it’s so gooood!!! moving on….) In a few of my favorite vignettes, most lovely and memorable, Lars takes Bianca to the woods and shows her his childhood tree fort, sings Nat King Cole’s “L-O-V-E” to her in a funny tremolo, smirks as he cuts her meat for her at the dinner table and playfully eats from her plate, and reads poetry to her. Bianca, along with everyone who takes good care to include her in the community, ends up healing something in Lars, and the film closes with promise and hope — perhaps dim and slow in coming, but still shining. I will spare you any more of my sub-par summations, for I fear they are shooting off in all possible directions like fireworks gone bad. I will, however, leave you with these words which are marks of what this film portrays: Poignant. Warm. Sad. Sweet. Offbeat. Hilarious. Redemptive. Beauty-filled.

I’m going to tell you about a Cool Thing. What is this Cool Thing, you ask? It’s called Tokens. It’s a radio show in the vein of A Prairie Home Companion, put together by Lee Camp, a theology professor at Nashville’s Lipscomb University. Jeff Taylor, the musician who you may have seen playing with Michael Card, Buddy Greene, Ricky Skaggs, the Chieftains, or–if I say so myself–myself, is the band leader for the show, and told me about the concept months ago. He asked if I’d be into playing on it and I immediately said yes. The house band is a who’s-who of great (and I mean great) Nashville players, like the aforementioned Jeff Taylor and fiddler Aubrey Haynie (the genius who played the mandolin and fiddle on Carried Along way back in 1999–remember that killer mandolin/fiddle romp at the end of “The Ninety and Nine”?). But in addition to a great band, the show featured taped interviews with authors such as Brian McLaren, plus skits that were–I know this is hard to believe–actually funny. The show was a delight. Ben and I stood in the wings listening to the rehearsal with the feeling that we were witnessing the beginning of something very special. The show I was honored to be a part of was titled “The Appalachian Longing for Home”, and I played “Let There Be Light” and “After the Last Tear Falls.” There was also a lady named Odessa Settles who sang some goosebump-inflicting negro spirituals. It was beautiful. Well, the first show hasn’t aired yet, but the second taping is in a couple of weeks and you might still have time to reserve a few tickets. Jamie and I will be there in the audience, and I’ll be wearing my nicer jeans and my less-wrinkled button down shirt. This is a classy affair, mind you. Be sure and visit www.tokensshow.com to find out more about the show, and to reserve tickets for the upcoming taping. You’ll be glad you did.

First off, I’ve never had a book change my life so radically as this one. I read it on a flight to Calgary a month ago, and as I devoured Steven Pressfield’s chapters on Resistance, I found myself looking into a mirror of my own procrastination and excuses why I didn’t write songs more often, work on more new banjo tunes, hone my talents more diligently. Don’t get me wrong – I practice. Especially on the road. My bandmates and crew would attest to the considerable flow of banjo and guitar notes from my dressing room. The road is an entirely different world, and I do decently there in discipline. But many days at home I’d float through without a plan, and sometimes days would flood by, eaten up by all the etceteras of life, in the same way that serious amounts of money can slip through our hands unconsciously with a daily Starbucks or diet Coke or fast food habit. As I read Pressfield’s book, I saw that my earlier days of constant practicing were more from drivenness, fear, and an all-consuming passion than from actual discipline. People used to tell me I was so disciplined to practice so much. But as the years went by, I developed other passions. Home. Family. Making food. Writing articles. Drivenness fell off me as I learned to trust Christ for my self-worth, as I rejected music as a source of Life. I began making a decent living, one of the more deadly foes of an artist’s output. And my lack of discipline, of boundaries, especially at home, began to show. A discipline is something you do daily, whether you feel like it or not. Pressfield builds a strong case for turning pro, for fighting against our inner resistance (which is fueled by our fear), for overcoming procrastination, for making our art a daily job where we show up whether or not we feel like it. I like his quote from the writer Somerset Maugham. When asked if he wrote on a schedule or only when inspired, Maugham said, “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” Andrew Peterson gave me L’Engle’s Walking on Water in which she says essentially the same thing. The daily discipline gives a framework for inspiration to show up. So when I returned from my Calgary trip, everything changed. My schedule changed to one I’d been talking about for months but had never implemented. Go to sleep early. Get up early, long before the kids. Devotional time. Exercise. Schedule my day. Shower. Eat. Get the kids off to school. And then my rear end hits this chair and I start playing. It stays there, with a short break or two, until noon. Lunch. And then after lunch, more playing until five o’clock. Then I’m done. And I feel great, feel I’ve used my time wisely, and then can wash my hands of the whole thing and hang out with the family. Now, I’ve not stuck to this every day. I’m at about 80 percent, probably, what with all the irregularity of recording this-and-that, a show here-and-there, etcetera. I have to switch my schedule when I go out and play; I can’t be fainting with weariness at nine in the evening. But I have to say that even during the lesser days, I get so much more done than I have in years. A couple of caveats for those who are offended by certain things. Pressfield is a secular writer; he wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance and several other big novels. This is definitely not a book written from a Christian perspective. Scattered F dash-dash-dash words and some slippery theology come up in places. To those who are offended by such things, or easily led astray through not having a strong Biblical foundation – by all means avoid reading it. But I took the whole thing, dropped what was wrong or irrelevant, and extracted the truth from it. And it works. The War of Art made me repent of wasting my time on trivialities while letting my God-given mission in life mosey along in the slow lane. It made me realize that inspiration shows up when I’m diligent to do my work. “I learned that he that would be a hero will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work is sure of his manhood.” George MacDonald, Phantastes

On May 22 an event will happen that I’ve been longing for all my adult life. Indiana Jones will return. He will ride out of my memory and be real again, large in the light on the screen with his crooked smile, bloodied knuckles, and awkward machismo. Just typing that name got me a little choked up and nostalgic. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the first movies I remember seeing (it was either that or The Empire Strikes Back) and I don’t remember whether my interest in archaeology predates Indy or not but either way, both he and it are integral parts of my childhood. He was the greatest of silver screen heroes. Smart, rugged, wearing a leather coat and a hat that no one since has been able to pull off and he’s got a freakin’ bullwhip! And on top of all this he’s risking his life to save the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat itself. Spielberg and Lucas set the bar high enough for Action/Adventure that a generation has gone by and it hasn’t been touched. They managed to key in on the perfect confluence of character and story, humor and drama, action and romance, human and super-human. The look of the films is at the same time unique and old as cinema itself. It’s as instantly recognizable as the gamboling theme of that unforgettable score. Will there ever be another film composer to equal John Williams? Every now and again I pull out the DVD set and put in the old Indy movies for the boys I work with and I’m overjoyed to see how well the movies have aged. Even though I can see the pole sticking out of the bottom of the flipped truck in Cairo, even though the ditch Indy is laying in underneath that truck is plainly visible, even though Belloq’s exploding head is as cheesy as a Gob Bluth parlor trick, the stories hold, the action gallops, the jokes land, the spirit of a boy breathes and aches and soars, and no one says, “That movie is old,” they say, “That movie is good.”. And now, after all those years of wanting and wishing and hoping he’d come back and take me with him, he’ll be here next week. But instead of elation and pure anticipation, I’m scared of it. The scars George Lucas gave us when he butchered my generation’s cherished Star Wars memories with the abominable prequels are still fresh in my mind. Once bitten, twice shy, I suppose. In my dreams, I hear Indy at the end of Raiders screaming, “Don’t look at it, Marion! Keep your eyes SHUT!” as what looks like angels come flooding out of the Ark and then before the eyes of those watching, the beauty they anticipated turns to horror. So I’m telling myself, everyday now, this movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, this movie is going to be awful. This movie is not the longing of the boy inside me. This movie is not going to make me feel like a kid again. It’s not going to inspire a love of archeology in young boys today the way it did in me over twenty years ago. I must lower my expectations. I can’t handle another tragedy on the scale of The Phantom Menace. I hope that if I can convince myself to lower those expectations enough and expect nothing more than another The Mummy-style pretender to the throne that when the day finally comes, I will sit in the darkened, butter-scented theatre and I will hold my breath when the projector sputters to life and I will grow somehow smaller and younger when through misty eyes I see that magical “Lucasfilm” logo spangled across the silver screen and I will believe that old men can bring new magic into the world. And that timeless theme will play. His voice will say “Trust me,” and he’ll smirk. And Indiana Jones will live again. Don’t think about, I say. Just keeping reminding yourself: This movie is going to suck… This movie is going to suck… This movie is going to suck…

Remember parachute pants? Man, I hated those things and everyone that wore them irritated me–until the day I bought a pair and realized what I was missing out on and just how glorious it is to have thirty-seven pockets on a pair of pants that are too tight to bend over and tie your shoes in (that’s why they make Vans loafers.) So the question is: What cultural phenomenon, whether technology, music, fashion, art, or anything else, did you miss out on until the last possible minute and then finally give into? But then, things began to change. I kept getting emails whenever one of my 100 best friends became friends with another one of my 100 best friends—and for some reason I cannot explain Facebook thought I should know. Then a young lady in our church invited me to her graduation party which I was unable to attend due to travel. Long story short, I had no idea how to work the “application” she sent for a yes, no or maybe. So I told her no two times in a row without any kind of comment. Rudest pastor ever. I felt like I replied, “No. Didn’t you hear me, I said NO!” Now I’m hoping there’s a Facebook application for people struggling with the emotional roller coaster ride the first few weeks with Facebook takes you on. At present, I’m building up a nice list of friendship requests, and I’m mulling them over. But these things, it turns out, are not to be entered into lightly. So I’m at the party, but I’m the guy over by the wall nursing a diet coke wondering if its time to call it a night. Word on the street is this party is definitely an all-nighter. 2. Joining Facebook. 3. Joining the forthcoming greatest social networking website. I’m afraid that much of my reluctance probably comes from a desire to foster my identity as a non-joiner. Thankfully, though, I’m learning to get over myself. But another part of it is that with every new sensation that comes along, I’m afraid of losing the good I’ve known of my time. I read that dead authors don’t sell very well, which is a shame since some of the best minds (and hearts) that Christianity has produced are now dead and gone. But we still have so much to learn from them. Augustine, Lewis, Chesterton, Bonhoeffer – today’s church needs to hear their words now more than ever. The same for music. There is still much good to be gleaned from even contemporary artists like Rich Mullins and Mark Heard not to mention more classic works by Robert Robinson, John Newton, and others. Because of our culture’s profane disregard of the old things, I’m usually suspicious of the new things. Besides, I’m waiting for the iPhone to come out with an 80 gig version. So aside from being way ahead of pop culture trends, what phenomenon did I miss out on until the last moment? I was a little slow on the iPod, I think, though I’ve had several in the past few years. I still like records. CDs are on the way out and I dislike mp3 sound quality. But now iPods and external hard drives are big enough to accomodate dumping the cds straight in as wavs with no loss of quality. Now, I did just buy a TV with a 52″ screen. Now that I’ve solidly established “Friday and Friday Night Alone Is Movie Night” in our family I felt safe going out and getting a flatscreen. The trend isn’t close to over, I realize, but our prior TV was about 20 inches and we got tired of squinting. This big ol’ TV will make its home downstairs, waiting every week, black and silent, for Friday night. I still don’t have cable or satellite. That’s way too trendy. From the fashion world, my goatee is a perfect example. I can’t recall exactly when the goatee became ubiquitous, but as best I recall, it was somewhere in the mid 90s. I was sure it would die a quick death. Instead, like the Engergizer Bunny, it just went on and on and on. At least two or three years into the trend, I started to like the look and grew one myself, though I suspect its time probably passed at least five years ago. Similar to the goatee, I totally underestimated rap music. Like the just under two year trend of disco music in the late 70s, I predicted rap music was a fad that would pass quickly. When the genre penetrated the world of mainstream music in the early 90s, I thought it would be gone within no more than two years. As it continues to infiltrate and often dominate popular music in the new century, I’m still surprised that it’s around. And I still don’t like it. It’s a bandwagon I contine to avoid. Tatoos. That’s another piece of popular culture I’ve shunned, though it looks cool on Derek Webb. At one time, tattoos were the domain of sailors, bikers, and those that endured an unfortunate night of inebriation. Nowadays, grandma, your tax accountant, and the pope all probably have tattoos. Fine, for them, not for me. Regardless of how certain I am of a thing today, there’s a fair chance I might feel differently tomorrow. And I can shave a goatee if I don’t like it. I have an iPod, I am a member of Facebook, I use nitrogen in my tires, and have a big-screen TV, so I’m not totally behind the pop culture curve. On the other hand, the woodwork in our house is stained, not painted white, my summer shorts are at at least two inches too high, our TV is not high definition, I don’t do the iPhone, and I still haven’t shaved my goatee. Yet. The year was 1996. It was my sophomore year at Auburn University (at least the football was good). I was an R.A. (that means Resident Assistant for all of you unlearnt folk). I enjoyed the perks of my own room, a window AC unit, and free room and board. All I had to endure was a week of ice breaker games and CPR training at the onset of the school year, drunk sorority girls banging on my door at all hours of the early morning asking for Advil (which of course, I was certified to administer), and being the dorm’s designated killer of flying roaches. The computer lab was right across the street from our dorm (the name of which escapes me and this is making me feel ancient) on the quad, and I’ll never forget sitting at the front desk and watching girls file out the door in droves at all hours saying “wanna go check your e-mail?” “What? What’s this? What does this strange ‘e’ stand for? Well, I never…I’ll write letters by hand until Jesus returns. There’s no way I’ll start typing them. I hate to type. This is preposterous.” Fast forward two years. The year was 1999. It was my second year at UT Chattanooga. My sister came to visit and I was showing her the design lab. “You know Evie, if you’d get an e-mail account, we could keep in touch much more easily.” And something in me snapped. I was suddenly ready for this gigantic step forward in technology. It had taken me awhile, but my hand was growing tired and Jesus sure was taking his sweet time, so we sat down, summoned the powers of hotmail, and here I’ve been ever since.

Some of you may have heard of the community of singer/songwriters known as the Square Peg Alliance. Our newest inductee is Ben Shive, as you know from a few posts ago. Thanks to everyone who placed orders for Ben’s upcoming album. If you’re on the fence about ordering the record, maybe this little video will push you over the edge.

My wife has a gift for spotting pheasants when we are driving. It’s a skill she learned from her dad and I’m always amazed at how she can spot these birds – so well concealed by their environment – as we speed by at 65 mph. “If you just keep your eyes open, you’ll always see something” she told me once when I asked her how she did it. I have found that this is great advice for more than just pheasant sightings, and offers no end to wonder and delight as I learn to keep my eyes open for the God who, as it turns out, has a knack for showing up in the most unlikely places. There are the obvious places where you expect to encounter God – church, the scriptures, prayer, the Rabbit Room (wink wink), etc. – but it’s the times when I encounter him unexpectedly that prove the most potent, precisely because they are unexpected. Familiarity can breed contempt and it’s all too easy for us to become ambivalent to the things of God in the places we expect to find them. It’s kind of like already knowing the punch line to a joke. There’s something invigorating about God catching us off our guard and I imagine, too, that God enjoys keeping us on our toes, confounding our attempts to pigeonhole him. Our calloused hearts are blessedly defenseless against this kind of behavior on God’s part. The element of surprise is one of his best weapons. While God can always be counted on to be faithful, good, gracious and true to his nature, it is possible for us to become too presumptuous and forget that he’s always holding an ace or two up his sleeve. After all, God’s master strokes have always defied expectations: Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt, Christ coming as a baby, the resurrection, etc. Michael Card told me once that you should never finish the Bible’s sentences for it, and of course a part of what he means is that we have a tendency to become too familiar with mysterious and holy things and think we have God figured out, forgetting that, as Lewis put it, he is not a safe lion at all, though he is good. And while I believe God can be found in churches, monasteries, and the other usual haunts and that there is a holiness in established rhythms of devotion and monkish observances of rituals that can lead us to God, I also know there is a romance to the way God takes our breath away by operating outside of the parameters we try to set for him. With this in mind, I love watching for how God may show up in the most unexpected places. It’s kind of like a cosmic “Where’s Waldo” where the stakes are higher and the rewards richer. If I keep my eyes open, from time to time I catch glimpses of God whisking away around a corner, darting behind the scenery of my life, leaving clues, leading me on, further up and further in. In fact, I’m at an age in my walk where I experience his presence more profoundly in the unexpected places than I do in the expected ones. So watching has become a holy discipline. For instance, I rarely experience worship with contemporary worship songs (I’m not making a statement against worship songs, I’m just saying they don’t typically inspire worship in me personally), but when Sufjan Stevens sings of the “Great I Am” in Decatur, or when the bells toll in the heavens in the final scene of the controversial film Breaking The Waves, or when I close the book on Perfection – Mark Helprin’s story of a little Hasidic WWII orphan who goes to Yankee Stadium to save the “Yenkiss” in “the house that Ruth built” from being “slaughtered” by the Kansas City Royals – it’s at these times when every tear I cry and breath I breathe become a holy “hallelujah.” “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael grumps, and then to his surprise and delight, he encounters Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, and his life will never be the same. “There’s got to be more than flesh and bone,” Tom Waits growls. “There are angels in the architecture” sings Paul Simon. In movies like The Shawshank Redemption, Magnolia, and Life Is Beautiful hope blooms like an Easter lily amidst the sewage of the worst of our human brokenness and depravity. I find the most tender expression of sacrificial love expressed in the bleak post-apocalyptic landscape of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I discover the strength to carry my own burden as I get lost in the fantastical journey of Tolkien’s Frodo and Sam. I can see glimpses of Christ even in the world of Harry Potter. I think part of the reason why we find God in these unexpected places is because God’s story of redemption is the best story of all, and all other story-tellers are left with no choice but to borrow from The Great Story. One of Frederick Buechner’s most memorable novels follows the character of Leo Bebb, a bit of a religious huckster who in spite of (or maybe because of) his idiosyncratic and often misguided adventures, God shows up. Bebb – founder of the church Holy Love, Inc. – is more or less a stump preacher just barely one step ahead of the law and being caught in the tangles of his own deceits. In all of his shortcomings, however, it is clear that something holy is at work here. Buechner talks often in his work of the hidden-ness of God, and The Book of Bebb was one of the first stories that taught me to watch not only the foreground where the characters are playing their parts, but also the background where God is directing the action. If the devil is in the details, then God is in the subtext. This gives me hope. As far as spiritual exercises go, I confess that looking for God in these least likely places of the music and stories I enjoy may be a bit self-indulgent. I suppose it is my way of whistling in the dark in hopes that God may be at work in even my most unexpected places – in my brokenness, my pain, my jealousy and fear, my anger, my sadness, my failure. These are the places where hope is tested, where hope matters and has meaning.“If you keep your eyes open, you’ll always see something,” my wife tells me. I think she’s right, and so I’m always looking.

Matt: The summer movie season. I can sum it in two words: endlessly mindless. Three months of raunchy comedies and flying stuntmen, formulaic romances and exploding aliens. And I can’t say I’m excited in the least. My favorite time of year is Oscar season. I love a good story. I appreciate memorable acting performances far more than speeding cars. I enjoy beautiful cinematography or clever camera angles more than soft-core porn and fart jokes. And my wish for this summer movie season is that some studios would offer something worthwhile in the middle of the endless drivel. Curt, are you with me? Curt: I’m with you, brother Matt. I’ve considered boycotting theater movies, especially during the inane summer blockbuster season, but I’m ultimately reluctant to give up the big screen movie-going experience, even for a season. And if one persistently mines the depths of mainstream moviedom, occasionally the cinema seeker is rewarded with something of real value. Thankfully, I benefit from living in a metro area that provides some decent alternatives. In the age of the multiplex and megaplex, I sometimes visit a single-screen movie palace showing primarily independent film. It’s slightly on the seedy side, but it shows the indie films I love. My home city also boasts a brand new theater with two screens featuring the classics, critically acclaimed indie efforts, documentaries, and foreign films. So, I do have refuge from the megaplex monster. Thankfully, the summer blockbuster stretch–which runs from May to August–does offer some promise in 2008. That’s promise, not profits. Similar sound, different concept. 2007 was a record year for the summer season with a take of $4.1 billion. While I am a proponent of capitalism, it’s of little concern to me if that record is broken in the 2008 summer season. Give me something that is unpredictable, thoughtful, nuanced, beautiful, and true. Give me a great story. No, the story doesn’t have to be true, but I hope to find truth in the story. And by the way, none of that precludes a good fart joke. I’ve always said, “Never discount the glories of a good fart joke.” What say you, Matt? Matt: You can keep the fart jokes. And even the Apatow comedies, which I think I’m the only person on Planet Earth not fawning over such movies. I, too, have such a movieplex nearby to enjoy good independent film. But I will say that the blockbuster movies can entice me if they’re as intelligent, well-done and just plain enjoyable as Batman Begins. I definitely have a list of the low-brow movies that I’m aiming to check out, including (but not limited to): Ironman, Batman, X-Files 2 and maybe Wall-E (which I’m sure would be a certainty if I had little ones). Other promising titles abound, but I really hope to not give too much to the popcorn monsters at my local cinema. My definitely ‘no-way’ movie which automatically puts me in the ‘loser’ group around my friends: the new Indiana Jones. I could care less to watch an 86 year-old pretending to swing from whips, ropes and rafters. This movie has ‘Jar Jar Binks’ remake all over it (in the same way that Episode 1 absolutely ruined the Star Wars legacy and made it a joke). I already think they took the Indiana Jones series one step too far, so this is even more. What are your hopes in the midst of a busy summer season? And what is your ‘no-way’ movie, if you have one? Curt: In terms of blockbuster fare, despite some concerns about The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, I have high hopes for it. I’ve read that a gratuitous (my word) action sequence has been added and that conflict between Peter Pevensie and Prince Caspian has been fabricated. But I’m willing to wait for the movie before pronouncing judgment on the changes. I’ve seen the trailer and was captivated by the tone. The music, cinematography, and mystical, magical ambiance have me excited about seeing it. I wasn’t enthralled with The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, but thought it was very good, far exceeding my expectations. Director Andrew Adamson seems to have a handle on this material and appreciates and respects C.S. Lewis’s narrative. They could have hired somebody better (Guillermo del Toro?), but not much better. June finds The Happening in U.S. theaters, M. Night Shyamalan’s follow up to the dismal Lady in the Water. It’s the story of a family on the run from a mysterious natural disaster. If you were as awed by The Sixth Sense, The Village, and Signs as I was, you will understand my eager anticipation of The Happening. More brief observations: 1) I am more eager to see Hellboy II: The Golden Army than I am Iron Man, 2) I will see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, but probably only on DVD, 3) Pixar can do no wrong; Wall-E looks to continue the string of hits that captivate children and adults in one fell swoop. Good for Pixar. Oh, and by the way, take a gander at Wall-E. Is it my imagination or does he look a lot like a junkyard version of Johnny Five of Short Circuit infamy? 4) Christopher Nolan and star Christian Bale brought the Batman franchise back to prominence in 2005 with Batman Begins. Will The Dark Knight–set to release on July 18–continue the magic? I hope so, 5) This summer is fraught with superheroes, science fiction, sequel, stoner fluff, and for some reason, T.V. show rehashes. It looks like I’ll be scrambling more than usual to find what I’m looking for. My “No way movie?” It’s Sex and the City. I understand the T.V. show has won all kinds of awards and that it stars Sarah Jessica Parker, but I’ve never had even mild curiosity to watch it on T.V.–for free. So I can’t imagine actually paying real money to check it out on the big screen. Apparently the writing is good, but even that doesn’t inspire one iota of desire in me to see it. Here’s one sleeper that has me interested: It’s called Son of Rambow and according to the movie’s website, it’s “a fresh and visually inventive take on family, friendship, and faith.” It’s a British comedy featuring young Will Proudfoot, raised in isolation in a religious sect in which music and movies are strictly forbidden. Will encounters his first movie when he gets his hands on a pirated copy of Rambo: First Blood, and his world is blown wide open as he becomes secretly addicted to filmmaking. If that doesn’t top the latest sequel to the X-Files movie or The Incredible Hulk (even though it stars the great Edward Norton), I don’t know what does. Matt: Good call on Shyamalan. I completely forgot that summer entry and will be first in line. Ultimately, here’s hoping we’re both proved wrong and some quality is among the quantity (of dollars). Curt: Readers should note that the smaller films–indie films in particular–are by definition difficult to anticipate. The promotional machine that insures that a blockbuster be positioned as a blockbuster before it’s even released, does not exist in the indie world. As such, we will do our best to cherry pick those that we hope will offer high artistic merit and potential for a memorable movie-going experience as the summer evolves. Meanwhile, what are your “must see,” “no way,” and “sleeper” movies for the upcoming season?

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. However, while on the surface her material seems similar to other popular characterizations of the South (it is populated with racists, radicals, preachers, proper manners, crooked salesmen, farm animals, old money, haunting landscapes, gaudy outfits, cultural backwoods religion that borders on superstition, a wide variety of physical disabilities etc.) and while she writes in plain, though colloquial, English, the stories and her manner of telling them depict a strange, beautiful, comical and disturbing world all her own. As with any good works of literature, the further I have read into her unique and surreal tales the more I have seen that they are the stories of everyone’s spiritual and physical deformities, including my own. While her work is humbling and full of supernatural grace, I would be amiss not to say that it is incredibly entertaining as well. Published after she died young from lupus, The Complete Stories spans her entire short but prolific literary career, including the first complete short stories she ever wrote (and supposedly would have preferred not to have been published) all the way to her last piece “Judgment Day.” Over time I have come to learn that the best way to understand and enjoy her stories is to read more of them. This collection provides the perfect opportunity.