Posts tagged "Michael Jackson"
Another Week Ends: Zeitgeistlichkeit, Atheist Religiosity, Freakonomic Fathers, Ralph Erskine, MJ, Devo’s Paradox, Hunger Games, Deep Blue Sea, and Hoarders
Books / Children / Death / Economics / Film / Humor / Law / Literature / Music / Religion / Theology / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Zeitgeistlichkeit, Atheist Religiosity, Freakonomic Fathers, Ralph Erskine, MJ, Devo’s Paradox, Hunger Games, Deep Blue Sea, and Hoarders

by David Zahl on Mar 23, 2012 • No Comments

1. A pair of terrific book reviews have appeared in The NY Times over the last couple weeks, the first being Generation X author Douglas Coupland‘s inspiring riff on Hari Kunzu’s opus, Gods Without Men, and the exciting new genre it epitomizes (“Translit”). Ironically enough, he makes a number of Twitter-ready observations:

[We are living in a] “state of possibly permanent atemporality given to us courtesy of the Internet. No particular era now dominates. We live in a post-era without forms of its own powerful enough to brand the times. The zeitgest of 2012 is that we have a lot of…

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Didn’t We Almost Have It All: Whitney Houston’s Life as Impasse
Addiction / Celebrity / Film / Music / Suffering

Didn’t We Almost Have It All: Whitney Houston’s Life as Impasse

by Jeff Hual on Feb 17, 2012 • 3 Comments

My wife and I were watching Saturday Night Live when NBC broke the news that Whitney Houston had died. Other than the time and place of her death, no other details were given. And, truthfully, we didn’t need any other details to have an inkling of what had happened. Just as with the announcement of Michael Jackson’s passing, we had all watched Whitney slide into her downward spiral.

I was in High School when “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” started airing on MTV. I’m sure everyone has seen it. Think about what we see there: one can’t help but see the…

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Hopelessly Devoted: Ecclesiastes Chapter Two Verses Twenty Through Twenty-Three
Bible / Theology

Hopelessly Devoted: Ecclesiastes Chapter Two Verses Twenty Through Twenty-Three

by Mockingbird on Oct 31, 2011 • No Comments

In light of all of tonight’s zombie-trolling, cheerleaders-from-the-dead, and bloody celebrities, a short word on the nature of identity, and the only hope we’ve got. This Monday morning’s devotional comes from one of this weekend’s speakers, David Browder:

“So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labors under the sun, because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. What has a man from all the…

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The (Forensic) Justification of Michael Jackson
Celebrity / Identity / Law / Music / Theology

The (Forensic) Justification of Michael Jackson

by David Zahl on Jun 29, 2011 • No Comments

This past Saturday marked the second anniversary of Michael Jackon’s death, and we wouldn’t be the Mockingbirds that we are if we didn’t commemorate it somehow. Below you’ll find an excerpt of our friend Brent Kuhlman’s excellent paper “Justification: Forensically Speaking!” Pastor Kuhlman would be the first to admit that some of the inspiration for the material came from, well, yours truly. Needless to say, I’m very flattered. If you’ve never heard the sermon I preached the week of MJ’s passing, which I consider one of my proudest moments, I’ve embedded it at the bottom of the post. So without…

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Another Week Ends: Online Echo Chambers, Deathbed Regrets, Dylan at the Cross, MJ’s Bad, Singing Spiderman, Penmanship Psychology & Seinfeld
America / Celebrity / Death / Music / Psychology / Religion / Technology / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Online Echo Chambers, Deathbed Regrets, Dylan at the Cross, MJ’s Bad, Singing Spiderman, Penmanship Psychology & Seinfeld

by David Zahl on Jun 3, 2011 • 2 Comments

1. A couple of articles that follow-up on the filter bubble phenomenon we posted on last week, both from The NY Times. The first is an editorial by Eli Pariser, “When The Internet Thinks It Knows You” and the second a slightly broader look at the issue, “The Trouble With The Echo Chamber Online.” While the issue is clearly an important one, the solutions being proposed – i.e. programmed diversity  – strikes me as a tad shallow. That is, there’s clearly a resistance to the idea that we might actually be culpable in our selective listening/browsing in a way that…

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Another Week Ends: More Pale King, Game of Thrones, Moonwalker, Manny Ramirez, Take The Money and Run
Art / Bible / Film / Music / News / Religion / Social Science / Sports / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: More Pale King, Game of Thrones, Moonwalker, Manny Ramirez, Take The Money and Run

by David Zahl on Apr 15, 2011 • No Comments

Happy Tax Day! We hope you’ve enjoyed this first week on the new site. We certainly have. Be sure to be in touch as you notice things/bugs, either via the form at the bottom of each post or info@mbird.com. Two small updates: 1. The glossary section will be returning soon-ish, but in rewritten form. In the meantime, you can click on the Glossary category in the sidebar to find the old entries. And 2. We’re on Facebook! Like us, love us, share us, just please don’t ever break up with us… On that note:

1. In celebration of it hitting shelves…

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Children / Comics / Film

Why Pixar?

by Todd Brewer on Mar 16, 2011 • 5 Comments

In case you needed another reason to check out our own The Gospel According to Pixar, I submit to you the following cartoon from poe-news:

It’s funny because it’s true. The Dreamworks formula is to get big name talent (Jack Black, Jerry Seinfeld, Will Smith, Eddie Murphy, and Will Farrell to name a few) to inflate a less than stellar story, while Pixar just keeps putting out Oscar winning movies.

Music / Religion

Tender Are The Ashes

by David Zahl on Mar 9, 2011 • No Comments

Happy Ash Wednesday… from Honeybus:

Michael’s Michael
Music / Reviews

Michael’s Michael

by David Zahl on Dec 14, 2010 • No Comments

So today marks the release of Michael Jackson’s first “real” posthumous record, Michael, and the verdict is predictably mixed. It’s certainly not the tour-de-force he was rumored to be working on in the years leading up to his death (high profile collaborations, for example with will.i.am and Ne-Yo, are nowhere to be found), but it is also not without its charms. In fact, if you can overlook the god-awful opening “Hold My Hand” (really an Akon solo track with Michael as guest), you’ll find some near-prime MJ. Chief among them, “Behind the Mask,” a smoking collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto that…

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Music / Playlist

5.5. Covers in Remembrance of John Lennon

by David Zahl on Dec 10, 2010 • 2 Comments

A couple days late of the 30th anniversary of his death, but with added feeling:

1. Jealous Guy – The Faces. Rockin’ Rod and crew proved their impeccable taste in solo-Beatles when they followed up their brilliant cover of “Maybe I’m Amazed” with an equally brilliant version of “Jealous Guy”:

2&3. Come Together. One of my least favorite Lennon songs has inexplicably been given the deluxe treatment by not one but three of my heroes. Of special note is the fact that in 1994 it marked Axl’s final public appearance before disappearing for six years.

A few years before in the Moonwalker movie,…

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Another Week Ends: Seminarian Plagiarism, Disney’s Decline, DCAU, Mad Men, MJ
Celebrity / Education / Film / Gender / Identity / TV / Week In Review

Another Week Ends: Seminarian Plagiarism, Disney’s Decline, DCAU, Mad Men, MJ

by David Zahl on Nov 19, 2010 • No Comments

1. Our Pensacola mini-conference is underway! If you live in the area, don’t be afraid to drop in unannounced… We would love to see you. And those of you that don’t live in the area, don’t be afraid to say a prayer in support.

2. An unsettling firsthand account of professional plagiarism over at The Chronicle of Higher Education, entitled “The Shadow Scholar”, the most arresting portion for us being (ht AZ):

I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat…

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Music

MJ Breaks The News

by David Zahl on Nov 9, 2010 • No Comments

Old news by now, but slightly dated beat aside, it’s a fantastic tune, and a great blast of vintage MJ-victimhood spleen-venting:  True, it may not be for us to know the times or dates the Father has set, but occasionally we catch a glimpse: only 34 days until MICHAEL is released! [Click here to watch part of the interview Oprah did with his family yesterday.]

p.s. Never thought such exciting posthumous MJ news could come close to being matched, but word has just come out that Mbird heroes Pulp are reuniting! This blogger has never forgiven himself for missing their secret show…

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Michael Jackson’s Ghosts
Books / Film / Identity

Michael Jackson’s Ghosts

by David Zahl on Oct 28, 2010 • 1 Comment

With Halloween/Reformation Day almost here, what better time to revisit Michael Jackson’s 1996 little-seen opus Ghosts? Conceived as a Thriller-style mini-movie (or maxi-video), the 40-minute “horror” piece never really saw the light of day, and remains unavailable on DVD. Thank God for youtube! Thank God also for Nathan Rabin of The A/V Club, who just published a masterful look at this HIStory-era curio, in an excerpt from his terrific new book, My Year of Flops. If you’ve never seen Ghosts, I commend it to you for three reasons: 1. It’s Michael Jackson 2. The Stan Winston-effects are really something to…

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Soren Kierkegaard and Charlie Brown: The Original Mockingbirds
Books / Church / Comics / Humor / Philosophy / Theology

Soren Kierkegaard and Charlie Brown: The Original Mockingbirds

by Aaron M. G. Zimmerman on Aug 2, 2010 • 11 Comments

Mockingbird’s purpose is “to connect the historic truths of the Gospel with the realities of everyday life in as fresh and down-to-earth a way possible.”

That means we use a lot of illustrations. Whether it’s the films of Whit Stillman or Pixar, the music of Elvis or Michael Jackson, or recent headlines from the world of sports or psychological research, we’re always beginning with analogies, stories, illustrations, and examples to explain things like sin, grace, love, forgiveness, and redemption. At times, people object: should Christians be listening to/watching/reading that “culture” stuff?

Definitely.

Why? Because people generally don’t want to hear what we have…

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Weds Morning Rock N Roll: The Jackson 5 sing Jackson Browne
Music / Prayer / Religion

Weds Morning Rock N Roll: The Jackson 5 sing Jackson Browne

by David Zahl on Jun 30, 2010 • 1 Comment

A really bad idea can sometimes be a beautiful thing. It can even be inspired. Take, for instance, David Bowie doing Little Drummer boy with Bing Crosby in 1977. Or Bob Dylan doing a Christmas album (and a Victoria’s Secret commercial) this past year. Left-field career-killing moves are nothing if not fascinating. Another prime, but little known, example would have to be The Jackson 5 choosing to follow up their hit 1972 single “Lookin’ Through The Windows” with an extremely peppy take on Jackson Browne’s “Doctor My Eyes.” Presumably Motown was looking to cash in on the (nominal) success of…

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