Posts tagged "New York"
"Lonnie Loosie" on the Bound Will
Addiction / News / Politics

"Lonnie Loosie" on the Bound Will

by Jeff Hual on Apr 7, 2011 • 1 Comment

An article that appeared in Monday’s New York Times discussed something absolutely fascinating to me. I had no idea of the problems that the New York City cigarette tax has created for so many New York residents.

According to the article, an average pack of smokes now costs $12.50 in Midtown Manhattan, a price that is outrageous. Even with the salary premiums that New Yorkers enjoy when compared with other parts of the country, such a high price is going to price people out of the habit…or should price people out. But instead, it simply turns them to…

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Why I Am Coming to NYC
Conferences / Testimony / Theology

Why I Am Coming to NYC

by Jeff Hual on Mar 14, 2011 • 3 Comments

Each year it seems like such an undertaking: spending money on travel for myself that could have been used for a family vacation; enduring crowded flights and dreary layovers; trudging to and fro on subway lines and unfamiliar avenues, a stranger in a strange land – all to spend a few fleeting days at a religious conference. Is it worth it, you may ask? Well, I wrote what follows after last year’s conference, and it sums up the reason why I intend to make this annual pilgrimage to New York City as long as there is a Mockingbird…

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Death and Resurrection in Church Planting. And Life.
Church / Conferences / Suffering / Testimony / Theology

Death and Resurrection in Church Planting. And Life.

by R-J Heijmen on Mar 11, 2011 • No Comments

Here at Mockingbird we pride ourselves on being Theologians of the Cross. That is to say, we believe that God works, most often and most powerfully, through weakness and defeat, rather than in strength and victory. As Paul writes, recounting God’s answer to him in the midst of suffering:

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in…

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Music / Religion

Tender Are The Ashes

by David Zahl on Mar 9, 2011 • No Comments

Happy Ash Wednesday… from Honeybus:

Church / Humor

Scumbags Welcome

by David Zahl on Mar 7, 2011 • 2 Comments

Two thumbs up. Details here:

Music

Thursday Afternoon Rock N Roll: Josh Ritter’s "To The Dogs Or Whoever"

by David Zahl on Mar 3, 2011 • No Comments

Robbie Robertson once said that “The Weight” was about the impossibility of sainthood. This song is too:

Oh bring me the love that can sweeten a sword
A boat that can love the rocks or the shore
The love of the iceberg reaching out for a wreck
Can you love me like the crosses love the nape of the neck?
Children / Film

The Sally Fowler Rat Pack (at 7-years old)

by Stampdawg on Feb 14, 2011 • No Comments

NEW YORK CITY—This dance school image was part of a photo story about upper-class children taking dancing lessons and being taught social graces. The lesson pictured was conducted in the lobby of a ritzy Park Avenue building to the music of a live four-person band, part of the social set Lester Lanin Orchestra that used to play at many of the New York balls and social events (and perhaps still does), 1977.

Taken from Slate’s always amazing MAGNUM photo gallery.

Watch the Mockingbird favorite Metropolitan if you want to see those kids all grown up.

The Ripped and the Righteous: The Gospel According to Jack LaLanne
Celebrity / Food / Identity / Law / Religion

The Ripped and the Righteous: The Gospel According to Jack LaLanne

by David Zahl on Feb 1, 2011 • 2 Comments

Frank Bruni cooked up (!) quite the enlightening editorial in Saturday’s NY Times about the recently deceased fitness guru Jack LaLanne, tracing the ways LaLanne was responsible for turning exercise into a religion, the gym into a temple, etc. I’ll spare you a diatribe about the superficiality of “discipline” for discipline’s sake – Bruni says/implies what needs to be said/implied – what’s more interesting here is that although LaLanne may not have come up with the outside-in approach to self-improvement (that particular ‘face’ has been launching ships since the Stone Age), he was certainly instrumental in figuring out how to…

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Self-Knowledge and the Steelers
Identity / Sports / Theology

Self-Knowledge and the Steelers

by Nick Lannon on Jan 28, 2011 • 1 Comment

I’m a huge Steelers fan. I come by it honestly, having lived in Pittsburgh for three years while I was in seminary. Yet I’ve recently noticed that rooting for the Steelers really throws my lack of sanctification into sharp relief.

Before last week’s AFC Championship game against the hometown Jets (my parish, though in New Jersey, is closer to New York than New Meadowlands Stadium, where both the “New York” Jets and Giants play), people started asking me if we were going to throw a Super Bowl party at our church. We did last year, watching the Colts fall short…

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Human Righteousness as performed by The Portsmouth Sinfonia
Music / Theology

Human Righteousness as performed by The Portsmouth Sinfonia

by Joshua Corrigan on Jan 10, 2011 • 4 Comments

Have you heard the Portsmouth Sinfonia?

You see, The Portsmouth Sinfonia was founded by an English art school in 1970. Oddly, its primary requirement was that the musicians not be…well… musicians, or at least not play the instrument to which they were assigned. This reminds me of what I put my parents through for nine years of semi-annual school orchestra concerts (not to mention practices).

But why expose anyone to this abysmal cacophony of Nixon era ear horror? Because they took it seriously. Just as we take seriously our daily moral efforts and supposed petty superiorities. The music presents itself as…

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Narrative and the Grace of God: The New ‘True Grit’
Everyday / Film / Grace in Practice / Literature

Narrative and the Grace of God: The New ‘True Grit’

by Bryan J. on Dec 30, 2010 • 4 Comments

Stanley Fish is doing our job for us over on the New York Times Online OpEd Section. Fish, an academic known for his postmodern literary criticism (think interpretive communities) and guest writer for the NYT, wrote a piece entitled Narrative and the Grace of God: The New ‘True Grit’ which sounds like something Nick Lannon would write about here at Mockingbird. Be Warned: Dr. Fish’s article contains spoilers though this post does not!

I haven’t seen the new Coen Brother’s movie yet, but rest assured that will be remedied in the next few days. Until then, I figured…

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Christ Was Never In Christmas
Christmas / Church / Religion / Testimony

Christ Was Never In Christmas

by Mockingbird on Dec 21, 2010 • 4 Comments

A timely reflection from Mbird friend Russ Masterson: 

The tug is relentless this time of year – look at things, buy things, think about things. In December materialism is like breathing, at least it is for me. In the Christmas season we tend to overshop and overeat – an admittedly weird way to celebrate the birth of Jesus, a man who modeled simplicity and moderation. Of course, Santa Claus has become as much the key person in the holiday as Christ. You probably know the story: Saint Nicholas was a fourth century saint, the bishop of Myra (present day Turkey)…

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More Best’s and Worst’s: Dance World, Family Bands, Phrases
Music

More Best’s and Worst’s: Dance World, Family Bands, Phrases

by Mockingbird on Dec 10, 2010 • 2 Comments

A refreshingly high culture year-end list from Mbird behind-the-scenes man Ken Wilson, aka KW:

Dance World Best and Worst of the Decade

Best

The birth and growth of Suzanne Farrell Ballet: The little ballet company run by George Balanchine’s last muse is only a part-time operation that can’t compete for top talent with neo-classical troupes in New York, Miami, Seattle or San Francisco. But nowhere else do the master’s works look so fresh and the dancers so musical, and Farrell regularly revives forgotten works he made on her. “Apres moi, le deluge,” Mr B. said. But not while Farrell is still coaching.…

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Ira Glass on Wrongness, Failure and Creativity
Art / Everyday / News / Psychology

Ira Glass on Wrongness, Failure and Creativity

by David Zahl on Dec 6, 2010 • 1 Comment

A major recent find is The Wrong Stuff blog over at Slate, in which author Kathryn Schultz (of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error) interviews people about, well, being wrong about things. In October, for example, she interviewed Chuck Colson (of Watergate and Prison Fellowship fame) and found more than her fair share of great soundbites. It’s really worth reading. Then in June she spoke with Ira Glass, the host of NPR’s This American Life. Glass offers some characteristically interesting thoughts on hermeneutics, creativity and failure. Shades of a theology of the cross? (ht AZ)

Why is there such…

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Someone’s Crying, Lord
Music / Politics / Religion

Someone’s Crying, Lord

by David Zahl on Nov 22, 2010 • No Comments

Fascinating little article in last Friday’s NY Times about the unfortunate castration and subsequent politicization of the gospel song “Come By Here,” known these days by its infamous anglicized title, “Kumbaya”:

One particular day [in 1926, down-on-his-luck musicologist Robert Winslow] Gordon captured the sound of someone identified only as H. Wylie, singing a lilting, swaying spiritual in the key of A. The lyrics told of people in despair and in trouble, calling on heaven for help, and beseeching God in the refrain, “Come by here.” With that wax cylinder, the oldest known recording of a spiritual titled …

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