The Moral Charge of Couch Surfing: Lovetarians, Oppression-Free Homes, and You
I’d selected Fielding and my other hosts after scrolling through hundreds of profiles, winnowing out those whose narratives included “party,” “vegan,” and “free spirit,” and the phrases “I believe in the journey,” “Never stop learning, never stop loving,” and “Burning Man.” Among those to whom I did not write “couch requests” were a “travelling magician and professional fool” from New Mexico; a sixty-three-year-old gay semi-retired handyman in Pahoa, Hawaii, whose mission is “looking for more nudists”… another Hawaiian, this one describing himself as “just a guy who has three acres of land, living in a shipping container house”; a woman…
Testimony – Stephen Dunn
The Lord woke me in the middle of the night,
and there stood Jesus with a huge tray,
and the tray was heaped with cookies,
and He said, Stephen, have a cookie,
and that’s when I knew for sure the Lord
is the real deal, the Man of all men,
because at that very moment
I was thinking of cookies, Vanilla Wafers
to be exact, and there were two
Vanilla Wafers in among the chocolate
chips and the lemon ices, and one
had a big S on it, and I knew it was for me,
and Jesus took it off the tray and put it
in my mouth, as if He were give me
communication, or whatever they call it.
Then He said, Have another,
and I tell you I thought a long time before I
refused, because I knew it was a test
to see if I was a Christian, which means
a man like Christ, and not a big ole hog.
Willy Loman and the Tragic Gospel of Achievement
It’s embarrassing. I’ve never seen nor read Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. I know it’s supposed to be one of the great American pieces of literature, but in high school they assigned The Crucible instead, and let’s just say I wasn’t in a huge rush to seek out more afterwards. But John Lahr’s review of Mike Nichols’ new staging of the play (with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the role of Willy Loman) in The New Yorker has changed all that. Lahr waxes very eloquently on what he calls “the gospel of achievement” that is embodied in the character of Willy…
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Another Week Ends: Zeitgeistlichkeit, Atheist Religiosity, Freakonomic Fathers, Ralph Erskine, MJ, Devo’s Paradox, Hunger Games, Deep Blue Sea, and Hoarders
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…
When the Man (Sort of) Comes Around: Reinterpreting Pagels’ Reinterpretation of Revelation
A bit of a firestorm emerged last week in the wake of a very prominent New Yorker review by Adam Gopnik of Elaine Pagels’ recent book on the Book of Revelation, Revelations. Since then, Pagels has been featured in everything from the Daily Beast to the Washington Post. The virtual commotion is quite understandable: Pagels has published many successful books on Gnosticism in early Christianity and currently occupies a tenured chair at Princeton University. But above all, her book has created a stir because it has asserted that Revelation was written in opposition to Pauline Christianity. For Pagels, when John…
The Myth of Brainstorming and the Fruit of Passive (Non-)Management
Why do we find it easy to be creative in some situations and not others? What sorts of atmospheres shut down our imagination? And what sorts stimulate it? A pair of fascinating articles from pop science/human limitation guru Jonah Lehrer appeared this past week seeking to answer these questions, a short one in Wired and a longer one in The New Yorker. Presumably in anticipation of his forthcoming book on how creativity works. Lehrer relays a number of important findings on the subject, not the least of which is the debunking of brainstorming as a viable method of generating good…
Children / Death / Film / Gender / Grace in Practice / Humor / Literature / Religion / Social Science / TV / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Colbert’s Gratitude, Eagleton’s Jesus, Silent Men, Parenthood, Buck, Twilight Sparkle, and Sendak on Blake
1. Midway through The New York Times Magazine’s lengthy profile of America’s favorite all-around man-of-excellence Stephen Colbert, a bomb drops. To comment on his words might detract from their power. Holy Smokes, ht NM:
In 1974, when Colbert was 10, his father, a doctor, and his brothers Peter and Paul, the two closest to him in age, died in a plane crash while flying to a prep school in New England. “There’s a common explanation that profound sadness leads to someone’s becoming a comedian, but I’m not sure that’s a proven equation in my case,” he told me. “I’m not bitter…
Books / Comics / Fashion / Humor / Identity / Music / Poetry / Religion / Social Science / Theology / Year In Review
More 2011 Favorites: Books, Documentaries, Musical Discoveries and Web
Books and Film
Favorite Piece of Fiction (Read During 2011): Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. Not just a favorite of the year, but a favorite, period. It’s a rare work of art indeed that can shed light on both The Royal Tenenbaums and the Jesus Prayer. Unbelievably wise, delightfully funny and deeply religious (in the best possible sense), I’m not sure Christ had a better spokesman in the 20th century than Zooey Glass. And has Salinger’s dialogue ever been bettered? I’m only embarrassed it took me this long to discover it. Favorite novel released in 2011 would have to be…
Children / Death / Film / Humor / Identity / Law / Music / Poetry / Religion / Social Science / Sports / Technology / Week In Review
Another Week Ends: Hitch, Facebook Blues, Baby Morality, Auden’s Conversion, M:I4, The Replacements, Gorey Animation, and Knowing Yule
1. By now you’ve no doubt heard that legendary journalist/polemicist/personality/Atheist Christopher Hitchens died yesterday. Hitchens was always my favorite of the New Atheists, and not just because he was the funniest. Alone of his colleagues (and I’m sure he hated being lumped in with anyone!), he seemed to object to the Gospel itself, rather than the normal hangups about the Bible or the Church. He found the idea of Grace to be repulsive and morally reprehensible. “Vicarious redemption” is what he called it, insisting that the notion that a person could be forgiven by someone other than the one they…
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