Check out production photos and updates by our Script Supervisor at the official blog for Dave's 16th. I helped make that dolly track!
6.30.2006
oc movie: production photos are up!
Check out production photos and updates by our Script Supervisor at the official blog for Dave's 16th. I helped make that dolly track!
oc movie: day 11, one reason why movies are so expensive
We are almost done with our second week of shooting. Hours are long and the heat is often too much (though today is cool). You either get hot days of shooting outside or wet days when you can't shoot outside--so I guess you're thankful for the heat.
One reason why movies are so expensive is that for almost every object or clothing item you see, there are three or four of them. For example, as in our movie, you have a scene where a guy steps in poop (a special recipe of peanut butter, flour, chocolate and other items), you have to have multiples because if we don't get it the first shot we have to keep doing it over until it's right. Now look at movies currently in theatres--every shirt, coat, pair of shoes has multiples. A two-car crash may actually involve six cars. So, in a certain way, everything you see in a movie costs three or four times as much.
One reason why movies are so expensive is that for almost every object or clothing item you see, there are three or four of them. For example, as in our movie, you have a scene where a guy steps in poop (a special recipe of peanut butter, flour, chocolate and other items), you have to have multiples because if we don't get it the first shot we have to keep doing it over until it's right. Now look at movies currently in theatres--every shirt, coat, pair of shoes has multiples. A two-car crash may actually involve six cars. So, in a certain way, everything you see in a movie costs three or four times as much.
6.27.2006
oc movie: day eight of shooting, why movies always look so 'perfect'
We just wrapped for the day and it was hot. We were working in the upstairs of someone's house and we can't run the air conditioning because it is too loud for the microphone. We have a good system down now and that means a little more relief, a little more laughing and having fun.
Along the issue of sensitivity, is why movies always look so perfect. Actors don't have pimply faces, houses look immaculate, trees have lush leaves, clothes are always clean or properly soiled. No one ever stumbles over words, no one does anything embarassing like smell their armpits or pick their noses.
Well, their a real good reason for this, really the same reason why you never see it in novels--it distracts from storytelling. If a camera shot stays on a person for ten seconds, the viewer is going to start looking around--and he'll start to notice the wrinkles in a shirt, the pit stains, the misplaced hairs. This only takes people off track.
So often something won't look 'right' even if it looks like it does in real life. Someone might leave lots of objects sitting around their kitchen, but for our story we only want one or two objects. Are these people particularly clean? No, but so many objects will only get distracting.
Someone might argue for a more 'realistic' movie, one that doesn't make everything look perfect. But it's not from a sense of being 'unrealistic' that these choices are made, but for the sake of directing the viewer's focus. If someone wanted it make a movie that felt realistic, they too would have to make choices about focus that would direct people to certain objects.
Along the issue of sensitivity, is why movies always look so perfect. Actors don't have pimply faces, houses look immaculate, trees have lush leaves, clothes are always clean or properly soiled. No one ever stumbles over words, no one does anything embarassing like smell their armpits or pick their noses.
Well, their a real good reason for this, really the same reason why you never see it in novels--it distracts from storytelling. If a camera shot stays on a person for ten seconds, the viewer is going to start looking around--and he'll start to notice the wrinkles in a shirt, the pit stains, the misplaced hairs. This only takes people off track.
So often something won't look 'right' even if it looks like it does in real life. Someone might leave lots of objects sitting around their kitchen, but for our story we only want one or two objects. Are these people particularly clean? No, but so many objects will only get distracting.
Someone might argue for a more 'realistic' movie, one that doesn't make everything look perfect. But it's not from a sense of being 'unrealistic' that these choices are made, but for the sake of directing the viewer's focus. If someone wanted it make a movie that felt realistic, they too would have to make choices about focus that would direct people to certain objects.
6.21.2006
oc movie: sensitivity training
It's the third day of shooting for Dave's 16th and I am beginning to learn how sensitive you have to be when working on a film crew. A florescent light buzzes so the audio is lost; a nearly invisible reflection of a crew member is seen in a window or on a wall hanging; someone has a little shine on her forehead or a book behind the actors is out of place. During a take the script supervisor huddles by the monitor, looking for anything awry.
Today in the library we had a squeaky chair--not really a bad chair at all--but we are all so sensitive to the smallest detail it drove us nuts. We also caught an open space in the library books behind the actors and a script could be seen laying on a table behind it. Things like that...it can make you very paranoid, but it also wakes you up to all the sounds and smallest of sights around you.
Today in the library we had a squeaky chair--not really a bad chair at all--but we are all so sensitive to the smallest detail it drove us nuts. We also caught an open space in the library books behind the actors and a script could be seen laying on a table behind it. Things like that...it can make you very paranoid, but it also wakes you up to all the sounds and smallest of sights around you.
6.19.2006
oc movie: first day of shooting, how to run clapboard
Quiet on the set! Sound ready? Yep. Camera Ready? Yep. Roll Camera. Camera Rolling.
Me: Scene-Thirty-Seven-Charlie-Take-Eight!
Action!
Yep, I'm the guy who ran the clapboard today. Our first three scenes to shoot all occur in a restaurant (Blue Mountain, if you're local). When you're the clapboard guy you have to constantly communicate with the Script Supervisor so that your numbers match up with the ones in her book. You also have to keep figuring out how to get the board in front of the camera as everything is moving around and how to move away quickly once you've clapped it.
The first number I call is the scene number, which isn't the same as a theatre scene. The scene is more like a sequence within a specific time and location. For example, if two people are standing on their lawn you would call it "Ext. (exterior) - Lawn - Day." But if they walked inside after talking then you would call it a different scene: "Int. (interior) - House - Day."
There is a letter after the scene number for every position that the camera has in a given sequence. So the first angle is A (apple), the second B (baker), third C (charlie)...roughly based on the military words for letters.
Then comes the take number for the given scene and position; when you switch angles, you begin at 1 again. Then every time the camera starts you give it a new take number.
I dropped the clapboard twice today as I was clapping it. It was embarassing a little, just because you're one of the few crew members who make mistakes while tape is rolling. But everyone laughs and, hey, it's my first day.
Cut!
Me: Scene-Thirty-Seven-Charlie-Take-Eight!
Action!
Yep, I'm the guy who ran the clapboard today. Our first three scenes to shoot all occur in a restaurant (Blue Mountain, if you're local). When you're the clapboard guy you have to constantly communicate with the Script Supervisor so that your numbers match up with the ones in her book. You also have to keep figuring out how to get the board in front of the camera as everything is moving around and how to move away quickly once you've clapped it.
The first number I call is the scene number, which isn't the same as a theatre scene. The scene is more like a sequence within a specific time and location. For example, if two people are standing on their lawn you would call it "Ext. (exterior) - Lawn - Day." But if they walked inside after talking then you would call it a different scene: "Int. (interior) - House - Day."
There is a letter after the scene number for every position that the camera has in a given sequence. So the first angle is A (apple), the second B (baker), third C (charlie)...roughly based on the military words for letters.
Then comes the take number for the given scene and position; when you switch angles, you begin at 1 again. Then every time the camera starts you give it a new take number.
I dropped the clapboard twice today as I was clapping it. It was embarassing a little, just because you're one of the few crew members who make mistakes while tape is rolling. But everyone laughs and, hey, it's my first day.
Cut!
6.16.2006
review: "nacho libre"
I just got back from seeing Nacho Libre, the latest movie from the writer-director of Napoleon Dynamite, Jared Hess. The story follows a monk (Jack Black) who becomes an amateur wrestler for the orphanage he serves.
In Nacho Libre we have all the same artistic sensibilities of Napoleon--a really wonderful rich place texture, a world of filled with religious images and open desert wilderness. Lots of plates of richly-colored food--lots of food (remember how characters constantly ate in Napoleon). All the characters deliver their lines in the same kind of akward stutter. (What is Hess telling his actors?) Also, the costumes are colorful and bizarre and a dazzling to look at.
The real magic is Hess' ability to create off-beat, humble characters that are embarassed but have lots of dreams and lots of heart. Jack Black works well here, for the most part, as the ultimate Hess character--silly, stupid but somehow able to charm. With Black, don't expect any realism. His acting is haphazard and his voice seems to switch from Mexican to Italian to French to American to Jack Black-ish.
Yes, there are dumb moments in the movie and the story suffers (?) from the same lack of plot direction as the Napoleon. The fights in the ring are pretty embarassing. Some times I was left wondering if Hess had been watching old black-and-white comedies with all the physical humor--which often falls flat on contemporary audiences. There were a couple moments that were completely absurd (not as in bad, but as in baffling in their randomness).
But it's still entertaining, and there are some funny character moments (like when Nacho and his partner pray to God for 'nutrients' before a fight). The cinematography is fresh and colorful. Children will enjoy this film and middle schoolers will fight over if it it's "cool" to like it. Adults will blow it off as silliness. I think there is more to Hess than silliness; he is a terrific filmmaker. He creates colorful characters out of everyday life that are deeply local and shows to us the tender, endearing sides of these characters.
In short:
If you liked Napoleon Dynamite, you must see Nacho Libre--and you will probably like it a lot. And you'll have fun finding the endless allusions to ND.
If you hated Napoleon Dynamite, you will probably hate this one, too--avoid it.
But over all, Nacho Libre is a really creative and fun movie that excels in something that is very rare in Hollywood films--originality. The costumes, the scenery, the characters, the dialogue, the cinematography are fresh and well-textured. Somehow by making Nickelodeon films Hess is able to get away with more creativity than he might with bigger projects.
Another cult classic. Watch Hess. He's going to have a following.
In Nacho Libre we have all the same artistic sensibilities of Napoleon--a really wonderful rich place texture, a world of filled with religious images and open desert wilderness. Lots of plates of richly-colored food--lots of food (remember how characters constantly ate in Napoleon). All the characters deliver their lines in the same kind of akward stutter. (What is Hess telling his actors?) Also, the costumes are colorful and bizarre and a dazzling to look at.
The real magic is Hess' ability to create off-beat, humble characters that are embarassed but have lots of dreams and lots of heart. Jack Black works well here, for the most part, as the ultimate Hess character--silly, stupid but somehow able to charm. With Black, don't expect any realism. His acting is haphazard and his voice seems to switch from Mexican to Italian to French to American to Jack Black-ish.
Yes, there are dumb moments in the movie and the story suffers (?) from the same lack of plot direction as the Napoleon. The fights in the ring are pretty embarassing. Some times I was left wondering if Hess had been watching old black-and-white comedies with all the physical humor--which often falls flat on contemporary audiences. There were a couple moments that were completely absurd (not as in bad, but as in baffling in their randomness).
But it's still entertaining, and there are some funny character moments (like when Nacho and his partner pray to God for 'nutrients' before a fight). The cinematography is fresh and colorful. Children will enjoy this film and middle schoolers will fight over if it it's "cool" to like it. Adults will blow it off as silliness. I think there is more to Hess than silliness; he is a terrific filmmaker. He creates colorful characters out of everyday life that are deeply local and shows to us the tender, endearing sides of these characters.
In short:
If you liked Napoleon Dynamite, you must see Nacho Libre--and you will probably like it a lot. And you'll have fun finding the endless allusions to ND.
If you hated Napoleon Dynamite, you will probably hate this one, too--avoid it.
But over all, Nacho Libre is a really creative and fun movie that excels in something that is very rare in Hollywood films--originality. The costumes, the scenery, the characters, the dialogue, the cinematography are fresh and well-textured. Somehow by making Nickelodeon films Hess is able to get away with more creativity than he might with bigger projects.
Another cult classic. Watch Hess. He's going to have a following.
6.15.2006
oc movie: continuity
...today we are working on putting together a 20-foot-long dolly track with PVC pipe and other materials. Yesterday I read through the script and got a feel for the work we're going to be doing. Lots of night work and street work, which will be more comfortable than spending lots of days in the heat or crammed into small rooms.
The entire movie takes place in one day, but the shooting will last almost a month, so continuity becomes very important. Hair can't grow long, stumble must be maintained, clothes and styles have to stay the same.
The entire movie takes place in one day, but the shooting will last almost a month, so continuity becomes very important. Hair can't grow long, stumble must be maintained, clothes and styles have to stay the same.
6.13.2006
breaking news: youth pastor walks into the southern baptist national convention!
Read this "story" about the Baptist convention.
First, the headline "Disputes Likely at Baptist meeting"...this isn't news, right? I mean I could create a headline for just about anything "Disputes likely at World of Warcraft convention" "Disputes likely at dinner table tonight." Where are disputes not likely? Your local cemetery.
The story is nothing about likely disputes. It's about this youth pastor named Art from Kentucky and who said there were some pretty dirty politics in 1994. Well, the youth pastor is back. ... That's it. Art the youth pastor is returning to meetings and his opinion is that there were "dirty politics."
What a poorly written story. There is one quote. One person. No facts about how many people will be at the convention, no actual information about the presidential race that is "hotly" contested. Nothing. Obviously a filler or someone didn't want to do their homework. This is the "coverage" of the Southern Baptist convention.
No information is communicated here. This is the journalistic equivalent of two farmers in the summer time:
"Looks like it's gonna be a hot one."
"Yep."
First, the headline "Disputes Likely at Baptist meeting"...this isn't news, right? I mean I could create a headline for just about anything "Disputes likely at World of Warcraft convention" "Disputes likely at dinner table tonight." Where are disputes not likely? Your local cemetery.
The story is nothing about likely disputes. It's about this youth pastor named Art from Kentucky and who said there were some pretty dirty politics in 1994. Well, the youth pastor is back. ... That's it. Art the youth pastor is returning to meetings and his opinion is that there were "dirty politics."
What a poorly written story. There is one quote. One person. No facts about how many people will be at the convention, no actual information about the presidential race that is "hotly" contested. Nothing. Obviously a filler or someone didn't want to do their homework. This is the "coverage" of the Southern Baptist convention.
No information is communicated here. This is the journalistic equivalent of two farmers in the summer time:
"Looks like it's gonna be a hot one."
"Yep."
6.12.2006
a "faun" of gambling gets a guilty conscience
I found this bizarre story on New York Times about a college student who, on his way to seeing The Chronicles of Narnia, robs a bank and then went and watched the entire movie with his friends. Hogan is the robber; this quote:
Wallen drove on to the theater, unaware of what had just happened. The three friends were soon settling into 135 minutes of "Narnia." Hogan found he couldn't concentrate on the movie.
Wallen drove on to the theater, unaware of what had just happened. The three friends were soon settling into 135 minutes of "Narnia." Hogan found he couldn't concentrate on the movie.
oc movie: dave's 16th, my summer job
Today was my first day helping out on the independent movie Dave's 16th here in town. This is what I will be consumed with for the next five weeks. The production blog is here; I don't know how often it will be updated.
Today we had a meeting with the director, producer and the assistants. I will be working with lighting, computer video transfer stuff and, of course, a whole lot of other things. The crew (except for me) is experienced and most of the assistants are theatre people so they know how to work as a team.
Haven't even read the script! I will be receiving a copy this afternoon; read-through on Saturday.
Today we had a meeting with the director, producer and the assistants. I will be working with lighting, computer video transfer stuff and, of course, a whole lot of other things. The crew (except for me) is experienced and most of the assistants are theatre people so they know how to work as a team.
Haven't even read the script! I will be receiving a copy this afternoon; read-through on Saturday.
6.10.2006
spirited away: why jesus didn't come to 'take us higher'
You hear it in Switchfoot's "Meant to Live":
We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life, yeah
You hear it in Creed's "Higher":
When dreaming I'm guided through another world
Time and time again
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep
'Cause I don't want to leave the comfort of this place
'Cause there's a hunger, a longing to escape
From the life I live when I'm awake
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask can we stay?
What we hear is the longing for another world, another place, some escape from how things are now. These are considered among many to be "Christian" songs, or at least "Christian-friendly." They sound quite a bit like the songs I sang during worship time at church growing up. In many of these songs there a longing for escape, a hope to be transported into another plane or to a state of mind that was given entirely to God. Another song, Lifehouse's "Take Me Away," comes to mind:
I've seen it all and it's never enough
it keeps leaving me needing you
take me away
take me away
I've got nothing left to say
just take me away
Worship leaders would often encourage us to leave the worries of the world behind, to empty our minds of restless thoughts, to give ourselves over to the Spirit, to hold nothing back. It was this kind of challenge--to dream, to imagine ourselves spirited away into some other state--that led me and my friends toward many tears, many physically overwhelming shocks of emotion, confessions, promises. It also led to forgiving each other, turning from destructive behaviors and showing compassion for each other.
This desire for escape (we called it 'a longing for heaven') was encouraged and promoted as a mark of being 'spoken to,' being touched by the spirit, the fruit of purity of heart. I, too, felt a presence in moments of focused worship, and there are perhaps no words to describe how affirming it is to feel so in tune with God; you feel like you can move the world if God asked it of you.
Your Imaginary World Is Always Better Than This One
I want to give as much charity to the above position as possible because I do know how true that felt, yet since then I have wondered about how much trouble follows from that desire for 'a better world.' There is an ingratitude that seems to come with constantly feeling inadequate, constantly begging God for something new, always seeing the world as a never good enough, "it keeps leaving me needing you." And while these sublime dreams of heaven and holiness enrapture us, it makes us unsatisfied with 'everyday' church and 'everyday' community.
We often forget that this is the same dream, this dream for a better world, that leads to horrific evils like genocide and terrorism. The perpetrators of these acts also have a hope in a more beautiful world, a peaceful world. I am not talking about fundamentalism here at all. I am saying that our greatest evils often spring from our greatest visions of beauty and perfection. We are longing for another life, and the correlative is that this world is lacking.
But God made a world and called it good. And the very center of the fall is the lie that we lacked something or that we needed to be complete, like God is. It is this striving to no longer be weak that causes "the heathen" to rage. We are still looking for that fruit that we have not tasted, the one that will make everything better. Even our idea of Heaven has developed into this kind of ethereal world of light and purity. We have taken the verse "and there will be no more tears," meant to be a comfort to a persecuted church, and turned it into this promise of a world where no one ever feels anything but painless bliss.
God: "It is good." Humans: "Not good enough for us!"
God made the world. God called it good. Creation was good, but then we decided to think it wasn't good enough. Since then we have never been satisfied, but this has not changed God's truth: the world is good.
From our disatisfaction have followed the lust for wealth, the kings and their wars, the ideologies of progress and efficiency, and, yes, the stories, songs and poems of longing and wishful thinking. As we continue to perfect the world, we continue to blow it apart, and so the world looks worse and worse. Yet nothing has changed, God called it good; it is only we who have deluded ourselves in the lie that everything is not okay.
And now everything is not okay because we thought it was not okay. Jesus came and broke down the illusory visions of paradise around him. In a world torn by political rebellion, Jesus walks on by. In a world of the poor and rich, Jesus finds material worries a waste of time. In a place of injustice, Jesus does not fight back. Jesus never tells his followers how great it would be to get out of this crappy world, with no more problems and no more pain. And Jesus does not provide a plan to make everything better. Jesus never presents a vision of another world or the need for spiritual transport. "He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped." Can you take me higher? Get behind me, Satan. The salvation that Jesus brings is the only salvation none of us want: to return us to the world, just as weak, with the promise we will never find ourselves beyond God's rescue, not even death.
O Lord, Make Everything Like We Hope: A Good Old-Fashioned Church Skit Monologue with God
What salvation is this? What hope is this? Give us a touch by a spiritual hand. Give us an afterlife of riches and glory. Give us the tools to rebuild the world into perfection. But, please, don't give us the world we have. It is not to our liking.
Of course, if organization x or religion y or nation z wasn't here...that would probably make this heaven on earth--they are of the devil, You know. What's that? You call them good? You bless them? Come on, God, whoever heard of blessing your enemies? They are obviously horrible. You made them; You should know.
Someday You're going to come back and sweep everything clean, and there won't be anything that I won't like--everything and everyone I love will be there. And I won't make mistakes anymore, and I won't fail. And things won't go against my will, everything will go my way, just the way I wanted it all along--oops, I slipped, I mean Your way all along.
No ugly people, of course. Just Beauty, just things that turn my thoughts toward the Divine. What's that? Do I think Jesus is ugly? Of course not! What if he was? Well, he's not--he's perfect. I mean, if Jesus was really ugly--like he had a horrible limp and smelled bad and vomited at really awkward times--he wouldn't be perfect...and if he wasn't perfect, he wouldn't be in my Heaven. What's that you ask? What do you call a Heaven without Jesus? Is that some kind of riddle?
We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life, yeah
You hear it in Creed's "Higher":
When dreaming I'm guided through another world
Time and time again
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep
'Cause I don't want to leave the comfort of this place
'Cause there's a hunger, a longing to escape
From the life I live when I'm awake
So let's go there
Let's make our escape
Come on, let's go there
Let's ask can we stay?
What we hear is the longing for another world, another place, some escape from how things are now. These are considered among many to be "Christian" songs, or at least "Christian-friendly." They sound quite a bit like the songs I sang during worship time at church growing up. In many of these songs there a longing for escape, a hope to be transported into another plane or to a state of mind that was given entirely to God. Another song, Lifehouse's "Take Me Away," comes to mind:
I've seen it all and it's never enough
it keeps leaving me needing you
take me away
take me away
I've got nothing left to say
just take me away
Worship leaders would often encourage us to leave the worries of the world behind, to empty our minds of restless thoughts, to give ourselves over to the Spirit, to hold nothing back. It was this kind of challenge--to dream, to imagine ourselves spirited away into some other state--that led me and my friends toward many tears, many physically overwhelming shocks of emotion, confessions, promises. It also led to forgiving each other, turning from destructive behaviors and showing compassion for each other.
This desire for escape (we called it 'a longing for heaven') was encouraged and promoted as a mark of being 'spoken to,' being touched by the spirit, the fruit of purity of heart. I, too, felt a presence in moments of focused worship, and there are perhaps no words to describe how affirming it is to feel so in tune with God; you feel like you can move the world if God asked it of you.
Your Imaginary World Is Always Better Than This One
I want to give as much charity to the above position as possible because I do know how true that felt, yet since then I have wondered about how much trouble follows from that desire for 'a better world.' There is an ingratitude that seems to come with constantly feeling inadequate, constantly begging God for something new, always seeing the world as a never good enough, "it keeps leaving me needing you." And while these sublime dreams of heaven and holiness enrapture us, it makes us unsatisfied with 'everyday' church and 'everyday' community.
We often forget that this is the same dream, this dream for a better world, that leads to horrific evils like genocide and terrorism. The perpetrators of these acts also have a hope in a more beautiful world, a peaceful world. I am not talking about fundamentalism here at all. I am saying that our greatest evils often spring from our greatest visions of beauty and perfection. We are longing for another life, and the correlative is that this world is lacking.
But God made a world and called it good. And the very center of the fall is the lie that we lacked something or that we needed to be complete, like God is. It is this striving to no longer be weak that causes "the heathen" to rage. We are still looking for that fruit that we have not tasted, the one that will make everything better. Even our idea of Heaven has developed into this kind of ethereal world of light and purity. We have taken the verse "and there will be no more tears," meant to be a comfort to a persecuted church, and turned it into this promise of a world where no one ever feels anything but painless bliss.
God: "It is good." Humans: "Not good enough for us!"
God made the world. God called it good. Creation was good, but then we decided to think it wasn't good enough. Since then we have never been satisfied, but this has not changed God's truth: the world is good.
From our disatisfaction have followed the lust for wealth, the kings and their wars, the ideologies of progress and efficiency, and, yes, the stories, songs and poems of longing and wishful thinking. As we continue to perfect the world, we continue to blow it apart, and so the world looks worse and worse. Yet nothing has changed, God called it good; it is only we who have deluded ourselves in the lie that everything is not okay.
And now everything is not okay because we thought it was not okay. Jesus came and broke down the illusory visions of paradise around him. In a world torn by political rebellion, Jesus walks on by. In a world of the poor and rich, Jesus finds material worries a waste of time. In a place of injustice, Jesus does not fight back. Jesus never tells his followers how great it would be to get out of this crappy world, with no more problems and no more pain. And Jesus does not provide a plan to make everything better. Jesus never presents a vision of another world or the need for spiritual transport. "He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped." Can you take me higher? Get behind me, Satan. The salvation that Jesus brings is the only salvation none of us want: to return us to the world, just as weak, with the promise we will never find ourselves beyond God's rescue, not even death.
O Lord, Make Everything Like We Hope: A Good Old-Fashioned Church Skit Monologue with God
What salvation is this? What hope is this? Give us a touch by a spiritual hand. Give us an afterlife of riches and glory. Give us the tools to rebuild the world into perfection. But, please, don't give us the world we have. It is not to our liking.
Of course, if organization x or religion y or nation z wasn't here...that would probably make this heaven on earth--they are of the devil, You know. What's that? You call them good? You bless them? Come on, God, whoever heard of blessing your enemies? They are obviously horrible. You made them; You should know.
Someday You're going to come back and sweep everything clean, and there won't be anything that I won't like--everything and everyone I love will be there. And I won't make mistakes anymore, and I won't fail. And things won't go against my will, everything will go my way, just the way I wanted it all along--oops, I slipped, I mean Your way all along.
No ugly people, of course. Just Beauty, just things that turn my thoughts toward the Divine. What's that? Do I think Jesus is ugly? Of course not! What if he was? Well, he's not--he's perfect. I mean, if Jesus was really ugly--like he had a horrible limp and smelled bad and vomited at really awkward times--he wouldn't be perfect...and if he wasn't perfect, he wouldn't be in my Heaven. What's that you ask? What do you call a Heaven without Jesus? Is that some kind of riddle?
6.09.2006
also, support your international music, too...
Some time ago I stumbled on this blog by this guy named Drew who was teaching in Istanbul this past year. (I followed it primarily because when I was younger I went to Turkey for a few weeks.) He's back now, and he recommends a Turkish-born Sufi DJ living in Montreal, Mercan Dede. If you visit this artist's web site you can listen to a generous helping of full-tracks.
I have another friend who is Indian through whom I've come to love Indian music. And this music reminds me of that. I've been listening to it all day and still enjoy it. Good work music!
Also, last fall Ruthie loaned me her world music CDs and I fell in love with Gamelan music. You can hear a sample here (with RealPlayer). I don't consider myself as having a fine musical taste, but I enjoy this music very much.
I have another friend who is Indian through whom I've come to love Indian music. And this music reminds me of that. I've been listening to it all day and still enjoy it. Good work music!
Also, last fall Ruthie loaned me her world music CDs and I fell in love with Gamelan music. You can hear a sample here (with RealPlayer). I don't consider myself as having a fine musical taste, but I enjoy this music very much.
support your "local" indie artist: rags
My brother's friend from college, Dustin Ragland, has some great new music available. I enjoy it and you might, too. He makes it all himself and calls the project "Flyover-States."His drumming is quite good, especially at the end of "The Leisure" (but listen to the drums on all the tracks). My favorite lines:
one day we'll smell the air
of Kigali or Stalinism
and what we learned there
about faith and favoritism
If you like them songs, you can download a free album on the Flyover-States website.
one day we'll smell the air
of Kigali or Stalinism
and what we learned there
about faith and favoritism
If you like them songs, you can download a free album on the Flyover-States website.
6.08.2006
*exclusive* kicking the gourd press conference
Since I know you're all very busy we'll keep this meeting informal, brief, and to the point:
Kicking the Gourd began shortly after last spring semester to help me sort through faith, art and Flannery O'Connor during the past school year as a chapel intern, took art classes and while I did research on Flannery O'Connor. I have about a million ideas that fizzle every year (it's the nature of the business, we've soon learned) and, to my own surprise, this idea hasn't. I do not feel burned out, I do not feel this blog has sucked away my creative energy, I do not feel bored with it, or any other good excuse for stopping. So, we will continue the Gourd until conditions merit otherwise.
Some changes in the works:
- Categories. There are so many posts now it is getting rather unruly around here. So, since I have some free time, I'm going to start sorting my posts into about 12 categories for easier access.
- Broader Topic Range. I've tried very hard to pull against 'personal' posts, only making them personal as reader-interest or relatedness warrants. I have held close to the 'faith-art' topic but I have many other interests that I think others would find interesting, too, and I hope to expand the breath of topics. For example, philosophical aesthetics more broadly considered, the Great Plains and increasingly more about poetry.
- Future Plans. In the weeks to come I am helping out a professor with a movie he is producing in the Orange City area. This fall I am studying abroad in Oxford. Then I graduate and it is (hopefully) off to graduate school. These are the kinds of contexts I will be in during the coming year.
We have just enough time for a few questions:
Question: Are you still looking for broken and damaged religious art?
Absolutely. This is a long term project that will continue indefinitely. It would be nice to have all the pieces documented on-line (and of the artworks created with the items). That's a possibility.
Question: Will you continue to post on Flannery O'Connor?
Probably not as much after this summer, but we'll see. Last question.
Question: You have been kicking the gourd for over a year. What's your rationale here?
We are kicking the gourd til the gourd kicks back. Thank you.
Kicking the Gourd began shortly after last spring semester to help me sort through faith, art and Flannery O'Connor during the past school year as a chapel intern, took art classes and while I did research on Flannery O'Connor. I have about a million ideas that fizzle every year (it's the nature of the business, we've soon learned) and, to my own surprise, this idea hasn't. I do not feel burned out, I do not feel this blog has sucked away my creative energy, I do not feel bored with it, or any other good excuse for stopping. So, we will continue the Gourd until conditions merit otherwise.
Some changes in the works:
- Categories. There are so many posts now it is getting rather unruly around here. So, since I have some free time, I'm going to start sorting my posts into about 12 categories for easier access.
- Broader Topic Range. I've tried very hard to pull against 'personal' posts, only making them personal as reader-interest or relatedness warrants. I have held close to the 'faith-art' topic but I have many other interests that I think others would find interesting, too, and I hope to expand the breath of topics. For example, philosophical aesthetics more broadly considered, the Great Plains and increasingly more about poetry.
- Future Plans. In the weeks to come I am helping out a professor with a movie he is producing in the Orange City area. This fall I am studying abroad in Oxford. Then I graduate and it is (hopefully) off to graduate school. These are the kinds of contexts I will be in during the coming year.
We have just enough time for a few questions:
Question: Have you ever considered having two blogs--one personal and the other topical?
I should probably have two blogs, though I don't know how much people care. I'll consider it. Thanks for the question.
Question: Are you still looking for broken and damaged religious art?
Absolutely. This is a long term project that will continue indefinitely. It would be nice to have all the pieces documented on-line (and of the artworks created with the items). That's a possibility.
Question: Will you continue to post on Flannery O'Connor?
Probably not as much after this summer, but we'll see. Last question.
Question: You have been kicking the gourd for over a year. What's your rationale here?
We are kicking the gourd til the gourd kicks back. Thank you.
6.07.2006
Allan Kaprow died in April. I just found out. (I am so in the know.)
You keep wearing that chicken, you go Kaprow.
You keep wearing that chicken, you go Kaprow.
after day 11: we're done (and not yet)
C. and I drove up through Arkansas and Missouri yesterday, catching some wonderful antique places along the way, a positive note to end on. I am home, sharing my photos and religious finds with my parents, sorting through for myself what all has been done.I am working on a paper that will summarize what I've learned from the "Parker's Back" manuscripts. I am starting to think about how to make the art collages with my broken pieces and also how to find more objects to use. I have new trails to follow in Southern Literature, in creative writing, in art, in personal development.
Most of all I've come away with a more richly textured notion of the American South. It is a place of beauty and ugliness, a tortured but proud past, a lively folk culture that includes good food and good music--and that somehow is much more important than it sounds; it's the everyday life that seems to hold disparate and conflicted people together, southern grace, you might say. Manners, might say O'Connor .
The photo above is of myself in North Carolina, very near Cold Mountain. Photo by C.
6.05.2006
day 10: local flavor, home place and the bind of my generation
[We are in Russellville, Arkansas. We will be home (Orange City, IA) tomorrow night.]
I've seen so much local flavor on this trip--in local ecology, beautiful mountain tops, endless forests, red red soil, swamps, cotton fields and magnolia trees--local industry and business, so many really creative small town restaurants, very classy upscale fish and steak places to lunch plate cafes with sweet tea and barbeque--wonderful historic courthouses next door to internet cafes, community playhouses in the most run-down little towns.
It is generally assumed that the small town is dying, and everyone is heading for the cities. This may be true, but no one in the small town knows it...and they probably wouldn't believe it even if they did know it. I did see too many bland miles of McDonalds/Gas Station/Wal-Mart/Strip Mall, but I also saw lots of people living in vigorous, joyful, colorful communities just a few miles off the Interstate.
The Dream of Ending Somewhere
It makes me excited to get back to my own home place, to learn more names of birds and trees, to give a moment for those historical places I ignore, to spend a few minutes in a local donut shop for the smells, for the overheard conversations, the children peering into the display case. I wish I had more music, more books, more holidays, more creative expression of that local niche I've found back at home. I suppose that's my job.
It's difficult to hold on tight to a sense of home, knowing that I am young and mobile, like an anemone that might float away on some strong ocean current, to plop down on some other rock down the coastline. I always imagine ending up somewhere else...I don't know why, I love it here...
But everytime I do imagine ending somewhere--finding some neighborhood to make my own, to keep it clean, to get to know people, to promote local business, to look for the poetry in it, to help raise its children, to care for its old, to generate creative expression and help promote its economics, to get involved in local politics just for the fun of it, to find myself falling in love with a street, the name of a street, the sound of the street name. And simply to know that no one in the whole world loves that one street (or dirt road) more than I do.
The Bind of My Generation
Here come the globalizers, the global moralizers...and I am to carry the moral weight of Darfur, AIDS in Africa, encrouching American culture in Islamic nations, child prostitution in South-east Asia funded by American businessmen and the host of other needs/crimes/misunderstandings that I know about and am thus (supposedly) now responsible for. Everyday learning how Jesus may have felt, carrying the weight of all the world's sins...knowing what that feels like.
And some days it takes everything you have just to live your own life, just to show a little mercy to those next to you.
I want an apple tree out my window. I want to help the immigrant children in my city. I want to hold the hand of the dying woman in my local nursing home. I want to be the sponsor on the youth choir trip. I want to write a poem, paint a picture, read a good book, drink something cold on the porch with a old college friend twenty years from now. I want to live a darn good life and always increase in compassion and, with God's grace, I may.
Even as across the world the slave in a factory weeps, hoping for a rescuer...
There is an answer to this question you can't really put to words. The kind of answer you'd like to find in a book somewhere (and the false books are already on the presses)...though I suspect this is the sort of answer that must be approached without looking directly at it, perhaps like Medusa, modernized as the moral consciousness with world news sprouting from her scalp in endless regeneration.
This is the answer that must be lived, lived out by a million individual lives from a million different ways of life--how to get to that answer through dishsoap, toothpaste and an oil change--and the answer will be the legacy of my generation.
I've seen so much local flavor on this trip--in local ecology, beautiful mountain tops, endless forests, red red soil, swamps, cotton fields and magnolia trees--local industry and business, so many really creative small town restaurants, very classy upscale fish and steak places to lunch plate cafes with sweet tea and barbeque--wonderful historic courthouses next door to internet cafes, community playhouses in the most run-down little towns.
It is generally assumed that the small town is dying, and everyone is heading for the cities. This may be true, but no one in the small town knows it...and they probably wouldn't believe it even if they did know it. I did see too many bland miles of McDonalds/Gas Station/Wal-Mart/Strip Mall, but I also saw lots of people living in vigorous, joyful, colorful communities just a few miles off the Interstate.
The Dream of Ending Somewhere
It makes me excited to get back to my own home place, to learn more names of birds and trees, to give a moment for those historical places I ignore, to spend a few minutes in a local donut shop for the smells, for the overheard conversations, the children peering into the display case. I wish I had more music, more books, more holidays, more creative expression of that local niche I've found back at home. I suppose that's my job.
It's difficult to hold on tight to a sense of home, knowing that I am young and mobile, like an anemone that might float away on some strong ocean current, to plop down on some other rock down the coastline. I always imagine ending up somewhere else...I don't know why, I love it here...
But everytime I do imagine ending somewhere--finding some neighborhood to make my own, to keep it clean, to get to know people, to promote local business, to look for the poetry in it, to help raise its children, to care for its old, to generate creative expression and help promote its economics, to get involved in local politics just for the fun of it, to find myself falling in love with a street, the name of a street, the sound of the street name. And simply to know that no one in the whole world loves that one street (or dirt road) more than I do.
The Bind of My Generation
Here come the globalizers, the global moralizers...and I am to carry the moral weight of Darfur, AIDS in Africa, encrouching American culture in Islamic nations, child prostitution in South-east Asia funded by American businessmen and the host of other needs/crimes/misunderstandings that I know about and am thus (supposedly) now responsible for. Everyday learning how Jesus may have felt, carrying the weight of all the world's sins...knowing what that feels like.
And some days it takes everything you have just to live your own life, just to show a little mercy to those next to you.
I want an apple tree out my window. I want to help the immigrant children in my city. I want to hold the hand of the dying woman in my local nursing home. I want to be the sponsor on the youth choir trip. I want to write a poem, paint a picture, read a good book, drink something cold on the porch with a old college friend twenty years from now. I want to live a darn good life and always increase in compassion and, with God's grace, I may.
Even as across the world the slave in a factory weeps, hoping for a rescuer...
There is an answer to this question you can't really put to words. The kind of answer you'd like to find in a book somewhere (and the false books are already on the presses)...though I suspect this is the sort of answer that must be approached without looking directly at it, perhaps like Medusa, modernized as the moral consciousness with world news sprouting from her scalp in endless regeneration.
This is the answer that must be lived, lived out by a million individual lives from a million different ways of life--how to get to that answer through dishsoap, toothpaste and an oil change--and the answer will be the legacy of my generation.
6.04.2006
day 9: a day for alabama
Broken, Damaged and...? Saturday we drove around to every flea market, antique store and yard sale we saw, but nothing as good as what we've found already. Kind of disappointing but it's a learning process. We did stop in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta and I took some pictures of the weather-beaten angels there. The image to the left that I took is from one of the cemeteries in Sandersville. Possible captions:"Sometimes God says yes. Sometimes God says no. Sometimes God says maybe. And sometimes..."
"And the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary..."
Others?
Across Alabama. Last night we stayed on Cheaha Mountain, the highest point in Alabama. We camped next to a group of people who played the bongo badly and listened to the greatest hits of Three Dog Night until morning. (Which was fitting because they had a dog who barked all night, too.) We left this morning for Birmingham and spent some time at the Birmingham Museum of Art, which has a very impressive non-Western art (asian, indian, african, precolumbian, native american) collection. Tonight we are in Starksville, Mississippi.
My favorite kind of dealer. On our way out of the National Forest this morning we stopped by a roadside flea market. In the very back of the market was a shack, the look of which gave me hope of finding the spiritual errata I'm after. The woman there searched around a bit and found a fabric wall hanging of Jesus that was pretty worn.
She told me to make an offer and she said, "Now we all have wishful thinking, thinking we can get something for nothing. But if you give me an idiot offer, I'll treat you like an idiot. But if you give me a decent offer, I'll treat you good." I offered her $10 for it and she said she wanted $20, but because I gave a decent offer she would sell it to me for $12. As she folded it up and handed it to me she said, "Now if you go turn around and sell this on E-Bay you better watch out!" as if to put a curse on me if I did.
"No, I think I'm going to hold on to this."
"Good," she said smiling and shaking my hand, "because I knew you would. That's why I sold it to you."
6.03.2006
6.02.2006
summertime in the (growing) nwc blogosphere
The theatre students are on their London trip now and all blogging about it: Matt, Tracey and Aubrey.
C. has informed me that some Northwestern alumni are travelling Route 66 and blogging as they go. Their blog looks like a lot of fun, including the packing list and 'interary for mom.'
On the other side of summer, candifer decides it's time to start mowing and Ruthie interviews for a job at HyVee and wonders what we would all do without routine...
C. has informed me that some Northwestern alumni are travelling Route 66 and blogging as they go. Their blog looks like a lot of fun, including the packing list and 'interary for mom.'
On the other side of summer, candifer decides it's time to start mowing and Ruthie interviews for a job at HyVee and wonders what we would all do without routine...
day 7: last day in milledgeville
A magnolia at Andalusia farm. (Photo by C.) Today we wrap up the work at the archives. Tomorrow morning we'll start the weekend flea market frenzy in a general westerly direction. We are halfway done with the trip; we're heading home.
6.01.2006
day 6: "you've come to a good place"
Deepstep, Georgia - At 4 o'clock the archives closed up for the day and we were both looking for something to do, so C. and I went for a drive southeast of Milledgeville out to a little town called Deepstep. We wandered down some red, red dirt roads and took some photos of the local lakes and buildings.C. stopped by one house in Deepstep and took out his camera. Four women were sitting on the porch of a nearby building and one of the was headed our way. She asked why we were taking photos of her house (she later said that she thought we were an insurance agent). We were soon introduced to the women on the porch and began to chat.
We told them we were just driving around, taking photos and the oldest woman said, "Well, you've come to a good place." They told us we were in the heart of kaolin, kaolin being the white chalk mined from the area, used for making chalkboard chalk, among other things. (An image of mined kaolin is to the left.) They also explained the name of the town. One of the women said that there were some Indians that had come by the creek nearby and one of the stepped into a big hole and said, "deep step"--so the called the creek Deepstep.
They asked again what we were up to in the area and we told them we are doing research at the university on Flannery O'Connor. And we received the same numb silence we've received everywhere around here when we mention her. O'Connor is not very well-liked in her native area. The oldest woman did mention, however, that her mother was the home nurse of Flannery when she died.I also told them that I was looking for broken and damaged religious pieces. One of the women went to her house (the one we were taking pictures of) and brought back three small angels (one missing her entire arm) and a painting of Jesus "Ecce Homo-styled" that all the women agreed was very bad looking. They could not believe I wanted this painting.
The women then explained what they were doing. Every Thursday they worked on quilts together. The quilts are made for families in Georgia who have lost loved ones in war in Iraq. To date they have made 70 quilts. They showed us four different quilts they were currently working on. One of the women said that it was the most rewarding thing she had ever done in her life. (To the right is one of the women holding up a quilt for the camera.)The women had offered us chairs on their porch and something cold to drink. I played with the dogs while they told stories about finding old Indian arrowheads and the local church events. And when we were ready to leave one of the women came up to me and gave me hug and said, "Do something good with those angels, all right?" I told her I would.
two kinds of incarnational
I've mentioned this before, though I'm struck by it again as I read through the O'Connor's work, how different her use of 'incarnational' and the way it is often used in the circles I read around in regularly.
The term 'incarnational' often comes off as very affective. "We aren't going to preach at them, we're going to be incarnational." There is certain kind of softness, gentleness or attitudinal approach suggested here. The unspoken argument is that this is how Jesus did it--healing the sick, raising the dead, meeting people where they are at. Because of course, Jesus never preached or spoke an authoritative word, or gave his disciples the right to speak authoritatively...
'Incarnational evangelism' means something like the old folksy saying, "We're just here to be Jesus with skin on." Which isn't really a bad thing to say, except Jesus still has his own skin on...Jesus isn't some spirit right now; he's still incarnated (that's the whole theology following from the ascension). Also, the above statement seems to imply (the "just" part) that we aren't here to do those other non-Jesusy things: preach the Good News, be prophetic, talk about God, pray a lot, etc..
'Incarnational theology,' as I've seen it used in articles and essays, means that God became flesh in Jesus, therefore, flesh is blessed by God and we shouldn't knock it. Those who 'knock it' are, supposedly, those who have moral squimishness about sex-related issues and/or questions of drinking/smoking. (Are there really no other issues on the table?) So, the incarnational approach is to say something like 'all food has been blessed by God, so don't be weird anymore about your basic human life.' However, this has always struck me as odd, because creation was already blessed from the beginning and the Old Testament is the furthest thing from an anti-world approach (just think what the promises of God are...more food, more land, more children, more pleasure and peace than you could ever imagine...that's what 'blessing' means to these people). Jesus did not come to declare creation and physicality of life 'OK'...he came to open wide the 'chosen' status to the whole world.
This post has already gone too long, it's back to work for me, I'll continue with O'Connor's view later...
The term 'incarnational' often comes off as very affective. "We aren't going to preach at them, we're going to be incarnational." There is certain kind of softness, gentleness or attitudinal approach suggested here. The unspoken argument is that this is how Jesus did it--healing the sick, raising the dead, meeting people where they are at. Because of course, Jesus never preached or spoke an authoritative word, or gave his disciples the right to speak authoritatively...
'Incarnational evangelism' means something like the old folksy saying, "We're just here to be Jesus with skin on." Which isn't really a bad thing to say, except Jesus still has his own skin on...Jesus isn't some spirit right now; he's still incarnated (that's the whole theology following from the ascension). Also, the above statement seems to imply (the "just" part) that we aren't here to do those other non-Jesusy things: preach the Good News, be prophetic, talk about God, pray a lot, etc..
'Incarnational theology,' as I've seen it used in articles and essays, means that God became flesh in Jesus, therefore, flesh is blessed by God and we shouldn't knock it. Those who 'knock it' are, supposedly, those who have moral squimishness about sex-related issues and/or questions of drinking/smoking. (Are there really no other issues on the table?) So, the incarnational approach is to say something like 'all food has been blessed by God, so don't be weird anymore about your basic human life.' However, this has always struck me as odd, because creation was already blessed from the beginning and the Old Testament is the furthest thing from an anti-world approach (just think what the promises of God are...more food, more land, more children, more pleasure and peace than you could ever imagine...that's what 'blessing' means to these people). Jesus did not come to declare creation and physicality of life 'OK'...he came to open wide the 'chosen' status to the whole world.
This post has already gone too long, it's back to work for me, I'll continue with O'Connor's view later...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
