Why is there something—a text, a work of art—rather than nothing? Because a human author at a particular place and time activated the linguistic resources that were to hand, put a socio-linguistic system in motion, and did something in order to make a difference in the social world.
—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Is There a Meaning in This Text?
You know music has power when it has you shivering while running in hundred-degree heat.
Güngör’s Ghosts Upon the Earth is like that, though. From the opening track, the album screams its willingness to be and do something terribly different from most Christian music of the last quarter century. For one thing, this is an album, not just a collection of songs. For another, the musical skill on display here combines with a willingness to forge a new sound, rather than retread the same old pop-rock milieu one more time.
Musical and lyrical unity in an album is a rarity today in any genre, but this album tells a story. Indeed, it tells the story.
But back to those shivers. Read on, intrepid explorer →
Art is always a thing of its own moment. Not in a postmodern, deconstructive sense, but in the simple reality that it is created when it is created, and not at some other time. I first conceived this post walking home from Hastings last night – I’d spent the evening preparing to teach a class at church this morning. Ideation, then, happened in a particular environment (walking down a sidewalk beside a reasonably busy street) at a particular time (between 9:15 and 9:30 pm on a Saturday night). More than that, however, it happened this Saturday night after that study. Had I been thinking another night, or after some other study, I would have thought different thoughts. Read on, intrepid explorer →
Two weeks ago today, one of the most anticipated video games of the year, Bioware’s Mass Effect 3, was released. Planned as a trilogy from the getgo, the Mass Effect series has engendered considerable investment from fans, and expectations were understandably high for the final installment. Unfortunately, while the majority of the game was excellent, the ending left much to be desired.
For my purposes here the details are unimportant – you can find plenty of information with a Google search – but the responses to the ending are fascinating. Gamers have responded with an enormous campaign for the developers to alter or expand the ending. The gaming press and quite a few others gamers have responded in turn.
These rejoinders (at least, the serious ones) have largely appealed to authorial fiat and the sanctity of the finished product. They fall prey, in other words, to a fundamentally modernistic conception of art that is and always has been absurd. Read on, intrepid explorer →
All creative arts require exercise. This is never more clear to me than when I have not been writing regularly, as in the last year. It is not so much that my writing is always bad. Rather, it is inconsistent. Wildly, annoyingly inconsistent. I can sit down and write one post that satisfies me, and then turn around and write another that leaves me deeply frustrated. Read on, intrepid explorer →
Güngör is really good. Great music, and getting better. The lead is also a good thinker and writer. In a blog post a few months ago, he really nailed contemporary Christian music to the wall. He wasn’t harsh or over the top, but he did say things that need to be said:
Do you notice that nobody really uses that word [creativity] about other types of music? I just was perusing some Itunes user reviews to see if this holds up. I checked John Mark and mine, and “creativity” is very often found. But it’s not often found in reviews of bands like Sigur Ros, Bon Iver, Radiohead, Sufjan Stevens or other artists who are certainly very “creative.”
Nobody goes to an art gallery and says, “boy, that painting is so creative.” Why? Because it’s art! Of course it’s creative! Why else would it be there? It’s very nature is creativity. Or like Lisa pointed out to me today, “that would be like saying, I love your house, it’s so architectural.”
But when someone in the Christian industry actually takes their art seriously, everybody is like “holy crap, listen to how creative it is!”
It’s like a person that’s been living among zombies for years seeing an actual human being and exclaiming, “wow, look at how clean her face is! She doesn’t even have any blood on it or anything!”