The first installment of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis’ classic The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe is releasing Dec. 9th. Two recent articles highlight the competing visions we have of Lewis. As Adam Gopnik notes, in the New Yorker:
In America, Lewis … remains, for the more intellectual and literate reaches of conservative religiosity, a saint revered and revealed, particularly in such books as “The Problem of Pain” and “The Screwtape Letters.” In England, he is commonly regarded as a slightly embarrassing polemicist, who made joke-vicar broadcasts on the BBC, but who also happened to write a few very good books about late-medieval poetry and inspire several good students.
Charles McGrath explores the skirmish between these two views being fought out over the marketing of the movie. Into which mold will Hollywood cast it, as next Lord of the Rings or as the next Passion? Lewis fits nicely into neither category, which is precisely what makes him still interesting.
There’s no bigger crap-shoot than an open mic is there? My expectations were mostly for the Newcastle and the Chimay on monday night’s open mic @ the Mucky Duck, but the talent wasn’t half bad, excluding a few string-pounders & cries for help. Leslie, the friend of a friend we went to see had a nice couple of originals and a good cover of Patty Griffin’s Every Little Bit. Later in the evening Kim Carson & Kyle Redd played a few together and everything was wrapping up nicely, at which point most of the people we were with left.
Let me point out that leaving when you first want to is always a bad idea, because as soon as you leave something happens that you wouldn’t have wanted to miss; in this case it was Lisa Mills filling up the place with a huge, bluesy wail that breaks in all the right places. It single-handedly redeemed all the nose-singing twang-bangers I’ve ever sat through. Another displaced artist (Mobile) taking up temporary residence in Houston, Lisa showed off her songwriting with a few off her new CD (mp3s) and Kim got her to do an acappella version of “I Can’t Make You Love Me". Hopefully she’ll be playing some shows around Houston while they’re piecing the coast back together.
Head on over to her website LisaMills.com and pick up a CD or three.
Since we’re talking blues, pick up a copy of Ernie Payne’s Coercion Street while you’re at it.
Matt Clinger and I joined up with HACCRT (Houston Area Christian Crisis Relief Team) for another saturday of tree-cutting, this time in Sabine Pass. It was a great trip; the folks we were able to help were wonderful people and First Baptist from Groves, TX, where we had been working previously came down and hosted a Thanksgiving Dinner at the high school. Good food and fellowship is hard to beat.
I’ve created a flickr photo group pool for some of the pictures everyone has been taking. I’ve convinced Grove to finally start a blog to coordinate activities and get the word out to others who might want to get involved. It should be up in the next few days at http://haccrt.blogspot.com
PBS is airing a new series, Myths and Heroes, on Wednesday of next week (16th) and the week after (23rd). The program will explore 4 myths - In Search of Shangri-La, Arthur: The Once and Future King and Jason and the Golden Fleece - and, drum-roll here, The Queen of Sheba, who according to legend travelled to Israel & became romantically involved with King Solomon, before traveling back to her own country, which many think is what is now Ethiopia. Worth checking out.
The Wall Street Journal, one of the few national newspapers which allows access to its website only to paying subscribers, is opening the gates and taking all-comers for free this week. Check it out while you have a chance.
In other news, The New Yorker charts American dialects with linguist William Labov and details the aspirational origins of the dropped r’s of Brooklynese and the scintillating “Northern Cities Shift” currently ‘heahppening’ in Chicago - “Talking the Tawk“
Born Into Brothels won an Academy Award for best documentary feature, but even that recognition doesn’t really do it justice. Photographer Zana Briski began photographing the Red Light district in Calcutta, India in 1997. While living in the brothels, she became interested in the children of the prostitutes, conducting workshops to teach them photography on inexpensive 35mm cameras and beginning an uphill battle to provide an opportunity for many of the girls to escape life “on the line.”
Some of the children turned out to be genuinely talented photographers, having their work exhibited all over the world and attracting attention to their situation. The organization Briski founded, Kids with Cameras has started similar workshops in other parts of the world and is in the process of funding a school specifically for the children of the area.
At the other end of the spectrum, the movie Flight Plan, starring Jodie Foster and Peter Sarsgaard, is startling bad. If at all possible, one should avoid it.
I put a lot of thought into this site, contrary to appearances, but some times I can’t find a place for all the little fragments of life that don’t quite seem blog-worthy on their own. I hereby decree Friday as mental garbage pick up day. Bon appetit.
Party Like It’s 1992 Remember Bee Girl? Oh c’mon, she remembers you. Some of those albums hold up surprisingly well over the test of time. This is one of them. A lot more rockin than I remember. Grab a copy of Blind Melon off Amazon for 84 cents (plus shipping)
A few of my favorite things
Along the lines of my favorite confessional postcard service PostSecret (on which I posted previously), Every Object Tells a Story is a collaborative site on the meaning of things hosted by an assortment of British culturati. Upload a picture or video to tell the story of some object that has special significance. Mostly I find it interesting because I have an idea of something inappropriate I can post there later.
Incoming! Speaking of special significance, Shane Maberry clued me in on a new google bomb peeking its nose up into general social relevance as the keyword “failure” has been generating a funny, albeit predictable, and heartbreaking if you really think about it first result. Even funnier in a more indirect way is the second search result, which seems a bit weak as a retaliatory gesture, and in response to which the MM webmaster has employed an admirable “i’m rubber and you’re glue” redirect, as if to say, ‘Oh yeah, I totally meant for that to happen.’ If you have no idea what I’m talking about, bone up on your google-bombing courtesy of Wikipedia or get wildly deconstructive with the matter at First Monday.
If you happen to be following the Valerie-Plame-Karl-Rove-Scooter-Libby-Judy-Miller CIA name-leak pseudo-saga you won’t want to miss Nicholas Lemann’s take in this week’s New Yorker, Telling Secrets. Lemann, Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, does his part to restore my faith in the current condition of the fourth estate with an elegant and insightful piece, abundantly overlaid with context and background, so often absent in today’s schlock fed straight from the AP to the teleprompter.
Update: As if there weren’t enough weirdness to this whole deal, the New Yorker follows up with Lauren Collins’ article “Scooter’s Sex Shocker” on the proclivity of some in the administration (Scooter Libby, Lynn Cheney) to write erotic fiction in their spare time. Good Lord.
I don’t have any spare walls at the moment, but if I did, I would be on these like white on rice - band posters from Minnesota print and design shop Aesthetic Apparatus:
