BarryTaylorBlog

Fallen Angels Radical Reincarnation: music is my church

Music has always been my church. I might go to buildings and participate in rituals and even make a living by involvement and engagement with more traditionally understood examples of church/religion, but in my heart music is my religion, my church, my heart. it was in music that I found a space to voice and hear voiced my desire, my melancholy, my sexuality, everything. I remember with a fondness not reserved for many other things in my heart, when I bought my first record player, a Dansette, very similar, if not identical to the one in the image. It wasn't the machine itself, it was what it represented--liberation from the family 'sound system', the radio choices of my parents, the tyranny of a world shaped by ideas, values and aesthetics that meant very little to me as I tried to give voice to my own. That record player became a shrine upon which I sacrificed faithfully the artifacts of my faith--the blues, gospel, r+b, soul, reggae--with a fervour and zeal that was a visceral response to the thing that offered me freedom and a path to knowing and finding myself.

I've just started reading a book about Nick Cave called The Art of Nick Cave: New Critical Essays--its edited by John H. Baker. Its a collection of essays about Nick Cave, his music, his writing, his persona etc., divided into five sections: songwriter, murder ballads, film and theatre, influences and sacred vs. profane. It might just be that those five categorizations of Cave's life and work sum up in some way the way music functions as church or religion for me--if nothing else they highlight the issues and challenges which inform and affirm aspects of my life as I journey through it.

I haven't got too far into the book yet, but so far, it is rich with things about Cave, but perhaps more importantly, about music and about life, which I am finding helpful and hinting at things I might want to revisit, redress and rethink in terms of my own life vis-a-vis, what I do, why I do it, and how I broker some obvious disconnects which I am finding very troubling and difficult at the moment.

I think it is fair to say that I am in something of a vocational, if not life, crisis at the moment. Crisis seems a harsh word when I write it, there might be other words that could capture my present state, but I'll let it stand. 

Radical Reincarnation

In his introduction to the book, John Baker explores the role that Cave, as actor and musician, plays in Wim Wenders film, Wings of Desire. He also links Cave's dichotomy of desire and the emotional, psychological and existential cost to human existence to the central characters in that film. In naming Cave a version of Damiel, the central angel in Wender's story, Baker likens Cave's songwriting to a fallen angel, whose fall if you like, allows him to explore empathy and catharsis and invite insight and release to himself and the listener to his work. There is a line the author writes that grabbed me,

'He (Damiel) recognizes that the only way in which this desire can be fulfilled is through a kind of radical reinacarnation: his transformation from angel into human. In that sense he risks, like Lucifer, a form of fall from the spiritual into the material world.' This is beautiful imagery, I am sure to some who hold a different view of things religious, where the idea of 'fall' is endowed with ideas of disconnection with the sacred, the act might seem disastrous, but to me the fall is the only way Damiel can realize his desire, the only way he can discover love. The path to 'salvation' to reincarnation-re-birth-lies in this kind of provocative and dangerous act of counter-move. Richard Rohr's book of last year, Falling Upwards puts a safer spin on it, but that sheen of positivism is the essential thing I am trying to overcome in terms of my own relation to the sacred.. I keep having these images of falling to the ground, they have been inhabiting my dream world for a while. At first I was a bit worried, it seemed somewhat final, destructive, but lately I am beginning to see it in a different light, as pathway to my own radical reincarnation--I have been falling dramatically into the material world over the past few years, it often seems to be viewed as the 'wrong direction' by peers and by religion in general, but for me, this 'form of fall' heralds a way to realize a certain desired transformation.

Unspoken Unsatisfied

Having spoken of coming to terms with a certain redirection, at least internally, I must also speak of my continuing belief that satisfaction will remain elusive for me, and again, perhaps I am coming to terms with some things about myself, but perhaps also about life in general. In a chapter of Cave's music, not just the lyrical preoccupation through which most address him, there is a quote from Giorgio Agamben that meant something to me the moment I read it. The author of the chapter, Carl Lavery makes a distinction in his offering between Cave the person and Cave the singer,

"To use Giorgio Agambens' vocabulary, the name, 'Cave,' in this chapter, is posited as an authorial 'gesture,' a proper noun that 'marks the point at which a life is offered up and played out in the work. Offered up and played out, not expressed or fulfilled. For this reason the author can only remain unsatisfied and unsaid in the work.'

Two things, one is that I think this is why my favourite songs/artists and those whose work expresses dichotomy, tension, paradox and melancholy--whether it is the plaintive joy of blues and gospel or the apocalyptic musings of Radiohead, it is more often not, the ache in popular music that most speaks to me when it all comes right down to it. It is not that I need to be continually reminded of what is missing or lost (I love 'happy music' too, but there is always that 'thing' lurking beneath the surface) but that inherent tension and release mechanism in some music is what drives my love for it-- I just don't always need sheen and veneer to make everything pretty and ok. 

That melancholy, rooted at the heart of music that emerges from dislocation, disorientation, despair, desire, is what keeps music church for me and it might just be why I struggle with the institutional expressions of church/religion. It lacks melancholy and therefore, for me, it lacks the one ingredient that makes it vital, necessary. As Richard Kearney has written, melancholy brings us to the limits of reason--which for me is ultimately the place where communion with the sacred truly begins. Guardini declares that melancholy issues from 'the very ruptured depths of human nature whose disquietude is a sign of the eternal.' So there's that.

The other thing with regard to this statement is that I too have a name (much lesser of course), a voice, a role, that is public, that is performance--in academia and establishment--and both are difficult. I have spent a long time attempting to merge both public and private voice, and that hasn't proven easy--there are some serious obstacles in both environments that have to do with assumptions, perceptions etc. and I think I have spent way too much time trying to be 'heard' rather than judged or analyzed or critiqued--and I don't mean that in a 'victimy' way, I just mean that the liberation of a musical voice is that it is 'otherness,' the melancholic preoccupation, is almost a given,whereas in the church/theological worlds I inhabit it tends to be viewed as something peripheral, again, at least in my own experience which is the only perspective I can hold with deep conviction. Part of this is the need to find one's audience--not something that I have been too good at, I seem to have been capable of putting myself in environments, that, for want of a better word, are more conservative in both perspective and practice than I, which then heralds tensions and troubles, both great and small.  The 'gesture' voice, the public voice for the performance of theology and religion, is one that I have spent many years working on. I came across a quote from John Wesley that every (man) should strive to be a voice and not an echo, which is lifework and maturity, but once the process of discovery has begun that voice then has to find it's hearing and that I'm still working on--not that people don't listen, or that I even need them to, I need to hear my voice in its right place in both inside and outside.

System to the Sacred

"Cave's sacred is part prophetic Jesus, part Father in the Christian tradition, part Old testament force of retribution, part metonym for human love and sexual energy, part violent power with unknown capabilities, part absence, part extension of the Cave ego. Is there a system to Cave's sacred?" Lyn McCredden.

Does my 'system of the sacred' fit? Fit in the containers I attempt to put it in? Fit in the worlds I seek to express it in? Yes and no, that's probably true of all systems I imagine, but before that perhaps I have to ask if I even have a system? Or if I even know what it is. Increasingly I do--it is not the same as Cave's but there are crossovers for sure. What I cherish particularly about Cave's work is that it is both church in and of itself and it often addresses the other church in my existence--the institutional religion of Christianity--and I sense affinity between he and I on many things not least of which is his conviction that institutional religion is more often than not an unhelpful container. But he is out of it, and I am in it. Am I better or worse for that positioning? Lately, I have been feeling that I am completely fucked by it--it has been my working life--which raises complex issues of material need versus vocational practice-desire, sublimation, games without frontiers in some ways--but it is a continual source of concern, worry, a beast that refuses to be tamed and wants to eat my heart out at times, or at least that's how it feels. And of course, it could just be that it is not a suitable container for me, for my system of the sacred, as I realize that it is still viable for many people--and I don't mean this to be a broadside moan about church etc. I am speaking purely of myself. I am not sure it is necessary to state fully, or as fully as I able, my system, but I can say that after many years I find that much of it is not the system others around me are working from, and that's fine, but ...

"how can inspiration or for that matter God be moral?" Cave's question resonates deeply. I am sick of moralizing religioisity, sorry just am, I find it completely unhelpful, unimaginative, constricting, inadequate, shallow, easy--do I believe in morality? Of course, but morality that has been rooted essentially in reason doesn't work for me and that is what I encounter much of the time.

I remember musical moments perhaps more than any other, they are inscribed on my heart in a way that other encounters are not, it has always been that way for me--they are the ritual experiences personal and public that have shaped me in deep and abiding ways--I find myself in music, I find others, I sometimes find god-although 'finding god' has never been my primary preoccupation, maybe when it comes down to it, as Jack Caputo says, God doesn't exist, God insists, and music might just be the principal insistence conveyor for me.

(musical accompaniment to this post: trouble will find me, the national-on repeat--gorgeous)

on profanity

"Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."
Mark Twain

I swear, I know that not everyone does, but I do. I am aware that views on swearing are broad--some people find it just insulting and a sign of a lack of education, others view it as the last resort of the unheard. I am not sure that either of those arguments carry much weight with me. I don't swear at every opportunity however, and I find swearing for the sake of swearing a little wearisome, but the perfectly placed expletive can be a thing of wonder.

I have a juvenile love for a book called Roger's Profannisaurus, a comic compilation of thousands of swear words that runs the gamut from words like bristols and jubblies to hand-shandies and puppies fighting in a bag---I have spent more than one eveing in the company of friends belly-laughing at the creativity, the turn of phrase used to capture a sexual antic or physical appendage--not everyone's idea of a good night, but occasionally it's mine.

I say all that because I swore intentionally and publicly this week. I was speaking at an event with a couple of friends of mine, and for my portion I used some images as a way of generating some fresh thinking. One of the images I used is the one at the top of this post. What I said about it is that 'fuck it' can be a pivotal moment in ones life--it can be statement of resignation or a declaration of determination, but either way there are moments when to say 'fuck it' is to acknowledge that one has reached a certain crossroads, or an axis in ones life where big decisions will be made. 'Fuck it' might just be an important theological marker.

tattoo you: bodies of subversion

I like tattoos, not all of them, there are many epic fails that I have seen and wouldn't wish on anyone, but overall, I find them a fascinating glimpse into who we perceive ourselves to be. As part of some doctoral research some years back I did a body-piercing/tattoo field research project and found it both fascinating and enlightening to discover from both tattooists and their customers, the reason for inking themselves. Ultimately I think it is a phenomenon related to late 20th cenutry loss of stability and security in external sources--be they insititutional or relational--and that the body is often perceived as the last 'permanent object' a person feels they have and thus it becomes the site of self-perception and inscription.

The rise of tattoos from the margins to the centre of cultural life has been something I have witnessed over the course of my life. There was a time when tattoos singled a person out as a less than deisrable type-to be tattooed was to enter the realm of the morally questionable and corrupt, but these days it seems to be a rite of passge for many people, and begins quite early in life. First tattoos can be quite naive, but even then they are often infused with some meaning however percious or destined to be eclipsed by life as it unfolds.

I came across a fascinating article today on tattoos, wth particular focus on the rise of female tattoos, apparently there are now more women with tattoos than men for the first time in recorded history. the article is based on the latest edition of Margot Mifflin's book, Bodies of Subversion, which is due out this month. Lutheran minister, Nadia Bolz-Weber is featured in the latest edition, she has some fine work on her person, as colorful and insightful as she is.

The article, cites Kat Von D as a major link in this chain. For the unitiated, KVD is a fixture on the LA scene, a majorly tattooed artists, whose reality shows have made her perhaps the world's best known tattoo artists. Anyway, the article is well worth a read, and the book will be as well.

nakedness, nudity and other forms of flesh

I'm a couple of weeks into a new term at the theology school and the class is beginning to unfold. This term it is Art, Cinema and Theology--a simple premise--you take ten films about artists and consider how the artists is represented to the wider public through film-you explore the work of those ten artists and consider how they represent themselves, the world and others and you invite those two elements into conversation with a third meaning-making system, theology and see where you get.

I have sat with these films a number of times now, with all three components actually, and find myself continually moving in new directions as my understanding and interests morph and go in new, as well as familiar, directions. this term I am fascinated with the body, with physicality, and how it is dealt with in the three m/m systems. I've been reading a couple of interesting books by Umberto Eco--The History of Beauty and On Ugliness, and have added a new one--Nudities, by Giorgio Agamben.

Agamben's book is quite revelatory, some great quotes and insights. It is not directly a book about nudity, well, it is, but it has a higher philosophical aim than just dealing with nudity-he is scratching at the idea that if nudity is understtod as unconcealment, or the absence of all veils or coverings, that this is analogous to the stripping away of layers to get at the truth of something. But here is an interesting quote from the chapter entitled, Nudity,

"Nudity, in our culture, is inseparable from a theological significance." The eyes of Adam+Eve are opened and they become aware of their nakedness only after the entrance of sin--before that they were not naked, they were clothed with grace...He goes on to quote extensively from theologian Erik Peterson who has written on the Theology of Clothing. Peterson argues that this awareness of nudity could only occur if "man's being had changed...there must have been..a metaphysical transformation, affecting man's mode of being, rather than merely a moral change...Man was created without clothes--which means that he had a nature of his own, distinct from divine nature..."

In light of this Agamben claims that the problem of nudity is thus a problem of human nature in its relationship with grace--thats some heavy ideas, and I'm still processing the implications and my responses. I like the idea that the 'fall' is more than an issue of morality, which I have never bought, it's not enough, and it doesn't square with the gospel, because i don't believe that jesus came to be a moral policeman as some seem to present him.

album by album

Well, this is on my Christmas list! A book to celebrate Bowie's wild musical career and his equally stunning style evolutions and experimentations. The book is in honour of the 40th anniversaries of two of his seminal works, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. Bowie's music marked a bit of transition for me, out of the world of blues, r+b and soul that defined much of my earliest musical baptism. I must admit that as much as the music inspired me I found the gender-bending dynamic of his image immensely appealing, it spoke to a part of me that didn't feel at home in the more aggressive male identities of my youth. I grew up in a working class world surrounded by mostly mods, skinheads and suedeheads, which is why I still love polished boots and sharp suiting, but I found some other threads to my life when Bowie glammed up. I liked the questioning posture of his music and his style--it wasn't just for the shock value, it didn't actually shock me at all, but it did seemed to be addressing questions that I was as well, about the nature of identity-- male/female, sexual/gender, authority/liberation, all those binary oppositions that tend to shape the worlds we inherit, which I found and still find suffocating.

Bowie is under-estimated I think--his avant-garde approach to music, to song-writing, musicianship, his theatricality--there are so few like him in the annals of popular music--and playing live? Well if you never saw him, and you may not get the chance anymore, you really missed out on something special--this man can bring it live.

 

viddy well then droogies!!!

There is a new app from Random House for the 50th anniversay of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. It only seems to be available in the U.K. at the moment but hopefully in the future it will arrive on these shores.
The reviews are all incredibly positive, declaring that this is one of those apps that really does enable the reader to engage with the text in new ways, not simply monetize a piece of text via another revenue stream.

call me Ishmael

Today marks the 161st anniversary of the publishing of Herman Melville's classic tale of man and whale. Moby Dick was published on october 18th 1851 in the U.K. There is a fantastic blog to check out in honour of this anniversary--an illustration for every page of Moby Dick, crazy.

Google's banner for today marks the event,

Theologian Catherine Keller does some great reflection on Moby dick and Job's Leviathan in her book, The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming, a book well worth the read if you haven't,

The book has been the subject of some theoloigical reflection, but probably not enough by any stretch of the imagination. Well done Melville--a book whose story still captivates.

And of course, I should mention Led Zeppelin--John Bonham's legendary drum solo in Moby Dick (although I can't say that drum solos really turn me on much no matter how good they are)

 

mutinty!! shipmates!!!

I'm hosting an event with my friends Kester and Pete at Fuller Seminary. The three of us have been trying to do something together for quite some time and finally we can do something. it's an evening featuring Kester discussing some of the key ideas in his brilliant book Mutiny: Pirates why we love them and how they can save us--Pete and I will be there to engage in a conversation with him. I'm pretty sure we'll cover some provocative and heavt theological/philosophical territory--so come and join us! Here's a link to more info.

http://www.brehmcenter.com/initiatives/emergingchurch/events/pirates-and-prodigals-with-kester-brewin-and-peter-rollins/

banned books week

Yep, it's Banned Books Week--a celebration of the freedom to read, freedom of the press, and a protest against cencorship. Many countries still ban books. lady Chatterley's Lover was banned in the UK until 1960--probably because of the class-conscious rhetoric.

we got you covered

The Roundel: 100 Artists Remake A London Icon, is a new book featuring, yes, you guessed it, one hundred aritsts playing with, rearranging and re-inventing the iconic London Underground roundel (the blue line dissecting the red circle for those of us who are less well-informed:)) created in 1908 as a device to aid in the noting of station names which were being lost in a sea of advertising. Calligrapher Edward Johnston and a London transport manager, Frank Pick developed the original, and now iconic symbol. The book comes out next month, looks to be fabulous.