nevermind the bricolage

Art Talk?

How to explain my parents from lernert Engelberts on Vimeo.

I've always loved Holland and the Dutch, who inhabit those lowlands across the North Sea. This online tv show offers yet another reason. You get a bunch of visual artists and stick them in a room with their parents to see whether or not they can bridge the chasm of parent/child misunderstanding about life, vocation, and in these cases, the meaning of their off-spring's art. Not all the series is sub-titled, but this one is, so enjoy the chat. I also like the staging--there is some potential for building a 'grey room' for theological discourse I think--maybe this will be incorporated into something in the future.

Harry Patch(in memory of)

Radiohead have released a tribute to Harry Patch, the last surviving WW1 soldier, who died recently. The song is available for download on the band's site. Proceeds will go to the Royal British Legion. It's simple, serene, and essentially little more more than voice and strings, but it is sublime. This is what Thom Yorke had to say about the song and below it, the lyrics.

Recently the last remaining UK veteran of the 1st world war Harry Patch died at the age of 111.
I had heard a very emotional interview with him a few years ago on the Today program on Radio4.
The way he talked about war had a profound effect on me.
It became the inspiration for a song that we happened to record a few weeks before his death.
It was done live in an abbey. The strings were arranged by Jonny.
I very much hope the song does justice to his memory as the last survivor.
It would be very easy for our generation to forget the true horror of war, without the likes of Harry to remind us.
I hope we do not forget.
As Harry himself said
"Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims".

I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn

Obama is Hitler????

I was strolling to my local Starbucks this morning when I happened upon this lovely sight-a political group funded by Lyndon LaRouche are campaigning against Obama's economic and health policies, something like that anyway. The conversation in *bucks was animated to say the least, thrid space conversation finally! Most people expressed that they felt caught between the "this is America, free speech etc." and the offensive nature of the image and the comments of the people manning the booth. I checked out LaRouche's site when I got home and have posted some of the blurb after the break, it seems like a bit of madness to me. Of course, I htink there are signiifcant problmes with economic policies all the way around and we might be coming to the ned of one wave i.e. free-market capitalism marked by unbridled consumerism and debt, but I am not sure any of the rest of it makes any sense at all...

Jesus Said...

Leonardo

Some thoughts on the present economic situation from one of my favourite theologians. I particularly iked his definition of 'spirituality.'
"Someone committed to original thinking, and who is concerned with the destiny of humanity and of our Common House, must have the courage to say: control and regulation of finance capital and of the markets, as the dominant tendency wants, are not enough to get us out of the present crisis. They are panaceas which will not reach the roots of the present chaos. They want to avoid the radical changes that, if they occurred, would save us from a global tragedy. They would rather nurture and sell the illusion that in a short while all will return to normalcy. But it will be not as they want it.

The fact is that the capitalist system and culture can no longer explain the march of humanity's social life. The many crises are expressions of one single crisis: a spiritual crisis. Do not equate the spiritual with religions and the Churches. To the contrary, starting from the spiritual we must criticize them, especially the Catholic Church, that under the present Pope is experiencing a terrifying spiritual crisis. Suffice it to consider the lack of compassion with regard to AIDS, that in some countries is truly devastating, that the Pope displayed in his recent trip to Africa.

When I talk of spirituality I think of a new sense of being, in a new collective dream, interwoven with infinite values such as cooperation, solidarity, respect for every being, caring for all life, harmony with nature, and love for Mother Earth and for the plurality of expressions of the Sacred.

Earth Hour

8:30 pm Saturday March 28, whatever your local time zone is 'Earth Hour' a global action to highlight climate change and environmental issues--maybe sitting in the dark for an hour seems slight, maybe little actions change the world.

A Font Thing?

U.S. newspapers are in serious trouble--readership is falling precipitously, sales are down, ad revenues in decline, and their very future seems to be in serious doubt. It is hard not to hear a commentary of some kind about the sad state of affairs on a daily basis. Newspapers essentially trade in yesterday's news, which, in former times, was not a bad thing, as lines of communication were much slower and avenues of information were narrower--today, of course, everything happens 'now' and is reported immediately and newspapers seem slightly dated, or at least the idea of them. Now I say this as a newspaper man--I love reading the paper and my day starts regularly with a cup of tea and the paper. That said, I think newspapers, at least US ones, are pretty much crap. I find out more information from overseas and the Guardian and Independent online are my informational lifelines to life both in the UK and here in the US. As someone who moves between both cultures I have done some thinking about all of this and I wonder, is it the fonts? That might sound ridiculous but if you compare UK papers to Us papers they tend to fall into two disctinct groups--the US papers tend to have old fonts, the UK newer,  and this helps give them contemporary feel. It's obviously more complex than that--the sheer size of America makes newspapers essentially local, urban affairs, whereas in the UK papers are national and have the whole country to draw from, but nevertheless, I think there is something to this font thing. I feel like I am reading something that has little relationship to my lived experience and there is not much meaningful commentary and the local stuff gets sacrificed, and there is hardly any interantional news--one of the significant issues with US newspapers I think--they just dont seem to get the new realities we live in and still come from a too isolationist perspective I feel. The blurring of lines between real news and entertainment doesn't help either. I don't know, this is more of an out loud 'waffle' than anything else, but newspapers don't have to look the way they always have--they could change and find new ways of connecting and I dont just mean by going digital.

Capitalism and the Great Economy

I have been doing a really interesting directed reading with five students this past term, all of whom are reflecting on some of the more prominent of the European philosophers--Badiou, Foucault, and Zizek particularly. Two of them gave a presentation a couple of days ago, presenting an introduction to Zizek and his potential interest to theology students (he has quite a bit to say about religion). Zizek is not a fan of the Left because he believes they have simply yielded the ground to free-market Capitalism, a system he is not a big fan of. Nor is he a big fan of what has been termed 'frictionless capitalism' or 'capitalism with a face'--think Red Campaign, Free Trade type things, that essentially, in his view, keep structures that are repressive functioning and therefore, are not really addressing the real issue--which is not just global poverty, but a mode of living that contributes to it.

Evolutionar!!!

Brian Eno has said that he regards Darwin's theory of evolution is the seminal idea of the 20th century. This being the 150th anniversary of the publication of his book, On the Origin of Species, all stops are being pulled out. Damien Hirst has done a cover for a special edition, art galleries and museums are opening exhibits to celebrate what has become the prime consensual illusion of the West, and all kinds of celebrations and festivities are being planned. It is also the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, which only adds to the fever. I think I am going to start a reading group and tackle the book again.

Inauguration