More:
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Monday, April 16, 2018
Sunday, April 15, 2018
Friday, April 13, 2018
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
Monday, April 09, 2018
Saturday, April 07, 2018
Friday, April 06, 2018
Thursday, April 05, 2018
Wednesday, April 04, 2018
Church
Every Wednesday evening and every Sunday morning I
find myself playing with a praise band, usually as the keyboardist, but
sometimes as the bassist, and once in a blue moon as a singer. As much fun as I have playing in the praise
band, I’m not wild about a lot of the music. Neither Hillsong nor Chris Tomlin nor
most any of the other stuff that currently fills up the Billboard Contemporary Christian Chart does much for me. Frankly, as a listener, I find a lot of it
terribly dull and repetitive. Beyond that, I find I don’t relate to many of the
lyrics. My trouble with them is that they all sound very self-assured, as if
every line has an unwritten exclamation point after it, when pretty much every
thought I have about God or Jesus or Heaven or Hell has a question mark after
it.
Maybe I’m wrong in this, but I have a sneaking
suspicion that I am not alone in my confusion and doubt. I also doubt that I’m
alone in my disgust with the hypocrisy I see in church: my own and that of
other attendees. I have frequently been
a vocal critic of organized religion, and yes, I am prepared to defend that
criticism. Still, I am a regular church-goer, even if my motive is at least in
part that they pay me to play. I enjoy the people and the ritual and the sense
that there is something beyond us which is behooves us to recognize. But we
fall short. I refer to “religious community” in the broadest possible sense
when I say: I think we can do better. We need
to do better.
Tuesday, April 03, 2018
Judging the Art by Judging the Artist
Last year, Kevin Spacey found himself accused of sexual harassment
on several occasions. The accusers, according to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Spacey)
were “numerous,” and famously included Rent star Anthony Rapp. In 2014, Bill
Cosby also faced multiple allegations of harassment. If both of these men (among
others) are guilty as charged, then clearly some sort of punishment is
appropriate, but should we deprive ourselves of their artistic accomplishments?
Spacey is a fine actor, writer and director. Cosby is one of the best comedians
of the past fifty years. Can I still listen to and enjoy his work without
feeling guilty?
It’s easy to find cases of people with remarkable and
admirable accomplishments who nonetheless led far from impeccable lives. Richard
Wagner was rabidly anti-semitic. Composer Percy Grainger was into hardcore
bondage. Silent film star Harold Lloyd was obsessed with pornography. Frank
Sinatra, by most accounts, relished his Mafia connections and didn’t hesitate
to use them. Most of our heroes are not as perfect as we would like them to be.
Should we judge their work in tandem with their personalities?
Back in the 1980s, singer Cat Stevens gave an interview in
which he seemed to agree with a fatwa calling for the death of Salmon Rushie,
author of The Satanic Verses. Tower Records, at that time an important music
retailer, pulled all of Stevens’s recordings from their shelves. I remember
supporting Tower’s decision, but I have since wondered if that was the right
decision.
My question is: How much do we let what we know about an
artist affect our enjoyment of that person’s art?
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
My Online Legacy
Not that anyone is itching to do this, but if someone were
to make a comprehensive catalog of all my online activity, it would reveal a
reasonably large mish-mash of artwork, music, photos, blog posts, and other
miscellaneous writing. It would also reveal that most of this content is of
dubious quality. Some of it is just plain awful. *sigh*
But with only a couple of exceptions, I have made no attempt
to remove even the really embarrassing stuff. That sort of self-censorship seems
somehow to go against the spirit of the internet, and certainly against my own spirit
of documenting my experiments with a variety of creative forms. Plus, I’m not
running for political office, so I really don’t care who turns up dirt on me. Besides,
most of my dirt is relatively clean.
Now if you want to see what a couple of guys who actually
know what they’re doing online can make, check out any of the many projects
Hank and John Green have put out there for our entertainment and education:
Thursday, February 01, 2018
Feeling Good About Pain
As has been the case with my Barefoot Wordsmith blog, I have
been sorely neglecting this AladdinFoot blog. Shame on me. I can do better. And
doing better is the topic of today’s discussion. 2018 is now one month old, and
I’m not yet sure it’s any better than 2017. In fact, given that I’m at present
in pain as the result of a recent hernia operation, it actually feels a little worse
than last year at this point. BUT…the operation was a necessary surgery, and
now it’s done and I’m on the mend, so looked at in this light, I’m better off
than before the surgery.
Fascinating.
Right there is an example of something I can do to make 2018
better: I can reshape my attitude. My current pain is not unnecessary
suffering, but rather a sign that something unpleasant (hernia) has been fixed.
I can focus on the positive. It won’t
make the pain go away, but it will make me feel better about the pain.
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