“…the physical nature of faith is audible: how, if you ever get even a taste of it, you feel it in your bones. And in your extremities, and in your senses, and in your reflexes. Religious music that doesn’t convey this aspect of faith isn’t necessarily a failure; I’m not about to condemn Gregorian chant for not being ecstatic enough. But when religious expression meets the three-minute pop song, I want it to tell me how what it has brought to the pop table is not only higher than the usual fare, but better.”

- John Darnielle

I’m blogging through the series of videos made to accompany the album Flying Club Cup by Beirut (aka Zach Condon and band). Song #6 is The Penalty. Here’s the video:

These Flying Club Cup videos have been a journey through a mythic Brooklyn, Brooklyn as a musical landscape in Zach’s mind, where he (and perhaps he alone) can see the musicians he hears in his head. Up until now he has stayed safely cocooned in their sound, surrounded by a a fortress of musicians. But as The Penalty begins, we find him alone, vulnerable, his tiny ukulele clutched to his chest like a wino’s bottle. “Like an ancient day and I’m on trial,” he sings. What the trial is about we don’t know, but the result seems to be some kind of exile: “And I could not stay for I believed them.”

There is a pause, and then a moment of transcendence, as we rise up from Zach to see the beautiful sky above. Then we descend to find him again, but now look, his band as well! Just beyond the musicians await, and as he begins to play he goes to them. The strain of the lonely trial is replaced by joy as he finds his “comrades in arms” (the band stands statically in a formation like troops for review).

Among this “crowd of homesick full-grown children” he finds new comfort, something their parents could not understand, for they “rue the day” that their children “left for the light.” What is the “penalty” then? Is it that we must leave the comfort of one thing, our parents’ world, to strike out “for the lights always in season”? A frightening prospect, but in so doing we may, if we are lucky, find a new world of new friends, new comrades. As the video ends, Zach says, “Tres bien.” He has been lucky.

“Sometimes following John [Darnielle - lead singer of the Mountain Goats] is like…I mean, we’re in the South…sometimes following John is a little like following Jesus. It’s very difficult, sometimes rewarding, and sometimes you wake up and you go, ‘Why the hell am I at a snake handling church?’”

- stage patter from Perry Wright from Mountain Goats live at the 40 Watt, Athens, GA, August 10, 2006 (bootleg)

Love’s as warm as tears,
Love is tears:
Pressure within the brain,
Tension at the throat,
Deluge, weeks of rain,
Haystacks afloat,
Featureless seas between
Hedges, where once was green

Love’s as fierce as fire,
Love is fire:
All sorts–Infernal heat
Clinkered with greed and pride,
Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,
Laughing, even when denied,
And that empyreal flame
Whence all loves came.

Love’s as fresh as spring,
Love is spring:
Bird-song in the air,
Cool smells in a wood,
Whispering “Dare! Dare!”
To sap, to blood,
Telling “Ease, safety, rest,
Are good; not best.”

Love’s as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing He had done,
Seeing (what all that is)
Our cross, and His.

(HT: Staublog)

Obama on race in the campaign and racial relations in America. Perhaps the most important political speech on race in America since MLK’s “I Have a Dream.”

By now you must know about the latest blog to go from 1 to 75 jagillion readers in just two months: Stuff White People Like. If you don’t know about it, you must not be white, because if you are white you spend 57% of your time each day making sure you are keeping up with all the blogs your other white friends are reading. So you have something to talk about at the Starbucks or Whole Foods.

Wearing my “yes, I am very, very white” colors (so to speak), I decided to collect here my favorite White People quotables from the site.

“White people love ethnic diversity, but only as it relates to restaurants.”

“The woman is a ‘local herb merchant.’ Everything about that description is white.”

“I’m pretty sure the last non-gifted white child was born in 1962 in Reseda, CA. Since then, it’s been a pretty sweet run.” Continue this journey…

…and how excited are people about this book?

My friend, WTS student Art Boulet, actually stood outside the doors of Westminster Bookstore in freezing rain to be the first customer to get a copy. After making sure he understood that this was not an eighth Harry Potter book, we gladly sold Art four copies. He says one is for his room, one for his car, one to give to his girlfriend…and even one for his bathroom!

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