Andy Whitman, blast from the past

Well lookie here... Andy Whitman has been syndicating (?) excerpts from his near-daily blog with Paste Magazine ("Signs of life in music, film, and culture"). It'd been 12-13 years since I'd read Mr. Whitman's winsome writing, on the USENET (!) rec.music.christian newsgroup, where he sparked and fueled many a young person's exploration of "real thinking feeling people's music" with pointers to such artists as Peter Case, Victoria Williams, T-Bone Burnett, Bill Mallonee, et al. When he quit the newsgroup around 1995, it quickly lost what little creative / edgy content it had, and imploded in theological squabbles. But apparently, in all these years Andy's flair for writing and his passion for music haven't abated a bit. And his refreshing, holistic approach to music, life, faith, and culture seems to be shared by Paste Magazine as a whole. Nice to see some "signs of life" on the magazine rack.

Semantic aptitude 1: Chameleon

5-year-old Dylan understands what's going on, better than most kids his age. The other day, out of the blue, he asked from the back of the car, "dad, ... so does he mean he has trouble loving himself?" Huh? I then realized we were listening to Michael Knott's Life of David CD, and he'd understood pretty clearly what this dark refrain was about:    

I'm the cunning culprit
and the little lamb
and I love all God's children
all but one
This chameleon

Not bad for a five-year-old. He asked whether it was a prayer; Actually, yes: a sad and honest prayer...




Note to self: some of the repertoire may be a bit more difficult to explain.

Pierce Pettis and Howard Finster

Looks like I'll have to miss tomorrow night's Pierce Pettis performance over at Jammin' Java. I've only seen him play once, at Harvard's Veritas Forum, about 15 years ago. I was impressed then not only by the thoughful depth of his music but by how long he stuck around afterwards to talk with people. At first listen, he might seem like just another reflective-Christian singer-songwriter type -- but his songs really grow on you. And as a longtime Mark Heard fan, I have to admire Mr. Pettis' custom of starting every one of his CDs with a Heard cover.

Listening to "My Life of Crime" today, I realized he also deserves a place on the list of "cleverest lyrics ever" with the following mournful lines:
I have held some people up
I have robbed the stage
With my trusty six-string
I have made them pay...
A couple of days ago, I noticed that his CD "State of Grace" features artwork by the Rev. Howard Finster. That name sounded vaguely familiar..... a quick Wikipedia search later, I was floored to learn that uber-quirky artist-evangelist Rev. Finster not only painted for Pierce Pettis, but also did the Talking Heads' Little Creatures, R.E.M.'s Reckoning, and Adam Again's In a New World of Time. That's a lot of excellent (and very different) bands, linked only by ... well, not even linked by geography.

And sure enough, it's his preacherly voice peeking out of the sound mix on Adam Again's "Homeboys". To complete the picture, I checked out the rockumentary Athens, GA: Inside Out from Netflix. Next time I'm in Georgia, maybe I'll visit Paradise Garden.

An allegory...

... representing ... ah... I'm not yet sure what. I've never before thought of a movie as "mysterious" -- but that was my strongest impression of "Gerry". Other adjectives include dark, frightening, slow, repetitive, slow, haunting, luminous, odd, preposterous, challenging ... Obviously (to this discriminating viewer!) the surface story isn't really the point. But while puzzling over deeper meanings, I enjoyed stunning desert vistas (a killer app for HDTV... I would presume) and breathtaking music (Arvo Part's "Alina"; that's actually how I learned of this movie). Parts of it reminded me of Koyaanisqatsi; but it's much more demanding of the viewer. Funny, its ratings at both imdb and amazon are right in the middle -- half of viewers think it's among the best movies ever, and the other half found it an insulting waste of time. (Kind of like Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music.)