Today, Elijah and Greg celebrate two years of writing on our collaborative blog, Lost in the Cloud.  Though we had transferred over some older posts from the previous blog we had created with Greg’s younger brother, Criticism As Inspiration (which still features the header that Greg designed on Microsoft Word!), our first official post on Lost in the Cloud was published on 23 January, 2010.

Since that initial post, we’ve had over 200,000 unique visits to the blog (and to those 200 GRAND readers, may we offer our sincere thanks and warm regards to you).  As a way of looking back on these past two years, we thought we would highlight some of our posts that have had the most hits over the past two years, along with drawing attention to a few series that we have produced and other special posts.

ELIJAH’S TOP HITS:

1. “Helicopter Megaphone“: A post about the heartbreaking back story of the song “Helicopter” from Deerhunter’s album Halcyon Digest.
2. “Will tomorrow be the ‘end of the world‘”: A helpful explanation of the differences between various Christian views of “the last days” written at the time of the Harold Camping rapture predictions.
3. “Lost in the Sewer: Steve Duncan, Urban Explorer“:  A look at urban exploration in the underground of New York City.
4. “Top 20 Bands: 1“:  Elijah talks about his favorite musical artist in the climax of his series (see below) on his top 20 bands.

ELIJAH’S SERIES:

• Imaging the Kingdom (Parts One, Two, Three, Four, and Five):  A series of posts dedicated to exploring the nature of the kingdom of God and its implications in the universe, and therefore in our world and in the lives of all Christians.
• Top 20 Bands:  If you visit the link for Elijah’s number 1 post, you will have links to all 20 of the other bands.

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GREG’S TOP HITS:

1. “John Stump, composer of Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz“:  This piece about Greg’s uncle has become the singular most viewed post on LITC.  While John’s comical music compositions have been viewed around the globe, the post on our site is the one place where people can find out  actual information about the composer.
2. “Moby Books: Illustrated Classics Editions“:  This post is also a unique resource on the web on a little documented topic, about a series of abridged and illustrated versions of classic books published in the 70′s and 80′s that were Greg’s “gateway drug” into literature.
3. “‘Hipster’ ‘Christianity’: a ‘review’“:  Not Greg’s most charitable work, this post takes some below the belt potshots at the book Hipster Christianity.
4. “A Portrait of the Artist in The Age of Adz“:  An early review and speculative analysis of Sufjan Steven’s 2010 album, The Age of Adz.

GREG’S SERIES:

• Band Evangelist (Chapters One, Two, and Three):  A periodic update on upcoming and new releases from various albums and bands.  (Elijah even posted a “Disciple of the Band Evangelist” piece in the same vein.)
  
• The Mirror and the Telescope (Parts One, Two, Three, and Four):  An original essay on an evangelical view of Scripture that proposes that there are truly two subjects of special revelation: God and humanity.
• Reformed and Always Reforming (Parts One, Two, and Three):  A summary and analysis of the initial chapters of Roger Olson’s book Reformed and Always Reforming.

GREG’S SPECIAL POSTS:

• “John Wenham: An Appreciation“:  This was a brief review of the autobiography of a British evangelical biblical scholar who also held to the annihilationist view of hell/divine judgment.  As a result of this post, Greg received an email from Wenham’s grandson thanking him for his positive evaluation of his grandfather’s legacy.  This post also provided Greg with a number of opportunities to engage with readers on the annihilationist view.
• “A modest proposal for Sufjan Stevens regarding the completion of his 50 states project“:  This was an open letter to the single greatest contemporary American artist (in Greg’s opinion) with an idea of how to continue with the creative endeavor of recording an album for each one of the 50 American states.
• “A review of Josh T. Pearson live in Glasgow“:  This post captured some highlights from an opportunity that Elijah and Greg had to see a one-of-a-kind singer/songwriter in concert whilst Greg was visiting Elijah in Scotland, including a live track from the show.

Working on this blog together has been full of delight, insight, and catharsis, and we are deeply grateful for those who subscribe, read, and comment on our posts at LITC.

This has been one of the ways that Elijah and Greg have stayed connected over the past few years that Elijah has been working on a PhD at the University of St Andrews and so the blog often captures some of the profound affection, encouragement, and willingness to learn from one another that characterizes our friendship.  We look forward to continuing our collaboration into the near future, with the potential of someday even creating a print edition of Lost in the Cloud.  Keep your eyes open for forthcoming information and thanks again for joining us these last two years!

So, being that today is the anniversary of John’s death, I would like to celebrate my eccentric genius uncle by officially declaring January 20 to be Death Waltz Day and posting some random information and images from John’s life, beginning with his death certificate.

Some might think it in poor taste to post a copy of this document, but I disagree.  For one, there have been some people who’ve claimed that John is an invented person and that this all is a hoax, so a legal document demonstrating the fact of his existence by acknowledging the END of his existence seems appropriately absurd, given John’s sense of humor (this is a man who once sent me, in lieu of a Christmas letter, a sympathy card using a fake name–for both the recipient and sender).  Secondly, I’ve had a number of requests for information about John and his death from small magazines or blogs, so I thought I’d just put this out there as part of the public data about John.  Finally, I’m commemorating his DEATH on DEATH WALTZ DAY, so a DEATH certificate seems apropos.  There’s no need for us to be so tetchy about the end of life, my friends!  (Ironically, one of the only musical compositions of John’s known to have been performed was called “And Death Shall Have No Dominion” so John was clearly comfortable with the topic!)

I’m also including a scan of the program cover and inside content from John’s memorial service, which was held at The Vedanta Society of Southern California, where my other uncle lives and works.

Having the coda from “Hey Jude” as your funeral recessional is about the coolest thing imaginable.  I wish I had been there to experience this first hand–I honestly cannot even remember the trivial matter that kept me from attending his service.

Reflecting the other end of John’s life, I wanted to post the actual hospital bill for his birth (total cost = $64.8o!) & a photo of a precious young John, probably around two or three years old.

(Where can you get a $2 circumcision these days?)

I thought I’d also share some rather funny promotional material that John used to sell his works, which he referred to as “musical novelties” and “gag sheet music,” along with John’s business card from his days as a music engraver.

My father has been digging up some other treasures of John’s, including a short story that he wrote in 1978 called “Harold Blott and the Christmas Pumpkin” which I will post at some point, and I’m asking my dad to look for this absolutely droll booklet that John made for him for his birthday that was an illustrated story in the manner of Edward Gorey.  I will try to post these in time for John’s birthday in March…

Finally, I thought I would use the occasion of Death Waltz Day to clear up some confusion about a video on YouTube that claims to be the “Death Waltz.”  What seems to have happened is that someone took the music of another composer and simply put the title of John’s work on it, as if it were a representation of what the Death Waltz would sound like put to music.  One of the comments from my original post on John, by a reader called Will K., revealed what the actual song in the video was:

The correct name of this song is “U.N. Owen was Her”, remix by Cool&Create, piano version. The original author is Japanese composer Junya Ota, who goes by the alias of ZUN. He is known for his Touhou series computer games, from where the music comes from, which are extremely popular in Japan. More specifically, this bgm is from the game Touhou6: Embodiment of the Scarlet Devil. He is a very exceptional case because he is famous for single-handedly designing and programming his games AND composing all of the soundtracks, including this one.

Hope that helps clear that all up!  However, in honor of Death Waltz Day, I would like to issue a challenge to any music programmers out there to actually input John’s composition “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz” into some musical software program and send us the results of what it would sound like.  It will probably sound like absolute cacophony and chaos, given that the composition was designed more for it’s visual and humorous flair and not for musical coherence, but we’ll never know unless we hear it for ourselves!

Thanks to all those who have shown an interest in John’s works over the years and hopefully this post will provide some additional enjoyment for his fans around the world!  I end this commemoration of Uncle John with some lyrics of George Harrison, which were printed on the back of John’s memorial service program:

All things must pass/none of life’s strings can last/
so I must be on my way/and face another day…

2012 is nearly upon us, which means it’s time for our Best Albums of 2011 list here at Lost in the Cloud!  We’ve been conscientiously consuming music to both nourish our culturally gluttonous souls and to deliver a collection of what we consider to be the finest music released this year.  Last month we proudly presented our Best Songs of 2011 list and now we have painstakingly selected our top ten albums each.  In 2010, we (Greg & Elijah) shared five albums in common on our Best Albums list.  This year we have discovered that we only share one album in common, which may be an indication of our decomposing friendship (we’re only joking, of course!), but this means that while last year we shared 15 ‘best’ albums between the two of us, this year we are presenting you with a 19-album smörgåsbord!

Elijah’s Top 10 Albums of ’11

10.  Bon Iver Bon Iver — Concerning Bon Iver’s 2008 release of For Emma, Forever Ago, a friend once commented, ‘Take the reverb away and there’s nothing there.’  I couldn’t help but agree at the time.  This is my confession: I wasn’t a huge Bon Iver fan, in fact, I wasn’t a Bon Iver fan before this record.  [I can already feel the rage boiling up inside many LITC readers...]  But Bon Iver captured me in its move beyond the self-wallowing, isolated cabin chat of For Emma.  This new record is a beautiful collection of multilayered sound and place names (some real, some fictitious), standing on its own without some self-indulgent backstory (though this is not attack on Justin Vernon, who is a lovely, lovely man).  I think it could’ve done without ‘Beth/Rest’…  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Towers’, ‘Wash.’ and ‘Calgary’.

9.   Demolished Thoughts Thurston Moore — When I first heard that Beck was producing a Thurston Moore solo album I was ecstatic, but I immediately began to feed myself a significant amount of scepticism leading up to its release.  Could the actualisation of such a record truly be as great as it sounds?  Probably not.  With this dose of low expectation I found myself pleasantly taken aback by Demolished Thoughts, and my appreciation only grew with additional listens.  This album plays on Moore’s Sonic Youth strengths and—like Lou Barlow—makes me feel like it’s the mid-90s in all the best ways while not sounding like ‘that guy from Sonic Youth’s side project’.  And perhaps the early stages of Moore’s separation from his wife of 27 years, SY singer/bassist/guitarist Kim Gordon, contributed to the depth of his sometimes heartbreaking songwriting.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Benediction’, ‘Circulation’ and ‘Mina Loy’.

8.   Dancer Equired Times New Viking — I love lo-fi and the grittiness of Born Again Revisited, number eight on my Best Albums of 2009 list, was a significant part of its ranking alone.  While this record isn’t ‘clean’ by contemporary production standards, it is far less mucky than TNV’s previous releases.  But the lo-fi onslaught isn’t the only reason why I love TNV.  Their beautifully lazy harmonies and their catchy, shoegazy simplicity are what really attract me.  I’d even say that Dancer Equired is their catchiest record to date, though I don’t suspect these songs will be employed in any television adverts any time soon.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘No Room to Live’, ‘Downtown Eastern Bloc’ and ‘Fuck Her Tears’.

7.   Helplessness Blues Fleet Foxes — Fleet Foxes once again demonstrate their command of the Americana genre.  While I was not entirely blown away by their debut record, I was able to recognise their talent and potential.  I was eager to pick up Helplessness Blues and it did not disappoint.  Principal songwriter Robin Pecknold taps into the soul of a man twice his age and delivers timeless lyrics with a well-groomed musical backbone.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Battery Kinzie’, ‘Helplessness Blues’ and ‘Grown Ocean’.

6.   Strange Mercy St Vincent — Annie Clark takes a step in the right direction with Strange Mercy.  Building upon her previous efforts, Clark explores both the cheery and dark on Strange Mercy (I find ‘Cruel’ and its accompanying video especially haunting).  As a whole, and perhaps because of this ‘darker’ element, the album is more engaging than her previous material.  While more sonically stripped-down than Actor (an honourable mention from 2009′s list), Strange Mercy somehow feels fuller and more mature.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Chloe in the Afternoon’, ‘Surgeon’ and ‘Dilettante’ (not picked merely because of the ‘Elijah’ mentioned…).

5.   Father, Son, Holy Ghost Girls — About Father, Son, Holy Ghost, I will first say that I found this record a bit of a disappointment, but disappointment is a relative word.  Unlike most other sophomore records in which I prepared myself for disappointment with low expectations, I actually suspected that this new Girls record would be my number one pick before even listening to it.  Upon further listens I only grew more fond of their previous record, Album, ranked number six on my Best Albums of 2009 list, and last year’s EP, Broken Dreams Club, was equally impressive.  But generally speaking, Father, Son, Holy Ghost is an excellent record.  While I wouldn’t consider it a significant improvement on Album I also wouldn’t consider it any sort of regression.  Unlike the front-heavy Album, Father, Son, Holy Ghost builds up into its eight-minute ‘Forgiveness’ before bringing us back down for the final two tracks.  Like Album, this record does a fine job of holding in tension both the child and adult that is singer/guitar Christopher Owens, and it is certainly worth its place on this Best of 2011 list.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Honey Bunny’, ‘My Ma’ and ‘Forgiveness’.

4.   The Year of Hibernation Youth Lagoon — For me, The Year of Hibernation was 2011’s most striking discovery.  Having heard the album without having previously known anything about its creator I was shocked to find that Youth Lagoon is just one person, Idaho-based Trevor Powers, and that Mr Powers is only 22 years old (which causes me to ask the question, ‘Elijah, what are you doing with your life‽’).  The Year of Hibernation, recorded for next to nothing by a 22-year-old in his bedroom in Idaho, offers far more than the sum of its parts.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Posters’, ’17′ and ‘Montana’.

3.   Let England Shake PJ Harvey — PJ Harvey has released some excellent records – Dry, Rid of Me, Is This Desire?, etc.  But Let England Shake—which earned Harvey her second Mercury Award—may very well be her strongest.  While neither as dark nor necessarily as ‘personal’ as some of her previous efforts, this album is brimming with creativity.  Harvey did her homework for this record, which explores some contemporary conflicts in British history, ranging from the Gallipoli campaign to the more recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Without coming across as a ‘topical’ or ‘protest’ album, Harvey paints a critical and sober picture of Western military domination and its consequences both domestically and abroad.  The music’s excellent too (Harvey picks up an autoharp for this record!).  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Let England Shake’, ‘The Last Living Rose’ and ‘Hanging in the Wire’.

2.   Dye It Blonde Smith Westerns — What can I say, I’m a fan of good pop music.  This record is just one of several that caught me entirely by surprise this year.  While I had heard and enjoyed Smith Westerns’ first release, The Smith Westerns, it did not strike me in a way that would compel me to consider it one of my favourite records of 2009.  But this record demonstrates significant pop songwriting maturation, songwriting the vein of—dare I say—The Beatles (specifically King George).  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Weekend’, ‘All Die Young’ and ‘Smile’.

1.   Belong The Pains of Being Pure at Heart — After their debut record (which was an honourable mention on my Best Albums of 2009 list) I had no idea where PoBPaH (some acronym is necessary with such an obnoxiously long name) might go.  They had successfully composed an album in the style of 1980s Brit-pop with their first record.  I expected any subsequent releases to merely replicate that formula with varied success.  But this record is a witness to PoBPaH’s evolution into a true force to be reckoned with.  If we’re grouping the sound by decade, Belong showcases more of a 90s alt-rock feel than its predecessor.  While it’s unlikely to be found in the top spot on many other ‘Best Albums of 2011′ lists, I’ve only grown more fond of this record over the course of 2011 and can safely say that as a whole it is my favourite.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: ‘Belong’, ‘Anne with an E’ and ‘My Terrible Friend’.

Elijah’s Honourable mentions

Because there were so many great albums this year (though I must confess, none quite as great as last year’s Age of Adz), I’ve taken the liberty of sharing an additional 15 albums that I believe are worth owning:

• Bad As Me Tom Waits — An excellent piece of music, though I can’t say more excellent than anything released in the last decade.
• Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming M83 — Over 70 minutes long, much of which can be considered music.
• Burst Apart The Antlers
  
• Tomboy Panda Bear
• The Last of the Country Gentlemen Josh T Pearson — Raw emotion in the form of heavenly songs, but they are gut-wrenching and tend to be quite lengthy.
  
• Days Real Estate — While I truly enjoy this record, I believe it’s a wee bit hyped, but that’s just one man’s opinion.
  
• In the Pit of the Stomach We Were Promised Jetpacks — Doesn’t quite stick with me like These Four Walls does.
• Best of Gloucester County Danielson
• Strange Negotiations David Bazan
  
• The King of Limbs Radiohead — Has some amazing tracks (see ‘Lotus Flower’ and ‘Codex’), though it ultimately felt like an EP.
• Wit’s End & Humor Risk Cass McCombs — Both of these records were released this year and each features songs that I believe are among McCombs best (such as ‘County Line’ and ‘Buried Alive’ from Wit’s End and ‘To Every Man his Chimera’, but ‘Love Thine Enemy’ from Humor Risk) it’s a bit scattered.
• 100 Lovers DeVotchKa
• Degeneration Street The Dears
• C’mon Low
• David Comes to Life Fucked Up

Elijah’s Biggest Disappointments of ’11

• Parallax Atlas Sound — I am a huge fan of Bradford Cox and his band, Deerhunter, and solo project, Atlas Sound.  Cox’s first Atlas Sound release, Logos, placed ninth on my Best Albums of 2009 list and Deerhunter’s excellent Halcyon Digest placed third on my Best Albums of 2010 list.  While Parallax has received a fair amount of praise from critics I find that it only has a few songs that rise to the high standard set by Cox’s other efforts: ‘Mona Lisa’, ‘Angel is Broken’ and ‘Lightworks’.
• Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds — I bought this record on a whim with the hope that Noel would offer something better than Liam’s Beady Eye project.  Unfortunately my foray into bestselling music was a tremendous let down.  Noel was the musical brains behind Oasis, but he’s capable of so much more than this record.

+++++

Greg’s Top 10 Albums of ’11

This has been a strange year in music for me.  A while back, I wrote a post about a number of albums coming out this year by bands whom I loved—four of which have ended up on this list.  Yet, due to a phenomenon that I am calling “the tragedy of unanticipated mediocrity,” a number of the other albums were crushing disappointments: boring, lifeless, and one-dimensional.  Even the ones that made the list (or almost made it—Low‘s C’mon) were a mixed bag, in which the album was only saved because the highs were so high that they overshadowed the lows.  This type of confounded expectations from bands that I dearly adore, like Bright Eyes, Radiohead, Cass McCombs (who had TWO swings for the fence, yet almost completely struck out), Panda Bear and, to a lesser extent (in terms of my adoration), DeVotchKa, We Were Promised Jetpacks, and Norman Blake’s new band, Jonny, elicited a certain measure of disorientation and disillusionment–if I couldn’t trust Radiohead to make even a passably good album (which I felt The King of Limbs wasn’t–not even a strong EP’s worth of songs) and the Bright Eyes “comeback” LP (which some critics called their definitive work) turned out to be a messy collection of B-side material strung together with clips of some bizarre, deluded pseudo-preacher, then what sense was there in the world at all? This was my year of losing faith in the old (indie) gods…

Another surprising feature of my picks for this year was the number that reflected some subgenre of electronic music, a style for which I have never had any great affection but which I have been developing a taste for due to albums from Passion Pit, the last few Animal Collective releases, and especially Twin Shadow, whose album was on last year’s Best Albums post.  I guess an old dog can learn to appreciate some new high-pitched whistles!

10.   12 Desperate Straight Lines Telekinesis — This album could end up much higher upon my favorites of the year, but to be completely honest, I just downloaded the full album today (this bumped off Low’s C’mon for the last spot on the list here…sad, but what can be done with a half-great album).  This is super duper INDIE-POP/ROCK, but it’s so well crafted, exhilarating, and above all KOOL AS ALL GET OUT!  This is this year’s Fang Island for my money.  A jolt of propulsive rhythms (the singer is the drummer!), thick driving bass lines, and Jeff Tweedy-esque vocals.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: “You Turn Clear in the Sun,” “Dirty Thing,” “Car Crash,” and “Country Lane.”

9.   Burst Apart The Antlers — The Antlers and Bon Iver have a few things in common, to my mind.  First, the falsetto.  Second, the emergence of both bands in the last few years with epic debut albums (though there were apparently a few prior albums for The Antlers, Hospice was what put them on the aural map) that reflected a profound life-change quite beautifully.  Third, second albums that are much richer tonally, more diverse and layered, and resemble a flower opening up.  That being said, in the contest between the two albums this year, The Antlers’ Burst Apart win hands down (though Bon Iver is a strong honourable mention).  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: “I Don’t Want Love,” “Parentheses,” and “No Widows.”

8.   Rapprocher Class Actress — Some of the appeal of this album has to be found in the way that the synthesizer settings, drum tracks, and melodic pop songwriting takes me on a nostalgia trip back to another time: the mid-1980′s.  Seriously, we’re talking ABC, Pet Shop Boys, early Madonna, and some synthpop artists that are buried so deep in my subconscious that I am afraid to call them up, lest I find myself swept back into that age of longing, confusion, and heartache.  This album is half irresistible loveliness and the other half, resistible attempts at the former.  Still, if you skip some of the tracks in the middle, you will have a nearly quintessential example of the sythnaissance that is happening in music today.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: “Keep You” (which is PERFECT!), “Love Me Like You Used To,” “Weekend,” and “Missed.”

7.   Build a Rocket Boys! Elbow — I wanted to love this album so much.  Yet it took a while to grow on me and still hasn’t completely won me over.  Still, Guy Garvey is the king of melancholic nostalgia & lyrical subversion and the band are in top form musically in the more mellow of their modes.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: “Lippy Kids” (another eternally perfect song), “The Night Will Always Win,” and “Open Arms.”  (PS. Am I the only one who hears the intro theme from PRI’s program “The World” in the track “With Love” on this album?)

6.   Last of the Country Gentlemen Josh T. Pearson — Sorry about that girl’s lack of a shirt.  Josh T. Pearson is a strange and incredible man, about whom Elijah and I have written here so I need not say more.  SONGS TO CHECK OUT: It’s only 7 songs…pretty much all of them.

5.   Strange Negotiations David Bazan — Wrote about this album in detail here, including best tracks.  (And sorry for that girl’s lack of pants.)

4.   Helplessness Blues Fleet Foxes — Finally, no nudity on the cover.  I’m with Elijah on this, so you may see his write-up above.

3.   The Devil’s Walk Apparat — The fact that this album has not received any more attention this year makes me want to cry like a man at a Twilight screening.  It is simply amazing, so lovely, so hauntingly textured, the very best kind of electronic music and with a voice sweet as a mature Jeff Buckley.  I don’t really know anything about this band—which I think may actually be only one person, but you really owe it to yourself, and to the entire human race, to check the first few tracks out and see if you don’t buy it.

2.   Degeneration Street The Dears — Oh how I wanted this to be my number one album.  I am such a tremendous fan of songwriter/singer Murray Lightburn, but The Dears last album was deeply underwhelming and I feared that the bands best days were behind them (I’ve said it many times here, but their Gang of Losers is one of the best albums in existence).  And then, Degeneration Street appeared and I saw that they were back in every possible way (well, maybe some of the lyrics don’t quite meet the very highest standards).  I love this album—so very much.  I hope you would too.  Give it a chance.  They deserve to be topping lists all over the world, yet have been absent for all I can ascertain.  Tragic.

1.   Making Mirrors Gotye — I did NOT want for this to be my top album.  I actually resisted it quite vociferously.  “Gotye”—what kind of name is that?—and he looks like he would be a percussionist in Phish and he’s playing with all of these genres that I don’t even like—soul, electro-reggae, a kind of Peter Gabriel-esque “world pop” or something—and I think that this album is actually kind of…popular in some places in the world (imagine a pair of hipster glasses on Brando’s Col. Kurtz as he mutters, “The horror…the horror!”).  Yet, in the end, the singular talent of this guy (and his accomplices, particularly whomever is playing drums) broke through all of my resistance.  You may entirely disagree with me.  Heck, part of ME disagrees with me.  Yet, the other part won and convinced my fingers that the only place to put this album was at the very top.  You may listen to it here and decide for yourself.  (Also, I think the last song is about a cat dying, and it makes me tear up.)

Greg’s Honourable mentions

• 100 Lovers DeVotchKa — There are a number of quite good songs here.
  
• Bon Iver Bon Iver
• C’mon Low
  
• Portamento The Drums — Another singer/drummer act with some great tracks.
  

1. ‘All the Sand in All the Sea’   DeVotchKa   100 Lovers
2. ‘Angel Is Broken’   Atlas Sound   Parallax
3. ‘Animal’   Neon Trees   Habits   
4. ‘Ash/Black Veil’   Apparat   The Devil’s Walk  
5. ‘Battery Kinzie’   Fleet Foxes   Helplessness Blues
6. ‘Belong’   The Pains of Being Pure at Heart   Belong
7. ‘Circulation’   Thurston Moore   Demolished Thoughts
8. ‘Codex’   Radiohead   The King Of Limbs
9. ‘Country Dumb’   Josh T. Pearson   Last of the Country Gentlemen
10. ‘Cruel’   St Vincent   Strange Mercy
11. ‘Days’   The Drums   Portamento
12. ‘Degeneration Street’   The Dears   Degeneration Street
13. ‘Don’t Move’   Phantogram   Nightlife EP
14. ‘Downtown Eastern Bloc’   Times New Viking   Dancer Equired
15. ‘5 Chords’   The Dears   Degeneration Street
16. ‘Fuck This Place’   Frightened Rabbit   A Frightened Rabbit EP 
17. ‘Galactic Tides’   The Dears   Degeneration Street
18. ‘Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now’   The Pains of Being Pure at Heart   Belong
19. ‘Helplessness Blues’   Fleet Foxes   Helplessness Blues
20. ‘Honey Bunny’   Girls   Father, Son, Holy Ghost
21. ‘I Don’t Want Love’   The Antlers   Burst Apart   
22. ‘Keep You’   Class Actress   Rapprocher     
23. ‘The King’   RAMESH   The King
24. ‘The Last Living Rose’   PJ Harvey   Let England Shake
25. ‘Lippy Kids’   Elbow   Build A Rocket Boys!
26. ‘Montana’   Youth Lagoon   Youth Lagoon
27. ‘Municipality’   Real Estate   Days
28. ‘No Room to Live’   Times New Viking   Dancer Equired
29. ‘No Widows’   The Antlers   Burst Apart
30. ‘People’   David Bazan   Strange Negotiations
31. ‘Save Me’   Gotye   Making Mirrors
32. ‘Scottish Winds’   Frightened Rabbit   A Frightened Rabbit EP
33. ‘17’   Youth Lagoon   Youth Lagoon
34. ‘Smile’   Smith Westerns   Dye It Blonde
35. ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’   Gotye (ft. Kimbra)   Making Mirrors
36. ‘Song Of Los’   Apparat   The Devil’s Walk  
37. ‘Steve McQueen’   M83   Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
38. ‘Strange Negotiations’   David Bazan   Strange Negotiations
39. ‘Sweetheart I Aint Your Christ’   Josh T. Pearson   Last of the Country Gentlemen
40. ‘Tatooine’   Jeremy Messersmith   Tatooine Single
41. ‘To Every Man His Chimera’   Cass McCombs   Humor Risk
42. ‘Trembling Hands’   Explosions in the Sky   Take Care, Take Care, Take Care
43. ‘Try to Sleep’   Low   C’mon
44. ‘Under My Nose’   Fucked Up   David Comes to Life
45. ‘Video Games’   Lana Del Rey   Video Games
46. ‘Wait’  Alberta Cross   The Rolling Thunder EP 
47. ‘Wash’   Bon Iver   Bon Iver
48. ‘Weekend’   Class Actress   Rapprocher  
49. ‘Weekend’   Smith Westerns   Dye It Blonde
50. ‘Your Eyes’   Bombay Bicycle Club   A Different Kind of Fix

If you’d like to check out these tracks for temporary review before you go out and buy the single or the record, you may click here to have a listen.

Keep a lookout for our upcoming Best Albums of 2011 post!

In lieu of a meaty slab of verbiage, I offer instead…a mix.  A mix the like of which I have never before made, namely, a concentration of electronica/dance-ish type songs.  Recently, I have perceived a deluge of retro-80′s synth/drum machine/gloom-pop tunes in the musical ether.  For instance, I thought I had stumbled upon an unreleased duet between Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush when I heard the song, “Somebody that I Used to Know” by Gotye (pronounced “gore-tea-eh” apparently) and Kimbra.  The synth line and flat drums of Class Actress’ “Weekend” transported me back to middle school, when I used to tape songs off of the radio (before my best mate Wade opened my mind to punk, proto-indie, and goth on vinyl).  There’s also some heavy 80′s influence evident in the new “chillwave” genre which seems to be gaining momentum amongst the hiptelligensia…thanks to my Portland DJ friend, David A. for the heads up on this scene.

With the help of my Shazam app, the RCRD LBL daily download, and my retinue of music blogs, I put together a playlist of some 19 songs roughly fitting in this emerging genre, in a mix entitled, “Past Forward (or, Addicted to a Certain Kind of Sadness)” which you may download here.

I have dedicated the mix to my co-blogger and close-as-a-brother friend, Elijah Wade Smith, to whom I owe a letter of epic proportions, with my deepest apologies for epistolary delinquency.  I hope you all enjoy and know that I am working on getting my blog-self into gear.  As a new internet meme declares…

Tracklist:

1. Video Games/Lana Del Rey
2. Days/The Drums
3. Lofticries/Purity Ring
4. When We’re Dancing/Twin Shadow
5. No Reasons/VEGA
6. Weekend/Class Actress
7. Don’t Move/Phantogram
8. The Suburbs/Mr. Little Jeans
9. The Body/The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
10. Throw Away This/Telepathe
11. Polish Girl/Neon Indian
12. Animal/Neon Trees
13. Wait/Alberta Cross
14. Old Friend/Caveman
15. Somebody That I Used to Know (feat. Kimbra)/Gotye
16. Destructive Paths to Live Happily/Kindest Lines
17. Car Crash/Telekinesis
18. You Have My Eyes Now/CLUEs
19. Exit The Mine/Baths

But the Major League Baseball 2011 postseason is not why I am compelled to share a few thoughts in a blog post.  The answer to that ‘why’ is sitting right here in front of me…literally…on my lap.  Yes, I am a ‘Mac user’, and tonight, as has been made clear from the incredible flood of identical status updates on Facebook (yes, I am a ‘Facebook user’), it was announced that Apple co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs has died at age 56.

Not only was Steve Jobs the official technological outfitter of hipsters, he was a proto-hipster.

Without a doubt Jobs’ death will be the talk of the town tomorrow.  Whether you loved him, hated him or found yourself generally apathetic toward him, Jobs has had a significant role in the daily lives of a great many people over the last few decades.  When I initially heard the news of his death I figured that enough people are writing about this, why make my own feeble attempt to eulogise, inadvertently adding to the cloud of ‘We’ve lost a visionary!’ chat?  While I have admitted to being a ‘Mac user’ I have neither a literal nor figurative Apple tattoo.  I am not especially wowed by Apple Keynote addresses.  I certainly don’t trouble myself with the false ‘need’ to possess a wide array of Apple products.  To be honest, it’s all very expensive and even if I had the money part of me doesn’t think that it would be especially responsible to indulge in consumer electronics.  But I have owned several Apple products.  As a child my family had an early Macintosh (we weren’t cutting edge or wealthy, but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t stolen either).  All throughout my school years we used Macs in computer labs.  I first learned computer programming on a Mac.

When I went to university I used my extra scholarship money to buy my first computer – a 12-inch iBook G4.  A few years later that laptop’s display went kaput and I eventually upgraded to a black MacBook, the very MacBook that’s sitting on my lap now, four years after that purchase.  A couple years ago a certain Greg gifted me with some money, in celebration of my birthday/embarking on my PhD, meant specifically to assist my purchase of an iPod.  I only tell you this incredibly boring history of my Apple product experiences to highlight how my life actually is affected by the influence of Steve Jobs on a daily basis.

In a way I feel sort of dirty for thinking so much about this.  Nearly one billion people in the world don’t have clean drinking water, let alone a computer, let alone an expensive Apple computer (granted, I’ve never owned the ‘high-end’ Apple products).  It’s very evident to me that I should change my lifestyle, but I’m not going to pretend that I don’t make extensive use of my Apple products.  My Macs have brought me through university degrees, have been the means of countless designs (like the designs you see here at LITC), blog posts (like this one), letters, mix CDs, recording songs, etc.  I don’t necessarily need to do all of these things on a Mac, but I have a Mac so I do.  And the iPod – unless I’m spending uninterrupted time with people it is a very common feature of my day.  I estimate that I probably use my iPod for, on average, two hours a day.  I don’t necessarily need to listen to music on an iPod, but I have an iPod so I do.

My point is not to make some profound argument about how the world would stop without Apple – it wouldn’t.  My point is not even to make some profound argument about how my life would be drastically different without Apple – it probably wouldn’t.  But the vision of Steve Jobs, a man who was genuinely passionate about innovation (and genuinely good at selling it), is the fuel behind the success of Apple, success that cannot be reduced to mere monetary units.  The Jobs-led Apple set the bar for other manufacturers (yes, this is a mild endorsement of one aspect of a capitalistic system).  Even though Apple didn’t invent the MP3 player, they dramatically changed the way that our society experiences recorded music.  Aside from the technical innovations, Apple also brought a high aesthetic quality to the realm of electronics.  Why can’t our electronics be both functional and pleasing to the eyes?

It’s quite depressing to think about reducing a human being to a brand.  The media outlets will soon be publishing frightening news about how Apple’s success will decline because of Jobs’ death (which isn’t that frightening even if it was true).  Part of me finds this sort of revolting – Steve Jobs was a man with his own unique personality that, in theory, extends beyond the confines of a business, even a business as large as Apple.  But then another part of me realises that Apple was very much at the centre of Jobs’ life and he liked it that way.  Apple was not merely a business venture, but an invaluable outlet for Jobs’ vision and self-expression.

Apple is not dead and will continue to produce excellent innovations, but I don’t think that trajectory could have been so successful without the creative leadership of Jobs.

Steve Jobs wasn’t my friend and I generally do not have a great deal of respect for large companies and their leaders, but all-in-all I think he might have been something like an artist, and a great artist at that.  For someone I never knew and never followed with any sense of dedication, somehow I think I’ll miss Steve Jobs (or as I like to call him, ‘Esteban Trabajos’, with affection).  Thanks for sharing so many good things with the world, Steve.  We here at Lost in the Cloud salute you and will think of you as we experience the blessings of our MacBooks and iPods (and Greg as he uses his iPhone).

Cards won the game, by the way.

‘The Master’ is the story of a charismatic intellectual … who hatches a faith-based organization that begins to catch on in America in 1952 called The Cause.  The core dynamic centers on the relationship between The Master and Freddie Sutton, … an aimless twenty-something drifter and alcoholic who eventually becomes the leader’s loyal lieutenant.  As the faith begins to gain a fervent following, Freddie finds himself questioning the belief system he has embraced, and his mentor.

Essentially the film has been seen as a critique of the infamous L. Ron Hubbard and his Church of Scientology.  The Master has encountered several snags since these reports, snags that some connect with Scientology’s influence in Hollywood.  But alas, the film seems to be under way, with Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix potentially set to star alongside Hoffman.

Anderson is a gifted filmmaker and storyteller.  I’m certain that The Master, or whatever it will be called, will be an excellent film – he just doesn’t make bad films.  I suppose that’s why it’s so shocking that he’s gone through such an ordeal to find a studio to back this latest project.  It’s easy to point the finger at the heavily-caricatured Church of Scientology, but in my reflections I’m not so sure that’s fair.

I’ve spent a significant amount of time investigating Scientology for someone who has never considered taking up the belief system.  Growing up in and around Los Angeles, Scientology was always something ‘close to home’.  In the last few years, Scientology has been the target of a significant amount of slander.  I suspect that this can be largely attributed to the erratic behaviour of one of their most outspoken members.  I’ve read a lot of Scientological literature (Dianetics, What is Scientology?, Scientology 0-8, etc.) and have learned a lot of Scientological terminology (‘Thetan’, ‘Clear’, an ‘OT’ = ‘Operating Thetan’, ‘KSW’ = ‘Keep Scientology Working’, ‘LRH’ = ‘L. Ron Hubbard’, an ‘SP’ = ‘Suppressive Person’, ‘Tech’, ‘In-Ethics’, ‘Out-Ethics’, ‘Orgs’, etc.).  I’ve heard many people criticise Scientology for its ‘outlandish’ beliefs, such as the fundamental belief concerning human origins (called ‘Incident II’): that the dictator of the ‘Galactic Confederacy’, a being named Xenu brought billions of beings to Earth and killed them with hydrogen bombs, though leaving their essences to inhabit bodies that are now people, etc…

That bit does seem like a lot to stomach—and I know that the orthodox Christian claims concerning such as the existence of a personal deity, the virgin birth and bodily resurrection of Jesus, could be just as alienating—but Scientological ‘cosmology’ is not my primary reason for rejecting Scientology.  The Church of Scientology’s Creed, written by L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, states:

We of the Church believe
That all men of whatever race, color or creed were created with equal rights.
That all men have inalienable rights to their own religious practices and their performance.
That all men have inalienable rights to their own lives.
That all men have inalienable rights to their sanity.
That all men have inalienable rights to their own defense.
That all men have inalienable rights to conceive, choose, assist or support their own organizations, churches and governments.
That all men have inalienable rights to think freely, to talk freely, to write freely their own opinions and to counter or utter or write upon the opinions of others.
That all men have inalienable rights to the creation of their own kind.
That the souls of men have the rights of men.
That the study of the Mind and the healing of mentally caused ills should not be alienated from religion or condoned in nonreligious fields.
And that no agency less than God has the power to suspend or set aside these rights, overtly or covertly.

And we of the Church believe
That Man is basically good.
That he is seeking to Survive.
That his survival depends upon himself and upon his fellows and his attainment of brotherhood with the Universe.

And we of the Church believe that the laws of God forbid Man
To destroy his own kind.
To destroy the sanity of another.
To destroy or enslave another’s soul.
To destroy or reduce the survival of one’s companions or one’s group.

And we of the Church believe
That the spirit can be saved.
And that the spirit alone may save or heal the body.

Perhaps you read this creed and find no fault.  Perhaps you read this creed and see a bunch of convoluted and meaningless language.  When I read this creed something else jumps out at me.  At the very centre of Scientological belief is the view that a person is a spirit, a thetan.  According to their website, and one of their more prominent evangelical campaigns in the last few years, the heart of Scientology lies in an answer to the question, ‘Is Man a spirit?’  The official website states,

Yes.  A short exercise can quickly answer this for anyone: Ask someone to close their eyes and get a picture of a cat, and they will get a mental image picture of a cat.  Ask them who is looking at the picture of the cat and they will respond ‘I am.’  That which is looking at the cat is you, a spirit. One is a spirit, who has a mind and occupies a body.  You are you in a body.

Scientology breaks up the ‘Parts of Man‘ in this way:

Through my late exposure to American Evangelicalism I was confronted with another story, a story that claims with certainty despite strong scientific evidence (proof even!) that the earth alone is some 4.5 billion years old, that argues for a ‘young earth’ model.  If the earth is only several thousand years old, then how could biological evolution have happened?  Exactly.  This view also claims that the ‘theory of evolution’ (as if emphasising ‘theory’ makes it less legitimate straight away) is a fabrication of the godless scientific community.  While evolutionists have historically presupposed atheism—seeing evolution, as opposed to theistic creation, as a legitimate way of explaining the diversity of life on earth—I still found no significant tension between the concept of evolution and my belief in God.  That may simply be a matter of my own ignorance, but indulge me.

So as a first year undergraduate student I was confronted with these ‘young earth’ views and I wasn’t sure what I ought to do with them.  I decided to consult someone I trusted, someone whose name was synonymous with ‘wisdom’ in the seminary I attended: Ed Curtis.  Dr Curtis was (and still is) a white-haired sagely Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies who specialised in the Hebrew language and Wisdom Literature.  On top of this, prior to pursuing theology he studied physical science and worked as an engineer and physicist.  I approached Dr Curtis during a theological staff-student luncheon and eventually shared my recent confrontation with the conservative Evangelical position on creation.  He shared that he found himself confronted with the same tension, but in his gentle Texan-drawl he delivered a profound piece of wisdom that has stayed with me since: ‘If we only concerned ourselves with that which we can actually know we’d have enough on our plate.’

This reality puts a significant perspective on how we approach issues of doctrine, belief and practice as Christians.  The ‘that which we can actually know‘ that to which Dr Curtis referred is essentially boiled down to the love that God has revealed to us so explicitly.  In other words, as Christians we know that God loves the world that he created and the incarnation and giving of his Son Jesus Christ is a profound demonstration of this love.  Not only that, but in response to this love, empowered by God’s Spirit, we are called to love God and to love our neighbour.  In fact, loving our neighbours is very much synonymous with loving God, as we hear in Jesus’ words from Matthew 25:31-40 (NRSV):

‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.  Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”  Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?  And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing?  And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?”  And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,^* you did it to me.”’

Truly, if we primarily concerned ourselves with caring for the holistic needs of all of those around us we would have plenty with which to occupy ourselves.  That all sounds so beautiful, but that still leaves the issue of uncertainty wide open and Westerners don’t like uncertainty, right?  A more troubling thing is that these adamant ‘young earth’/'anti-evolutionary’ views are not bound the sidelines of public discussion – the prominent Republican political figures Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry (the latter two are currently competing for the Republican Party’s nomination for president) all hold to and promote conservative Evangelical views on these issues.  In our society these people have a right to hold these views, but the general intolerance demonstrated by many who hold such views only seems to promote needless division.

So what happened?  Why are we at this point?  At one point our Enlightened Western world accepted that through the power of our good science and our right reasoning we can solve anything; we can be have certainty.  Over the last few centuries, the findings of science and reason began to challenge the way that we understand Christianity, from Thomas Jefferson’s attempt to remove all things supernatural from New Testament in writing The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth in 1820 to Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow’s 2010 book The Grand Design, which asserts that the origin of the universe need not be explained by the existence of God but by physical laws alone.  In reaction to these assertions, many Christians (especially, though not always, those of a more conservative brand) have outrightly rejected science and reason, or have tended toward developing their own exhaustive analytical philosophies and pseudoscience.

While there is no room for half-baked, reactionary ‘science’ in the marketplace of ideas, providing a rational defense for Christian belief/theology is not entirely out of the question.  But what I’ve come to appreciate is the freedom to simply not know.  In other words, the inevitable transcendence of God (the inability for humanity to know everything about God) means the inevitable ignorance of humanity.  The sheer otherness of other people should be enough to help us realise our inevitable, eternal ignorance.  Even our inability to know ourselves fully shows us our ignorance.  We don’t need to be insecure about uncertainty and paradox.  It’s okay to answer, ‘I don’t know,’ – it’s even okay to answer, ‘I don’t know and I probably never will.’

Over the last few years I’ve engaged with this issue of agnosticism with a close philosopher friend who directed me to the eminent 20th-century Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein.  Wittgenstein stresses the importance of holding onto epistemological humility in Philosophical Investigations (426):

Here again we get the same thing as in set theory: the form of expression we use seems to have been designed for a god, who knows what we cannot know; he sees the whole of each of those infinite series and he sees into human consciousness.  For us, of course, these forms of expression are like pontificals which we may put on, but cannot do much with, since we lack the effective power that would give these vestments meaning and purpose.

In the actual use of expression we make detours, we go by side roads.  We see the straight highway before us, but of course we cannot use it, because it is permanently closed.¹

It seems that Wittgenstein is telling us that both our language and our ability to know are significantly limited, thus necessitating a self-reflective hint of humility in how we argue for/hold onto various ideas.  I see this fitting perfectly with a healthy Christian agnosticism, as Barth expresses in his Dogmatics in Outline,

Christian faith has to do with the object, with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, of which the Creed speaks.  Of course it is of the nature and being of this object, of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, that He cannot be known by the powers of human knowledge, but is apprehensible and apprehended solely because of His own freedom, decision and action.²

This is not to say that we stop our pursuit of the knowledge of God, but that while we pursue a better knowledge—a knowledge that, when coupled with action, has the potential to transform lives and deliver those who are oppressed from their oppressors—we must always hold onto that which is most central to the Christian faith: the grace and love of God.  We can and should disagree with one another, as diversity is part of what potentially makes the Church so effective, counter-cultural, welcoming and healthy, but we should also take very seriously the fact that none of us will ever know everything.

We believe in one God, the Father All Governing, creator of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all time, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father, through Whom all things came into being, Who for us [humans] and because of our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became human.   He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried, and rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures, and ascended to heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father, and will come again with glory to judge the living and dead.  His Kingdom shall have no end.

And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and life-giver, Who proceeds from the Father, Who is worshiped and glorified together with the Father and Son, Who spoke through the prophets; and in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.  We confess on baptism for the remission of sins.  We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.  Amen.³

+++++

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, translated by G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953), 127^e.
2. Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, translated by Colin E. Gunton (London: SCM Press, 1949), 15.
3. John H. Leith, ed., Creeds of the Churches (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1982), 33.

• Miéville is primarily known as an author of science fiction/fantasy-esque novels, but they are eruditely creative, densely multilayered (political/spiritual/culturally reflective), and deeply engaging examples of those genres, that is, versus the kind that have implausibly-bosomed alien/elfin women in space/fairy bikinis.  Supposedly, there is a “school” of writing to which Miéville belongs called the “New Weird.”  I don’t know about weird, I just think it’s devastatingly clever. Except when it’s not (see Cloud Rank below for works that fall in the AVOID category).
• He’s British and male, though his name seemed French and feminine when I first encountered it (he made himself the central character in the first story of his I read, mentioned above).  He is a avowed Marxist (I think? Maybe just a hyper-socialist?) with a PhD in International Something (Law? Economics? Can’t be bothered to fact-check anything floating about in my memory).  He has a shaved head, a plethora of earrings in one ear, and he’s far from either of the polar extremes one normally associates with the sci-fi/fantasy crowd (i.e. skinny nerd or fatty schlub). This last sentence is rendered wholly unnecessary by inserting…
  

  Portrait of the artist as a person you would hand over your wallet to

  His newest novel, Embassytown, was released in May of 2011, to mostly quite positive reviews.  It is set in the future on the most distant planet of the known universe, when human existence on earth is only a vague memory (or something like that).  I won’t go into the details of plot, character, etc.  All those things can be found in reviews elsewhere with considerable ease.  Instead, I’d simply like to tell you a few of my own impressions…

• I initially found myself simultaneously intrigued and baffled by the world he created (aliens, technology, politics, etc.), yet I was willing to patiently uncover the meaning of words like “miab” or “immer” by their use in context.  However, I later became a bit bored with this lexical snipe-hunt, being that some words’ meaning seemed almost indeterminable.  Still, the wordsmithery of this writer cannot be denied.
• The central character and narrator, a human woman called Avice, held my attention and affection throughout, though there was a disquieting passivity to her–intentionally, I’m sure, as Avice describes herself as a “floaker,” which is a neologism the author uses to define someone who is an underachiever/layabout/slacker combination mixed with a dose of elitist and a hint of mischievous social agitator.  I personally would hope to live up to such a description on my finest days…
• In terms of literary pedigree, I found myself sensing the influence of two works quite strongly in his novel (though he may have read neither):  Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness (if you’re ever in a used bookshop, look for this & buy a pulpy copy…it’s so worth reading) with its androgynous sexuality and ambassadorial politics, and C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra (I’m pretty sure that Miéville would not be a fan of Lewis, given his harsh words regarding Tolkien) with its re-imagined Edenic narrative and grand human themes.  If you liked either of those books, I think you would enjoy their offspring in Embassytown.
• The book had the potential to be a microcosmic epic, an unveiling of life in a particular place that seemed to speak to the totality of universal existence.  But ultimately, it lost steam on this quest and became a story that was crushed by its own inability to live up to the grand vision it had promised.  And yet, this book is so much better than most of whatever else that is published every year, so it comes highly recommended nevertheless.

So where does Embassytown fall on the Cloud Rank of China Miéville’s literary output?  About the middle…

1. The Scar (2002):  This is the second novel in the Bas-Lag trilogy.  It is a sci-fi sea novel (Miéville is also known for experimenting with hybrids of various genres) and one of the greatest stories I’ve ever read.  Cloud Rank = MUST READ (Note: this book can be read as a stand-alone novel, but why not start with…
   
2. Perdido Street Station (2000):  The first of the trilogy, sometimes a bit bogged down by detail, but absolutely brilliant in its world creation, vivid descriptions (it can actually be a somewhat intense read with the violent accounts of the horrific “slake moth” monsters and what not), and deeply compelling storyline.  I was gripped by this book.  Cloud Rank = MUST READ
3. The City & The City (2009):  This is a crime/noir novel set in an Eastern European-esque location which actually houses two distinct cities, existing in the same geographic space but divided by an ingrained, mutual disregard established in a elaborate set of rules that keeps one city from acknowledging the other.  Brilliant conceit, but the story lost the central suspense narrative (to my mind) at some point. Cloud Rank = SHOULD READ
4. Embassytown (2011):  See above comments.  Cloud Rank = SHOULD READ
5. Looking for Jake (collection, 2005):  A mixed bag of stories and other pieces, notable mainly for the post-apocalyptic vampire novella, The Tain, and a story in the Bas-Lag universe called “Jack.”  Cloud Rank = MOSTLY FOR FANS
6. Iron Council (2004):  The third book in the Bas-Lag trilogy, half of it written in the manner of a classic western novel, other parts a narrative of class struggle, and yet other parts creepy sci-fi.  I was so deeply disappointed in this conclusion to the trilogy, I finished it only out of a sense of obsessive completism.  Cloud Rank = AVOID, UNLESS YOU HAVE THE SAME NEED TO COMPLETE THE SERIES
7. Kraken (2010):  I could barely bring myself to keep reading a few chapters in–there was not much that I liked at all.  It felt like a D-grade rehash of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere.  And just to be spiteful, I will spoil the end here:  the whole thing with the kraken is just a red herring and the real villain is a former fundamentalist Christian who wants to erase the evidence for Darwinism. This is inexcusably bad.  Cloud Rank = AVOID AT ALL COST

• A number of my favorite novelists have new books that have recently been or will shortly be published.  Along with a brief review of their latest work, I’d like to begin a new feature called, “The Cloud Rank” where I assess and position the rest of their oeuvre (or as many of their novels as I’ve read) against the new work.  Some of the novelists receiving this treatment will include: David Lodge, China Mieville, Tom Perrota, Julian Barnes, and graphic novelist Craig Thompson.

• You may also expect a response to this article about hell from the Summer issue of Biola University’s magazine.  I’ve largely worked through my issues with Biola, my former employer, so you need not expect a diatribe against the conservative evangelical establishment, and I find that I am generally opposed to the the Rob Bell book on eschatology that the Biola article denounces as well.  Rather, some points that the “expert” author makes about annihilationism are quite ill-founded and need a corrective voice to balance out, which I am happy to provide!

• I am also looking forward to reading the upcoming “multiple-views” volume on the topic of evangelicalism (about which John Stackhouse writes here) and adding some thoughts about the schism that seems imminent in the evangelical consensus and ways that we might avoid committing or being the victim of a “friendly-fire” tragedy.

• I am also hoping to do a Cloud Rank on the albums of The Smiths and Morrissey, hopefully publishing a Top 50 Smiths/Morrissey Songs list in the process.

• Finally, as we draw closer to the end of the year, you can count on Elijah and I to continue the long tradition of our best of the year in music here on Lost in the Cloud.

I offer my deepest apologies for this long absence and hope you will enjoy some of the posts in the days ahead!