Lost in the Cloud

A modest proposal for Sufjan Stevens regarding the completion of his 50 States Project

Dear Sufjan,

The other day my friend Erin Hennessy saw you on the F train in NYC, but she couldn’t get up the nerve to say anything to you. That got me thinking of what I would say to you if I ran into you (even though I never would, as I live on the other side of the country). The first thing that came to mind was to talk to you about your 50 states project, which you began so beautifully with Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State and Illinois/The Avalanche.

Now back in the day (the early two thousands or so), I took your proclamation to make an album (or EP, maybe?) for each one of the 50 states seriously, even though some of my more cynical friends would mock me saying it was impossible for you to do in your lifetime (they would start with some calculations, ask your age, etc. PS We share the same birthday!). The reason I believed you was because I saw this limitless sort of creative genius in you, and even beyond that, it was as if you were the Emersonian “Poet” for this generation of Americans–seeing and showing us the beauty and agony and the divine in the everyday, transforming the mundane into the sublime, telling us stories full of wonder and longing and brilliant details from towns like Ypsilanti and Holland and Romulus.

You made me suddenly attentive to the people and places of America: you imbued them with a magical luster simply by naming them in the midst of your deeply moving, melancholic, and rich melodies and arrangements, or by inserting them amongst such evocative mystical lines of verse:

When the revenant came down
We couldn’t imagine what it was
In the spirit of three stars
The alien thing that took its form
Then to Lebanon, oh God!
The flashing at night, the sirens grow and grow
(Oh, history involved itself)
Mysterious shade that took its form
(Or what it was!), incarnation, three stars
Delivering signs and dusting from their eyes

-“Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Illinois”

All that to say that I really, really wish the 50 states project would continue–I think it could become one of the national treasures of our country for centuries to come, a Leaves of Grass for the 21st century that American kids would listen to to understand where they’ve come from and what kind of people we are. I heard at one point that you said the 50 states project was “such a joke,” but I would challenge you in earnest, if only for the sake of those future little kids, to reconsider abandoning this momentous endeavor.

Realizing that it might very well be impossible for you to write and record all of the albums yourself, what if you instead became the director of the project–you have set the standard quite high with your first two albums–and with the profound respect you have from your artistic peers, I honestly believe you could rally together the best artists from each state to collaborate with to make this happen, creating a kind of ark of American culture.

Here are some suggestions to begin with (I admit some may be wishful thinking) & I call on any reader to add to/better the selection of songwriters for any state (I have put brackets around bands with whom I have only a cursory familiarity & some states I have absolutely no idea about):

Alabama = The Snake the Cross the Crown
Alaska = Portugal The Man
Arizona = Calexico
Arkansas = ???
California = Elijah Wade Smith, Beck, Stephen Malkmus
Colorado = DeVotchKa, The Apples in Stereo
Connecticut = Rivers Cuomo?
Delaware = The Spinto Band
Florida = Iron & Wine, Aaron Marsh
Georgia = Deerhunter, Of Montreal, Bill Mallonee
Hawaii = Mason Jennings
Idaho = Built to Spill, Finn Riggins
Illinois = Sufjan Stevens
Indiana = Mock Orange
Iowa = Caleb Engstrom
Kansas = Drakkar Sauna, Mates of State, The New Amsterdams, The Appleseed Cast
Kentucky = Bonnie “Prince” Billy, My Morning Jacket
Louisiana = Jeff Mangum, Mutemath
Maine = [Phantom Buffalo]
Maryland = John Vanderslice, Wye Oak
Massachusetts = Lou Barlow, Winterpills
Michigan = Sufjan Stevens
Minnesota = Low, Cloud Cult, Lucky Wilbur
Mississippi = ???
Missouri = [Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin]
Montana = Colin Meloy
Nebraska = Cursive, Bright Eyes
Nevada = The Killers?
New Hampshire = [Wild Light]
New Jersey = Sufjan Stevens (?), Danielson, Yo La Tango
New Mexico = The Shins, Beirut
New York = The Magnetic Fields, Sonic Youth, Interpol, The Walkmen
North Carolina = The Mountain Goats
North Dakota = [The White Foliage]
Ohio = Robert Pollard, Over the Rhine, The National, Mark Kozelek
Oklahoma = The Flaming Lips, Kings of Leon
Oregon = Laura Veirs, M. Ward, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, The Decemberists
Pennsylvania = The Innocence Mission, Denison Witmer, Matt Pond PA
Rhode Island = The Low Anthem, Death Vessel
South Carolina = Band of Horses
South Dakota = Haley Bonar
Tennessee = Derek Webb
Texas = Josh T. Pearson, Ramesh Srivastava (formerly of Voxtrot), The Polyphonic Spree, Okkervil River, Devendra Banhart
Utah = [Joshua James]
Vermont = Anais Mitchell
Virginia = Thao Nguyen, Hush Arbors
Washington = David Bazan, Damien Jurado, Jeremy Enigk, Fleet Foxes
West Virginia = ???
Wisconsin = Bon Iver, Marla Hansen
Wyoming = ???

With the deepest respect & admiration,

Greg Stump

John Stump, composer of Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz

My uncle, John Arthur Stump, who was my father’s youngest brother, died on January 20, 2006. His memorial service was held at a Vedanta monastery in Hollywood, where my other uncle (known there as “Jnana Chaitanya,” but to me as Uncle Dave) serves as a monk. I was not at the ceremony, but my family brought back some memorabilia from the service and from Uncle John’s “estate,” including a large piece of paper densely printed with musical notation.

It was a sheet of music for a work entitled “Faerie’s Aire and Death Waltz (from ‘A Tribute to Zdenko G. Fibich’)” that John had put together, obviously as an unplayable and satirical parody. The notations on the score included absurd directions such as “release the penguins” and “Like a Dirigible” and “Gong duet.” It was an incredibly creative, erudite and rigorous act of nonsense, which felt completely consistent with other creations I had seen from my uncle. He was famous in our family for his non-sequiturs (sending a sympathy card from a fictitious professor to me on Christmas), stippling artwork, and his fascination with music. He had worked in the field of “music engraving” for most of his life, beginning in 1967, and I remember looking with fascination at his “music typewriter” in his office in my grandmother’s garage, so it didn’t surprise me that Uncle John would have created something like this fake musical piece.

What surprised me was the fact that this piece was actually something of a musical legend, but to my knowledge, Uncle John had never mentioned it to anyone in my family before. When I received the copy of “Faerie’s Aire,” I showed it to one of the college students I worked with who was a music major (who has become a talented composer in his own right!) and he told me he remembered seeing this piece posted on the band room wall when he was a high school student…in Washington! I asked some other musician friends and they all told me they had seen it as well. When I searched the internet, I found it rife with references, accolades, imitations, and questions about the mysterious composer, John Stump. It saddened me to think there was nothing that revealed anything about my Uncle John’s life in the public sphere, so I thought I would provide some facts & anecdotes here that could serve as a source on this brilliant, hilarious, and reclusive man.

John was born to Homer & Mildred Stump on March 24, 1944 in Kansas City, Missouri.
He grew up in Lakewood, California, studying composition and orchestration at Long Beach City College.
John also attended Cal State University Long Beach, where he played French Horn in an orchestra led by Aaron Copeland.
He was an obsessive fan of many musical groups (Beach Boys, The Carpenters, Olivia Newton-John, The Go-Go’s), but none more than The Beatles. He actually sent corrections to the early 1980’s published Beatles song collection “The Compleat Beatles” because he knew the minute details of the songs and scores so well (Uncle John would also test me when I was a kid on who wrote which Beatles song, as well as on which songs Paul played instruments other than the bass, etc.). Though John loved all the Beatles, the one who shared his name was obviously his favorite…

Paul letter — A letter from Paul McCartney's personal assistant to John

The only known composition of John’s to be publicly performed was a three-part work for men’s choir based on the Dylan Thomas poem “And Death Shall Have No Dominion” (of which I have a cassette recording somewhere) which was put on by a choral group at the Vedanta Society in Hollywood. He also wrote “A Suite for Four Trombones and Four Trumpets” and he mentioned to me that he had written a pop song for Karen Carpenter (he knew a friend of her’s through CSULB) but nothing ever came of it.
Finally, John was a large man…by that, I mean profoundly obese, which may have contributed to his public shyness. I often felt like he actually had something of a disdain for society and didn’t care what people thought about him, but to those who knew him, he was a thoughtful, funny, and brilliant man. It’s sad that he was never able to see his talents and creativity celebrated while he was alive…perhaps he would have preferred a mysterious posthumous legend to any kind of recognition in his life. Whatever the case, I applaud you Uncle John and happy 66th birthday on the 24th!

UPDATE: I have posted more material and images regarding John here. Enjoy!

Sources: some background information taken from John’s obituary in “Vedanta Voices” Vol. 8, No. 3, March 2006, along with John’s “A Family History”.

: The Stump family circa 1976. John is in the lower left hand corner…

UPDATE:

-Here is a copy of an obituary from page 3 of the Glendale Focus newspaper, Vol. 3, No. 2 (February 13, 2006) written by the publisher, Gary Kemper.

Other compositions by John:

: String Quartet No. 556(b) for Strings In A Minor (Motoring Accident) COVER

: String Quartet No. 556(b) for Strings In A Minor (Motoring Accident) page 1

: String Quartet No. 556(b) for Strings In A Minor (Motoring Accident) page 2

: String Quartet No. 556(b) for Strings In A Minor (Motoring Accident) BACK

: Prelude and the Last Hope in C and C# minor

Eff you, Oscar…here’s The Arts & Faith Top 100

Oscars are on Sunday. Some good films will be celebrated, some so-so films will get awards–sadly, the best film of the year (Fantastic Mr. Fox) will walk away empty-pawed (though you must check out this terrifically funny animated acceptance speech made by Mr. Anderson).

However, an online group affiliated with the thoughtful religious-y journal IMAGE (who once bastardly REJECTED a story I sent in!) just released their collaboratively determined top 100 films, somehow relating to Arts & Faith (not crystal clear on the criteria…).

One of the crafters of A & F 100, Jeffrey Overstreet, a film critic/novelist whom I had the chance to grab a meal with once upon a time, wrote a bit about the list in anticipation of questions raised by the list–here’s one response I liked quite a bit:

Question #6: Is it just me, or do most of these films look like hard work?

The Arts and Faith Top 100 are not favored for their difficulty. They are honored for their excellence, their beauty, their capacity to inspire us to become more fully human.

Each movie on this list explores fundamental and provocative spiritual questions. Questions that challenge us to grow in understanding. Questions that cultivate community through the experience of bracing conversations. Questions that kindle our deepest longings for all that is sacred and good.

In other words, yes—some of these films require serious work on the part of the viewer. But they are full of rewards for those who give them a chance.

The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films will arrest you with their vividness and strangeness. They are full of beauty and mystery. And unlike what is commonly categorized as “Christian art,” they will leave audiences with some doubt as to their precise application. They tease the mind into thought and reflection—again and again and again.

I agree wholeheartedly with his point & lament it at the same time. As a culture, we’ve been raised on a steady diet of candy art, making these cinematic banquets taste bitter to our palates. I’d love to encourage us all to line up a number of these films on the ole Netflix queue, yet at the same time, I feel MY OWN resistance to sitting down to 3+ hours of static camerawork, silence on the soundtrack, and characterizations that feel incredibly ripe for satire (ahh, the pretension!).

Let me then suggest two things:

1. My own recommendations from this list. I love the following films enough to own them–I will gladly loan them to you and am also willing to sit down and watch/discuss them together (if you live in a 20 mile radius of La Mirada, CA).

#2 The Decalogue (it’s about 10 hours long, in Polish–one short film per commandment, but they are not really interconnected so you can dip your toe in with a few films, maybe I, VI, or X)
#3 Babette’s Feast (Danish, Oscar winner, slow but beautiful story of the lavishness of grace)
#8 Andrei Rublev (Russian, B/W, slow as hades, but lovely as Abraham’s bosom)
#12 Wings of Desire (German, my favorite film of all time! Just got a new Criterion edition too)
#15 Three Colors Trilogy (Polish/French, you should watch all 3 and tell me which you connected with the most)
#30 Stalker (Russian, MOLASSES SLOW, but deep as can be, haunting, beautiful)
#36 Days of Heaven (American, pretty accessible…amazing cinematography)
#51 The Spirit of the Beehive (Spanish, so sweet & profound & memorable)
#56 Ponette (French, on my personal top 10, unbelievable performance from a 4 year old)
#65 After Life (Japanese film about dead people picking one memory to live in forever)
#90 Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher (I didn’t actually LOVE this documentary–it’s a bit amateur–but the STORY is so worth exploring)
#96 The New World (American, I have the extended director’s cut–so powerful!)

2. Please challenge ME to take on one of these based on your recommendation…I need to keep my tastes from atrophying due to my consumption of the “frivolity-industrial complex” produced films that are playing in my local excuse for a cinema.

With our great affection for lists, perhaps someday we’ll have a “Lost In the Cloud Top 100″…until then, enjoy these selections!

The State I Am In (or, I’m so bored with the C.E.E.)

“And so I gave myself to God; there was a pregnant pause before he said…’Ok.'” — Belle & Sebastian, from ‘The State I Am In’

For a while now, I have been feeling somewhat disconnected from the theological tradition in which I was raised—namely, conservative evangelicalism (or, as I suspiciously call it now, the Conservative Evangelical Establishment). When I described my religious views on Facebook a while back as “evangelical-esque,” it became even more clear to me that I was uncomfortable aligning myself with a term that most of my community seemed to embrace with no anxiety.

It wasn’t that my conservative evangelical church or my friends were the problem, though occasionally my squeamishness would rear its head in those contexts. My contention was more with certain types of people who seemed to speak VERY LOUDLY (or at least wear their merchandise) in the public square as representatives of all evangelicals, and even certain leaders within the movement (and I’m not talking about Pat Robertson and the “God Hates Fags” nuts, cause I’m pretty sure they are universally despised). The types of people I was looking to distance myself from (and I KNOW this is going to be incredibly patronizing, harsh & self-righteous) include, but are not limited to the following:

“know-it-all” dogmatic polemicists (usually those who aRE FORMED in a certain theological system—ouch, sorry Calvinist buddies [not because you are this way, but these may include some of your heroes]—but also including a fair share of thinkers of other stripes, who like to think they are God’s gift to orthodox doctrine and love the way the words “heretical” and “heterodox,” if not “compromised Christianity,” roll off the tongue)
zealous morality crusaders (whose calling it is to inform non-Christians how they ought to behave as if they were Christians [Yes on Prop. 8 fanatics…and I mean the ones who acted like the world was going to end if it didn’t pass] and to remind loose-living, backsliding “carnal” Christians what a wet blanket, parade-pissing killjoy Jesus wants them to be)
Americangelicals (a word I believe I just coined, describing those who believe America is [or should return to being] a Christian nation, flag displayed in the church, patriotic songs sung in a worship service while F-22’s soar behind the projected lyrics, who usually end up acting as useful idiots to the Republican Party—ouch, sorry GOP buddies, of which I have been one my whole life!)
sentimentalists (collecting Precious Moments figurine versions of Moses, Jesus, and probably Satan) and other cheesy, tasteless simpletons (unlicensed stickers of Bill Watterson’s Calvin praying on the rear window, NOTW belt buckles, Left Behind novels, Contemporary Christian Music—ouch, sorry 80% of my extended family and acquaintances!)

Obviously these are caricatures of modern conservative evangelicals—however, you’d be surprised at how little scratching at the surface of the seemingly normal Joe Q. Evangelical in the pew next to you it takes to reveal the crazy-eyed & mushy-brained undercover fundy-brother beneath! (If you doubt me, watch the documentary films Jesus Camp or Hell House, or read the article ‘Jesus Made Me Puke‘ or the book The Unlikely Disciple. I know some may think I’m a-feared of “the world” thinking that I’m different and ashamed of the gospel, but I’m more scared of my children ever behaving in a manner that anyone with two neurons to rub together can readily see as gross over-simplification and reductionistic pig-headedness! NOTE: It has occurred to me that perhaps I am over-simplifying too.)

SO what’s to be done, I ask? I’m obviously bitter (mainly because these kinds of voices tend to hold the power and the pocketbook in C.E.E. institutions) and disenfranchised to a great extent (this comes as no surprise to those who hear this whole tirade in reply to the question, “How are things going?”). Where do I go, what do I do?

Do I bail from the C.E.E. and forge into other religious communities (the high church, the paleo-orthodox, the liberal)? Do I try to work out my issues within the C.E.E. system while experiencing this incredible and often unbearable theological and intellectual, not to mention aesthetic, cultural and moral tension (the whole, “the church is a whore, the church is my mother” high-wire act)? Do I go into exile from my community for a period and either come back head-in-hands repentant or fire-breathing prophetic?

I’m not sure as of yet. And I ask all of these questions rhetorically and with only a mild sense of the exasperation that my critical, angry-young-man posture must produce in those who have sat and listened, responded patiently and gently so many, many times in these past years and even read this now.

In the midst of all of my frustration with the evangelical label, I am so grateful for the thoughtful brothers I have who will hear me bark and scowl and rage and who will even then pray for me, even in the midst of their own frustration WITH me, and whom I believe God will use to help me sort this out…my dear Matthew, Ryan, Dan, David, and Wade. I definitely need to spend some time with Les & Steve in the near future, and am so grateful for my flesh & blood brother Mark, who is sometimes a comrade-in-arms, sometimes a sparring partner. Finally, I am thankful for the inspiration of my dearly loved Elijah, who is so much younger & so much wiser than I am, sadly thousands of miles away. I love you all and ask you, along with any dear reader to come across these longing and hurting words, to hope for me in figuring out where I am, where I am headed, and where I am wrong-headed…in the state I am in.

The Reading List (I Get High with a Little Help from My Books)

Somehow, these last few months, I have turned into a complete theology/church book junkie. I mean, I’ve always picked up a few books every month, but this is different–I feel like a tweaker in a meth lab…cause it’s like I want to read them ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY! Each one seems so incredibly necessary to think through in my current state of mind (which I’m planning on writing about soon).

Anyhow, some friends had asked for me to let them know what I was reading & so I thought I’d kill two birds single-stonedly by describing/potentially recommending some of the titles here on Lost In the Cloud (for it is a rather theological kind of a cloud we’re lost in here). If any of you would like to read concurrently with me & discuss in some fashion (coffee house, email, Skype), I’d be happy to have a dialogue partner. Simply comment or email me at greg.stump22 (at) gmail.com…

–The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (David Dark): The title alone pretty much sums up the theological state I am in (not at all in a “does God exist” sort of way, but rather a “what exactly do I believe about almost every secondary & tertiary theological issue imaginable” sense) and Dark’s talk of “redemptive skepticism” and critique of “imagined infallibility” will be stimulating for anyone feeling trapped in insular non-conversations in their Christian institutions. It also doesn’t hurt that he has an extended analysis of an Arcade Fire song & highlights the way that comedy news (Stewart/Colbert) seems more acute and honest (in its satire) than most “real” journalism today.

–The Blue Parakeet (Scot McKnight): A quote on the back is something many of you may have heard me say years ago: “What if I’m too conservative to be liberal, and too liberal to be conservative?” This is a no man’s land that I have often found myself wandering in, feeling alone at first but then bumping into others who’ve strayed from their front lines as well. In short, McKnight is proposing an alternative to the know-it-all fundamentalist or the weightless, naive liberal in terms of approaching scripture. It’s probably not as radical as it sounds, but I’m interested.

–Embodying Our Faith (Tim Morey): I took a class with Tim during a Talbot summer session a couple years back called “Disciplemaking in a Postmodern Context” and that is just what this amazing guy does as the pastor of Life Covenant Church in the South Bay area and in his role as a coach to church planters. His book sees the necessity of faith to be “experiential, communal, and enacted” in the church and I am highly anticipating the kind of rewarding a-ha moments from reading it that I experienced in his course.

–Organic Church (Neil Cole): I’m actually attending the church that meets at Neil’s home on a regular basis, where he graciously gave me a copy of this seminal work on the contemporary disciple/leader/church multiplication movement. He is pretty much dialed in to everyone leading out in the house church/simple church/organic church effort & this book is making a ton of sense to me philosophically. I went to a conference Neil’s organization put on about “missional movements” where I picked up a book by the other speaker entitled:

–Exiles (Michael Frost): This man inspired me as I’ve not felt in many years. Brilliant Aussie thinker/seminary prof/missional church practitioner who also co-wrote a foundational book, The Shaping of Things to Come. I have not read one sentence yet, but if it’s a tenth as good as his talk, I will profoundly benefit. I’m reading this with the inimitable Andrew Faris.

–Deep Church (Jim Belcher): “A third way (of being the church) beyond emerging and traditional.” My good friend Pat Saia is reading this for his Doctorate of Ministry program at Fuller, so I’m looking forward to more conversations at the La Mirada Civic Center flame on the ideas in this book.

–The Courage to Be Protestant (David Wells) & Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion (Kevin DeYount & Ted Kluck): In contrast to all these angry-young-Christian, “let’s set fire to the way things are” types, my dear friend (and to be honest, mentor) Matt Rouse purchased these two swimming-against-the-postmodern-Christian-stream books for me to read and dialogue on. This is exactly the kind of thing a rouge (self-proclaimed) like myself needs to maintain an open ear/mind to in the midst of my tradition-agnosticism. I love Matt for challenging me and look forward to learning from these authors…while probably also having a hard time swallowing both their ideas and my pride in the process.

The next layer includes:

Evangelical Futures (ed. John Stackhouse)
The Lost World of Genesis One (John Walton)
The Tangible Kingdom (Hugh Halter and Matt Smay)
Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts & Interpret Trends (ed. Kevin Vanhoozer)
Who Can Be Saved? (Terrance Tiessen)
Moving Beyond the Bible to Theology (ed. Stanley Gundry and Gary Meadors)

The most important book I am currently reading is Reformed and Always Reforming by one of my theological heroes, Roger Olson (who incidentally looks like a total nerd on his book jacket). But this book will need a post of it’s own, soon to follow. Let me know if you’re interested in reading any of these together…cause the first one is always free.

Band Evangelist

In one’s life, there are certain callings that one sometimes experiences…some feel called to serve as missionaries, philanthropists, or teachers of underprivileged youth. While those examples are great and all, I have heard a different call to serve humanity, and perhaps even the divine essence, through the ministry of ‘band evangelist’. Now I can anticipate our comments section here already: “Greg, THANK YOU for answering the call to an underheeded & much needed prophetic role in the music-listening community!” and “How can I support you, even enable you to be financially independent so that you may devote yourself full-time to this endeavor?”, but nae, my friends, I am not fishing for spiritual confirmation nor cash donations (though if you want to see MP3’s posted on LITC, it would help to see a little brass in pocket, nudge nudge wink wink).

All I ask is that you listen to me…a voice in the sonic wilderness. And for those CYNICS out there, who would say, “Oh pish-posh, why do I need to find out about new music? My tastes became ossified during my junior year in college…The Foo Fighters rocked then and they still do to this day!” or “Doesn’t the radio give us all the new music that’s fit to be heard?”, I say this: WOE TO YOU! You are the deaf leading the deaf!! Woe to you, DJ’s of Clear Channel and purveyors of codified ‘classics’, you hypocrites! You broadcast over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Dear reader, a day will come when our tastes in music will be tested by fire and let me tell you brothers and sisters, on that day, you are either humming true gold, or it’s chaff.

So, to those who have ears to hear, check this ish out. I will only give a few recommendations for upcoming releases based on my confidence that these albums will be wholly worthwhile:

UPCOMING ALBUMS OF NOTE

–Lightspeed Champion/Life is Sweet! Nice to Meet You: this should come out on February 16, 2010. The singer/substance of the band has such a lovely toned voice and his lyrics are shiveringly honest (he’s got a pretty unique look as well). The melodies and arrangements are accessible but subversive (going next where you wouldn’t expect) and his band is as tight as a librarian’s arse.

–Frightened Rabbit/The Winter of Mixed Drinks: due out on March 1, 2010. Their last album was magnificent & under-appreciated in astronomical proportions (#4 record of the 2000’s for me). I will say it now, that there is SOME trepidation in hearing this album…expectations are ionospherically high. Lead scared bunny Scott Hutchison says that this new album is less confessional than their records in the past and “doesn’t really describe my life because if I did that it wouldn’t make for an interesting album this time around as I’ve been quite solid and content, thankfully.” Solid & content sounds like a recipe for mediocrity, but I (and by extension, you) should give this new record a chance based on past brilliance & the strength of the two singles released so far.

–Sleeping States/In the Gardens of the North: this album was released internationally last year…we can only hope for some kind of distribution in these United States soon. Or I may just have to break down and order an import. This is more for the melancholiasts among you.

–The XYZ Affair/???: I was so looking forward to posting about a new album to be released by The XYZ Affair (one of the greatest bands I’ve heard on the super DIY tip), only to find that they have broken up. However, it does seem like the recording will see the light of day under some new moniker before too long. Believe me, I will keep you posted…

If you are interested in checking out any of these bands, but don’t want to drop some coin yet, you may go to The Hype Machine and type the group’s name in the search engine. There you may find links to their music on other blogs which have money to buy space, width, whatever it is you have to pay for on the interweb to post MP3’s.

Well, I’m done steering the conversation toward all of my foregone conclusions. I think I hear the voice of the Spirit telling me something…until my next proclamation: RELENT & BUY LP’S!!!

A brief reflection on Salinger

An obituary would be rather unnecessary as there are so many about. Even if I wanted to write one there is no proper way to explain how the world is any different without J.D. Salinger – the highly secretive author had not published anything since 1965. I had hoped to meet him at some point, a child-like hope in the face of high improbability, which has now effectively morphed into impossibility. Salinger now dwells among the likes of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor and John Gardner – the American writers with whom I would love more than nearly anything to have a conversation, but never will. I’m certain that Greg shares my sentiments.

Salinger was a genius storyteller. Perhaps this is due to the way in which he so precisely enters into the minds of his exquisitely developed characters (and in doing so makes his way into our minds). Salinger often employed a special tactic in his writing which keeps it dynamic and captivating: he wrote almost exclusively about or from the perspective of the young. Part of this approach is reflected in the fact that Salinger’s rhetoric never stoops to exhaust his vocabulary. While this has been used by critics to reduce Salinger’s audience to those in their teens and early twenties, I believe his writing very deliberately utilises the perspective of the young in order to communicate the constant liminality of life and the tension it brings. In such a way, when we read Salinger’s works we are not reading mere stories, but we are invited into a tangible and magical world that can make even the most common event beautiful, profound, revelatory and sacred.

Thanks for sharing, JDS.

Nine Stories (1953) – For years it’s been a dream of mine to write a screenplay for a feature film version of ‘The Laughing Man’.

– Elijah

+++++

Thank you Elijah for noting with such tenderness the passing of Salinger. I hope it’s not presumptuous to add some memories. J.D. Salinger was quite a significant figure in my development as a human being. The scarlet and yellow-covered Catcher in the Rye holds a magical fascination in my memory – it was a sacred text to my best friend Wade and I. We even wrote a play together that was performed at my high school called ‘The Whole Aquarium’ as an exercise in adoring emulation of CITR. My first year in college, I remember wandering through the bookstore at CSULB and finding a copy of Franny & Zooey. I can clearly see myself reading it on the slope of lawn below the science buildings and thinking, “I don’t care about college–this is all that I want to understand.” His Nine Stories was an endless source of wonder and contemplation for my pensive post-adolescent musings – particularly ‘Just Before the War with the Eskimos,’ ‘The Laughing Man,” and ‘For Esme – With Love & Squalor’.

I wrote a number of papers exploring Salinger’s stories as an undergrad; I just found one in my files which analyzes the story ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ as a narrative version of the Zen Buddhist koan, “designed to activate spiritual insight in the mind of an ideal reader.” In my analysis, I saw the little girl Sharon Lipshutz, whom Seymour claims to “like…so much” as the ideal reader, being that she is “never mean or unkind” – unlike the critics and lit. profs who took apart & psychoanalyzed Salinger’s stories to death – and I posited that her name may represent a reader who simply keeps their “lips shut,” personifying quiet reflection.

Salinger wondered in the dedication of his novella Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters “if there was an amateur reader still left in the world” and if so, he gave them his “untellable affection and gratitude.” I hope I never become too sophisticated of a reader to deserve these blessings, but I know that I will always remain deeply grateful for the power and influence of Salinger’s works on sensitizing my soul to the small delights, oblique insights and deep longing, never to be fulfilled in this broken world, found in his stories.

Salinger pieces by two of my favorites: David Lodge & Dave Eggars.

– Greg

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J.D. Salinger (1919 – 2010)

An article from The Onion.

Nihilo sanctum estne?

I recall when the first iPod came out in 2001. It was revolutionary – 1000 songs on a portable and extremely attractive hard drive! Less than two years after the release of the iPod, Apple launched the iTunes Store. It was one thing to fit [a portion of] your CD collection onto an iPod, it was another to be faced with the reality that said CDs were no longer useful; one can simply purchase and download digital files which would be synced up with your iPod in minutes. One need not drive to the record store only to find out that the record they intended to buy was no longer in stock (and would, say, Best Buy even carry a Danielson record?!). Soon the iPod (or any MP3 player for that matter) would be easily adaptable to all settings: one’s car or one’s living room, through a portable stereo in the park or strapped to one’s arm during a workout. The sale of CDs has steadily dropped since the introduction of the iPod and similar devices and CDs are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

Although I often despise the association, I am of the CD generation. My family made excessive use of cassette tapes (especially my father’s Van Halen and Eric Clapton and my mother’s Fleetwood Mac and The Beach Boys), but CDs were around for four years before I was even born. I remember my first two CDs: Weezer’s first self-titled record (aka The Blue Album) and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins. Since then, my collection has grown considerably. Still, even with the hundreds of CDs I’ve collected over the last fifteen years, I can fit four times as many on my 120 GB iPod. With services like iTunes, eMusic, Lala, Amazon, etc., complete MP3 albums can be downloaded for a fraction of the price of a new CD, and unless one has some high-end headphones or a high-end stereo system (a lot of $, £, €, ¥,…) the difference between a standard MPEG audio file (160 kbps) and a standard CD (1200 kbps) is rather unnoticeable.

With all of this technological allure some people are still unsettled by the change. I myself prefer to have the album in my hands because I appreciate creative packaging design to a near-obsessive degree. Any look inside a [post Pablo Honey] Radiohead album booklet would quickly convince one of the inferiority of an exclusively digital musical experience (even such an experience with a picture of an album cover on a computer screen). And while we already have the platform for digital music (computers and MP3 players) couldn’t we save on so much physical consumption by switching exclusively to digital music? Even when considering environmental issues like the possibility reducing the production of plastics and paper, I find this option difficult to stomach for the same reason that I find digital books difficult to stomach. There’s something to having a physical CD/package and a physical book in one’s hand…or is there?

Mass production of recorded music didn’t exist until about a quarter of the way into the 20th century. At that time the vinyl phonograph record was the standard and it could only play from two-to-three minutes of music per side. By 1949, vinyl records were in 12-inch LP (45-minute long play) form. This became the standard length of a record. Eventually this was followed by the use of magnetic tape: the 8-track cassette in the late sixties and early seventies followed by the compact cassette, which could generally play up to 45 minutes of music.

In a recent interview with Paste, Sufjan Stevens expressed his own crisis with regard to this whole shift in the way we can experience music:

I’m wondering, why do people make albums anymore when we just download? Why are songs like three or four minutes, and why are records 40 minutes long? They’re based on the record, vinyl, the CD, and these forms are antiquated now. So can’t an album be eternity, or can’t it be five minutes? … I no longer really have faith in the album anymore. I no longer have faith in the song.

Perhaps we find ourselves in this crisis with Sufjan, but while he remains skeptical, I remain hopeful. From 2006 to 2007, vinyl record sales jumped more than 85%, and from 2007 to 2008 vinyl record sales jumped another 89%. Yes, collecting vinyl records is extremely trendy and hip at the moment, and yes, when these hipsters accidentally become parents or are forced into real life via some other circumstance they might realise that investing their money in vinyl records solely for the propagation of their hipster image is not very hip after all. But I still believe that these market figures are indicative of a basic human need for ritual and tradition of some sort.

It is true that there is nothing particularly sacred about the length of an LP or a cassette or a CD, but does the freedom of the age of digital music distribution and consumption require that we abandon the [recent] traditions we’ve grown up with? Just because the technology moves along and just because we move along with it doesn’t mean that we can’t slow down and savour the beauty and simplicity of the traditional way we experience recorded music, packaging included. After all, music is art and art is aesthetic and aesthetic is beauty and beauty, as Kant has defined for us in the Third Moment of his Critique of the Power of Judgment, “is the form of the purposiveness of an object, insofar as it is perceived in it without representation of an end.”

I see great correlations between this issue, ritual, and Church tradition, but that’s for another post.

[Elijah adds: Pet Sounds added to Listening]

We invite you to get lost in the cloud

Welcome to Lost in the Cloud. In 2008 we (Greg & Elijah) started a blog with some colleagues called Criticism As Inspiration. We have enjoyed contributing to CAI and recently decided to branch out in our own direction with this sister blog. We’ve transferred our more relevant posts from CAI – please feel free to browse around our archives.

On the right-hand sidebar we have pages where you can read about the inspiration behind this blog and who we are, see what we’ve been watching, listening to and reading and browse our film, music, and literature lists. We also have sections with links to other blogs and websites that we recommend, shortcuts to recent posts, categories and comments, as well as dated archives of our posts.

We hope you enjoy/interact with what we share.

G & E

21 Artifacts from the 21st Century

The end of the decade has resulted in a number of best of the decade lists. We’ve kind of OD’d on best of lists here already, but Elijah and I wanted to throw in our votes for those works of culture from the 2000’s WE think will/should stand the test of time.

I feel somewhat presumptuous putting this out there, as if my vote actually mattered, but what I have found is that my friends, acquaintances, and YOU dear reader, often find your interest piqued by something that has been declared “the best.” I know that some of Elijah’s musical selections caused me to listen to albums I had not heeded before…so perhaps you may find something here that causes you to want to experience, reconsider or even maybe avoid (?) the following creative endeavors. Hope you enjoy…see you next decade!

– Greg

Albums (Greg | Elijah)

Illinois/The Avalanche (2005/2006) Sufjan Stevens | Kid A/Amnesiac (2000/2001) Radiohead
The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads (2001) Lift to Experience | Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State (2003) Sufjan Stevens
In Rainbows/Bonus Disc (2007) Radiohead | Figure 8 (2000) Elliott Smith
The Midnight Organ Fight (2008) Frightened Rabbit | The Sophtware Slump (2000) Grandaddy
Greetings From Michigan: The Great Lakes State (2003) Sufjan Stevens | Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant (2000) Belle & Sebastian
Figure 8 (2000) Elliott Smith | Songs in A & E (2008) Spiritualized
Kid A/Amnesiac (2000/2001) Radiohead | Jane Doe (2001) Converge
Lifted, Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground (2002) Bright Eyes | Turn On the Bright Lights (2002) Interpol
Feels (2005) Animal Collective | Illinois/The Avalanche (2005/2006) Sufjan Stevens
Funeral (2004) The Arcade Fire | Blood Money (2002) Tom Waits
Takk (2005) Sigur Rós | Control (2002) Pedro the Lion
Boxer (2007) The National | Veckatimest (2009) Grizzly Bear
Asleep in the Back (2001) Elbow | We Are the Only Friends We Have (2002) Piebald
A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002) Coldplay | The Midnight Organ Fight (2008) Frightened Rabbit
Merriweather Post Pavilion (2009) Animal Collective | Hot Shots II (2001) The Beta Band
Gang of Losers (2006) The Dears | The Life Pursuit (2006) Belle & Sebastian
Control (2002) Pedro the Lion | Tyrannosaurus Hives (2004) The Hives
The Last Broadcast (2002) Doves | The Argument (2000) Fugazi
The Invisible Band (2001) Travis | Hail to the Thief (2003) Radiohead
Oh, Inverted World (2001) The Shins | Sea Change (2002) Beck
Retreiver (2004) Ron Sexsmith | How It Ends (2004) DeVotchKa

Books (there were so many that we didn’t read [Elijah read only a handful of novels from the 2000s], so this list is incredibly subjective and limited in scope)

Novels:

Cloud Atlas (2004) David Mitchell
House of Leaves (2000) Mark Z. Danielewski
2666 (2004) Roberto Bolaño
Atonement (2001) Ian McEwan
The Book of Illusions (2002) Paul Auster
Black Swan Green (2007) David Mitchell
American Gods (2001) Neil Gaiman
Thinks (2001) David Lodge
The City & The City (2009) China Mieville

Misc:

Blankets (2003) Craig Thompson, graphic novel
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000) Dave Eggers, memoir
The Book of Other People (2007) ed. Zadie Smith, story collection
The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories (2007) Nicholas Gurewitch, comic collection
Box Office Poison (2001) Alex Robinson, graphic novel
The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction (2005) literary survey
Wall and Piece (2005) Banksy, art collection

Religion/Christianity:

Free of Charge (2006) Miroslav Volf
Jesus of Nazareth (2008) Pope Benedict XVI
The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (2009) David Dark
Renewing the Center (2000) Stanley Grenz
Across the Spectrum (2002) Gregory Boyd & Paul Eddy
The Mosaic of Christian Belief (2002) Roger Olson
The Shaping of Things to Come (2003) Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch
These last three Tom Wright books are included for their effective introductory appeal rather than any necessary anticipation of ‘classic’ status.
Paul: In Fresh Perspective (2005) N. T. (Tom) Wright
Simply Christian (2006) N. T. (Tom) Wright
Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (2009) N. T. (Tom) Wright

Film (G | E)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Michel Gondry | ditto
Amelie (2001) Jean-Pierre Jeunet | Lord of the Rings (2001-03) Peter Jackson
Children of Men (2006) Alfonso Cuarón | There Will Be Blood (2007) P. T. Anderson
Lord of the Rings (2001-03) Peter Jackson | The Pianist (2002) Roman Polanski
The New World (2005) Terrance Malick | Dancer in the Dark (2000) Lars von Trier
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Wes Anderson | The Royal Tennenbaums (2001) Wes Anderson
All the Real Girls (2002) David Gordon Green | Memento (2000) Christopher Nolan
Waltz with Bashir (2008) Ari Folman | Adaptation (2002) Spike Jonze
In the Mood For Love (2000) Kar Wai Wong | Big Fish (2003) Tim Burton
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2001) Ang Lee | ditto
The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford (2007) Andrew Dominik | Zodiac (2007) David Fincher
WALL-E (2008) Andrew Stanton | The Proposition (2005) John Hillcoat
There Will Be Blood (2007) P. T. Anderson | Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Wes Anderson
Memento (2000) Christopher Nolan | The Prestige (2006) Christopher Nolan
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Guillermo del Toro | Elephant (2003) Gus Van Sant
The Royal Tennenbaums (2001) Wes Anderson | A Beautiful Mind (2001) Ron Howard
The Proposition (2005) John Hillcoat | Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) Guillermo del Toro
The Prestige (2006) Christopher Nolan | About Schmidt (2002) Alexander Payne
The Lives of Others (2007) Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck | Capote (2005) Bennett Miller
Moulin Rouge (2001) Baz Luhrmann | Lost in Translation (2003) Sofia Coppola
Donnie Darko (2001) Richard Kelly | American Splendor (2003) Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini