post christmas media glut

One of the things that i do love about the Christmas season is the opportunity to be able to purchase all sorts of new and fun media stuff that you've either been holding off on, or not figured that you would like, but you have 50 dollars sitting in your wallet, and maybe an itunes gift card or two that say in a rather convincing manner, "Hey...roll the dice on that..."

So of course, like any self-respecting music lover, i shrug my shoulders and say, "Why not?"

Here's what i got today.

DVD's:

Bruce Springsteen Live In Dublin(with the sessions band)

This is The Boss live with the band he recorded his Pete Seeger cover record with. I don't know about you folks, but Springsteen hangs the moon for me, and he is one of two artists/bands that i would pay any amount to see live(the other being U2).

Heima: A Film By Sigur Ros

I saw the trailer for this a while ago...and the cinematography alone was the most beautiful thing i had seen in a long while. If you're shooting in the countryside of Iceland and you don't have amazing cinematography, you should probably not be in the film business. Anyway, take that cinematography and add in an hour and a half of music played by Sigur Ros...and you have a combination sure to make me weep really hard.

How I Met Your Mother: Season Two

How I Met Your Mother: Season Three

This is by far my favorite show on tv. My buddy Joe showed me the episode titled "Slapsgiving" from Season 2, which i loved, and caused me to track down every episode i could find and watch them, which took about a week to do. These haven't arrived yet, but i look forward to setting the hook deep into my friends regarding this show's amazingness. If i had to give a summary based on stuff that you might have seen before, i'd tell you that it's like Friends, but it's not all chick-y, and it's funnier than The Office, or at least more consistently funny.

CD's:

V.O.L by Vigilantes Of Love

This is a greatest hits collection of sorts for the 1990's folk band The Vigilantes Of Love. All my friends keep telling me that i need to jump in to their catalogue, so this blessed $3.95 used pick up is step 2 of the process(I bought their record "Killing Floor" on itunes; it's not a collection of songs about using a jackhammer, as far as i can tell).

New Connection by Todd Snider

My coworkers(and friends) Nathan and Roger are both huge fans of Snider's particular flavor of honky-tonk. And with songs like "Beer Run" (b-double e-double r-u-n, beer run!), i think i am as well.

Making Movies by Dire Straits

My aquaintance-that-i-only-see-once-a-year-yet-read-his-blog-and-listen-to-his-music-and-sometimes-randomly-send-money has "Romeo and Juliet" listed as one of his top 5 favorite songs. Thanks to the wonderfulness that is Pandora, i now agree.

Oh Mercy by Bob Dylan

Let's see here: You take Bob Dylan, who is probably the most famous songwriter of the 20th century(Irving Berlin, your work was simply too soon. Sorry.), and you pair him up with the producer of two of the biggest band on earth's best records(Daniel Lanois, for those who aren't keeping up with my line of logic), and you should probably get a pretty damn great record.

Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys

I always read these lists that proclaim this record to be one of the top 5 best records ever made in the history of rock 'n roll. I call that fairly high praise for any record. However, I've always been more of a fan of the contributions of the British Empire to rock 'n roll history(The Beatles, The Who, Cream, The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Radiohead(thom yorke is screaming right now because i just placed his band behind Coldplay, but i don't care), and been rather inclined to ignore The Beach Boys simply on name alone. I don't know that this record will make me want to run out and purchase a Hammond B-3 and spend years obsessively working on a record, but learning the words to the songs should suffice.

Lie Down In The Light by Bonnie "Prince" Billy

I was patronizing my favorite restaurant downtown (Cafe4) for breakfast this past saturday, and my friend Rob was my server (you should go listen to his music, he's a great singer-songwriter (ha!)), and he had this record on in the background, and i liked it enough to download it off itunes using my aforementioned gift card. Don't let the strange moniker distract you(his real name is Will Oldham, and he apparently has quite an extensive discography, according to wikipedia), it's a great folk album.

The Sparrow And The Crow by William Fitzsimmons

This record came highly recommended to me by a couple of friends. Oddly enough, it was his impressive beard-growing ability that led me to buy the record. As a fellow bearded man, i gotta keep it in the brotherhood. As far as what exactly "it" is, i have no idea.

Books:

The Year Of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

Speaking of men with impressive beard growing ability: this book by an editor/writer for Esquire Magazine chronicles his yearlong experiment to live the Bible as literally as possible. I'm about a quarter of the way through, so it remains to be seen whether it actually happens or not.

Prayer by Richard J. Foster

I've been chasing a used copy of this since 2004, when i first heard it spoken about in my religion classes at Carson-Newman. I finally found one for a reasonable price, so i bought it, and i'm eager to dig in, though i fear this becoming much like Celebration of Discipline(also by Foster), in that i carry the book around, intending to read it, but not doing so. 

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry

My best friend Adam often talks about how great a writer Wendell Berry is, and how rich and authentic his characters are written. That's fairly high praise from him, since he is quite an author himself(Adam. This is me reminding you to email me that chapter from your book), as well as an amazing singer-songwriter(with a new album called Old Skin Horse that he has about a thousand copies of that he would love to sell to you good people).

Collected Poems by Wendell Berry

I got this for good measure. Poems are always good for me to take and chew around, and glean all the flavor. Small bites are recommended.

Alright…this ends the marathon of this second media post. I hope you made it through alright. Later this week(as this will likely have a publish date of Sunday), i'll conclude my catching you up on what happened with TGCSO'08(The Great Church Search Of '08), and continue the weekly song lyric series.

updates

I've been tinkering around with the layout of this thing for over an hour now, and i'm still not quite happy with it yet. However, that's not what i'm here to write about. I promised an update with me, and i'm fulfilling that promise.

Since I wrote an update, i went on full time at KARM (where i've now been employed for a year and a month...which is good for the longest that i have ever worked at a job) as a hospitality team leader, found a church home, and fell in love.

Okay, the last one is a lie. (Oh that it weren't, though.)

However, work is challenging as all get-out, and that made the imperative to find a church community all the more strong, as i could easily see myself getting beaten all to hell with the various stresses that are common to my job. Right now, i'm sitting in the shared Team Leader office working my sunday morning midnight to 8am shift with staff in each of our dorms(men's and women's), and me manning the lobby(there should be a staff member at the front desk...but apparently that's a luxury my bosses have yet to afford me in the past month). I still don't feel as if i've got my feet underneath me in this role, especially in the area of how much power i have when i'm on my shift(which is also kind of crazy for me to think about), and what needs to happen when the unthinkable should happen(cause, after all, i am responsible for somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 people on a nightly basis). Plus, i also have to stay up and alert all night, which can be difficult, even for a night owl like me.

But...that's the easy shift.

My hard shift is the 4pm to midnight shift that i work on tuesday and wednesday nights. From 4:30 pm to about 9pm, it's nearly non-stop movement. I'd like to find an athletic metaphor for the difference between the two...but i haven't yet. I'll probably be writing more about this shift in the future, so excuse the lack of a three paragraph breakdown of what happens on the shift in this space.

So that brings me to what was a rather anticlimactic end to the "Great Church Search of '08". Basically how it went was this: I pretty quickly took all the churches that i had been to before out of the weekly drawing in favor of not having my search last until March '09 (because, after all...it was the "Great Church Search of '08" not the "Great Church Search of '08-'09"...little difference...but it made all the difference, if you know what i mean). 

With the previously attended churches out of the way, that narrowed it down to Grace Community Church, Redeemer Presbyterian, Crossings Church, and Knoxville Life Church. I drew the names out of a hat, and that was the order they came out in. I'll write about each experience seperately, because the length is beginning to need the space of a full post about each.

(editor's note: the aforementioned posts have been dated a day after the visit: this places the posts in November, so if you scroll down, you'll see them. Thanks again for visiting.)

meditation on isaiah 55

In case you didn't notice...i haven't posted in quite a long while. My apologies. This is the first post of a new series of meditations on Scripture.

why is it that i thirst?

is it for this coffee, or for something more?

what is this that i am hungry for?

steak? eggs? life? hope?

am i getting my money's worth here?

not my money necessarily, but my time?

we just had christmas...did we buy good things?

am i making good music? 

am i serving well? 

loving well?

am i even listening?

it's raining outside, and the grass is eating the bread of the earth and drinking your wine and your milk-and it's free-free from the palm of your hand.

it's raining outside, and we wear various fabrics and animal skins to protect us from the rain-and we grumble and moan-and you laugh.

you laugh at our silliness-at our foolishness.

and you weep.

you weep because our moans are not at our own foolishness-to chide us out of punching you in the face with our disrespect-but because our moans are at you-full of wrath for the inconvenience you have caused us.

oh that we would seek you!

oh that we would be found in you!

oh that we would hide ourselves in the palm of your hand!

oh that we would listen to your words-that they would sprout back forth from our hearts-30 fold-60 fold-100 fold!

oh that we would start putting our money where our mouth is-and worship you in obedience!

then we would find peace.

not our pitiful, putrid peace that shrivels and shrinks from the first challenge-but your easy, everlasting peace that stands firm like an oak no matter how the winds may buffet.

then we would be able to smile at each other.

laugh freely.

know each other without the fear of judgement.

then joy would find its meaning in the interaction of the sons and daughters of Jesus.

come, Lord Jesus.

come.