Christmas Time is Here

I don't normally get excited about the holiday season. I think I like my life manageable and when the holidays come around I get overwhelmed and a bit stressed because the money is tight or this is needed or something falls apart. But this Christmas as everything is already deconstructing a bit I will try something new this holiday season. Consumerism overwhelms me so I am making presents this year and asking others to do the same. So today I will be cleaning my apartment, seeing what I have to dive into new projects and getting rid of the things that sit around and gather dust....



Sufjan is going to kick me into the new season with a reminder of how lovely it is to be with the ones you love and that I love and serve something outside of my control. Spirituality is a beautiful concept, some days it feels like work but this holiday season I want to see with new eyes. If you are also in the Christmas music spirit the Sufjan Christmas album is streaming live from this link. If you are not familiar with Sufjan I want to ask where have you been the last couple of years ( I am sure the stories must be interesting)? But in case you were fighting anaconda in the Amazon Sufjan Stevens is a musician originally from Michagan but has grand orchestral pieces mixed with quirky creative story telling in his lyrics. The music is beautiful and the stories capture you in still soft moments. Please do me the favor and listen, buy, and watch him. He is a true artist and a beautiful, awe-inspiring artist/musician. I love him.

This Christmas I want to see love and hope. I desire to see embrace and beauty. I love Christmas cookies, hot coffee, and late night conversations with lighting lit by the distant Christmas tree. I think that this Christmas will be a moment where I choose to see hope rather than consumerism to fill a need.

I rarely sing Christmas songs but this is one of my favorites and being in California in winter is hard when you know there is snow on the ground in the place where you grew up...so enjoy. ... Chirstmas Time is Here.

Grace upon grace

Last week was overwhelming, draining, gut smashing, life altering, eye opening. I can think of other adjectives but I think you catch where I might be heading here. It seemed like anything that was holding me together decided to up and leave or break. I wish I was being dramatic but I am not. It was what it was and I have become a better person for it. I will spare the details but I noticed how I much I was trying to control my life. Trying to make sure nothing fell apart and nothing went out of control. When you hold on so tightly that is when it pops and breaks. And break they did....

The hardest part of it all being that I am a student was that my computer died. Something fried. It would only run the fan and not turn on. I had to let it go to the lovely people at apple for a week. It's amazing how I rely so heavily on technology and how it plays such a fantastic role in my life. Just sitting here on my lappie is so lovely as I listen to my ipod and texting friends on my phone. I love it. I am glad it exists in the world. I am also going to praise the amazing people at Apple here for a moment. My computer came back with a complete makeover. It has a new case (the old one was dropped so when you wanted to close the lid you had to shift it to the right and then close it), a new bottom case, a new keyboard, a new display. There is no longer my "Jesus is the Savior, not Christianity" sticker. There are no more scratch marks, hand smudged mouse track pad, the n is now shown once again on my keyboard. I feel really lucky that all this was fixed and now better.

I stepped back this week and realized the grace I have been receiving lately and the beauty of life that I am seeing with new eyes. I guess that was my prayer a while ago and I believe I am seeing with new eyes. I have received meals, flowers, candy, hugs, texts, emails, small notes of unexpectancy. I have been showered with a bit of hope. The grace was unexpected but I am so not going to lie that I needed it. I needed to see visual reminders of God and that there are good people in the world that when you hit the bottom will help pick you up, dust you off, and help you see that today was just kind of shitty and soon again something will be better.

It also doesn't suck when you make a great mixtape!!
Good Woman (Cat Power)
Be Not So Fearful (Jeff Tweedy)
no ones gonna love (band of horses)
Intuition (feist)
The Trapeze Swinger (Iron and Wine)
The Orchids (Califone)
You are Not Alone (Patty Griffin)
Shelter (Ray LaMontagne)
Wonderwall (Ryan Adams)
On and On and On (Wilco)
Rake (Sufjan Stevens)
Much Farther to Go (Rosie Thomas)
Acuff-Rose (Jeff Tweedy)
Your Hand in Mine (Explosions in the Sky)
Ode to the Irc (Band of Horses)


So I hope to be blogging more, getting my homework done, and/or procrastinating more....

Music...live...at your computer

Thhis week, like the last two have been overwhelming, mystifying, and has made me slow down and realize what is in the way and what has been missing. I realized that I haven't been to a live show or bought a new CD in months. Many people miht not find this weird..odd..or strange, but to a woman who spends her waking moments with music in her eyes or in my face this is a rare oddity. I think it's almost like a bad caffiene addiction, when you stop you have bad headaches, wierd mood swings, and altered state of being. I think I am going through music withdrawl.

Yesterday I had the rare chance to chat with my friend in New York and we like to swap music or music sites. I feel really lucky to have friends like this. I was just made aware that NPR revamped their site and have a lot of music, concerts, and interviewss ready to listen, and add to a playlist of the concerts on hand. It's live music of great bands right here, right now. I have alrerady taken in Thurston Moore and at this moment listening to a radio set of Band of Horses. The new record is pretty great but there are two songs that I can't stop listening to and they are both played live with some fantastic emotion that I think only a live show can really put across.

My computer took a crap last night. I am really bummed and it looks like I can't take it to an apple store until later this weekend, the biggest shopping weekend of the whole year. I hope NPR or my ipod will bring me to the places i need to find a little bit of sanity. So here is to hoping.

A Familie Movie

My first encounter with Danielson was at Calvin College back in the undergrad days. I can't remember the year, but I know the venue, where I was sitting, and encountering the art meets music style of Daniel Smith. He was wearing a tight fitting suit, with blinders around his eyes, antlers on his head, and bells strapped to his ankle. He had an overhead projector with all the lyrics on it and invited everyone to sing along. I had never encountered anything like this at the time and it has ever so impacted my life as it engages with the merging of art, music, and spirituality.

Sunday I had the small chunk of time to snuggle on my couch and remember my experiences with this musical endevor through a musical documentary. I had heard about the documentary a year ago when they first finished the film but I hadn't received the opportunity to watch the documented journey of the Danielson, Brother Danielson, Danielson Familie, of Danielson Sonship. All of these groups are a hybrid of the thoughts, ideas, and vision of Dan Smith. I

If you haven't heard the music take the time to figure it out. I promise it does take time and it's not soothing to the soul but a music journey of merging faith, art, and music. Danielson: A Family Movie (or Make a Joyful Noise Here) follows the ending of the Familie and working towards a new project. The music is passionate. Passionate about a loving Father (God) who is the Creator of all things and enables those who recognize this Spirit to forge in creativity. The music is odd yet rich in what it means to serve, love, care, and give to other people. People want to automatically label things as Christian and leave the conversation with all your preconceptions but that would be shallow and unable to deal with what is real and what is in front of you.




I can tell you a lot about the film but I don't want to. I want to talk about the experience with the film and the movement in my soul that I haven't felt in quite sometime. I work hard to find the spiritual throughout my culture. With Danielson it is the manifestation of the Spirit and what we do when we learn how to die to ourselves and begin to live in the spirit of something bigger than ourselves. Life in the spirit is beautiful if we allow it to not have boundaries or constraints on our life. The creativity astounds me as Danielson Familie wears nurses uniforms and offers the visual reminder that Christ/God/Spirit can offer healing into our lives.

Without Danielson we wouldn't have Sufjan Stevens. Danielson helped produce the Michigan record that was highly acclaimed. Sufjan steals many of the ideas that Daniel Smith had set up and I think that's lovely. He is able to introduce merging of artistic concepts that not only stirs your ears but also your eyes. It's amazing what happens when we connect the music with the art or at least find and contemplate the statements being made on stage. Friends are good for this.

This film made me miss my Michigan community. A community of people who are committed to art (visually and musically) and how we can challenge one another to not only be better artists but better people who live with a spirit inside them that pushes and validates people outside of themselves. I hope to find an art community again. I don't know if that will lead me back to Michigan but I hope it leads me home.

In This World

Monday afternoon I was asked to show a film and follow up with conversation on the fiction documentary In This World. the film is about two boys fleeing their refugee camp in Pakistan because of the wars and bombing in their home of Afghanistan. The conversation is a tough one when you this topic is basically unanswerable. I was trying to find background information on the film and I ran across this quote from the review in the LA Weekly:

The world is full of refugees, and Western countries that have helped create them (as well as those that haven’t) must deal with the fact that to reject them is inhuman, to accept them by the millions is impractical, and to create humanly decent criteria for who qualifies and who doesn’t is all but impossible. That is the West’s dilemma.


The film follows two boys trying to find a better life for themselves. They have to put their lives in the hands of others to get them to their destination of London where they hope to seek asylum. I am going to be honest and say that I haven't really processed through this issue much. It's huge. It almost seems like an impossible conversation. I even had to say that after the movie. It is almost impossible but at least it is something to think about and work our way through new parts of the conversation. Does it move us towards a conversation of non-violence or the conversation of the war? I didn't want to make the conversation a political one but in light of the fact the war is costing America over a trillion dollars it's a worthy conversation to undertake. Imagine if we used a trillion dollars for providing free education? Imagine if we used that trillion for housing? or meal plans? or rebuilding old buildings? or college educations? These are some my thoughts for alternative fundings or at least new solutions to old problems.

I don't think I have the final over arching solutions but I also think as the church body we can be vital into helping create new solutions.

The Squid and the Whale

As I sluggishly get through my day today and especially now to keep my eye lids open as class drones on I realized that I haven't talked about my new Netflix experience as well as partaking in Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale. I finally decided that spending eight dollars a month is worth getting a couple of movies a week and indulging in all that I can with documentaries and Independent films that when I walk into the dreaded Blockbuster I end up being bombarded with bad Hollywood movies and overpriced Jiffy Pop. This has been a fantastic decision and kind of kick myself for not doing this movie in my mailbox thing earlier.

The latest movie watching adventure is The Squid and the Whale. A great film that is obviously influenced by Wes Anderson who was also the producer of the film. The plot reminds me of The Darjeeling Limited and The Royal Tannenbaums with a father estranging himself from his family due to selfish actions and the insistence their way is the best way (sometimes the only way). The film is stylistically lovely and the music looks back to the classic rock diddys (Lou Reed, Loudon Wainwright III).

The film has a simple story (or a simple story that my generation understands so well) of a family divorcing, the children almost forced to choose sides, and the repercussions when you don't know who you intermingles with chaos and pain. I think the story is almost hard to watch at times when you see a nine year old boy masturbating in the library as well as getting drunk on weekdays locked in his bedroom hoping to drink away the understanding that he might just look like his father. The father (Jeff Daniels) is a harsh yet loving father, wanting what he thinks is best for his boys, but sabotaging them at the same time.

There are some great themes of loving yourself, loving who you are becoming, facing your fears, and standing up to the scary present that is slowing becoming your past. The concept of the squid and the whale is only important in theory but a beautiful reconnection of what it means to be loved by your mother and communicating your desires and needs to be loved in return. I think they did a great job showing the expectations of sleeping with the hottest girl and how that can skew your perception of yourself and of others.

I walked away from the film with a bit of hope and knowing that the pain continues to bring you closer to a new reality but a reality that you are not perfect and it is okay not to be.

Joanna with her orchestra

With an opportunity to sit in the beautifully designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, with a twenty eight piece orchestra, a mandolin, and percussionist, my friend Erika and I was transferred into the world of Joanna Newsom. The night was filled with the beautiful, breathtaking music from the harpist, avant-garde folk stylings of Joanna. The night began with the orchestra backing her to the 2005 Y's record. The record is beautiful and haunting. Almost stepping into what it might have been to live in medieval times. I love the record because of a lot of reasons. The music is beautiful, how could it not when you have an orchestral arrangement by Van Dyke Parks (think Brian Wilson's Smile and Pet Sounds) and recorded and produced by Jim O'Rourke (Sonic Youth, Wilco) and Steve Albini (master behind Nirvana's In Utero and The Pixie's Surfer Rosa). We were treated to the record from beginning to end, only to take breaks in between tracks to sip water and thank the audience for being there. The music was gorgeous and very much like the album, the only new additions were from the mandolin/banjo player and well versed percussionist.

The second half was an array of songs from her first full length The Milk-Eyed Mendor. What I loved about these songs is that she totally rearranged and added depth and scope to the already established songs. The songs were given perspectives and with the sound as it is in this concert hall it was a breath of fresh air and a new sense of how one can approach her songs. She is quirky little lady, you can sense that she knows what she wants and has a great personality to back it up. What I loved about the night was the use of instruments that colored and envisioned the evening. I keep thinking about the percussionist who had no boundaries around his instruments. There was no snare drum or drum sticks but a bass drum that was used like a rock bass drum (hence with pedal) but more often used with mallets or with his hands. No part of the drum was off limits as he knew how to use the head to vary sounds. The mandolin player would add his breath of knowledge and challenge the orchestra with what he could add to the beautiful full sound.

The only critique of the night was that I wanted it louder...not 'turn it to eleven' sound but I didn't think it needed the dainty undertones as it was awarded by the sound engineer. Other than that I was amazed by the work of Joanna Newsom herself. Her voice has matured with the time she has played and her skills on the harp is magnificent. I don't have a lot of background on the harp but it was lovely to be a part of.

The night was magnificent from beginning to end. I had a wonderful evening with a wonderful friend. We both had fancy new dresses on and cute new boots. I can't say enough of what a lovely evening I had with some of the most intriguing scope of sound i have heard in quite some time. One of my favorite songs is entitled Peach, Plum, Pear from her fist full length. You can see a past live show below. Enjoy!