Category Archives: Popular Culture
Spelling With Babs
I suddenly don’t feel bad for making spelling mistakes on this blog.
Strike Up Amhrán na bhFiann
From Relevant:
After a concert on Sunday, Bono met with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, who awarded the singer the nation’s highest award for the arts. Before the concert, Bono also received Amnesty International’s 2005 “Ambassador of the Conscience” award, officially making Bono’s medal count higher than the American downhill ski team
It’s funny cause it’s true!
Swimming in the Sea
If you don’t subscribe to the Relevant Podcast you need to!
This week’s podcast features the first of two installments of a poignant and eye-opening interview with author Don Miller. Don speaks with the Relevant staff about postmodern thought, the war in Iraq, Christians response to culture, and the Christian legacy of peace. Don’s words go along with what I posted on Friday concerning theological reflection. A great podcast. I encourage you to check it out!
Don Miller broke onto the scene with his book Blue Like Jazz and has become a highly sought after speaker. BLJ really struck a chord with twenty-somethings all over the planet and just took off. I was mentally stretched by the book and was challenged by Don’s real and raw style. I had a chance to meet Don back in October at the Catalyst conference. He was warm and engaging and I think that his personality really comes across in the podcast. Again, great stuff. I can’t wait for the second installment.
Toads Take Over Austrailia
The toxic cane toad in Australia is evolving into an “eco-nightmare” capable of covering huge distances, a study in the journal Nature reports.
Scientists say the species Bufo marinus is developing a leggier, faster-moving form that is now hopping out rapidly across the continent.
The toads were introduced 70 years ago to control pests, but have since wrought havoc on indigenous animals.
They kill snakes, lizards, water birds – even crocodiles and dingos.
A young boy from Springfield has been brought in for questioning. Details as the emerge.
So Bummed Updated
Update: This morning @U2 posted a link to Macnn which has posted a pic of the fake invite. Now can you see why I got a little excited? According to Macnn, the invite was sent from a user in Germany and according to @U2, Bono will be in Bueno Aries on March 1st so a press confrence in the US would be pretty difficult to pull off. Even for Bono.
I got way too excited over a post on iLounge that announced that Bono and Steve Jobs might be holding a press confrence in March to announce a red iPod as part of the Product Red initiative. Alas, the rumors turned out to false.
Minutes after I saw the post, iLounge posted a retraction:
Contrary to an earlier report, Apple will not be holding a special event on March 1. An Apple representative has confirmed to iLounge that an electronic invitation – marked with indicia of a benefit for AIDS – is an elaborate fake. The sender was apparently taking advantage of recent speculation that Apple would introduce a red iPod as part of Bono’s Product RED initiative. iLounge apologizes for any confusion this may have caused.
Companies including American Express, Converse, Gap and Giorgio Armani have all joined the project and plan to release specially-designed red products with a portion of the profits going to the Global Fund to support AIDS programs in Africa. The U2 frontman was reportedly overheard mentioning that Apple would be joining the initiative and introduce a red iPod.
I hope that Apple will join with Product Red sometime soon. There is always hope. Until then, I should learn to temper my excitement. The news that this was a fake has been a total bummer.
Cover the Cover?
Back in 1999, I had the chance to study overseas in Athens, Greece. Being a Bible major and a lover of art this was the thrill of a lifetime. I would get to walk where the Apostle Paul walked and I would lay my eyes on some of the most beautiful works of art in the Western world. I was stoked. That is until I got a lecture from one of my professors about the dangers of ancient art.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I was studying a beautiful stone sculpture of Poisideon/Zues when my professor walked up next to me. I was lost in the lines and the contures of the statue when I heard the professor give off a little sigh. I felt like sighing too. How could a human being create such a thing? How many hours or days or weeks did it take to create such beauty? I was about to ask the prof what he thought when he spoke. In a disapproving southern drawl he stated, “Nothing but pornography.”
What? I hadn’t even noticed the nudity. I wasn’t even aware of it but I sure was then. I turned to him and commented how the statue just needed a good set of Levi’s. “Yeah, slap a pair of blue jeans on him and it’ll be ok, ” I said. I walked out of that museum with a myriad of emotions: anger, saddness, guilt, frustration. The statue was not in any sexual pose or provocative stance but I couldn’t get over his response. I wanted to throw up but I couldn’t pin point the reason. From that point on I felt almost guilty for looking at any statue that wasn’t completly covered. This prof took something of beauty and made it and a thousand other pieces vulgar in the blink of a eye. During our travels we did see some art work that was created specifically for sexual response. Believe me, there is a huge difference between that “art” and the sculptures I was admiring that day. The overtly sexual images made me blush whereas a piece like the Venus DeMillo reminded me of how beautiful the human form can be and how talented and creative and awesome our God is!
Throughout the Christian community the debate over art and pornography rages on. There is quite a stir being caused by the latest issue of Leadership Journal. The latest issue “deals with ministry amid a sexually charged culture” but it isn’t the articles that are causing the flap. It is the cover.
The cover photo is a detail from the famous statue of Pallas-Athena that stands in front of the Parlament building in Vienna. Athena was the war goddess of ancient Greece, but also worshiped as the goddess of wisdom. The Viennese statue was erected as a tribute not only to Athena but also the four rivers that were once a part of the Austrian Empire: the Danube, Elbe, Po, and Vistula.
As you can see from the photo, the statue is only partial covered. Many who recieved the issue have written in and taken the journal to task for their “irresponsible” decision to run this cover.
I can understand why some people might be bent out of shape but when I saw the cover I wasn’t immediately shamed by the statue. The photo matches the design style of nearly every other cover that I have seen from Leadership. The editorial team explained that the use of the photo was trying to communicate a number of things including:
1. Christian leadership has always been practiced amid sexually charged cultures.
2. Interest in sex is common ground between Christians and non-Christians.
3. The gospel has important things to say about sex, but we need help articulating them in a way the culture can appreciate.
You can follow the conversation if you would like at Leadership’s blog, Out of Ur. There are already some great responses. Feel free to add your own.
As for the discussion here: What do you think about it all?
Let me know. I am interested in how you feel on the subject.
6 Degrees of Seperation
I went to school at Dallas Christian School and had quite a few close friends attend Abilene Christian University which is begining its lectureship next week that is holding a session entitled From Rage to Ecstacy: U2 and the Psalms about which Beth at U2 Sermons, one of my favorite sites, posted about yesterday.
Wierd.
Tales of Intrest
Welcome to the FUUUUUTUURE! A future where old TV shows can be revived after sucessful stints on basic cable.
There still might be some life left in Futurama after all! Created by Matt Greoning, Fox’s smart and sassy sci-fi comedy saw itself cancelled at the end of 2003. It soon after began airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim and became a cult hit almost over night. now it could be back on the air, baby! According to E! Online
The studio has begun talks to revive the Emmy-winning animated series and produce a limited number of new episodes, thanks to a resurgence in the show’s popularity on DVD and in reruns, Variety reports.
Reps for 20th Century Fox have declined to comment on the news, but Variety says initial negotiations have begun.
If revived, it’s unclear exactly which network would air the new episodes. While Fox housed the original series, the show found new life once reruns began showing on the Cartoon Network. Comedy Central subsequently snapped up the off-air rights and will exclusively air the repeats beginning in 2008.
Futurama was truly a great social satire and was unfortunately “another science fiction show cancelled before its prime.” It deserves better treatment then what it got and it is 1000 times more deserving of a second chance than Peter Griffin.
Good luck Planet Express! Maybe now we can see how it truly ends.
Futurama
New Life on Fox
Futurama Thawed
TV Squad
Future for Futurama
GAURD YOUR EARS!!!
In 1969 a legendary rock album was released called Tommy. The rock-opera told the tale of young Tommy Walker who becomes deaf, dumb, and blind after witnessing a murder.
This tale of a deaf, pinball-playing kid was given to us by one greatest and loudest rock bands ever to grace a stage: The Who. (named The World’s Loudest Rock Band by Guiness)
The Who’s guitarist, Pete Townsend, is one of the world’s great guitar players and, apparently, he is also now a safety inspector. Townsend has ben going deaf for a number of years. I always belived that the cause of his hearing loss was due to their infamous Smothers Bros. performance. Townsend believes otherwise.
The Who’s live performances were traditionally extremely loud. For most of the 1970s they were listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the loudest Rock band in the world, measured at 130 decibels, though other bands, notably Deep Purple, have since taken over that dubious honor. Townshend’s later partial deafness and tinnitus is well known; popular legends hold that the members of the band suffered permanent hearing loss from their loud concerts, or that Townshend’s right ear was damaged as a result of being too close to the drum kit when Moon detonated an oversized concussion bomb in it at the conclusion of a performance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967. Townshend, however, maintains that the true cause was listening to the music at high volume through headphones.
Now Pete Townsend has come out to discuss the dangers of listening to loud rock music…. on your iPod.
According to ABC News,
Guitarist Pete Townshend has warned iPod users that they could end up with hearing problems as bad as his own if they don’t turn down the volume of the music they are listening to on earphones.
Townshend, 60, guitarist in the 60s band The Who, said his hearing was irreversibly damaged by years of using studio headphones and that he now is forced to take 36-hour breaks between recording sessions to allow his ears to recover.
“I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal components deaf,” he said on his Web site. “Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired. If you use an iPod or anything like it, or your child uses one, you MAY be OK … But my intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead.”
Pete, I appreciate your heart-felt public service announcement but if I do shell out the money to see you and Rodger this summer I am going to pay for those extra decibels so CRANK IT UP OLD MAN!!!! My Ge, Ge, Generation likes it loud!