A classic from David Plowden. East of Las Vegas, NM, 1971.

January 05, 2011

“To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over ploughshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray — these are the things that make men happy; they have always had the power of doing these, they never will have the power to do more. The world’s prosperity or adversity depends upon our knowing and teaching these few things: but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, in no wise.”

— John Ruskin, from Modern Painters (via ayjay)

December 30, 2010

“Centuries ago Cato the Censor is reported to have said, “I wonder how one haruspex [weatherman] can look another in the face without laughing.” Since that time the weatherman has developed a lessened sense of humor. I can see why. Instead of enjoying the simple pleasures of the sky, he is swamped by letters of criticism and his office is one of charts and graphs and maps and gadgets. While you and I enjoy weather wisdom in an amateur manner, we get to look at the sky; we argue about and slosh around in hail and snow and rain and wind. We experience the weather to its fullest, and living with the weather is more rewarding than analyzing it.”

— From Eric Sloane’s introductory “Author’s Note” in Look at the Sky and Tell the Weather, which my wife got me for Christmas (along with three other Sloane weather books; my daughter got me a journal in which I am to record weather observations for the coming year). I’ve always been fascinated by weather and how it forms the places we live; between Eric Sloane and Job 36-37, I feel like I have a fighting chance to indulge that fascination and mature it into something not unlike understanding. And may that hoped-for understanding only deepen the enjoyment.

December 29, 2010

Latah County Grain Growers, two days before Winter.

December 20, 2010

“Last night the rain just wouldn’t fall…”

— Richard Buckner, from “Town”, which appears on the magnificent Meadow, and also the best Daytrotter Session ever. This is the kind of line I shall work my whole life long to write.

December 17, 2010

“Poetry articulates correspondences that pre-exist in the world. Just the other day, I was reading a book about greed on my back deck and a bird flew past and lighted precariously on a wire that stretches over our bird feeder. I instantly thought of Jesus’ command to “Look at the birds of the air,” and I felt poetic. I did not impose a concentrated excess of significance on the scene. The scene itself was a concentrated excess, and what I felt was the poetry of the moment.”

— Peter Leithart, “On Poetry”, from Credenda/Agenda.

December 17, 2010

December 16, 2010

In which Matthew Houck’s band completes their transformation from spacey stoner folkies to kick-ass road band. On this song, and the rest of Here’s to Taking it Easy, the open-ended looseness of their earlier records is invigorated with focus and discipline—but its ragged-edged vibe still feels very much of a piece with almost anything off Pride (its kinship with To Willie is obvious). I do really love it when bands with experimental leanings corral their artier impulses into more structured song forms. Even more, I love it when bands like this get onstage at Letterman and UTTERLY kick the crap out of everyone in the room.

“I am not advocating that the state expropriate the existing wealth of stockholders. I do believe that stockholders have the right to control the destiny of the firm, but the critical question is not stockholders’ right to control, but how they control it. The Christian social tradition advocates private property not because it allows one the freedom to do whatever one wants–choice is not the highest value here. Rather, private property provides an opportunity for persons to contribute to the common good, which serves as the basis for developing virtue at work. Virtue will not come about from the mentality of maximizing stockholder wealth, but rather from reconnecting capital to labor, communities, and others who have a stake in the capital.”

— From Michael J. Naughton’s “The "Stumbling and Tripping” of Executive Pay", which was published in December of 2001 in the New Oxford Review. Peter Leithart passed the full text along to me, which I’ve (possibly illegally) reproduced here; he also summarized this article on his blog. It seems that the Catholic social tradition stands to inform the enervated, free-market sloganeering you hear from most American Christians (here’s another post from Leithart on Cavanaugh that encapsulates what I’m getting at). I’d also say that there’s a lot in this article to deepen the Protestant doctrine of Vocation—or, at very least, my own shallow understanding of it.

December 15, 2010

December 10, 2010

December 09, 2010

The lyrics are stupid—something about a slacker with no life and an ex-girlfriend or something and absolutely nothing interesting to say about anything—and the singing suitably listless. But, ho-lyyyy CRAP—at the three-minute-mark, this song just straps on a friggin’ jetpack fueled by pure riffage and starts melting your face right off your skull. By the four-minute mark, you’ve already turned the volume up well past anywhere it’s ever been before. At 4:15, “F*** YEAH!” is about as articulate as you’re gonna get. 5:17: you’re calling your buddies to come over so you have something to crowd-surf on. At 6:24, you’re skipping back to start this track over again. The rest of the record is pretty good, too, far and away the best thing ever produced by Florida surfers.

Not yet repainted into Union Pacific yellow, an ex-Espee diesel rests next to a puddle in South Saint Paul, Minnesota, the water turning it upside down and fragmenting its image.

December 08, 2010

Song of the year, I think.

December 08, 2010

From my favorite record of the year. Sufjan really challenged himself and his listeners—setting aside, as he did, his banjo for electronics and twee prettiness for sometimes abrasive, ugly noise. Christianity Today’s review rightly concluded that fans of his older music put off by this record “will discover a more complex understanding of Stevens, who as it turns out, is neither a "Christian artist” nor an “artist who is a Christian,” but a human like the rest of us.“

Sufjan the human, however he may have left his old sound behind, still possesses unfathomable melodic gifts and a truly symphonic sense of composition. "Age of Adz” is a wild and uncontrollable and stupendous wall of sound and emotion, a song made up of bits of noise, stray sounds, and instrumental flourishes corralled into something beautiful and personal and giant. I discern in this something not unlike the creativity of God, whose Spirit hovers over chaotic creation and refashions it into something beautiful and new through the ministry of the Word.

Back to the record—while I do love Age of Adz on its own merits, chief among its virtues is how it recalls for me his Adz-heavy concert at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, which was so good I simply fumble for the words. And I love that this record, which I can spin anytime I want, serves mainly to testify about that unrepeatable, live event.

“Wal-Mart is a place where people gather, it’s a place where you sometimes see your neighbor the most…”

— The saddest line in an article about a problematic new Homeland Security partnership (or what-have-you) with Wal-Mart.

December 08, 2010

Rain-spattered locomotive window.

December 03, 2010

The Washington & Idaho Railway in Potlatch, Idaho, hauling one load from Bennett Lumber for interchange with BNSF Railway in Marshall, Washington.

December 02, 2010

“That is, I believe that the will of the people, their traditions and customs, their concern for their families, their communities, and for the future should determine the shape of any political order…
…it is clear to me, especially in this late date of our democracy, that it enthrones the will of determined and well-financed minorities, that it dissolves the customs and traditions of the people, and that it has no concern for the future.”

— John Medaille, who I’d like to quote more often, in a Front Porch Republic article called “Why I am a Monarchist”. I’d say this article more or less puts words to my feelings about the destructive, idolatrous American political order. We’ll see how he follows up this first installment of three; at the very least, they’ll be worth reading.

December 01, 2010

December 01, 2010

It’s stupid to even try to write anything intelligent about this song. “Gimme Shelter” is simply more a force of nature than a piece of music.

November 30, 2010

In which Wilco writes and records one of those perfect, balls-out rock songs about highways.

November 29, 2010

“Seven Habits of Highly Infective People
1. Be infected.
2. Leave open sores untreated and uncovered.
3. Spit or sneeze into other people’s mouths.
4. Slice off part of your body and feed it to another person.
5. Vomit down someone’s shirt, especially if they’ve recently had chest or abdominal surgery.
6. Tear off your face and wipe it (wet side-down) on someone else’s face.
7. Cough without covering your mouth.”

— “Seven Habits of Highly Infective People”, by national treasure and poet, Aaron Belz.

November 29, 2010