CCM Gripes and Grievances, etc.

I was planning on starting my work binge at the Pharmacy on Thursday of this week, but go unexpectedly called in on Monday for four hours. That was fine with me because I wasn't really doing anything. The Pharmacy is like usual: a bit slow at times with a dusting of mean, irate, mental people. The customer I fear the most (the one that has called me a "jackass" in times past) came in this morning and my heart started beating faster than it has in a very long time. This guy is so mean and inconsiderate than when he comes in, my hands start shaking. It was nerve racking and he had an explosion or two this morning. It's all over now, though. Until next time at least.

A nice aspect of working at the Pharmacy is that I know it is run by people who are Christians and desire to have an honest business that is pleasing to Christ. The only stipulation to this is that we play Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) all the time. Those of you who know me know my loathing for most CCM. It's boring, thoughtless, uncreative, and repetitive. Most modern pop music shares these adjectives as well, but I'm not going to cover that right now. My main gripe over the past week at work has been with the group Selah and their shameless covers of a few popular secular songs.

In the last two years, Selah has covered "Bless the Broken Road" by the Rascall Flatts and "You Raise Me Up" by Josh Groban. In both of these shameful arrangements, Selah has changed the focus of the song from a person (both Groban and the RFs are singing to people) to God. You might say, "Oh, this is nice. Selah is redeeming popular songs by singing them to God." I say that this is something you just CAN NOT do and it goes against everything I have ever been taught or read about the concept of authorial intent.

When someone writes or creates something, it has a specific meaning. There is one meaning that can not and should not be changed. People do this with the Bible all the time and it does terrible things to the faith. It's kind of a spiritual postmodernism ... this is what Selah is guilty of. It's not just doing a nice thing for God ... it's disrespecting Him by taking advantage of someone elses creativity and thrusting it upon Him. For the love of God (literally), WRITE SOMETHING CREATIVE!

We have a history as Christians when it comes to art and creativity. Michaelangelo created some of the most influential paintings and sculptures of all time. Flash to the 20th century and we see J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis creating whole worlds through literature (literature that is still respected today) ... all to the glory of God. Even Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) found ways to reflect God's beauty and truth through some of his music. Check out The Lost Chord, for example.

It's pretty sad that I can't really praise much of anything written of produced by Christians for its artistic merit AND profundity. You're lucky to find anything worth talking about in a Christian bookstore amid all the second-rate novels and "Holy trinkets." Christians need a call to arms when it comes to engaging the culture WITH our message. Outside of preaching the message (which we are most definitely called to do), we need to find creative ways to express the hope that we have been given and the truth that we possess without coming across as a bunch of ignorant hacks that know nothing about craft and artistry. End of griping session.

Lost was extremely well-written this week ... possibly one of the top five Lost scripts in the show's history. Lost has an amazing episode formula with the flashbacks and all and when they hit the nail on the head by making the flashbacks inform the island story narratively AND emotionally ... it's just grand. This week, they did and the result was a very good episode with lots of literary references, great acting, and depth of character. This show just keeps getting better and better. BTW, if anyone else caught the symbolic meaning of the screen-cap above, please comment!

A bunch of my friends are going to Hersheypark on Thursday, but I have to work. It's probably a good thing I'm not going because I don't have the money. I have been selling some stuff online to make some extra cash. I'll get a nice check from the Pharmacy on Thursday, too. I still need to save, though. Such is the life of a college student.

Down to the wire...

I have 19 days left here for the semester. That’s not much, but every time I look at the calendar, I think about all the stuff I have to do before then and it seems SO LONG! This next week I have a Western Civ. group project to finish, I have meetings for a (very big) Biblical Foundations group project, there is research essay due, and I accompany four people in Rep. class. There’s probably a bunch of other stuff that I’m forgetting at the moment, but that’s still a lot.

Even though this next week is going to be quite rough, I have the weekend to look forward to. Hot Fuzz comes out on Friday and the Bryan Film Festival awards ceremony is on Saturday night. Sunday morning, I’ll get on a bus at 8:00 and go to the Nashville Film Festival for two days. It will be my first real film festival, so I’m very, very excited. I’m probably seeing five films while I’m there and they all sound really great. Two documentaries, a comedy, a drama, and an action movie filmed in one take (I’m not expecting much out of that one). One of the documentaries I’m seeing is called Lake of Fire and is said to be the quintessential documentary on abortion, done by Tony Kaye, the director of American History X. I’m also visiting the Frist Center for the Arts while I’m there for their Picasso and Matisse exhibit.

24 returned to form this week with a really great episode. They brought David Fury, a writer from season one of Lost, in to dig them out of the giant hole they had made for themselves and start anew. Thanks goodness.

Lost was one of the best episodes ever this week as well. I love an intense characters study and that’s something the writers of Lost are really good at. I’ve been reading a graphic novel in my (very little) spare time called Watchmen that is sort of like Lost. It has well-developed characters that we learn about through flashbacks. One of the things I love about Watchmen is how it will cross cut from one scene into another situation, using the dialogue from the previous scene to give the new one meaning. Its really great stuff and is quite affecting at times. I long to write a really good story, but don’t have the talent or the time. Oh, well. I guess that’s the dilemma of many people … not just me.

I suppose everyone has heard about Don Imus of Imus in the Morning's new antics. I don’t usually listen to him, but I’ve really been keeping up with the trouble he has got himself into lately. Apparently, he called some Rutgers women’s basketball players “nappy-headed hos” on the radio and is now in big trouble (i.e. he’s been taken off the air). I just got done listening to a little speech he gave on the radio apologizing for it. I was hoping it would be good, but it wasn’t. He just spent twelve minutes talking about how he’s not a racist because he has a ranch where black children can come in the summer and he has some black friends. He tripped over his speech the whole time. It was really sad. It was sort of like the man was trying to jump out of his own grave, but was unintentionally making it deeper with every failed attempt. As the Bible says, “…the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” I’m still trying to figure out if he just had a weak moment, or if the guy really is a racist. I guess we’ll never know.

Ever busy...

From IMDb News:

A MySpace blogger who had vowed to go on a hunger strike so long as American Idol contestant Sanjaya Malakar remained on the show touched off expressions of concern Thursday when she failed to update her daily blog. On the TMZ gossip site, an editor wrote, "Let us know you're OK. And have a steak or something -- Sanjaya isn't going anywhere any time soon." Later in the day, the anti-Sanjaya blogger, known only as "J," posted a message apologizing for not keeping her website current, then concluded: "I am still feeling kind of weak but okay. not at the point of hospitalization yet, thank goodness. it won't be long now until Sanjaya is gone!"

A friend called me tonight very distraught. She had been typing out a speech she was supposed to give at a women's retreat for three hours and somehow it didn't get saved. I worked with her on the phone for about half an hour to no avail. I could sympathize with her, though, because the other day I spent an hour writing an email to someone only to have a connection failure when I clicked "Send." Then, yesterday I had spent an hour editing some video footage only to find later that my work had disappeared. So, I've been saving things like a madman this last day-and-a-half.

This week has been crazy busy for me. I've had lots of homework in the past few days. Its been really stressful, but not enough to make me do anything rash like eat cafeteria casserole or eggs. I've been helping the guys on my hall with their movie for the college film festival. I guess I can say its my movie as well, but I really don't think I'd benefit from having my name attached to the ideas behind this project. In any case, I've been trying to make it as good as I possibly can by shooting all the footage, editing it, and getting a friend to write an original score so the movie has a chance of winning Audience Choice.

Also this week, we had the most random hour of 24 ever. E-V-E-R. There were so many impossible impossibilities and freak happenings in this episode ... it was amazing. We also introduced 24's first autistic character. Everybody clap! Even though this episode had one of the most tense scenes in 24 history, it still can't redeem the sloppy writing that is becoming characteristic of season six. Its a mess. But its still 24.

While we're on the subject of television, Lost was amazing this week. Another feat of excellent writing from the crew at ABC. I'm convinced that even a "bad" episode of Lost is written better than most any other TV show. This week was structured like an old-fashioned mystery that stuffed some characters from the past that we hadn't seen in a while (Doctor Arszt, Boone, Shannon, etc) into the mix. This episode made me not hate Niki and Paulo. I now know the reason for their existence (however short it may have been). Wednesday's episode answered some questions I've had for a while too, which is always a good thing when it comes to Lost.

I would really like to do a serious narrative or documentary project, but need to find something that is within my technological range and my ability. I've been limiting what I watch (sans a TV show here and there) to things that I think will be worthy of my time. Hence, I've been surrounded by a lot of excellence and when I think about setting out to do a project, I always get discouraged because I know I probably won't end up making anything of consequence. It'll come, though. I just have to wait.

I was listening to some Bach piano music today. I really want to learn some new Bach now. I haven't played him (or any other composer of piano literature, for that matter) in a long time and am feeling a great need.

Wish me luck in this next week. It's going to be another toughy.