To read

Being Christmas break, apparently I'm supposed to have time to read, both "for fun" and "for school". And do all the normal Christmas related things. Ha.

Anyway, I am trying to squeeze in some "for fun" reading into my break in some sort of half-hearted attempt at living a balanced lifestyle that includes leisurely activities like "pleasure reading". This endeavor has come in the shape of A.J. Jacobs's book, The Year of Living Biblically. The dude is a secular Jew who writes for Esquire magazine and lives in New York City's Upper West Side (yeah, he's quite the cliche).

The book details a year in which he attempts to follow every rule of the Bible (hence, his beard pictures above). While a little gimmicky in nature, I've enjoyed his reflections on the book I say I surround my life around. In general, there's always something pretty interesting about hearing an outsider's comments on one's lifestyle (religiously narcissistic?) when done in a relatively objective manner. An atheist guy did something sort of similar a few years back when he sold his soul on ebay and then visited a number of churches, only to get a book deal out of it. A.J.'s book is better written and is a little more comprehensive ("ebay guy" had some fascination with evangelical church's excellent public speakers). It also reads like someone writing from NYC - what I believe The New Yorker would read like even though I don't actually read The New Yorker. I'm only a third of the way through the book but I enjoy A.J.'s humor and candidness concerning Christianity and I suppose I think it's important that, as a Christian, I remain somewhat aware of perceptions held towards whatever subgroup I may fall into.

All this to say, I'd recommend the book if you're looking. I got a few other books for Xmas that will hopefully be read before 2nd semester (that Bonhoeffer book and some mentoring book I always allude to in my class papers but haven't actually read). Alright, have a splendid New Year's. Keep reading, it's good for you.

Christmas thoughts

As a semi-well educated, hip twenty-something, I'm fairly good at complaining. One such occurrence happens frequently whenever I hear someone (typically a pastor or a "Christian by trade") call the listener to remember the "reason for the season" and to "get back" to the true meaning of Christmas. My initial response, as a whiny young person, is to explain to everyone around me that Jesus' real birth most likely didn't happen anytime around December and that a call back to the meaning of Christmas would bring us back to some sort of Roman (or is it Greek?) pagan holiday which really has nothing to do with Jesus' birth.

I know, I annoy myself.

The next step in the conversation (one I rarely get to) should be about the redemption that can happen with holidays like Christmas. And hopefully, we can be reminded of the redemption that Christ can bring to all of life. That's something I can celebrate. So it is at this time of year that I would like to call everyone to remember not the true meaning of the holiday (I am neither Roman nor Greek and don't necessarily care to celebrate their pagan holidays), but rather to embrace the redeeming love brought through our lord Jesus that extends through our whole lives, even to our holidays.

Top 11 of 2010

On what could have been the "Top10 of 2010" (numeric alliteration, if you will), I chose to include 11 albums on my "best of" list for the year. I know, it could have been awesome, but I simply could not exclude any of these albums. It literally would have been a personal insult to the artist.

Now to the (usual) preface:

For me, Top10 lists are 100% subjective. Unlike the responsibilities magazines, websites, or "real" bloggers hold in being "objective", this is a list of personal favorites. Case in point: Arcade Fire's The Suburbs is certainly one of the best albums of the year yet I feel zero responsibility on including them in my Top10 when I didn't listen to or enjoy the album as much as my other choices. I feel especially inclined to include this caveat of an intro as a number of great indie rockstar albums came out this year yet they didn't make my list.

Anyhow, a ton of great music has come out this year and being out of school for the majority of it allowed me to listen to a lot of it. Here are my top picks and a brief reason why. Enjoy and, if I know you, link to your Top10 list in the comment section... I'm always looking for new music and new lists.

11. Beach House - Teen Dream

Dreamy. Swirly. Non-distinct. An album I had to include simply because of the number of times I ended up listening to it. I never got excited about it. I rarely even felt like listening to it. It just always found its way into being played. It's kind of like a crappy apartment that isn't really special in many ways but it finds a way into your heart because of its familiarity.

10. The National - High Violet

This band is just great at crafting songs filled with melancholy. I chalk it up to their lead singer's baritone vocals. Again, this isn't a band I get excited about. Rather, as with this album, I hit play and am instantly overwhelmed with well crafted songs and lyrics filled with fantastic imagery.

9. Tokyo Police Club - Champ

This was my first foray into TPC's music. Taking it back a couple of years, I get the same feeling from this band as I did from the Christian garage-rock band, Bleach (any takers on that comparison?). What I mean is that this band is great at making catchy jams that are easy to rock out to.

8. Vampire Weekend - Contra

Loved their first album. Love this album. A few more blips and beeps this time around. Catchy pop songs. Needlessly intelligent lyrics but that's besides the point, I'm not listening to VW for their lyrics. Sidenote: the fiancée bought us tickets to their show earlier this year and we grooved for a solid hour.

7. Sufjan Stevens - Age of Adz

It's about time. After waiting for a solid five years for a significant new album, Suf delivers the jams. And I mean jams. Leave it to the indie-king to change a lot of the instrumentation but keep what we all love about him. While most artists would most likely flub up, Sufjan creates sounds and atmospheres that will keep me listening for a long while.

6. The Drums - The Drums

I kind of started listening to this band as a joke. My little bro showed me a song called "Let's Go Surfing" which, as the name suggests, is pretty awesome. Little did I know that I would love the rest of the overly dramatic album as well. This one's perfect for a trip to the beach ... or wishing you were at the beach.

5. Sleigh Bells - Treats

Pretty voice. Distorted guitar. Heavy beats. It's like a mash-up created from scratch. I love the intensity of this band and the fact that it's the perfect album to throw on when in the car with a group of friends.

4. The Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt

Man, this guy came to Taylor my senior year and I missed the show ... then again, I really had no idea who he was so I can't really kick myself. I'm pretty sure he's not actually that tall but this album is great. Guitar and a fantastic voice. That's pretty much all it is. And it's perfect for background noise, for driving by yourself at dusk, for studying, for listening to.

3. Jonsi - Go

I was a little hesitant where this one was going to go. Jonsi's departure from Sigur Ros with Riceboy Sleeps had me literally sleeping so I didn't know what to expect from this release. I was pleasantly surprised. This album is large, joyful, exciting, fun, and an experience all around.

2. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast

This new band consists of some young college kids from Florida. To a certain degree, that's all you need to know. The music is young, fun, and a good time - kind of like college. It also kind of makes you feel like Florida.

1. Local Natives - Gorilla Manor

I was initially hesitant of listening to this band. For some reason, they just sounded too generic. After I got over myself, I absolutely loved this band and this album. I attended a show of theirs earlier this year and it may have been the best concert experience of my life. So much energy and it's all matched with a level of depth not always found in your usual album.

Honorable Mentions :: Yeasayer, Odd Blood :: Broken Bells, Broken Bells :: Best Coast :: Crazy for You :: The Radio Dept., Clinging to a Scheme :: LCD Soundsystem, This Is It :: Spoon, Transference :: Drake, Thank Me Later :: Phantogram, Eyelid Movies :: Arcade Fire, The Suburbs

The Social Network

8 reasons why you should see The Social Network:

1. You're reading a blog that was linked to through a social network and you more than likely clicked on that link that was on a social network which led you to this blog.

2. Justin Timberlake.

3. It has 97% on both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes. For a movie that's not a documentary, foreign, or Pixar, that's saying something. But hey, maybe it'll be popular with critics today and then rejected 5 years from now... kind of like how Facebook was talked about 5 years ago and is now rejec....

4. I was thoroughly captivated for 120 minutes by a movie about a website and a few court cases.

5. Quick, smart dialogue.

6. Everyone is/will be talking about it. You might as well join the conversation with some sort of knowledge base.

7. Although Jesse Eisenberg is labeled "the rich man's Michael Cera" by Michael Goodrich (meaning he repeatedly plays the same character), he does an excellent job typifying many of our (assuming you're under 30) generation's negative characteristics.

8. Great story telling simultaneously including complex characters, recent history, and our current digital era without ever getting preachy.

and probably a few other reasons yet in my current state (1am and having a head cold), I'm not thinking of them.

Being Hip to the Hop

When someone like myself enjoys hip-hop, it can usually be perceived in two ways.
1. I'm simply an anomaly. A white, suburban kid who simply enjoys an eclectic selection of music.
2. I'm an indie-music-loving-kid-cliche who enjoys the idea of rap music because it doesn't make sense and either loves obscure "indie" rappers or digs super mainstream artists for irony's sake.

I'm a little bit of both.

The following are a few hip-hop albums I have recently acquired and would recommend. (For those of you with sensitive ears, please realize most of these albums are "R-rated.")

Artist: A Tribe Called Quest
Album: The Low End Theory
Hip-Hop legends from the late 80's/early 90's. They're kind of kings in the genre so I decided to check them out and I discovered some jazz influenced hip-hop that's done it's fair share of influencing. One of this album's singles: Scenario...

Artist: Big Boi
Album: Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son Of Chico Dusty

Half of the illustrious Outkast duo, Big Boi has some serious beats on this solo album. Maintaining a sense of otherness often thought to belong to Outkast's other half (Andre 3000), Pitchfork describes the album as "inventive, bizarre, joyous, and masterful;" hardly the grounded rapper he played in Outkast. Take a listen to his single: Shutterbug...

Artist: Drake
Album: Thank Me Later

Dubbed "the next big thing," Drake was signed by Lil' Wayne at the young age of 23. He's not exactly wise and mature ... but his lyrics do contain an honesty that I respect, an honesty that's oftentimes sad and depressing (oh, and an "honesty" often explicit). Album highlights usually occur whenever he's "spitting it," which, unfortunately, is not as often as I'd like. Listen to the album opener: Fireworks...

Artist: Shad

Album: TSOL

So this is my "indie-rapper" pick. Hailing from Canada, still pretty underground, he's not exactly a chart topper. I heard about him from the RELEVANT Magazine editor (via their podcast), which can be a hit or miss way of discovering music, but I am loving this album. His lyrics range from encouraging women to get in the hip-hop arena to rapping about his name: Shad, short for Shadrach, from the Old Testament. I'm super hesitant to mention that he may be a Christian (1. I'm not for sure if he is and 2. about 99% of Christian rap is absolutely dreadful) but his lyrics reflect a certain redemptive quality without having that preachy aspect that's so annoying in any CCM rap. For reals, check this guy out. Here's his single: Yaa I Get It...

That's it folks, any hip-hop suggestions?

Brazil: Joga Bonito

Brazil (or, Brasil, for you purists): they have all the makings of a team you could hate. A boat load of past championships, stacked teams, over-enthusiastic fans, always a favorite to win the cup. They could very well be the Yankees or Lakers of the soccer world.

But they're just so much fun to watch. And they have fun. And they're not major cry babies (yeah, I'm talking to you, Cristiano Ronaldo). And they help the other team up when they fall. And they're creative. And they're really, really good.

So while I'm not necessarily rooting for the Brazil team this year, I'm not not rooting for them.

Oh, and by the way, I'm loving the World Cup this time around. Having all the games streaming online relegates just about every morning to just watching beautiful soccer.

Pictures: A Weekend in Review

Well I don't usually write "update blogs" but I'm more than sufficiently bored and I like the idea of a picture blog detailing the second half of my week.

First of all, Jorjette came to visit (Wednesday-Sunday):

We hadn't seen each other in almost two months so it was nice to have 3 1/2 days to do whatever we pleased. We decided to go to my subdivision's fantastic beach. Besides getting burnt (by the sun) and bitten (by gross lake-bugs), it was a true beach experience.

Later that night, we watched Shutter Island.

Although Jorjie fell asleep, I was spellbound for the first hour and a half. Scorsese is a master/genius movie maker. Although the plot line felt a little tired (especially as things progressed), the way the movie was crafted made the experience (and $1 at Redbox) totally worth it.

On Friday night, Jorjette and I made a little trip to Ann Arbor (our usual hang out spot) and made our first trip to State Theater for the movie The Secret in Their Eyes.

Turned out to be a fantastic little Argentinian thriller/romance/drama/thinker. Thoughts were provoked... and I think that's why indie/foreign movies should be made.

Saturday held my little brother's graduation.

I was impressed with a couple things. Namely: the quantity of beach balls students are able to sneak in, one of the valedictorian's fiddle skills, the elected speaker/teacher's vocal similarities to the Simpson's Mr. Burns, the fact that Green Day is still being played at graduations, and the lack of preparation on the student body president's part while simultaneously able to entertain a few thousand people.

Later that day, the USA's World Cup journey began.

Thank-you Mr. Green. We owe you one.

And today, I finally had a chance to return to Hope Community Church.

While I usually have an internal debate on whether or not to make the trip into Detroit for the Sunday morning service, I always come away encouraged that the body of Christ is alive.

That's my weekend. Oh, listen to this song by The Drums. It served as our melodramatic theme song.

Zeitoun; a few words

I just finished Dave Eggers' latest piece of nonfiction, Zeitoun. I thought the book deserved more than my standard Facebook-notification of recommendation.

The book gives an account of New Orleans residents Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun as they experienced the events of Hurricane Katrina. The Zeitouns are devout Muslims, have four children, and are respected contractors in the New Orleans community.

Throughout the first third of the book, I quickly bonded to the Zeitoun family while also forming a connection to the city of New Orleans and the Syrian culture from which Zeitoun came. Written in a chronological, journalistic nature, the impending natural disaster creates a certain "impending doom" that is hard to ignore but once the brunt of the hurricane comes and goes, the crux of the book arrives and gave me a picture of post-hurricane New Orleans and all the mayhem that came with it. While most of the book's criticism of the country's reaction is told in a pure story format, the following quote nicely sums up much of the book's thesis:

This country was not unique. This country was fallible. Mistakes were being made. He was a mistake. In the grand scheme of the country's blind, grasping fight against threats seen and unseen, there would be mistakes made. Innocents would be suspected. Innocents would be imprisoned.

A quick note on the author, Dave Eggers. Although certain friends of mine (cough*Goodrich*cough) have a distaste for Eggers' popular book, A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius, calling Eggers a "narcissistic tool" who thinks that he is "...so special and no one gets it," I have enjoyed his writing. While writing some decent memoir-ish stuff, he has also written a good amount of social justice related books (most notably, What Is The What), with profits usually going directly towards charities involved with the subject at hand. He has also started a writing and tutoring center in his hometown of San Francisco and been involved in similar operations around the country. Basically, it's nice to see a talented, successful author use his craft to highlight more substantive issues (read: not narcissistic).

Spring Intake

What follows are the movies, television shows, and books I've been consuming this spring, hopefully to the betterment of my overall self. I watched a lot more television this spring than I have at any other time. I once heard it described that the 'television show is to the movie' as the 'novel is to the short story.' I've found this to be true and have learned to enjoy the meta-narratives present in television shows such as Dexter, The Sopranos, and Mad Men. As far as literal literature goes, I finished a couple of elongated classics (The Brothers Karamazov & Augustine's Confessions) while also experiencing some fresh, current voices as well (Dave Eggers, Chuck Paluhniuk, Reif Larsen). It's been a good time as far as media goes and I look forward to enjoying a few more months of peace before the fury of grad school hits this fall.

movies/television mad men [season 3], dexter [season 4], food, inc., sugar, youth in revolt, the sopranos [season 1], moon, the hurt locker, star trek, avatar, the sopranos [season 2], scrubs [season 1], an education, the sopranos [season 3], crazy heart, paranormal activity, scrubs [season 2], the road, scrubs [season 3], a serious man, scrubs [season 4], gomorrah, pushing daisies [season 1], alice in wonderland, scrubs [season 5], the informant, sorority row, the blind side, precious, how to train your dragon, doctor zhivago, scrubs [season 6], scrubs [season 7], the brothers bloom, in the loop, pushing daisies [season 2], the sopranos [season 4], scrubs [season 8], community [season 1], the office [season 6], 30 rock [season 4], sherlock holmes, bored to death [season 1], lost [season 6], 24 [season 8]

books pilgrim at tinker creek .. annie dillard, the selected works of t.s. spivet .. reif larsen, not for sale .. david batstone, the brothers karamazov .. fyodor dostoevsky, suite francais .. irene nemirovsky, confessions .. st. augustine, the moon is down .. john steinbeck, choke .. chuck paluhniuk, survivor .. chuck paluhniuk, the wild things .. dave eggers

Summer Music

The mention of summer can elicit a number of feelings. For some, it can simply mean a break from always using your brain. For others, it can mean riding around in the car with the windows down and sunglasses on. And for still others, especially those in post-college days, it can simply mean a few warmer months and a couple of pool parties.

Whatever the case, a new season, especially one as distinct as summer, deserves some music recommendations. While every season has it's unique characteristics with appropriate music accompaniment (i.e. winter's isolated feeling coupled with Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago), summer can best be described by it's 'who-cares?' attitude coupled with music that is catchy and easy to sing along to. While Jack Johnson or Bob Marley may provide some classic examples of this 'genre' of music, I'd like to make three suggestions on recent albums releases.

First up, Vampire Weekend rules the summer. A couple years ago they stormed onto the music scene with their simple pop melodies and afro-beat sounds backed by their ivy league lyrical references/persona. A few months back, they released a stellar sophomore album, Contra, that is as carefree and catchy as the first album while adding a few more electronica touches. And Cousins may be my favorite song of theirs:

Next, the Brooklyn based band, Sleigh Bells, just released their first album, Treats, a couple weeks ago. They are crazy. They are also crazy catchy and perfect for listening to really loud in your car. Their song Rill Rill creates such a great vibe:

And finally, Surfer Blood is a band based out of West Palm Beach, Florida and comprised of some young, college guys. Naturally, living on the beach and being 20 is going to give you some "summer music" cred and when you add in their infectious vocals and guitar hooks, you get their perfect summer album, Astro Coast. Here's their single, Swim:

Alright, so there you have some of my summer picks. Any comments on your favorite current summer album or classic all-time favorite?

Happy summer and happy listening.