Metal and Myth: Tolkien-Lore in the Branches of Rock/Pop Culture 9 October 2008

I wrote this for my Tolkien elective. This was fun to write, but why do I always think that 3,000 words is such a pushover until the night before? the source requirement was pretty – really – cazh so I used geeky cites from the Tolkien underworld, which are the best possible sources for ascertaining geeky stuff on the Tolkien underworld anyhoo and way fun to surf. there are some real weirdos out there.

Metal and Myth

Tolkien included a poem called “The Sea-Bell” in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil that told the sad history of a certain hobbit who, once upon a time, picked up a seashell and was called to distant shores. He spent his life wandering to find the far-away waves, and, when at last he came home, he was shunned because he had run after the bell that only he could hear. Tolkien himself was like this out-cast hobbit. For much of his life, his fairy stories were misunderstood and it does not seem as if even his wife could hear the call of the Sea-Bell that inspired him to discover the world from which it came; so it is that he was indubitably a self-proclaimed hobbit and also that he was a lone visionary for most of his life. Curiously, after his death, entire cultures have formed to follow his vision with different ways of translating the music into ordinary life.
Tolkien’s ability to communicate the feeling of exile that most of us feel, the longing for distant shores and the strangeness of home, rang true with an entire generation and even created an entire class of people who, while identifying themselves with Tolkien’s Middle Earth, completely changed the face of this culture and the time that we are in through their music. The 21st century was the time of the rock revolution and a globalization and divergence of music that parallels the globalization of society. And Tolkien, oddly enough for his other-worldly identity, was a definitive part of this revolution and is still a heavy influence in the music of nearly every musician of any genre that is played today, albeit sometimes second-hand. Led Zeppelin, Enya, and Howard Shore, arch rock gods, New Age Irish songstress, and high-brow film composer, are not often associated with one another, but they do have these two features in common: each musician acknowledges J.R.R. Tolkien as a muse, and each became a leader of a movement that influenced numerous other branches of music. Led Zeppelin eclipsed America with a rock revolution in the early 70s that is still hearkened back to as the Golden Age of rock; Enya made New-Age mainstream with scarce a live performance, an unprecedented cultural/economic sensation; Howard Shore epitomized the genre of the epic sound-track and placed it right into the tradition of grand opera. The sense of ultimatum, and the underlying dissatisfaction and rebellion and also of unreachable beauty, in the wars of The Lord of the Rings inspired the rock bands of yesteryear. With all his loathing of the grinding clashing modern world of machinery, Tolkien was thoroughly modern in that he was acutely aware that he was watching the death of the old world; his vision of elusive nobility and wistful grief typifies the beatific fantasy that Enya and other New-Age groups seek to capture. Tolkien’s absoluteness inspired the emerging genre of the epic soundtrack: the absolute destruction and desperate triumph of goodness over despair, this eucatastrophe that pervades The Lord of the Rings also inspired the epic film-score that began with Charles Williams’ accompaniment to Star Wars as well as Shore’s soundtrack. Believe it or not, all three share the same roots: they are all steeped in the lore and the majesty of J.R.R. Tolkien, and they took their love of Middle Earth to create a new Age of popular music. Such a juxtaposition of characters could only come about because Tolkien’s expression of the desire to return to a society of nobility and deep green roots, a wish to break out of the system and the tread-mill of gray suits, articulates the messages that pervade rock and heavy metal, New Age/Easy Listening, and narrative film scores. Between these three divergent streams of music, Tolkien completely changed the face of the music now and the music that is coming. The Tolkien epic translated a sense of eucatastrophe, nobility, and other-world beauty to the realm of pop-music. These three in turn have influenced in various degrees nearly every popular, New-Age or neo-classical musician since, and so Tolkien’s influence has covered nearly every musician in a shockingly varied range of extremities. His vision took shape in music because music, as the instrument of creation in his magnum opus, lends itself surprisingly well to the formation of pockets of pop culture back here in the U.S.A. (as well as in other countries, predominantly Teutonic).
The musical genre of rock is such an oxymoron. Thoroughly modern, it is signified by banging, clashing, rhythmic beating like the wheels of a train on a train track sometimes uplifted by bells and whistles to wake us up. Thoroughly anti-modern, it is a rebellion against the grid that we are in and the track that we’re chained to trudge forth on if we are to get anywhere. Heavy metal is the sound of factories, the beat of the coalmine and the yelp of a worker caught in the wheels of the treadmill. Were J.R.R. Tolkien to listen to The Summoning or Led Zeppelin, heaven help us, he would designate the groups as bands of orcs or goblins, but Tolkien’s own loathing of the crushing daily grind of modern life and desire for elusive freedom is deeply attractive to social rebels. By means of these contradictions found in rock, Tolkien-lore landed right in the midst of the genre as a continual inspiration.
In an article published in Metal Storm, Dane Train follows the influences that Led Zeppelin combined. Robert Plant, lead vocalist of Led Zeppelin, was steeped in the blues tradition that reckoned back to the good old days of the agricultural society. Jimmy Page, lead guitar, was well grounded in Southern Blues. The agricultural longings in blues music, particularly the Southern blues tradition mourns the death of the old ways and the hardship of life in a conquered land, are longings that are readily adaptable to the themes of longing for the simple country life of a hobbit in Tolkien.
Both Plant and Page, “the dark guitarist,” were strongly drawn to mysticism and the call of the north that they found in Norse mythology. Much of their music is in folk mode, particularly Celtic. These inclinations toward Norse and Celtic folklore explain why Plant, in particular, found a home for his mystic longings and a fountain of inspiration in the writings of Tolkien. Train concludes that:
The influence from author J.R.R. Tolkien [on music] will never be able to be measured. In the same light, Led Zeppelin’s influence and impact is the greatest ever. Their music is still as extremely popular today, if not more so, from when it originated over thirty years ago. Their sound has been borrowed, reinterpreted, rearranged, mixed, and many times ripped off by almost every artist since the beginning of Led Zeppelin’s regin. VH1 and Rolling Stone Magazine have given them the title of “Greatest Rock Band Ever.” “Stairway to Heaven” is the most played song in radio history, voted as being the greatest song ever written, as well as having the second highest number of covers, right after the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Two hundred years from now people will still be listening to and enjoying the music of Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and the late, great John “Bonzo” Bonham, thanks in part to an author who will continue to fascinate readers long into the future, J.R.R. Tolkien.
Tolkien’s influence, via Zeppelin, extends to every genre of rock, even to alternative. For example, in a piercingly beautiful verse from “Whose Authority,” a song on an album that was just released just last February (Lucky, Barsuk Records, 2008) the indie rock bombshells Nada Surf nod to Zeppelin and Tolkien and sing longingly, “there’s a feelin’ that I get when I look to the West, like having all the answers but still failing the test.”
Tolkien’s elusive charm has drawn many besides classic ear-friendly rock. Right after Led Zeppelin, heavy metal bombarded the planet with a blast of Tolkien-inspired noise. William Weir, of the Hartford Courant, explained that “perhaps more than any other genre, heavy metal and the classics are joined at the hip.” Heavy Metal likes an ultimatum and is composed of the absolutes that are found in classical literature; simply put, epics and the pre-modern classics of literature are not afraid to choose sides, and heavy metal appreciates this frankness. Weir continues that “epic battles of good and evil are very metal, says Weinstein, author of ‘Heavy Metal: The Music and It’s Culture.’”
In The Hobbit, Tolkien includes a rare excerpt of a Goblin song, which is notable because music, for Tolkien, was a leitmotif of creativity and therefore is not often given to evil and not granted to the de-creations like orcs. The instance emphasizes the similarities between orc music and heavy metal:

“Goblins began to sing, or croak, keeping time with the flap of their feet on the stone, and shaking their prisoners as well.

Clap! Snap! The black crack!
Grip, grab! Pinch, nab!
And down down to Goblin-town
You go, my lad!

Clash, crash! Crush, smash!
Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!
Pound, pound, far underground!
Ho, ho! My lad!

Swish, smack! Whip crack!
Batter and beat! Yammer and bleat!
Work, work! Nor dare to shirk,
While Goblins quaff, and Goblins laugh,
Round and round far underground
Below, my lad!”

The onomatopoeic resonance and the insistence on rhythm over lyric and literate expression or story in the Goblin song is echoed with the overwhelming percussion in rock music that drowns out the significance of the words. Otherwise, the oppressive lyrics are reminiscent of themes in heavy metal.
A long, long list of heavy metal animals named their groups after Sauron’s henchmen, or have titled and themed songs straight from Mordor that proves this connection. Tom Findlay attributes the magnetic attraction of heavy metal to Tolkien’s work to the lure of the escapism inherent in a fantasy world, but, regarding the density of Tolkien’s material, it is more likely due to the fact that Tolkien’s world is so comprehensive, so accurately sketched that the dark side of his fantasy is as appealing (to certain minds) as his sense of nobility is to others. Man will have religion, and, after God is ruled out in favor of vague mysticism, the door of the heart is left open with a vacancy that the majesty of Ring-lore fits into perfectly.
The Lord of the Rings also drove rock music into another route. Bo Hansson, a Swedish musician, is reputed as an innovative genius and a founder of the progressive rock movement, an artistic movement that aimed to elevate rock into a more intellectual form of music. Hansson read his girlfriend’s copy of The Lord of the Rings and felt that destiny come upon himself as it had come upon Frodo: he would write a soundtrack to accompany the books. With a seven-year foray into progg and a magnificent soundtrack to show for it, Hansson prepared the way for future progressive rock artists like Queen and Pink Floyd, and produced a hefty bit of electric history for New Age artists to build from.
The mythic quality in the Lord of the Rings that caught the attention of the foundational rock artists who inspired heavy metal, alternative, and classic and progressive rock still makes it a target for New Age groups. Enya Lyrics, a website devoted to New Age music, lists “popular themes in New Age music [which] included Space and the Cosmos, Environment and Nature, Wellness in being, Harmony with one’s self and the world, Dreams or Dreaming and Journeys of the Mind.” Frodo’s anguish, the yearning and distance-fraught relationship between Aragorn and Arwen, and the cosmological nature of the battle between Middle Earth are themes that are practically written to be tweaked and twisted into wistful melodies of forlorn lovers and lost causes by New Age musicians – and they are themes that certainly inspire many of these songs.
Although Enya, a Roman Catholic, does not classify herself as a specifically New Age musician, she won the 1998 Grammy for Best New Age Album with Landmarks, and she herself stands as a landmark of New Age music. David McKittrick wrote in The Independent that in her career “Enya has moved from the earthy to the ethereal, developing a distinctive style combining the mystical, the classical and folk influences, sometimes singing in Gaelic or Latin,” or Elvish, we might add. Enya’s lyrical piano melodies are overtly Celtic/Tolkien-inspired to evoke a sense of the ethereal and the elven, and she composed a song, entitled “Lothlorien” (Shepherd Moons, Reprise/Warner Music, 1991), that specifically depicted the Elvish land of Lothlorien long before being approached to compose for the soundtrack of Peter Jackson’s films. The land of Lothlorien, ethereal and passing away, embodies New Age ideals of a Golden Age idyll. Her work for the film score of The Fellowship of the Ring (“May it Be” and “Aniron”) was particularly self-satisfactory because Tolkien’s Trilogy is Enya’s favorite literature and a great influence in her work.
Tolkien was an influence for soundtracks long before the New Line Cinema production of The Lord of the Rings (2003). Everyone – even the website Star Wars Origins and Jason Silverman of Wired – ascribes George Lucas’ inspiration to create the Star Wars saga to The Lord of the Rings. Superficially, a comparison between characters like Darth Vader and Sauron, is too close to even suspect this influence. On a deeper level, the de-humanization of the enemy, the vilification of machinery, and the aspects of sub-creation found in Star Wars are stemmed directly from Tolkien’s philosophy. This is particularly clear in the horde of the dark force, which is composed of clones, a sub-creation or a de-creation of man, just as are orcs. Elements of Tolkien’s philosophy are embedded in the story that William’s film score accompanies, and, accordingly, the Star Wars theme follows right along. The Star Wars soundtrack was an important turning point in William’s career, and set the expectations for the genre of epic soundtrack since.
Shore flew miles beyond the expectations of a sentimentally-heroic Braveheart or Gladiator soundtrack to create his masterpiece, the eleven-hour symphony of The Lord of the Rings. He is a classical musician, a Canadian orchestrator, conductor, music producer and composer. He has written concert pieces and the opera The Fly (which debuts this year) besides The Lord of the Rings soundtrack and other film scores. With these accomplishments and his many talents, Shore is establishing new standards for the composition of movie music. We have moved beyond background music to pieces that have existence in their own right as artistic masterpieces and the soundtrack has taken its place as a legitimate and respectable branch of classical music that has been compared to the opera.
The film score is, perhaps, the most close to the heart of Tolkien’s own theory of music. Shore’s symphony involves leitmotifs and musical characters that are inseparable from characters and events in the story, and the music is inherent to the film itself; the music is as much a part of the story as the images are. To create the music that is such an elemental facet of the story, as opposed to being an accidental or decorative aspect, both Shores and Williams were echoing Tolkien’s philosophy of creation.
Tolkien viewed music as a high, or even the highest, form of creation, and Peter S. Beagle noted that “music is never imposed from outside; it springs from the center of this world.” The Silmarillion begins with an account of the creation of the world:
There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Iluvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of music; and they sang before him and he was glad.
Music is indissoluble from earth and spirit, from culture. Tolkien’s influence on the genre of the soundtrack is particularly interesting because of this tie to world-creating and story-making, and the connection is a good indication that the future of the soundtrack may be bright.
Because of his views of creation through music, the formation of the plethora of musical puddles that have formed round Tolkien’s boots is not nearly so shocking. In the pools of classic rock, progg, heavy metal, indie, New Age and classical operatic film score, we see a great variety of expressions of Tolkien’s influence. Tolkien’s creation inspires others to sub-create: and there is no more natural way than music, which he considered the highest form of creation.
Led Zeppelin read Tolkien and, by sharing his inspiration, re-defined the genre of rock for generations of musicians to come; Enya, Williams, and Shore were inspired by the nobility of middle-earth to establish whole traditions. Man will have religion, and, after God is ruled out in favor of vague mysticism, the door of the heart is left open with a vacancy that the majesty of the Ring-lore fantasy fits into perfectly. The powerful influence that Tolkien mysteriously wields over the winds of popular culture is a natural over-welling of his philosophy of creation.

Works Cited

Beagle, Peter S. “Tolkien’s Magic Ring.” The Tolkien Reader. J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. New York: Ballantine Books. 1966.

Enyalyrics. “The Lord of the Rings.” http://www.enyalyrics.googlepages.com/new-age- music.html.

Findlay, Tom. “Tolkien in Metal: John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and His Influence on Metal Bands.” Suite 101. 20.8.2008. http://metalmusic.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkein_in_metal.

Hansson, Bo. http://www.silence.se/bohansson/
McKittrick, David. “Enya Escapes Intruder By Hiding in Panic Room.” The Independent. 5.10.05.
“Music.” Star Wars Origins: Your Source for Obscure Star Wars Inspirations. http://www.moongadget.com/origins/music.html.
Silverman, Jason. “Tolkien Gets Ringing Endorsement.” Wired. 28.1.2005. http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/01/66417.
Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1994.
-“The Sea-Bell.” “The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.” The Tolkien Reader. New York: Ballantine Books. 1966.
-The Silmarillion. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 2001.
Train, Dane. “The Tolkien-Zeppelin Connection.” Metal Storm. 28.10.2004. http://www.metalstorm.ee/pub/article.php?article_id=65.

Weir, William. “Tolkien Would Be Flattered… But Surely Deaf.” The Hartford Courant. 7.4.2006, http://www.redorbit.com/news/entertainment/462338/tolkien_would_be_flattered__ but_surely_deaf/.

The Genius of Rene Girard 8 July 2008

Girard quipped that “it is not play that envelops the sacred, but the sacred that envelops the notion of play” (The Girard Reader, 23).  He is referencing the sacred nature of chance and dice games, but the principle applies to his understanding of rite, religion, and mimetic desire.  Through religious rituals we – humanity, Roman, postmodern intellectual or Hittite – play at being a part of heaven.  The sacrifice in a worship ceremony is a mimic of the God or god whom we are worshipping.   Pagans deify the human who can both be the cause of a plague and the savior from it.  If a goat is sacrificed to Dionysius, it is a picture both of his chaotic world being destroyed and also of the restoration of peace through his death.  The difference between Dionysius and Christ – one crucial difference but not the only one, at least – is that Dionysius really did bring on a sacrificial crisis through his own guilt, whereas Jesus accepted the crux of the crisis in place of the real “scapegoats” (i.e., us).

The sacrifice of the human heart, a feature inherent in all forms of paganism, is unacceptable to the Christian God because it is a sacrifice that mimics a guilty divinity – an Oedipus who has blood on his hands.   The religious ceremony itself is a picture of heaven, or of the dwelling of the pagan god.  Shakespeare said that the world is a stage.  In Girard’s terms, this is true because it is the home of humanity, a troupe of mimics.  This world is a picture of the next.  The world is a stage because religious worship is essentially a play.

Good Heavens – Michael Ward and Planet Narnia at Socrates in the City 6 June 2008

Like so many of the genii, Michael Ward was daydreaming in bed when he was inspired to brilliance and reached out like Ransome to become a part of the spinning humming web of the medieval cosmology.  In this spurt of inspiration, Ward came into an understanding of C.S. Lewis that puts him officially in the ranks of Spenser and even Dante.  Ward’s idea is a new categorisation of The Chronicles of Narnia.  I never had a problem with the patched-up (as some say) mix of seven books that was big enough to shake my trust in Lewis, but apparently a lot of other people do.  Ward convinced me of the problem and then confirmed his own solution, as well as potentially solving el problemo for the trouble-makers. 

Each of the seven corresponds to one of the major bodies of the medieval cosmology, the planets.  Lewis’ other works build up to it and put his universe firmly in accord with the harmony of the spheres.  The Space Trilogy is all about Earth taking its part in the universal symphony that it jarred with discord, and about keeping the original harmony in the parts of the other planets; parts of Perelandra read like a 20th century Christian echo of Cicero’s Dream of Scipio.  Ward has a clenching argument for each book’s correspondance, but more convincing to me is the fact that this view places The Chronicles in the cosmology of The Space Trilogy.  The land of Narnia is like Ransome, the bridge between the Silent Planet and the golden Harmony of the Spheres, and the creation of Narnia aligns the work with the world-view of Lewis the consummate Medievalist and author of The Distorted Image. 

  Lewis apparently hated conspiracy theories, but is it so ridiculous that he kept the “plan” of The Chronicles a secret and even denied its existence?  he, after all, admired the Medieval value for intricacy.  One of his friends dubbed Surprised by Joy as “Suppressed by Jack“  because of the life he left out of his autobiography. Since “Jack” Lewis was such an intensely private person, Ward thinks that it makes sense of him to believe that he kept his own counsel and that there’s much more to Narnia than we see on the surface.

In an evening of chumming with NYC sophisticates, intellectual socialites and social intellects at Socrates in the City, I heard Ward’s own charming British accent – I mean, presentation of his theory (which he published as Planet Narnia: the Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis).  Ward’s presentation convinced me enough to read the book, which I highly recommend as the most comprehensive view of the person of Lewis and his creations.  As Eric Metaxas, the host of Socrates in the City, a voice from Veggie Tales, certainly indubitably the most gracious, entertaining MC I have ever heard (and reputedly, ”one of the funniest persons” that the singer Moby knows) and who made Socrates in the City a night I will never forget, made infinitely clear, Dr. Ward also made a special appearance with James Bond in The World is Not Enough.  enough.

Take it and read: http://www.planetnarnia.com/

seX in conteXt – the manhattan museum of sex 21 May 2008

“i wanna know what it’s like on the inside of love.  I’m standing at the gates, I see the beauty above.  I’m on the outside…” – nada surf

dripping wet and babying a cup o coffee in vain hopes of bringing my hands to a healthy lukewarm, I browsed the 1st display which alanis the mid-eastern doorman had pointed to when i bought my golden ticket for the manhattan museum of sex.  “sex in design/design in sex” was an unveiling of the x/y charisma that gives pop-culture its pop and a celebration of the sexuality in the rest (most) of pop-culture, which wasn’t so very well veiled to begin with.  this was good fun, a collection with the likes of a heel with a vamp that electrically induced a chemical reaction, a collage of images with good ol kitsch favs like james browne, janet jackson, leopard-skinned jane-tarzan and che guavera as a woman, and an hour-glass curved mirror, to illustrate the media wields the invincible charm of sex to draw the unsuspecting mob into the snare of their evil will.

upstairs the display was interested in the history of ”sex and the moving image.”  I was not, so I talked to Sean Conlon about the portrayal of the romantic image in the media, the subject of his undergrad thesis.  Its important and empowering to know the roots of feminism, post-feminism and, dare I say it? yes I will, even 3rd feminism, but more to the point that Sean was quite an authority on the mirror-reflections echoing between the media and the mob that shape our image of gender and the body, as well as being a passionate believer that we, the people, the mob, should be educated in how the media uses that image. (XXXploitation, if you will.)  The the last display was the equivalent of a novelty shop with a bit of  historicity to back it up.  

The last display clenched the issue for me, even though I spent the least time in it and it was the least helpful.  It was a scattered amalgamation, a collection of unsorted data on glass shelves in an all-white room that scientific experiments should be conducted in.  I felt like I should have on a facemask – but who needs one?  I was a scientist already because there I was in the museum: it presented me with data, to make what I would of it. 

and that’s when I realized the aptitude of the museum to my generation.  postmodernism is always on the outside, peering at the beauty above it – and sometimes, inside of it – and wondering, like king kong.  the Manhattan Museum of Sex sees The Beautiful in the act of intimacy, and dissects it to discover its essence.  for someone without a comprehensive understanding (i.e. Biblical worldview) to set a backdrop for weird physical phenomena, it makes sense to show its history and ripples in the public arena, such as the highly relevent results of the media’s sexploitation.

I have an unscientific mind.  I hate dissection.  I prefer a butterfly happy and careless in a field than defeathered on tile.  but overall?  the museum was a good experience because the exhibits on display were windows to my time and my culture.

you can read my article here.

Wednesday Morning on 34th Street . an exercise 21 May 2008

A lead and bridge (almost)

Strokes of sunlight reflected from window-panes and rectangular blocks sent triangular glass spires shooting into the blue-bird sky where the city meets beyond while I walked down 33^rd Street.  The blocks are neutral, sandstone-colored, people’s coats are blacks and greys but joy – an orange peacoat breaks the sea.  Color is brought into this city – tomato-red begonias planted in Greeley Square, vivid green Ipod men dancing on both billboards and beneath, on the models in windows.  Images reflect images, the building behind me wavers in the window of the building in front of me, everything is a replica of something else but I feel the grit of stone through my ballet flats – I can also feel the bone-white leaf of an elephant fern like wax paper that has been melted and dried again in my fingers.  Greeley Square is an oasis in the streets, a reminder that some things can’t be bought and that the sunlight that photosynthesized these green things is the energizing force of all life and not just another meaningless reflection. 

[Lead to the importance of urban parks and urban community development and he city blocks turned into community gardens so that bums can have meaning in their life.  We need the soil – hey, it’s Faulkner here in New York!]

Blood-Lust: The Undercover American Genocide and “We Regret To Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families” by Philip Gourevitch 11 May 2008

Philip Gourevitch wrote that “the Rwandans have no need – no room in their corpse-crowded imaginations – for more martyrs.  None of us does.”[1]  Gourevitch begins so well with this concept that Rwanda has been sated of her blood-lust, but he closes with a deceptive opinion of his own.  It is true that when death presents itself unadorned it is rebuked and shunned by the humane world, but when death arrives tactfully dressed in masquerade, society welcomes it to the fete.

The cause of religious discrimination is a costume that is much in vogue right now.  Educational officials cluster round it and promote tolerance in public schools because death looks so attractive in it.  Tolerance is the name of the spiritual genocide conducted in public schools.  The hearts of Bible-believing children are starved or bludgeoned to death as the system wrings Christianity from its strongholds; the hope of non-believing students is an unregretted casualty because it is their own choice not to believe.  Occasionally the nihilism and despair of the education produces a sharp student who comprehends death beneath its covering; he murders his fellow students and himself while humane society runs to the scene, expressing horror, to condemn the lack of taste.  

            We will all have our martyrs.  After enough teen-aged blood streaks the halls of schools and death is brashly present, perhaps America will be satisfied like Rwanda.

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[1] Philip Gourevitch, We Regret to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (New York: Picador U.S.A., 1998), 353.

“The Bear:” Advice from William Faulkner for Development in Montana 11 May 2008

My younger sister Margot calls the people cruising too fast down the road in bubbly SUVs with California licence plates “outsiders,” a joking insult that reflects a common but fading attitude.  The tight local loyalty in Montana is bitter towards the world outside the ring of mountains, but the tourists’ SUVs are harbingers of the bright future that is infiltrating diversity into the Treasure State. 

It is a good move, one that is exemplified in a story by William Faulkner.  “Relinquish [the land],” the patriarch McCaslin says in “The Bear.”[1]  He moralizes that at the moment when his ancestors exchanged gold for the land of the patrimony, an erroneous ownership was claimed.[2]  The fear that influenced McCaslin was the temptation for a land-owner to consider himself as god of the territory, a temptation that comes easily to any existence that relies heavily on domination of land.  Man among other men – other cultures, other peoples – is in his proper place, and this is where Faulkner puts him.  

The developing Montana culture is like a trapper coming in from the mountains: he confesses that he is not god of the land, and can not live man contra mountain.  Shining up cultural features to lure tourists is a healthy stride because it marks a care for other cultures while encouraging appreciation for Montana’s awe-inspiring natural assets.  The moral of the story?  Look outward, and you will look better. 

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[1] William Faulkner, “The Bear,” The Portable Faulkner (New York: Viking Press, 1965), 290.

[2] Ibid., 291.

The Emperor Has No Clothes – A Response to “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” by Gay Talese 9 May 2008

August 1981, Hollywood, Fl. – the head of a child was found floating in a drainage canal.  Two years passed, then Ottis Toole confessed his responsibility for the abduction, the rape, and the murder of six-year old Adam Walsh.[1]  Toole stuck to the story for thirteen years until he died, legally innocent, of hepatitis.  His investigators, who had used the “velvet glove” treatment that sometimes delivers a large profit, had discredited Toole’s word even though it corresponded perfectly with his reputation and with the evidence.  Adam Walsh was refused justice, and his parents’ grief was all the more poignant.[2] 

The psychologically-savvy velvet-glove treatment can be compared to Gay Talese’ New Journalist style in his story “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold.”[3]  Sinatra was reporter-shy and evaded a direct interview: Talese attained a familiarity with the singer which a scripted interview might not have achieved by becoming familiar with a wide range of his acquaintances.  Although the portrait charms and appears accurately drawn, a hole gapes in the story where the most important voice should be: Sinatra, like the convict Toole, has nothing to say in his own story.  The absence of Sinatra’s voice, and the assumption that we could all the same know the truth of his character, is a belief which means the dissolution of justice in the courtroom.  Once again, the emperor is out naked while a velvet-handed crowd admires his finely-tailored suit.

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[1] John Walsh, Tears of Rage (New York: Pocket Books, 1997), 262.

[2] Ibid., 247, 284, 288.

[3] Gay Talese, “Frank Sinatra has a Cold,” Esquire, April 1966.

Take It and Read: Metaphor, Reality, and “The Shawl” by Cynthia Ozick 7 May 2008

Writing the history of the world, God crossed the boundaries of non-fiction.  He forms each day like an allegorical play.  Sacraments are obvious props, but like in any well-crafted piece of literature, every circumstance is also a trope.  Water drenches us in holiness, via metaphor, each time we turn on the sink; like the prophet Jonah (Matt. 12:39), every person is a sign.  The Creator took no care to distinguish between the figurative and actuality; reality is confusing. 

Cynthia Ozick wrote such a baffling world into being.  “The Shawl” is fictional but carries the grit of actuality; it is practical, but weighted with symbolism.  The protagonist Rosa offends the reader with her refusal to accept a post-Holocaust life; “to call it life is a lie,”[1] she says.  Rosa only deliberately participates in reality through her enjoyment when she writes a letter to her dead daughter or feels the beloved shawl.  Rosa has a life, one that gnaws the reader until he appreciates it. 

Rosa is a delegate of the people who scuttle down the streets lost in apathy, people who, involuntarily, cry out to be told of salvation and significance.  Artistic media is fixated on the self-obsessed subject to the exclusion of those that are indifferent, but Ozick remembers them.  Here is life in front of you: like Augustine and Ozick, take it and read – and share it with the illiterate.

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[1] Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl (New York: Vintage International, 1990), 58.

Response to “The Heart of Evangelism” 4 May 2008

Journalism and The Heart of Evangelism

The Christian is called to make the truth of the Gospel known with clarity and boldness; the journalist, according to Kovach and Rosenstiel, is called to make known the truth of events in the same way.[1]   Combine the two vocations and the Christian journalist is created: an individual carrying out a double-pronged mission whose success depends entirely on his ability to communicate with his audience. 

It is one thing to speak the truth; it is another to communicate, to speak and be heard.  Jerram Barrs cites the examples of Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul when he develops principles for Christian communication: “their fundamental motivation was love for their hearers… a love that led them to regard other people more highly than themselves.” [2]  This love is apparent through Paul’s respect for his audience as, “faced with such rampant paganism, he never lost sight of the true humanity of these people, nor of his own shared identity with them.”[3]  Paul treated other philosophies with respect by representing them fairly and engaging with them in order to explain his own.[4]  Through such regard for his audience, Paul won the ears of his listeners, if not their hearts.

Paul’s story inspires me as I endeavor to witness as a journalist.  Communication is the mission of the journalist and the evangelist, and communication is essentially an act of love: it is the fitting work of a Christian.

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[1] Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect (New York: Crown Pub., 2001), 14.

[2] Jerram Barrs, The Heart of Evangelism (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Books, 2001), 187.

[3] Ibid., 189.

[4] Ibid., 205.