Reimagining Well

Everyone loves the idea of a compilation: get some good bands together, have them make music, and put it all together on one disc. The problem is it rarely works well. Some bands miss the mark, you like some but not others, the flow of the music doesn't fit, or it's nice for a little while but wears off its welcome quickly.

Everyone loves the idea of a cover song: get a good band to play a good (or ironic) song from another band. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's interesting, sometimes it's just an exercise in admiration. The problem is it rarely works well. They're hardly ever an improvement, sometimes the kind of thing that make you chuckle or at least smile the first time through and never really care to come back to.

But I love the idea of these tribute albums, not so much a tribute to a band as much as it is a tribute to an album. It was done extremely well with Radiohead's OK Computer to celebrate its ten year anniversary. Each artist takes a song and they're put together in the same order as the original album. That perfect execution inspired some guys to do the same thing with Sufjan Steven's Seven Swans.

Cover songs can be either rip-offs or just unnecessary, and tributes to artists aren't deserved til they're at least retired, if not dead. But an album. There's something special about certain albums. If you can pick the right ones--the kind where you can remember where you were and how you felt when you first heard it, the kind where you never skip a track--I'm convinced this idea works wonderfully. It's a compilation that flows better. It's a collection of cover songs that doesn't rely on irony but on appreciation.

These albums, when done right, not only pay tribute, but cast the art in new light that only serves to make everyone appreciate it even more than they already did. And in my mind that is exactly what has happened with Seven Swans Reimagined.

It helps that most of these artists are friends with Sufjan. They know him and his work well. They have a similar spirit driving their work. They respect the original. They don't replicate the song, but they don't distort it either. Not trying to improve it, just trying to honor it. Some are stronger than others, others weaker than some, but on the whole there are many more hits than misses. Even the oddest contributors--The Gregory Brothers in all their ingenious YouTube fame--aren't too far off.

Highlights are Joshua James and DM Stith for sure, as well as Inlets with their clarinets playing the most beautifully heart-breaking song I hadn't even heard before (a b-side to Seven Swans).

And it accomplishes exactly what I assume is the intent, to cast the album in a fresh light and make us realize again just how inspired--in the truest sense of the word--the original was. There are some pretty glorious moments to be taken in here.

(Stream it for free or buy it for $10)


But wait, what's that? You've never heard the original Seven Swans? Then of course this doesn't make much sense. I'm not finding some place to stream it, which is just as well, because I recommend you purchase the vinyl version and listen comfortably with peace and quiet and several respectful friends. You can do that here.

On Knowing One's New Place

What started on Ash Wednesday in admitting that we are dust, ends today with this good news:

He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes,
with the princes of his people.

How is this possible? People of dust crowned as princes?

Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the LORD.
This is the gate of the LORD;
the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is the LORD’s doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the LORD has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Win Some, Lose Some

Win: had a friend over for raclette last night.
Loss: found out it's a winter meal.

Win: the cashier tried giving us a rebate and sent us to the customer service desk.
Loss: i tried explaining why we were there and finally had to admit, "I don't know...I don't understand at all," and resorted to pointing at my receipt and grunting.

Win: started a balcony garden.
Loss: didn't read the writing on the bag of soil carefully enough; meant for acidic loving plants. apparently my dead basil didn't love acid.

Win: successfully gave directions to the hospital to a lost old couple in french.
Loss: they didn't follow them.

Thursday is a day to celebrate.

And so I just did a Google search for "best hot dogs in Paris."

I'll let you know what I find.

Update: While La Mosaique/Pat's seems to be the place to go, we went to I Love Burger due to proximity. It serves all the greatest American fare: burgers, hot dogs, fries, tex mex, bagels, milkshakes, chocolate chip cookies, dr. pepper, and ben and jerry's ice cream. I felt awfully stupid ordering a "hot dog" and "bacon cheeseburger" with an attempted French accent. It was a fun little hangout and it tasted like home.

Winged Migration

When I was in college and wrote a "Documentary of the Month" column for the school newspaper, I wrote an article on the movie Winged Migration and boldly said something to the effect of, "If you can't sit through this movie and enjoy it, something's wrong with you."

Last year when I found it on sale at Barnes and Noble, I picked it up, thinking it was would be something to occupy the kid from time to time.

He didn't stand for it through the first few attempts, but today he's watching it with a grand curiousity. "Flying home? What's that one? Noischzat Papa?" he keeps asking over and over again.

And when the geese decided to fly through Paris, he got super excited, standing up out of his seat and exclaiming, "EIFFEL TOWER!! IN PARIS!!"

The shot only lasted a few seconds, so now he keeps asking, "Going back to Paris?"

Theology of Family

I've been thinking a lot about family lately, and in turn been being taught.

Jesus Christ, on par with his obscurity in all other domains, gives up his right to marrying a wife, having kids, enjoying a family, becoming a grandfather, being a patriarch. The little bit I know about the culture of his day tells me that was significant. It's not something we think about too often, because giving up the glory of heaven, putting up with us idiots, and sacrificing his life seem to trump the relative trivialities of having a wife and family. But I have to believe that, in his humanity, there were days where some part of him wanted to exchange his life for one of a bit more "normalcy."

Aaron Weiss sings of Jesus praying in Gethsemane, "If you're willing that this cup might pass, we could find our way back home, maybe start a family all our own."

Sufjan Stevens sings, "You gave up a wife and a family ... to be alone with me you went up on a tree."

Our question then becomes: what exactly does Jesus mean for us when he talks about losing life, hating life, picking up a cross, denying self, and following him? What must we sacrifice? How much? To what extent? He gave up family, must we?

It might be best to let him answer the question:

"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

Those words feel a bit like a punch to the gut, gasping for air, wanting to interject with nothing to say. We desperately want to spin his words, want him to be saying something--anything--other than what he is really saying. And yet, it's rather plain.

But I'm finding this week that Christ didn't so much give up family as much as he redefines the notion.

"And he answered them, 'Who are my mother and my brothers?' And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother.'"

When we follow Christ, joining his family, becoming his brother, we receive a new family. There are new relationships, there is new fellowship. Christ did have a family, better than a wife and kids of his own, because it is one in which perfect unity is attained through the Spirit, there is love, peace, patience, kindness, self control, there are bonds that last eternally.

"Jesus said, 'Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.'"

We leave one family to receive another--and a hundred times over! But sorry, no picket fences to keep everything safe and sound here, but persecution instead.

Of course there is responsibility to our immediate families and of course there is a God-given love to enjoy within them. The Bible speaks about these things in plenty of ways as well. But that's not so much the message the American church needs to hear right now!

But like so many human phenomena God has created and given to us, these earthly structures seem to serve a greater, more transcendent purpose of which we must not lose sight. In this case, for starters, perhaps it's cultivation of discipleship and a love which models and communicates and points to the paternal and maternal love of God. We must not let this God-given structure become the end in itself. It must not consume us and all of our attention, time, love, energy, focus, enjoyment. We must not worship our families.

Now that we've spent more than 30 years "focusing on the family" in American Christianity, amending the gospel so that it supports the American dream and meanwhile ostracizing the unmarried members of our communities, it's time for us to start focusing on who our family really is. This isn't an exhortation to forget our immediate family, it's an exhortation to not focus on them at the expense of truly following Christ, at the expense of fellowship with and ministry among our greater, hundredfold body of brothers and sisters.

After all, the more the merrier. I experience great joy with my family, but it seems as though there is an even greater joy to be found in the broader family of those who do the will of the Father.

let's be honest

it's a big, confusing place, people.