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The balance of summer

August 22, 2010 in God, Life, Music, Personal, Projects, Travel by Stephen | No comments

(Or I hate driving home in the dark but love driving to my friends’ houses in the dark, or how Sufjan Stevens has influenced the way I think about titles)

It seems that I have slowed down my reading, but this is not true. I have slowed down my writing about said reading. I have slowed down my writing about everything, actually: Independent Clauses has been painfully slow, this here blog has been at a dead stop, Peter C. Myers is about to kill me for not working on Sangtera, and I haven’t written a song in months. I’ve been keeping Gospelized moving at a fairly regular clip, but even that has been subject to some stumbles.

There are decent reasons for this pause in productivity (health issues, logistical problems, emotional exhaustion, etc.), but God is working the problems out. I’m standing around and watching, honestly. I haven’t had the energy to do much more than trust that God’s going to be God and do what is best. That takes a considerable amount of energy, lest you scoff.

I have, however, started a new fiction project. Having gotten The Greater Clothes Exchange of the Universe stuck at a major plot point of which I can’t currently solve, I’ve tabled it along with The Last Unicorns on Earth (if they’re in the same place as my abandoned short story ideas, they’re having quite a crowded rave party, I must say). Never fear, though; this new fiction project has a beginning, middle and end. It may end up being a novella, but nevertheless I am confident that the existence of an outline will help see it through to completion. I am also going to write it as quickly as possible so that I am not burned out when the editing process hits. I am not really sure how fast is “as fast as possible,” but I’ll keep the news flowing. The working title is “The Fire Administration Company.”

I’m hitting a bunch of concerts this fall: I have my tickets for Sufjan Stevens (DAL) and the Mountain Goats (OKC) already, I’m planning on buying tickets for Mumford and Sons in Dallas November 4th, and I’m debating going down for the Tallest Man on Earth on September 17 and Avett Brothers in OKC sometime. I’ve seen the Avetts twice, so that one isn’t a huge concern for me; but if there’s a good party of people going, I could easily be enticed to see them jump around with a banjo and a double bass.

Opolis also has a mega-awesome slate of shows for fall, and I’m sure I’ll hit the Appleseed Cast, among other shows.

Sufjan’s new EP is strange and wonderful. Arcade Fire’s new album tries hard to be epic and mostly succeeds. Tokyo Police Club’s Champ is still a bunch of pensive guys trying endearingly to be energetic.  Fall music is just around the corner, which means I’ll be busting out Damien Jurado’s Rehearsals for Departure a lot more than I have in the past eight months.

And with that, the dark comes earlier and earlier, which is where the middle third of today’s far-too-long title comes from. I dislike that, but I like the temperatures it brings. Can I have long days of cold weather? Do I have to go the Arctic Circle for this? Or does this happen in Canada somewhere?

Book review: Live What You Love

July 12, 2010 in Books, Life, Personal, Projects, Travel by Stephen | No comments

I dream. No, I dream a lot. I probably should list dreaming on my hobbies. I love dreams.

And I do try to make my dreams happen. The evidence is scattered about the interwebs and about my room in my house; instruments, old magazines I’ve made or been a part of, books, journals, manuscripts (mine and friends’), lyrics, jobs at various websites, etc. etc.

But sometimes dreams come tumbling down. They just do; we don’t live in heaven yet.

And that’s where Live What You Love comes in. Live What You Love isn’t a self-help book. It isn’t a memoir, either. It’s both of those, plus a bit of kick in the pants. It’s vignettes from the crazy life of Bob and Melinda Blanchard, who have indulged every crazy business idea and life change that they thought they could reasonably sustain and ended up with a lifetime of crazy stories to show for it. They split their time between Anguilla (in the Caribbean) and Vermont, running businesses galore all over several countries (!). It seems totally ridiculous.

But reading their vignettes and their thoughtful musings on their life story, they break it down into manageable chunks. They didn’t end up dual citizens running businesses in two countries in one fell swoop; they did it piece by piece, never anticipating the next piece until the current one was down. They were crazy ideas that they were doing piece by piece, but they were doing them piece by piece.

It is the ultimate dreamer’s guide. Not only a “how you can do this” book, it’s a “you can do this; we did it, why can’t you?” They don’t seem any different than me; they simply seem willing to risk stuff for the sake of doing what they love. I’m pretty willing to do that too. I just need to get off my duff and start making decisions. And I am. And it’s good. And I feel like I’m moving.

Even though this book is five years old (I found it in a clearance bin, sorry to say; it’s worth so much more than that!!), I highly recommend it. Definitely gave me a sense of wonder about life that I had sorely been missing, thinking my time for dreams had passed. They prove that the time for dreams is always. And if you don’t see that, you simply need a little push to prove it. Ah! So good.

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Uh, I read that already: The Magician’s Nephew

June 1, 2010 in I read that already, Projects, Twilight by Stephen | No comments

So I’m starting up a new series on this here blog. It has come to my attention that I have not read hardly any well-known fantasy epics: Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Twilight and Harry Potter.

I aim to fix this. I read the first Twilight book, and I just finished reading The Magician’s Nephew, which is the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia. I have the first Harry Potter book over there on the pile. I am sure I will borrow the Lord of the Rings books as needed.

But as I finish reading all these books (or, as I feel led, individual chunks or chapters), I will post my thoughts on them. I fully acknowledge that I am far behind in my media intake; my roommate, his girlfriend and I are about to set on a quest to watch all of Lost, now that it’s over. I am really far behind. But I aim to catch up, and to keep you all amused along the way.

I read the Chronicles of Narnia when I was very little; early enough in my life that I remember nothing except The Last Battle. I did not know that The Magician’s Nephew was intended to be the first in the series. It makes sense that it is, as it is the creation of Narnia.

I marvel at C.S. Lewis’ straightforward prose.  He writes in a truly conversational style; I feel like Jack is telling me a story while we sit around a crackling fire and smoke pipes. His delightful asides and refusal to draw out scenes (which is, conversely, one of the things I love about Brandon Sanderson, whose Warbreaker I am enjoying right now) endear me to his writing style and his stories. The Magician’s Nephew is not a stressful story, even though bad things happen in it. It a marvelous wonder of a thing; a set of events portrayed with little cooked-up drama in language that lifts my soul.

I got shivers when I read the lines where Aslan yells to Fledge “Be the father of all winged horses!” Out of context, it makes little sense and does not induce goosebumps. But in context, it is a wondrous moment; it inspires the imagination to hope on our own God saying such mighty and glorious things to us. We all long for a great purpose, and to see a simple carriage horse redeemed into the father of all winged horses strikes a chord in my soul.

That is the power of The Magician’s Nephew; it takes simple words and crafts them into a simple story that simply moves me. The only argument I have with the piece is something that I praised earlier; several scenes felt like they could have been longer without detracting from the flow of the novel; I would have liked to see the journey to the tree in the far-off lands take longer and have more difficulty. But the moment of truth when Digory decides against eating the apple still has sufficient tension to make me read faster. So even in that argument, there is a counter-argument that C.S. Lewis knew what he was doing in what he chose to do.

In short, I was awed by the concise and distinct power that The Magician’s Nephew possesses. I sighed every time I had to put it down until I finished it. It is easy to see that this book was a product of his later prose of this series rather than his early prose, which is displayed thoroughly in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which is the next book I’m going to read for “Uh, I read that already.”

The Magician’s Nephew: Read it right stinkin’ now. It will stoke the embers in your soul, no matter how near-death or raging those embers might be at the moment.

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Home or something like it

May 22, 2010 in Projects by Stephen | No comments

I am about as moved in as I am going to get. I need to fix my bookshelf (especially the shelf that I just noticed is sagging under the weight) and put posters on the walls, but beyond that I’m put up and squared away.

Gospelized is going great guns. I am continually amazed that the things I have to say resonate with people. But they do so in increasing number. I am pretty excited about it.

Independent Clauses had its seventh birthday. I learned that it’s harder than it seems to put together a compilation. Oh well. Next year I’ll know better how to do it.

I’ve recently become obsessed with cover songs. It’s just so interesting to see how things are re-interpreted. I suppose this has a connection to the fact that I am essentially re-interpreting life over there at Gospelized. Actually, I’m just re-interpreting life everywhere. Even that which we create as fiction is an interpretation of experiences and feelings we or others have had.

Peter and I’s book is moving along. We’re moving to outlining.

The illustrious B Burns and I are in beginning stages of starting a humor blog together. The also illustrious Chris Krycho and I are thinking of starting some sort of project called “A Full Tank of Gas and Lots of Wyoming Ahead,” which was the title of a recent post over at Blog and Mablog of the also also illustrious Doug Wilson. We liked the post a lot. I think I liked the phrase more than the content, though. The content was very good; I’m just obsessed with phrases.

That’s what I got.

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Go go gadget project updates

May 9, 2010 in Music, Projects, Sports by Stephen | No comments

So Gospelized has been a great success so far in my book: I enjoy doing the work immensely, and people are responding critically and with congratulations. I can not ask for much more out of a project.

Peter C. Myers and I are starting up serious work on our fantasy novel. I am incredibly excited about this; Peter C. Myers’ thoughtful friendship and joie de vivre are encouragements to my soul.

Independent Clauses needs some new writers; it has come down to solely me. While I’m okay with this, the growing stack of music on my desk is not.

I’ve put The Greater Clothes Exchange of the Universe and The Last Unicorns on Earth on hold right now. I am focused on Gospelized and the fantasy novel (which I will soon unveil the title for, as soon as we have a working one!).

I’ve been reading a great deal of literature about Christian art, as well as Christian art itself. I have Dick Staub‘s The Culturally Savvy Christian sitting next to me, as I’m half-finished with it. I recently purchased beautiful hardcover editions of Paradise Lost, The Poems of John Donne and The Confessions of St. Augustine; I have started in on the Donne so far. At the same incredible book sale, I purchased a softcover volume that includes all of the Chronicles of Narnia (side note: I almost wrote the Chronic WHAT cles of Nar-nia).

This weekend I hung out with Brent Baldwin, who was co-songwriter with me in Tragic Landscape (second side note: the current band picture at that site is one of about four on the internet that feature me without facial hair). We got together because we, along with members PC Hance III and Kyle Smith, recently decided to record Tragic Landscape’s last, lost album HeIsTheSuperFool over the next few months. As we will be in two separate towns, it could be a slow process. We’re okay with that. It’s been in the queue for four years already.

We also wrote a few songs for a possible future project tentatively titled Broken Keys that we plan to conduct primarily over long-distance, a la The Postal Service. Think soft-rock and reggae meshed together. Totally kidding. It will sound nothing like that. Honest.

Also, I’ve been recently pretty obsessed with Lost and Found by the Fools. Its beautiful melodies and gentle songwriting have captured the essence of this slowly-arriving summer for me.

Wrapping up this absurdly long project update, I’ll leave you with the realization that we are in the sports doldrums. As a Mets fan, I can’t even get excited about baseball until late August or September, because that’s when the Mets will either crash and burn or barely eek into the playoffs. No matter how awesome they’re doing, they’ll find a way to mess it up. And there’s no other sports to watch, save NASCAR, but there’s a whole post on whether or not that’s even a sport. Same for golf. Less than 180 days to college football season!

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Gospelized lives!

April 30, 2010 in Projects by Stephen | No comments

After several weeks of work getting all the details together, Gospelized.com is live today. It’s a daily art project focused on the gospel. I’ll be posting poems, essays, stories, photos, drawings, and more. I am tempted to include other people’s art (“This Too Shall Pass” by OK GO has some deep truths not too far off from the Gospel, in my opinion), but for now it’s a 100% unique blog. Today’s poem was inspired by Glee. It’s not my favorite poem thus far (that would be Poem of Ecstatic Praise #1), but it’s a worthy entry.

I have been neglecting Independent Clauses in favor of Gospelized; what can I say? I’m a sucker for a new project. This weekend, though, I’m jumping back on the IC horse and cranking out a bunch of overdue reviews.

Peter C. Myers and I have started up work again on our epic tale. I will keep you posted.

I’ve put Greater Clothes Exchange of the Universe on hold until I have a firm grip on how Gospelized works. Then I can dedicate brain space to my new novel.

Thunder prediction: Game 6 is a close loss. I love my boys, but I think that the Lakers found the magic formula in Game 5. Please, please prove me wrong, Durantula/Westbrooks/James Harden!

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Human ping-pong

April 17, 2010 in Life, Music, Personal, Projects by Stephen | 1 comment

I’ve been having a lot of issues with my creative life recently. They come in the form of several realizations.

The first is that I don’t have the guts to do terrible things to my characters. I get annoyed when writers do emotionally damaging things to their characters; it makes me want to stop reading. At the same time, if a writer can make me feel that strongly for a character that I do not want to see that character in harm, the author has done his job very well. So, to rephrase my previous statement: I balk at good writing. If I balk as a reader, there’s no way I can I get through it as an author. This is probably why my manuscript looks a lot more like Garden State than The Royal Tenenbaums. Both are essentially about family. One does brutal things to its characters emotionally and makes me feel it. The other has Zach Braff in it.

I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to combat this. I suppose I’ll work on writing realistic characters in painful situations and get used to it. Otherwise Ted Dekker will keep selling more books than me.

The second realization is a begrudging admission of something I’ve fought against for a long time. As much as I love piano and bass, rock bands need guitars (Ben Folds Five notwithstanding). And out of all the instruments I’ve ever picked up, the guitar is the only one that has baffled me. So, I need a guitarist. And that’s a difficult proposition.

The final realization is that my emotional stress has been incapacitating my creative life instead of enabling it. At the risk of sounding metaphysical, I’ll say that I’m wasting good suffering by not turning it into good art. That’s all. Don’t want you to think I’m going off the deep end here. But I did write a hymn today about my frustrations. It’s my daily post over at my new art project (which I will let you all in on soon, as soon as I finish tweaking a few things).

I’m trying to turn it around; it’s a real struggle. But I suppose most things in life are.

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New projects!

April 12, 2010 in Projects by Stephen | No comments

If I go too long without a project at hand, I start to lose my mind. So, I’m using this summer to get into top-flight shape:

+I’m picking up running (Couch to 5K! Yes!)

+I’m starting a new art project to be announced very soon

+I’m working on Independent Clauses’ 7th birthday project

+I’m working on the outline for my next novel, The Greater Clothes Exchange of the Universe

+I’m working on a collaborative novel with Peter C. Myers

+I just bought an organ, which I will be using to write new songs, some of which will go towards point number two

And that is all. But it’s certainly enough.

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Sung songs

April 6, 2010 in Music, Projects by Stephen | No comments

All of my writing has been inspired by music. This is one of those facts that I knew but didn’t know; I knew that it was easiest to write while listening to music, but I didn’t consider it not possible to write when not listening to music. And that was a correct consideration; I still am able to produce words. But my best ideas have not spun lucidly out of instances or experiences; they’ve been mitigated by and, in many cases, produced from interactions with music.

So, in that spirit, I am starting a project. Over the next few weeks, I am going to be producing short stories that are inspired by songs. The title of the song will be the title of the short story. Some may be very short. Some may be longer. Some may directly deal with the song’s subject matter. Some may be birthed out of a line, a chorus, or even a general feel of the song.

I’m not giving myself a hard-and-fast timeline on these; short stories are not like skulls to be cranked out. Not that he makes less or greater art. But it takes more time on the average to craft a short story (even a really short short story) than it does to make a mini art project like those. I’m totally down with admitting his project could end up being way, way cooler than this one, even if it takes “less time” on the whole. Nevertheless, I persist with this project. I’m calling it “Sung songs.”

I don’t know when the first one is coming, but it’s coming soon.

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A Mixtape, IC-Style

April 4, 2010 in God, Music, Personal, Projects by Stephen | No comments

I reposted this from Independent Clauses.

In Internet terms, today I am celebrating the BEST. DAY. EVER. For my Savior did not stay dead; he rose to give the world life. I live because he wanted to give me life through his sacrifice.

As such, it’s time for an Easter playlist, IC-style.

1. Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing – Sufjan Stevens. I know it’s a rule in baseball and mixtapes to not put your home-run hitter as your lead-off man. But this song so perfectly sums up everything I believe about Jesus Christ that it has to be played first. Musically gorgeous, lyrically foundational; this track is amazing. Thank you, Sufjan.

2. Good News! (For Everyone.) – Aaron Hale. Technically a Christmas song, but Easter is good news for everyone.

3. Really Something – Aaron Sprinkle. “Sometimes I actually forget that this is really something.” And I do. And it’s a tragedy.

4. Heaven – Brett Dennen. I don’t agree with his theology, but he asks the right questions. “Is there a home for the homeless? Is there hope for the hopeless?” Yes, yes there is.

5. Oh Christmas Tree! or Happy Birthday by Elijah Wyman. In the midst of intense pain and grief, there is mercy and grace. It is hard to find sometimes, but Wyman captures that spirit and puts it to song.

6. Never Enuff – Mansions.  The narrator of this song is trying to break up with God. God does not break up with us. That’s pretty much the Easter story.

7. More than Ever – Holy Fiction. “I need you more than ever.”

8. Against Pollution – The Mountain Goats. One of the most misunderstood songs I’ve ever tried to give people on mixtapes. This song, although it does include a store clerk killing a would-be robber by shooting him “in the face, and I would do it again,” is not an endorsement of violence. It is a passionate endorsement that life is so important to the narrator that if he has to kill to stay alive he will do it. While I don’t fully agree with the degree to which the narrator goes, I deeply understand the sentiment. I want life, and to quote the Postal Service, I want life “in every word, to the extent that it’s absurd.” I don’t want to go down now. I want to keep kicking. And Jesus Christ offers that in spades.  Even then, the chorus: “When the last days come/we shall see visions/more vivid than sunsets/brighter than stars. We will recognize each other/and see ourselves for the first time/the way we really are.” Please. Amen.

9. Revelation – Hands. “Hear, oh Earth; the Lord our God is one.” Probably the only time the time-honored Jewish prayer has been sung by a man-choir in a epic nine-minute hardcore song. God is a big God.

1o. We’re Nothing Without You – The Juliana Theory. Self-explanatory.

11. Sufficient/Knocked Out – Bleach. Half the song proclaims how God is all-sufficient; the other half pleas for God to be all-sufficient in the midst of deep, deep struggle and pain. This is the Christian fight in ten minutes.

12. Fishing the Sky – Appleseed Cast. This is not even a remotely religious song. But when I hear it, it’s the closest thing to heaven I’ve ever heard.

13. Always – Switchfoot. “And I am always, always/I am always yours.”

14. Hope to Carry On – Caedmon’s Call. Don’t be scared off by the name; it’s Derek Webb singing. The title is self-explanatory. The track is glorious, upbeat, yearning acoustic folk.

15. That Where I Am That You May Also Be – Rich Mullins. One of my heroes, musically and in the way he lived his life, this was one of his final songs before he went to where He was. It is about as optimistic as a song gets while still grounded in non-sappiness.

16. Jesus – Page France. “Jesus came up through the ground so dirty, with worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy, we call him his magic, he calls us worthy, Jesus came up through the ground so dirty.” The gospel in indie terms.

May God find you where you are, comforting those that need comfort and shaking those who need shaking. Amen.

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