As a part of the Grace House Episcopal Service Corps program, I went on a spiritual retreat to a monastary outside of the city of Utica, NY.
Therein, I wrote three poems to answer some posed questions to my group. Instead of quietly reflecting, I frantically scribbled these in a spree. I suppose there are many different ways to pray, aren't there?
1. I WANT TO TRUST
Can you reach for God in
a bottom-less bag?
Can you be a man without
a title?
Can you be a man without a pre-packaged
voyage?
Can you trust without being foolish? Without making
bad decisions? Without being manipulated?
I WANT TO TRUST
but could it be, that thing that we
pray to, the God, is so often a far, FAR
cry from that which brings life?
Should we read back into that source, life itself, to check?
God is more than a feeling, God is an event.
2. READING THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Petty things are knocked
away.
Are these divisions wawrrented?
Is it selfish to say I mightbe the
one who needs to be helped?
The Jewish man had to be knocked unconscious
before he would accept the help
of the samaritan.
3. PRAYER FOR THE GRACE HOUSE
Each day is made up of moments.
Let us not forget that.
The times we have with outher are made up of moments.
Let us not forget that.
We can change things from one moment to another.
Let us not forget that.
God rests in these moments.
These moment are now.
God is here now.
Let us rise to this, let us be in that place
where the floor can be a shifting base,
but we are still here.
In that which makes the moments.
Let us not forget that.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Why I am Giving up Soda
The internet has been abuzz, or at least in thoughtful contemplation, these past months over New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's quest to ban sales of soft drinks over 16 ounces. Today I walked into an Open Pantry convience store and purchased a 44 ounce soft drink, an amalgamation of various brands I dispenced myself. I want to stop doing that.
Critics of Mayor Bloomberg cite this measure as an attack on personal freedom, an advance of the Nanny State, and the rise of Big Brother. One usually hears this brand of rhetoric every time some sort of buisness regulation comes to the forefront, but I find it unconvincing. Lost in all the talk about personal freedoms and rights is the actual issue at hand: America is unhealthy, and ignoring the issue will not make it go away. Talk about freedom tends to emphesize the threat of tyranny, but what is the use of having complete and total freedom if it requires living in a world that is physically sick, impoverished, psychologically damaged, morally bankrupt, and more willing to defend against a hypothetical attack than work for a tangeble success? I am not against personal freedoms, but I believe we ought to start the conversation by talking about our responsibility to society. We have personal freedom as a result of adhering to an ethical vision of humanity. Spider-Man said it the best, "With great power comes great responsibility." We as Americans have great power in our education, communication technology, and economic influence, let us not forget the
Soda is most likely the unhealthiest part of my lifestyle. If I want to advance a better notion of society, I cannot justify to myself consuming a product that contributes enomously to America's health crisis. The soda manufactorers continue to distribute an unhealthy product without responding to the consiquences of their actions. I do not want to give them my money, nor do I want to spend my money to make me unhealthly. This is not about judging people, this is about something more important than personal freedom: personal responsibility, and if I cannot be responsible for myself, then I cannot justify allowing myself to be responsible for others.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Sketches On the Aesthetic and Pleasure Potential of Seattle and Portland: A Case Study; Or, How Brendan Caught Portlanditis
The United States is known for possessing a great number of cities containing many entertainment options. Among these include New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Las Vegas, and Miami. In terms of being economic and cultural capitals, Seattle and Portland, the largest cities in the American Pacific Northwest, are relatively new in the American pantheon of cities. Being a young person in desire to travel, and attracted to the temperate weather and lack of direct sunlight in the region, I procured a set of travel tickets and set off for Seattle, with the intentions of arriving in Portland later on.
My flight arrived in Seattle in the mid-afternoon. To enter the city from the main airport, I took the recent Light Rail installation, the LINK. In the 45 minutes of travel, I gained an immediate recognition of the geographic aesthetic of Washington State. With limited means and a great tolerance for literal “Strange Bedfellows,” I booked a room in Seattle's City Hostel, a European-style youth hostel. My room contained three other beds, to be occupied by people I did not know. The first group of three to arrive were a set of friends from Vancouver, having came down to celebrate their friend's 26th birthday. All three were women, and despite the tyranny of outdated moralizing that occurs all-too-frequently in the United States, this mixed-gender dynamic proved to be no problem at all. These folks failed to betray their Canadian heritage; they were incredibly welcoming to me; locking my belongings in the room's safe felt more a formality than a necessity.
There is one incident of notice during my rooming with my hostel-mates that I remember with some degree of fondness. While sleeping after a long Saturday of touring the city, I awoke to loud reminders of, “Be quiet! Brendan is sleeping!” I would later come to find out that the birthday celebration had gotten the best of my Canuck friends, and one had gotten separated from the two others, which made them extremely fearful that the wayward friend had been coerced by a creepy, hipster-looking young man to return to his place of residence. Fortunately, that was not the case.
Beyond my roommates, I found myself amongst a group of other young people, all of them meeting for the first time that night. Only in this environment can a group form like this, consisting of a world-traveling, opinionated Las Vegas English Teacher, a Dutch girl who wants out of the Netherlands, a German dude who used to be in a metal band and now wants to become a photographer, a redneck Australian miner from Perth, an underaged German girl on a United States' tour, and an eccentric vegan guy who's an aspiring comparative religion scholar go on a trek through Seattle's nightlife. The Australian bought a round of Jaegerbombs for the whole of us. At this particular bar, we ended up discussing a variety of things, including educational systems in our various countries, and how awesome the German guy's hair used to be (very 80's metal). Just being around these people fascinated me. We took advantage of Seattle's rich microbrew tradition, especially in regard to IPA, which I find to be more difficult to drink than they are worth.
The German girl was only 19 years old, and somehow we managed to sneak into about three different bars without her even possessing a fake ID. I'm not quite sure how that happened. By the time we finally approached a night club, she, along with the Australian guy and the German guy turned back, leaving the Dutch girl and the Las Vegas teacher and I to enter a dancing space with rather short men and a DJ that insisted on playing remixes on too many obscure 90's songs (and not the good ones). The night ended shortly after the closing of this location at 2:00 AM, and the two fellow partakers in the city.
This was mostly a digression, but I think this speaks to a broader point about what made an experience like an open-ended trip to the Pacific Northwest enjoyable. Seattle and Portland have a great deal of accessibility and openness to young, ambitious people. One can enter as a stranger, and immediately make friends. Another example: I spent two days hiking the mountain trails in Portland, the largest city park in the United States, with a Ayn Rand reading, horn-rimmed-glasses wearing kid from Austin, Texas that I met by chance in my 8-bed hostel. Dr. Seuss was correct in predicting the places I'd go.
The aesthetic qualities of Seattle and Portland are similar in certain aspects, but also divergent in others. Seattle is mainstream; Portland is Avant-Garde. What does this mean? While Seattle is not a media hub or as immediately recognizable as some of North America's other famous cities, it maintains a lot of similar 20th century architecture, intersperses of contemporary public art, a downtown consisting of business and a pleasure districts that gradually peters out into more residential neighborhoods. However, Seattle simply does a mainstream city better: its archetechure is more artistic, its streets are cleaner, its schools are better, the atmosphere is more welcoming, the sidewalks go everywhere, the public transportation is decent, and the share number of things to do are immense. Geographically, Seattle's waterfront fascinates me to no end, because it serves as a perfect compromise to the problem of beaches. To my sensibilities, an ocean serves to be just as intimidating as awe-inspiring; the observer looks to the horizon to see no end. The pleasure potential of swimming or boating in the water aside, a direct coastline horizon is almost identical to the vast prairie of North Dakota or Eastern Montana. By being along Puget sound, Seattle gets a broader water access than a river, but also the aesthetic of its horizon to be complimented with a mountain range.
Seattle and Portland do lack one thing: Churches. I recently visited Boston and New York. Both of these classic American cities have one foot in the progressive/secular, and the other in the historical/traditionally religious (I recognize that these aren't mutually exclusive, but they tend to have a sense of contrast). New York has places like St. Patrick's cathedral, St. Bartholomew's cathedral, and All Soul's Unitarian, while Boston has more Roman Catholic, Episcopal, UCC, and UU churches than you can count. Seattle and Portland are profoundly secular in a way that New York isn't, it simply lacks the framing narrative that Christianity serves to irreligious back in the East. Yes, Seattle has Mars Hill, but the city has a much more negative view toward their own arch-conservative, patriarchal, homophobic, reactionary megachurch than the warm ambivalence the Midwest has for theirs. Aesthetically, I see this as a reminder that the Pacific Northwest is a region carved out of economic opportunism, Seattle as the Space-Age economy, Portland as a home for the weird. They have little room to spare for the institution of American Christianity, so often linked with moralizing and the responsibilities of family life, if I can muster the courage to suggest a postulation to why secularism is the case.
Portland is Avant-Garde; Portland is weird. Anybody who tells me socialism, or communitarianism in general, does not work needs to go to Portland. Its Downtown contains a truly astonishing display of public art, in terms of not only its quality, but its quantity. That along with the well-developed city parks proves this city has a conscience about managing its public space to the pleasure and aesthetic of all. Jeremy Bentham would be proud.
William Shakespeare wrote in his play Coriolanus, “What is a city but it's people? True, the people are the city.” Portland provides a facinating dialectic between the people of the city, and its geographic and archeological makeup. While walking the streets toward a budget movie theatre that doubled as an arcade that took nickles instead of quarters, with the intent of watching the film Cabin in the Woods, I came across Monday Funday: a horde of Hippies in a park. There were white men with dreadlocks, a guy playing electric sitar, an individual who gave me a killer back massage for $2, a woman in fluorescent jazzercize tights and a 3rd eye temporary tattoo, a pick-up game of dodge ball, a crazy inventor with two side-by-side bicycles surrounded by a steel-framed hamster wheel that allows the riders of the bicycles (when harnessed) to do a forward roll, hula-hoopers, LARP-ers emulating Conan the Barbarian, mediators walking a labyrinth, and a 40-year-old woman with pigtails playing a keyboard strapped to her bicycle. It is in this display I am able to articulate why I love this city.
Perhaps I can give another example, one from a different voice. While walking the streets, I noticed the same individual who gave me the best back massage of my life. Standing outside a convenience store, he shook a small basket in a circular pattern, causing the ball to rotate around the rim by the centrifugal force. I recognized him, especially by his rich beard. I started to talk to him, and he made reference to his desire to purchase a mesh bandage wrap, but was unable to, due to cost. I entered the convenience store, purchased a number of things, including the bandage, and gave it to him outside. He applied the bandage while I asked him about his perspective about Portland and how he got there in the first place. Like most people, he had a complex past, and came to start anew. In history, all the people who didn't fit in kept going west until they found this beautiful place, he said. They found wonderful people, free in their ideas and expression, and they wanted to stay here. Portland, and Seattle for that matter, are places that are not burdened by the trapping of tradition. They have a great potential to reinvent themselves, try new things, and contently adapt to new circumstances, because they are places founded by the dreamers, schemers, and rejects. There is no “Golden Age” to endlessly pine over, what matters is what works. Perhaps part of this attitude comes in the weave of nature and city in the Pacific Northwest. The love of nature, the desire for conservation, is perhaps the ultimate conservative position, because nature is cyclical, declining to observe time the way we so often rigidly regulate it. The ultimate conservative position returns us not to the past, but to a time when the time was now.
Seattle and Portland are just two places I visited recently, but they brought me in a powerful state of mind that I cannot easily dismiss. Are they perfect? Not by any means (the homeless population and the lack of direct sunlight is not for everybody), but I fully recommend that everybody engage with these cities, as they are beautiful places that, rather then shame the rest of the United States for its stasis and toxic myth-making, offer to enlighten by example. I followed, and I did not regret it.
My flight arrived in Seattle in the mid-afternoon. To enter the city from the main airport, I took the recent Light Rail installation, the LINK. In the 45 minutes of travel, I gained an immediate recognition of the geographic aesthetic of Washington State. With limited means and a great tolerance for literal “Strange Bedfellows,” I booked a room in Seattle's City Hostel, a European-style youth hostel. My room contained three other beds, to be occupied by people I did not know. The first group of three to arrive were a set of friends from Vancouver, having came down to celebrate their friend's 26th birthday. All three were women, and despite the tyranny of outdated moralizing that occurs all-too-frequently in the United States, this mixed-gender dynamic proved to be no problem at all. These folks failed to betray their Canadian heritage; they were incredibly welcoming to me; locking my belongings in the room's safe felt more a formality than a necessity.
There is one incident of notice during my rooming with my hostel-mates that I remember with some degree of fondness. While sleeping after a long Saturday of touring the city, I awoke to loud reminders of, “Be quiet! Brendan is sleeping!” I would later come to find out that the birthday celebration had gotten the best of my Canuck friends, and one had gotten separated from the two others, which made them extremely fearful that the wayward friend had been coerced by a creepy, hipster-looking young man to return to his place of residence. Fortunately, that was not the case.
Beyond my roommates, I found myself amongst a group of other young people, all of them meeting for the first time that night. Only in this environment can a group form like this, consisting of a world-traveling, opinionated Las Vegas English Teacher, a Dutch girl who wants out of the Netherlands, a German dude who used to be in a metal band and now wants to become a photographer, a redneck Australian miner from Perth, an underaged German girl on a United States' tour, and an eccentric vegan guy who's an aspiring comparative religion scholar go on a trek through Seattle's nightlife. The Australian bought a round of Jaegerbombs for the whole of us. At this particular bar, we ended up discussing a variety of things, including educational systems in our various countries, and how awesome the German guy's hair used to be (very 80's metal). Just being around these people fascinated me. We took advantage of Seattle's rich microbrew tradition, especially in regard to IPA, which I find to be more difficult to drink than they are worth.
The German girl was only 19 years old, and somehow we managed to sneak into about three different bars without her even possessing a fake ID. I'm not quite sure how that happened. By the time we finally approached a night club, she, along with the Australian guy and the German guy turned back, leaving the Dutch girl and the Las Vegas teacher and I to enter a dancing space with rather short men and a DJ that insisted on playing remixes on too many obscure 90's songs (and not the good ones). The night ended shortly after the closing of this location at 2:00 AM, and the two fellow partakers in the city.
This was mostly a digression, but I think this speaks to a broader point about what made an experience like an open-ended trip to the Pacific Northwest enjoyable. Seattle and Portland have a great deal of accessibility and openness to young, ambitious people. One can enter as a stranger, and immediately make friends. Another example: I spent two days hiking the mountain trails in Portland, the largest city park in the United States, with a Ayn Rand reading, horn-rimmed-glasses wearing kid from Austin, Texas that I met by chance in my 8-bed hostel. Dr. Seuss was correct in predicting the places I'd go.
The aesthetic qualities of Seattle and Portland are similar in certain aspects, but also divergent in others. Seattle is mainstream; Portland is Avant-Garde. What does this mean? While Seattle is not a media hub or as immediately recognizable as some of North America's other famous cities, it maintains a lot of similar 20th century architecture, intersperses of contemporary public art, a downtown consisting of business and a pleasure districts that gradually peters out into more residential neighborhoods. However, Seattle simply does a mainstream city better: its archetechure is more artistic, its streets are cleaner, its schools are better, the atmosphere is more welcoming, the sidewalks go everywhere, the public transportation is decent, and the share number of things to do are immense. Geographically, Seattle's waterfront fascinates me to no end, because it serves as a perfect compromise to the problem of beaches. To my sensibilities, an ocean serves to be just as intimidating as awe-inspiring; the observer looks to the horizon to see no end. The pleasure potential of swimming or boating in the water aside, a direct coastline horizon is almost identical to the vast prairie of North Dakota or Eastern Montana. By being along Puget sound, Seattle gets a broader water access than a river, but also the aesthetic of its horizon to be complimented with a mountain range.
Seattle and Portland do lack one thing: Churches. I recently visited Boston and New York. Both of these classic American cities have one foot in the progressive/secular, and the other in the historical/traditionally religious (I recognize that these aren't mutually exclusive, but they tend to have a sense of contrast). New York has places like St. Patrick's cathedral, St. Bartholomew's cathedral, and All Soul's Unitarian, while Boston has more Roman Catholic, Episcopal, UCC, and UU churches than you can count. Seattle and Portland are profoundly secular in a way that New York isn't, it simply lacks the framing narrative that Christianity serves to irreligious back in the East. Yes, Seattle has Mars Hill, but the city has a much more negative view toward their own arch-conservative, patriarchal, homophobic, reactionary megachurch than the warm ambivalence the Midwest has for theirs. Aesthetically, I see this as a reminder that the Pacific Northwest is a region carved out of economic opportunism, Seattle as the Space-Age economy, Portland as a home for the weird. They have little room to spare for the institution of American Christianity, so often linked with moralizing and the responsibilities of family life, if I can muster the courage to suggest a postulation to why secularism is the case.
Portland is Avant-Garde; Portland is weird. Anybody who tells me socialism, or communitarianism in general, does not work needs to go to Portland. Its Downtown contains a truly astonishing display of public art, in terms of not only its quality, but its quantity. That along with the well-developed city parks proves this city has a conscience about managing its public space to the pleasure and aesthetic of all. Jeremy Bentham would be proud.
William Shakespeare wrote in his play Coriolanus, “What is a city but it's people? True, the people are the city.” Portland provides a facinating dialectic between the people of the city, and its geographic and archeological makeup. While walking the streets toward a budget movie theatre that doubled as an arcade that took nickles instead of quarters, with the intent of watching the film Cabin in the Woods, I came across Monday Funday: a horde of Hippies in a park. There were white men with dreadlocks, a guy playing electric sitar, an individual who gave me a killer back massage for $2, a woman in fluorescent jazzercize tights and a 3rd eye temporary tattoo, a pick-up game of dodge ball, a crazy inventor with two side-by-side bicycles surrounded by a steel-framed hamster wheel that allows the riders of the bicycles (when harnessed) to do a forward roll, hula-hoopers, LARP-ers emulating Conan the Barbarian, mediators walking a labyrinth, and a 40-year-old woman with pigtails playing a keyboard strapped to her bicycle. It is in this display I am able to articulate why I love this city.
Perhaps I can give another example, one from a different voice. While walking the streets, I noticed the same individual who gave me the best back massage of my life. Standing outside a convenience store, he shook a small basket in a circular pattern, causing the ball to rotate around the rim by the centrifugal force. I recognized him, especially by his rich beard. I started to talk to him, and he made reference to his desire to purchase a mesh bandage wrap, but was unable to, due to cost. I entered the convenience store, purchased a number of things, including the bandage, and gave it to him outside. He applied the bandage while I asked him about his perspective about Portland and how he got there in the first place. Like most people, he had a complex past, and came to start anew. In history, all the people who didn't fit in kept going west until they found this beautiful place, he said. They found wonderful people, free in their ideas and expression, and they wanted to stay here. Portland, and Seattle for that matter, are places that are not burdened by the trapping of tradition. They have a great potential to reinvent themselves, try new things, and contently adapt to new circumstances, because they are places founded by the dreamers, schemers, and rejects. There is no “Golden Age” to endlessly pine over, what matters is what works. Perhaps part of this attitude comes in the weave of nature and city in the Pacific Northwest. The love of nature, the desire for conservation, is perhaps the ultimate conservative position, because nature is cyclical, declining to observe time the way we so often rigidly regulate it. The ultimate conservative position returns us not to the past, but to a time when the time was now.
Seattle and Portland are just two places I visited recently, but they brought me in a powerful state of mind that I cannot easily dismiss. Are they perfect? Not by any means (the homeless population and the lack of direct sunlight is not for everybody), but I fully recommend that everybody engage with these cities, as they are beautiful places that, rather then shame the rest of the United States for its stasis and toxic myth-making, offer to enlighten by example. I followed, and I did not regret it.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Grown-Ups, A spoken-word piece
Grown Ups, A Slam Poetry Piece
By Brendan Jones O'Connor
Today is March 2nd, 2012. I graduate in 70 days.
Come May 20th, I will have a tassel cocking my head in one direction,
and a goofy smile for my parents
in the other.
I'm graduating a year early, and I'm scared
I'm going to turn into one of
“Those people.” You know,
the coffee-house urchins working on their screenplays,
the trust fund babies with all reception and no wedding,
the kids who swear by vinyl and start indie bands with sentence fragments for names and all their music sounds like acoustic guitar blah-blah and Radiohead knock-offs,
the political junkies who argue about capital-S Socialism verses Anarcho-sydndicalism and agree big buisness is bad, but still smoke cigarettes as if Lung Cancer is a myth invented by the republicans along with their anti-pot propaganda,
the graduate students that hit on freshmen girls and worship the remains of Michel Foucault,
the person with a college education who spends their time simply surviving in the hip part of town,
from the Soho sinners and Williamsberg Weirdos, to the Keywest Kids, to the Asheville Aimless, to the Ann Arbor Artists, to the Lincoln Park Lunatics, to the Austin Amateurs, to the Berkeley Bohemians, to the Portland Pamphleteers and Potheads.
Oh, dear Lord, I'm someone who doesn't know what they want to do with their life,
and I am so very, very scared
I'm going to turn into that
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30-year-old person who,
between their soy latte and American Spirits, says,
and I quote,
“I don't really know what I want to do with my life.”
There was a girl at my high school who died in her senior year tragically,
her senior quote was this:
“What you do with your days is what you do with your life.”
I don't know what I want to do with my life,
but I'm already doing it.
I'm already living this
life.
Come May 20th, I'll be given a chance to live something a little different,
a person not in school.
Wait, wait, wait, let's think of that,
I have been in school continuously since I have gained consciousness,
which was sometime around 1994.
And now I'll be allowed to set sail in a dinky little schooner
past the pillars of Hercules at the Straits of Gibrulter.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'm not sure when life begins,
but I do know one thing,
we're living it right now.
Never forget that.
By Brendan Jones O'Connor
Today is March 2nd, 2012. I graduate in 70 days.
Come May 20th, I will have a tassel cocking my head in one direction,
and a goofy smile for my parents
in the other.
I'm graduating a year early, and I'm scared
I'm going to turn into one of
“Those people.” You know,
the coffee-house urchins working on their screenplays,
the trust fund babies with all reception and no wedding,
the kids who swear by vinyl and start indie bands with sentence fragments for names and all their music sounds like acoustic guitar blah-blah and Radiohead knock-offs,
the political junkies who argue about capital-S Socialism verses Anarcho-sydndicalism and agree big buisness is bad, but still smoke cigarettes as if Lung Cancer is a myth invented by the republicans along with their anti-pot propaganda,
the graduate students that hit on freshmen girls and worship the remains of Michel Foucault,
the person with a college education who spends their time simply surviving in the hip part of town,
from the Soho sinners and Williamsberg Weirdos, to the Keywest Kids, to the Asheville Aimless, to the Ann Arbor Artists, to the Lincoln Park Lunatics, to the Austin Amateurs, to the Berkeley Bohemians, to the Portland Pamphleteers and Potheads.
Oh, dear Lord, I'm someone who doesn't know what they want to do with their life,
and I am so very, very scared
I'm going to turn into that
25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30-year-old person who,
between their soy latte and American Spirits, says,
and I quote,
“I don't really know what I want to do with my life.”
There was a girl at my high school who died in her senior year tragically,
her senior quote was this:
“What you do with your days is what you do with your life.”
I don't know what I want to do with my life,
but I'm already doing it.
I'm already living this
life.
Come May 20th, I'll be given a chance to live something a little different,
a person not in school.
Wait, wait, wait, let's think of that,
I have been in school continuously since I have gained consciousness,
which was sometime around 1994.
And now I'll be allowed to set sail in a dinky little schooner
past the pillars of Hercules at the Straits of Gibrulter.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'm not sure when life begins,
but I do know one thing,
we're living it right now.
Never forget that.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
15 Favorite King James Bible Verses
The King James Bible is the most important book in the Western Canon, and its celebrating its 400th birthday today. While I am a member of a devotional community, I have compiled this list to speak to the transcendent value the Bible has as a work of literature. Just as how I believe we all ought to read the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, The Seven Valleys, and other sacred texts, everybody ought to read the King James Version of the Bible.
In no particular order, my fifteen favorite verses:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Job 38:4
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Rev. 21:4
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matt 25:40
O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. Song of Songs 8:1
Jesus Wept. John 11:35
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Ecclesiastes 3:20
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Hebrews 13:5
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6
But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Amos 5:24
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Psalm 91:7
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were
the sixth day. Genesis 1:31
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
In no particular order, my fifteen favorite verses:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Job 38:4
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Rev. 21:4
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matt 25:40
O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. Song of Songs 8:1
Jesus Wept. John 11:35
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Ecclesiastes 3:20
Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Hebrews 13:5
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6
But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Amos 5:24
And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Psalm 91:7
And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were
the sixth day. Genesis 1:31
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
12 Favorite Pop Songs of 2011
12. Waiting for the End-Linkin Park
One of the best-selling rock bands of the 2000s dropped a one of their least-overtly angry songs, but I found it all the more effect. The line, "All I want to do/is trade this life for something new" haunts me, and the vocal contrast between the raggae-rapped verses and the sung verses compliments each other perfectly. This is a rock ballad that doesn't come off as boring or overblown.
11. Ready to Go-Panic! At the Disco
Best concert I went to this year. While you're favorite Indie band probably has some whispery, thin-voiced dude singing, Panic! At the Disco really sings out, showcasing a vocal poweress rarely displayed by male singers these days. This song motivates me, and definantly deserved more airtime this year. Buy Panic's new album, it's rad.
10. Rolling in the Deep-Adele
Part old-school, part original, Adele did exceptionally well with this beltin' tune. It's vindictive lyrics actually seemed like they were about somebody (they were) instead of a pack of contrived pop song rhymes. Over this year, I've found myself using the term, "Rolling in the Deep" to describe someone (A.) Someone with a lot of money, and (B.) someone overweight.
9. Young, Wild & Free-Wiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg, and Bruno Mars
Catchy as all get out, a fun little song that makes me feel nostalgic for right now. Snoop Dogg's flow is beautiful, Wiz is youthful, and Bruno Mars has some pipes put to good use. This is a perfect song to listen to when driving to a party, along with "I've Gotta Feeling" by the Black-Eyed Peas, and "Stronger" by Kanye West.
8. Britney Spears-'Til the World Ends
Britney Spears went from making Teeny-Bopper stuff to making great, GREAT club jams. I had to pick between "Hold it Against Me," this, and "I Wanna Go." All of those songs could have taken this place, but I decided on this number, because its sexual tones are a little more subtle, and its song structure is a little different, but well-welcomed.
7. Pumped up Kicks-Foster the People
Indie kids got some time in the sun with Foster the People. Pumped Up Kicks has an unconventional topic (School shooting? Kid playing with dad's gun?) warped vocals, and easily the best bassline I've heard in quite a while. Sometimes, you find a fantastic dance song from the most unlikely places.
6. Edge of Glory-Lady Gaga
Edge of Glory has a strong level of sincerity, which can be hard to do with a happy-sounding song. Fortunately, she spares no expense with the vocals this time around. But let's be honest, it's the sax solo that lifts this song to such great levels, managing to evoke 80's era pop, while also giving it a timeless quality to set it apart of the other banal club jams. Lady Gaga, you make me believe in the pop song.
5. Next 2 You-Chris Brown and Justin Bieber
Haters back off, J. Bibbs has some pipes, and Breezy's got moves. Ignore the controversy, the public behavior, and the jokes, this is a really good song by two really good vocalists with an interesting melody (Tell me if you Pitchfork-reading punks ever talk about melodic quality!), and doesn't throw in a rap verse just to follow the formula. I'm a Belieber.
4. N****s in Paris-Jay-Z and Kanye West
If "Next 2 You" doesn't throw in a rap verse to follow the formula, "N****s in Paris" doesn't have a singer in it for some contrived hook. Instead, we get a floor-destroying beat, and two World-Class rappers do what they do best. This is a straight-up hip-hop jam with no apologies, and we were all the better for it.
3. Scary Monster and Nice Sprites-Skrillex
Everybody's been talking about dubstep this year, and part of that is thanks to this killer DJ. I hear this song, and I think of the nighttime, endless possibilities, and simply the joy of dancing. This is music! I just has to sound good to be good!
2. Paradise-Coldplay
Coldplay is a band everybody pretends they don't like, but they really love. They really take all the good parts about straight-up rock music and pop music to create wonderful sounds for the masses. Their music, and especially this song, is BEAUTIFUL in a way a lot of popular music doesn't try to be, especially since so much rockier music seems to be competing for who can be either more unlistenable or more esoteric. Paradise finds a good balance, and chimes like a bell to my ears.
1. F*** You!-Cee-low Green
I'm sure after Cee-Low recorded this, he probably said to himself, much like Johnny Depp as Ed Wood in the film of the same name, "This is it, this will be what they'll remember me for."
One of the best-selling rock bands of the 2000s dropped a one of their least-overtly angry songs, but I found it all the more effect. The line, "All I want to do/is trade this life for something new" haunts me, and the vocal contrast between the raggae-rapped verses and the sung verses compliments each other perfectly. This is a rock ballad that doesn't come off as boring or overblown.
11. Ready to Go-Panic! At the Disco
Best concert I went to this year. While you're favorite Indie band probably has some whispery, thin-voiced dude singing, Panic! At the Disco really sings out, showcasing a vocal poweress rarely displayed by male singers these days. This song motivates me, and definantly deserved more airtime this year. Buy Panic's new album, it's rad.
10. Rolling in the Deep-Adele
Part old-school, part original, Adele did exceptionally well with this beltin' tune. It's vindictive lyrics actually seemed like they were about somebody (they were) instead of a pack of contrived pop song rhymes. Over this year, I've found myself using the term, "Rolling in the Deep" to describe someone (A.) Someone with a lot of money, and (B.) someone overweight.
9. Young, Wild & Free-Wiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg, and Bruno Mars
Catchy as all get out, a fun little song that makes me feel nostalgic for right now. Snoop Dogg's flow is beautiful, Wiz is youthful, and Bruno Mars has some pipes put to good use. This is a perfect song to listen to when driving to a party, along with "I've Gotta Feeling" by the Black-Eyed Peas, and "Stronger" by Kanye West.
8. Britney Spears-'Til the World Ends
Britney Spears went from making Teeny-Bopper stuff to making great, GREAT club jams. I had to pick between "Hold it Against Me," this, and "I Wanna Go." All of those songs could have taken this place, but I decided on this number, because its sexual tones are a little more subtle, and its song structure is a little different, but well-welcomed.
7. Pumped up Kicks-Foster the People
Indie kids got some time in the sun with Foster the People. Pumped Up Kicks has an unconventional topic (School shooting? Kid playing with dad's gun?) warped vocals, and easily the best bassline I've heard in quite a while. Sometimes, you find a fantastic dance song from the most unlikely places.
6. Edge of Glory-Lady Gaga
Edge of Glory has a strong level of sincerity, which can be hard to do with a happy-sounding song. Fortunately, she spares no expense with the vocals this time around. But let's be honest, it's the sax solo that lifts this song to such great levels, managing to evoke 80's era pop, while also giving it a timeless quality to set it apart of the other banal club jams. Lady Gaga, you make me believe in the pop song.
5. Next 2 You-Chris Brown and Justin Bieber
Haters back off, J. Bibbs has some pipes, and Breezy's got moves. Ignore the controversy, the public behavior, and the jokes, this is a really good song by two really good vocalists with an interesting melody (Tell me if you Pitchfork-reading punks ever talk about melodic quality!), and doesn't throw in a rap verse just to follow the formula. I'm a Belieber.
4. N****s in Paris-Jay-Z and Kanye West
If "Next 2 You" doesn't throw in a rap verse to follow the formula, "N****s in Paris" doesn't have a singer in it for some contrived hook. Instead, we get a floor-destroying beat, and two World-Class rappers do what they do best. This is a straight-up hip-hop jam with no apologies, and we were all the better for it.
3. Scary Monster and Nice Sprites-Skrillex
Everybody's been talking about dubstep this year, and part of that is thanks to this killer DJ. I hear this song, and I think of the nighttime, endless possibilities, and simply the joy of dancing. This is music! I just has to sound good to be good!
2. Paradise-Coldplay
Coldplay is a band everybody pretends they don't like, but they really love. They really take all the good parts about straight-up rock music and pop music to create wonderful sounds for the masses. Their music, and especially this song, is BEAUTIFUL in a way a lot of popular music doesn't try to be, especially since so much rockier music seems to be competing for who can be either more unlistenable or more esoteric. Paradise finds a good balance, and chimes like a bell to my ears.
1. F*** You!-Cee-low Green
I'm sure after Cee-Low recorded this, he probably said to himself, much like Johnny Depp as Ed Wood in the film of the same name, "This is it, this will be what they'll remember me for."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)