Bruce Cockburn live in Seattle
I promised a report on the live Bruce Cockburn show in Seattle on Wednesday, so here it is at last.
Bruce played an intimate set in the beautiful Nordstrom Recital Hall, a smaller venue adjoining Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle. He was meditative, less talkative than usual (probably because this is the tour promoting his instrumental collection Speechless.) But his guitar playing was as transporting and gorgeous as ever. When he sang, the songs focused on travel, vehicles, change, violence, and a yearning for the coming day when he will shuffle off this mortal coil.
After performing two new songs about his visit to Baghdad and his frustrations with Dubya, someone shouted, "Play a happy song!" Everyone laughed, and then he smirked and replied, "I'll play one of the party songs I'm known for..." Hilarious.
Here's a run-down of the set-list:
Rouler Sa Bosse
Going to the Country
Silver Wheels
Mighty Trucks of Midnight (Second only to "Lord of the Starfields" as my favorite song of his, and it sounded GREAT.)
King Kong Goes to Tallahassee
Wondering Where the Lions Are
If a Tree Falls
Elegy (A glorious, soulful instrumental that would have been right at home on Bill Frisell's Ghost Town.)
Wait No More
*
Water into Wine
All the Ways I Want You
Put It In Your Heart
This is Baghdad (A broad-stroke, simplistic summation of the Iraq War as AMERICA BAD AND EVIL/IRAQIS SCARED AND VULNERABLE. He probably could have written this after reading any Bush-bashing editorial; not sure why he had to go to Baghdad to find these lyrics.)
Tell the Universe (Or better, TELL THE UNIVERSE DUBYA IS A BASTARD.)
After the Rain
Last Night of the World
The End of All Rivers (One of the highlights, an energetic instrumental fed through an echo box that created a spellbinding loop, so it sounded like three dueling guitars.)
Messenger Wind
*
If I Had a Rocket Launcher
Pacing the Cage (Exquisite, brought tears to many eyes, mine included.)
Mistress of Storms
Mystery (A delightful new folky singalong-style song. "I was built on a Friday and you can't fix me/ you can't fix me/ you can't fix me.")
You can see recent photos and other information about recent shows at CockburnProject.net.
Looking Elsewhere: November 9, 2005
Wednesday's specials:
YOURS, MINE, OUR FAITH
Huh. Peter T. Chattaway mentioned today that, lo and behold, Dennis Quaid's a Christian, and now I wish I'd had a different list of questions when I attended the film junket for In Good Company. He grew up Baptist, and married a Baptist girl from Texas. Whaddaya know. He has some interesting comments here, and I'm just baffled that I haven't picked up on this before.
AERIAL AMAZES, CHAOS "SENTIMENTAL"
Josh Hurst on Kate Bush and Sir Paul McCartney.
"SAD JOYFULNESS"
Over the Rhine gets mentioned, and Linford gets interviewed, in Free Times today.
STUNT!
Japan's about to see "Born to Fight." And it's got a trailer you have to see to believe. Banzai!
Gondry's new video
When videos as wild as this one actually get produced, and as perfectly as this, well... it should just send other music video directors and bands home with their heads hanging.
Bortz on Africa
Jason Bortz, whose short documentary on aid to Africa called Scratching the Surface was recently in the spotlight at Christianity Today, has written a piece for The Other Journal about his experience. Check it out here.
People have asked if it was difficult to take a film crew to Kenya to film a documentary dealing with the pandemic of AIDS and the seemingly ineffectual efforts of a handful of people to stem the tide of affliction and disease. Our documentary, Scratching the Surface; A Journey with HEART, deals primarily with the efforts of a handful of volunteers who travel to Kenya to teach the nationals about health education, the curtailing of AIDS, and how to protect them from the further destruction of a nation.
Going was surprisingly far less difficult than I thought it would be. In fact, the most difficult obstacle to deal with was the loss of my journal.
If I had it, I’d be able to simply recount some of the thoughts pouring through me as I journeyed along for the two and a half weeks of my stay. I say pouring because it’s really like that—you’re either a sieve or a sponge when faced with a reality in such stark contrast to your own. The walls go up or they come down. There’s really no middle ground.
I have one email I sent to my wife and friends back home, one email that comes close to recapturing where I was during my stay...
A new column
In Phase Three of my plans for world domination, this month I'll begin publishing a monthly column--Response onScreen--in SPU's online version of Response Magazine.
I'll post the link when the first edition goes live near the end of November. It will focus on new big screen biopics--Capote, Good Night and Good Luck, and Walk the Line (which I'm seeing on Tuesday.)
Early next week, I'll be catching that elusive train to Hogwarts to check out the latest film in the Harry Potter franchise. This one's directed by Mike Newell, who made one of my favorite family films... Into the West. So I'm optimistic. And the trailer is thrilling. The review will be up first thing on opening day, so watch for it.
Who's read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire? Is it your favorite of the series? What are you eager to see? What do you hope they don't screw up? (Try to avoid major spoilers in your comments please. I haven't read the book, though, so I'm interested in what Potter readers are concerned about.)
Thursday: The Squid and Bruce Cockburn
Last night I saw one of the year's best films--The Squid and the Whale--which is a deeply saddening film about the consequences of divorce and joint custody on children.
Noah Baumbach first got my attention in 1995 with a delightfully rowdy comedy about college and dating called Kicking and Screaming. He also co-wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou for Wes Anderson. The guy has a thing for telling honest and poignant stories about love, ego, and broken families.
Here, has brought to life a severely dysfunctional family: foul-mouthed, selfish, sexually misbehaving, and almost entirely naive when it comes to love. The result is often unpleasant and sometimes downright painful, in the same way that Ang Lee's The Ice Storm was painful. But it's funny, convincing, and full of passion. You can tell that Baumbach needs to tell this story. And the result is a memorable and meaningful picture.
It also features what I believe to be the best performance of Jeff Daniels' career. You've never seen him do anything like it.
For discerning adults only. The parents swear like they're trying to break some kind of record, and thus their kids follow in kind.
My full review will be up late tomorrow, and I'll cover it in CT's Film Forum as well.
* * *
Tomorrow night I'll be attending Bruce Cockburn's solo show at Benaroya Hall in downtown Seattle. I can't wait. I think this is my fifth Cockburn show. He never lets me down. And since he's supporting his new instrumental album, Speechless, it'll probably be focused more on his guitar pyrotechnics and less on his radio singles. That's fine with me.
I'll give you a run-down of the show on Thursday.
CNN, John Wilson, & Jesus novels
UPDATE: Now, read John Wilson's commentary on Anne Rice at Books and Culture.
John Wilson, editor of Books and Culture, was quoted today in a new CNN article covering Anne Rice's new focus on Christian faith, her new novel Christ the Lord, and the latest novel by Walter Wangerin: Jesus: A Novel.
John Wilson, editor of the evangelical journal Books & Culture, said the conjunction of the Jesus novels by Rice and Wangerin isn't surprising -- writers have continually produced fiction about Jesus. Among them: Sholem Asch, Anthony Burgess, Robert Graves, Nikos Kazantzakis, D. H. Lawrence, Norman Mailer, Jose Saramago and Gore Vidal.
It's a difficult challenge. None of these novels are masterpieces and "often they just seem absurd," Wilson said. "You don't know whether to laugh or to cry, both with the pious variety and the debunkers."
As for Rice, he thinks she simply "had taken this flirtation with evil as far as it would go and returned to the good."
The Arts and Faith Top 100
Film critics and cinephiles at the Arts and Faith Conversation have revised their list of 100 Spiritually Significant Films, and the picture has changed dramatically.
Michael Leary offers a fantastic commentary on the list over at The Matthews House Project.
How many of the Top 100 have you seen? What inclusions are you most pleased to see there? What's missing from the list?
I didn't participate in the voting for this year's list, partly out of frustration over understanding the definition of a "spiritually significant film." Many films that I think are spiritually significant do not deal blatantly with religious material. Many are spiritually significant particularly through their aesthetics, rather than their narrative.
Still, the films on this list are indeed profound pieces of work, and while I'm still not sure exactly what the list is, I appreciate a great many of the titles included.
Evangelism through fiction
Christianity Today looks into a popular new book from WaterBrook Press:
Dinner with a Perfect Stranger.
In the past few years, fiction used as straight-up apologetics rather than literature or entertainment has gained ground in the Christian marketplace. Brian McLaren did this in A New Kind of Christian, which is less about plot than about dialogue that conveys certain theological views.
Now author and speaker David Gregory uses a similar, if more succinct, device in the July release of his evangelistic, inspirational novella, Dinner with a Perfect Stranger. Classified as "Christian Living/Spiritual Growth" by its publisher, and rightfully so, it is less about the craft of fiction and more about the evangelization of seekers and the reinforcement of certain doctrines for questioning believers.
...
Using books for evangelism has a noble and notable track record. But perhaps the character of Nick offers the best answer of all for seekers. "What is your deepest desire?" Jesus asks Nick, who answers, "I suppose people's greatest desire is to be loved." Jesus tells Nick that no one can satisfy our need to be loved as God can. What finally intrigues Nick about Christianity is not church programs, or catchy sermons, or even a book. It's the person of Jesus himself, and by inference, the saving knowledge of Jesus's unconditional love for him. Although Jesus's gently reasoned arguments for Christianity are compelling, there still remains a place for a leap of faith into those arms of love.
Good food for thought.
Has anyone here read this yet? Any thoughts?
Over the Rhine: Grammy time?
If you love Over the Rhine (and how could you not?)...
and if you believe in justice...
well, then do what you can to bring them the honor they deserve.
The Grammies are not known for being awarded to the artists that deserve them, but once in a while something goes the way it should. (Bob Dylan, Time Out of Mind. U2, "Beautiful Day.") Like the Oscars, once in a while something providential occurs, bringing attention, celebration, and blessing to someone devoted to excellence. It looks like that horse called Drunkard's Prayer just might have a shot this year.