Paris Je T'aime, Once

A rash of bad weather that cancelled both Chorale rehearsal on Tuesday and Lenten Wednesday night activities at the church left me with not one, but count 'em, TWO free evenings in a row (normally unheard of this time of year!). I took this blessing as an opportunity to watch more movies (what else are you gonna do when everything is iced over?).

On Tuesday I watched Paris Je T'aime, an incredible little concept film where many famous directors were each assigned a different arrondissement, then asked to write and direct a five minute love story that takes place in that section of Paris (and they each had only two days to shoot their short film). Some of the stories were rather bizarre, some quite poignant, some had a surprising twist at the end - it was fascinating to see what each director chose to do both in terms of content and style, and the overall film had a rather Altman-esque flavor to it. Huge thumbs up, though word to the wise, if you don't speak French, you need to turn on the subtitle function - the subtitles didn't pop up automatically (perhaps because the dialogue throughout is a mixture of English and French?).

Then last night I watched Once, another independent film that flew under most people's radars, but is also highly worth experiencing. It traces the story of a couple of heartbroken musicians who are sort of stuck in their lives, each in their own way. What begins as a chance encounter on the streets of Dublin blossoms into a beautiful friendship and creative musical partnership, with each acting as a catalyst for change in the other's life, helping them both to get unstuck, as it were. The music is a powerful presence in the film (to the point you might call it the third leading character), and most of it was actually written by the two leads (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova), who are songwriters, musicians, and friends in real life. It's gorgeous stuff, so now I'm coveting the soundtrack. . .big thumbs up for this one as well.

10 Songs About God

Picking up on the meme Mary posted in the Tensegrities blog, here is my own list of "10 Songs About God":

1. Where Are You Going? - Dave Matthews Band (Busted Stuff)
(I know it was quickly co-opted as a love song, but I hear it as a post-9/11 God's-eye view of Psalm 139)

2. Grace - U2 (All That You Can't Leave Behind)

3. Ordinary Town - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (drum hat buddha)

4. Kingdom Come - Coldplay (X&Y)

5. Family - Dar Williams (Mortal City)

6. I Hear Them All - Old Crow Medicine Show (Big Iron World)

7. The Ballad of Love and Hate - The Avett Brothers (Emotionalism)

8. Gentle Arms of Eden - Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer (drum hat buddha)

9. Love Will Find You - Storyhill (Storyhill)

10. Bartender - Dave Matthews Band (Busted Stuff)

Honorable mention:

Come to Jesus - Mindy Smith (One Moment More)
(seemed a little obvious - I was trying to stick with songs about God that didn't name God directly, per se)

The Story - Brandi Carlile (The Story)
(a bit of a stretch because of vs. 2, but fits my obsession with interlocking narratives, immersive story worlds, and their implications for our God talk)

Adrian - Mason Jennings (Century Spring)
(again, a bit of a stretch, but not too much I hope, to think of the voice of the narrator being Christ in, with, and under that of a lynching victim)

I'd be curious to hear what Jeni would put in the mix.

Happy listening,
Catrina

Atonement

I just saw Atonement at The Campus, and, WOW - it is beautifully and brilliantly filmed, powerfully scored - if you haven't yet seen it, you need to. Soon. I feel like I need to watch it again, just because it was so rich in imagery and language and symbolism - I'm sure I'll pick up more with repeated viewings.

But tonight I'll attempt to process a bit of the first time through. If you haven't seen it yet, and you don't like knowing anything about movies before you see them, quit reading now.

I'm serious, I'm going to talk in some detail about the film - don't say you weren't warned. . .

Where to begin? It's a tragedy, but it's a very odd sort of tragedy, for Briony's tragic flaw is her wild imagination, which sets off a chain of events that brings those around her down in typical tragic fashion, and it brings Briony down, in a sense, but not in the typical tragic fashion, for she has lived to tell the tale, and the survivor's guilt obviously weighs on her, there has been a "death" of the old Briony in that sense, but the tragic flaw didn't kill her outright as it normally does, and in fact, the untold story is that the tragic flaw is also the source of her comedy, of her rising, as we find out in the end that she is a successful writer. A haunted, yet successful, writer.

There is also a lot of playing with the truth in this story - this is a film of brutal honesty and brutal dishonesty. . .the whole tragic turn of events is set off by Briony's unreliable narration in the beginning, and it comes full circle as we discover that Briony is just as unreliable a narrator in the end - and yet, the story that plays in between is brutally honest as to the consequences of her dishonesty. It minces no words or images as to the grotesqueness of war, of separation, of estrangement. And Briony is at least fully honest about her dishonesty, both times, in the end.

Her dishonesty in the end is her attempt at atonement, of making the amends she was unable to make in her life, giving her sister Cecelia and C's paramour Robbie the happiness which they longed for, which she stole from them with her original dishonesty, by reuniting them and apologizing to them in the context of her final, autobiographical, piece of fiction. I would say this is Briony's attempt to redeem her story and her error, normally I would use the terms redemption and atonement rather interchangably, and yet, in the film it is clear, there is no redemption here, there was no resolution to the pain Briony has caused, there is only her atonement for what she has done, only this small gesture of kindness, offered too late in one sense, though offered before it's too late in another (before a condition that will cause her inevitable mental demise robs her completely of the memory).

Here again, the interplay of the tragedy and the comedy is fascinating, for it was through Briony's tragic flaw that Cecelia and Robbie met their deaths, and yet through this same imagination, in the end, she gives them life - in telling their story, their love lives on, their story continues every time it is read or told.

There is some rich religious imagery in the movie as well - some significant scenes involving immersion in water, as well as a confessional scene and a footwashing that are somewhat surreal oasis' in the midst of the brutal honesty - in retrospect, I'm thinking these latter two in particular are more of Briony's imaginative embellishments, but I'd need to go back and watch again to process what they might mean in the larger story.

Well, I think that's about as much traction as I'm going to get on this film tonight. If anyone else has seen it, comment or send me an e-mail, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Peace,
Catrina

Winter Weather Blues

People around here complain about the cold (though our "cold" is Minnesota's "warm-up"), and they freak out every time it snows, but personally speaking, I will gladly take +10 F with fluffy snow falling, or even a crisp, dry -10 F, over our current 33 F with freezing rain, any day of the week.

Snow is pretty and you can play in it. Cold dry air is both invigorating and purifying (and is usually accompanied by a gorgeously sunny day). The weather PA has right now (our second round for the week) make the roads a giant slip'n'slide and is the stuff from which Jane Austen characters are always contracting near-deathly illnesses.

And yet the local weatherman is always "happy to report" we'll be staying on the warmer edge of the system and will only see rain, not snow.

I say, drop the temp and bring on the snow!

Join the Revolution

I talked to my brother tonight to wish him a happy birthday, and after a rehash of the State of the Union address and a lengthy analysis of the Democratic primary race (what I can say? we're both political nerds and progressive activists) he was telling me about his latest efforts to promote his band. They're not on a label, just struggling (and, I fear, often starving) artists hoping to make a life doing what they love.

His latest strategy is to do a mass-marketing campaign via myspace (along with a new digital download program for his music). The whole idea is just fascinating to me, because he could literally reach thousands of people a day, inviting them to check out his site, and if even a fraction of them are willing to pay a buck to buy one of his songs, he might actually start making a livable wage, not to mention building the exposure and fan base that could land him better venues and better-paying gigs. Another illustration, I guess, of the kind of grassroots moblization that is possible via the internet and these social networking sites.

If you want to help him out and join the revolution, check out Mongoo Music and have a listen, or, if you're in the Twin Cities, go to one of his shows. The digital download stuff isn't fully functional yet (in part, he needs to get some cleaner recordings), but if you like any of his songs in particular, either let me know or let him know directly through myspace, so he knows which songs to get up and running first.

Peace,
Catrina

Our Newest Member

Normally when I get a phone call in the wee hours of the morning, it's bad news. Normally it means I have the span of three rings to

a) wake up, and

b) pull myself together enough mentally to care for a person in crisis.

But this morning I got woken up to some incredibly awesome news: our newest member made her long-awaited entrance in the middle of the night. She is already gifted with impeccable timing, arriving exactly on her due date. I got a chance to hold her tonight at the hospital, and she is ADORABLE.

So please join me in saying, Welcome to the world, Molly Elizabeth! We are so glad you are here!

Immersive Story Worlds

Text study, the week before Christmas, last year. My colleagues and I were discussing how people generally seem to be more open to the idea of miracles around this time of year, and I make a passing comment about everybody needing a Father Clarence at some point in their life.

Andy's eyes go wide in dawning realization, he snaps his fingers, points at me and says "You watch All My Children!"

Busted!

Wayne's eyes go wide in disbelief as he blurts out "YOU watch a soap?" This information apparently rocked his world, as every time he saw me over the next month, he would shake his head and chuckle and mutter something about not being able to believe it, still.

But yes, I watch All My Children, a fact I don't quickly reveal about myself because it tends to solicit responses like Wayne's. Apparently, many find it a quirk in my character that goes against type.

But I watch for many reasons. I watch because, growing up, I watched All My Children with my mother and/or grandmother every lunch hour that I was home sick or on vacation from school. I watch because my grandmother still watches All My Children every day, and it's a area of conversation in which this amazing woman who claims she "don't know much of nothin" is still the expert and can school her overeducated grandaughter.

I watch because, by its very name (and the poem that used to be in the opening credits), All My Children presumes God as an omnipresent (if unseen) character, and it even occasionally engages the God stuff directly (usually around Christmastime, with the help of Father Clarence).

I watch because soaps get human sin and dysfunction. Certainly, they kick it up a notch. But honestly, after three years in the parish, it's only a notch or two beyond the kind of stuff that shakes down in real life. So it's - weirdly - kind of a relief and somewhat normalizing to watch and realize, this is just how people are. And oddly cathartic to see lives that are messy or melting down that I am no way responsible to help sort out.

I watch because soaps get tragedy and comedy, fall and redemption. I watch because All My Children, at its best, is true to its genre - it is operatic, dealing in archetypes, telling an epic story that is far greater than the sum of its parts. In the end, then, I love All My Children for the same reasons I love Harry Potter, the same reasons I love Star Wars - because I am a literary nerd and a well-told epic tale sucks me in every time.

Turns out, I am not the only one. Thanks to Mary's blog, I found out there is an MIT doctoral student actually writing their PhD dissertation on soaps, claiming they are one of the few "immersive story worlds" in our media culture right now (the other main two being DC or Marvel comics, and professional wrestling). Immersive story worlds, the author explains, are "narratives that are developed over time with a large volume of characters and text. Many of the reasons why people are attracted to these narratives deal with the depth and breadth of these stories and the feeling that these narratives are immortal."

In other words, in the face of our own fragility and finitude, we like to immerse ourselves in and yoke ourselves to stories that are bigger than ourselves, meta-narratives whose apparent immortality give us some sense of assurance that our story will carry on, even after we ourselves have returned to the dust from which we came.

I think this doctoral student is right on, and I think there are clear implications for the gospel in this line of thinking. After all, the great history of God's people, of God's desire to bring life and salvation to "all my children," is another immortal meta-narrative to which many of us yoke ourselves. But I'm not so sure we Christians, at least, immerse ourselves in that narrative in the same way.

I think our Jewish brothers and sisters do a much better job of this. I have admittedly limited experiences of observing Shabbat, but every time I have been overwhelmed by how alive the Scriptures seeemed to be within the worshipping community. It's not ancient history, it's immersive story world, it's ongoing meta-narrative of which they are very much a part.

By contrast, in much of the Christian worship I have experienced, the Scriptures feel like dead words on a page. Not that we don't take them seriously, not that we don't treat them reverently and read them with our slow, sober NPR voices. But they're just not alive in the same way among the body of worshippers. I'd like to blame it on the Joel Osteens and Joyce Meyers of the world, with their prosperity gospel and self-help sermons, turning the Bible into a glorified reference and rule book. But I think the problem predates them.

And while I'm not totally sure how to convince others to do this, how to get them to "get" it, I have a feeling in my gut that says re-immersing ourselves in the great story, reclaiming the living Word in our worship, is what we who call ourselves the Christian people of God ought to be up to. I have a feeling in my gut that says seeing ourselves as interconnected players in a story much bigger than our own might just change the way we live out our interactions with all of God's children today.

Peace,
Catrina

PS - I saw Juno tonight at The Campus. Some of the dialogue felt like it was trying a little too hard to be clever, but other than that, it was a well-done dark comedy. Bonus points for apparently taking place in Minnesota (never tells you where Juno actually lives, but based on the contextual references, I'm guessing the town is a stand-in for Elk River). Thumbs up.