same old

what I've been doing instead of blogging

It's just sunk in how screwed up my value system is...

I made a remix!

So I just finished my second ever remix! (the first one is just embarrassing)

Anyway, check it out here!



And if you'd like, check out the original here!


www.myspace.com/thetremulance

And you should go buy the new Tremulance Record "Polaroids" Out everywhere... more realistically though... you can order it at HMV and download off iTunes.

Peace

Look Out For Us Cyclists!

books worth reading

When I started writing in this blog, I was going to write about different books that I've read. Needless to say, I've done a horrible job at this. There have been plenty of books that I have read that I think are well worth the read. I guess you should just ask sometime.

Meanwhile, I just finished this book.


Besides that fact that it made the point that I'm not really doing anything with my life right now, this book was well worth the read. I would recommend it to anyone, especially people who do not understand a thing about areas of the world such as Pakistan and Afghanistan. There's even a children's version of the book. Check it out little ones reading my blog...

I guess I should give a brief summary. Greg Mortesen, after a failed attempt of climbing K2, finds himself recovering in the small village of Korphe in the Himalayan Mountains of Pakistan. When he asks the village what he could do to repay them for their hospitality, Mortesen is asked to buid a school for Korphe. The rest of the book tells the story of Mortesen raising money for the school, returning to Pakistan, and eventually being asked to build more schools. It is an amazing story of both self-sacrifice, and a creative approach to peace buidling that doesn't use violence. (So far it's the best approach I've heard to the war on terror.)

Anyway, read it.

Mixed Messages

The following is an article my friend shared with me on the distribution of Bibles in Afghanistan by American Soldiers, followed by my response to him. Let me know what you think of both the article and the response.

The Article:
Read this first: US army 'does not promote religion' (Al Jazeera)

The Response:

"hmm, this is really interesting. I'm not even really sure how to respond to it.

On one hand, Al Jazerra is at fault for making the huge generalization that the America Army, as a whole, is responsible for the propagation of conversion. It's obvious that not every soldier nor every american is a christian and feels the need to convert as many muslims as possible.

On the other hand, what place does the American government have to tell these soldiers they are not allowed to share their beliefs. Don't get me wrong, I not sure these soldiers and chaplains were being very smart about the whole situation, but let's face it, sharing your faith is a core and essential component to the Christian faith. In doing this, the American government is only offering a conditional freedom of religion. If a freedom is conditional, is it really true freedom? The whole issue reminds me of Pax Romana. Is peace inforced by the military really true peace? ... Read more

This whole thing really strengthens the argument for pacifism. How can a christian don the uniform of an organization that is not only killing people, but denying them their responsibility to be christian witnesses. I guess it goes along with Jesus' teaching, "you cannot serve two masters." Perhaps you cannot be in the military and be a witness in the Middle East.

In the end though, I don't see... Read more why everyone is getting so upset about distributing a text that is seen as part of the Muslim scriptures to Muslims...

What did you think when you were reading this? Is anything I'm saying making sense to you or do you think I'm way off?"

So what do you think? Let's have a conversation.

The Arcade Fire

When I saw this version of Wake Up in the Arcade Fire's new film, Mirror Noir, it gave me goose bumps. I then grabbed my phone and texted my friend Jamison, instructing him to immediately commence watching the film.

I also think that you should watch Mirror Noir. (They're currently streaming it on Pitchfork.tv as part of their "One Week Only" series.) It's done by the same guys who put together all of these blogotheque movies I show you and it's utterly beautiful. Here's a taste of it for now

Questioning Our Motives

Here is some interesting news in reference to the war in Afghanistan

If recent weeks are anything to go by, it looks like violence could escalate far beyond the record levels it hit last year. In January and February, the number of American troop fatalities increased threefold compared with the same period in 2008. Meanwhile, according to the Associated Press, foreign soldiers were responsible for more civilian deaths in those first two months than the insurgents.

In other words, Associated Press is reporting that Allied forces in Afghanistan are killing more civilians than the Taliban did.

What?

Is violence really the best option, or have we not yet learned that Pax Romana is not really peace?

My current view on Twitter

Thanks to a friend for pointing this one out.

The good things in life.

Wow, I just realized that a lot has happened in my life since my last post. It's more of that stuff that I don't really want to talk about in public. If you really want to know what's been going on and you know me, send me an email or something and I'll try to bring you up to speed. As for the rest of you nameless peoples, just know - for the sake of the rest of this post - that a lot has gone on in my life over the past month. It's been as one of my friends described, an emotional roller coaster.

So I've got this emotional roller coaster going, and school is throwing a whole bunch of work at me quite suddenly. I'm working on my third paper of this week right. It's a 9 pager due tomorrow and when it's done, I need to get right started on another. On top of all this, I have a two fairly large events coming up at school that I'm organizing and putting on. My stress levels are rising and at the same time, my bank account is dropping... significantly.

School's particularly rough right now because of the classes I have. Namely, all of my classes have little or nothing to do with what I want to end up doing - whatever that may be. I know I don't want to be a pastor, or a youth pastor, or a worship pastor, or a glorified overseas pastor (we call them missionaries here), so doing a paper on correctly interpreting the book of Jonah, or learning about church history... all of these things seem pointless to me. I lack so much motivation right now, its not in the least bit funny.

Then there's the problem that I don't know where I'm going in life. This gets me down. I started out the year wanting to do something that would change the world in some sort of significant way. Now I just want to find a really good paying job to comfortably support some future family that, I keep having to remind myself, doesn't exist yet. And what ever I end up doing, I don't want to become a pastor.

So this has turned into a whine fest and that was never the intent. I apologize for boring you with my complaints. Here is where I meant to go with this.

I was walking to the public library yesterday with all of these things weighing heavily upon me - in the rain I might add - when I started noticing a few things. For starters, I was listening to my favorite Wilco song, "I'm Just Trying to Break Your Heart." Aside from the simple fact that both the band and the record are beautiful in and of itself, the song is simply amazing. It was also in this moment that I caught a glimpse of a grandmother playing with her toddler grandson in the front window of there simple duplex. The song, paired with moment shared between the child, grandmother, and unknown bystander was exactly what I needed in that moment. It was a gift from God, showing me the simple fact that there are still very good things in this world.

As I reflected on this brief moment in time, I realized how necessary it is for me to remember the good things in life, however simple they may be.

Edit: I just realized the I may have offended somebody by calling missionaries "glorified overseas pastors." Pleas don't take offense, what I wrote was written out of a little but of bitterness and frustration. I think there are many noble missionaries out there who do a lot of good for the world.

Throat Singing Cellphones.

Before I get to far into this, I have a confession to make. After my fairly lengthily entry, posted in August, on why I do not own a cellphone, I feel a certain responsibility to fess up. On Friday, I went out and picked up a cellphone.

Now this is the part where I begin issuing forth a number of excuses for my hypocrisy. The truth is, I don't really want to offer any sort of excuse, I feel as if I do not need to justify anything. In fact, if I were to offer an excuse, it would be as simple as stating that the original article was written at a time where I genuinely felt that I had no use for a cellphone. To avoid further detail that is not really relevant or even really interesting to the reader, I will simply say that my needs - and I'll admit - desires for owning a cell phone have changed.

Now that that is out of the way, the only thing remaining for me to do is to remove the no cellphones sticker from my guitar case.

In other - non-related news, let's move on to throat singing (which isn't really news at all).

The following group, Huun Huur Tu, is a group of musicians from the Republic of Tuva, a country I had never heard of until my discovery of the group. I stumbled across Huun Huur Tu in my YouTube searches for Tibetan music during my long Christmas break. Tibetean music lead to throat singing, which lead to Mongolian music, which lead to Huun Huur Tu. Upon discovery of Huun Huur Tu, I set out to find any recorded music I could of them. This lead me to the beautiful record "Fly, Fly My Sadness," - a record more than worth finding. The record is filled with harmonized throat singing, chourses of singers, and errie stringed melodies.

The following videos are examples of the sort of sound these musicians create. The first is an example of harmonized throat signing. The second is an example of throat singing whistleing. Both kinds of throat singing are foreign to me and I'd be the first to admit I know nothing about them, but it is certainly enjoyable to listen to and appreciate, so I thought I would share.

Enjoy!

Best Album of 2009 so far.

Merriweather Post Pavilion was more than worth the wait.

Plug