today's awesome

Arcade Fire keeps further convincing me of their innovative awesomness... today with the most unique spin on a music video I've seen.

If you haven't already, go download Google Chrome, then visit The Wilderness Downtown. It's an interactive short film set to "We Used to Wait" (one of the best songs on their new record, IMO) and it's pretty amazing. You enter the address of your childhood home, and... well, I won't spoil it. If it seems glitchy, then wait (ha) and refresh it. It's worth it.

I will say I just spent a good hour playing around on the website... feeling rather nostalgic and bittersweet now.

Screencap unashamedly stolen from Pop Candy

sunday happiness*4

Starting the week with happy things...

1) My fourth Sunday at Engaging Life. It's starting to feel like home. (As my sister says, it's official when the pastor is following you on Twitter. :))
2) Rainy + overcast +breezy = hints of fall in the air!
3) Driving with the windows down
4) New Brooke Fraser song! Kind of different, but it's impossible to listen without feeling happy.



5) Made chocolate chip brownies from scratch for the first time...
6) ...from random unsweetened chocolate I found in the back of the cabinet! Just a day past the expiration date, but still good.
7) Beautiful new blog header my sister made for me
8) Two weeks until Night of Joy/Momentum 2010!
9) The "recharged" feeling after the weekend.
10) Possibilities.

Happy new week!

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt / Pink Sherbet Photography

sleep-in fail and a book review

Oh, Saturday. I've been weirdly exhausted all week, even to the point of sick a couple mornings, even enough to make the painful decision to skip out on a free John Mark McMillan concert last night. Good thing too... I started crashing early (might've been earlier if I hadn't been engrossed in a book), and looked forward to a good sleep-in.

Um, nope. Woke up at 7am. Seven! Stupid brain wired to wake up early no matter what.

But this isn't about my sleeping habits... but rather the thing that ruined them the past several nights. Yes, a book. I am talking about The Hunger Games.


This morning, after my failed attempts to go back to sleep, I grabbed it off my bedside table and plowed through the entire last third until I hit End of Book One. I picked up the paperback a few weeks ago, since the last book was releasing soon and it got a lot of love from YA fans, but a part of me was skeptical. (As much as I love YA, I've been getting... kind of burned by this genre lately.) Fortunately, it turned out to be an engaging read that left me thinking long after I turned the last page and stumbled out of bed.

The story, in short, is set in Panem, a post-Apocalyptic shell of what used to be America where once a year, the people are compelled to watch a televised event where kids fight to the death. A boy and a girl from each of the 12 districts is chosen by lottery and shipped off to the Capitol to be primed for a twisted futuristic vision of reality TV. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen's little sister is chosen, she volunteers to step in, and when the Games begin, the only thing that matters is surviving.

Sounds horrible? It is. And yet... not as horrible as I felt it could've been.


The reason this book left me thinking so long and hard isn't so much the subject matter as much as how I reacted to it. I wanted to feel Katniss' pain... feel shocked and horrified, shed a few tears even. But I didn't. That puzzles me.

The entire story is told from Katniss' point of view, but there's something clinical about it, so matter-of-fact. While the arena experience is reported in vivid detail (though, mercifully, some of the more brutal deaths are kept "off screen"), it still feels less than real. Even in the tragic death of a minor character, one that I wanted to feel sad for, it still felt so much like a game.


The most disturbing thing is that I wasn't more disturbed. Normally, I'd think this were a problem, but in a story about a desensitized future world that glories in death -- the death of children! -- it actually seems appropriate. Why wouldn't the narrative voice of a girl who's spent her whole life in the throes of poverty, already fighting to survive every day of her life, tell her story in such a way? Maybe the whole point is to feel revolted and riveted all at once. It's kind of brilliant, actually.

There's a scene where Katniss is squeamishly treating another character's injury, and he asks her how she can handle hunting. "Killing things is much easier than this," she replies. It's a telling scene about her weaknesses, and perhaps, how we handle suffering. We're surrounded by the idea of pain and injustice... what happens when we meet it face to face? (Ceridwen, a Goodreads user, puts this idea way more eloquently in her review.)

It's a gripping story, and I realized after it was done I wanted to get the next two books, like, right now. (In fact, I'm already pricing hardcover box sets for my next Borders coupon!) I want to know how the story ends and see the Capitol brought down. That makes for a successful story, I'd say.

not so back to school

School started back in Central Florida this week. In the midst of frantic Target shoppers raiding the school supplies, kids lining up to catch the bus in front of the apartment buildings on my street, doing a little happy dance in my car when I saw said kids because I didn't get stuck waiting for them to finish loading the bus, and a whole bunch of back to school posts in my Twitter feed from college, high school, and mom friends alike, it's kind of hard not to notice.

I know a lot of people who are experiencing something different this year. Moms sending their kids to new schools, whether kindergarten or college. College friends moving on, whether to a new state or a new campus.

Even though I'm not buying notebooks and triple-checking class schedules anymore, I do love this time of year. Fall is on the way, new things are starting, new lessons to be learned. (Well, that and I've always been a sucker for school supplies. Notebooks and pens.... oooooh....)

This time four years ago, I was starting up my last term at UCF: Field Video Production, Radio Programming, Women in Literature, Drama as Literature. (Don't ask me to remember my actual class schedule. I do remember Radio Wednesday nights and Drama online at least. :)) Thinking about the cap and gown. Stocking up on supplies. Telling myself I was ready to be done, but secretly knowing deep down I was going to miss it.

Four years. I really do miss it.

Here's to those of you going back to school, whatever the year may be. Make memories. Enjoy this time while you got it. It's true about everything in life.

***

On a less bittersweet note....

• Music Monday! New review at JFH today... check out my Second Opinion review of Chris August's debut No Far Away
• September will be busy on the review front too. Super busy. Anberlin, Chris Sligh, and... a Christmas record. Yes. Bethlehem Skyline Vol 2 from Centricity Records. I'm actually really excited about the idea of breaking out merry tunes when fall's barely warming up. (or cooling off. whatever.)
• Like my snazzy new header? My super rad Photoshop guru sister made it. =) Thanks Sherri! Check out her blog to see more of her skillz. (and some !!!WEREWOLF ACTION!!! Well, okay. A werewolf. But no action.)

Photo by Avolore

HP Reading Challenge = Fail.

Y'know what? I failed at that Harry Potter Reading Challenge. Utterly. So much for reading them all by July 31st.

But whatever... my new goal is to read them all before Deathly Hallows Part 1 hits theaters. I'll set my own reading goals, dangit. :P


So... right. I finished Prisoner of Azkaban late the other night... in which we are introduced to Sirius Black and Professor Lupin (best. DADA teacher. ever.), get hints of the source of Snape's drama, and find out why the heck anyone thought it was a good idea to put a homicidal plant on the Hogwarts campus.

This has always been one of my favorites in the series... odd, because it has quite a few haters, but I don't care. Sure, the whole time travel bit is very deus ex machina, and there are way too many long, drawn out conversations that solely exist to explain everything (the pub chat, the Shrieking Shack), but... seriously. It marks the beginning of the series' darker side, and yet is one last fun ride before the ending of Goblet of Fire where everything begins to spiral out of control.

And it's the last book with a "Quidditch is a wizarding sport, and here is every ridiculous rule just in case you forgot what I said last time" paragraph. Bludgers, Quaffle, Snitch, we get it. Next book, there's no Quidditch at all. Hooray!

But most importantly: !!!WEREWOLF ACTION!!! Lupin still owns.

I wouldn't put it as the best of the series (I'm still thinking Order of the Phoenix for that title... unless a second read of Deathly Hallows changes my mind), but I still find it one of the most enjoyable.

Plus, the boggart/Snape-in-a-dress bit still makes me giggle.

cheap music skillz

(Aside: I meant to bring back Music Monday with this post... had it scheduled and everything. Too bad I forgot to click publish. Fail. Please enjoy Music Monday on a Wednesday.)

So I got the new Arcade Fire record for $3.99 on Amazon Mp3 last week.

And for those not keeping score on Twitter, that means in less than three months, I got all three of their albums for a grand total of $13.99. I should be proud of my thrifty music shopping skillz, but I still kind of feel like I'm cheating on my beloved favorite record store. I wonder if re-purchasing The Suburbs on vinyl would be suitable atonement?

Welcome to the future, I guess. How long before I cave to the Kindle or iPad for my book obsession?

***

In a great twist of hypocrisy, I direct you to a selection from Amazon's $5 albums worth your attention. I'm slightly disappointed in this month's selections (I see a couple I might risk because they got good reviews, but not a whole lot stands out...), but there's a gem in there by the name of The Medicine by John Mark McMillan.

This is seriously one of the best worship records I've heard in a long time. Yes worship. Don't be deterred. This is not happy-clappy praise choruses that go on forever and ever (amen). It's more like Bruce Springsteen and Chris Tomlin hung out and listened to some Dead Weather and wrote a worship record. (something like that) It's dark, gritty, earthy, and intense. It's an album about life and death and resurrection... and the lyrics. Oh, the lyrics. I love a writer that can take our mundane world of concrete and interstates and turn it into something transcendent. Some of my favorites...

"Love's like a hurricane, I am a tree / Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy... / So we are His portion and He is our prize, / Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes / If grace is an ocean we're all sinking / So heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss and my heart turns violently inside of my chest / I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way / That he loves us..." (How He Loves)

"Bury all your guns in the sand / Cause the temperature's changed / and the blood shot eye of the sun stains the bones of the slain / Would you come alive everybody / Would you come alive everyone / Get up out of bed for the sound of the song unsung" (Reckoning Day)

"Cause I'm a dead man now / With a ghost who lives / Within the confines of / These carbon ribs / And one day when I'm free I will sit / The cripple at your table / The cripple by your side" (Carbon Ribs)

"Dance the dance / We call living and dying / In the valley of the city / in the belly of the lion / Work all week long / All week long / You can lose your soul / In the concrete riverbeds / Rolling with the flow / Of the currents of the walking deads / Five comes and you're a rolling stone" (Belly of the Lion)

Legendary Chris Hauser sold me on it by using the term "Southern gothic." It's so good. If you need your faith in worship music revived, check it out.

a milestone.

This is only important to me. That disclaimer said, here's the news:

As of today, 3 years and 3 months after signing my life away, I completely, honestly, 100% own a car that is not a hand-me-down. My sweet little Civic is officially paid off.


Today, it's kind of like, "yeah, okay. Car's paid off, woot." But when the usual due date rolls around and I don't have to give Honda money, there will be much rejoicing in Jen's heart. =)

Long live the car. May she run forever(ish).

Of Monkeys and Rabbits: A Book Review

Returning to blogging business with a long long overdue book review. Seriously, I mentioned this book over a month ago. Whoops! Presenting some thoughts on Rachel Held Evans' new memoir Evolving in Monkey Town.

***

It's been a little while since I finished Evolving in Monkey Town. Every time I try to write a review, my mind goes wandering down a rabbit trail into ideas that deserve posts of their own, more coherently phrased.

I'd say that's a good thing. Monkey Town is kind of like a little sign with a painted arrow on it that shows me where the trails are and begs me to follow. Not monkeys, but rabbits.

Okay. Enough animal metaphors. Bear with me... I'm trying to review a book here. =)

Faith Evolution

Evolving in Monkey Town is, at least on the surface, a memoir exploring the notion of doubt and questions, much like Jason Boyett did with O Me of Little Faith. Though recent articles and blogs would describe it as the story of a girl from the Bible Belt embracing evolution, the "evolving" in the title is less about big bangs and monkeys and more about faith evolution, that sometimes, in order for faith to survive life's harsh environments, it has to evolve not through having the answers, but through asking questions. Questioning faith isn't always a popular approach in the evangelical world, but in Rachel's story, it turns out that, "In the end, it was doubt that saved [her] faith." (pg 119)

Rachel grew up in Dayton, Tennessee, home of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. (For those like me who are bad at history, you can get the Wikipedia'd version here) This is a place deep in the heart of the South where apologetics rules and faith defines you like your last name. In her story, she talks about her Christian upbringing with a theologian father and kind-hearted teacher mother, a combination of "bleeding heart" and "cautious idealism" that she jokingly says "accidentally made me into a liberal." (pg 30) For years, she felt certain of her faith, her identity, until a post-9/11 video of a Muslim woman named Zarmina's unjust execution brought her to a "faith malfunction." (pg 89) She describes the crisis in painfully honest detail:

"Suddenly abstract concepts about heaven and hell, election and free will, religious pluralism and exclusivism had a name: Zarmina. I felt like I could come to terms with Zarmina's suffering if it were restricted to this lifetime, if I knew that God would grant her some sort of justice after death. But the idea that this woman passed from agony to agony, from torture to torture, from a lifetime of pain and sadness to an eternity of pain and sadness, all because she had less information about the gospel than I did, seemed cruel, even sadistic." (91)

In print, the questions look so hard, so bitter, but Rachel captures well the storm in the soul, the darkness of doubt. What follows is her own story of redemption, coming to terms with growing up, the highs and lows of following Christ, and keeping her faith through the struggles, even when it's hard. She wrestles openly with the struggles and comes out stronger through them.

Rather than focus on her story and thoughts the whole time, Rachel also mixes in chapters devoted to a variety of people in her life: the "Ten Commandments Lady," the apologist, the evangelist, her husband Dan "the Fixer," and a faithful widow in India. Each story presents a different facet of the diverse family of believers, and shows how each person has contributed to her faith journey.

What really matters

This is a book that left me thinking... for a long time. Have you ever just felt restless over something, but not sure what it was? Felt a doubt you didn't know you could name (or perhaps were afraid to say out loud)? Rachel's story give a voice and a face to some of those niggling, difficult concepts... the idea of people who have never even heard of Jesus going to hell, for instance. In the face of such a crisis, one is left to either walk away from God altogether or learn to live with the questions without letting it shatter their beliefs. Though her questions can be unsettling, I felt encouraged in her reminders that God is big enough to handle our struggles, and loving enough to call us home.

For me, this book really brought me to a point of examining my own fundamentals. What is essential to my faith, and what ideas could be shaken without destroying it? And how does this affect the way I relate to fellow Christians when we disagree?

It takes time to wrap your mind around this story, but that's a good thing. Rachel treats her topic and fellow Christians with respect while openly discussing the hangups and confusions she feels about the God she loves. The content is very similar to other books in the genre, but she lends her own unique voice to the ongoing conversation.

Really, I'd love to sit down and have coffee with her after reading this. I could relate to her story a lot, from the intensity and certainty of her evangelical upbringing, to her gentler, tested faith today, and I found myself rooting for her through the story of her faith crisis. Of course, the disclaimer for Jason Boyett's book holds true for this one as well -- "It's not for the strong of faith yet faint of heart" -- and it won't give you deep theology or all the answers. But if you're looking for a story that's articulate, funny, real, and hopeful, Rachel Held Evans is a smart, engaging young writer that's worth getting to know.

Review copy provided by Zondervan.

About Rachel:

Rachel Held Evans is an award-winning writer from Dayton, Tennessee, home of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town, releases with Zondervan July 1, 2010. She blogs at http://rachelheldevans.com.

Read an excerpt of Evolving in Monkey Town
Buy the book at Amazon.com

Sunday Happiness 3

I missed the past couple weeks during my "blog vacation," BUT I haven't forgotten about starting the week with happy things. :)

1. Vacation! And the possibilities that come with it. A week off can be good.
2. The smell of clean laundry.
   
3. Last Tuesday's dinner party with Sherri, Jenipher, and Gisele at The Catfish Place. Good food and good times with some wonderful, creative ladies.
4. Kohl's clearance racks and the great khaki capris I found there. Cheap pants win. (we won't consider the fact that I can't wear them until I take them back to Kohl's tomorrow to have the security tag removed. Nope.)
   
5. Newfound fanlove for Arcade Fire and Amazon Mp3 specials that got me caught up on their discography. Just in time for a new record this week. So good. This song in particular gets stuck in my head frequently.
   
   
   
   
6. New Anberlin is releasing two weeks earlyyyyyy! Sept 7th. Yay!
7. New blog layout. Still want to make some cool graphics, but the general idea is there. It's nice and clean and I like that.
   
8. Renewed blogging inspiration, thanks to flipping through a copy of Artful Blogging magazine in Books-a-Million.
9. Found out this week that Dave Barnes has a blog. Whether you're into his music or not, this dude is hilarious. Every post so far has made me lol at my desk. srsly.
   
10. Totoro. Uhhh... I don't know. Sherri just randomly mentioned My Neighbor Totoro. He always makes me happy. I mean seriously, just look at him! Does this not even make you at least smile a little?
    

Of course it does.

For a bonus #11, I would add thankfulness that the temperamental Internet is staying up long enough for me to post this (I hope). Wow. It's been so off and on all night.

Happy New Week!