Well I'm rather gung ho about blogging again and, since the last post, have been jotting down notes (in a little notebook I carry around) for my next post. Yes, I'm that jazzed about it now, and all I can say is, "That's me: from utter indifference in something to manic enthusiasm, all within 48 hours...
(Please note: when I say "manic enthusiasm," I am not being literal. I mean, I have not, since I began musing about this blog in a new way, literally begun having manic episodes requiring medication. In fact to be accurate I should probably say, "I'm finding a new interest in blogging, but it's in a low key, detached, cool-as-a-cucumber sort of way." No, that's wrong. Okay, here's the bottom line: my enthusiasm level is somewhere between "manic" and "detached." Out of 10, let's say it's a 6, or possibly 7. Or an 8. Well, maybe I do jump to 9 at certain moments of elucidation--only to have the interest at other times, due to fatigue or stress, drop to as low as, say, 3. Or even 2. So the final final word on my enthusiam is that it vacillates wildly throughout the day, but probably, on average, is about a 6. Or a 7. Is that clear?)
Okay I think I may just have lost all but the most stalwart of readers, but I will carry on.
Today I'm actually going to talk about just one "Good Thing" (see last posting) that happened today and it happened just a little while ago. It was time for me to do my exercise as I watch a DVD of ladies hopping around in leotards and, is my custom, I muted the sound so as not to hear the exercise lady's truly irritating voice and comments. This time, instead of turning on 97.3 Easy Rock FM to exercise to, I thought I'd do something different. We've got a CD player that works only sporadically. Sometimes you put in a disc and it just sits there, thinking about it, until finally, many minutes later, it starts. Or it never starts. Or it starts right away.
Be that as it may, I thought I'd roll the dice and see if I could listen to a CD during my exercise this time. I spotted an old Peter Paul and Mary album (first put out in 1962) and I fired it up. To my delight, there they were, in living sound, my three buddies (in my imagination) from those days, belting out some of my old folk song favorites. By the time I'd finished the exercise session, I felt truly mellow. The workout seemed like a breeze: it flew by. It made me wonder why I'd never gone out scouring garage sales for a new CD player and old folk song CDs (that I would recognize). My workouts could become warm and nostalgic, yet lovely and tuneful, times.
When I listen to the "Easy Rock" station, by contrast, it's more of a hit and miss affair. Once in a while they'll play a song with true musical value and even, possibly, with poetry for words. But other times the song selection will be simply awful and annoying.
And here I'm going to give a little lecture about Aesthetics and Christian Truth. You know the way people nowadays, especially stand-up comedians, will say--about something in society or culture or whatever--"That's just wrong," but they're being humorous? They don't really mean "immoral," they mean "uncool" or "annoying." Well, some of the songs that I have to listen to on a daily basis, thanks to the public address speakers excreting them in my direction throughout the day, are "wrong" in both senses of the word. They're "wrong"--and I mean extremely, excuciatingly "wrong"--in the current, hip, "annoying" sense of the word. (Who sings , for example, that latest "song" with words that go "under my umbrella" and which then carries on with a kind of echoing "-ella, -ella, -ella" and, later, "-ey, -ey, ey. I mean, what is wrong with that person? Are they ill? Have they--on their own, or with an evil team in psychological warfare--come up with that song with the sole purpose of driving all of Western society stark raving mad so they can come in and take over? Or what???)
Yes, as I was saying, some songs are wrong in both the sense of being annoying and in the sense of their being immoral. Now I'm not just talking about their having "dirty words." I'm also talking about their being so poorly designed and executed--in addition to having (maybe) dirty or violent or puerile or banal words--that I really think they, in some way, have the effect of distorting the image of God to listeners. Music, and all creative activity by human beings, should, to the best of the ability of composers, performers, etc.,in some way reflect the image of God. This is true of whether the artist is Christian or not. That is why, on the other hand, we can listen to a piece of music written by someone who's an out-and-out atheist and yet say, "that music, in some way, speaks to me about the goodness of God."
Aw, I've gone and gotten all theological on ya there, but I hope, in some vague way you get my point. I've kind of run out of steam here as well as time and it's 7:18 p.m. and I've not yet had supper. I think I'm figuring I'm going to try to limit the blogging to an hour a night and the time's up--way up.
Stay tuned...
(Please note: when I say "manic enthusiasm," I am not being literal. I mean, I have not, since I began musing about this blog in a new way, literally begun having manic episodes requiring medication. In fact to be accurate I should probably say, "I'm finding a new interest in blogging, but it's in a low key, detached, cool-as-a-cucumber sort of way." No, that's wrong. Okay, here's the bottom line: my enthusiasm level is somewhere between "manic" and "detached." Out of 10, let's say it's a 6, or possibly 7. Or an 8. Well, maybe I do jump to 9 at certain moments of elucidation--only to have the interest at other times, due to fatigue or stress, drop to as low as, say, 3. Or even 2. So the final final word on my enthusiam is that it vacillates wildly throughout the day, but probably, on average, is about a 6. Or a 7. Is that clear?)
Okay I think I may just have lost all but the most stalwart of readers, but I will carry on.
Today I'm actually going to talk about just one "Good Thing" (see last posting) that happened today and it happened just a little while ago. It was time for me to do my exercise as I watch a DVD of ladies hopping around in leotards and, is my custom, I muted the sound so as not to hear the exercise lady's truly irritating voice and comments. This time, instead of turning on 97.3 Easy Rock FM to exercise to, I thought I'd do something different. We've got a CD player that works only sporadically. Sometimes you put in a disc and it just sits there, thinking about it, until finally, many minutes later, it starts. Or it never starts. Or it starts right away.
Be that as it may, I thought I'd roll the dice and see if I could listen to a CD during my exercise this time. I spotted an old Peter Paul and Mary album (first put out in 1962) and I fired it up. To my delight, there they were, in living sound, my three buddies (in my imagination) from those days, belting out some of my old folk song favorites. By the time I'd finished the exercise session, I felt truly mellow. The workout seemed like a breeze: it flew by. It made me wonder why I'd never gone out scouring garage sales for a new CD player and old folk song CDs (that I would recognize). My workouts could become warm and nostalgic, yet lovely and tuneful, times.
When I listen to the "Easy Rock" station, by contrast, it's more of a hit and miss affair. Once in a while they'll play a song with true musical value and even, possibly, with poetry for words. But other times the song selection will be simply awful and annoying.
And here I'm going to give a little lecture about Aesthetics and Christian Truth. You know the way people nowadays, especially stand-up comedians, will say--about something in society or culture or whatever--"That's just wrong," but they're being humorous? They don't really mean "immoral," they mean "uncool" or "annoying." Well, some of the songs that I have to listen to on a daily basis, thanks to the public address speakers excreting them in my direction throughout the day, are "wrong" in both senses of the word. They're "wrong"--and I mean extremely, excuciatingly "wrong"--in the current, hip, "annoying" sense of the word. (Who sings , for example, that latest "song" with words that go "under my umbrella" and which then carries on with a kind of echoing "-ella, -ella, -ella" and, later, "-ey, -ey, ey. I mean, what is wrong with that person? Are they ill? Have they--on their own, or with an evil team in psychological warfare--come up with that song with the sole purpose of driving all of Western society stark raving mad so they can come in and take over? Or what???)
Yes, as I was saying, some songs are wrong in both the sense of being annoying and in the sense of their being immoral. Now I'm not just talking about their having "dirty words." I'm also talking about their being so poorly designed and executed--in addition to having (maybe) dirty or violent or puerile or banal words--that I really think they, in some way, have the effect of distorting the image of God to listeners. Music, and all creative activity by human beings, should, to the best of the ability of composers, performers, etc.,in some way reflect the image of God. This is true of whether the artist is Christian or not. That is why, on the other hand, we can listen to a piece of music written by someone who's an out-and-out atheist and yet say, "that music, in some way, speaks to me about the goodness of God."
Aw, I've gone and gotten all theological on ya there, but I hope, in some vague way you get my point. I've kind of run out of steam here as well as time and it's 7:18 p.m. and I've not yet had supper. I think I'm figuring I'm going to try to limit the blogging to an hour a night and the time's up--way up.
Stay tuned...
posted by Ted | 3:06 PM
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