Book Review - "The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life" by Armand M. Nicholi Jr.

by Old Man

Whenever a book is reviewed over 50 times on Amazon.com you know it has caused some controversy - enter Harvard Professor Armand M. Nicholi Jr.'s book that stemmed from an undergrad course he taught entitled "The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life." This book sets up an imaginary debate between the two heralds of the two dominate mutually exclusive worldviews (God or No-God) - Freud and Lewis. Freud, though most famous for his psychological work, also wrote extensively in philosophical branch of literature - specifically his books "Moses and Monotheism" and "The Future of an Illusion." Lewis, probably most famous for his children's books on "Narnia," also wrote and spoke extensively in favor of his theistic and then Christian views in books like "Mere Christianity" and "Screwtape Letters."

The debate sets well, as much of Freud's (who is a generation earlier than Lewis) philosophy was in vogue at Oxford and Cambridge when Lewis was a tutor and professor - so much of his Christian apologetic work is a response to Freud's thoughts. Freud's influence was ever present in Lewis's work, and even on a few occasions he references his arguments directly.

Where this book sets itself apart is the inclusion of biographical material to color the thinking of both of the individuals. While other books focus primarily on the thinking of the two - discussing the plausibility of God being real - which, if you have read a few on either side - tend to lean pretty heavy on empirical evidense that is mounted firmly on enlightenment thinking which rests on the belief that things can be proved - when both sides both admit "proof" is not really possible in trying to prove God's existence or inexistence.

I tend to be a fan of old sayings like "the proof is in the pudding" and "actions speak louder than words" - simply because in our dualistic enlightenment age we tend to seperate thoughts from actions way to readily. This divorce is purely a mechanism of our imaginations. You don't need to be a mental giant to figure out that 80% of communication is physical. So I find it fascinating that the vast majority of our literature involving metaphysics has no "physical" to it.

So this book is great in this: We don't just get to know the thoughts of Freud and Lewis, we in a sense get to know Freud and Lewis, and their thoughts get a context that I think gives this book so much power. Nicholi Jr. says that he is unbiased in his writing - and many have taken potshots at this proposition because by the end of the book, the argument leans heavily in favor of Lewis. And I can see how people could make that argument.

But at the same time - I wonder if there was a way that he could have written an honest book about these two and have Freud come out as the nicer, more joyful, more secure, more self-assured, and more free? I don't think it would be possible...where Freud and Lewis were both great thinkers, Lewis was a great live-er. The reality is that given a night to spend with these two giants - I'd much rather have a drink with Lewis and his friends than Freud.

If you are interested in a good read that will challenge your assumptions about God and about Lewis and Freud - this book would be worth picking up.

Film Review - "The Dark Knight"

by von Richthofen

The Dark Knight takes the entire comic book movie genre, grabs it by the neck and careens full force off the tracks. Equal parts thriller, action movie, crime drama, romance, and horror film, this movie does more than set the bar high for all comers. It snaps the bar in half. Free of the restraints of telling an origin story, The Dark Knight explores all new territory. I'll keep my review spoiler free even though knowing FAR too much about the film going in did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for what I saw.

Picking up where Batman Begins left off, The Dark Knight finds Batman rounding up the scores of punks and lowlifes that have been plaguing Gotham City. Batman wannabes in homemade costumes have begun to emulate his tactics. The unrest serves as a perfect backdrop to the new alliance made between Batman, Police Lt. James Gordon, and new Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent. The trio form an uneasy but solid partnership to take down the remaining elements of organized crime in Gotham by targeting their bank activity and cutting off their funds. Refusing to go quietly, the mobsters agree to a last ditch effort to cause chaos and anarchy in the highest levels of government led by a quiet lunatic who calls himself the Joker.
We also find Bruce Wayne at another crossroads in his quest to retire the cape and cowl and settle into a quiet life with his childhood best friend and love Rachel Dawes. But Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal who is a huge upgrade on Katie Whatsherface) refuses to wait for Wayne to give up his secret life and begins a serious relationship with Harvey Dent. Still, her feelings for Bruce are strong enough to give her pause.

Director Christopher Nolan clearly found every flaw in Batman Begins and eradicated them from The Dark Knight. The pacing is fantastic. The editing is flawless. CGI? It is so sparse and well done that you won't notice a single moment on screen. The colors of Gotham City are muted. Thanks to lots of location filming in Chicago and Hong Kong, nothing looks staged. The story is never overly complex or hard to follow. Each character is given enough screen time to develop, each story is realized to completion. The music holds the tension at a fever pitch throughout. Visually, the movie is a clear homage to Michael Mann's crime drama Heat. Especially the bank heist opening scene. The cinematography is heightened by Nolan's decision to shoot several key sequences in IMAX (it's not just for National Geographic you know).

Nolan is not afraid to question Batman's heroic status. Do we really agree with his methods? Do we feel safe having justice dispensed by a masked vigilante whose real identity is shrouded in questionable mystery?
Contrary to other reviews I have read, Heath Ledger doesn't steal the show. His performance is beyond stellar. Rather, it is because of the totality of Christopher Nolan's rock-solid casting that Ledger is able to move in and out of scenes in a reptilian manner. His facial expressions are so nuanced and effortless that you really forget that you are seeing Heath Ledger at all. One moment he is a cackling psychopath bent on utter chaos and the next moment he is playing it straight and direct. Ledger's Joker bares no resemblance to Jack Nicholson, Cesar Romero, or any other incarnation. He truly has no boundaries, no motivation, and no story arch. I love that Nolan chose not to explain the Joker. The only glimpses into his past are recounted by the Joker himself in a misguided attempt to connect with his victims. Even when the movie gets incredibly heavy, Ledger interjects humor and levity. The laughs are well placed and always much needed.

Aaron Eckhart is phenomenal as Harvey Dent in what will certainly be his first of many star-turns. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are perfect in their respective roles as Bruce Wayne's moral support system. Gary Oldman's Jim Gordon plays a grizzled realist counterpoint to Eckhart's optimist Dent. And Bale shifts seamlessly between spoiled playboy and troubled hero.

This movie will leave you unsettled. Ledger's tragic death may play some role in this. It is a shame that we will never know where else Ledger could take the character. If he doesn't win the Oscar, I'll cease to care about the stupid things. For me, it was the constant moral tug of war that held my attention. I got completely lost in the proceedings.

Nolan's decision to leave it all on the screen is rewarded in what I now regard as the greatest comic book adaptation of all time. It is clear that he had no thoughts of developing any plotlines that "needed" to be resolved at a later date. If a trilogy is in the offing, The Dark Knight will undoubtedly go down as it's defining moment.

Album Review: Chuck Prophet "Soap and Water" - (8.9/10)

By Platypus

Chuck Prophet . Few other things bring a consistent smirk to my face. Well, maybe the thought of that goggled LA Lakers stalwart Kurt Rambis flailing for a loose ball does, but really, few other things do. I mean, how can you not smile at hearing a name that smacks of comic absurdity? It's a strange dichotomy: take a solid, aw shucks first name and pair it with a surname that speaks to a profession of grave biblical proportions. I'm not dogging the man; far from it. I'm more surprised that I didn't get wind of this Bay Area-based former frontman of Green on Red until this past winter, when I caught a show of his on a tip from a family friend. As they say, the rest was history: the Prophet had spoken his wisdom as he has for the better part of the past two decades, and the gospel came in the form of good old rock and roll.

Listening to Prophet's latest release, Soap and Water, brought this understated thought to mind: it rocks. Like the title implies, the album by and large is clean and simple, a showcase of the singer-songwriter-rocker's bread and butter. Lyrics and guitar riffs resound clear and true, accompanied by drums, bass, and touches of keys and backing vocals in just the right places. Though the lyrics often speak of heartbreak and wanderlust, Prophet's storytelling abilities lend his narratives an honest, endearing quality that made me often feel like I was listening to the man himself have a jam session on some small town front porch. This, folks, in many ways is American rock pure and true, unsullied by the gratuitous production fixings that seem to be everpresent in every other release today.

Yet for all its goodness, Chuck Prophet has always remained a performer who has successfully eluded being put into that proverbial box. The album is a journey through the many flavors of the ice cream parlor that is rock, taking scoops out of the blues ("A Woman's Voice" , "Small Town Girl" ), R&B tinged rock ("Freckle Song" ), new wave ("I Can Feel Your Heartbeat" ), and even some down-home, knee-slapping grooves ("Downtime" ) at various turns, all bound together by Prophet's voice that for some might evoke Tom Petty-esque comparisons. (As an aside, when I first saw Prophet he reminded me of a dorky version of the man who last danced with Mary Jane , cardigan and all. But I digress; he is indeed his own man, all apologies to Mr. Petty.)

Dare I venture to say that Chuck Prophet belongs in the pantheon of great musicians a la Dylan, Cash, and Springsteen that have graced the musical fabric of our nation? Some of you might say that's a bit of a stretch, but I said it, so there. I don't know how better to qualify this, but after taking a spin through Soap and Water again yesterday I was struck by the thought that this is a little bit of America right here. Not America in the sense of flag waving and nationalistic chest-beating, mind you, but America in the sense of telling stories of lives lived as they are, for better or worse. Soap and Water is a good clean romp in this department, product of a man and his craft. Take a dive in: you just may find yourself converted to the way of Chuck Prophet.

Album Review - Vampire Weekend (7.5/10)

This is my wife's new favorite album . She says it reminds her of Paul Simon's "Graceland" only more whimsical. I think it reminds me of XTC doing the wedding band circuit. Either way, the common denominator in all the bands songs on its first album are fun. Pure saccharine fun.

We had some friends over to dinner, who have a young 3 year old, and I was suprised at how well this album played with a youngster. Having children around makes you hyper aware of the mood of the music, and having darker, brooding music playing with a little one in the room always seems awkward. But Vampire Weekend could make an appearance on Sesame Street as easily as SXSW, even though they drop the occasional barely discernable F-bomb.

Come January, February, this album may be a little too over the top. But the sun is shining, the surfboard's on the rack, and I don't want to think about, well, anything. Here's to this summer's positive alternative to doing drugs.

Song Review - Sufjan Stevens "That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!"

By Old Man

Both my father and I believe this is an incredible song. I have a remarkable Dad, he is one of those rare baby-boomers who has not simply stayed in the 60's and 70's classic rock, but has kept on listening to contemporary rock all the way through the present times. Do you know any 63 year old men who owned the new Modest Mouse album before you did?

Sufjan Stevens is one of the finest songwriters of Generation X. His Christmas album (now a few years old) is one of the few albums that does justice to the religious holidays, both of Christ's birth (through old hymns), western civilizations adoption of a whole conglomerations of winter rituals, and the events taking place at the holiday. Holiday albums rarely avoid kitchy remakes for a few bucks, but Stevens take on the holiday is serious and winsome, a celebration and an anticipation of mourning and joy, it is an emotionally real album about a holiday that is mired in escapism.

This song is about the latter - the events of a Christmas day. Whether it is fiction (he earned his MFA in creative writing from the New School in New York) or memoir, it is a touching story of a family that is disturbed from a father's violence during the holiday - the shoveling of snow, sledding, and then the burning of presents followed by the exodus of his sister to the playground. The contrast between the joy of Rie Munoz paintings, children at play in the snow, and the emotions that blow over amidst the reality of time that it is impossible to avoid during Christmas. We all know that Christmas is still sacred as a holiday in our culture, one that still provides an viable excuse for not working in our insistent culture. He opens with a yearning riff on his pet instrument (one of many) the banjo - an instrument that I can remember my father riffing on himself as I was a child, and the background of acoustic guitar and vocal harmonies.

Where does the emotion of this song lay? Music is a universal language, one that can cross all bridges as other languages cannot, and it is rare that the music and lyrics of a song are able to work together towards a true, honest, emotional end. Often pop songwriters play the music off the lyrics, writing opposites in order to create tension - but this song doesn't depend on that sort of display to create complexity - instead in its united simplicity it is able to provide an avenue to feel deeply hurt, joy, pain, and the nostalgia that we all feel in light of the marker of the season. It is impossible to avoid - and this song doesn't skirt it like so many others who treat it as an avenue for financial gain. Let's be honest - in our stoic culture, true felt emotion has found it's last stand, its Alamo, in the arts. And I am thankful for a song that enters into our feelings without the apology or reservation that even has infected affection's last stand - the embattled genre of emo.

"In time the snow will rise, in time the snow will rise / In time the Lord will rise, in time the Lord will rise"

I can't wait for Sufjan's next album. Until then, consider this as an early Christmas present option...

Album Review: Fleet Foxes "Fleet Foxes" - (9/10)

By Old Man

As is often the case with debut full-lengths that are preceded by E.P.’s – one often sounds like and extension of the other. And, thankfully, this is true with the Fleet Foxes self-titled L.P. put out on Seattle’s Sub-Pop.

As this is our second review of a Fleet Foxes release in a couple of months, I will spare you the details of the band in general and focus more on what they succeed in and what they don’t. Where the E.P. stays firmly in waters navigated by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young – their full length extends into Brian Wilson’s (Beach Boys) area code – this album, while having it’s foundation in folk-rock, is much more buttressed by the “pop” side of Americana.

My highlight of the album is “He Doesn’t Know Why, ” with it’s swirling melody and chord changes and what is a staple of both albums – heavily reverbed background vocals. Beautiful, epic, indulgent, allowing Pecknold’s vocals to soar on the refrain “There’s nothing I can do.” And they are remarkable, his vocals. It is rare that someone is able to be so over-the-top vocally and still find a place in independent music, which tends to be a home for those songwriters who are brainy but less physically gifted and outwardly showy (contrast with American Idol fare, which tends to have folks with extraordinary voices and faces, but with little to nothing to say in their music).

What is scary about this band is that Pecknold could be in American Idol and be the best singer. I predict two, maybe three albums and then he goes solo, ala Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band . “No way, you say, he looks like a hippie!” Well, remember the Boss was a scrappy Bob Dylan wannabe before the band blew up and next thing we knew we were slow dancing to “Tunnel of Love.”

I hope I’m wrong. Until then, I'll thoroughly enjoy their music.

Movie Review: WALL-E (8.5/10)

By Old Man

My wife and I went with my folks, who were in town, to the one movie theater in Malibu Sunday night and watched Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo) and Disney’s Pixar Animation Studios (The Incredibles, Cars, and Ratatouille). There were three movies stars with their kids in the theater – always a bit unnerving when you see them in such normal circumstances – you have a moment of recognition and think “I know them from somewhere” and then you realize “Nope, I don’t know them – but I know who they are.” What must it be like to be a movie star? I would be willing to bet they make eye contact with more people than anyone else in the world…probably why they wear sunglasses all the time – I imagine it would be unnerving.

Thus the beauty and freedom of animation. The stars are truly of the imagination, they are drawing come to life on the screen, works of the hand (and mouse) set into motion – at once mimicking those film actors in the theater yet also in a realm all their own. Could an animated character ever be up for Best Actor? Best Supporting Actor? Could a computer animated character (say, Gollum from Lord of the Rings) ever be up for the Best Supporting Oscar? I hope not – but I enjoy the freedom of not having to judge performance, I feel looser watching animated films and not have to be thinking of how well the actors are pulling off their character.

WALL-E was a dandy of a movie, one of those gems that a child could love at the narrative surface level, but also filled with Huxley-esque futurism and a very compelling “what if” that drives the movie and may even cause adult conversation after it’s done. There is even a love story, between robots, and I was embarrassed by how drawn in I became in one of those moments (few) that I snapped out of the hyper-reality of the movie.

I mentioned the Oscars, because never have I seen two robots say so much with so little. Great acting? By animated characters? I hate that I am writing it, but if it looks like a banana, and smells like a banana...

What WALL-E and EVE did put some real, live, flesh-and-blood human actors to shame. I wonder what the film actors in the theater were thinking?

Interview with the Great Lake Swimmer's Tony Dekker

By Old Man

I got the chance to have a little internet chat with lead singer of one of my personal favorite bands, the Great Lake Swimmers - the focus of a song review I did a couple of months back. Their new album, Ongiara is a gem - my wife and I listened to it while driving through Yosemite and it PLAYED. Oh yes. So here's what Tony has to say:

OM - What are the last 5 albums you’ve listened to on your Ipod/CD Player/Tapedeck/Record Player.

Tony - The Carter Family “1927-1934 – Disc A” , Bob Dylan “Highway 61 Revisited” , Gillian Welch “Time (The Revelator)” , Timber Timbre “Medicinals” , Billy Bragg & Wilco “Mermaid Avenue."

OM - What is the band working on now?

Tony - I’m working on new songs, some of which will probably eventually be taken to the band to work on some more. We are also playing some festivals this summer and doing a short US tour in the Midwest in August.

OM - How are your new projects a departure from previous albums?

Tony - The new projects are really a continuation of what we’ve done to this point. I’m always trying to become more concise.

OM - What is the worst restroom you’ve been in on tour?

Tony - There have been lots of terrible ones, but thankfully none that stick in my mind. Any restroom without locks (or doors for that matter) gets my vote.

OM - What is the oddest request you’ve had from a fan?

Tony - I haven’t received any requests that have seemed that odd to me. I had one fan inform me that he was our stalker. Nice guy actually. We put him on the guest list.

OM - There is a fine sense of place in all of your albums – and a keen awareness of the physical environment. What worries you about the direction of the worlds view of the environment?

Tony - I think we’re too concerned with thinking about the environment as this other thing that is different from what’s all around us. Like the environment is a concern or something. I think we need to regain our respect for it and fear of it.

OM - Western Civilization: Decline, Incline, or Recline?

Tony - Decline.

OM - Your albums all have a spiritual sensitivity to them – what are your theological and philosophical leanings? Any particular thinkers who have influenced your worldview?

Tony - I was raised as Catholic so that is pretty much in the mix whether I like it or not. Rilke, Bukowski, Faulkner, Hemingway, and Salinger are some thinkers that I have been affected by.

OM - What is a common misconception folks have about your music/lyrics?

Tony - I think the lyrics encourage misconceptions. They leave a lot of things open. In a way it takes the listener to do some work on their part to complete the story or apply it. The songs are set up so they can be interpreted in a lot of different ways, and I am certainly in no position to give the final answer on anything.

OM - When do you plan on visiting the west coast again?

Tony - Soon, hopefully next spring.

OM - Thanks Tony, for taking the time to do the interview. We hope to see you next spring!