september

Last Saturday we attended the National Symphony Orchestra’s season opening concert at the Kennedy Center. There is something so grand about entering the hall of flags and mingling on the patio that overlooks the Potomac. The program included pieces by Johann Strauss, Jr., Richard Strauss, and Liszt and featured performances by Renee Fleming and Lang Lang. Fleming performed Richard Strauss’ “Four Last Songs.” The lines from “September” seem à propos for this season and a fitting tribute to my abandoned vegetable garden:

The garden is mourning,

the rain sinks coolly on the flowers,

summertime shudders

quietly to a close.

Leaf upon golden leaf is dropping

down from the tall acacia tree.

Summer smiles amazed and exhausted,

on the dying dream that was this garden.

Long by the roses,

it tarries, yearns for rest,

slowly closes its (great)

weary eyes.

(translated from German)

subcultures

Last weekend a Mormon couple we know through work joined us for dinner. They walked over (with their two-year-old) from their apartment down the street. We grilled sausages and burgers and they brought cream soda (no caffeine).

We had a really interesting discussion about college subcultures, comparing our experiences from BYU and Wheaton. Young evangelicals love to make fun of how we/they get married “right out of college!” But we’ve got nothing on the Mormons. They often meet, date, and get married before graduating—we heard about one girl who went from a casual date to a wedding in six months. “What about the wedding planning?” I protested. “Weddings aren’t big productions for Mormons,” our dinner guest replied. Of course. We went on to discuss alcohol, travel (read: missions), and our churches. I really appreciated the candor of the conversation, the camaraderie of comparison.

bricolage

A piece in today’s New York Times challenges the notion that globalization is flattening our cultural horizons and making us homogeneous. Michael Kimmelman explains, “The common denominator of popular culture … seems to have just intensified the need people now feel to distinguish themselves from it. And global technology has made this easier by providing countless individuals, microcultures and larger groups and movements with cheap and convenient means to preserve and disseminate themselves.”

The handmade and vintage shopping website Etsy comes to mind: One-of-a-kind products from small-time designers/producers who sell in a global market to those eager to distinguish themselves outside of popular culture. The things we buy shouldn’t define us—I agree with Andy Crouch that consumption is a limited frame for “culture”—but our choices set us apart from the mainstream and help us construct a new identity and unique aesthetic.

Kimmelman gives an example: “When Mats Nilsson, a Swedish product-design strategist for Ikea, not long ago told The New York Times that he loves to browse for handmade baskets in Spain, bird cages in Portugal, brushes in Japan and hardware on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, he was creating his own cultural identity out of the bric-a-brac of consumer choices made available by the globalizing forces of economic integration. Bricolage, it’s called. Anyone may now pick through the marketplace of global culture.”

Aside: The word “bricolage” made me think of the Ricola cough drop commercial. An odd etymology, no?

culture on the web, not of the web

I’d like to recommend a few “culture” sites I’ve come across in my browsing as I strive to be a “well-informed generalist.”

These webmags, blogs, forums – whatever you want to call them – are providing valuable content for consideration. This content may vary from film reviews to personal essays to recipes. But I’m as interested in the curation of the content as the content itself; in an age of information-overload, curating may be the thing I value most on the web. In learning to name it, I benefited from Brett McCracken’s blurb about “taste-keepers” in a trends-analysis piece for Relevant.

trowels vs. tractors

Like the yuppies and dinks around us, we are centrally located between the farm fields of Virginia and the Farm Bill halls of power. We enjoy a Whole Foods and a year-round farmers market. But my interest in healthy food and how it is produced solidified during three years in Iowa City – one of the centers of Iowa’s local-food movement and adjacent to some massive corn fields. Now, I can’t claim to know many farmers -- though I did enjoy Galen’s lamb occasionally -- but I think processing the food movement (pun intended) while living in Iowa prompted some helpful questions about utopian farming and food systems. Also, my husband loves Oreos and being a devil’s advocate.

There’s more to consider and write about on this topic: the responsibility of Christians to steward the earth – and feed the poor; the unintended elitism of much of the locavore/foodie movement; and society’s construction of food mores with a kind of religious fervor.

For now, consider this article recommended by Mark Bittman on “The Facts about Food and Farming.” Maybe we have room for trowels and tractors.

shameless blog post stealing

Do you ever steal blog posts from other people? I think it’s a fantastic idea, if you give the original author credit. The list below recommends books to read to understand the culture. It comes via Justin Taylor via James Kushiner from Ken Myers. I’ve read some Lewis, Berry, and Barzun—but not from the list below. Have you read any of these works? I’m intrigued by the books that focus on a particular cultural product, like language and music.

Five “Thinner” Books:

1. C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943)
2. Wendell Berry, Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition (2000)
3. Colin Gunton, Enlightenment and Alienation: An Essay Towards a Trinitarian Theology (1985)
4. George Parkin Grant, English-Speaking Justice (1985)
5. Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences (1948)

Five “Thicker” Books:

1. John McWhorter, Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care (2003)
2. Jacques Barzun, The Use and Abuse of Art (1974)
3. David Thomson, The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood (2004)
4. Julian Johnson, Who Needs Classical Music?: Cultural Choice and Musical Value (2002)
5. Langdon Winner, Autonomous Technology: Technics-out-of-Control as a Theme in Political Thought (1977)

i'm hungry ... what's on TV?

Michael Pollan wrote an insightful article for The New York Times Magazine recently, exploring trends in food television and analyzing why we would rather watch someone cook than actually cook ourselves. As a former Food Network fan, I can sympathize with Pollan’s skepticism of its programs that highlight consumption and provide entertainment rather than actually showing people cooking. I’ve ditched cable and I now enjoy public TV (WETA’s “Create” channel) where “America’s Test Kitchen” and “Lidia’s Italy” actually teach recipes.

He says, “Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia [Child] arrived on our television screens. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of ‘Top Chef’ or ‘Chopped’ or ‘The Next Food Network Star.’ What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for.”

Even if you’re completely uninterested in food TV, Pollan’s article is worth a read. He recalls growing up with Julia Child on the television, and explores how her commitment to excellent food actually ran alongside the feminist movement rather than contradicting it. By contrast, the Food Network’s evening lineup of grilling-fests and diner tours shows a concerted attempt to attract male viewers. (To be fair, they still host a number of cooking shows during the day.)

Also, this reflection by David Frum echoes some crunchy con themes, as he sees the conservative values in manifestoes like Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma.

the "well-informed generalist"

Just finished another great article in byFaith magazine: an interview with Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio, which is sort of like Books & Culture meets NPR. The interview included some great reflections on common grace, how evangelicals think about culture, and the right response to the "new and improved." The writer framed the piece around Myers' reputation as a "well-informed generalist" and how Mars Hill Audio provides rigorous content on a variety of ideas. I love it. One major reason I was an international relations major in college was because of its interdisciplinary nature; I wanted to take history, political theory, and languages all at the same time. My book club in Iowa City showed me how teachers, doctors, singers, and secretaries can all gather around African lit.

Myers says, "I'm convinced that one of the reasons the church has been culturally inert is because we don't have a lot of laymen who are interested in the whole big ecosystem of culture and all its inter-related aspects. Culture is the way our humanity in all of its forms and expressions is lived out, so understanding culture is necessarily interdisciplinary. You can't do it in a piecemeal way."

So, keep the book club going. Read a friend's magazines. Learn about the joys and difficulties of someone else's profession. And contemplate ideas for their own sake.

Update: The article is now posted online.

on leaving the midwest

Our move from a little city to a big city is fast approaching. We’re not just changing towns; we’re changing regions. The people, cities, and landscape of the Midwest have nurtured me for most of my (brief) adult life … so I think some appreciative words are in order before I head “home” to the East Coast.

Wide-open spaces: (cue Dixie Chicks) The birds here stand out against the sky—there’s nothing to compete with their profiles. The robins love the tree beyond our balcony. But the hawks and crows I notice more often, circling and gliding over the interstate. Open sky means knowing where the sun is, and I watch its arc rise and fall with the seasons. At first, all this sky made me feel a bit insecure, and the land seemed so naked. For me, no hills or mountains made places seem like the “middle of nowhere”—even Chicago.

Honest, hard-working people: I know this sounds like a presidential campaign cliché (and boy, 2008 was a long year!) but in large part it’s true. People in the Midwest are friendly, and not just because they have to be. At my favorite little grocery, the high schoolers look me in the eye and say thank you after placing all my bags in the trunk. Both sides of my husband’s family hail from Iowa, and farming stories explain why hard work is still valued and expected.

A great public library: This is more specific, but the outstanding city public library is one of the things I appreciate most about where we live. It means free movie rentals on Friday nights, copies of new nonfiction, and a quiet place to spend a little time in between errands. For my friends who are moms, it’s a common outing. The playground and coffee shop next door make for a trifecta of fantastic gathering spaces. The community really treasures its library, and it shows. I’ll miss it!

There are many more specific things I love here: our active little church, every friend, the squash-and-peppers farmers market, conversations in coffeehouses, raindrops on roses...

is food the new sex?

I read a couple of interesting articles recently that discuss the increasingly strict obsession we have with what we do and do not eat. As a farmers-market-loving foodie, I’m wary of knee-jerk conservative reactions against “liberal elitist granola types” because they tend to be pretty pejorative—about both liberals and their granola. But the idea that food restrictions are taking the place of sexual mores is worth noting.

Chuck Colson wrote a brief column on the issue, and referenced a lengthier article by Mary Eberstadt. She summarizes the issue well:

“Just as the food of today often attracts a level of metaphysical attentiveness suggestive of the sex of yesterday, so does food today seem attended by a similarly evocative — and proliferating — number of verboten signs. The opprobrium reserved for perceived ‘violations’ of what one ‘ought’ to do has migrated, in some cases fully, from one to the other.”

Is this true? Yes, for many people. She also notes that these “verboten signs” do not just apply to personal choice; they are meant to apply in a more universal sense. In this vein, she adds, “Moreover, this reversal between sex and food appears firmer the more passionately one clings to either pole.” I don’t agree with that statement—my “crunchy con” friends and I are testament that you can uphold traditional morals AND pay attention to what you eat. But all values don’t hold the same weight!

Colson picks up on every person’s intrinsic need for a moral code:

“… as my former colleague Jim Tonkowich notes, ‘For all our relativistic talk’ about encouraging people to make their own moral choices, ‘we cannot get away from an inner sense of right and wrong and the desire to codify [it].’

Jim is right. As the apostle Paul put it, God’s law is written on our hearts. We can deceive ourselves into believing it doesn’t exist, but when we do, we find our God-given sense of morality breaking out in other forms. In this case, in food—though it would be better the other way around.”

I love enjoying the delicious food God gave us to eat (so many choices!), and I’m still trying to sort out which “food values” should transcend personal choice and impact the public. I wish these articles had discussed this more thoroughly ... Please help me think through this!

on writing on trends

Do you ever read something and say aloud, “Only in America?” It’s one of my favorite phrases (thanks Mom), and I muttered it after reading about this yoga trend in The New York Times “Style” section. I love this part of the paper; it so perfectly encapsulates a certain kind of city lifestyle by noting various “trends” which do not occur anywhere else. As I read, I like to pretend it’s really an Onion-esque commentary on the faux-urbane. But the articles are actually serious.

After I read that article, I asked my husband: “Guess what you’ll only see in America?” Without missing a beat he said, “dog yoga.”

not-so-new calvinism: so hot right now

An acquaintance from my college newspaper days has also remarked on the recent media attention given to all things Calvinist. His post has more substantial points to consider. If you are a film fan, you may also benefit from his extensive list of reviews and other thoughtful blog offerings.

culture making

I recently finished "Culture Making" by Andy Crouch, and it left a little of itself behind after I returned it to the library. There's a lot to reflect on in this book.

byFaith magazine (A PCA publication) interviewed Crouch for their latest issue. His responses provided a great distillation of the book's themes, though the interview focused more on his critique of current "Christian culture" and not as much on the positive, biblical vision he set forth for cultivating and creating culture in our communities.

I can't find the interview online, but Crouch discusses a "sense of dissatisfaction, not just with the political strategy [of evangelicals], but with the subculture strategy--the strategy of creating culture by and for Christians rather than out in the public marketplace, for our neighbors whether they're Christians or not."

I think this is what makes so many Christians eschew the label "evangelical." It has so many bad political and cultural connotations. Crouch offers a helpful way forward, centered on examining our posture toward culture. I need to think of more ways to cultivate and create culture, not just critique and consume it. Ideas?