Random Reviews...
Jesus Wants To Save Christians by Rob Bell with Don Golden was pretty good. It said a lot of the things I've been thinking for a long time but there was one major problem I had...namely, it left me exactly where I am. Perhaps a lot of people need to read that book because they need to get to where I am but what I want are answers. I once heard Julia Pickerill allude to this problem in a sermon which she titled The Gospel, According to Julia, namely that I don't need to hear the gospel according to Rob Bell... I just want *something* else. Maybe I need to talk to people at church about pacifism and environmentalism and how they live that out on a daily basis....
Who Killed Amanda Palmer?, a new album by Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls fame is fantastic. It is the kind of album where you are already thinking about reviewing and IMing friends with songs on it before you've even heard the whole thing. That was my day today. My favorite track is Leeds United. Check out the video here.
The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama was inspirational, thought-provoking, tear-jerking (the sorts of tears you get while watching The West Wing when you want America to be impossibly great in all the right ways and tiny and insignificant in others), and hopeful. I really hope he does this stuff. I also hope he manages to articulate all of this to people who aren't going to pick up the book - his careful choices of phrase and thought regarding all of the United States' hot-button issues is of great import.
Grant-Lee Phillips, the town troubadour of Gilmore Girls fame is great. Listen. Folk Americana meets rock - his cover of The Church's Under The Milky Way from his album Nineteeneighties is amazing.
The Cruxshadows put on a good show here a few weeks ago. Go see them if you can.
Jim Butcher's Dresden Files are sorta good. I like them; I'm still reading them... the problem I encounter is that they're a little formulaic thus far... The hero finds himself in an impossible situation... time slows... he uses this time to think and figure things out or gather himself... suddenly he's got a solution! Every action-scene of the first three books feels just like that.