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Much green purchasing is shopping therapy for the ecologically guilty
Matt Holleman music video: “Great Foundation” [via David H]
Sermon from me about resurrection work
Some like Midlake videos. Midlake!
Against environmentalism, for good work
CHURCH CREATE PLURALITY BY TRYING TO BE A UNITY THAT CRACKS OPEN THE UNITY THAT SAYS IT’S PLURAL
Faking it, like the Monkees or Neil Young [via Daniel S]
[via WorldChanging]
“The Failure of Syntax”, from Friedman’s Fables, Edwin H. Friedman:
The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax or eloquence or rhetoric or articulation, but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech.
Russell Brown on climate change scepticism here and abroad
Listen to Midlake (“did you ever want to run around with bandits, to see many places and hide in ditches?”), they channel Bread and the Eagles and my theory is mum played David Gates when I was fetal and I’m now powerless to resist. Thanks John & Simon. Also Sarah Blasko.
New retrospective song of 2006: “While you sleep”, from The Muttonbirds’ Live in Manchester CD.
Also, drugs are the opiate of the masses.
That nameless band who might be called White Line East and which features Matt Freeman, Richard May and Jeff are gigging their first gig this coming Tuesday at 7.30pm at Blue Note.
I’ma listening to Air/Talkie Walkie. It’s a keeper. I’ve had it for a few months now, and tonight I’m listening to it on headphones for the first time. It’s full of neat tunes, crazy frenglish lyrics (“Holy girl/don’t get up/for running. Stay with me/I feel sad/when you run”), good songs that would work on AM radio, but if you can listen to it like this, there are textures, crazy noises, a new beat vocabulary, beautiful little details like sonic serifs and the nicest production, the elements laid out so carefully and seamlessly across the left-right spectrum. And the very last track ‘Alone in Kyoto’ is still for me the emotional distillation of that movie.
Ben Folds the iconoclast [via Simon S]
NTW on following Jesus now – Lecture 1 [streaming video]
Robert McNamara on nuclear weaponry [via SvN]
Attachment mothering, Catholic-style
I was ready as ready to be really disappointed, but so far, I’m really impressed with Fat Freddys Drop’s new album Based on a True Story.
I bought Nick Drake Five Leaves Left and The Delgados Hate today. As RDB said, vocally Nick Drake is a one trick pony, but it’s a pretty neat trick. Hate is a slowburner (I hope).
I’m listening to Beck’s new album Guero for the first time just now. My first reaction is “O no, he’s back to being funny again.”
I’m unimpressed with Doves’ new single “Black & White Town”. It lacks imagination, features a half-hearted slow & soft segment and a really average guitar solo. I hope it’s the one filler track of a killer album. It’s about as good as Radiohead’s “Morning Bell/Amnesiac” on Amnesiac, i.e. not very.
I am listening to Leonard Cohen’s new album Dear Heather. My first impressions are that he is still a dirty old man, perhaps even more than before, and that he still has a gift for good tunes and truly horrible arrangements, perhaps even more than before.
Today I read that Beth Gibbons wrote ‘Killing Time‘ which Joss Stone sings, and that Portishead are working on tracks for a new album.