Beau Travail

Tuesday, February 25, 2003   |  0 Comments

Claire Denis's Beau Travail (1999) is a remarkable film. A loose adaptation of Billy Budd, it transposes Melville's sea voyage to a French foreign legion outpost in East Africa, where the Claggart character (Sergeant Galoup, played brilliantly by Denis Lavant) plots the inevitable destruction of Gilles Sentain (Grégoire Colin), who stands in for Billy. Melville's novella provides only a rough narrative framework, though. Denis seems less concerned with that epic, allegorical showdown between good and evil — although in one remarkable image, her camera looks down on the men as they circle one another, spiraling closer and closer until they are face to face in a tight close-up — and less concerned, also, with the Christian iconography that punctuates Melville's prose.

Instead, Beau Travail foregrounds the concerns of much contemporary Melville scholarship and would probably make a wonderful teaching tool because of it. So, whereas post-colonial critics have, in turn, criticized/praised Melville for his appropriation of racist stereotypes (or his subversion of those stereotypes, depending on which side of the debate each critic stands), Denis situates Melville's moral dilemma in an explicitly post-colonial situation, complicating further the relationships between European and African, Christian and Muslim, and calling into question the political value and motivations underlying those relationships. In several memorable scenes, the legionnaires exhaust themselves in senseless and utterly futile chores — digging holes, moving stones, repairing unused roads — all the while Africans look on, curious and silent but unmistakably present.

Likewise, the homoeroticism of Melville's texts is displayed in beautiful shot after beautiful shot of the legionnaires in training. At one point, they perform a training exercise in which each man throws his body at a partner, ending in an embrace that is both menacing and welcomed. Appropriating the tropes of stereotypical "basic training" sequences (see Full Metal Jacket), Denis brings to the fore those odd narratives that write gender onto our fighting men. She makes particularly good use of Galoup, whose voice and memories narrate the film. Galoup is not an embodiment of pure evil and jealousy like Claggart. Instead, he seems to be motivated by repressed desire — desire for authority and acceptance, but also, the film suggests, homosexual desire. Lavant is just a marvel throughout Beau Travail. As I recall, we hear him speak only in a stylized voice-over (there might be a few exceptions of diegetic speech), but he communicates with perfect clarity through his body language. The film's final sequence might be impossible to explain, but it felt to me like another of those moments of grace that I'm constantly seeking.

Beau Travail is also just a beautiful film to look at — stunning images cut together using a poetic logic that is part Eisenstein montage, part neo-realism, part Tarkovsky mysticism. The directors who most often came to mind were Kiarostami, Dumont, and Malick, though I never would have guessed beforehand that those three would ever be found sitting around the same table. A couple useful links:

• Jonathan Rosenbaum at the Chicago Reader
• J. Hoberman at the Village Voice
• Charlotte O'Sullivan at Sight and Sound
• Stephen Holden at the New York Times

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Talk to Her

Monday, February 24, 2003   |  0 Comments

The latest issue of Metro Pulse is also worth reading for Adrienne Martini's review of Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her, which I saw last week and which continues to frustrate me. I've never so enjoyed watching a film that is so ridiculously misogynous. I'm assuming that that tension is Almodovar's point, at least in part, but I'm not sure if that's a good enough excuse. I feel stuck in this movie like I feel stuck in the Coens'. Martini had a similar response:

It could be, however, that Almodovar trades in a language I can't understand—and, no, I don't mean Spanish. Let's call it—as icky as this phrase sounds—the language of men. I can't get Almodovar for the same reason I can't get Eminem. Both have catchy beats. Both create hypnotizing art. Both have personas that are larger than their work—and those personas have as many detractors as they have fans. Almodovar may be the Eminem of the film scene, and his views about women seem just as vitriolic and spiteful as the Detroit rapper's, which makes it difficult to separate the man from his message.

Which isn't to say that Talk isn't a well-made film. It is, certainly, but it feels too pat and contrived to be a great film. Or, it could be that I'm simply unable to see the greatness that lies within it, given both my gender and my recent issues with timing. It could also be that this is exactly Almodovar's point, that men are talking to women yet can't be understood, and hence Talk actually works quite well.

Stephanie Zacharek's review at Salon leans in the same direction:

"Talk to Her" takes place firmly on our own planet, but Almodóvar is still throwing in his trademark kinky twists: a male nurse sexually obsessed with a comatose woman? By now, if we know anything about Almodóvar, we know that we're supposed to take the conceit and run with it, without stopping to notice that it's a conceit at all.

And maybe that's precisely the problem: "Talk to Her" knows it's an Almodóvar movie, and reminds us frequently. It doesn't matter how many hot tears are shed by the characters -- the movie still has a sheen of cool self-awareness. Benigno is supposed to be something of a charming lost soul, a person who has been so starved of love that he doesn't quite realize it's not a good idea to fall for someone in a coma.

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And In University News . . .

Saturday, February 22, 2003   |  0 Comments

It's a small blogoshpere after all. Thanks to this week's cover story in the Metro Pulse, I've discovered that Instapundit (a.k.a. Glenn Reynolds), one of the world's pioneer and most heavily-trafficed bloggers, spends his days in an office just a few yards from my own. How odd. And after I've spent so much energy lamenting Knoxville's isolation. Reynolds recently took on a more high profile blogspot at MSNBC.com, where he offers a counterpoint to Eric Alterman's Altercation.

And some good news: My dissertation proposal was accepted this morning without revisions by my committee, who were all remarkably complimentary of my work. I've spent the last five years waiting anxiously to be discovered — waiting for everyone in the department to realize that I have absolutely no idea what in the hell I'm talking about. Apparently, I've fooled them all.

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Song of the Moment

Friday, February 21, 2003   |  0 Comments

Last Friday I was left alone at work, unsupervised and buried
under a sizable project. I kept myself motivated by firing up Kazaa and downloading a bunch of songs that I was obsessed with in 1987. Expect to hear more about this when it comes time for the March Mix. The new Song of the Moment, Guadalcanal Diary's "Litany (Life Goes on)," practically paralyzes me with nostalgia. I was disheartened to discover that the album its from, 2x4, is no longer in print. Too bad.

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Miscellaneous Debris

Thursday, February 20, 2003   |  0 Comments

Film Series: Sokurov Elegies — I know for a fact that several people who read Long Pauses live within close driving range of the National Gallery of Art. Do yourself a favor and go see a couple of these film — films, I should add, that you might never get another chance to see (and that I almost surely won't). From the program description:

Of all Russian filmmakers past or present, Alexander Sokurov has achieved the distinction of being hailed as the most unreservedly spiritual in a country where spirituality in art is prized. With ten features and twenty-five experimental and nonfiction works (including the video and film elegies shown in this series) he has cultivated a unique aesthetic that delicately distorts and prolongs images, adds allusive sounds, and turns ordinary landscapes into mood poems. Individual scenes, although often imprecise, remain tranquil, meditative, and intense. Like his mentor Andrei Tarkovsky, Sokurov has never been termed an "official" Russian artist nor a dissident. He has chosen instead to develop, through an idiosyncratic range and treatment of subjects, a kind of "ethical enlightenment."

What with Tom Ridge now beginning his campaign of public service announcements, I think that Northwestern University's collection of World War II propaganda posters might be a helpful reminder to anyone (am I the only one?) who is at all concerned by recent rhetoric. I can't decide which of these I find more appropriate.

And, finally, through the fine folks at Beyond Magazine, I've been able to correspond occasionally with Katherine Grace Bond, whose latest poem is now part of the Poets Against the War collection. This group grew out of the public relations nightmare that was once Laura Bush's poetry celebration. Congrats, Katherine. Fantastic poem.

"The First Lady Invites You to a Symposium on Poetry and the American Voice"

Laura has always been a favorite name of mine

I think I met you first at church,
Your mind convinced,
Quoting scripture to lock it in securely. We scrubbed casserole dishes together,
And swapped stories about marriage.

I found out
We both have daughters With long, blonde hair.

I found out we both loved poetry. You don’t write it but you love
Emily’s trees
Langston’s rivers
Robert’s road.
I said that you should try your hand,
Throw some words down,
It’s expansive.

I read once
At Ladies Night Out.
We were supposed to bring
China teapots to hold up
And talk about our grandmothers.
I read a poem instead. You liked it,
You told me, but
Watched me warily after that.

We have lost touch, Laura and now
This invitation in the mail:

A gathering
To talk of trees,
To speak of rivers.
You will pour the tea.

My friend Sam’s
The original curmudgeon,
Translates Chinese,
Lives for words
And water.

He says he won’t come
To your party; he’ll send poems
Instead.
You like poems.
You told me so yourself.

This morning
The party is postponed –
Not cancelled.
But you have opinions
And these poets are clambering for war.

On February 12th, you huddle
With your tea,
Barricaded in the State of the Union.

You asked for poets thinking we would speak of chestnut trees,
Not cypresses. Did I forget to tell you
That Langston wrote of blood,
Emily of the necessary madness of dissent,
Robert of How Hard It Is To Keep From Being King
When it’s In You And In The Situation.

Now the poets are storming the gates,
Lobbing dead Afghan children,
The raped wives of Iraqi scientists.
Muslim mothers with dark-haired daughters
Scream in through the windows.
You needn’t cower, Laura;
This is friendly fire.

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Beautiful

Tuesday, February 18, 2003   |  0 Comments

I had planned to post a rambling personal narrative today, describing in minute detail my particular experiences in Saturday's anti-war demonstrations. But when I sat down to it, the idea seemed a bit too self-indulgent, even by blog standards. Here's the long and short of it: On a rain-drenched day that never climbed out of the mid-40s, an estimated 500-650 Knoxvillians lined the city's busiest street, stretching in a line of protest across the front face of its largest shopping center. There was a handful of long-hairs and radical-looking college kids in attendance, but most — maybe as much as 95% of the crowd — looked as though they had carpooled to the event in minivans. Hardly a ragtag cabal of jobless anti-Americans, as some would characterize the peace movement. It was pretty beautiful.

One anecdote: During the two-hour protest, only four or five passersby felt compelled to hurl profanity at us, with maybe three times that many making their voice be heard by way of creative hand gestures. At one point, though, a nicely dressed man in a luxury car came to a complete stop, rolled down his windows, pointed to the group of Muslim women standing beside me, and yelled for them to "just go home." I was stunned and began muttering under my breath, "I can't believe that happened. I can't believe that just happened." Apparently I was saying it pretty loudly, because the woman beside me — a beautiful older woman wearing a head scarf and a "Human Shield" sign — grabbed my elbow, looked up at me, and said, "It's okay. This is our country, too." I can't get her face out of my head — so kind and welcoming, well-worn and somewhat resigned. That's the memory that will stick.

It was such a treat to go home that afternoon and end temporarily my cable news boycott. On every channel I saw footage of global dissent. As many as 30 million people gathered throughout the world's cities, small and large, from Alaska to Antarctica to India and all points in between. Pretty cool.

Some notes from around the globe:

"What astonished everyone who marched on Saturday - let's settle on a million, shall we? - was the apparently limitless variety of those with whom they shared the roads of central London. Not just a diversity of banner-bearing interest groups but of individuality, brought into focus by the single underlying feeling that gave this day its resonance."

— Richard Williams

"On streets of beauty, the warm people inched along or stood and chanted and laughed against a war and for peace and their warmth made the winter temperature irrelevant."

— Jimmy Breslin

"This is not an America we recognize. When we recited the pledge of allegiance in our long-ago scout meetings, it was to a different America, one with different principles. It was an America that lived by the rule of law. An America that was a land of compassion and brotherly love. An America that took seriously a promise to be a good neighbor, both across the street and around the globe. Sure, some of it was myth but we believed in the heart of the story. Others envied our good fortune to be born in America, and we nodded with recognition of that truth."

— Nancy Capaccio

"The whole world is against this war. Only one person wants it," declared South African teenager Bilqees Gamieldien as she joined a Cape Town antiwar demonstration on a weekend when it did indeed seem that the whole world was dissenting from George W. Bush's push for war with Iraq.

— John Nichols

"But on Saturday, Feb. 15, I emerged from the largest demonstration I've ever attended in Dallas with more hope than ever before that our situation will improve. It wasn't just that 5,000 or so people from one of the most right-wing regions of the world, the former home of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the fictional J.R. Ewing and many others who represent cold-hearted, selfish economic and political policies, had braved the wind and cold and threats and everything else to make a statement to Bush Inc. that a 'blood for oil personal revenge world domination military boost' war against economic sanctions - wracked Iraq was unacceptable."

— Jackson Thoreau

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Duck and Cover

Thursday, February 13, 2003   |  0 Comments

I've heard the soundbite hundreds of times over the years, memorizing subconsciously its particular pauses and inflections. Not until the weeks following September 11, though, did FDR's most memorable message resonate in any meaningful ways for me. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." He was speaking, of course, within the context of our Great Depression, but that notion — that America must choose to never surrender its defining characteristics to irrational fear — has since been rightly applied to a host of economic, social, and political concerns.

The peculiar dangers of "fear" — its threat to democracy, humanism, rationality, diplomacy, spirituality — have been on dramatic display in recent days. I've instituted a boycott of all 24-hour news channels in my home, but last night, as I burned off my frustrations at the local Y, I was deeply disheartened by what I saw on the TVs that surrounded me. Connie Chung's silent lips mouthing the latest terror alerts. "Survival experts" providing how-tos on terrorism preparedness. Home Depot employees reporting raids on their duct tape and plastic sheeting inventories.

I'm trying so hard to avoid surrendering to cynicism, to have sympathies for those who are genuinely afraid right now, to understand why Our Christian President (TM) has felt it necessary to whip us into such a frenzy of excitement and paranoia. As I'm prone to do, my thoughts have lately been drifting toward the 1950s and its obsessive/compulsive fixation on communism. I can practically hear Senator L. B. Johnson, his Texas drawl demanding that we respond to Sputnik before the Russkies take control of the atmosphere and unleash catastrophic weather on us (which he really did). I can hardly flip on the news without hearing Bert the Turtle reminding me to "duck and cover" at the first sight of a nuclear flash.

The lines between fact and parody are blurring in frightening ways. Look at this bit from The Onion:

Saddam Enrages Bush With Full Compliance
WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush expressed frustration and anger Monday over a U.N. report stating that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is now fully complying with weapons inspections. "Enough is enough," a determined Bush told reporters. "We are not fooled by Saddam's devious attempts to sway world opinion by doing everything the U.N. asked him to do. We will not be intimidated into backing down and, if we have any say in the matter, neither will Saddam." Bush added that any further Iraqi attempt to meet the demands of the U.N. or U.S. will be regarded as "an act of war."

And now this from yesterday's White House press briefing with Ari Fleischer:

And I have a document — I'll be happy to release this to you — about the fact that Iraq has not complied, they cover up their compliance in seeming efforts to comply, such as their statements about unconditional U-2 flights, which we now know from the letter that was sent by the Iraqis, so-called conditional became — so-called unconditional became conditional as soon as the ink was dry on their letter. It was never unconditional to begin with; it always had conditions attached.

It's all just too much at times, which, I guess, is precisely their point. Lull us into exhausted submission. I heard a report on NPR a couple weeks ago about the effect of impending war on our economy. The general consensus among those interviewed was, "Well, if we're going to blow up Baghdad, I wish we'd go ahead and get it over with. I've got stuff to buy and episodes of American Idol to watch." I don't use this term lightly — and I'll probably retract this in a day or two — but it all stinks of fascism to me.

On Saturday, I'll be standing at the corner of Morrell Road and Kingston Pike, smack dab in front of Knoxville's largest shopping center and busiest intersection, participating in a peace vigil. I'm of two minds about it. I'm not so naive as to think that my presence will change the minds of those drivers zooming by, conducting their Saturday morning errands. But I'm excited by the idea of taking part in a global protest, and I also like the idea of being a living representative of that significant section of Christian America that feels increasingly alienated by an administration that so frequently claims our interests.

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Song of the Moment

Wednesday, February 12, 2003   |  0 Comments

The tunes have begun to roll in. A few weeks ago I offered to send copies of my mix CDs to anyone who returned the favor. The new Song of the Moment — Jim O'Rourke's "Therefore, I Am" — is a surprise from disc 1 of a 2-disc set sent by David in Edmonton. This track is just so rock and roll. I love it. A little advice: the louder you play it, the more transcendent it becomes.

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The Sweet Sting

Tuesday, February 11, 2003   |  0 Comments

With nothing better to do last Saturday night, my wife and I found ourselves watching Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused again. Aside from my lingering obsession with Sixteen Candles, I've never been a big fan of teen comedies. Most are cut-and-paste collages of cliches and bad pop that are too busy romanticizing high school to remember how much it sucked and how damn interesting the typical teenager really is. I'm not being ironic this time. Seriously.

The best compliment I can give Dazed and Confused is that it makes me deliriously nostalgic. My American Heritage calls "nostalgia" a "bittersweet longing," which gets it just about right, I think. I've never been one to miss high school. I would guess that in the last ten years I've spoken to three people from my class. But I do occasionally find myself longing for something from those days, something lacking in the day to day management of adult life.

Joanna and I chatted about this as we watched Dazed and Confused Saturday night (as adults are wont to do — we chat), and we decided that that something is an "intensity of experience" only found amidst the stew of anxiety and wonder that is adolescence. Think about it. When you're in high school, whose car you ride around in on Friday night matters. And who sees you in that car matters even more. It's not trivial, although I think we adults like to console ourselves by pretending it is. In fact, I'm not sure that anything I've done in the last ten years has mattered as intensely as almost everything mattered when I was fifteen. Dazed and Confused gets that just right, which makes it the only teen movie that, well, that matters.

Watching it again, I was really struck by this conversation, which is also just right.

Mike: I'm serious, man, we should be up for anything.
Cynthia: I know. We are. But what? I mean, God, don't you ever feel like everything we do and everything we've been taught is just to service the future.
Tony: Yeah, I know. It's like it's all preparation.
Cynthia: Right. But what are we preparing ourselves for?
Mike: {glib} Death.
Tony: Life of the party.
Mike: {glib again} It's true.
Cynthia: You know, but that's valid. Because if we're all gonna die anyways, shouldn't we be enjoying ourselves now? You know, I'd like to quit thinking of the present, like right now, as some minor, insignificant preamble to something else.
Mike: Exactly. Man, that's what everyone in this car needs is some good ol', worthwhile, visceral experience.

Sure, it's a bit carpe diem-ish — and I usually recoil at anything that smacks of Robin Williams sentimentality — but there's also something wonderfully freeing in that existential naivety. That "insignificant preamble" stuff has come up often in my conversations with other well-adjusted adults lately. Odd.

This seems an appropriate closing. From another blog, Sour Bob's story, "Odd Numbers." Just a warning: it's a telling of how he lost his virginity, with all that entails. I've read it four or five times now, and I'm still impressed. Great simple images that get it just right.

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Song of the Moment

Saturday, February 08, 2003   |  0 Comments

If Lucinda Williams sang "Righteously" to me — and I mean really sang it to me — sex would be redundant.

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Deadlines Suck

Friday, February 07, 2003   |  0 Comments

Long story short: Deadlines suck. Writing projects at work and at home have kept me buried all week. It's a strange thing to sit down at a computer knowing that the 1,250 words that you carefully select and order might be deemed worthy of $600,000 by a Federal department with grant monies to offer. And it's especially strange when you also know that your future employment is dependent upon those monies. No pressure.

One more thing: I'll never again be as cool as I was in 1994.

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March Mix

Monday, February 03, 2003   |  0 Comments

I blame Dazed and Confused for this one. Between roughly April 1987 (a month before my 15th birthday) and June 1988 (a month after my 16th), I did all of the following:

• Traveled to Europe, where I had my first real crush.
• Received an electric razor as an unexpected present from the folks.
• Made my one failed attempt at traditional high school popularity (J.V. football).
• Attended my first arena rock concert (Rush's A Show of Hands Tour)
• Got my first real job ("sandwich artist" at Subway)
• Began blowing all of my money on audio equipment (including my first CD player).
• Attended my first stadium rock concert (Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder Tour).
• Got my driver's license.

The March mix is a collection of songs that now leave me paralyzed with nostalgia. As best as I can remember, these are the some of the more important songs that accompanied my life that year, when everything, it seemed, was so painfully important. This one could easily have grown to a 2- or 3-disc set. Conspicuously absent are: Peter Gabriel, Sting, King Crimson, INXS, The Police, Robert Plant, The Clash, Yes, Roger Waters, Indigo Girls, Howard Jones, Led Zeppelin, and Boston (yes, Boston).

• "Litany (Life Goes On)" by Guadalcanal Diary
• "Pretty in Pink" by The Psychedelic Furs
• "Subdivisions (Live)" by Rush
• "Medicine Show" by Big Audio Dynamite
• "Never Let Me Down Again" by Depeche Mode
• "Dear God" by XTC
• "Welcome to the Occupation" by R.E.M.
• "Abacab" by Genesis
• "It's Over" by Level 42
• "One Slip" by Pink Floyd
• "Just Another Day" by Oingo Boingo
• "Cool for Cats" by Squeeze
• "If I Should Fall from Grace with God" by The Pogues
• "Another Tricky Day" by The Who
• "Give Blood" by Pete Townshend
• "The Working Hour" by Tears for Fears
• "Bullet the Blue Sky" by U2

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Un Chien Andalou

Monday, February 03, 2003   |  0 Comments

Over the years, I have, of course, heard and read a great deal about Luis Bunuel’s surrealist masterpiece, Un Chien Andalou (1929), but until Friday I had never actually seen it. Created in collaboration with Salvador Dali, Bunuel’s first film is most remembered today for one of its opening sequences, which cuts between shots of a razor blade, a woman whose left eye is being forced open, and a thin line of clouds passing before a full moon. Just as we’ve become convinced that the cloud and moon will serve as a symbolic gesture, comfortably eliding the violence implied by the sequence, Bunuel cuts to a close-up of the eyeball being sliced open. The scene still works, more than seven decades later.

My favorite discussion of the sequence can be found in Virginia Carmichael’s Framing History, where she compares Bunuel’s film to E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel, a novel that attempts to make sense of the early Cold War years. There’s a remarkable and disturbing moment in the novel when the title character reaches over to burn his young wife with a car cigarette lighter. Instead of showing the horrible scene, though, Doctorow (through his narrator) attacks the reader, writing:

Shall I continue? Do you want to know the effect of three concentric circles of heating element glowing orange in the black night of rain upon the tender white girlflesh of my wife’s ass? Who are you anyway? Who told you you could read this? Is nothing sacred? (60)

Carmichael on the scene:

What seems merely gratuitous cinematographic aestheticism on Bunuel’s part becomes something more radically critical in a political sense when considered as [Daniel’s] symbolic discovery of the function of symbolism in history to mask the horrors of reality—realities such as Stalin’s purges, the U.S. government’s knowing exposure of government workers to high-level radiation. (143)

So much of contemporary filmmaking is about misdirection, about exciting the emotions and disregarding the consequences. I appreciate Bunuel’s film for its refusal to let us off so easily, though I must admit that, as with so much of Modernist surrealism, I found myself often stunned by the images but unwilling to engage in the intellectual gamesmanship necessary to decode them. I’m sure that great articles have been written that carefully trace contours through the fifteen minute film, but I couldn’t find the motivation to do so myself.

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February Mix

Sunday, February 02, 2003   |  0 Comments

• "How It Should Be (Sha Sha)" Ben Kweller
• "Sister Cry" The Jayhawks
• "Mata Hari Dress" Marlee MacLeod
• "Two Knights and Maidens" Crash Test Dummies
• "Pyramid Song" Radiohead
• "Rest of Yesterday" Alana Davis
• "The Way We Get By" Spoon
• "Indian Summer Breakdown" Varnaline
• "There She Goes Again" The Velvet Underground
• "Moving" Supergrass
• "It's Alright, Baby" Komeda
• "Bitterblue" Cat Stevens
• "A Common Disaster" Cowboy Junkies
• "Aunt Avis" Widespread Panic and Vic Chesnutt
• "Crumbs" Jonatha Brooke
• "Uninhabited Man" Richard Thompson
• "California" by Phantom Planet
• "The Past and Pending" The Shins
• "Why I Lied" Mychael Danna (The Sweet Hereafter)

Added: Last week a friend passed along a link to Sojo.Net, the Web presence of Sojourners magazine, which calls itself "A Voice and Vision for Social Change." I've been quite impressed with what I've seen so far. From their history:

Sojourners includes evangelicals, Catholics, Pentecostals and Protestants; liberals and conservatives; blacks, whites, Latinos, and Asians; women and men; young and old. We are Christians who want to follow Jesus, but who also sojourn with others in different faith traditions and all those who are on a spiritual journey. We reach into traditional churches but also out to those who can't fit into them. Together we seek to discover the intersection of faith, politics, and culture. We invite you to join, to connect, and to act. Welcome to the community.

Anyway, I had planned to mention Sojo earlier but forgot. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that they had just linked to Long Pauses. Very cool. Speaking of community . . .

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