May 30, 2008 - Snapshots in the Funeral Home

Today I stop by one of our local funeral homes, to attend visiting hours for Diane, a member of the Cancer Concern Center support group I used to attend. Diane was a multi-year survivor of breast cancer, but it caught up with her in the end.

I remember her as one of the most welcoming, affirming members of the group – even though she was one of the ones who found it hardest to stop calling me “Reverend,” and simply call me by my name. Some habits are hard to unlearn – especially for someone who grew up attending Catholic school, as she did. As a kid, she’d never have dreamed of calling a priest anything other than “Father,” and that formality carried over to a Protestant pastor like me.

I find I know only a few other people in the room – one other member of the support group, and a couple I know from some other contexts. I explain to Diane’s daughter how I knew her mother from the Cancer Concern Center, and always found her to be a positive, affirming presence. I don’t identify myself as a pastor, just as a member of the support group.

There’s no casket present – must have been a cremation. I walk over and take a gander at the photo collages. There are several of these, jam-packed with snapshots of a smiling Diane with family and friends I’ve never met.

I feel a little out of place. I knew Diane from such a narrow segment of her life – the support group – and from a time when she wasn’t feeling her best. These are images of a life that was rich and full, until cancer burst in and overturned the game board, scattering the playing-pieces.

Still, I felt I ought to come. Diane was a fellow member of the cancer underground. I want to honor her memory.

As I lean close to the displays of photos, I feel a twinge of survivor’s guilt. Why her and not me? There’s no answer to that question. Why ask why?

(05.30.08) Recommends:

Ema and the Ghosts.

After yesterday's Beirut post, we got an email tip to check out Ema and the Ghosts. So we went to her myspace and, honestly, the first thing we noticed was her profile introduction:

ema is a girl who would like to make a sound to make a feeling to make a revolution. yes, she understands the unlikelyhood of this daydream being realized but she does not care. she has more important things to worry about.

Okay, as far as myspace profiles go, that's pretty crush-worthy. The next thing we noticed was the music. It's one female, an accordion, a ukulele, random bells and whistles. Completely charming. If you like Beirut or Jens Lekman or Andrew Bird or the Moldy Peaches or if you breath in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide, we're willing to bet that you'll enjoy Ema and the Ghosts.

Ema and the Ghosts at Myspace.

May 29, 2008 - No Concierge Medicine for Me

This evening I pick up the phone to listen to our voice mail. Waiting for me is a message from Dr. Cheli. He’s calling to tell us he’s decided not to move forward with the new affiliation with MD-VIP, because he’s been hearing that it would create “too much of a hardship” for his patients. So, he tells us, it will be “business as usual” in his office. He assures us he’ll continue to practice medicine with an emphasis on prevention. (Scroll down to the May 15th entry, for more on this story.)

Reading between the lines, it seems likely that he and the MD-VIP marketing people failed to convince 600 of his 2,700 patients to make the switch (and to pay $1,500 per year for the MD-VIP physical and other services).

That’s not surprising, given the sluggish state of the economy. With gas prices rising faster than anyone can remember, folks are being extra cautious about all their expenditures.

While I feel sorry for what must surely be a huge disappointment for Dr. Cheli, I’m glad for our sake. Claire and I hadn’t told him yet, but we’d pretty much decided to go ahead and take a risk on MD-VIP (despite the severe strain it would have put on our budget). We made that decision reluctantly – not because we were overflowing with enthusiasm about MD-VIP’s services, but because we didn’t want to leave Dr. Cheli.

This means we can continue to see him, without the worry of coming up with that huge fee every year.

I don’t fault Dr. Cheli for trying. The health-care funding situation in this country is an abominable mess. I can fully understand why he’d want to carve out a little island of calm amidst the chaos, where he could practice the sort of medicine he trained for, and make a good living doing so.

It’s going to be stormy sailing for him and everyone else connected with health care – until our political leaders come up with the will to stand up to big insurance and big pharma, and develop a national health-insurance program, like most every other industrialized nation already has.

(05.29.08) Recommends:

The Los Angeles Return of Beirut.

Oh, Zach Condon. What more can we possibly say about him? He released music in 2006 and it was among our favorite music of that year. He released some more music in 2007 and it was among our favorite music of that year.

He's an interesting artist for many reasons, but one of the things that strikes us is this. If you read this blog because you're really into music, you're familiar with Beirut. If you read this blog simply because you know us, you're probably not familiar with Beirut. And if you get out from beyond your computers right now and ask the first five people you come across if they know of Beirut, after clarifying that you're talking about the band, we can almost guarantee that you'll be meet with blank stares. So here's what's awesome. Last time Beirut came through Los Angeles -- October '07 -- they played two shows at the Avalon (the first of which we know for sure was sold out). The Avalon is not the Hollywood Bowl, but it easily fits in excess of 1,000 people. It's quite impressive playing, let alone selling out, a venue that size while being a band that is in large measure obscure.

And not only did Beirut sell out the Avalon. The crowd was as attentive as any crowd we've ever seen. Hanging on his every word. Singing along to every word. And at the time of these shows Beirut's second full length album had been officially released less than a week, yet we overheard at least two people claim various songs on the album were their favorite songs of all time. And we don't think this was simply hipster hyperbole. Zach Condon has an effect on people that is true and pure and above all else real. (As an example, after the show, we went home and were inspired to start goofing around with our camera. We took a picture of the concert ticket and within thirty minutes had created what has turned out to be easily one of this blog's most viewed posts).

People of our generation, we're the Mtv generation. We've been advertised to our entire lives. Since our earliest years, we've been sold soda and shoes and lifestyles and dreams. It's become hard to tell the difference between what we really think and believe and feel and what we're told we're supposed to think and believe and feel. It seems that every time we stumble upon something authentic and different, in come the marketers to repackage it and sell it on a mass scale. It's enough to make one crazy. Unfortunately, cynical, we think, is what it's made most of us. There's a sense of sadness that pervades our generation because we desperately seek things real -- real emotions, real connections, whatever -- but too often feel we are left with the manufactured, facsimiles. We want to know that the emotions that we experience are the emotions we actually have, and not the emotions that marketers and advertisers and media executives are feeding us.

And into this vast space steps Zach Condon. He is real and pure and haunting and haunted and seems like he arrived in our speakers straight out of a novel. People are responding, we suppose, because they fear this moment is fleeting. That Zach Condon will one day just up and vanish. Well, for now Beirut is back for two shows. This time at the Wiltern. The band is still pretty obscure. But that hasn't stopped them from already selling out the Friday show.

If you sometimes feel overwhelmed with the cynical and the snarky and the snide and the sarcastic, we really recommend going to one of these shows. We guarantee they will be life affirming. And that's a good thing.

Beirut -- various tracks -- streaming audio.

May 28, 2008 - Slo-Mo Gets Even Slower

Today I see Dr. Lerner for my 3-month appointment. It’s the usual routine: CBC blood test (with instant results, thanks to his spiffy machine), and a physical exam (stethoscope, feeling my neck, armpits and groin for enlarged lymph nodes, then thumping on my abdomen).

The doctor asks me how I’ve been feeling. I tell him I continue to have no symptoms and am feeling fine. Everything looks good, he tells me, so he’s going to recommend I wait a little longer for my next CT scan. I won’t go in for that until the first week of July – just shy of 5 months since my last one.

Previously, my scan interval has been every 3 months – but, the last 2 scans have indicated no change in the size of my enlarged lymph nodes. This lymphoma has been out of remission for more than a year, but the biopsy has shown it to be of the indolent, couch-potato variety – so, Dr. Lerner doesn’t seem overly concerned.

Sometimes, in action movies, the director slows the film down, so a character facing some extreme, physical challenge moves in slow motion. I’ve been describing my current situation as a slow-motion crisis: and, it looks like it just slowed down a little more. It’s odd to think of relaxing our vigilance with respect to an out-of-remission cancer, but that’s the nature of the beast, I suppose.

(05.28.08) Recommends:

The Track "Creeper" from Islands' "Arm's Way" (Anti, 2008).

We're so underground that we've been anxiously awaiting Islands backlash since Nick Thornborn was still in the Unicorns. We're kidding, of course (click here for some background history); there are few bands in recent years that we've listened to with as much awe as the Unicorns and then Islands (though we've always thought Islands makes some of their songs about 90 seconds too long). So we waited with baited breath for the newest Islands release -- literally: we were on a strict fish bait diet for like three weeks prior to the release.

It came out several weeks ago but we've held off writing about it because we wanted to fully dig into it. And, frankly, it's also taken several weeks because it leads off with Creeper and it took us about nine days before our brain would allow us to move on to track 2.

So today we're gonna drop some Islands crumbs. If you listen to only one track on Arm's Way, it should be this one.

(05.27.08) Recommends:

Bharta.
Surya India,
8048 W. 3rd St.

We've lived in both the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles. We notice certain differences between the two. There is a certain rivalry between them, though probably not as much as people outside of the two areas would imagine. We've also come to appreciate certain similarities between the two as well. And say what you will about the two areas, but this much is hard to argue with: living in either one is pretty different than living in Kansas.

There are many differences that we expected, and expected to enjoy, before we moved -- the weather, the geographic diversity, the concentration of ambitious young people who flock here from all over the country and world. But these are pretty much the differences that lured us here in the first place. There are also differences that we didn't really think much about, but that we now find ourselves loving and they leave us unable to imagine how we could have gone so long living without them. One of the most pleasantly surprising differences that we've come to love is the diversity of ethnic food. We have never really been Food People; pasta and chicken pretty much got us to our early 20s. And still today, we cannot be considered foodies or food snobs (mostly because we just eat what is put in front of us with little understanding of or regard for the ingredients or how it's put together or the proper verbs used to describe food and ambiance), but we have been surprised to find out how much we love exploring new restaurants, and particularly restaurants that offer cuisine that is rare or non-existent in Kansas, it of the 91% white population.

So this weekend's revelation: bharta. Pardon our French -- we're talking food here, so an illusion to the French somehow seems necessary, right? -- but: Holy Shit. We ordered this, along with three or four other dishes, from Surya and had it delieverd. And when a Fellow Blogger put it on the table it looked to us like a container of tomato puree and we were neither excited with its look nor sure what to do with it. And even now, all we know for sure about bharta is that it is a vegetarian India dish made out of eggplant. But we were told to put some on our plate over our rice and we did what we were told and, again: Holy Shit.

We don't think we've ever thought of eggplant and crack at the same time, but bharta was bridging all sorts of divides this weekend. And again, because we are not foodies, we don't know if Bharta is "authenthic" (but trust us when we say we don't care). For all we know, bharta might be the Indian equivalent of a chili dog or a funnel cake -- something unsophicated for which your love can only be expressed to yourself while you are driving alone in the car or taking a shower.

Whatever bharta's story, we loved it and ate the whole container and when it was gone insisted on scraping up the container with nan, to make sure every last lick was gone.

And here we sit, Tuesday morning, and all we can think about is the next time we get to have it.

Surya India:
On the web.
Reviews.

(05.27.08) Recommends:

How Me Breaking Up With You Is Like Jon Lester Pitching A No Hitter Against The Kansas City Royals.

May 26, 2008 - Random?

Another thoughtful response from Christine, over in the comments section. She writes:

“Following from your proposition, by allowing ‘creation’s freedom,’ God has inadvertently (or not) introduced randomness of events/tragedies into the human realm. If this is so, then where I am today (with cancer) might possibly be the result of a random event. So essentially it boils down to the luck of the draw. And as such, there can be no purpose to life or life's struggles.”

I wonder if “random” was the best word to use, in my last post. In suggesting that God the creator allows certain things to happen randomly – like the genetic mutations that lead to the evolution of animal species – I didn’t mean to suggest creation is purposeless. Quite the contrary: God has imbued the world with such a powerful purpose – evolution – that a great many things we see around us are in service to that higher goal.

Take the human tailbone, for instance. Most anatomists agree it’s the useless, vestigial remnant of something that was far more useful to our distant ancestors. Lots of people’s tailbones give them trouble, causing back pain. Perhaps it’s a small comfort to some of those people (or at least, to those who contemplate such weighty philosophical matters) that the bone that causes them such pain at one time had a purpose – a purpose that was one of many factors leading to the appearance of the human race on earth. Because God’s temporal frame of reference spans eons rather than human lifetimes, this means generations of human beings will have to suffer with vestigial tailbones, until – through the slow work of genetic mutations that fuel natural selection – this annoying anatomical feature finally disappears completely.

It’s possible (although probably not terribly comforting) to say to a back-pain sufferer, “God is doing something about that pesky tailbone, but it’s going to take a few hundred thousand years before the job is done.”

Maybe the cell mutations that lead to cancer have a similar purpose. Maybe, without those millions upon millions of mutations – a very few of which are incidentally responsible for cancer – other, more positive mutations could never occur. Such mutations appear, from our perspective, to be random. But, from God’s perspective?

How can we possibly say? We don’t have the God’s-eye view. All we can do is trust, in faith, that God is working the divine purpose out.

The prophet Isaiah seems to think the God’s eye view is worth thinking about:

“It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows upon them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me, or who is my equal? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing.” (Isaiah 40:22-26)

The classic Western image of the creator God is that of a divine watchmaker, creating an intricate machine by fussing over every flywheel and gear. It’s the sort of metaphor that worked well in Enlightenment times, but in this present era it’s more than a little dated. With what we know about the unimaginable complexity of evolution, it seems to make more sense to view God as the creator who cooks up the primordial soup out of which life springs, then steps back to watch it all unfold.

I don't see this as a Deist understanding of God (the cosmic watchmaker who winds the blame thing up, then slinks off, letting it tick away). Rather, the God of evolution is still involved with the created order, although without manipulating it like a puppetmaster. That’s because freedom itself is too important a principle to compromise. It’s the very fuel on which the universe runs.

I prefer to speak of freedom, rather than randomness, with respect to God’s creation. I believe there is a purpose to it all – although it’s a purpose we can understand only in the most fragmentary of ways.

We await the full revealing. In the meantime, we live by faith.

Carfree Times issue #50 is up

This month has some good stuff on offer. Aside from beautiful photographs of carfree places, you'll find interesting articles about carfree living like:

Expensive Gas Drives Down Suburban Housing Values
Buy a McMansion? Bad idea. But they are cheap. And probably getting cheaper. Housing prices are probably nowhere near their bottom. (There's a scary thought.) But some neighborhoods are holding value. And it's no surprise which neighborhoods. It's the ones that aren't 40 miles from work.
[...]Near the city center, people are still buying and new listings attract plenty of interest. In the city proper, prices are actually up 3.5% over the past year. Good access to public transport is especially important to buyers.

Simply put, the longer the commute, the steeper the drop in prices.

In addition to the 10 or so articles, there's an interesting interview towards the bottom - "Cars Are Driving Us Nuts: We drive ever longer distances in order to satisfy the same needs".

Check it out.

(05.21.08) Recommends:

Karma Police.

Question: What do you get for inventing bands like Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync?

Answer: Why, 25 years in prision, natch.

May 21, 2008 - And It Was... Good?

Last Sunday, I had occasion to read Genesis 1:1-2:4a in our worship service. Joanne, our seminary assistant, was preaching, and had chosen that passage from out of the Revised Common Lectionary selections for the day.

Not often do I have the opportunity to read that famous passage – the first of Genesis’ two creation stories – aloud, in its entirety. “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” (Genesis 1:31) I was struck by the sheer majesty of those ancient words.

Funny that today I should see those very same words pop up in a comment posted on my blog. A reader named Christine referred to Genesis as she commented on the May 18th entry, “The Imperfect Is Our Paradise.” Here’s what she has to say:

“Dear Carl, can you really see God in the immense suffering as a result of the China earthquake or the Myanmar cyclone or in any other tragedies? I truly would like to but how does one begin? Does the answer lie in finding a purpose in the imperfection? I thought the Bible says that when God created the world, he saw that all was good. Perhaps I am missing the point.”

Ordinarily, I respond to comments in the Comments section, but Christine’s remarks set me to thinking. The more I think about it, the more I realize that her objection, and my response, belong not just among the comments, but here in prime time.

The theological issue Christine raises is a big one – perhaps the biggest. I’m speaking, of course, about the question theologians call theodicy: the problem of evil.

Christine puts it bluntly: “Can YOU really see God in the immense suffering as a result of the China earthquake or the Myanmar cyclone...?” It’s kind of like Jesus’ question to Peter at Caesarea Philippi: “But who do YOU say that I am?” (Christine has a way of putting a preacher on the spot. Which is OK with me. It goes with the territory.)

Well, Christine, let me attempt an answer. Please understand, before I begin, that any answer I attempt can hardly break new ground. This question has both preoccupied and baffled the sharpest theological minds down through the centuries.

Archibald MacLeish put it colorfully, in J.B., his play in verse based on the book of Job. There, the poet has the devil taunt the long-suffering Job, saying,

“If God is God, he is not good,
if God is good, he is not God,
take the even, take the odd.”

The writer of Genesis punctuates his narrrative of creation with the repeated mantra, “And it was good.” But was it? That’s really what Christine is asking. She wants to know if it was good through and through, if there were any seeds of evil in that idealized, primordial realm. In other words, was creation perfect? And, if so, what happened to it? How could the loving, omnipotent, “and it was good” God tolerate a world with earthquakes and cyclones in it, let alone Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma?

I’ve spent a fair amount of time wondering about that question myself, over the last several years. As I’ve pondered it, I’ve come to the conviction that creation need not be perfect to be good – at least, not as we commonly understand the word, “perfect.”

Anyone who takes a hard, unblinking look at creation quickly realizes it’s far from perfect. I’m no creationist; I firmly believe God used – and still uses – random processes like Darwin’s natural selection to fashion the universe. Think of the wild profusion of seeds that never make it to fertile soil. Think of the billions of animals gobbled up by larger, fiercer beasts. Think of humans who are blessed with free will, but who turn around and misuse that gift to create everything from Mein Kampf to child pornography to “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.” Yes, indeed, creation is a messy business. Sometimes it seems the creator God operates more like Jackson Pollock than Andrew Wyeth: sending shiny strings of paint swirling through the air, spattering as much color upon the floor and walls as ends up on the canvas. Yet, somehow God loves the wild imperfection of it all. And it was good.

It’s an imperfect world, no doubt about it. One strain of thinking within Christianity posits that creation began with perfection, but then something called the Fall intervened, as a saltshaker lid comes unscrewed over a bowl of soup. It blames human sin for the mess. I don’t buy that. There in the Garden, Adam and Eve have free will. The serpent may croon to them seductively, but at the end of the day they choose the forbidden fruit on their own. Adam and Eve have that capacity for choosing wrongly within them, all along – and isn’t it true that God created them, including their capacity to choose evil?

There’s another meaning to the word “perfect,” and this one I can affirm with respect to the creation story. “Perfect” doesn’t only mean “without flaw.” It can also mean “finished.” Like the grammarians’ “perfect tense,” this sort of perfection means just what Genesis 1 asserts: that God created, then God rested. When God rested n the seventh day, the work of creation was finished: flaws and all. And it was good.

When the author of Genesis says it was good, I think he’s using that word the way parents use it of their children: “He’s a good boy, she’s a good girl.” In saying such a thing, parents never mean their offspring are free from errors or flaws. They mean, “They are who they are. What they are is mine, and I love them.”

Yet, this world God created – good as it was, and still is – is far from static. It’s a living, growing thing. God may have perfected it eons ago, speaking a word of love into chaos, but the divine work of creation continues to unfold, through spouting volcanoes, shuddering earthquakes and swirling cyclones. Evolution continues, in its glorious profusion of species – some destined to become ancestors of species yet unborn, others bound only for the scrap heap of extinction. It’s all God’s, and it’s all good.

Could God intervene to prevent a shoddily-constructed Chinese school building from collapsing on the unsuspecting heads of its students? Could God send a cyclone spinning out into the open ocean, rather than letting it careen into a heavily-populated river delta, dotted with fragile bamboo huts?

In theory, God could. But, in practice, God typically won’t. That’s because God values one aspect of creation as especially good, so good it needs to be left alone: creation’s freedom. Were God to begin censoring creation’s every impulse to randomness, then it would cease to be the starkly beautiful place it is. It would become, instead, a wasteland of dreary predictability. The Pollock canvas would be transformed into a Stalinist propaganda poster. The lumpy, fresh-off-the vine tomato would become the perfectly-spherical but tasteless hothouse variety.

Did God create cancer? Maybe not directly, but God did bestow upon creation the gift of freedom. God stepped back and said, “I’m finished. Let it be.” Then there began a wild profusion of changes and mutations, continuing through the eons, even unto our own day. As in all living cells, the DNA in certain cells of the human body eventually mutates, changing the intricate pattern of chemical switches. One of these chemical switches controls the cells’ programmed instructions to die on schedule, making room for new cells. In their wild freedom, the newly-immortal cancer cells grow in size and number, squeezing out their healthier neighbors. Repeat this process millions of times, and the complex creature of which those cells are an essential part falls ill, even dies prematurely. Such a turn of events causes God to weep. Yet, through the tears, God keeps loving creation – enough to refrain from laying hands on it, robbing it of its precious freedom. God continues to call it good.

Ultimately, it’s love that’s at the center of creation. Out of love God fashioned the whole thing in the first place. Out of love God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.” Out of love, God allows the human prodigal to run free, even if that one is squandering the family fortune. The child’s got to fall before it can walk.

“Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.” (1 Corinthians 13:8-10)

The poet Isaiah promises that, one day, God will roll up the whole cosmic burrito, leveling earth’s mountains and raising up the valleys to make a grand processional highway of celebration. Then, there shall be no more weeping, nor crying, nor pain. They shall not hurt or destroy on all God’s holy mountain.

I’m coming to believe Philip Simmons – the ALS survivor whom I quoted, in the blog entry to which Christine took exception – is right. Because of his experience of suffering, he of all people is worthy to be our guide in such matters. The world is imperfect, as we normally define the term. Yet, the world is good, all the same. That good, but imperfect, world can even be our paradise.

It’s the only world we’ve got. Until the day. Until the day...

(05.20.08) Recommends:

Carbon Dating.

As an alternative to, you know, Online Dating.

Think about it, people. Think about it.

(05.19.08) Recommends:

Mount Righteous.



This is some kind of 11-piece acoustic-indie-rock-punk marching band. We keep seeing this name pop up in our inboxes and they're playing a bunch of local shows in the coming weeks so we're very excited to catch them live. We've been listening to their myspace all day and we like what we've heard. They kind of remind us of Head of Femur, (myspace) which is another old live favorite of the blog.

Howard Zinn on Anarchism

Abridged from an interview with Ziga Vodovnik:

Ziga Vodovnik: From the 1980s onwards we are witnessing the process of economic globalization getting stronger day after day. Many on the Left are now caught between a "dilemma" - either to work to reinforce the sovereignty of nation-states as a defensive barrier against the control of foreign and global capital; or to strive towards a non-national alternative to the present form of globalization and that is equally global. What's your opinion about this?

Howard Zinn: I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization. In a certain sense the movement towards globalization where capitalists are trying to leap over nation state barriers, creates a kind of opportunity for movement to ignore national barriers, and to bring people together globally, across national lines in opposition to globalization of capital, to create globalization of people, opposed to traditional notion of globalization. In other words to use globalization - it is nothing wrong with idea of globalization - in a way that bypasses national boundaries and of course that there is not involved corporate control of the economic decisions that are made about people all over the world.

�

ZV: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon once wrote that: "Freedom is the mother, not the daughter of order." Where do you see life after or beyond (nation) states?

HZ: Beyond the nation states? (laughter) I think what lies beyond the nation states is a world without national boundaries, but also with people organized. But not organized as nations, but people organized as groups, as collectives, without national and any kind of boundaries. Without any kind of borders, passports, visas. None of that! Of collectives of different sizes, depending on the function of the collective, having contacts with one another. You cannot have self-sufficient little collectives, because these collectives have different resources available to them. This is something anarchist theory has not worked out and maybe cannot possibly work out in advance, because it would have to work itself out in practice.
[...]
ZV: Most of the creative energy for radical politics is nowadays coming from anarchism, but only few of the people involved in the movement actually call themselves "anarchists". Where do you see the main reason for this? Are activists ashamed to identify themselves with this intellectual tradition, or rather they are true to the commitment that real emancipation needs emancipation from any label?

HZ: The term anarchism has become associated with two phenomena with which real anarchist don't want to associate themselves with. One is violence, and the other is disorder or chaos. The popular conception of anarchism is on the one hand bomb-throwing and terrorism, and on the other hand no rules, no regulations, no discipline, everybody does what they want, confusion, etc. That is why there is a reluctance to use the term anarchism. But actually the ideas of anarchism are incorporated in the way the movements of the 1960s began to think.
[...]
ZV: Do you thing that pejorative (mis)usage of the word anarchism is direct consequence of the fact that the ideas that people can be free, was and is very frightening to those in power?

HZ: No doubt! No doubt that anarchist ideas are frightening to those in power. People in power can tolerate liberal ideas. They can tolerate ideas that call for reforms, but they cannot tolerate the idea that there will be no state, no central authority. So it is very important for them to ridicule the idea of anarchism to create this impression of anarchism as violent and chaotic. It is useful for them, yes.
[...]
ZV: On one occasion Noam Chomsky has been asked about his specific vision of anarchist society and about his very detailed plan to get there. He answered that "we cannot figure out what problems are going to arise unless you experiment with them." Do you also have a feeling that many left intellectuals are losing too much energy with their theoretical disputes about the proper means and ends, to even start "experimenting" in practice?

HZ: I think it is worth presenting ideas, like Michael Albert did with Parecon for instance, even though if you maintain flexibility. We cannot create blueprint for future society now, but I think it is good to think about that. I think it is good to have in mind a goal. It is constructive, it is helpful, it is healthy, to think about what future society might be like, because then it guides you somewhat what you are doing today, but only so long as this discussions about future society don't become obstacles to working towards this future society. Otherwise you can spend discussing this utopian possibility versus that utopian possibility, and in the mean time you are not acting in a way that would bring you closer to that.

�

ZV: In your A People's History of the United States you show us that our freedom, rights, environmental standards, etc., have never been given to us from the wealthy and influential few, but have always been fought out by ordinary people - with civil disobedience. What should be in this respect our first steps toward another, better world?

HZ: I think our first step is to organize ourselves and protest against existing order - against war, against economic and sexual exploitation, against racism, etc. But to organize ourselves in such a way that means correspond to the ends, and to organize ourselves in such a way as to create kind of human relationship that should exist in future society. That would mean to organize ourselves without centralize authority, without charismatic leader, in a way that represents in miniature the ideal of the future egalitarian society. So that even if you don't win some victory tomorrow or next year in the meantime you have created a model. You have acted out how future society should be and you created immediate satisfaction, even if you have not achieved your ultimate goal.

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ZV: What is your opinion about different attempts to scientifically prove Bakunin's ontological assumption that human beings have "instinct for freedom", not just will but also biological need?

HZ: Actually I believe in this idea, but I think that you cannot have biological evidence for this. You would have to find a gene for freedom? No. I think the other possible way is to go by history of human behavior. History of human behavior shows this desire for freedom, shows that whenever people have been living under tyranny, people would rebel against that.

May 18, 2008 - The Imperfect Is Our Paradise

Some time ago, I saved this quotation from Philip Simmons’ book, Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life. Simmons suffers from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease):

“We have all heard poems, songs, and prayers that exhort us to see God in a blade of grass, a drop of dew, a child’s eyes, or the petals of a flower. Now when I hear such things I say that’s too easy. Our greater challenge is to see God not only in the eyes of the suffering child but in the suffering itself. To thank God for the sunset pink clouds over Red Hill – but also for the mosquitoes I must fan from my face while watching the clouds. To thank God for broken bones and broken hearts, for everything that opens us to the mystery of our humanness. The challenge is to stand at the sink with your hands in the dishwater, fuming over a quarrel with your spouse, children at your back clamoring for attention, the radio blaring the bad news from Bosnia, and to say ‘God is here, now, in this room, here in this dishwater, in this dirty spoon.’ Don’t talk to me about flowers and sunshine and waterfalls: this is the ground, here, now, in all that is ordinary and imperfect, this is the ground in which life sows the seeds of our fulfillment.

The imperfect is our paradise.”

I can’t say my suffering begins to approach that of an ALS patient like Philip Simmons. In fact, whatever suffering I experienced during my chemotherapy is becoming more and more of a distant memory. I’m still troubled by the thought of the recurrent cancer inside me, of course, but I’m trying to be thankful for days that approach normalcy, for the absence of symptoms and for the absence of the need to pursue further treatment at this time.

Sure, life’s imperfect. I’d prefer to still be in remission, or to be pronounced cured. But this life is the only life I've got.

Tomorrow morning, Claire and I pick up Ania at the airport, as she returns home from her freshman year of college. We’re looking forward to seeing her.

Life – even an imperfect life – is good.

Too Many People?

You know, I get really irritated when people talk about overpopulation. So does this guy. To me it seems like a way of shifting blame. It is about blaming people who live in the global south for environmental problems that were caused by exactly not them. I think a far more pressing need is to reduce our constant striving for unlimited economic growth and overconsumption.

The places where population is growing fastest — sub-Saharan Africa, rural China and Bangladesh — have virtually no carbon emissions, and pitiful food consumption rates. The gap is so huge that to be responsible for as many gas emissions as one British person, a Cambodian woman would need to have 262 children. Can we really sit in our nice homes, with a fridge-full of food we will mostly chuck away and an SUV in the drive, and complain that she is the problem?

Of course, there's only so many people we can fit on the earth- and, you know, feed.

But if this is a problem, is there a solution that isn't abhorrent? Some people seem to reach instinctively for authoritarian answers. The government of China has bragged that its "greatest contribution" to the fight against global warming has been its policy of punishing, imprisoning or sterilising women who have more than one child. Some environmentalists — a small minority — eye this idea jealously.

There is a far better way — and it is something we should be pursuing anyway. It is called feminism. Where women have control over their own bodies — through contraception, abortion and general independence — they choose not to be perpetually pregnant. The UN Fund For Population Activities has calculated that 350 million women in the poorest countries didn’t want their last child, but didn’t have the means to prevent it. We should be helping them by building a global anti-Vatican, distributing the pill and the words of Mary Wollstonecraft.

So we do need to reduce our population growth to something manageable, but improved social justice, security, and women's rights take care of that pretty neatly. For instance here in Canada, where women can be pretty independent, with (mostly) good access to birth control, and a relatively comfortable economic situation, we have a below replacement fertility rate (1.53 per woman). Reproductive rights are a very important part of the puzzle (Unless you're China) - just one more reason we must keep fighting that fight. As I wrote previously:

Give women more choices and they won't have as many babies - they may work outside the home, delay marriage, and use contraception. Children are expensive and less of an asset in industrial, urban societies as opposed to agricultural societies. Wealthier populations tend to also be healthier, which means less infant mortality (which generally correlates with having fewer babies).

It seems that population growth is inversely proportional to the degree to which a society is egalitarian, urbanized and economically secure. You can play with this yourself using Gapminder. Just press "play" to see how the indicators change over time.
Here, correlated with total fertility rate, is Life expectancy at birth. As life expectancy increases, fertility rate decreases. This one shows under 5 mortality rate. This one relates total fertility rate to the percentage of girls who complete primary school. Again, the trend is clear. Similarly, an increased Urban population also correlates to a lower fertility rate. Finally, increased income per person means fewer babies born.

Thursday Thoughts

From Torontoist:

Tory MP Jason Kenney complained that Romeo Dallaire was overly harsh when Dallaire criticized the federal government's handling of the Omar Khadr case. Kenney is a former general who is credited with using meagre resources to save the lives of over 20,000 people during the Rwandan genocide in the face of massive indifference from the west…no, wait, sorry, that was Dallaire. Jason Kenney is a lifetime party hack who didn't finish his bachelor's degree. See, they're almost like twins!

From Paul Graham: al Naqba at 60 and the reflections of a recovered Zionist:

Looking back I am amazed at how easy it was to adopt completely contradictory political positions, for example, to cheer on American blacks in their struggle for civil rights and to be blissfully unaware of the grinding poverty and racist oppression of aboriginal people in my own community; to see the American invasion of Vietnam as a horrendous crime while cheering on the Israeli army as it triumphed in the "Six Day War" of 1967.

Young people are idealists by nature with an instinctive sympathy for underdogs of all kinds. Messages of freedom and equality resonate with youth, in part because they experience the inequality and lack of freedom that accompany parental control.

The direction their idealism takes and their ability to identify underdogs depends pretty much on what they learn, at home, at school, from the media. As the ‘60s progressed it became possible to understand the injustice and horror of the Vietnam War and the just demands of the American civil rights movement: these were on display on the evening TV news. Aboriginal people didn’t have a media voice; they were invisible. And as for Israel and my youthful Zionism, well, I blame American novelist Leon Uris. (Read the rest here)

Via illvox, Bolivian President Evo Morales' 10 commandments to save the planet:

1. In order to save the planet, the capitalist model must be eradicated and the North pay its ecological debt, rather than the countries of the South and throughout the world continuing to pay their external debts.

2. Denounce and PUT AN END to war, which only brings profits for empires, transnationals, and a few families, but not for peoples. The million and millions of dollars destined to warfare should be invested in the Earth, which has been hurt as a result of misuse and overexploitation.

3. Develop relations of coexistence, rather than domination, among countries in a world without imperialism or colonialism. Bilateral and multilateral relations are important because we belong to a culture of dialogue and social coexistence, but those relationships should not be of submission of one country to another. Read the other 7 here.

May 15, 2008 - Concierge Medicine?

A couple of nights ago, Claire and I attended an informational meeting put on by our family-practice physician, Dr. David Cheli. Starting this July, he’s associating himself with a nationwide group called MD-VIP. This decision will bring big changes for his patients.

For us patients, there’s some good news and some bad news.

The good news is, Dr. Cheli’s going to be focusing very intentionally on preventive medicine. Each patient will receive an elaborate annual physical, including a host of diagnostic tests. That physical exam takes about one and a half hours, and is – the company claims – comparable to the “executive physicals” long offered by world-class medical facilities like the Mayo Clinic. Each patient gets a personalized website with health-related resources, and a mini-CD-ROM containing personal medical history to carry around and present to emergency-room doctors, if necessary. Dr. Cheli also promises to be available 24/7 by cell phone, and further promises that no patient will ever have to wait longer than one day for an appointment. He’ll continue to take all medical-insurance plans for routine office visits – no change there, he assures us.

Dr. Cheli will continue to have a solo practice, but he’s cutting his roll of patients from 2,700 to 600. That’s what makes the more personal attention possible.

OK, that’s the good news. Now for the bad news. Each patient must pay an up-front fee of $1,500 a year – which (except for, perhaps, a small portion) is not covered by insurance.

Do the math. 600 patients times $1,500. That’s 900 grand. Dr. Cheli doesn’t get all of it, of course. MD-VIP gets their cut, and those elaborate tests associated with the annual physical do cost something. Yet, what he does receive from these annual fees is evidently enough to cut his patient roll by more than three-quarters.

I can understand what’s in it for him. As he explained the other night at the public meeting, he’s been practicing medicine for 31 years. Along with many of his colleagues, he’s feeling increasingly frustrated with a health-care system that forces him to rush through patient appointments so he can spend hours on the phone arguing with insurance adjusters. He knows the type of medicine the system forces him to practice isn’t as good for his patients as the type of medical care he was trained to deliver.

MD-VIP claims their patients’ hospitalization rates are just 65% of the general population. They attribute this to two causes: better prevention, and same-day or next-day appointments (which allow MD-VIP doctors to identify and treat serious conditions in the office, keeping their patients out of the emergency room).

That may be part of it, but I’d be willing to bet that a significant portion of this favorable statistic can be explained by the fact that patients willing to pony up the $1,500 fee are younger and healthier to begin with.

Why do I say that? Several reasons. First of all, MD-VIP relies heavily on the internet. Patients have to be familiar enough with computers to derive the full advantage from this service. While some senior citizens have taken to the internet with a vengeance, a great many still don’t know the difference between hypertext and hyperactive. Second, chronically sick people are more likely to have burned through their financial resources and would have a harder time coming up with the $1,500 annual fee. Third, patients who see the value of preventive medicine, and are willing to pay for it, are more likely to have already adopted positive lifestyle habits. (How many chain smokers or alcoholics are willing to go for this?) Fourth, those who simply have an aversion to going to the doctor are not likely to pay top dollar for the privilege of spending more time doing the thing they hate.

So, Claire and I have a tough decision to make. We both really like Dr. Cheli. He’s been our family doctor for 17 years. He diagnosed my cancer before I was displaying any obvious symptoms. He’s a got a caring bedside manner, and he’s always been responsive to our needs. But, can we find the $3,000 a year to keep going to him?

My medical insurance, provided by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), has a preventive health benefit that reimburses 100% of the cost of an annual physical, independent of deductibles and co-payments. That benefit’s got a cap on it, though, that falls way short of $1,500 for each of us. Most of the MD-VIP fee we’d have to pay out of pocket.

If Dr. Cheli will be able to work with me to overcome my #1 preventive-medicine challenge – losing weight – it will be money well spent. But, will the MD-VIP philosophy really give him the time and resources to do that? Is it really as good as the rosy description on the website claims?

They call this “concierge medicine” (although MD-VIP's website disavows this label, saying they’re “beyond concierge healthcare”). As with any pricey “concierge floor” in a hotel, the question is, “will we get our money’s worth out of the enhanced service?”

Or, is this one of those situations where, as they say, “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it”?

(05.14.08) Recommends:

Willy's Favorite Burrito (w/ grilled Skirt steak instead of chicken).
Bossa Nova,
7181 W Sunset Blvd.

We carry three things in our pockets (we actually carry things in our pockets Huck Finn-style, long ago eschewing the notion of wallets and whatnots) at all times: (1) a bank card; (2) a form of government-issued identification; (3) a card that says "We Love Burritos."

So take it from self-styled burrito fiends, when we say there may be no better burrito available in this country than Willy's Favorite Burrito at Bossa Nova, a Brazilian place in the middle of Hollywood. Who woulda figured, right? We had previously believed that the best burrito available in this country was the orange-sauce ladened crack burrito of La Victoria. But Bossa Nova is making us question the very principles around which our world is organized. And never has such disorganization and chaos satisfied us and fortified us and bowled over our little burrito-loving brains as Willy's Favorite Burrito.

If you live in Los Angeles and act on one recommendation from this blog this week, make it to go to Bossa Nova and order this. Also: you should probably invite us along.

Two Additional Notes:
One. On the menu, the burrito is found under "Sandwiches". Do not let this alarm you. You are in Hollywood after all and they just do things a little differently here -- an artist's constitution and whatnot. You say tomato, we say tomahto. You say sandwich, we say burrito. Whatever. We'll deal.

Two. There are several Bossa Nova locations, but the great thing about the Hollywood location is that before or after your burrito you can go across the street and catch some live theater. Seventh Veil specializes in putting on what we guess is termed Off Broadway productions. The first time we heard about the Bossa Nova/Seventh Veil combo was back in the fall, during the heat of the writer's strike. Our friend went and told us -- we presumed that it was in solidarity with the writer's -- that the cast members choose to perform the play totally naked. Frankly, our friend found the whole thing was a bit startling and we're not sure every show is like this. But you'll basically just have to go and find out for yourself. And if you act on that recommendation? There's no need to actually invite us along. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.

(05.13.08) Recommends:

The track "We're From Barcelona" by the band I'm From Barcelona.

Okay, since last Thursday we have had this stuck in our head for the first time since late-'06/early-'07. Here is the tale.

Part 1. We were living in Northern California when this song was first released, back in 2006. By January 2007 we were dating a girl who lived in San Francisco. She did not just live in San Francisco though, no no, she lived on California Street at the peak of Nob Hill. Now, anybody who has spent any time in San Francisco on California Street at the peak of Nob Hill understands that this area offers some of the most breathtaking views of anywhere in the United States.

Part 2. At the time, we were also living the Student Life, and sometimes -- in particular Friday's, when we had no classes and could go roam around freely -- the Student Life is the Best Life Their Is.

Part 3. So on many of these Friday afternoons in January 2007, we'd find ourselves driving up to San Francisco to spend the weekend with said girlfriend. And we burned a CD that featured only this song -- anybody who reads this blog with any regularity knows that when we get a song on the brain, we will listen to nothing else until we've completely mastered the song -- so we would be driving windows rolled down radio cranked up, slowly enveloped by the smell of the Bay and breathtaking views and this song. Intoxicated with life. We would shout the lyrics at the top of our lungs -- the band is, a bit confusingly given the name, from Sweden and even though we think the song is mostly in English, the only part we knew we were getting right was the "la-la-la-la-laaaaa la-la-la-laaaa lalalalaaaaaa." [1]

Part 4. When this relationship ended -- which is the terminus of all relationships that are predicated almost entirely upon the stunning vistas afforded by the significant others' neighborhood (yes, yes, we're horrible people for saying this, but let this be a Lesson For Us All) -- this single song CD got shoved to the bottom of the CD pile/got lost somewhere amid all the crap in the backseat/trunk/under the drivers or passengers seat of our car. One of the two. It's been a long time since we've seen the CD so it's location, really, could be anywhere at this point.

Part 5. But the song made an unexpected reprise in our lives at the Ben Solee show on Thursday. It was played over the speakers between Ben's sound check and the beginning of his set proper. The show was great, but now we're retroactively wondering if having this song as a lead-off didn't put us in a particularly sentimental mood. And since that show, the catchy song has lodged its way back into our brain. We've literally been whistling it in the shower. Whistling it on the metro to work. Whistling it in the office. If we're feeling particularly giddy -- and we're sure nobody is within earshoot of us -- we've even been belting out the old "la-la-la-la-laaaa la-la-la-la-laaaaa lalalalaaaa" line. Then, last night while taking the metro home, we got a deep-seated urge for edamame. So we stopped into our neighborhood crap sushi joint (a place so crappy that we refuse to even recognize it by name it in this space) for a pre-dinner snack. And what instantly popped up on the speakers as we sat down? Why, "We're From Barcelona." So we figured that the gods, in addition to being crazy, must want us to blog about this song.

Part 6 . So here we are. Blogging about the song. We really hope everybody will click on the mp3 below and give the song a try. It really is one of the most catchy, whistleable, damn near perfect pop songs crafted in the last twenty fives years.



I'm From Barcelona -- We're From Barcelona -- mp3.


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[1] A little known fact is that many school children in Sweden actually speak French. So, if our recollection of high school French is correct, this lyric, translated from the original French means roughly "the-the-the-theeeeee the the the theeeeeee thethethetheeeee."

An Open Letter to People Who Smoke While Driving

Dear smoking drivers,

When you are finished smoking your cigarette, please do not throw it out of your window. There may be a cyclist right in the trajectory of its burning ember.

Sincerely,
Your friendly nonsmoking cyclist

p.s. You could also be a real pal and refrain from honking a cyclist out of her lane so that you can illegally pull over into said bike lane where you aren't supposed to be, seeing as how you are in a car and all.

May 12, 2008 - Unbroken

At the age of 20, Jerry White lost his leg – and nearly his life – as he stepped on a landmine while on a camping trip in Israel. Later, he went on to work as a leader of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and become co-founder of Survivor Corps. White has just published a book about how to survive a catastrophic life event. Here’s a selection:

“They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It’s not quite that simple. I believe you have to decide it will make you stronger. Experience has taught me that happy endings can never be taken for granted. They must be chosen. When I was in the hospital for six months in Israel, no one did my physical therapy for me. No one underwent the pain or the fear of six operations for me. I would have liked for someone to, maybe. I confess, the first time I was put in a wheelchair, I sat there and waited for someone to push it for me. I had just had another surgery, I was weak, in pain, exhausted. And when I looked up at my nurse, she looked down at me and laughed. “If you want to move, push.” And so, I did. And I continue to do.

Whether we like it or not, personal determination is required to build resilience – to become fit for whatever the future may hold. We have to tap inner resources and develop some emotional muscle. It’s both a discipline and our responsibility. No one can do it for us.

The good news is we are not alone. We are surrounded by survivors who have gone before us, and their examples will help mark the way forward.”(I Will Not Be Broken: 5 Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis, from the Introduction.)

White’s experience was of a sudden, traumatic injury. One moment, he was hiking with two friends through the Israeli countryside. The next moment, the earth exploded around him, and his right foot disappeared. The next day, he lost more of his right leg to the surgeon’s knife.

Even so, I think White’s conclusions can be generalized to include the experience of being diagnosed with a slowly-progressing disease like cancer. In the book, he recalls a conversation he had with Princess Diana, with whom he worked as an anti-landmine activist. Touring Bosnia and speaking with survivors, they observed that everyone seemed to have “their date.” They could all state precisely on which date they had been injured or bereaved.

Many of us cancer survivors can do the same with our dates of diagnosis (mine was December 2, 2005). Before that date, we may have a suspicion something is wrong, but we still have the luxury of hoping it’s nothing serious. After that date, we can never return to such naiveté. We will, forever after, be cancer survivors.

White identifies five essential steps in coming to terms with a life crisis. I think they can be generalized to include the experience of receiving a cancer diagnosis:

1. FACE FACTS. One must first accept the harsh reality about suffering and loss, however brutal. “This terrible thing has happened. It can’t be changed. I can’t rewind the clock. My family still needs me. So now what?”

2. CHOOSE LIFE. That is, “I want to say yes to the future. I want my life to go on in a positive way.” Seizing life, not surrendering to death or stagnation, requires letting go of resentments and looking forward, not back. It can be a daily decision.

3. REACH OUT. One must find peers, friends, and family to break the isolation and loneliness that come in the aftermath of crisis. Seek empathy, not pity, from people who have been through something similar. Let the people in your life into your life. “It’s up to me to reach for someone’s hand.”

4. GET MOVING. Sitting back gets you nowhere. One must get out of bed and out of the house to generate momentum. We have to take responsibility for our actions. “How do I want to live the rest of my life? What steps can I take today?”

5. GIVE BACK. Thriving, not just surviving, requires the capacity to give again, through service and acts of kindness. “How can I be an asset to those around me, and not a drain? Will I ever feel grateful again?” Yes, and by sharing your experience and talents, you will inspire others to do the same.(I Will Not Be Broken: 5 Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis, from Chapter 1.)

There’s something of an up-by-the-bootstraps character to this way of thinking, but I think it makes good sense. We all depend on our medical professionals, family and friends to do things for us, but ultimately we’ve got to claim responsibility for our own healing.

(05.12.08) Recommends:

Cheap Thrills.

This is Andrew Bird's latest installment in the Measure for Measure blog.

(More info here and here).

May 11, 2008 - Outsourcing Health Care

I ran across a factoid not long ago that’s set me to thinking. In a Newsweek article by Fareed Zakaria, I came across this statistic: “U.S. carmakers now employ more people in Ontario, Canada, than Michigan because in Canada their health care costs are lower.”

Wow. That’s a telling snippet of information. The economy of the Detroit metro area – long the traditional heartland of the American automobile industry – has in recent years been devastated by layoffs and plant closings. I’ve heard that part of the reason for this – besides competition from Japan, Korea and other countries – is the heavy pension-and-benefits packages the big U.S. automakers have to bear, particularly for their retirees.

I never imagined, though, that these companies would find a way to outsource their medical benefits: by packing up their manufacturing plants and moving them lock, stock and barrel across the river to Canada.

Canada, of course, has a national health plan. Their workers’ health benefits are paid for by the government. The American auto executives, while urging “Buy American!” out of one side of their mouths, are whispering “Buy Canadian!” out of the other, with respect to health care.

It’s hard to imagine a more telling indictment of our health-care funding system than this. Our broken system has become a problem that’s bigger than the privations of individuals and families. It’s affecting the economic health of our entire nation.

(05.09.08) Recommends:

Ben Sollee.

So we just received an email about this gentleman earlier in the week. The email basically said: this dude is kinda like Andrew Bird and he's playing an early show at the Silverlake Lounge on Thursday and you like both Andrew Bird and early shows at the Silverlake Lounge so go check this out already. And so we went and checked it out.

Ben Sollee is 24 and plays the cello. He is a bit like Andrew Bird, we suppose. He's also a bit New Grassy, and jazzy. Here's the thing. We spend lots of time consuming obscure-to-somewhat-obscure media. And then we come here and make recommendations. Often very enthusiastically. We do this despite our knowledge that many people will never act on the recommendations, or click though to the linnks we present (sad, true, but we understand that everybody is under a constant delgue of stuff that must be done, so we understand sometimes people just do not/cannot take the time to take chances with culture), and that which we recommend might not find an audience as big as we believe it deserves.

But this recommendation is different. As a general rule, solo cellists do not perform at the Silverlake Lounge to the rapt attention of a roomful of hipsters. But here's the thing. He also plays in Sparrow Quartet, a band that also includes Bela Fleck (the offical banjo hero of this blog), so he'll play to the rapt attention of the bluegrass festival circuit this summer. We could see him catching on big with the Dave Matthews Band crowd.

He reminds us a bit of someone like Andrew Bird, or someone like Zach Condon of Beirut in that he is obviously inspired by a force that touches few people. Most young people do not wake up and say "I want to be a cello player. I want to fuse jazz and bluegrass and rock. And I want to do it in front of both small rooms in Silverlake and large fields of the Rockies." But -- and god bless him for this -- Ben Sollee does walk around with thoughts like these in his head. And that's why we're convinced that he is very needed. Because society is better for people who think these strange, but captivating, thoughts.

Endnote: For people in LA, Ben is opening for Tapes 'n Tapes tonight at the Troubadour.

Ben Solle @ myspace.
Ben Sollee featured on NPR.