And I should have a more substantial post up soon…perhaps a review of Watchmen, book and movie? Stay tuned.

It’s been a week now since my first experiment in live blogging the NEMLA conference. Time flies when you come home and get back to work and imagine a life in which you have time on a week night to do something you really want to do. Let me say, first, I really appreciate all of those who followed the fun on the blog and on Twitter (oh, I’m totally in now, http://www.twitter.com/jfitz81). It really meant a lot that while I was in Boston and since I’ve been back people have been asking how it went and all. Really, thank you for caring.

As to how it went…well, it went…well. I mentioned in my grossly uninformative last post that we had what I referred to as an “African lit” size crowd. For the un-initiated, “African lit” means African Literature and was the subject of the panel on which I was presenting. And for the slightly less un-initiated, an African lit size crowd means that there were four people at our panel. To offer a little bit of perspective, however, there were over 15 sessions during the 3-day conference and each session had over 15 panels. As a rule I don’t do math if I don’t have to, but that means there was a lot of competition. And though my panel-mates (colleagues is probably a better, but not more humorous, word) and I are completely convinced of the awesomeness and importance of our subject, it turns out the authors that have movies made about them still reign supreme (freaking Sylvia Plath).

I would like to revisit, however, a theme that I picked up early on in the conference and that followed right through to the last panel I attended. That is, back on Day One I was struck by the willingness, and even the necessity it would seem, to engage in conversation about religion and Christianity in particular. This is striking to me because, as you probably know, intellectuals and scholars aren’t supposed to care about religion. The enlightenment and ensuing modern period pretty much killed god making way for bigger and better things, like Reason. And yet, here we were, 2009, Boston, Massachusetts in the highest concentration of PhD’s that I’ve ever been around and we can’t keep God’s name off our lips.

Here’s a brief synopsis. The first panel I went to was called Orality and Post-colonialism and for the most part dealt with those parts of the world that have a strong oral tradition and have been colonized. There was talk of Africa, India, Arab regions and the Caribbean. But then there was the guy who took as his subject the Pentecostal movement in 19^th century America. All of the sudden we’re talking about speaking in tongues and testimonies, and not in an altogether demeaning way either. It was a rather interesting discussion about testimony as an American mark on orality. Fascinating.

Then there was the madness and modernism session which featured Plath and Woolf and not much about God. Then, I went to a session on religion, the secular and literature. This may have been the best panel I attended. It was chaired by a faculty member from BU’s incredible Religion and Literature Department who gave a brilliant introduction to the interaction between religion and literature by tackling the Romantics, and had three excellent scholars taking on the question of the place of religion in the face of a traditionally secular field. So there papers about the Christianity in Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road,” excellent book if you haven’t read it. There was a discussion of “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad (the horror, the horror). Finally (though I’m not sure he was last to present, but I wanted to save it for last), there was a close reading of the “Left Behind” books in light of postmodernity. It is on this discussion that I’d like to hang for a moment.

The basic point that was made here, or at least what I got from it, was “Yes those books are written so poorly it’ll make you want to gouge your eyes out, but what they at least are is sincere in the face of the pervasive irony that dominates our postmodern culture.” Again, and amazingly, the Left Behind books, all 17 of them, were treated with a dignity here that I’m positive I would not have offered them and that made everyone in the room, no matter what their views on Christianity, feel overwhelming respect for the presenter. Anyways that’s how I felt. But there was a point made during his presentation, in fact it may have been the point of his presentation, that the constant irony with which we all communicate with one another is a trademark of postmodernism and creates a poisonous environment for religion. Thus the merit of the Left Behind books, at least they’re sincere unlike pretty much all of the literature, television and movies of late. He spent most of his time talking, particularly, about television series like “30 Rock,” “The Office,” and “Scrubs” as prime examples of overly ironic.

So, I agreed with him, pretty much throughout. Except, in one tiny point and that is the assertion that postmodernism, because of this penchant for irony is a more hostile environment toward religion then was modernism. With this, I disagree. I’m pretty sure I’d rather talk about religion with someone who thought I was crazy for believing what I believed but, “you now, whatever dude, I guess you can laugh at me on judgment day if I’m wrong,” then the modern alternative which would’ve just dismissed me as an irrational, unreasoning nincompoop (my spell-checker did not flag that word…either it is as dumbfounded as I am that I actually used it in writing, or it’s the correct spelling).

Much is said about the “anything goes” attitude of postmodernism and how this is dangerous atmosphere for a religion that claims exclusivity on the Pearly Gates, but I feel very confident that it is actually a healthier environment for open discussion about faith, and, further, that the best parts of postmodernism are little more than a twenty-first century premodernism which is actually quite favorable to a pre-modern, pre- enlightenment faith like Christianity.

I have a lot more to say about this, but I think I’ll hold some of it for an article I’m working on that may end up being published in one of my new favorite online reads, The Curator. Speaking of favorite online reads, between my recent adoption of Twitter and the fact that I have been compulsively adding RSS feeds to my Google Reader I have been discovering a lot of really great sites about books, culture, faith and the connection of all three. Feel free to hit me up with a recommendation if you’d like. And I’ll just toss one out here, a great site full of lists of books…two things I love, lists and books: Flashlight Worthy Books. Check it out.

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, particularly on your sense of the interaction between religion and pomo (as I sometimes, obnoxiously, refer to it). And thanks for reading.

4:31 – Here goes.

2:57 – Just sat in on a panel about writing a cv and getting a job. Asked a question about “phd preferred” and found out I’m screwed til I get one. But I saw the dept chair from Endicott that gave me my first teaching position. Awesome. Also, I just ran into a prof from umass who was excited to dee me and who hooked me up with a lead for a future conference …by the way, I’m up after this panel. Yikes.

1:27 – Holy crap. I just sat through two sessions. One on orality and post-colonialism and another on madness and modernism. Both pretty excellent. But it’s so much info to absorb. What’s initially striking to me is the willingness, in both panels, to engage religion, particularly Christianity. Ah sweet postmodernism. I’m going to skip the next session and take a walk around my beloved Boston.

9:53 – I’m waiting for the first session to start in a room full of people speaking only Italian. They were in the wrong place. Not me. All is well now.

9:12 – I’ve arrived. I’ve registered. I’m awkward. But so is everyone else. First session that I’m going to attend is at ten. Until then, ambling.

I’m on the train with my sister heading into Boston for the start of the conference. More to follow.

This weekend I will be presenting a paper entitled “Binyavanga Wainaina and Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor: Creating Futures for a New Generation of African Writers,” which I will publish here for anyone interested…as soon as finished (oops).

I’m going to try “live blogging,” as the kids call it from the conference. That means that from time to time I will post messages from the conference…things I find interesting…or boring…and other such minutiae. This may just be a way to keep me sane…whatever it takes. Also, it’s a way for me to make use of the WordPress app on my iPhone that I’ve been dying to actually have use for.

Also, I’m thinking of getting involved in the “twitter” that so many people are talking about. If this is something you do, please share your thoughts with me here…and your twitter name too, if you want, and I’ll “follow” you. (I’m learning the lingo).

Follow me on twitter.

More to come.

…I should’nt have left you, without a dope rhyme to step to.  Or, at least, a few words about something.  The bit about a “dope rhyme” comes from the one and only Rakim of “Eric B. and Rakim” fame.

I’ve been thinking a lot about hiphop these last few days, over the weekend someone asked me, upon hearing some of what remains from my adventures in rap, who my favorite rapper was.  I instantly said Common, mostly expecting her to not know who I was referencing and thinking maybe I should’ve just said Biggie or Tupac to make this whole thing easier.  But she knew.  And she went on to say, “So you’re a gentlemen rapper?”

This is a term I have not heard before.  Which seems strange seeing how it is a rather apt description of some of my other favorites, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Tribe, De La Soul, Bush Babees, etc.

But something else interesting came from this conversation.  My inquisitor pressed further, asking who my favorite rapper is before Common.  Here it became clear to me that she, like many people probably, must think Common just appeared in recent years as a result of his collaborations with Kanye West.  I let this slide and gave the first answer that came to mind.  Before Common? Hmm. Run DMC.

This, it occurred to me, may be a bit more “before” Common than she anticipated, especially if she thinks Common is a relative newcomer.  But it is what I came up with on the spot.  The thing is, looking back, it’s kind of true…at least as far as I want to admit. I got into rap by listening to Kris Kross, Dr. Dre and Snoop, some really awful Christian rappers (worse, even, than DC Talk, though they were there in the beginning.  I’m thinkin, specifically of this group of pre-teens that had an album.  Anybody ever hear of this…I can’t remember what they were called.  I’ll call my mom.)  Completing that list I started a few lines above, however, are the likes of Paperboy and Digable Planets. Incidentally, Digable is the only one there that I’m not at all ashamed to mention…and they’re probably the least known.  (They had that single “Cool like Dat” with the awesome jazz samples…so good.)

The rest of my old favorites now only have value as nostalgia, little more than discarded souvenirs that, when discovered in the back of a closet (or, as the case may be, on an old hard drive of illegally downloaded tracks from early college years) provoke a half listen, a laugh and a yearning for those times when I, too, could be considered an MC.

Much is said about the fate of hiphop.  Nas proclaimed it dead and then made several more albums. I proclaimed it dead but never felt as if anyone agreed.  It probably is dead and yet no one cares.  Those of us who knew what it was don’t miss it.  We don’t have to. We have all the valuable recordings.  Those who thought they knew what it was don’t miss it either, because they didn’t have a clue and think it’s still around.  And those, like Steph, who never cared for it anyway just wish it would go away.

I occasionally dream it back to life.  Me and Jay back in Adidas jumpsuits and shelltoes before an audience that happily makes us the minority jumping around like fools. Then, I call Jay and plan a reunion tour in my apartment, but, he assures me, it will probably never happen.

More on hiphop in weeks to come…I hope.

Last Saturday morning as my wife Stephanie and I were driving from our apartment in Beverly Farms to our favorite breakfast place in Manchester by the Sea, she broke the early morning quiet that had settled on us in the car to observe, “You look like you’re checking out old men.”

I turned to see if I had heard her right, and I had. And what’s worse, I knew exactly what she was getting at. She meant “checking out” in the same way that teenage boys go to the mall to “check out” girls. Or the way a girl might say to her friend, “That guy’s totally checking you out.” She definitely didn’t mean it like “checking out” books from the library.

But she’s right. It probably does look like I’m checking out old men. I’m aware of that even without her reminding me. Each morning as I drive through town my head turns in the direction of every white haired, well dressed older man who happens to be walking about. I can’t help it. John Updike lives less than a mile from our apartment and I want to meet him.

On that Saturday morning, though I was sure I didn’t need to, I reminded Steph, “I’m looking for Updike.”

“I know,” she said, “but it looks like you’re checking out old men.” She gave me a big, silly grin and went back to putting on her makeup in the visor mirror.

I first read John Updike when I was a freshman in high school. The often anthologized “A&P” was the story. I like to tell people that it is the story that made me want to write stories. It appealed to me then because it was immediately relatable. I was working at a grocery store, Johnny’s Foodmaster in Revere. And although I wasn’t a cashier as the main character in the story is, I did often use my bagging station as a perch from which to steal glimpses of the few young girls that would come in to pick up milk or eggs for their mothers. And I certainly shared the main characters’ tendency toward delusions of grandeur.

My appreciation for that story matured as I did, and it served as a gateway into the rest of Updike’s writing. I can very nearly trace decisions in my life that led toward my development as a writer to many of Updike’s stories and essays that I encountered over the years. I decided that short fiction was my genre of choice, for example, when I read “Leaves” from 1967’s The Music School. Later, after reading Hugging the Shore, first published in 1983, I turned my attention to non-fiction. Since those early days a plethora of other influences have arisen as I worked to find my own voice, but that initial connection to Updike’s writing remains.

It wasn’t until I was a sophomore at Gordon College that I learned of our geographic connection. There it was widely known that the same John Updike that we read in our literature anthologies was a neighbor of the college. It was also known that despite his close proximity, Mr. Updike would not be visiting Gordon anytime soon. The explanation however was less clear. There were rumors of a disagreement between a member of the faculty, or administration, and Updike. Whatever the reason, though we still read his stories in literature and creative writing courses, he would never be speaking in a classroom or at convocation. I don’t have any confirmation that this rumor is true aside from the fact that in my time at Gordon as a student, and now as an adjunct professor, John Updike has never visited campus.

Of course there are many other Updike stories floating around the North Shore of Boston. Another such account has a Gordon professor rear-ending John Updike’s car somewhere in Beverly. In the rendition I heard, an interesting conversation sprung up between them and they discussed writing over the exchanging of insurance information.

I have a friend of a friend who worked landscaping at the Updike home and actually saw his Pulitzer Prize and another friend who used to deliver pizzas to the Updike’s. The owner of Manchester’s used book store, Manchester by the Book, explained to me one day as I was browsing that every so often he has to drive over to Updike’s house to pick up the books that he chooses not to read of those that are sent to his house with the hope that he will review them. Even while workshopping this essay, a good friend and fellow writer prefaced his critique with a story about meeting Updike in The Book Shop, a small bookstore here in Beverly Farms. That’s the same shop from which my mother-in-law bought me a signed copy of Updike’s newest novel Terrorist; he apparently signs all of the hard cover editions of his books that they sell there.

And yet I’ve never seen him around town, let alone met him. From where I sit writing this I can look out my window across to the library where his name is inscribed above the windows among other literary Farms’ residents. I often peer out that same window down onto the street to see if happens to be window shopping below, but to no avail.

So why do I want so badly to meet John Updike? What would I say to him?

It’s not as if I’m an adoring fan who wants an autograph; anyway, as I mentioned, I already have one. I don’t necessarily have a manuscript that I’d like him to read. (Though I’m sure I could throw one together pretty quick, if asked.) I don’t want to approach John Updike as a fan, or an admirer, and I’m certainly not a colleague. I want to meet him as a skeptic; a young person who doesn’t quite believe that the writing life can actually be a life. I want to meet him as someone who knows plenty of books but very few authors. I want to know how the words that I have spent my young life storing inside me could have originated inside someone else, another human being.

When I sit down to write I have the sense that although I am alone physically, I am also in great company in that I am surrounded by a chorus of writers’ words rising up from everywhere, including from inside. I try to keep this connection before me at all times so that I don’t feel like I’m on my own island, writing my own thoughts, to be shared with no one beside me. But I need a physical reminder of this community as well. Therefore, scattered over my desk are my favorite books from the writers I rely on the most, always within arms’ reach should I need encouragement or inspiration or simply diversion.

But at some point a writer realizes that more community than this is necessary, that while the words still live inside the computer, on the white plain that is made to look like real, physical paper, they don’t actually exist yet. And it’s hard to make the connection between the words in the books around me, the physical books, and their origins, potentially on similar digital “paper.” Harder to imagine still is the connection between these words, existing in invisible space, the words between book covers, and the man or woman who has watched the process progress from bodiless words to physical pages. And I find it nearly impossible to connect the names on the spines of the books on the shelf next to me with the person pictured on the dust cover and just as hard to connect that two-dimensional person in black and white with the real, three-dimensional full color, living, breathing human being.

But I want to meet that human being. I want to know someone who knows that these words can actually become physical things. And I have come to believe that John Updike can help me make this connection. I believe this because I know that he too has struggled with this disconnect. In a short piece called “Updike and I” found in the last section of More Matters he concocts a monologue by “I” about the other, “Updike.” It is written in the model of Jorge Luis Borges’ essay “Borges and I” published in 1964. Updike’s piece is enlightening not only because it actually describes how “Updike and I,” both, react to meeting an admirer, but it illuminates the space between writer and real person. Even John Updike feels some disconnect between the writer of the same name. Even he can’t quite see how the person who spends time in front of the word processor can possibly be the same person who reads the newspaper with breakfast in the morning. It is as if the words that one takes in and the words that one sends out pass each other somewhere inside of a person but the two identities rarely meet.

Still, this small comfort, this modest assurance that even established authors question their relationship to their own writing and that of others comes from the same place it always has, words on a page. I know from reading Updike that he, the man, could never offer me that same comfort in person. He’d probably feel as awkward as I, eyes dashing to corners of the room falling on anything inanimate, anything safe. Because the inanimate objects, the heavy books, and the light ones too, are the things we trust the most, even when the living beings are what we want the books to help us understand.

So I’ll keep “checking out old men” as Steph calls it, on the streets and from the library. She doesn’t mind, she thinks it’s funny. And she wants me to meet John Updike too, though her reasons are more straightforward. She’s a painter; she knows the importance of bringing a subject to life, visually. And, perhaps more importantly, she knows it will make me happy. I’ll have a story to tell. And these reasons are enough for her. But for the rest of us I offer these sixteen hundred words, printed on physical paper, inanimate as they may be, as a means commiseration, of understanding.

You know what’s great about Christmas?  (I mean, besides that the son of God came down to live among us and in so doing turned everything we thought we knew on it’s head and prepared the world for the kind of salvation only the one who created us could offer.)  Besides all that, and the good meals, family visits, cheesy movies and snow, I really love that people buy me books.

I like getting books so much and I’m so appreciative of those willing to buy them that I want to do everything I can to make the process as easy as possible. That is why, a couple years ago, I started offering my Amazon Wish List to any and every possible book buyer.  (Do you have an Amazon Wish List? What’s your top pick?…I’m not going to buy it, just wondering.) Anyway, the wish list is great, not only because it tells other what to buy me one month out of the year, but because for the rest of the year it helps me remember the books that I want to buy for myself.  And there are generally a lot of books at any given time so a list is absolutely essential.

But the Wish List took on an added value this year when combined with another Christmas present. The Amazon application for the iPhone is just about the greatest thing that ever happened to me (as relating to gadgets and books and absolutely not relating to marriage or spiritual endeavors).  Now, my Wish List goes where I go so that after I picked up and put down every book on every “Featured” table at The Strand, I can pull out my phone and with two clicks I have a long list of books that I’ve been meaning buy and, because the Strand is so wonderfully inexpensive, the means to buy them. (I’m very much aware, at this point, that if you’re the kind of person who knows what a “fanboy” is you’re accusing me of being an iPhone fanboy right now.  And you’re right. I can’t deny it.)

I didn’t mean for this to be a rhapsody to the iPhone however, but rather to drop a few titles on you; books that peaked my interest, made it to the top of my Wish List and were kindly given to me by Steph and Suz and Joel. At the very top of my list was The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World byLewis Hyde.  I added this book to my list after reading an excellent article/profile about the author who is an independent scholar/poet living and writing in Cambridge, MA (dream job anyone?).  The Gift was written more than twenty five years ago but has seen a more recent reemergence among contemporary writers and artists who praise the book for its main message, namely that art, even in our commodity based culture, is best understood as a gift both in the way that it comes to the artist and then in how it moves on from there.  I began reading this book the second I got it, but then had to put it down as Steph handed me another book-shaped package to unwrap.

This next book is perhaps less exciting than The Gift, but considering the direction my scholarship is heading it may be slightly more important. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures byBill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin.  Not only does this book’s awesome title play on one of the greatest movies of all time (as if that even needs to be said), but it is also a definitive work on post-colonial literature.  This is only one of many important books that I should/will read  as I prepare myself for further, formal study of Afircan literature, and I really can’t wait to launch into it.  Without going into too much detail, two other books on this subject from my Wish List are Culture and Imperialism by Edward W. Said and Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenyaby Caroline Elkins, both bought by Steph (but living, now, at the Sally Webster Inn as they didn’t get here in time…send them Mom!)

Finally, another book that arrived late (after Christmas, but before we came back to JC (I’ll never get tired of the double meaning there)), is The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell.  I learned a lot about Sarah Vowell in one week a couple months ago.First, I read a review of The Wordy Shipmates in the New York Times, then I read that Vowell had been on the Daily Show a few times or that she was really funny whenever she was on or something like that so I went straight to Comedy Central’s website and searched out all the clips I could find of her visits to the Daily Show.  It was true what I read, she was both smart and funny.  Then, a few weeks later, I saw Sarah Vowell in person as she read the part of historian (naturally) in the staged reading of Jonathan Franzen‘s New York chapter in State by State (self-enforced deadline for the review of that book  is this weekend…I hope). So, all of those things, combined with the fact that The Wordy Shipmates is a kind of witty history of the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony, made this book a must read for me.

I have a lot to read. And I’m excited to get started.  This blog post is supposed to act as the kick in the butt that sends me on my way, though I should admit, I finding it hard to proceed as Steph has stumbled upon “True Beauty” a new and astoundingly awful show on ABC about people who think they’re “all that” (as they say) but have been invited on the show in  order to expose how not beautiful they are…on the inside.  The fact that I just wasted a sentence on that description makes me sick…the fact that I think I’m about to waste the rest of the evening watching this show may just kill me.

If you see me online in the next couple of weeks, please, keep me accountable…ask me what I’m reading.

One last thing, I’m happy to announce that after more than a year of waiting, my article (or what is left of it) has been published in the January issue of “Christianity Today.”  As far as I can tell, it’s not online, but if that changes I’ll link to it from here.  Otherwise, I think you can buy the magazine where periodicals are sold.

Thanks for listening.

My eyeballs hurt. I have the sneaking suspicion that all these years of tech-geekery are coming to bear and the result is that in a year or two I may find myself standing in front of an eyechart in an optometrist’s office seeing icons instead of letters, a giant <a> tag where the big “E” should be. That’s alright though. I mean, I don’t like that my eyes hurt or that I squint more often than ever before (shrinking my already mostly closed eyes), but, perhaps not so secretly, I’ve always kind of wanted glasses. I can hear the chorus of voices rising from my four-eyed friends, “You don’t know what you’re saying! It’s a huge inconvenience! And contact lenses! Think of the children!” (Someone in a crowd always shouts “Think of the children.”) And I’m sure they’re all right. I probably don’t really want glasses. But does anyone remember sophomore year in college when I wore big, black, thick, horn-rimmed fake glasses around all the time? (Did anyone know those were fake glasses? Does anyone care?) Anyway, I looked cool.

Fact: Writers with thick glasses are cool.

Sadly, it may be this very thing that attracted me to an author that is quickly becoming one of my favorites. (He probably would BE one of my favorites and not becoming if I could get around to reading his gigantic novel to complement all of the nonfiction pieces I’ve been reading by him.) That thick rimmed, prolific and word-nerdy author is none other than Jonathan Franzen, bearer, not only of cool glasses, but an excellent first name, and author of, most famously, The Corrections (the gigantic novel I haven’t read but have referred to twice here now).

My late introduction to Franzen came via the essay that has come to be referred to as the “Harpers Essay,” as it first appeared in that journal under the title, “Perchance to Dream.” (Awesome for being a bit of my favorite Shakespeare quote…You know you’re a word nerd if…) By the time I got around to reading the essay it had been retitled “Why Bother?” and had been in print for six years as a part of Franzen’s first collection of essays How to Be Alone. I was doing some reasearch, looking for some inspiration for the conclusion of an essay I was writing about Flannery O’Connor’s first novel, Wise Blood. The thought I was dwelling on was O’Connor’s assertion that the job of the fiction writer is to present “mystery through manners,” a notion that Franzen confirms in “Why Bother?,” but one he sees threatened by what he calls “technological consumerism that rules our world.”

Anyway, all this is by way of explaining away my tardy introduction to the work of Jonathan Franzen. And let me add one more before I move on to the real reason for this writing. As Steph and I make our way through life here in New York/Jersey City, Franzen’s essay “First City,” also from How to Be Alone, provides a kind of metastory for what city living means in the United States in the 21st Century. I highly reccomend it.

This past Friday night I had the chance to actually see (and hear) the man in person.  As new contributors to our local NPR station, WNYC, Steph and I now receive “The New Yorker,” which, among all the super-smart articles, short stories and poetry, we found the “Around Town” section to be like the social life we never knew we were missing.  Upon receiving our first copy I flipped right to the “Readings” section and found that Franzen, accompanied by the hysterical actress Parker Posey (of Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Might Wind), Sarah Vowell, author, most recently, of The Wordy Shipmates, a kind of irreverent history of the Pilgrims and quite possibly the next book I read, and others.

They read from the book which was meant to be the topic of this mess of a post entitled State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America.  The book is a collection of essays, stories, reporting written by fifty contemporary authors, with a few actors, musicians and artists thrown in there about United States, each writer taking on a different state.  The idea for the book came to the editors Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey through a series of events including returning the US after being gone for four years and taking a road trip across the country in an old pickup truck.  The inspiration for the collection is the American Guide series, commissioned by the government as part of the New Deal and completed a a part of the Federal Writers Project in the 1930s. From my initial sense of the book I’m wary of how diverse a perspective will come across from one essay to the next. Sure, the states they are profiling may have many differences (though becoming more homogenized everyday) but I’m skeptical as to whether the writers themselves do.  Luckily, I’m writing a review of the collection for “Books and Culture,” so I’ll be thinking (and writing) a lot more about this book in weeks to come.

Franzen wrote about New York, not the state he’s from, but one he loves.  He wrote his piece in the form of a short play, which is why it made for an entertaining staged reading and why he solicited the help of actors.  The premise was that he, Jonathan Franzen, was trying to get an interview with New York State for his chapter in the book.  He found, much to his surprise, that the New York that he was in awe of growing up has gone, been replaced by a more superificial, commercial and all around unpleasant version of her former self, seen most notably in her largest city.  He laments the lack of personality and the lust for money that he sees as typifing the city and somehow in the meantime manages to tell the history of the state, its geological makeup and how it came to change from the place he remembers (or thought he remembered) to the place it is today.

Parker Posey was hysterical as the publicist for New York State, effortlessly dismissing Franzen as “The Literary Writer,” and seeming frighteningly like any one of the thousands of young women who land in New York City and find themselves working publicist or secretarial jobs.  As amazing as her performance was, however, Sarah Vowell may have stole the show playing, what else, the state historian.  She played up the dullness that Franzen wrote into the script and with her monotone and obliviousness to the author character’s boredom as she carried on telling the history of New York from colonial times to present day.  The other actors performances were fantastic as well, especially Maria Tucci, who played New York State herself.

I love the idea behind this book.  It’s yet to be determined whether the content will match the concept, but I’m eager to find out.  Immediately after the reading Steph and I went to Strand Books and picked up a copy.  It’s a handsome book, I can say that; the kind of book you want to leave out on your coffee table.  And while its there you may as well flip to the back and wow you’re friends (or annoy your wife) with interesting information from any one of the 25 pages of State statistics that are included.  In addition to the New York essay, I read the Massachusetts piece by John Hodgman, or as you probably know him, “PC” from the “I’m a Mac” Apple commercials.  I went on to read the New Jersey essay by professional chef and television cooking show host Anthony Bourdain before I was drawn in by the statistics.  So far, so good.

Perhaps the reason why I’m so interested in this book, and the idea that prompted it is that it feeds right into something I’ve been thinking a lot about in the year(s) leading up to this election and in the month since. There was a time beginning with my junior year of college when I could have been, and undoubtedly was, described as non-patriotic.  It started, I’m quite sure, after 9/11 while everyone was rallying around the flag, not to mention displaying the flag in their windows, on their cars, on their bodies, on advertisements…everywhere.  But unlike some other times in my life that I’m well aware of this was not a reactionary period. I did not hold unpatriotic sentiments to go against the grain or show that I was different from everyone else.  Really, I’m not even sure I actually was unpatriotic, I was just too busy asking questions to go out and get an American flag bumper sticker.

I am grateful for that time in my life.  And much of what I was thinking about then has stayed with me to today.  I may not be as vocal as I once was but I still am a Christian pacifist.  During those years I went from no political affiliation (no political interest really, not since I wanted to be President in fourth grade) to a card carrying (does anyone actually get a card?) Democrat. And those changes, only amplified by the semester I spent studying in Kenya, really made me the person I am today in a thousand very evident ways.

The way I see it, too much was up in the air for me at that time and not enough had yet landed. But in the years that followed, as I began to sort things out I realized that I never ceased to be a committed Christian, and I never lost my identity as an American; quite the contrary, my sense of my place in this country and in the world was greater defined. Even as early as Spring Break of senior year I felt the urge to see this great country in a completely different way than I ever had before. I got on a train from New York City and rode clear across to San Francisco.

So, remember when Michelle Obama got in all kinds of trouble during the campaign season for saying that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of this country? (If you don’t remember, you can watch it out of context and on Faux News here.) Well, I resonated with that. Say what you will about me but I when I was coming into my own, becoming me during college, I woke up to a country that answered a very planned and pointed attack with flailing punches in the dark. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, despite the fact that I and many, many others in New York City and around the world went out to ask the President not to attack Iraq, he went right on and did it anyway. And to add insult to injury, the next 6 years happened. It was quite a rude awakening.

But, somehow during those last six years, I really started to care. A lot. I wanted so badly for the Bush era to end in 2004, and when it didn’t, and when Democrats started looking ahead again, and when an inspiring politician (the first person, in my lifetime, of whom the words “inspiring” and “politician” both apply) gave a speech that energized a pitiful looking party, I was all in.

It’s a good time for a book like State by State, a good time to remember why this country is so great. It’s a time to look ahead and a time to heal. I’m interested now in how they live in those red states that for so long have formed another ocean between the East and West Coasts, and I want to hear about it from a person who can command the English language, and, I’m sure already, from a person who agrees with me.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

My first major magazine publication was supposed to hit newsstands two summers ago.  It was a review/introduction/essay on the music of Sufjan Stevens, Denison Witmer, Damien Jurado, Dave Bazan and Rosie Thomas for the benefit of the readers of Christianity Today.  I pitched the idea to an editor at the magazine who loved it and encouraged me to write it and submit it ASAP.  When I did so he was psyched about it.  Thought it was great and told me when it would be published.  And then, a few weeks later as I anxiously awaited the galley proof he was going to send, I received a different kind of email with the simple subject, “Sorry.”  My article had been cut.  Apparently the other editors didn’t think enough CT readers would care about pop singers on the fringes of Christianity.  As I imagine it, my editor, a young hip guy (who is no longer with the magazine) pitched the story to his old, curmudgeonly colleagues who carelessly batted it down.  Anyway, that’s how I imagine it.

Fortunately, this sad story has a (somewhat) happy ending.  I kept up contacts with the magazine (because of deep seated masochistic tendencies) and eventually scored an article (which has been since cut down to a “contribution”) about my brief trip to Southern Sudan last year to be published in January (knock on wood with your fingers crossed).  But on a perhaps happier note, in the process of writing I became a big fan of Rosie Thomas. Of the list of artists I surveyed I was probably least familiar with her and Denison Witmer. Rosie was merely that amazing voice that backed up Damien Jurado. But I listened a lot to her album “These Friends of Mine” during that time (an amazing album that features Sufjan Stevens and Denison Witmer prominently and Bazan and Jurado less prominently). Then, I went back and got “Only with Laughter Can You Win,” another great album. Needless to say, I was psyched when, just last month she released a Christmas album, “A Very Rosie Christmas,” every bit as endearingly precious as you’d expect it to be, but with a few very serious and, dare I say, worshipful moments as well.

Well, all that being said, imagine my excitement when I learned that she would be playing two shows in the NYC area supporting her Christmas album. So excited was I that I bought tickets to both shows (though, the plan was actually to sell the second night’s tickets when I realized it’d be more convenient to go to the show the first night…but the plan fell through and we went twice in a row). So, two nights of Rosie, two nights of excellent music, a wide range of emotions and, the second night, the added treat of Rosie’s alter ego and standup routine, Sheila.

Perhaps the most powerful song both on the record and in her live show is her rendition of “O Come O Come Emmanuel.” This obviously subjective and it is based on the fact that it happens to be my favorite Christmas hymn and that “Emmanuel” is my favorite name for God (You know you grew up in an Evangelical home if…You have a favorite name for God). Emmanuel means “God With Us,” and, if I’m not mistaken first appears in the book of Isaiah. How amazing is the idea that God, creator of everything, is with us; chose to be with us. Gets me every time.

(And now for the not-so-subtle transition into book review.) How much better would the concept of “God With Us” be if, for just one weekend, he really would be physically present in all his triune glory, at a shack somewhere in the Pacific Northwest? Well, if he says things like “Guess that jes’ the way I is,” or if Jesus, in all his brawny carpenterness, whispered things in your ear with his head near yours while looking up at the stars on the dock of a lake, then no, I think I’ll stick with his spiritual presence thank you. But this is how William Paul Young chooses to render the supreme being of the universe in his novel The Shack. God the Father is a large and loveable black woman, the Holy Spirit takes on the name Sarayu which, apparently, means wind, and Jesus is (where’d your imagination go Billy) a Jewish carpenter.

If you haven’t heard of this book or are unfamiliar with the very simple premise, I’ll offer a brief summary. A man name Mack is the protagonist, though his story is actually told by his friend Willy (folksy names, ain’t they).  Mack is married, a father, and an all around likable guy, if not occasionally (and inconsistently) gruff.  The major drama of the novel revolves around the abduction and murder of Mack’s youngest daughter.  After this tragedy we rejoin Mack a few years later to find that he is angry at God and living with The Great Sadness, which I italicize there because for some reason Young italicizes it throughout the novel.  One particularly stormy day, Mack receives a letter in the mail, presumably from God (identified by the name Papa, a dead give away to Mack) inviting him to the shack in the woods where the trail of his daughter’s murder ended with a bloodied dress.  After some internal struggle Mack decides to go.  The rest of the novel (for the most part) takes place as Mack hangs out with God the Father/Mother, the Son and the Holy Asian Lady, err, I mean Spirit up at the Lake.  Here Mack gets to ask questions which serve merely as prompts for long monologues by God (or William Young?).

Many people are aware that this book has been controversial since its publication for a number of reasons and, in all honesty, that’s why I picked it up. When it comes to things that piss off Christians I gravitate, moth to flame. And, as I mentioned here before, this book pisses me off too, but I don’t care that God is a black woman or that the Holy Spirit seems a bit dippy or even that Jesus talks about his disdain for organized religions. (I was perusing other blogs about this novel and came across this one.  God as a black woman really killed this guy…count how many times he uses the word “crass”…it’s funny.) What really gets me is that Young’s God reads like a Hallmark card. But not just any Hallmark card, one of those really obnoxious numbers with beveled, pink flowers, lace around the edges, a poem that goes on too long and music that plays when you open it…and maybe it’s even scented. This book is that obnoxious.

To his (dis)credit, Young took up a really immense challenge here. He uses the person of God as three of his main characters. That means God get’s a lot of talk time and God is fluent in pop theology. The ideas espoused here (and really it is a book of ideas thinly veiled as narrative…more on that later) will not appear new to anyone who has had exposure to only a tiny bit of theology or grown up in Evangelical churches (I imagine the theology here is similar to what would result if the uneducated Pentecostal pastors of my childhood and the well educated pastors I’ve come to admire got together to write a paper in which each blindly contributed a paragraph and an outside editor got to compile it…that is, it’s really hit or miss), but, when channeled through the voice of God, Young assigns it a gravity that not even the most respected theologians have dared attribute to their ideas.

This got me thinking, how many other authors are so bold as to use God as a character. While I was reading The Shack, and since, I have asked a number of people this question and have come up with a few myself. Perhaps the most obvious is Milton’s Paradise Lost, there we see God the Father and the Son, as well as Satan, angels, devils, the whole supernatural crew. The next I thought of is Norman Mailer in The Gospel According to the Son, a novel that imagines the Gospel story from Jesus’ perspective. Others I hadn’t personally thought of is C.S. Lewis’ Aslan in the Chronic(what)cles of Narnia, though clearly that’s a bit more representational, and maybe Bunyan’s Pilgrim Progress. (Can you think of any not mentioned here…I’m sure there are many, many more.)

Let us take a look at that list. There’s Milton’s epic poem which is, by definition epic. God is booming and God-like and Milton doesn’t take too many liberties with the Biblical narrative. Then there is Mailer, admittedly not the kind of guy you really want taking on the character of Jesus but, much to many people’s surprise, he stayed right in line with the Gospels and, perhaps for that reason, the book received mixed reviews mostly all wishing he had taken the opportunity to do something more controversial (isn’t that, after all, one of the marks of modernism…shock them for the sake of shock…another rant, another essay). C.S. Lewis gives us as Aslan, the lion who says smart things and who is safe to hug (most of the time) but being that Narnia is a fantasy land, it’s kind of different. Pilgrim’s Progress is often referred to as one of the most significant works of English literature, so we’ll just let that say it all.

The point is, as my friend and frequent commenter Mike put it, “you’ve got to be pretty bold to write God as a character in a novel.” That’s precisely the point I’m trying to make with all of this. And further, I can say with great confidence that William Young, author of no other book, does not have what it takes to attempt this, even if Michael W. Smith thinks that “The Shack is the most absorbing work of fiction I’ve read in many years.” Or, that Wynona Judd loved it, or, even, that Eugene Peterson went as far as to say that it “has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgirm’s Progress did for his.” No. It doesn’t.

One last rant before I move on. Having received a formal education in writing fiction and having remembered some of it, one thing I know a bit about is the way a story is meant to arch. Ok, you don’t have to have a Masters in English to have learned this; you probably got it in high school. You know that drawing that your teacher would do that looked something like a stick figure mountain with one peak.

That is how a story is supposed to work. It begins someplace, builds to a dramatic moment, often called the climax, and then comes back down for a bit and then ends. Young never got this lesson, or, if he did, he didn’t heed it. Read it, you’ll see.

Alright, that’s enough of that. The fact is as far as I can tell there’s nothing sacreligious about this book. It is no more controversial as far as I’m concerned to personify God in the body of a black woman than it is to go with the more traditional rendering of white guy with flowing beard. It’s just not good writing and when bad writing is passed off as the word(s) of God, it’s annoying, that’s all.

Fortunately, for me (and for you if you still care to read these things) I’ve moved on. I’m back on track with my reading for an upcoming NEMLA conference at which I’m presenting a paper on contemporary African writers. Currently I’m into Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. Adichie is a Nigerian writer who’s writing is (especially after you-know-who) absolutely beautiful. Her descriptions jump off the page (to use a description that doesn’t jump off the page due to overuse) and her prose is just stunning. I look forward to writing more about this (already) wonderful novel in weeks to come.

As always, thanks for reading.