Weekend Reads (Jul 23): The Beastie Boys, Damien Jurado, “Tron,” Rethinking Bathsheba
Recommended weekend reading material for July 23, 2022.
Every week, I compile a list of interesting and thought-provoking articles to offer you some enjoyable weekend reading material.
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After nearly a decade’s worth of efforts, the Beastie Boys are finally getting an official New York landmark.
In 2014, a New York community board rejected a proposal to rename the Lower East Side corner of Ludlow Street and Rivington Street — made famous on the cover of Paul’s Boutique — as “Beastie Boys Square.” Eight years later, a renewed application for the designation has been approved by the New York City Council, reports PIX11. A street sign honoring Michael “Mike D” Diamond, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz, and the late Adam “MCA” Yauch is set to go up, pending the bill’s signature by Mayor Eric Adams.
Damien Jurado’s debut album — 1997’s Waters Ave S. — is getting the 25th anniversary treatment this year, and Lars Gotrich reflects on album’s legacy.
The thing is that Damien had bona fides: he’d had a punk band with David Bazan, he got mixtapes from Kurt Cobain, he lived at the House of Funk in Seattle, his bandmates included members of Blenderhead and Rose Blossom Punch. I didn’t know any of that back then, but the more I listened to Waters Ave S., the more I heard a punk growing outward, not to mention a romantic with an open and easily broken heart.
Then my teenage brain had a eureka moment: It’s all made up. Everything’s punk. Nothing’s punk. All that matters is the song. My relationship with the music that lit my world on fire started to flicker just as soon as it sparked… decades later, I'm still in a constant state of love and disillusion with punk.
LGBTQ artists working in the Christian music industry have often been forced to live double lives and faced discrimination and reproach. But as times change, will the Christian music industry need to change, too?
It’s unclear where the sexual battle lines of CCM will be drawn in the future. Amy Grant and Kevin Max both received heavy criticism among evangelicals for their divorces in the 90s, only for the same communities to support thrice-married Donald Trump for president in 2016. And without the isolation that the 90s music industry provided — where evangelical parents only bought their kids the Christian version of their favorite rock band — it’s difficult to imagine the industry existing in 20 years.
But that’s a pipe dream in many ways. So long as there’s a Christian right in need of a popular culture set apart from “Hollywood liberals,” and so long as that movement uses social issues like trans people in bathrooms and queer Disney characters to further its political agenda, there will be a need for a music industry that reflects the “traditional” American identity, however sidelined it might be in a given cultural moment. Although that still raises a question that CCM is struggling to answer: How powerful could such an industry remain if young people are increasingly jumping ship?
Disney’s Tron was groundbreaking when it was originally released in 1982. It was also a failure. But 40 years reveals just how prescient Tron was, writes Ryan Britt.
In 1982, there was no internet in a mainstream sense and the idea that a person could have a second identity in a digital realm, wasn’t just science fiction, it bordered on outright fantasy. But in 2022, many of us have our own virtual “Trons,” versions of ourselves who “fight” for our self-image, help make us seem hirable for various jobs, locate childcare, and literally everything else. And in this way, Tron is oddly more upbeat than most of the tech-paranoia sci-fi that came later. In the Tron world, there are good programs and bad programs. Everything we make in the virtual world is just a reflection of the real world, and that’s okay.
Related: Whenever I see Tron mentioned, I feel contractually obligated to point people to “The Groove Grid”, aka, the long-lost Tron theme.
The Russo Brothers, who have directed some of the biggest films of all time (e.g., Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War) discuss working for Netflix, the success of Everything Everywhere All at Once, and the “sacredness” of the movie theater.
We’re in crisis right now because everyone’s at war with each other. It’s sad to see, as guys who grew up loving film. A thing to remember, too, is it’s an elitist notion to be able to go to a theater. It’s very fucking expensive. So, this idea that was created — that we hang on to — that the theater is a sacred space, is bullshit. And it rejects the idea of allowing everyone in under the tent. Where digital distribution is valuable, other than what I said earlier about how it pushed diversity, is that people can share accounts; they can get 40 stories for the cost of one story. But having some kind of culture war about whether there’s value in that or not is fucking bananas to us.
Via IndieWire. The Russo Brothers’ most recent film is The Gray Man, starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Evans, and Ana de Armas. It’s currently streaming on Netflix.
I’m generally sympathetic to what the Russos are saying. I love seeing movies in the theater, especially spectacle movies like Top Gun: Maverick, and I do enjoy the communal aspect of film festivals. At the same time, though, I’m reluctant to put the theater on the pedestal, or to argue that a theatrical experience is somehow more “legitimate” than watching a movie in your living room — or on your phone, for that matter. (Movie theaters, of course, have plenty of downsides, including rude audience members and dirty facilities.)
At the same time, the Russos’ iconoclasm contains its own form of elitism. Also, there’s some irony in the Russos’ statement, specifically re. sharing accounts. Netflix has specifically cited shared accounts as one of the driving factors behind their declining numbers, which is why they’re finally cracking down on them. So sure, sharing accounts democratizes things and makes stories more accessible to more people. But taken to an extreme, they cut into Netflix’s profits, which will eventually affect the streamer’s ability to fund original films, including $200 million blockbusters like The Gray Man.
Alissa Wilkinson dives into Jordan Peele’s latest movie, the UFO-themed Nope, including the film’s commentary on our media-obsessed society.
Nope is a big, very loud, very effects-driven spectacle. It’s a movie with a thousand references to the past. It’s also a riotously entertaining thrill ride that owes portions of its plot to some of Hollywood’s most successful summer blockbusters, Jaws and Independence Day. It’s part of the culture; it can’t stand outside of it.
But it functions at least a little bit as a warning, or maybe a prophecy, or a call for a reboot, or a reminder to care about what, or who, gets our attention.
Carmen Joy Imes says that it’s time to re-think the story of David and Bathsheba.
Pinning the blame equally on Bathsheba ignores how God assesses the story through Nathan. It ignores the culture of the city of David. And it ignores the clear exegetical signals throughout the chapter.
This was always one of those Bible stories that I thought I understood. I thought I had it all figured out. So for years, I always believed that while, yes, David shouldn’t have done what he did, it ultimately takes two to sin — and therefore, Bathsheba wasn’t entirely blameless. She shouldn’t have tempted David, shouldn’t have flaunted herself the way that she did. I mean, what did she expect the poor man to do? She was practically asking David to sleep with her. Right?
I repent of that interpretation now.
Russell D. Moore wonders if fantasy role-playing is hurting America. And no, he’s not really talking about Dungeons & Dragons.
Polls show shockingly high numbers of Americans seriously contemplating secession or political violence. Countless churches and denominations are either tearing apart or already torn. And in most of these institutions in crisis, the comments sections come alive to dwell among us. When the angriest, most destructive people don’t get their way, they still exercise power by setting the agenda of conversation.
But let’s forget, for a moment, the institutions themselves — whether the republic or the congregation or anything else. Let’s consider the individuals themselves. Spend some time with the person raging on social media or at the microphone at the church business meeting, and you will often find the very same dynamic Bannon identified: that Dave from accounts payable wants to be Ajax.
From the Blog
Earlier this week, I posted the latest episode of my “Playlist Breakdown” podcast, which focuses on a song by Tokyo-based [.que], aka, composer Nao Kakimoto. The episode follows this month’s playlist, which highlights the eclectic catalog of the Sound In Silence label.
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