Literature, Worship, and Life

Humor

Posted on September 13, 2007 by Adam B.

I had no idea I could be dated by my sense of humor. I recently came to terms with reality when the youth group kids told me Seinfeld wasn't funny. What!?! Isn't Seinfeld the height of comedic expression??? So I asked them what they thought was funny. "Scrubs... ha ha, yeah scrubs, I love that show. It's so random." I gave it a test run. Not so funny. It was then that I realized a new era of humor had emerged, and I had missed the memo. (If you just thought of TPS-reports when I used the word memo, you're tracking.)

I think humor is kind of like music. Every generation has humor trends they follow, and if you are too legit to quit you will know what is acceptably funny and when to go "ooooooaaaaaahhhhhh". (That is the sound my wife made when I was told her the name of a villain in the Tick comic series was Apocalypse Cow. Personally, I laughed just now typing the name into my computer.) But you might wonder, is humor really as trendy as music. Let's take a walk through time, shall we?

In the twenties, thirties and forties lots of famous comedian teams left their mark in the newly invented movie pictures and television. So what was funny back then?

Slapping people and pies to the face. The Three Stooges were one of the most popular comedy teams of their generation.

Slightly more sophisticated, word-plays and puns. This tool of comedy was perfected by Abbott and Costello who are best remembered for their routine "Who is on First." What few people know is that this routine was one of dozens that used exactly the same formula, the straight man talking about something while the "comic" thought he was talking about something else. While much of their comedy centered around playing with language, they also offered much in terms of physical humor as well, plenty of kicks and slaps.

Somewhat simultaneous and later you enter the joke age. You have people like Milton Berle and Bob Hope constantly writing new jokes to keep their audiences entertained. These one-man comics perfected the "art" of setup-punchline. Jokes made these men wealthy and famous. Kids tell them now.

In an interview, Bob Newhart, when thinking about becoming a stand-up comic, said he realized the age of jokes had passed. He effectively delivered a new style of comedy, the one-sided conversation. Using a phone as a prop the audience would have to imagine what was happening on the other side of the line. Newhart was the first comedian to put out a comedy record and it went immediately to #1 in the charts. In 1961 he won a Grammy for the album and was named New Artist of the Year. He released a second album and it went to #2. It would have made #1, but his first album still held the top spot. In an age when Sinatra reigned supreme, this was quite a feat. You can still buy these on CD, Button-Down Mind and Button-Down Mind Strikes Back.

Newhart moved the comedy game from jokes to story telling. Bill Cosby perfected it. His DVD Bill Cosby: Himself is still the best stand up I have ever seen.

This brings us to the 80s. Up until now this may seem like an evolution of humor, but the 80s had a way of ruining everything. Somewhere between SNL and Good Morning Vietnam one-liners gained the upper hand. Enter the "mama" joke and all variety of canned humor even more succinct than the discarded "joke".

Seinfeld came to our rescue. He didn't tell jokes or stories, and never delivered one-liners. He brought us "observational" comedy. The Seinfeld sitcom showed the power of this new form. But, like everything before it, observational comedy was just the latest formula, and it too has passed.

So what has replaced it? Scrubs, if I understand the humor at all, has found its formula in the unexpected and the random. It is not necessarily shock humor, it is just chaos. This is one of the current trends. Bring in a lot of stuff that makes no sense whatsoever and you have modern comedy. Malcom in the Middle used the same formula for kids and Arrested Development was for hipsters. (I am not a fan of any of these shows, so please inform me if I have misread the humor formula that makes these shows work). The Office is a little different, offering a new twist by capitalizing on awkward moments.

Even with all the change I think there are a few universal principals of humor.

1. Timing. In every form of comedy (except perhaps the one liner) timing is crucial. It is not just saying the right things, or saying them the right way, but delivering at the exact moment that makes a comedian go from common to great. Why is timing so crucial? I think it is like hitting the right pitch in music. You can do everything else right, but if you sing off key you will still be a terrible singer.

2. The unexpected helps. Most humor is based on causing trauma to the brain by getting it to think multiple thoughts and then sort them all out at once. For some reason we find this trauma pleasurable.

3. If not unexpected, it must be exquisite. Even a joke where you know the punch-line can be funny if told in the right way. Comedy is a delicate balance of subtleties in tone, body language, cantor, and impression. When done to perfection the performance itself will cause delight even when it has been seen before.

I am sure there is much more to say, but I have found myself intrigued lately at the trends that have developed in comedy. As a child I thought funny was funny. But today many people don't find any humor at all in a classic routine like Who's on First, and its not because they don't get it. It's that word-plays aren't funny anymore (unless their innuendo which seems to have an enduring comedic effect). This helps explain the difference between American and British humor. We are as different in our comedy tastes as we are in our musical tastes. There is overlap yes, but we are riding a different trend so their will always be confusion.

Posted in Language | 9 Comments

Description in UTsC

Posted on August 28, 2007 by Adam B.

If there is anything I hate in literature more than poor writing it is lengthy description. Its not that I'm some action whore and cannot wait for things to get moving, it is more that I have a difficult time picturing what authors are describing so description becomes cumbersome to my mind. I started to read a fantasy book by Terry Brooks in middle school. The book was large and the print was small. In the first two pages the author described a room, specifically a desk in a room. That was enough for me. I have been gun shy against him ever since.

While I hate description in general I love description of persons. So far the only two authors to blow me away in this category are women, Jane Austin and now Harriet Beecher Stowe. Despite the weighty material in Uncle Tom's Cabin I often find myself laughing out loud and how perfectly she describes people, their motives, looks and idiosyncrasies. Especially satisfying are her conversations between men and women. Even the best husband (that I have read so far) has no clue how to understand his wife. While there is no mistaking her intelligence and sophistication the man cannot comprehend it, so he tries to accommodate his weaker and more emotional half in many ways, but each only proves he knows nothing of the fairer sex. Still the wife appreciate the misguided effort and his sincere desire to please her. The conversations between this couple are as subtle as real life, and just as humorous to an outsider looking in at any real live couple. You can sense in Stowe a liberated woman just waiting for the men of her generation to catch up, yet happy in her place in time and existence all the same.

I provide a brief reading here so you can get a feel for what I am talking about. Now, I hate reading quotes and excerpts in other people blogs, so feel free to pass over this and pick up after the italics if you are so inclined.

Now, little Mrs. Bird was a discreet woman, - a woman who never in her life said, "I told you so!" and on the present occasion, though pretty well aware of the shape her husband's meditations were taking, she very prudently forbore to meddle with them, only sat very quietly in her chair, and looked quite ready to hear her liege lord's intentions, when he should think proper to utter them... [he proceeds to announce that he must agree with her and help the slave get to Canada even though he is a senator that just past a law forbidding it]... "Your heart is better than your head in this case, John," said the wife, laying her little white hand on his. "Could I ever have loved you, had I not known you better than you know yourself?" And the little woman looked so handsome, with the tears sparkling in her eyes, that the senator thought he must be a decidedly clever fellow, to get such a pretty creature into such a passionate admiration of him.

Every chapter brings new characters and new conversations that delight and inspire me to work harder at my own observations. It is this realism she brings to her work that makes here conclusion inescapable: blacks are just as human as whites. While it almost sounds prejudice to say such a thing in our day it was a shocking conclusion in hers, but inescapable because of her sensitivity to the heart and soul of every person.

If you are averse to reading Austin because she wrote "girly" books, try Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her understanding and appeal to the human heart is unmatched in anything I have read before.

Posted in Literature | 6 Comments

Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Initial Thoughts

Posted on August 19, 2007 by Adam B.

I am reading again. (For those friends making suggestions I haven't forgotten you, I just haven't been to a library lately.) I have a few books left in my house I still need to read and one of them is Uncle Tom's Cabin. It is arguably the most influential works by an American writer in the 19th century and was written by a woman who had never written a book before. I have just read a few chapters.

Early on we see a small worship service in the negro's home on the plantation property. The son of the landowner reads the scripture and they all sing and pray together. A few things about her description of this scene have caught my attention.

1. They use the same Bible some churches still use today, the KJV. This impresses me because the language in the book, even though it was published in the 1850s, is not that different from our own. Surely the KJV was as difficult for them to understand as it is today, but it was all they had. Still, it is incredible to think that I can dust the the exact same book off my shelf that was read and inspired the world so long ago. The slaves and slave owners both read the same book and followed the same Jesus that I follow.

2. They sang some of the same songs we sing today. In their service Stowe describes them singing a song that I believe is On Jordan's Stormy Bank. This song was recently covered by Jars of Clay on their Songs of Redemption album. I didn't have to imagine this quaint group singing, I could hear it. It is unreal to me that the same book and the same song they used could be heard in some churches today. From a marketing standpoint that might be repulsive, but historically and culturally it is beautiful.

3. They worship the same as we do today. To hear her describe what went on there you'd think you were in a pentecostal church. This book, written over 50 years before the legendary Azuza street revival that kicked off the pentecostal movement, perfectly captures every practice pentecostals are know for, except speaking in tongues. I have heard it said that Pentecostalism is noting more than negro religion taken up by the white man. I can see why they might say that. From the singing to the praying and the shouting and the enthusiasm, a remarkable parallel.

Stowe is thoroughly descriptive and sensitive to the slave's plight. The work is gripping because it is real and yet so unbelievable. Her foreshadowing in these first few chapters makes me scared to read on.

Posted in Literature | 7 Comments

Simpsonized

Posted on August 16, 2007 by Adam B.

My Simpson Self Is that really me?

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Move over Macgyver

Posted on August 14, 2007 by Adam B.

The Bike

I bought a bike. It's what people do here. Didn't want to pay full price so I waited 'til a garage sale had one in stock. Twenty bucks. The owner let it sit out in rain once. I bought a lock but I am not sure which is protecting which. "Nice lock... but I'd hate to steal that bike to get it." They have a symbiotic relationship.

The first thing I had to do was adjust the gears. It's a ten speed but only five were going when I rode it home. I adjusted a few screws and BAM five more speeds. I rock. Next I adjusted the rear brake. After seven or eight tweaks with no improvement I decided to try wiping the WD-40 off the wheel frame. I must have missed that lesson on fixyourbikeyourselfyounerd.com.

It had its christening yesterday as rode it into town. Half-way there I begin feel grinding rubber slowing me down every time I peddled. The breaks you ask? Have you already forgotten I adjusted them myself? No, it wasn't the breaks. The bolt holding the rear wheel was loose. The owner must have missed that in his twelve point inspection before he sold it to me. So here I am in the middle of town with a loose bolt and no wrench. So I asked myself, "What would Macgyver do?" I checked my pockets. All I had were my keys and some receipts. I pulled my carabiner off my key chain and compared it to the size of the bolt. A perfect fit. In no time we were back in action.

I may have inherited some of my dad's mechanical genius yet. Maybe next I'll try something really wild and adjust the seat.

Posted in Life | 8 Comments

Llamas got a brand new site

Posted on August 8, 2007 by Adam B.

I have been experimenting more with WordPress, an open-source online system for building websites. This site is built with it and I recently developed a page for one of my teachers who has a line of t-shirts and hats (Theta Threads) and I just finished the first draft of llamabottle.com, a site for Chrissy to sell her photos. (Don't worry Steve, I have only been coding in the early morning and late at night when I am no good for writing).

So far WordPress has been a dream. All the code is written in php which means that all the sites can have dynamic menus and all the web 2.0 (that means user-interactive) features you could want. Since it is open-source it is free to use, if you already have your own web space, and it is 100% customizable. No more constraints from the 5 blogger themes available, there are 100s of user generated themes that look very professional. For someone stylistically challenged like myself this could be the biggest advantage of all.

The other advantage of WordPress being open-source is that users are constantly writing new code (plugins) that enhance its already robust functionality. On Chrissy's website I installed a picture manager called NextGEN that creates all the layouts and slideshows and it manages all the pictures for me. This was written by some guy in Germany (I think) who took four other picture managers and combined all their features into one awesome plugin. (Again, he could only do this because every things is open-source). Because of his pluging I don't need to go to some outside page like flicker to manage and display my photos, I can host and control everything myself.

Since WordPress is blogging software it has a great back door for adding content. I can generate sites for people and setup all their links and they can add all the content themselves. No more managing pages for people who don't know code! Woo hoo.

The next stage in my WordPress development is to add a store. We'll see how that goes. In the mean time check out Chrissy's page and post some comments about her lovely work. (Did I mention all her photos were edited using UFRaw and Gimp, two rad Open-source photo editors?)

Posted in Life | 4 Comments

The Denominational Cycle

Posted on August 6, 2007 by Adam B.

Church Pole I have noticed a trend; people are rarely satisfied with the denomination in which they were raised. This was not the case a century ago. In the past people identified themselves as "methodists", "lutherans", "baptists". The ties were so fierce marriage outside the denomination was discouraged. "Dagnabit Irene, you know we baptists don't hang out with them there lutheranians." This is seldom true today. If postmodernism has taught us anything good it is this: we should not be overconfident that we have everything right 100% of the time. My generation is more open to cooperation outside our own narrow fold... as long as they aren't Catholic... and don't cuss... at least not in church.

This trend has been attributed to our generational distinctive. Our grandparents were loyal to their church and their company from the day they crossed the threshold into work and religion. My generation feels that employers are not interested in the well being of their employees. They pay as little as possible and keep benefits as minimal as government will allow so the Man can keep his dragon's share. Churches are like every other industry, only interested in numbers and not me as an individual. Why offer loyalty to another big business that only wants me for one more tally in their numbers game? If I have to go to church it will be on my terms and they must cater to me, just like every other business I patronize. A caricature of my generation.

Apart from this trend of consumeristic and suspicious thinking I have also noticed that, in denominational transfers, certain denominations logically lead to others. For example, baptists tend to turn liturgical, specifically episcopal . Why? Because if you have grown up baptist you may feel they only offer hype with no substance and structure. Baptists want people to come into the church and get saved. Every service begins with a call to salvation and ends with an alter call. (They used to call them altar calls until they realized no baptist really knows what an altar is.) They see hypocrites in their church and think, "these hypocrites are here because we are all shallow in the faith." After a half a lifetime of this the well thought out structure and depth of liturgy is appealing.

Episcopals in turn become pentecostal. After half a lifetime of reading the same prayers, psalms and "peace be with you"s it can seem rote. They doubt that anyone can really mean what they are saying week after week. They see hypocrites in their church and think, "these people are all fakers and no one really means what they say." Then a friend brings them to a pentecostal service and people are shouting out, dancing, and waving banners. They compare this enthusiasm with their church and think, "yes, this is what true devotion and affection looks like, not reading dead words out of some little red prayer book."

Pentecostals in turn become baptists, or, if that is too hard for them to stomach, non-denominational. (In truth all non-denominational churches are baptist ashamed of their name.) Why? Maybe they couldn't manage the second baptism and felt left out. Maybe they faked speaking in tongues growing up so their parents would be happy but now they don't care what their parents think. Or maybe it was those hypocrites in their church who had so much enthusiasm on Sunday but treat other people like dirt. So why do they turn baptist? As much as they hate to admit it, pentecostals are baptists with an extra shot of HS power. They might disagree over "once saved always saved" but by the time someone is ready to give up on the charismatic gifts they are ready to be saved forever.

In two generations a family could easily end up back in the church they started from. While I have not seen this entire cycle played out over several generations I have seen each piece on a number of occasions. I suppose other cycles exist that encompass all variety of protestants, and even catholics and the orthodox. So what does this all mean? You tell me.

Posted in Worship | 2 Comments

Loving what I hate

Posted on July 27, 2007 by Adam B.

Like anyone else I enjoy things I do well and things I can't do at all. Case in point: I love yo-yoing and karaoke. It is the disciplines just within my reach that cause real suffering. Learning is better than entertainment when progress is fast and easy, but I recommend the slow and steady war-path of the difficult but possible.

Education is easy when it fits the contours of our being. Some are naturally mathematical, some grammatical, others physical, marketable, logical, poetical, ad nauseum. Every person carries in their body and personality skills to benefit their fellow man. A good job should tap those skill, a good education should hone them. Still, an education that simply conforms to the prejudice of one's personality will be hollow or two dimensional. Such an education does not challenge but leads down a path defined by our genes, not our choice. Our lives will be a drip of water always taking the downward path of least resistance never fighting to change course of reach for something higher.

I hate language studies. In elementary school I hated grammar, in middle school I loathed language arts, in high school I languished literature and in college I only failed one course, Greek. So why was I up late last night reading Essential English Grammar and why did I just enroll in two more Greek and Hebrew classes? I need the fight. When education is entertaining I suffer for lack of discipline.

In my life discipline and creativity are at war. No, they are not mortal enemies, but through trickery and crafty deceit I have started a lasting cold war between them. Creativity is my ally against discipline. In high school I had a motto: Do as much work with as little effort as possible. That takes creativity. We had a physics project due one week. We had to transfer water across three types of systems before depositing it in a bucket. My classmates built intricate systems with pullys, sprockets, buckets, cables. I found a way to make it work with a nail, a funnel and a tube. The checkout lady at ACO must have thought I was binging that night. While some students spent weeks, I finished the whole thing in three hours. I lost no water; got a perfect score. Some of my college friends are still paying off student loans. I played with a yo-yo.

I'm not saying I never work hard, I just work hard so I don't always have to, so I don't have to be disciplined. In this unholy allegiance I have forged with creativity sometimes we must use the weapons of the enemy to win the war. And I am happy with the life we have fought for, a life with only intermittent discipline. But sometimes, in the distance, I hear a voice as if a spy has crept into my brain asking, "What if creativity and discipline were allies?" Impossible. The very purpose of creativity is to avoid discipline. But... what if?

Why did I sign up for a 4th semester of post-graduate-level Greek and Hebrew? What if? I will not master these arts without discipline by my side. There is in me nothing that coincides with the study of language. I never used to yell in anger, but I have taken it up this year as a part of my studies. The terms, the vocabulary, the grammar, the tests and the conclusion whenever I translate that the NIV has done a pretty darn good job all tell me you are living backwards, accomplishing little with much work. How can I persist? It is this drug of the unknown that drives me. Everything in me has always told me to turn right. Well, what about left? As soon as I freed myself from the path of least resistance, from my inclination to always turn right, I found that not only could I turn to the left I could also go straight, backwards, up, down or just be still. Before my life was narrowed down to a single direction but I have witnessed a world of possibilities all barely within reach, and only in striving will I experience their benefits. As I pursue the difficult but possible I find that much I held as true about life was the creativity working in me to define a world where my way is always right and best. Once I learned to resist myself I broke free from my presuppositions and saw a new world. Life was once black and white. When I lived in that world I could imaging gray, but only when I reached for the gray did I see color.

So I have learned to love the things I hate. I just took Greek exegesis this summer. I hate exegesis. They taught us to preach exegetically. I hate exegetical preaching. Nevertheless I poured myself into the study, full of anger and suffering, and I have come out seeing the glory of this skill, a skill I still despise. I hate it because it is hard. It is hard for me. I hate it because I could never preach that way with affect. I hate it because it is not in me to love it. I knew the skills would be difficult for me so I invented reasons why exegesis was useless. But I have seen a glimmer of its value. Will this change my life? No. But I did learn things in a way I never learned before, things I never thought I could grasp. A new door is opening, the door to a harder more arduous life. Dare I peek inside and fight the life of least resistance?

Posted in Education | 2 Comments

The Post Bought Tarver a Leg

Posted on June 21, 2007 by Adam B.

One of the main reasons I moved out to Portland is because of the people here who love me like family. With my family that's no small thing. One of those friends who drew me here is Tarver. He just had his leg chopped off.

Tarver lived with me for a short time while I was at Wheaton. He liks good conversation and has terrible taste in music. In Wheaton he loved tormenting me with a song about a girlfriend who sheds too much. I met him through our mutual friend Steve Fitz, my techno loving roommate at Moody. I'm still trying to get both of them into Geoff Moore and the Distance.

Tarver is trying to get a prosthetic leg. They cost about $40,000. His insurance will only cover $5,000 (this is typical). The prosthetic companies don't offer financing either. (What are you going to put up for collateral, your hacked limb?) Oh yeah, the best time to get the prosthetic is two months after surgery because of the healing process and limb growth and stuff I don't understand. That means he has a very short time to earn the money he needs to get a new leg.

Did I mention his wife is 6 (or 7) months pregnant?

This is no sob story nor something unexpected, but those are the facts. While the rest of us prayed for money to drop out of heaven Tarver went to work. He designed a t-shirt that reads, "This Shirt Bought Tarver A Leg."

Checkout his story in our local newspaper and on the news. Buy a rad shirt and help Tarver get a leg.

Posted in Life | 1 Comment

Who am I?

Posted on May 28, 2007 by Adam B.

"Who am I?" That is the question my generation is asking. We are a people desperate for self-definition yet refusing to be defined. Do not try to label us by our country, our job, our denomination, our parents, or any cleverly devised social construct. Your categories are a cage and we long to be free.

In our search for understanding we tried many schemes. Early on we thought our interests could define us. "I read fantasy." We dressed in robes and wizard hats and played Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. We were happy here, for a time, but only as a fish who has not yet sensed the limitations of his bowl. And so, like a curse upon our heads, we matured and left the simplicity of our youthful delusion that we are not so complex. "Am I nothing more than a consumer of other men's visions immersed in a false world of someone else's thoughts? There must be more to me." We looked to our fathers for answers, but they were either absent or in the midst of their own crisis of retirement redefinition. When we asked, "Who am I?" we got "I don't know, but what has my life meant?" If they can't look at us and see their answer maybe we should look elsewhere.

We have tried friends, marriages, and in our despair even full time work, but the cure still eludes us. No one knows us, and worse, we do not know ourselves. With our anchors raised and all the beacons torn down we are tossed haplessly by a raging world who sees us only as a number on a sales report. We are without a compass on this journey and clouds of doubt and regret cover all the stars that might guide us. It is dark and wet and cold and the wind is constantly changing. Will we find a peaceful bay or be smashed against the rocks?

This is the story of my generation, yes, but it is not my story. Do not presume I have come to gloat, I know we all struggle, this is just not mine. From the outside it seems the whole issue is one of approval. After a lifetime of criticism for doing the things you love, and praise for things done in ambivalence (doing the things they told you should be done), I don't blame your confusion. The real question is not "Who am I?" but "Which me do I most approve of?" When you look back on a life lived their way you say, "That wasn't me" but the problem is that it was you, a you you hate. Your search is not one of self-definition as much as self-approval. Until now you have defined yourself by their praise. You can admit it was a flawed approach, but the better way is still amiss. Do you trust the folk wisdom, "Follow your heart"? What if your heart sets you on a path towards destruction? And what of pop Christian wisdom, "Find your approval in God"? Is this so easy? If you trust in West-Coast-Jesus he approves of everyone, and if you trust in Mid-West-Jesus he approves of no one. Neither is helpful in your search. A Jesus in our own image is easy to love, but he is utterly useless. I do not presume to know the path you seek, but I am sure it is easier to walk with company than it is to walk alone.

Posted in Life | 5 Comments