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January 7, 2007
Three Kings and a Fourth
While doing Lectio yesterday on today's gospel, I received the most interesting and compelling message. Now understand, the messages of Lectio are a kind of private revelation, so I don't claim to speak authoritatively on the matter of meaning in the Gospel passage; however, I did not a rather interesting dynamic.
The story is about the arrival of the three wise men/ kings. First, they go to Herod to ask directions from him and discover that he hasn't a clue. What's more, he's really upset by their arrival. And when Herod is upset, so Jerusalem follows.
The Wise Men go to find the Christ Child and they humble themselves before Him. "They rejoiced with exceeding great joy," and all the heavens and all the humble of Earth through all of time with them.
What then is this dynamic? Each of us, in some little way, can be a Herod or a Wise Man in areas of our own lives. By our choices we can make the lives of those around us resonate with our own emotion. We can choose to eradicate Christ and make everyone around us miserable. We can choose to seek Him out and cause "exceeding great joy" around us. When we look after the things of this world, we inevitable choose the former, but when we divest ourselves of them, giving gift of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, we can find joy, and those around us as well.
That is part of the truth of this gospel tale. Joy or terror, solidarity or disunion, love or hate. We choose bit by bit every day, and turning to this story we can see very clearly the consequences of our choices.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 8, 2007
The Books I Like Best in 2006
Playing off a subject introduced in this post at Video Meliora, I present the books I most enjoyed reading in 2006 (which is not a list of the best books of 2006, because I didn't read many of the books published in that year--that will come after there's been time for the wheat and the chaff to be separated.)
Cormac McCarthy--The Road (a real 2006 book)
Diane Setterfield--The Thirteenth Tale ( a real 2006 book)
Michael Dirda--Open Book
Khaled Hosseini--The Kite Runner
Madaleine St. John--The Essence of the Thing
Muriel Spark--A Far Cry From Kensington
Naomi Novik--His Majesty's Dragon
Thomas Howard--Dove Descending (a study of Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
Stephen King--The Colorado Kid
In all, some very Catholic books--(Spark, St. John, Howard, and, in a very loose sense Dirda [after all, who else would include Doestoevsky and Georgette Heyer on the list of all-time great writers?)--some very sobering books (McCarthy and Hossseini) and some real fun (Novik, King, and Setterfield).
Two books would have been contenders had I actually finished them--and will probably be at the top of next year's list--
Hammer and Fire Fr. Raphael Simon O.C.S.O.
Union with God Blessed Columba Marmion
Also on the list, but far more controversial: Anne Rice Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt.
Further, I must add that those books which TSO lists and I have also read I concur with heartily. (Helena and In the Heart of the Sea.) I'm encouraged to see Mayflower on the list as well. Once always has trepidation over possible historical revisionism.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
A Word for the Day
from Union with God
Blessed Columba MarmionBe faithful in little things, not out of meticulousness, but out of love. Do this to prove to Our Lord that you have the love of a spouse for Him.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Small is Still Beautiful
I don't know what to think about the economic theories of Schumacher etc., although I readily admit to being charmed by the notion of self-limitation, however, here is a blog, Small is Still Beautiful that features the writing of Joseph Pearce. Thanks due to Joshua, The Western Confucian
I don't know what to make of the "subsidiarist" movement. Were it to catch on, I strongly doubt my own abilities to participate in anything like a meaningful contributive way; but then, do I really participate in a capitalist system in any way that regulates the system or makes it a just economic system under which to live? Do any of us "buy responsibly" at all times, or even most of the time?
I must read more about this subject, but as my agenda is full to the brim, it may take a while to get around to it. As I tend to like the prose of Mr. Pearce, it may well be that his "follow-up" will be the first work I tackle.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Piety and Sacrifice
In Union with God, in a paragraph introducing other instruction, this remarkable insight:
Piety without the spirit of sacrifice. . . is like an organism without a backbone.
--Blessed Columba Marmion
Now, I, for one, am very fond of organisms lacking backbones; however, I do not read this to be a slam of the invertebrate world, but rather the statement that such a situation is akin to a vertebrate lacking a backbone--and that observation is very sobering indeed.
Note: When I first typed and published this entry, I discovered that in the course of typing the quotation above, I had misspelled sacrifice as sacrafice. As anyone can tell, this is an obviously Freudian reference to the sacrum, an important part of any spine.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 9, 2007
You Tube etc.
Intrigued by some of the finds Erik has made at You Tube, I was provoked to go and find some things of my own. I was amazed at the variety and number of things I could find.
However, I hesitate to post them because I am uncertain of their copyright status and I certainly would not want to inadvertently bring down the wrath of the lawyers upon this little place.
But the internet is truly amazing. I can see the Peter Gabriel Genesis, including both Foxtrot and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. I found several clips from Curved Air including the very lovely "Melinda, More or Less," and the haunting "Marie Antoinette" (both from the superb album Phantasmagoria. I was able to find some of the Annie Haslam Renaissance and performances of works by Gentle Giant, Christian Vander's Magma (a jazz rock fusion group that sings songs of alien societies in a completely made up language), the Robert Fripp incarnation of King Crimson, Aphrodite's Child (which gave us Vangelis), T. Rex with Elton John playing "Bang a Gong," John Foxx, Ultravox, Gary Numan, Lene Lovich, and too many others even to list. Suffice to say a cornucopia of the odd, the weird, the wonderful, the beautiful, and the absurd. What an archive of culture. Where else might you find performances by The Residents (including an excerpt from The Third Reich and Roll Album and Tuxedomoon (a mention of which at Erik's site sent me off on this search to start with.
Now my Amazon Wish-List is crammed full of what I used to listen to and had largely forgotten when my vinyl became more or less obsolete. Bill Nelson, Be-Bop Deluxe, Klaus Schulze, PFM, Nash the Slash, Joy Division, Nick Drake. . .
and so it continues. Amazing things. There were very few even very obscure artists who were not available--Peter Hammill, Jan Akkerman, Steve Hackett (not that these are necessarily terribly obscure--but try it and see.)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 8:07 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
Help Requested
Currently up on my reading-group booklist is Gilead, which a rush of people in St. Blogs went through some time back.
The story is so low key and so slow-paced that I am having trouble in my fourth attempt to get through it. Can someone give me some reason (other than obligation to the group) to keep moving through it. I don't sense anything extraordinary here--and I could be wrong about that; however, lacking that sense, I have no real impulse to push through.
So, if you've read it and would be so kind, drop me a note or post a comment that might give me cause to get through it.
I'd much rather be reading the next book up--Cold Heaven by Brian Moore. (See, Black Robe didn't put me off--Brian Moore has some interesting things to say.
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Everglades--Shark Valley
The concept of a valley in Florida is risible. However, as our guide pointed out, Miami is at an average elevation of about 36 inches, Naples and environs about 48 inches (above sea level) and Shark Valley is a mere 8 inches above see level. Thus, it is a true valley through which the outpouring of the waters from Okeechobee flow to the sea. Ooze to the sea may be more descriptive. The guide pointed out that water flows at a rate of about a quarter of a mile a day through the national park.
Changes in the recent past have diverted the flow of much of the water away from the Everglades. There is a desultory restoration project that is seeking to restore the flow, but no evidence yet that much of anything has really happened. In addition, we in the northern climes insist on building up around Shingle Creek, the so-called "headwaters of the Everglades." In the short time I have been here what were cow pastures and wooded lands have given way to yet another pair of mega-resorts and extensions to the convention center that are, shall we say, less than needed.
A city must grow or implode and die. I understand that; however, growth does not preclude reasonable planning to assure that so valuable a resource as the water that feeds the vast river of grass remains relatively pure. However, Orlando is not well known for either their vision of their future or the ability to temper their desire for yet more. I grit my teeth every time I see another thing built up along this fragile waterway.
Back to the Everglades. The Shark Valley entrance to the part shows one of the main and largely unknown ecotomes of the Everglades--the "river of grass." Well, not precisely grass. More like a sedge. In fact, a particularly nasty and unpleasant sedge misnamed "saw grass." Saw grass is a sharp-bladed sedge with actual saw-teeth running the length of each ray of the compound leaf. (At least I think it's a compound leaf--my botany is really poor.) If you run your hand along it one way you will feel nothing; however, the other way will render a fairly nasty cut.
Now, most people you ask seem to think of the Everglades as a huge cypress swamp, green darkness, Florida's jungle. But that is not at all the case. At least not entirely. There are hammocks and strands of this green darkness, but the Everglades proper is a glade--a wide expanse of green, or during the time I saw it brown. At first glance the Everglades look like nothing more exotic than a field of low-growing wheat with the occasional pampas grass plume.
But it is upon closer inspection that the reality of the Everglades hits home. And, it was in the course of reading a book by Connie Mae Fowler that I found out the truth of it. The Everglades can sneak up on you and steal away your heart.
More later.
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Unaccustomed as I am to Public Speaking
I don't much like self-promotion, but presumably by posting this link I am also increasing the audience for the on-line magazine. So, if you're so inclined go and see my latest publication here.
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January 10, 2007
Yet More Everglades
The scope of the Everglades is not incomprehensible. Anyone who has driven past the cornfields west of Columbus or the wheat fields of Kansas or even the stretches of lonesome prairie has a clear understanding of scope--and even, to some degree of appearance--that brown or green against the endless sky with here and there a small copse of woodland growth. This image serves to fix the understanding of the river of grass.
What is difficult to comprehend is that all of this wheat field/corn field analogue is standing in a vast sheet of water, depending on the terrain, anywhere from one inch to several feet deep. And all of this water creeps and oozes a long slow way to the sea. As it does so, it picks up nutrients from the decaying mass of organic matter that lies just beneath the surface, so that as it approaches the brackish environs that border the sea, it is filled with the materials that make the Everglades system a nursery for much of the sea-life of Southern Florida--a place where the rich stocks of shrimp, fish, and other sea-life are born and grow to a certain viability before entering the ocean proper.
So here you stand, at the Shark Valley station, looking out over this field of brown and seeing here and there the glint of water where the vegetation does not hide it. Because you are in the "dry season" you may not see as much water as might be visible during the wet season. Also because you are in the dry season, the evidences of animal life are much more concentrated around the sources of water. From now (January) until April, when the rains begin to return, these areas of open water will become progressively more restricted until they amount to the standing bodies in pits dug by the Army Corps of Engineers and in the "solution holes" (mini-sinkholes that perforate the limestone sponge that is Florida) that form here and there in the park. Such solution holes can be several feet deep. They are dark, hidden, and unexpected and form perfect places for alligator wallows and moccasin holes.
This then was the situation I was in upon first visiting. And the impressions are indelible and hard to put into words, and perhaps not as affecting for many as for some. I have always loved the vast expanses of farmland in the midwest. There is about them an austere and somber beauty summed up in the famous line "amber waves of grain." And when the thunderheads of summer glower over them, and the winds whip up the heads of grain to give a sense of that roiling ocean, there is about these fields something that conjures up a kind of atavistic memory and delight.
So it is with the Everglades. And this is made even more profound when we regard these lands with the profound respect that Native Americans have for all the "peoples" of Earth, including the rock people and the water people. When we understand, even for a moment, the patent absurdity of thinking that one can "own" a piece of land, one comes to an understanding of the Everglades on its own terms. We can destroy it--we can alter it beyond all recognition, we can build on it or tear it apart--but this land is its own. It cannot be owned, it cannot be possessed except in memory. But it can captivate. It can capture you and hold you and your mind and your heart for as long as you will give it time to reign. And in so doing, it will put you in mind of Another--One Whose hand fashioned these beauties and all the beauties of the Earth for our delight and our care. He Who made them gave us stewardship over them and they become a patrimony for all generations--a rich and beautiful treasure to be passed on intact to those who come after us as a sign of Him Who made them.
There is something about the Everglades that turns the mind to God; something about them that captures the spirit and directs it upwards; something that purges, cleanses, and renews. It is as if, for a moment, one can stand in the world as God meant it to be and be in that world as we were meant to be.
(More later--sorry for the short chunks--but five or ten minutes don't allow either for lengthy composition or sufficient proofreading--all to come later.)
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Two Passages To Say it All
Sometimes I don't know why I post these things because we all know them to be true. Knowing them to be true and living them in their truth often seem to be quite different matters; and, perhaps, the bridge between them lies in such reminders as these.
from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon O.C.S.O.The Father is the supreme Reality; all other reality is the effect of HIs will; He alone gives existence to all that is. Only the saint is fully adjusted to reality because only the saint if fully conformed to the Father's will. The materialist, on the other hand, excludes from his or her life happiness and true adjustment to reality, for he or she fails to recognize the primary Reality and its chief effects, the soul, intellect, and will, which are of the spiritual order and hold primacy over the material order.
***********
It is true that some persons appear, and consider themselves, to be happy whose satisfaction is not in God but in material things--even in certain cases, when they are conscious that they are abiding in mortal sin and are estranged from God. These people are miserable but may not feel miserable. The hatred and malice of the devil are not directed so much at making people miserable in their feelings, as in fact. Then they are more prone to remain in their pitiable condition without taking the necessary steps to become truly happy.
Book available from Zaccheus Press and also through Ignatius Press. And is, so far, highly recommended.
What bears repeating here is that Satan's tactics are not so much to make us feel miserable as to make us be miserable without realizing the misery in which we live. When we are constantly striving for the ephemeral, the vanishing, the unworthy, the empty, the desolate, the finite, and the broken, we cannot expend the energy for the One who corrects all these absences and frailties. Until we admit how materially driven our lives are, we cannot begin to correct that imperfection and allow ourselves to be gathered (not driven) to the True Shepherd whose voice we know in our hearts. We live in a real misery that we do not feel trying to avoid the miserable feeling that may not reflect reality.
O, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive. . .
ourselves.
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A Powerful Reflection
At Disputations:
And if we think that, apart from Him Who is the Truth and the Life, we aren't captives and prisoners, then no wonder the devil doesn't work any harder at oppressing us. Even today, "all those who are oppressed by the devil" means all of us.
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Bowled Over Aagin
How many times in a day must I be slapped upside the head with something. This from lunchtime reading:
from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon OCSOHe has given us means. . .to overcome this weakness and to strengthen our wills. These means include the sacraments, the infused virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit--and self-denial. In self-denial in particular, we have the means to overcome the obstacles to happiness; by self-denial our wills are given power over our temperaments and faults; we are made capable of change, we are made free.
Ironically, it is called self-denial, and yet it is nothing of the sort; rather, it is denial of the illusion of self that we live. Until we live completely in the image and context of God, we don't even know self, so it is impossible to deny self. Self-denial is actually the embrace of the real self as manifested in God's image of us. We discover that when we have found our identities in Christ self-denial is impossible because we finally have the properly oriented self that does not see self-denial but Christ-embracing.
We so dread depriving ourselves of anything that we have even a remote notion we might want or need that we cannot see the real efficacy of self-denial--breaking the illusion of Maya and embracing the reality of who we are in the Reality of Him Who Is.
You see how language descends to the utterly inarticulate trying even to explain the joyous discovery that we need not succumb to every vagrant thought and idle want. Today has been a good day indeed.
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January 11, 2007
Trying to Learn
As usual, Tom has a very interesting post on reaction to church teaching.
In another context, I wrote this this morning:
My passion is for the truth, not for being right--so that even though I run again and again at that brick wall, seeking to knock it down, the reality is that I would rather know the truth than be right. (Obviously to have both at once would be ideal--but as we are dealing "a bear of very little brain," I'll accept that I start off more often wrong that right and acknowledge that I'm willing to conform to the truth when it finally gets through my thick skull. ) All you see are the outward dynamics of trying to force it through my thick skull, and I often worry that I am more aggressive about it that is seemly--but is it really possible to be too aggressive in seeking out the truth?
I wrote over at Tom's that I often rant and rave, kick and scream, fulminate and froth, threaten to leave the Church, cry, wail, howl, and do all sorts of other things when I feel particularly put out. (I live a very histrionic interior life--it's really quite satisfying in a variety of ways.)
But the reality is that in nearly every case that I have taken umbrage at Church teaching, I've been shown time and again just how wrong I am. And when you think about it, that only makes sense. After all the Church has two thousand (and more) years of the collective wisdom of some of the most brilliant people humankind has ever known. By the end of my life (god willing) I will have my threescore-ten, or four or five score. So, let's see, perhaps a million years of humankind's wisdom compared to the less than half-century of one person--what should have the greater weight in my consideration. And it is in this sense that I must respect the tradition of the Church in its teaching--knowing that particulars might change, but that the weight of wisdom and thinking demands attention and, eventually, obedience.
What is true about a matter is far more important that what I think about it. This reality is one of the reasons I need a shepherd in the first place.
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Alligators and Others--The Everglades cont.
The Shark Valley Entrance to Everglades National Park has several possible ways to explore the park. You can rent a bicycle and presumably bicycle around the tram trail and other open trails--I don't know how many there might be. But for our first exposure we opted from the tram-trail to the observation tower. After purchasing tickets, we had a few minutes to spare and we spent them looking at the nearby canal and watching the alligators swim.
Note, this is a park. Not a theme park--a real park. Between us and the alligators there is no barrier. The alligator in the canal could just as easily have crawled up and sunned itself in the middle of the tram-trail.
How magnificent to see one of these animals in the wild. We've all seen them, probably in zoos, in attractions, or on television, but for reasons I cannot explain because I don't understand them well myself, the experience of just watching an alligator swim through the murky, tea-like water of the canal while the gar and other fish scatter before it is fascinating and strangely thrilling. You are first aware of its approach because the mullet start leaping out of the water and making little surface splashes in their panic to get away. (At least I think they were mullet.) Then you see the long black body that moves with an imperceptible motion of the tail--a slick gliding predator, cutting through the water on its way to. . . who knows where.
Turns out that alligators in the wild do not eat all that often. They can go for as much as a month between big meals so while the mullet are panicking, the alligator is just enjoying a warm winter afternoon in the water.
In the branches of the trees above the water where the alligator swam two blue heron and seemingly countless female anhingas. The ranger shared a story about anhinga mating practices--The male anhinga presents to the prospective mate a stick or a twig that he has collected. If the female likes the stick, the two form a mating pair and build a nest together. If she does not she is as likely as not to hit the male with the stick and chase him off. Later in the day Samuel witnessed two anhinga squawking at one another and he said matter-of-factly, "She must not have liked the stick." I never fail to be amazed by what and how much little sponges absorb.
Soon enough we were aboard the tram and on the way to the observation tower seven and a half miles, or so, into the the river of grass.
More later--you know, I love reliving the moment in these brief writings because I'm forced back to the day and to how wonderful it all was. We visited in perfect conditions, of course, but I'm not sure that that has all that much bearing on the matter.
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On Wealth and Enough
This, from TSO, seems right on target:
I'm often puzzled by those who are resentful of the rich and who are bothered by disparities of income. Disparity is minutiae, what counts is how much the poor have, whether their needs are met, and that the "floor" be as high as possible.
This is the roadmap for the end of envy (at least in matters material). The focus should not be on taking away from someone in order to even out the playing field, but rather on supplying those who are in want with the things they need in order to live a decent life. Now, some systems are better at this than others and the difficulty often seems to be how to make the desirable result come about without undesirable consequences for everyone else.
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January 12, 2007
For the Day
Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things men need to hear, things that will really help them. --Ephesians 4:29
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Sometimes You Just Need to Be Kicked in the Head Enough
I don't know how many times I may have heard something like this; however, this is the time it finally made sense.
from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon OCSOThe angelic intelligence, superior to the human, sees in one glance the alternatives of choice and their consequences. The angelic will is then fixed in its election. When the rebellious angels preferred disobedience they knew that they had made their final choice. It is not so with us, and to us alone God gave a redeemer.
How awful. How terrible to be able to look upon the magnificence of God and choose something else. How inconceivable. We at least have the story of being persuaded to our doom--a poor excuse, but none the less the effort of a tempter. The Angels had no such persuasion; moreover, they could look upon the Glory of God Himself and see it clearly. Simply incomprehensible.
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Attending to Our Faults
from Hammer and Fire
Fr. Raphael Simon, OSCOThe predominant fault crystallizes certain aspects of an ego accustomed to act for and of itself. . . . If this egocentricity is not exposed and overcome, it remains like an underground [military group], ready to join hands with the invader in the time of trial, and to betray us into the hands of our enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil. Just as an underground deserves attention in peacetime, because upon its uprooting depends the future security of the country, so the basic evil tendency of the soul, the head of the organism of sin, requires our attention (discovery and opposition) even though it is in hiding.
You know those things you go to confession week after week after week after week until you're so tired of confessing them you're tempted not to? Well, perhaps many of you have never experienced that; however, let me tell you, it sometimes seems like I should just do an Excel spreadsheet and tick off the usual suspects and turn it in.
It isn't that I don't want to do away with these sins (though on some level, I obviously don't or I would find that they would become less frequent), but they just seem to creep up on me. These sins, then, are the fruit of what Father Simon calls the predominant fault. It isn't as though I don't commit others, but I certainly do not commit some sins with the clockwork regularity of others. It is these recurrent sins that give me the clues to the particular virtues I need to cultivate to combat them.
One way to cultivate them is through the use of a gift that Father Simon described and I blogged a few days ago--self-denial--which in reality is nothing of the sort. A correspondent pointed out that we are incapable of doing anything ourselves, particularly anything good, so that self-denial, while engaged and activated by the will is a gift of God, a sort of grace, that gives us the ability to not do what we are accustomed to doing it. A grave mistake would be to consider this work, at least in the early stages, and perhaps throughout, as some sort of righteousness or good work that we effect. It is not. As I pointed out, self-denial is, in one sense the apotheosis of enlightened self-interest, because it is only in the use of this gift that we begin to see vestiges of the true self that God Himself sees.
Self-denial then, is one step, one positive thing that we can assent to, that leads us away from the predominant fault. We can recognize the pattern, recognize the root, make use of the sacraments and pray for the strength to stay away from that fault. Moreover, we would do well in addition to praying against to pray in the presence of what we seek. Looking at Jesus is probably more efficacious in the fight against sin than putting up arms against a sea of troubles. Because no matter what we think, it is not our own opposition that ends them.
Think of it in the manner you might think of correct a very young child. There are many ways to go about it, but one of the most effective is often to remove the child from the arena of the distraction that is causing harm. That is, as pray-ers, we remove ourselves from immediate concern about the temptation besetting us by focusing on Jesus--Jesus in the Garden, Jesus on the Cross, Jesus among the children--whatever image of Jesus speaks to us in the moment and removes us from the path of destruction. God will give the grace, Jesus will supply the strength and the moment. However, none of this will be efficacious if we do not first seek guidance and understanding about what is tempting us and then (with the strength of the sacraments and Grace) resolutely decide not to give in just this one time. When we do this one-time by one-time, God gradually gives us victory over the sin--often allowing us to go our own way to show just how weak we are on our own. But nevertheless, it is the repeated pattern that will give us the focus and the spirit of clinging to God that will gradually lead us away from our sins.
We can do nothing of ourselves, all is Grace, all is gift. But we can do everything through Him who strengthens each one of us.
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Some Sounds of My Time (Before My Time)
Curved Air, "Melinda More or Less" featuring the remarkable voice of Sonja Kristina
The equally remarkable Annie Haslam with Renaissance
I entered the musical world at a date later than these bands and discovered them in retrospect. Those I discovered as they came along include:
Camel and The Snow Goose, their finest effort:
And then there is:
"In the Court of the Crimson King"
Eddie Jobson, who worked with, among others UK and Ultravox--here with Memories of Vienna
The weird, even for me, even at that time, The Residents with "The Simple Song"
And Gentle Giant giving us the odd poetry of psychiatrist (and bad poet) R. D. Laing in a modern-day madrigal--"Knots"
The Strawbs with Rick Wakeman at the Keyboard--"The Hangman and the Papist"
And Peter Gabriel in his previous incarnation as the Leader of Genesis
The guitarist, Steve Hackett, on his own. . .
Finally, because the fifth amendment is insufficient protection for some of the excesses of youth, the remarkable John Foxx, one of the talents behind Ultravox.
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The Proof of the Pudding
In the arena of too much information--my wife endured this grueling test of character prior to our marriage. After she agreed to attend a Lene Lovich concert I knew that she was the girl for me.
(Among Lene's true admirers her style was known as Transylvanian Boogie. Perhaps another reasonable characterization might be a deranged Pippi Longstocking.)
Posted by Steven Riddle at 9:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 13, 2007
Okay, One Step Beyond Lene
Possibly inspired by her, possibly part of the zeitgeist Nina Hagen was Germany's response to Lene Lovich. And here you see her at her best.
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