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At the Bottom of the Bachmann-WELS Flap

July 16, 2011
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At the Bottom of the Bachmann-WELS Flap

By Lars Walker All right, I’ll come clean. Sam Karnick wore me down, and I have to admit it. I am a Lutheran. And that, at least according to Joshua Green at The Atlantic, would seem to be pretty fringey stuff. Definitely outside the realm of respectable opinion in today’s world. (Which must be a surprise to all those Garrison Keillor fans.) Or… maybe I’m not a Lutheran at all, really. If you were to speak to an official of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, to one of whose congregations presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann used to belong, they’d probably tell you that my own church, a member of a conservative but pietistic fellowship, isn’t really Lutheran in the proper meaning of the term. We’re insufficiently sacramental in our focus, and so not truly Lutheran. And you know what? I’m OK with that. Among ourselves, we other Lutherans laugh at the Wisconsin Synod sometimes. You might call them our Hasidim. A little strict, a little stiff by our standards. They have their own ways, which sometimes can even cause offense, as when we visit their churches and are denied communion. But at bottom we respect them. They have their principles, and

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Web Freedom Is Slavery—to Big-Government Advocate

July 14, 2011
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Review of The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You, by Eli Pariser, Penguin USA, 304 pages, 2011 $25.95 The Filter Bubble is a salvo fired over the epistemological challenges wrought by Internet filters. Overwrought is more like it. Upon reading The Filter Bubble, I was reminded of the equally overwrought Zager and Evans single from the 1960s, “In the Year 2525,” in which the singer laments, “In the year 5555, your arms hanging limp by your side/Your legs got nothing to do/Some machine’s doing that for you.” Pariser’s updated but similarly exaggerated complaint is about creativity atrophying as a consequence of Internet search filters. Pariser—former executive director of the big-government advocacy group MoveOn.org—portrays a dystopian future in which every Internet user plunges unawares into an echo chamber of his or her respective ideology because personal information collected through profiles, cookies, and memories of previous searches may end up doing all the thinking for the user. This may be acceptable if Pariser agrees with your worldview, but he warns against “birthers,” “truthers,” and the pesky “pajama” media that brought about Dan Rather’s downfall. In this latter instance, Pariser strains credulity by insisting “it took print and broadcast media

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Book Review: Primetime Propaganda

July 13, 2011
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Book Review: Primetime Propaganda

Mark Twain once said that everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it.  In some ways you could say the same thing about television.  Critics have been assailing the “vast wasteland” for decades but have done little to reduce television’s dominant role in contemporary culture.  Studies show that Americans now watch more television than ever, and it’s hard to go anywhere – airports, neighborhood restaurants, even the dentist’s office – without a TV set greeting you as a square-faced, glowing companion. Primetime Propaganda by Ben Shapiro is the latest book to critique television, although he does not attack the quality of TV since he thinks most programs are pretty good.  Shapiro’s beef is that television programming intentionally supports liberal politics and lifestyles.  Primetime Propaganda is designed to explain how this happened and find ways to make TV entertainment more ideologically diverse. Shapiro has clearly marshaled an impressive amount of evidence in support of his thesis.  He traces the history of the major TV networks from their inception to the present day, and his chronicle is chock full of names, dates, and program descriptions from all of television’s well-known eras.  Fateful decisions that changed the course of

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“Auralia’s Colors” Stand Out Against a Drab Field

July 12, 2011
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“Auralia’s Colors” Stand Out Against a Drab Field

I am tentatively prepared to declare Jeffrey Overstreet, author of Auralia’s Colors and its sequels, the best Christian fantasist working today (Walter Wangerin is doing other things). Possibly even better than me (!). What are the things that irritate me about contemporary fantasy generally, and Christian fantasy in particular? First of all, contemporary fantasists tend to use words badly. They strive for the same effects as Tolkien or Lewis, but lack the rich erudition of those scholars. Their prose is stilted and artificial, their word choices poor. Overstreet does not suffer from this problem. He uses words deftly, as Rembrandt used brushes and paint. Every description is vivid, every image apt. It’s a delight to read his prose. I was reminded of Tolkien’s use of Old English names to evoke unconscious meanings in the reader. Overstreet doesn’t use that technique, but the whimsical names he gives to humans and beasts had a similar effect on me. Contemporary fantasists tend to be derivative. When you read their work, you can easily detect a) which favorite writers they are trying to ape, and b) their political and social beliefs and prejudices. Overstreet’s work is as original as a new baby. He goes

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Mamet and Breitbart: A Tale of Two Political Conversions

July 11, 2011
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Mamet and Breitbart: A Tale of Two Political Conversions

By Larry Kaufmann The culture war has taken some interesting turns lately, but few are more surprising than David Mamet’s recent move to the right.  Mamet is probably the most important playwright of the last 40 years, in addition to being a prolific screenwriter and essayist.  He has also directed about a dozen feature films, several shorts and TV episodes, and was Executive Producer of the TV series The Unit.  Although not a household name (how many playwrights are, other than Shakespeare?), he is an A-lister in creative circles and particularly respected for plays like American Buffalo and Glengarry Glen Ross, which cast a caustic and cynical eye on capitalism. So, when his essay “Why I Am No Longer A Brain-Dead Liberal” appeared in the Village Voice in March 2008, it must have stung.  David Mamet taking to the pages of the trendy lefty magazine Village Voice to bash progressivism is like Pat Robertson going on the set of the 700 Club to declare God is dead.  It’s also likely to rattle a few latte cups in Hollywood and the other elite cultural circles where Mamet travels. That article, though, was only a warm-up for The Secret Knowledge, Mamet’s recently

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Pushing The Red Button

July 7, 2011
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Pushing The Red Button

As Far as Yesterday Goes, by The Red Button (Grimble, 2011) Review by Warren Moore Seth Swirsky seems to be a 21st-Century Renaissance man. He’s the author of several books about baseball, his new film about the Beatles is doing well on the festival circuit, and he finds time to write songs for artists ranging from Celine Dion to Taylor Dayne. However, he’s best known in certain circles for The Red Button, where he works with producer Mike Ruekberg to create breathtaking works of pop alchemy. The Button’s first album, She’s About to Cross My Mind (2007) was a mix of 1960s influences including Bachrach, Harry Nilsson, and the Lennon /McCartney juggernaut, a sort of neoclassicist pop that never lapsed into pastiche. Most importantly, it was a damned fine album. Fortunately, the team’s new album, As Far as Yesterday Goes, avoids the sophomore jinx, while adding a slightly more contemporary feel to some of the material. As Ruekberg jokes, “This time we’ve leapt boldly into the ’70s!” Make no mistake — the ’60s influence is still strong, from the 37-minute running time to the chiming 12-strings of “Girl, Don’t” and the harmonica-fueled joy of “Caught in the Middle,” the album’s

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‘West Oversea’ Book Trailer Available

July 7, 2011
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‘West Oversea’ Book Trailer Available

The American Culture stalwart Lars Walker, author of several acclaimed novels about Viking life, has produced a video trailer for his book West Oversea, and the video is quite interesting and entertaining in itself: Additional information about West Oversea is available here.

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Book Review: ‘Valentino: Film Detective’

July 6, 2011
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Book Review: ‘Valentino: Film Detective’

By Mike Gray Valentino: Film Detective — By Loren D. Estleman — Crippen & Landru Publishers — 2011 — Trade paperback: 210 pages — Short story collection: 14 stories — ISBN: 978-1-932009-96-5. He dreamed he was riding in a beer truck with a pistol under his arm. The cases in the back contained reels of film, not beer. He was bootlegging them across the border between the past and the present, and Father Time was waiting for him at a roadblock with a tommygun that ticked like a clock when he squeezed the trigger. Valentino is a die-hard classic movie fanatic who through no coincidence works at UCLA’s Film Preservation Department searching for, compiling, and restoring old films. Occasionally a movie thought to be “lost” turns up (possibly as many as 90 percent of all motion pictures made before nitrate film was phased out are considered irretrievably lost); when that happens, Valentino soars into the stratosphere (both literally and figuratively) in his worldwide hunt for rare films. But sometimes his elation is checked by having to deal with the owners of these “lost” treasures, and that’s when it gets really interesting. (“Interesting” as in the Chinese curse: “May you live

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Cars’ New Album: Good, but Falls Short of Band’s Former Glory

July 5, 2011
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Cars’ New Album: Good, but Falls Short of Band’s Former Glory

By Joe Lynch At first listen, the Cars’ first album of new material since 1987 seems to pick up where the band left off a couple of decades ago. Move Like This is nicely reminiscent of the band’s best work, but unfortunately it lacks something essential. The opening sounds of “Blue Tip,” for example, hearken back to a time when melody was still infused in pop music and the artists that sang the songs did so without the aid of software to correct their vocal missteps. The opening measures, however, also expose what is missing from the album: the band’s bass guitarist and alternate lead singer, Benjamin Orr, who died in 2000 of pancreatic cancer. It is obvious, and painfully so, that the opening bass notes are provided and sequenced by Greg Hawkes on keyboard. In a recent interview, Ric Ocasek spoke of there being a good deal of tension between Orr and him during the recording and songwriting process. I gather that Ocasek wanted full and complete control, but Orr, being a creative artist in his own right, pushed back, and thus the tension. However, out of such tension often comes great music, as was the case with The

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An Exciting New Act on the Oldies Circuit

July 1, 2011
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An Exciting New Act on the Oldies Circuit

Vladimir Putin is a man of many talents (some decidedly unsavory), but until I saw this video I never thought singing 1950s rock and roll was one of them.  He and his band put a decidedly Slavic twist (ha) on this Fats Domino classic.  Somewhere, Richie Cunningham must be smiling.

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‘Memphis Beat’: Atmospheric Detective Series Features Good Cop, Righteous Music

June 30, 2011
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‘Memphis Beat’: Atmospheric Detective Series Features Good Cop, Righteous Music

By Cece Forrester I’ve never been to Memphis, but if the real city is anything like the one shown on Memphis Beat, I’d like to spend some time there. The most striking thing about this detective series, now in its second season on TNT, is how much candy it offers for both ear and eye. Viewers are treated to choice tracks of classic rockabilly, blues, soul, R&B, Motown, country, folk, or gospel in every episode. The visual quality is likewise amazing. The people of Memphis seem to live in a world with no clashing styles, dominated by vintage cars, neon-lit diners, scenic river views and homey neighborhood streets, all with a midcentury sensibility. Sepia-toned police squad rooms have ceiling fans to help everyone keep their cool, and Venetian blinds to filter out harshness. Interiors of houses are suffused with mellow, golden light, decorated in variations of comfortable kitsch and shabby chic reminiscent of visits to Grandma’s house. The women stand up for themselves, but they’re also queens of their kitchens who know what to do with a rolling pin and a skillet. Nonetheless, it’s clear that we are in the twenty-first century: cell phones, texting, and websites are as front-and-center

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“Frankenstein,” Son of “That Hideous Strength”

June 28, 2011
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“Frankenstein,” Son of “That Hideous Strength”

By Lars Walker “The pages reek with your bottomless self-pity so poorly disguised as regret, with the phoniness of your verbose self-condemnation, with the insidious quality of your contrition, which is that of a materialist who cares not for God and is therefore not true contrition at all, but only despair at the consequences of your actions. For centuries, I have been the monster, and you the well-meaning idealist who claims he would have undone what he did if only given the chance. But your kind never undoes. You do the same wrong over and over, with ever greater fervency, causing ever more misery, because you are incapable of admitting error.” “I’ve made no error,” Victor Immaculate confidently assures him, “and neither did your maker.” Looming, the giant says, “You are my maker.” Thus Frankenstein’s monster, now known as Deucalion, purified by suffering and made truly human, addresses Dr. Frankenstein, so corrupted by power and pride that he has ceased to be human at all, in Frankenstein: The Dead Town, the dramatic climax to Dean Koontz’ five-book deconstruction of Mary Shelley’s original narrative. As regular readers must be aware, I’m pretty much in the bag for

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"Culture is the expression of the guiding philosophy of the day."—Murray Rothbard
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