I dream of a world in which smartphones and laptops display the title of whatever you’re looking at on their backsides. This would have two societally salubrious effects:

1. Serendipity might strike as we discover you’re reading a book I’ve also read or listening to an album I think is cool. Or at least you’re letting your stranger-neighbors know a little bit about you; a little uncertainty reduction goes a long way toward reducing stress.
2. You’re less likely to take in junk.

Geez, Steve
We’re gonna need you to leave
We’re just trying get some work done
 
Please, Steve
Don’t act so bereaved
Can’t you see we’re working under the gun? ✏️ 🎤 🎵

In the three thousand words or so below, you’ll find my long-gestating attempt to grasp why Jesus allowed Himself to be crucified and how His crucifixion achieved those aims. Or at least, you’ll find most of it: I cut the writing short. That’s because when it comes to disciplined, long-form argumentation, I may be the slowest writer I know. (Hence, despite a love for knowledge and understanding, I never pursued a PhD and probably never will.)

I typed the first word of what you’ll read below sometime in October 2022. As of the writing of the words of this paragraph, it’s late August 2024. At the rate I’ve been going, to get all my ideas out onto the page would take me another year. Yet every minute I spend writing this essay is a minute not spent relating directly to people or indulging my other expressive hobby, making music, which seems like I’ve all but ignored this entire time. I want to get back to that stuff, especially as both my kids are now in high school and my time with them living full-time under my roof is running short.

The good news with regard to the essay is I don’t think I would have allowed myself to cut it short unless I felt I’d at least managed to grasp the...

Hey!
You married him.
He’s always and in all ways gonna stay him.
Means he won’t leave ya,
But he’s prolly gonna grieve ya
Again and again and again. ✏️ 🎤 🎵

Don’t worry
You’ll be the next hard act to follow ✏️ 🎤 🎵

You’re saying I should give in to the vernacular?

— Scott

percentage of adult household members holding a full-time job ∝ (frequency of dinner guests hosted by that household)^-1

Just re-listened to: Carrie and Lowell (2015) by Sufjan Stevens. When Christgau wrote of this album, “How best expiate a conflicted grief? Surely something with more tensile strength than musical flower arrangements,” he did capture its aural beauty, but he clearly wasn’t listening to its devastating lyrics. As far as grief albums go, this one is better even than Funeral and Tonight’s the Night. My favorite Sufjan by a substantial margin.

I miss the white pages ✏️ 🎤 🎵

Just listened to: The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow (2024) by Charles Lloyd. Easygoing, desultory, flute- or breathy-tenor-sax-led freeish modal jazz for inspiring hippies at night. Bonus point of interest: The esteemed saxophonist/flautist is 86!

Uncommitted time I anticipate with pleasure, but planned time I often anticipate with a low level of discontent, even if it’s time I planned for pleasure. Why is that?

[edit, 8/13/24]: I think it’s planned social time that evokes the mild discontent—and I think it’s because I still hold an idolatrous candle for solo productive time. After all these years, GTD is still my god. Sigh.

Switching costs and triskaidekaphobia be damned: We ought to ditch the Gregorian calendar and replace it with a this (Scotian?) alternative:

• thirteen months of the exact same 28-day length,
• New Year’s Day as its own intercalary one-day week, and
• every leap year, a two-day New Year’s Week.

Accountants would be happy about this. Computer code would be simpler. And no one would have to remember “Thirty Days Hath September” any more.

Just listened to: Fireflies and Songs (2009) by Sara Groves. Piano-based adult alternative whose graceful combination of melody, voice, harmonic voicings, and themes make me want to cry—or, just as often, actually make me cry—at least half of its runtime. Christianity Today’s runaway number-one choice for album of the year that year. But other than the lyrics of “Joy Is In Our Hearts,”, this is hardly a Christians-only album. It deserves a wider audience.

Freeloading days are here again ✏️ 🎤 🎵

Just listened to: Silence & Music (2017) performed by Gabrieli’s “Rolls-Royce” of a choir, conducted here by their artistic director Paul McCreesh. This is fifteen 20th-century secular British partsongs exquisitely sung and perfectly recorded, thereby gratifying my anglophilia, audiophilia, and love for small-choir singing all at once. Hat tip to the late David Vernier for the recommendation.

Just listened to: Open Your Heart (2012) by The Men. Noisy, abrasive rave rock. Sometimes like Sonic Youth, but often faster and shoutier, hence punk-er. I like it best when droning, as in “Oscillation” and “Presence.”

Finished reading: Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (1999) by Anne Lamott. A funny, worthwhile, quotable episodic memoir. My only complaint is probably one directed at her editors: There are fewer thoughts on faith than its subtitle indicates.

A little overkill never hurt anyone
Besides, Babe, I’ve only just begun ✏️ 🎤 🎵

You mighty thing.
I’m sorry. ✏️ 🎤 🎵

Hypothesis: A big reason we love books, movies, and recorded music is that they offer to our lower brains a passable simulacrum of company. Inspiring, beautiful, mind-expanding they can be. But they are, at their root, an inferior substitute for basic emotional and relational goods that come from real, live, human company…

…writes the man whose wife of twenty years hasn’t been home in a week and is currently incommunicado on a sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

“For then will I transform peoples with a pure language for them all to call in the name of the LORD, to serve Him with single intent” (Zephaniah 3:9, Alters).

Lord, please transform Christians in this way. As it is, it seems we’re calling in the name of different lords to serve with various, opposing intents.

Just listened to: Traditional Techniques (2020) by Stephen Malkmus. My first Malkmus solo album listen. His lyrics are as weird as in the ’90s, but I had no idea he could make such pretty music. A very good late-night psych-folk stoner album. The effect is similar to hearing The Velvet Underground’s self-titled album. Also, I’m a sucker for 12-string guitar and playfulness with words.

Productivity slash peace of mind hack #372: Use a custom stylesheet to hide all but the first item in any list on the web version of the to-do list app I use. Now the endless to-do list, so important to this man’s reliable participation in modern life but sometimes so very peace-ruffling by its sheer volume, presents itself to me just one task at a time.

Guys, guys, guys, we’ve got the cross hung upside-down!
It’s not a thorn of crowns
That’s the wrong way! ✏️ 🎤 🎵