S P L I N T E R E D|L I G H T

Well, this summer’s blockbuster season is off and running with Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk. Not being a big fan or very knowledgeable of either superhero I had to psych myself up based solely on opening night vibes and a little hype that was floating around. Now, having seen both films, I must confess that they exceeded my low expectations but I remain underwhelmed.

Iron Man was clearly the better movie from a critical standpoint. When we first meet Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) he is not yet Iron Man, but by the end of the film he has undergone the transformation and survived his first great trial. Two things made this movie the success that it is. First the casting is perfect and unexpected. Following the same basic principles as Johnny Depp in Pirates of The Caribbean, Downey is the scoundrel that we all love. His charisma wins our allegiance and makes us laugh. Less obviously but no less importantly Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges, who also strike me as bold casting choices, flesh the film out. The second thing they did right was to keep the plot as streamlined and conservative as possible. There was really a minimum of explosions, love-interests, and pseudo-philosophizing–all the things that tend to kill the superhero film.

The Incredible Hulk, on the other hand, had some serious problems as a film. Sloppy narrative and pacing plus some seriously dull scenes between Norton and Tyler kept it from being a grade ‘A’ B-film. Ingeniously, they gave us the origin story in stills while the credits rolled and started right in with Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) hiding out in Rio de Janeiro. By casting Edward Norton, Marvel forecasted a smart, dark, psychological superhero movie ala Batman Begins. On this point they did not really deliver. The Incredible Hulk, like the green behemoth himself, doesn’t do dialogue. . . or character development. But he does do ‘Hulk smash!’ and for that we can be truly thankful. Harder punches have never been thrown in CGI. The medium normally works better than a sleeping potion to make me loose interest, but I was wide-eyed till the credits for this one. Interestingly, despite it’s flaws I enjoyed The Incredible Hulk about as much as Iron Man.

Now, I have made it my goal to meditate this summer on the value and quality of popular cinema, and the superhero movie in particular interests me. I must admit that if I indulged my inner literary snob I would quickly dismiss these films and the small amount of pleasure they provide for being ‘just entertainment’ and therefore not worthy of my time. But I try to fight the literary snob in me whenever I catch him, and I strive for truth not pride, so I am left searching for value in superhero films.

The most prevalent argument in favor of superhero movies and comics is that they are really complex moral tales, with psychological spider-webs, good and evil in sharp contrast, and characters that go much deeper than their facades suggest. I am more than willing to concede this about the libraries full of comic books that have been written, but with a very few exceptions, I have yet to see it transferred to film. Nevertheless, my search has led me to statements like this by Paul Asay of www.pluggedinonline.com, a subsidiary of Focus on the Family. “Stark’s path to becoming Iron Man is, in many ways, as spiritual as you can get without reciting Bible verses. He is an archetypical woeful sinner who wasted much of his life on wine, women and weapons. While he doesn’t find God, specifically, he does find what he considers a purpose when he has what one might call the Marvel Comics equivalent of the Apostle Paul’s Damascas Road experience. The film’s underlying messages—that being virtuous is better than being rich, that we all have unexpected callings, that we, like Stark, live for a reason—are inspiring, biblical and, in today’s fame-and-fortune-at-any-cost society, downright countercultural.”

First and foremost: morality does not equal Christianity. In fact they are opposing world-views. Not ‘finding God specifically’ is not finding God at all. To call Iron Man biblical is a much bigger stretch than calling it altruistically humanistic, which has long been an enemy of ‘biblical’ when you strip them to their fundamentals. As Christians this is the wrong way to approach cinema. We cannot afford to pick and choose art based on what we can pull a Sunday-school lesson out of. There needs to be a standard for judging films that supersedes plot elements and deals with films wholistically. One that takes in all aspects of the art of film–acting, editing, cinematography, writing, directing, pacing, costume design, make-up, music, and even special-effects.

This is not an exact science. It is still going to be a value-judgment on the part of every critic or casual viewer. What’s more good acting, cinematography, writing etc… does not look the same in every good movie. Take The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as opposed to Casablanca for example. Everything them is different except for the fact that they are both great films.

Superhero films are still art whether they aspire to it or not. There is no such thing as a distinction between art and entertainment. If something is entertainment that does not give it a permit to be poor. Art and entertainment, even for the masses, are not mutually exclusive. The Godfather ranking number one on so many viewer’s-choice-top-100-film polls (such as IMDB.com) is maybe the most obvious evidence for this. There is no reason why we should have to give up characters for explosions.

So what defense of these films can be given? Another, much better, articulation of the morality defense comes from the (in)famous Christian apologist and man of letters, G.K. Chesterton. He once wrote an article called “A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls.” Penny Dreadfuls were “boys’ literature of the lowest stratum,” basically the comic books of their day. They too were despised by the literary elite. Chesterton fights this elitism with ferocity. He writes, “The simple need for some kind of ideal world in which fictitious persons play an unhampered part is infinitely deeper and older than the rules of good art, and much more important . . . These common and current publications have nothing essentially evil about them. They express the sanguine and heroic truisms on which civilization is built; for it is clear that unless civilization is built on truisms, it is not built at all . . . The vast mass of humanity, with their vast mass of idle books and idle words, have never doubted and never will doubt that courage is splendid, that fidelity is noble, that distressed ladies should be rescued, and vanquished enemies spared.”

Chesterton is right to point out that we need ‘heroic truisms,’ and there is nothing ‘essentially evil’ about the modern superhero movie. But that is in general. In specific Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk seem to fall short of the pure expression of heroic truisms that Chesterton describes. There seems to be too much other stuff dragged in. They seem all veneer–iron suit and green muscles with nothing concrete hanging in the balance. Give me John Wayne and Frodo over Tony Stark and Bruce Banner any day. Those are ‘sentimentalist’ heroes if I have ever seen any. They do not scrimp on happy endings or tight pinches. And the history books will show that both the ‘ordinary man’ and the critic were in awe.

Chesterton’s defense cannot be applied in its full force to our 10-dollar dreadfuls today, because in Chesterton’s day the critique of ‘boy’s literature of the lowest stratum,’ really had to do with what the literary establishment felt was the baseness and vulgarity of stories about outlaws and criminals. “Now it is quite clear,” he writes, “that this objection, the objection brought by magistrates, has nothing to do with literary merit.”

I am fine with the moral content–my critique is entirely base on literary merit. I am not arguing for high art but for good art. John Ford’s films staring John Wayne cannot be labeled ‘art house’ or ‘indie’ by any stretch of the imagination yet his films, appealing to people across generations and cultures, are powerful and well told.

So, I will concede that there is often elementary moral value in superhero movies, and this is better than not. But, I cannot concede that they are really good films. The best I can say is that maybe Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk are shallowness done well. As I recently heard professor, author, art critic, and musician Harold Best say, shallowness is not the problem–shallow water can be fast-flowing and clean–the problem is a refusal to ever leave. The problem is clinging to shallowness in the face of depth, or worse mistaking shallowness for depth. I am afraid that as a culture we do this far too often. We are ruining our taste buds and developing an addiction to sugar. I think we would find that if we examined our diets and trained ourselves to like meat and vegetables our taste for garbage would wane and we would be healthier, more robust people as a result.

Here is the first real barrage of e-mails from our semester of aesthetics. The themes on music, technicality and sincerity are developed further.

Dear Jarrod,

Hey man, still thinking about our talk from last night and I thought you might find this interesting: http://www.cccdaytona.org/ministries/worship/ That is my church’s worship page… there is a little bit about philosophy of worship, namely two letters from Evan’s dad about why we do worship the way we do. I think they are very good, but keep in mind they are very practical and speak more to the average church goer’s issues with worship than they do to yours. Also there are a bunch (8?) songs you can stream to get an idea of what it sounds like. They are live recordings and you do not quite hear the whole picture if you know what I mean.

Enjoy.

Peace, Alex

Dear Alex,

Thanks, I might be about to do some backtracking here, but first let me mention that I usually don’t worry about particular things when I “theorize.”  So, though I might use my worship team from back home as an example, I’m actually not so concerned about what should be done about that particular group. They’re just a useful example, and though I talked about them plenty enough, I don’t feel like I’m really talking about them.  Because if I was seriously considering practical implications, I’d have to look at my own participation in worship music, and things would get different. Hope we weren’t stepping on toes–I’m thinking too of Evan here.

Anyways, I like the worship statement on the page. This is the most important thing: to worship “with reverence and adoration for the greatness of who he is.” (And that’s fantastic.) But, I’m not sure if I agree with this other statement: “It is of no advantage to ask people to adopt a foreign musical style in order to worship.” Maybe worshiping God with the most reverence will involve adopting a certain musical style, or, at least, will involve avoiding certain musical styles. We said this Monday night, but there it is again, shown in the space between two worthy statements from your own musical team.

I jump around in my criticisms, so let me try and stop. Sometimes I don’t like music teams not doing their best (or musicians not doing their best, or church’s not doing their best). Other times, I don’t like a more fundamental issue: the style of worship. So, a music team may be doing its best (and I think back to my worship team at home), but I don’t like the style it’s doing its best in. Now, “style” is another area I’ll jump around in: sometimes the lyrics are the issue, sometimes the music (for instance, I dislike modernization of hymns that keep the words but throw out all the chord changes in favor of something like a pedal D).

I liked your church’s music. I’d be happy to go there and sing (happier than any place I’ve been recently, I think).  My biggest issue, I think, is that people (in general) don’t seem to feel that there might be a “best,” most-glorifying way of singing stuff to God. I think I might be content with people just considering the idea - and then they can go back to what they were doing. A little thought about objective goodness would be enough.  But you’ve pressed the unavoidable prominence of practicality on to me, and, though I’m not giving up my theoretical thoughts (which actually we might in large part agree on), I think they’re less important to me then they were before Monday night.

This is just a long way of saying, See you in class,

Cheers, Jarrod 

Dear Jarrod,

I appreciated your response, also please know that I do not think Evan and I were in anyway offended despite maybe being a little passionate. I think on my end I maybe feel that that sincerity and technicality are mutually exclusive, therefore in my book Bob Dylan > Dave Matthews. . . I think maybe some of your worship theory would be better adapted to my general theory of music. For example: the goal of ALL music (weather it is played by Christians or not) is to glorify God, but the goal of worship services specifically is to corporately express our faith in and love for God. Therefore if you are Christopher Parkington you had better play to the best of your abilities and not water it down because there is a bigger market for hip-hop than classical guitar, but if you are Joe-worship-leader you need to assess your congregation and play the music that will best allow the majority of your people to worship the LORD effectively. 

This of course doesn’t mean just playing what people want to hear… after all you can’t please all the people all the time, you can barely please most of the people most of the time, but this is the nature of corporate worship. So harmonizing may be more glorifying than not harmonizing, but sincerity is most glorifying and if that has to come without harmonies I don’t think God will care. 

Also, I feel it is interesting to adapt this theory to other art forms, for example is the best novel the one most well written (from a technical literary standpoint) or the one that effectively communicates the most truth about the world? Or take an example from film, is the best movie the Scorsese technical masterpiece or the simpler movie that communicates greater emotional truth (Chariots of Fire, or Tender Mercies)? Obviously the greatest works of art are the ones that can combine the two – Handel’s Messiah, The Brothers Karamazov, Magnolia? The Godfather?

Peace, Alex

Dear Alex,

Good man,  You just said some good stuff.

First, thanks for making this explicit: “I think on my end I maybe feel that that sincerity and technicality are mutually exclusive.” That’s a common opinion, I think. But here’s my thing–ready? –it’s the exact opposite: technicality permits sincerity. (I was actually going to bring this up in Aesthetics about something Collingwood said, but it never came up.)  You’ve touched on a hugely interesting subject. And there’s controversy, especially around the edges (the edges being good musicians who lack any sort of technique and bad musicians who have it). But no, Alex–I’ll say it again–technical ability is half of “being honest” in art (the other half is creativity, whatever that is). The idea that “if I learn to read music, I won’t express myself as well” or “practicing scales won’t help me make my music” is an utter lie.

Think about writing. The author who has a larger vocabulary, all other elements being equal (including creativity), can express himself with more sincerity than the author with a smaller vocabulary. Now, technical ability does not mean an artist will be more sincere; but technical ability does mean an artist can be more sincere. That’s just the way it works, and, of course, we might need to go into these “workings,” but not here.

Now for where there’s controversy. Dylan’s a good example. Could he have been more sincere if he could sing better? The answer is yes and no.  Yes, because he would’ve had a larger palate to more finely and precisely express his feelings; but no, because, most likely, he would’ve sung in the exact same manner. His particular “sincerity” did not require that much technique (but let’s be honest - there’s a lot of technique going on with Dylan; I just can’t talk about it here). However, he’s an exception. Most people–most artists–would change what they would express if they were able to express different things. A song might have a IV-V-I progression (the first part of “Lord, I Life Your Name on High” comes to mind). As a bass player, all I need to play are the roots of each chord, as the chords come. If I’m not that good, that’s all I’ll play–but not because that’s what I want to play in order to be self-expressive. If I’m better, I’ll throw in filler notes and extra rhythms here and there, and maybe I’ll even suggest some other chord progressions around the basic IV-V-I. The reason I’d do that additional stuff is not to show off: it’s because that additional stuff better captures what I want to play: I play that additional stuff in order to be self-expressive.

The point of that last example was to show that technique affects what a musician plays. It affects what a musician plays by facilitating the musician’s self-expression, by allowing all the shades of feeling to be realized in sound.

But back to the controversy, in fairness, Thelonious Monk was one of the greatest jazz musicians–and his technique on the piano was horrible. But, other musicians noticed the uniqueness of Monk’s music probably would be lost if Monk could play better technically, in fact, Monk’s terrible technique helped him achieve his unique sound. But, again, Monk is an exception.

However, the greater general rule still applies to every musician, Dylan and Monk included: Technique needs to get the job done. (And keep relating this to writing; it’s a great analogous case.) So many musicians comprise what the “job” would be because their technique’s not up to snuff; and, relatedly, many musicians don’t ever fully achieve a sense of what their “job” (that is, intended emotional/personal expression through music) is because they haven’t mastered enough technique. A greater control over English just doesn’t permit better expression of thoughts; it helps develop and refine thoughts. The relationship between idea and technical-expression-of-idea is not one-way.

Boy, Alex, sorry to go off on you like that. I think this may very well be a core belief of mine, extending to quite a few things in one way or another.  I do have a very clear picture in my head of the relation between technique and expression, even if it didn’t come out well. If you have time to read this, great. I’ll be seeing you soon.

Cheers, Jarrod

Dear Jarrod,

Very well said, but I think I might have let you get all worked up and convince me of something I already bought. When I said: ”I think on my end I maybe feel that that sincerity and technicality are mutually exclusive” my emphasis mentally was on “maybe feel”. So it was more of an explanation as to why I have such a strong knee-jerk reaction against wanting worship to be better technically. Plus, you have to admit that many proponents of “technically good” worship also see the two as mutually exclusive and are more than willing to sacrifice sincerity or emotion for complex arrangements, at least that has been my experience. Also, I totally believe what you are saying about technicality. From my own experience on guitar I know that if I knew a couple more scales or a little bit of music theory about chord formation I would be able to play more original stuff more expressively. However, I also have several friends who are so innately musical that they can play along with a song having no clue they are using an A chord, or figure out a solo not knowing it is on a pentatonic scale–they don’t even know the names of the strings. Now, not saying this is good, or normal, or that they couldn’t be better if they did learn about music, basically when I ask myself is technicality necessary or sufficient, I find myself answering neither–although it certainly does help. I think it needs a third category. As long as technicality serves sincerity and truth in music then it is a good thing but NEVER the other way around. 

This statement you made is enigmatic to me: ”Now, technical ability does not mean an artist will be more sincere; but technical ability does mean an artist can be more sincere.” I have a hard time figuring out how someone singing the word ”Hallelujah” could be more sincere based on technique, it seems to me sincerity is completely detached from the technique and completely based on a heart-condition. Now, that being said they could possibly be more “expressive” if they could sing better but the sincerity is either there or it is not. I guess I would rephrase my original statement… technicality=good, however, complexity makes me suspicious of sincerity. It is certainly not mutually exclusive but it does make me suspicious.

Here I think we have encountered the great divide between instrumental and lyrical music, each one of us claiming he is unable to appreciate/understand the other kind. At least not fully. Sincerity in instrumental music may indeed come from a more technically proficient place. Where else could it come from? If concrete ideas are not being expressed in poetry by the human voice then the musical notes themselves bear the whole burden of expression and sincerity. Here technicality must carry the day, but if someone is going to sing a great poem that they wrote then I feel the sincerity comes from the content of the lyrics and from the frame of mind and heart in which they sing them. Of course some level of musicianship is necessary here as well but it is so much less important to me that it barely registers on the scale. After all, what is just wrong in one musical style may give another all its energy. Think Punk/Blues/Jazz vs. more classical styles.

Ok that’s it for now I am sure there is more I could say… honestly I think the disagreements lie more in our appreciating different kinds of music for different reasons. Namely instrumental Vs. lyrical. My number one criterion when deciding if I like a certain musician is: ”Is this someone that I can sing along with?” I mean this in two ways. First: Is it pleasing to my ear? Do I enjoy the sound and melodies? And secondly and more importantly: Are the lyrics true? Do they resonate with me? Can I sing along with them in good faith? Many many many musicians meet the first criterion and fail the second miserably. Dave Mathews is a good example of that. Anyway, hopefully we ride bikes this afternoon. 

Peace, Alex

Dear Alex,

Yeah, I did get worked up over that. Even if was for nothing, that’s OK–it was fun.

I think you’re probably dead-on about songwriting music versus instrumental music giving us very different perspectives. I found myself agreeing with you: the honest emotion in a sung song is going to depend in large part on the sheer sincerity of the singer, and that’s going to come across whether he has amazing technique or not. In instrumental music, it doesn’t really work that way; you need technique to express any amount of sincerity, and the more sincere you want to be, the better your technique’ll have to be (and I do think that that’s a general rule).

About my enigmatic statement (”Now, technical ability does not mean an artist will be more sincere; but technical ability does mean an artist can be more sincere.”), keeping in mind what I just said, I do think there’s an interplay between unexpressed emotion and technical ability. Think of language. A large vocabulary isn’t just a static tool that helps you express your thoughts; a large vocabulary affects your thoughts before they’re even expressed. Same with music. By “more sincere” I meant both accuracy of expression and depth of expression. So, better technique helps a musician express his feelings, and better technique enables a musician to have deeper feelings.

As background to what I just said, I do believe in the “infinity of the self,” that peoples’ selves are each utterly unique and endlessly rich. So, if every artist was totally sincere, we’d have amazing and various art everywhere. I can’t really back any of this up, but maybe you know something of what I mean. (And I have a theory for why we don’t have amazing art everywhere, but I do start playing the psychologist, and the ideas might get close to non-sensical.)

Anyway, I think after my great outburst on technique I’ve got nothing more to offer at the moment. We’ll keep talking. This has been good stuff, and I’m learning things. See you in class.

Cheers, Jarrod

Dear Jarrod,

Yeah, I think we have come to more or less an agreement at least from our different perspectives, I too don’t have anything else to say at this point.

Peace, Alex

Last night I had what I truly consider the privilege of going to see Jakob Dylan. Better known as Bob Dylan’s progeny and the lead singer/songwriter for the band The Wallflowers, he has been largely forgotten since their single “One Headlight” faded out on MTV and radio stations. The amazing thing is he hasn’t changed what he is doing at all. The Wallflowers have released 3 studio albums since “One Headlight,” and next week Jakob Dylan’s first solo record drops. He seems committed to the medium of the song and nothing else. I hope I can communicate my appreciation for his music and why I think he is about as good as musicians can come. 

The lights dropped and some bluesy roots music came on loudly as the sound-techs walked off the stage. The crowd craned their necks to look down the hallway – nothing. I was sure they were going to scream when he appeared. I felt a little sorry for him. The son of a god, cursed with good looks and a moment of fame. About 2 minutes passed – then he was there strapping on his guitar. He had somehow managed to sneak on stage in plain view amid scattered applause. He didn’t even face the audience till he was singing the first song. After 2 more he was obviously at ease. I have never seen anyone live who seemed so uninterested in performing and so focused on the songs. 

He played a very simple, careful set. There was a three-piece backing band, The Golden Mountain Rebels, electric, bass, and drums. He finger-picked an acoustic, and the drummer used brushes. Between every song he would take his time changing the capo and retuning the guitar then cast a glance at the rhythm section as they eased into the next one. Once the song was going the audience seemed to disappear in front of him. I didn’t once see him make eye contact, they were often closed, and he was clearly feeling out the rhythm of each song. 

Yet in between songs he was very kind. He joked with a young girl in the front row, saying it must be an all ages show, and that she probably wanted to hear the old stuff from when she was growing up. He posed for camera-phone photos, at first telling them in a gruff voice that no photos were allowed, then laughing and exclaiming, “what if I were that guy?” He had the sound-board adjust the lights till the audience cheered in approval. While playing a couple of songs without the backing band, voices chattered along with the quiet finger-picking and mellow vocals - he joked that it had been a while since he had to compete with the bar. Even the guy that yelled “Freebird,” was treated kindly, although not without some good jokes about the absurdity of that practice. 

Although the set was quite humble, the focus, humility, and sincerity with which this man brought forth his offering of songs was awe-inspiring. Before one song, almost as an aside, he exclaimed, “We’re singing very important songs here.” Without a hint of cockiness, this remark gives us a glimpse of how he views his vocation. Writing and singing songs is important, necessary work for people to take seriously! It is not simply entertainment or a way to make a lot of money or get famous. If done right, it teaches us about Truth. Someone needs to sing these songs.

At one point he told a crowd-member, “I am gonna try real hard on this next one . . . I am gonna get my pitch just right, because anyone can fake emotion but you can’t fake pitch.” The whole night and Jakob’s song-writing in general is driven by a refusal to fake emotion – a refusal to go for any easy tears. Emotion is not therefore absent, but it is deeper and one doesn’t have to doubt that it is true. 

Jakob Dylan is a strong songwriter. He never wines. There is an absolute refusal to let self-pity creep in. He may write about tragedies, or sorrow, but always with a pragmatic bent. In “If You Never Got Sick” he sings, “Baby if you never got sick, I wouldn’t get to hold you.” The sweetness with which he reiterates this is palpable, saying, ‘lets look at this for what it is, we can rejoice in our suffering.’ And in the chorus of “Too Late to Quit” he moans, “It’s too late to quit to soon to go home, but I’m tired!” As the guitars slog and chug along we hear the words of the verse reminding us we must fight the good fight, “I’m never gonna give you any more than you can bear . . . You’ve got to keep movin’, You’ve got to keep pushin’, A Song ain’t a song till someone starts singin’!” 

Combined with this down-to-earth approach to hardship is a constant and persistent hope. You cannot have one without the other. Without the hardship there is nothing to hope for, and without the hope there is no way to grin and bear it. In “Everybody Out of The Water” Dylan describes a metaphorical and psychological shipwreck. “Now I’m treading high water to get back to you,” he writes, “There’s too many bodies and not enough room . . . We’re already in it, you’ve got to be brave.” Then in the last verse, hope, “As I slip down in, I think of us someplace high on a mountain, smoke clears, fog lifts, little by little we rebuild again.” Hope saturates nearly every song, in “When You’re On Top” he even paints a picture of Eden restored: “I need a garden where nothing’s forbidden. I need and apple that no one’s been eatin’. I want to start again back at the beginnin’. I had a vision that this feeling maybe has an ending.”

Despite the basic rock set up – guitar, bass, drums, keyboard – Dylan achieves remarkable fittingness. That is the lyrical content is always perfectly reflected in the music and melodies of each song. As in “Too Late to Quit,” where weariness and dogged determination are coupled with heavy, pounding guitars, or “If You Never Got Sick” where tenderness and encouragement are mirrored by a warm, lilting melody. In “Everything I Need,” Dylan writes, “I’ve got everything I need, I’ve got everything I need . . . You can’t save me, you can’t fail me . . . on my way down is when I found out that I got everything I need.” He veritably shouts it, combining a strong message with strong delivery. As if to say, ‘this is cut and dry, believe it, how many more times do I have to tell you?’ In “Health and Happiness,” a scathing song about trying to forgive unrepentant people, he broodingly intones, “I wish you health, I wish you happiness, but absolutely nothing else.” The material fits the delivery. 

In Dylan’s writing verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structures belie incredibly well-crafted and thoughtful art. He will breakdown all your preconceptions. He did mine. For many of us there is a hump we must get over to appreciate his music. He no longer has any target audience. His music does not fit neatly into any stylish subculture. Last night’s show had an eclectic crowd. There were people of all ages with few unifying features. For Jakob, sharing the songs with these people was the focus of the evening. The songs were almost holy. Like they existed apart from us and were being rarely exhibited. To appreciate them we must simply be willing to say along with him, “Alright, I’ll be a part of this world.”