I attended a church service for the first time in at least two years yesterday. Don’t worry, I haven’t caught religion, I was visiting my grandparents. Fortunately it was one of those glossy, impersonal megachurches where the sermons are meaningless pop psychology and the songs all modulate up a whole step before the last chorus. (Speaking of which, there really ought to be a term for that. Perhaps, like in Adams’ Meaning of Liff, we could borrow the name of a town, particularly one with too many stairs.) It’s instructive to evaluate the content of a religious service apart from any supposed spiritual value. Most participants appear to be impressed by the emotion of the (what I’ll generously call) music and the reasoning of the sermon, but the service was in fact emotionally vapid and intellectually silly. The music program, which occupied over half the ceremony, was insipid and schmaltzy; though apparently trying to appeal to young and old alike, it was too vague to be appealing at all. The preacher’s message was full of ridiculous tangents and incoherent tautologies. As easy as it is to mock such banality with an air of postmodern condescension, I can’t deny that it matters to a significant part of the population.
Speaking of population, I’m pretty excited about Sim City Societies. I’ll be even more excited when they release a Mac version.
We now return to our regularly-scheduled … whatever this is.
I finally read the (excellent) USA Today opinion column on politics and religion featured on Talk of the Nation last week. I’m gravely concerned that serious candidates don’t care for science (when the US is becoming less competitive in engineering, math and science) and Obama, whose views I otherwise respect, intends to create “a Kingdom [of God] right here on earth.” I know that secularists aren’t (or at least shouldn’t be) alone in their distaste for shameless (and doubtless calculated) displays of devotion; Buddhists, Christians and Muslims alike benefit from a system of government designed to protect its citizens from the cruelty of state-sponsored religion. America wasn’t founded on JudeoChristian principles; it was founded on respect for individual rights. I’ll vote for whomever respects those rights, not the biggest sycophant to the religious right.
Conor Oberst and company presented passionate and spirited renditions of several recent songs, though they didn’t shy away from their pre-2005 catalogue (most of which I didn’t recognize). Especially impressive were “No One Would Riot for Less” and “If the Brakeman Turns My Way” from Cassadaga and “Lua” from I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning. “First Day of My Life” was noticeably absent, but that left room for new songs (such as, I’m guessing, “Roosevelt Room”). Mike Mogis’ pedal steel guitar was hauntingly beautiful, and Nate Walcott’s piano, organ, trumpet and flugelhorn effectively filled out the sound, making up for the lack of the full orchestra present on recent albums. Considering the sensitive and poetic nature of Bright Eyes’ music, this was a surprisingly upbeat and fun concert.
