Middle East Conflict, Facts: Book Review + more!

Friday Night. Me and Matt are gunna shoot some guns… scratch that, were. then it got -7 and windy as sin. Now we are going to drive to Langley to pick up some people and watch the hot rock show in Langley tonight: Texas swing, Against Grey and the February’s playing at vineyard church.

This is as good as it gets folks: All of Langley is out for the show. Well… anyone in langley between the ages of 17-22 who is heavily affiliated with a Christian institution… So TWU students and kids that attend a youth group. Overall the highlight of the show was the people; you’ve never met angstier teens more anxious to start a slam pit. The music was ok. I’m not a fan of hard screamo so it wasn’t totally my thing. Neither was it really everyone else’s; its more of a way for people to not be lonely on a friday night. Bless those considerate christians and their non-offensive rock shows… Besides Drew Mckay’s guitar. 

From there: drive 6 people to their respective homes in Langley and Whiterock… and then pick up someone in Surrey and driving even more people back to Abbey. Decided to sleep in Abbey. Decided to read before crashing on the couch of Dallas. Decided to steal a book from his room. The above book looked interesting.

Review:
Randall Price loves Jews. He just loves Jews. I have never read a book that says so many good things about Jews and how they can and have kicked Arab culture all across the middle east. It makes me want to be a Jew. Prior to this book i knew very little about the historic (1900-present) history of the Israel-Palestine confict. Since i have no other literature to contrast this book with I can only assume it is highly biased. I feel it is anyways. More research is required. Similarities implied between Yasser Arafat/Hitler and Palestine/Nazi’s are FAR too common for me to take this seriously. You can only throw around the ace-card hitler so many times before it gets played out. A highly informal book however; if you have no idea at all why everything is so effed in that region of the world this book is a great set-up. Granted; you may come out of this literary excursion with a newfound love of the bad-assness of the Jewish military and their generals. This book is highly guilty of compressing 100 years of history into a formula of:

“Jews are innocent, peace-loving farmers who get persecuted by their Arab neighbours again and again until they can’t take it and stand up for themselves; when this happens they take on multiple countries at once in war and humiliate anyone who praises allah, once this is accomplished they go back to eating kosher. rinse and repeat.”

Overall: good read, informative. NEED to get a second opinion. use your brain.   

 

Listening to Coheed, Beirut and Empire of the sun

A Tale Of Two Cities: Review

 

“A Tale Of Two Cities” is one of those books. You know the ones i mean:  A much-lauded piece of literature that apparently means something, that has intrinsic historic value, that will better the lives and expand the minds of those who read it. This bad boy is the literary equivalent of Mozart or Bach. Apparently good for your soul. Apparently important to have read. Apparently. 

One thing I did not know about Charles Dickens prior to reading this book is just how dang funny the guy is. Seriously. Somehow he managed to write an entire story about the french revolution (thats what the book is about btw) and not once make it seem gloomy or depressing. Quite often while reading you must stop yourself and say: “wait, i just read a paragraph detailing the slaughter of every living person in a castle.” whoa. You would think after readin this book that everyone wore a smile during the French Revolution, and when it was all over gave each other a pat on the back and went home. OR that this one section of human history transpired entirely within the framework of a children’s television show. Either way, the blackest of comedy. 

But is it good? Well for one your going to be bored out of your mind. For about…. 5/6ths of the book. Only at the very end do all the story arcs occuring simultaeneously finally converge to create the raw human emotion that you’ve been looking for. In that way you can liken this book very much to the movies:  ”Snatch” or “Lock, Stock and 2 smoking barrels.” There is just so much stuff happening that seems unrelated that only in the very end does it all come together and you, the idiot reading, spends the next 3 hours going “oooooh”.

Yes i just compared Charles Dickens to Guy Ritchie.

Unfortunately for you: if you do anything other than read the book in it’s entirety you will walk away thinking it is the biggest piece of garbage ever written. Very similar with Lock,Stock: I had a number of friends over to watch it; They all had to leave prior to the ending. They all probably thought it was the dumbest most boring movie in existance. Same Deal. If your gonna read it, you gotta COMMIT son. 

So once it’s all said and done: Is the book worth reading? Probably not. It’s a great book but its just too much of a task to get through. The payoff is big, i must say. The whole Sydney Carton: ”It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” really gets you in the end. Brings some tears to the eyes. That alone makes most of the book worth it. It IS a great book. But after 9-12 hours of reading? no thanks. If i wanted to cry that bad I’d creep an ex’s facebook while listening to The Decemberists or Bon Iver. 

Overall: It’s a classic. But not enough return on the investment. 

 

 

Listening to Modest Mouse… and Bon Iver.

The Irresistable Revolution: Review

Every State in the US was polled: the top 3 thoughts people have about Christians is this:
1. They are anti-gay
2. They are judgemental
3. They are hypocrites

If you don’t like Christians, you might want to read this book.
If you are a Christian and you still can’t stand Christians, then you definitely need to read this book.
If your a Christian and your facebook status for religion says something pansy along the lines of “I follow Jesus!”, “Jesus and me are tight!” “its not a religion its a relationship!” then you’ll adore this book… but it won’t really affect you in any way.

Synopsis:
Shane Claiborne is a Tennessee-raised, poverty-induced man living in a commune in the Ghettos of Philly where he and a ragtag band of ex-drug addicts, prostitutes, university students and business owners eke out a meager existence loving other people with everything they got while living in the conditions most people in east van cope with. Shane went to live with Mother Theresa in Calcutta for a while because she seemed to be having the best go at doing the whole “christian thing”. After this Shane visited Iraq while it was getting blown to smithereens, in the places where it was getting blown up, to meet with and chat with the families who were effected. Every once in a while they hit the deck. He’s been arrested over a dozen times protesting against abortion, war and child labour. He makes his own clothes. He has dreadlocks.

“the irresistable revolution” is basically a collection of Shane’s thoughts on a variety of subjects, highlighted by personal stories and great (fantastic even) quotes. The book follows his beginnings and growing disgust with the right-wing evangelical church up to his current life in the ghetto of philadelphia. The whole time you are punched, poked, prodded, stabbed, run through and gouged not by Shane’s blistering direct attack on your own life: but your own convictions as you begin to consider just what you life would begin to look like if you began even walking a foot closer to the life that Shane and these radicals lead. This book asks questions some of us don’t want to hear; and raises points and issues that most don’t want to address.
What would your life look like if you weren’t constantly worrying about your car? your shiny new mac? your $200 jeans and your $50 T-shirts? what if all you cared about was loving on other people? actually caring about them? What if God would handle the rest, all of it?
- In Shane’s case it seems you spend a lot more time helping drug addicts kick their habit and making prostitutes feel like human beings again than writing your term paper for your 4th year biblical studies class…
- You also seem to get arrested a lot more frequently by standing up for the rights of people who are marginalized.
Shane’s writing style is personal and very easy to follow along with. He is quite similar to Donald Miller of blue like jazz and to own a dragon fame. He is incredibely capable of making the reader feel involved in a conversation. Shane doesn’t claim to know all the answers, but he sure voices his opinions.

Personally this book was challenging. It forced me to re-asses what i was doing on a week-to-week basis to help in the lives of other people. Do i take the time in my week to make other people the focus?  (and no, going for coffee with your christian friend doesn’t count).
more disturbingly, this book also holds up a picture of the world in front of you and says; “see this? you gotta care about everything, man. not just the 50mile radius in which you live in. you got it easy! think bigger than the mall.” scary stuff. Now i KNOW not everyone has to be trekking through Africa, drilling wells and stitching wounds; but Shane very convincingly makes the case that if you call yourself a christian: the poor should be on your mind, and should be affected by your actions. all the time. not on your annual 2 week missions trip. As you can see; some who are in a comfortable place right now will perhaps be a little off-put by this book.

Overall:
I highly recommend this book. it’s wicked. it’s hip. It packs a punch.
-whether that punch breaks through the readers highly developed armor of western materialism and individualism is up to the reader.

Sidenote: Shane visited Northview Community Church last weekend as a guest speaker. His southern twanged accent is great. he likes to eat Indian food. He really does wear nothing but his own, hand-made clothes. He is a very good speaker albeit less interesting if you just read his book a day prior-most of his speaking content comes from the book. However one of his most interesting little facts about the world is this: for the amount of money North American spends in a year on bottled water – that amount could fund the drilling of wells which would totally eliminate deaths due to lack of water in the entire world. woah.

Listening to: black mountain, aphex twin, telefon tel aviv

To Own A Dragon: Review

(sorry for the french cover)

If your a hip, contemporary, university-going christian you probably have heard of Donald Miller. DM is best known for “blue like jazz” which, among other great theological truths, points out how cool it is to smoke cigarettes while reading the bible.
With “To Own A Dragon” DM opens up about growing up without a father and how living with a badass nature photographer for 4 years helped him become a man. The book is delivered in a writing style that is supposed to be accessible to most men: this means that the entire vocabulary of the book does not exceed 40 words and small firecrackers are tucked into the pages for your amusement. I would consider DM’s writing style to be a slightly less razor sharp than chuck palahiuk’s (fight club).
The book is a very quick read: (not even the whole flight from LA to Lima) but it is chock full of manly goodness. Photographer John provides some great insight into what it means to be an artist, and the importance of self-discipline and work. DM’s openness about his personal life is amazingly refreshing for a book that sits in the undesirable realm of “christian” writing. He blatantly expresses his opinions an a myriad of subjects, often quite boldy. His theology might make some people choke though, especially if you found say; a certain book containing a fat black woman named “papa” being represented as god, heretical.

Some interesting points worth arguing about that presented themselves in this book:
- Writers and photographers are no more artists than people who dig up septic tanks. Its all work and its all the same.  If you think your special because of your vocation – your not. 
-  It is desirable for girls to hold out on guys because it forces guys to step up their game. 
- letting your emotions guide and alter your decisions about life is highly undesirable. 

Overall a great book for anyone who wants to understand the emotional and personal ramifications of what it means for a guy to grow up without a dad, or with a deadbeat dad, in the picture.