Published July 27, 2008 by

Everybody wants to go to Heaven

book9Mike Hogan and David Crowder’s book Everybody wants to go to Heaven but nobody wants to die was a lovely surprise. I found it randomly one day on sale (so bought it)- didn’t even know the man had written a book or two despite loving his music for quite a while.

It is a really interesting and honest look at death and grieving and place of the soul in current culture. Although personally having minimal actual musical interest, the speckled lot of bluegrass history added value to the theme and as history tends to be, was actually quite interesting.

I loved the book for it’s Pratchett style footnotes and humor – it’s candidity, and the beautiful sections of prose interspersed through the bulk of the text. It was a relatively easy read once I got used the unusual format and the small sections made it great for that ‘last few minutes before bed’ thing. The combo of personal story, theory, history, prose, IM thoughts and general wikipedia fun was really good mix for me personally, and I would go back and tackle it again sometime to probably get a lot more from it.

Besides all of the thumbs ups for what’s inside, if you don’t care and just want to judge it by it’s cover, by all means, go ahead. I reckon the cover is pretty fun itself.

Books Christianity Culture Humor

banjo bluegrass Books David Crowder Death grieving soul

Published May 13, 2008 by

Distorted petrol price perspectives

“Prayer is the answer to every problem in life. We call on God to intervene in the lives of the selfish, greedy people who are keeping these prices high,” Twyman said on the forecourt of the petrol station in a neighbourhood of Washington that, like many of its residents, has seen better days.

“Lord, the prices at this pump have gone up since last week. We know that you are able, that you have all the power in the world,” he prayed, before former beauty queen Rashida Jolley led the group in a modified version of the spiritual, We Shall Overcome.

“We’ll have lower gas prices, we’ll have lower gas prices,” they sang.

At the weekend, Twyman had led a group of around 200 people in prayer at pumps in San Francisco, where petrol is nearing $US4 a gallon (3.8 litres).

What a freaking crock.

Meanwhile…

Cyclonic death in Burma and earthquakes in China.

Christianity Social Justice

Death petrol prices suffering

Published April 23, 2008 by

I COULD MURDER A CURRY

There’s this awesome character in the Terry Pratchett books, his name is Death. He has kind of this half wonderful, half terrible existence. Note now that Death doesn’t actually kill people, he merely assists progression, it’s difficult to describe. Death frequently tries to escape to try understand ‘humans’ by ditching his role for something along the lines of being a chef. In short, he’s a skeleton that rides around on a big white horse called Binky, he keeps his scythe in an umbrella stand, people mostly don’t seem him because they don’t want to, and he talks LIKE THIS -with authority.

The curious thing about Death is that he as as real as the Pratchett characters get. I’ve just finished reading ‘Mort’ and there is a scene in which he begins to take on Death’s role – Mort becomes this intensified reality, more real than anything else in DiscWorld.

I find it interesting. I’m not really sure why.

Perhaps it’s that life-death, intensified living thing? Or perhaps I’m just a nerd averaging one Pratchett book a week (And it’d be more probably if my supply was in-house).

Books Humor Life

Death Mort nerd terry pratchett