All posts by Lars Walker

You Are What You See, by Scott Nehring

June 28, 2010 Lars Walker 1 Comment

Scott Nehring is a sometime film writer and current film critic, who blogs at GoodNewsFilmReviews.com. He is also a Christian, concerned about re-taking popular culture—if not necessarily for Christianity (in the sense of making every movie have a gospel message), but at least for the encouragement of positive movies that elevate people’s lives.

You Are What You See (you can order it here, in electronic or softcover form) is his manifesto. (I need to mention that I received a free review copy.)

It would be easier to praise or pan his book if it had been the sort of thing I half-expected—either a call to “come out and be separate” from popular culture, or a point-by-point, guaranteed-or-your-money-back blueprint for cultural revolution. Instead, the author leaves a lot of room for individual decisions. Because freedom is part of the deal, and every Christian has his own gifts, strengths and weaknesses.

This is good. But it means the reader has to do a fair amount of work, forever asking himself “How does this apply to me, if at all?” “Where do I fit in the scheme of things?”

That, however, is the price of honesty and biblical fidelity. Continue reading You Are What You See, by Scott Nehring →

Religion, The Press

Infamy

June 25, 2010 Lars Walker 13 Comments

I attend a Lutheran congregation in north Minneapolis, one that belongs to the church body I work for. It’s large but not huge. The senior pastor has made himself visible in the media for a number of years as a critic of the liberal church, and of modern trends such as universalism, women’s ordination, higher criticism of the Bible, and the normalization of homosexuality. He is a single man.

Last night, while watching local news on television, I discovered that he’d been “outed” as a homosexual.

He was not discovered in a “gay” bar. He was not discovered having sex with another man in a public rest room.

According to the news accounts I’ve seen (emanating from liberal sources) he was discovered attending a support and accountability group in a Roman Catholic church. He was speaking honestly, to men he trusted, about his struggles, slips, and temptations.

In other words, he was doing precisely what people on our side of the argument say a man in his situation ought to do. He is the very opposite of a hypocrite.

On the basis of the accounts I’ve read, the “journalist” who produced the story infiltrated this accountability group, lied about his purposes, and then broke the promise of confidentiality he made to get in.

The television story pretended to be a high-minded think piece about whether it’s ever appropriate to “out” someone against their wishes.

I don’t believe that was the real purpose of the story. I believe it was to splash my pastor’s picture all over TV screens in our state, with a metaphorical scarlet letter on his chest.

My pastor has my full support, and my prayers. God bless him, and all godly men in his situation.

Goofing, Publishing

Book illustration pratfalls

June 24, 2010 Lars Walker 6 Comments

Well, that’s serendipity. Phil links to a source of good book illustration, and I just found a source of bad science fiction book covers. Of which there is apparently an inexhaustible supply. Thanks to Loren Eaton of I Saw Lightning Fall for the tip.

I haven’t gone through the entire inventory, so I don’t know if they’ve included a particular cover that even its publisher admitted, in the cold light of the morning after, was probably a mistake: Continue reading Book illustration pratfalls →

Religion

How do we know if we don't know?

June 23, 2010 Lars Walker 9 Comments

To really write properly on this subject, I should have read all five articles, but I only read the first in this series linked by Grim at Grim’s Hall. It’s about scientists who are studying the mystery, not only of not knowing, but of not knowing that we don’t know certain things. In other words, problems we don’t solve because we’re not aware of any problem—even when we have to live with the consequences of not solving it.

DAVID DUNNING: Well, my specialty is decision-making. How well do people make the decisions they have to make in life? And I became very interested in judgments about the self, simply because, well, people tend to say things, whether it be in everyday life or in the lab, that just couldn’t possibly be true. And I became fascinated with that. Not just that people said these positive things about themselves, but they really, really believed them. Which led to my observation: if you’re incompetent, you can’t know you’re incompetent.

Continue reading How do we know if we don't know? →

Fiction

Great Divorce to be filmed

June 23, 2010 Lars Walker 2 Comments

The Thinklings report that there’s a deal to film C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce. The people who made “The Stoning of Soraya M.” are part of the project. The links are a rabbit hunt, so I’ll just link to their post.

I have a hard time thinking of a more naturally un-cinematic novel than The Great Divorce.

But they have my good wishes.

Fiction, Reviews

Book Review: Hollywood Witches, by Thomas M. Sipos

June 22, 2010 Lars Walker 3 Comments

For the record, I received a copy of Thomas M. Sipos’ comic horror novel Hollywood Witches by way of S. T. Karnick of the American Culture, for review purposes.

I love a good Hollywood story. The town’s like an old trollop with a million tales to tell, proud of her very corruption. Not for nothing is the Hollywood fable a traditional setting for morality tales (a triumph of hypocrisy in itself).

Thomas M. Sipos’ novel shows considerable promise and delivers a number of laughs, but gets weighed down by its lack of narrative discipline.

The chief eponymous witch of the story is Diana Däagen, a figure of satire, gargantuan in her vices and terrifying in her lack of self-awareness. A failed actress, she now works as “development executive” in a movie studio. She believes herself intensely spiritual and full of love for all humankind, but that doesn’t prevent her from treating her underlings like dirt, using black magic to thwart or kill her enemies, and planning to murder thousands of people at once—all for enlightened, politically correct purposes, of course.

There is no subtlety in Diana’s character. If you like characters in novels, even bad characters, to have sympathetic sides, you won’t find one here. Diana is pure black-hat witch, evil all through.

But of course she’s a Hollywood production executive, so that doesn’t strain credibility much. Continue reading Book Review: Hollywood Witches, by Thomas M. Sipos →

Religion

Truth-telling is, like, so legalistic

June 22, 2010 Lars Walker 4 Comments

Over at Townhall Magazine, Prof. Mike Adams tears into Don Miller, author of Blue Like Jazz:

The only problem with this story is that it isn’t true. Oddly, Don came back to visit that Christian camp just a few years ago. When he did, he was confronted with his very public and untruthful account his time at Summit Ministries.

In response, Don just said it wasn’t a big deal. He fabricated the story just to make a point. He was confronted privately but was unrepentant, which was not too surprising. Remember that Don thinks Christianity is not about rules. It’s about a relationship with God.

Authors, Fiction

Austerity in the Shire

June 21, 2010 Lars Walker 2 Comments

Our friend Dale Nelson has sent me the text of an article he wrote for the Tolkien ‘zine, Beyond Bree. I know of no way for you to get it without subscribing, but I can quote a bit here (I hope), and point you to his source material, the book Austerity Britain, by David Kynaston.

Everybody knows that hobbits love to eat good food. Tolkien’s attention to butter, bread, strawberries, potatoes, and other good things has bothered some readers. It isn’t just that hobbits display a childish greediness, but that the author seems mostly to approve of their passion for food. Moreover, some readers may feel that Tolkien makes too much of other creature comforts, such as hot baths, tobacco, and comfortable beds….

Kynaston’s book, drawing on diaries, letters, Mass Observation interviews, and other documents, superbly evokes the dismal condition of postwar Britain (1945-1951). This is the period in which Tolkien was finishing the writing of The Lord of the Rings…. The postwar austerity period became so grim that, in spring 1948, “as many as 42 percent of people wanted to emigrate, compared with 19 percent immediately after the war” (p. 249). I don’t suggest that this is the reason that departure (from the Shire; from Middle-earth itself) is such an important theme of LOTR, but I do think the theme would have a poignancy for Tolkien and his fellow citizens that readers today, especially Americans, would not suspect….

Reading Austerity Britain may prompt Tolkien’s readers to reconsider before criticizing or mocking his celebration of the creature comforts that were in such short supply while The Lord of the Rings was being written. And although the Shire is restored by the book’s end, I now see that LOTR is a book about emigration—think of the Elves’ departure, but especially of Frodo’s, at the Grey Havens. I will always think of The Lord of the Rings, hereafter, as an “austerity” book.

Authors, Fiction, Writing

Disposable Mailer

June 21, 2010 Lars Walker 1 Comment

Algis Valiunas at Commentary writes on the legacy of Norman Mailer.

Capote showed Mailer the way by sympathetically detailing the character of one of the murderers, who like Gilmore seemed fated to suffer and inflict hell on earth; but Capote also did what Mailer did not, which was to portray the victims in their appealing humanity, to render the full horror of their final moments, and to emphasize what was lost by their deaths. With the rapt intensity of a man staring into a cobra’s eyes, Mailer gazes into and cannot look away from human malignancy, which seems the most riveting subject a writer can have and which he congratulates himself for searching so boldly again and again. If only he did not love it so.

I just wish Valiunas would stop holding back, and tell us what he really thinks of Mailer.

Caution for disturbing subject matter.

Tip: The Paragraph Farmer.

Brandywine Books

All posts by Lars Walker

You Are What You See, by Scott Nehring

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Infamy

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Book illustration pratfalls

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How do we know if we don't know?

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Great Divorce to be filmed

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Book Review: Hollywood Witches, by Thomas M. Sipos

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Truth-telling is, like, so legalistic

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Austerity in the Shire

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Disposable Mailer

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Book Reviews, Creative Culture

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Book Reviews, Creative Culture