Re: poetic?

On Mon, 25 Oct 2010, [email protected] wrote:

> > Well, yeah, the fact that the person in question is something of a 
> > typical Evangelical Moralist in this regard is precisely why I 
> > wouldn't have recommended the film to him. I'm kind of surprised that 
> > his "good friends" aren't attuned to this side of him, but anyhoo.
>
> The whole "damaging to the spirit talk" that he has become prone to 
> using irritates me.  What kills me is how I first came across his work, 
> he seemed to portray himself as exactly NOT one of THOSE Evangelicals. 
> He may not go as far as Ted Behr, but he is more than willing to condemn 
> a movie on moral grounds and spit on the integrity of anyone who might 
> like it.

Evangelical identity issues, and the anxiety thereof, are certainly one of 
the bigger themes that crop up in his writing.  I daresay it's precisely 
*because* he's a typical Evangelical in these areas that he spends so much 
time obsessing over (and denouncing) the Teddy Bears of the world.

And this is a theme that goes back many, many years.  Someone once, um, 
parted ways with him because they didn't want to spend any more time with 
his "fundamentalist" friends, and he was surprised because he thought he 
had assured this person that he wasn't the kind of person who listens to 
Steven Curtis Chapman.  The possibility that his T-Bone love (and love of 
various other artists) could be *just* as typically Evangelical, or fit 
into a typically Evangelical vibe, apparently didn't occur to him.

More recently, he has tried to stress that his books are not "Christian" 
books but are published by a certain secular publisher.  And he has 
asserted that his books get put on the "religious" shelf at secular 
bookstores because someone heard that he was a Christian and wanted to 
pigeonhole him.  I tried to point out to him (this was back when we were 
still officially "friends") that the label which publishes his books is a 
specifically Christian label, as per the information on their own website, 
and that when you look up his books at the Barnes & Noble website or 
wherever, they are listed *by the publisher* (i.e. by the conglomerate 
that owns his label) as coming from their "religious" division -- so 
there's no need to claim that he's being specially marginalized; he simply 
chose to be published by a Christian publisher and some vendors are 
stacking his books accordingly.  And then he went into a big defensive 
thing about how the label that publishes his books is run by Christians 
who believe in the right kind of "art" and aren't trying to produce 
regular Christian crap etc., which is all very well and good but kind of 
misses the point of what I was saying.  (The whole debate reminded me of 
how I once thought, back in the early '90s, that Steve Taylor's comeback 
album had come out on a secular label, simply because the label in 
question was called "Warner Alliance".  I soon found out that the 
"Alliance" part was more important than the "Warner" part.)

> > I still haven't seen *either* version of Funny Games, if you can 
> > believe it. But I can understand why some people might not care for 
> > Karen-Allen. It *does* "push the envelope" in ways that can >seem kind 
> > of poser-ish.
>
> I agree.  But to question people who like the film and say you 
> reconsider your trust of their recommendations?

Well, I wouldn't question their taste *in films*, but I might question how 
well they knew *my* taste.

> But then again?  I liked Stardust.

So did I.  I think my wife even asked me to get it for her, for her 
birthday or Christmas or something.  At any rate, we own it now.

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