Monday Mixtape: 5(+) picks to celebrate Once

Each week, usually on Monday, I compile a metaphorical mixtape, a few art picks I can't wait to share with you.  It might help you to know that "tracks" are loosely related by theme and very much influenced by whim.

Since I first watched the indie film in 2008 I have never stopped playing the soundtrack and never stopped loving the story of Once.  First the film, then the Best Song Academy Award, and now the Tony-award-wining musical.  The magic of the love story keeps living -- sadly longer than the real-life love story between Guy and Girl.

The 2011 music documentary The Swell Season serves a sad, but lovely epilogue to the love story we all hoped for in the movie.  We are invited into the darker journey of an artist's life that all-too often accompanies the magical moments of collaboration and mainstream recognition.  Still, Marketa and Glen compel us with their earnest affection for each other and their passion for writing and performing beautiful songs.  They've moved on from the almost-mysterious success of the Once story, each releasing solo debut albums in the last year.  I stay with their stories and keep hoping for their peace.

 This week I've curated for you a collection of art-making in the wake of the magic of Once.

Enjoy!

track 1:  Glen Hansard, Rhythm and Repose

                                                                             Source: theswellseason.com via Tamara on Pinterest

NPR tiny desk concert with Glen Hansard  

track 2: Marketa Irglova, Anar

                                                                     Source: pastemagazine.com via Tamara on Pinterest

Album Stream:  Marketa Irglova's album Anar

                                                                            

track 3:  Once, the Broadway musical!

                                                                Source: broadway-gleek.tumblr.com via Tamara on Pinterest

Opening night interviews with cast and directors at BroadwayWorld.com

track 4: links 

Once, A New Musical at 100 Shows a Year: a fun entry on one blogger's experience seeing the musical

Glen Hansard, solo at b.a.d. reviews:  my friend Brett's thoughts on the less rhythm and more repose in Hansard's solo debut

Photo coverage - Once opens on Broadway at BroadwayWorld.com:  I have already notified my husband I want tickets and a trip for Christmas (and anniversary, and birthday, and....)

track 5:  The Swell Season movie

Watch The Swell Season on Netflix streaming

bonus track: a Once party for my 38th birthday, March 2009

a re-post from 2009:

March 9 I turned 38 years old. I'm not old enough to dread my birthdays...yet.

After the party my husband threw for me this year, I may look forward to every birthday.

From now until forever.

That is, if he throws the same party every year.

Ever since I saw this movie I've wanted to throw what we now call a Once party.

(I wrote about the movie here.)

Watch the movie.

Look for the scene in the middle of the movie where a ton of people squeeze into a Dublin flat, eat pasta, drink wine and ale, and sing for their supper.

This is the party I wanted to be at.

If I knew Tina Fey when I first saw the scene I would have said,

I want to go to there.

So, Brian threw me this party for my birthday.

My friends came and brought food and art.

They sang and read and danced and played and showed and shared beauty.

Beauty in original songs, favorite books, acapella tenors, Longfellow poetry, Virginia Woolf prose, Debussy and The Marriage of Figaro.

We cleared off the living room floor and danced the polka to "There Is No Beer in Heaven" and we admired handpainted miniatures, cross-stitch samples and photo-collages.

And homemade spaghetti sauce and rich, dry wine.

And, oh lord, the desserts!

Homemade strawberry cheesecake and a lush, like 32-layer chocolate trifle thing with crumbled up candy bars.

As my contribution I read this post.

And cried. Alot.

We told stories and laughed and ate and I wished it would never end.

So I'm not afraid of 38 and, if every birthday brings this much beauty, then

who cares about old age?

"...fair play to those who dare to dream and don't give up." 
 (Marketa Irglova's Oscar acceptance speech)

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Before I go, I should tell you that I love to hear what poems, pictures, songs and reasonable words you are enjoying.  Please do stop by the comment box and share a bit with me.  

Hoping that you find your common days aflame  with good books, 

pictures, poems, songs, words and ideas!

every common bush afire with God: Genesis 37 - 50

Read the purpose for these posts here.
p.s., I hope you'll be watching for these lower-case i incarnations of truth in the art you encounter in your own journey.  Feel free to share them in the comment section!

Union Center Worship, Oct. 10:  Joseph: a study in character development 
My Glorious (words and music: Stuart Garrard and Martin Smith)
Call to Worship: Psalm 136: 1-4
You Are Good (Israel Houghton)
Scripture Reading: Galatians 3:6-9
Forever (Chris Tomlin)
Greeting One Another / Offering
Blessed Be Your Name (Matt and Beth Redman)
Message
Sweetly Broken (Jeremy Riddle)
Communion
Mighty to Save (Reuben Morgan & Ben Fielding)


Linked to Worship Blog Carnival at worshipcommunity.com

Week Two: Genesis 37; 39; 41-48; 50

La túnica de José (Joseph's Bloody Coat)
Diego Velazquez
oil on canvas, 1630

Themes: dreaming, sibling rivalry, betrayal, bad things happen to good people, integrity, reconciliation

Joseph Is Sold Into Slavery By His Brothers
illustration, artist unknown


“Such was their talk, and the ill counsel of the crew prevailed, 
they loosed the sack, and out rushed all the winds” (Homer, The Odyssey)

Literature:

• The Divine Comedy, Dante (1308-1321)
• The Pardoner's Tale (Canterbury Tales), Geoffery Chaucer (1300s)
• Cinderella, fairy tale
• The  Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (1844-5)
• Joseph und seine Brüder (Joseph and His Brothers), Thomas Mann (four-part novel,1926-1943)
• The Red Tent, Anita Diamant (1997)

Joseph Into a Pit
Igor Ulanovsky
oil on canvas, 1990's

A Jilt, whose ear was never whisper’d close,
Who thinks they scandal her who talk about her;
A very Gipsey is she, Nilus-born,
Sister-in-law to jealous Potiphar; (Keats)

Poetry:

• "On Fame", John Keats

click to play a piece by MÉHUL, Étienne Nicolas

Music:

• Coat of Many Colors, Dolly Parton (1971)

Joseph and Potiphar's Wife (detail)
Orazio Gentileschi
oil on canvas, 1626-30

Theatre:

• pretty much all of Shakespeare, duh....
• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice (1968)

Joseph Recognized by His Brothers
Leon Pierre Urbaine Bourgeoisoil on canvas, 1863

Film/Television:

• Gladiator, (2000)
• Joseph: King of Dreams, Dreamworks (2001) 

Joseph
Salvador Dali
drypoint etching, 1975?

Art from the blog archives:

• thoughts on resisting temptation in Jane Eyre (just switch out Jane for Joseph and Mr. Rochester for Potiphar's wife and you'll catch my drift...)

Resources:

The Writing on the Wall: High Art, Popular Culture and the Bible by Maggie Dawn

The Text This Week

The Story

12 Days of Christmas: My Favorite Creators and Cultivators in 2008

If there is a constructive way forward for Christians in the midst of our broken but also beautiful cultures, it will require us to recover these two biblical postures of cultivation and creation. -- Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling

Day 12: Creative Risk-Takers

Andy Palmer and Florrie Barnett serving us during Art Show on Main 2008

Sometimes I start a thing without doing the work of planning it all the way through. This series of posts is a great example. I didn't think through the twelve things I wanted to highlight before I started, didn't think through the title (12 days of Christmas has a very specific meaning that I kind of just ignored in order to get some kind of gimmick for my title), didn't think through whether I wanted to go in a certain order. It's the same trait that consistently sends me searching for a gas station with the needle below E and about $1.53 in quarters, dimes and pennies rolling around in the ashtray.

That kind of risky behavior is just plain stupid. Not really what I want to honor here in this final post of 2008. I'm thinking more about courageous risks, sacrificial risks, creative risks. So, in no particular order but with a lot of admiration I include the following creators and cultivators that have made an impression on me in 2008.

Laurel Rudd: Ellemar Designs on Etsy

Laurel and her husband Sean are friends of mine. Laurel entered her work into this year's Art Show on Main. Out of many aspiring artists in our church she took the challenge of entering her work into our first-ever juried show she showed some of the richest grace and courage. She did not know what kind of feedback she would receive and not all of her pieces made the cut. But the feedback she got from the professional artists on the jury confirmed what she had already been thinking: her hand-painted vases showed her truest artistic passion. Near that same time she opened her online shop on Etsy and began the brave task of putting her work out there for the public to critique.

I bought myself one of her elegant miniature vases with Christmas money from my grandmother. Since no two of her works are alike you can enjoy my picture and then browse Laurel's site for your own! May God establish the work of your hands, Laurel.

(The two pieces on the left are Laurel's entries that the Jury accepted into the show.

Florence and Earl Barnett:

I wish I had gotten to know these two better years ago. I mean I knew Florrie was pursuing her art education degree. I knew Earl was pursuing his theology degree. I knew they were young, married and burning life at both ends to make a living and pursue education and livelihood. I used to check in with Earl early on Tuesday and Thursday mornings when Earl would be the first customer at the college cafe where I worked. While I added a lemon slice to his black cup-of-joe-to-go (strange I know...)I'd ask how school, work and life was going. I think on one occasion or another I was able to tell him how much I admired the discipline he and his wife demonstrated as they took turns going to school full-time and working enough hours to make a paycheck.

Last year I was privileged to attend their joint opening at a local gallery. Earl's photographs and Florrie's artwork side by side on the top floor of a cool old building was the perfect environment to enjoy their work.

But this past year I got to know Florrie more over coffee at Barnes & Noble. I wanted to pick her brain about arts and artists and church. Much of those conversations showed up in subtle but significant changes we've made to our creative endeavors at church. While we met I also got to know more about the plans she and her husband were making to complete their degress. And get this -- it meant them having to live in seperate states for six months. Florrie needed to stay locally to do her student teaching with Marywood University while Earl got started with his graduate work at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga. Watching them go through this last season and then saying good-bye as Florrie completed her degree and moved to Atlanta makes me feel privileged to know them. Earl and Florrie, may you both know God's favor as you pursue life together in the south. May your hard work and sacrificial risk-taking make a difference in the culture around you. I will always be one of your biggest fans.

Union Center Christian Church, Creative Arts at the Center:

We have been building -- slowly, but surely -- a place for creatives and artists at Union Center to serve their church family and community with their talents. We have worked hard to build trust with our leadership and our church family. To truly serve each other with humility and beauty. In 2008 we were given overwhelming support to pursue new ideas that would integrate art and artists into the fabric of worship and community at the Center. I was amazed at what can happen with an organic, grass roots approach; seeing what resources and ideas were simmering in our community and then adding teamwork and tons of hard work to bring the ideas to concrete reality. This felt extremely risky for each person involved INCLUDING those who attended the events and brought their friends. Imagine the courage that takes!

The following photos are just a short summary of many rich and beautiful moments together in 2008.

Good Friday and Easter

a multi-sensory experience of the stations of the cross

Art Show on Main

with special recognition to our guest artists who shared with us both their work and their expertise: Andy Palmer, Florence Barnett, Erin McMahon, Matt Kellman, Danielle Smith, Cheryl Mango and John Carter...

...and special recognition to the risk-taking artists at Union Center who entered their visual art into our first-ever juried show and who performed their original songs and spoken word for us during the Coffeehouse on Main.

I included this picture because I love so much that Bethany showed up at the coffeehouse with her crochet basket. She is one of my favorite new-found friends and creatives.

Christmas at the Center: A Terminal Christmas

I don't have pictures of the actual production, sadly, but I do have this lovely group shot after our final performance. What a crazy, hard-working, risk-taking bunch this is! (oh, yeah, and ignore the date in the corner...it's wrong!). For more about this project go here.

If you've stuck with me this far during this blog series, thank you. I look forward to spending a lot more time together in 2009. It seems fitting to end this series celebrating creators and cultivators with a benediction:

Lord, let my life be orderly, regular, temperate; let no pride or self-seeking, no covetousness or revenge, no little ends and low imaginations pollute my spirit and unhallow my words and actions. Let my body be a servant of my spirit and both my body and spirit be servants of Jesus, doing all things for your glory here. (Jeremy Taylor)

Amen.

Welcome, 2009!

12 Days of Christmas: my favorite cultivators and creators in 2008

If there is a constructive way forward for Christians in the midst of our broken but also beautiful cultures, it will require us to recover these two biblical postures of cultivation and creation.
-- Andy Crouch, Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling

DAY 1: A Terminal Christmas, musical theatre


I will never in my entire life get over the thrill of the creative process. I wrote a little bit about the power this thrill has over me here. This project, A Terminal Christmas, has included just about every single element every great creative endeavor could include -- plenty of time for brainstorming, several difficult constraints (including a low budget, lack of an experience and plenty of skeptics) and tons of ingenuity, perseverance and arduous teamwork.


About a year ago the staff at Union Center Christian Church asked us to consider the statement "I hate Christmas." To consider the kinds of people who may be feeling that way at Christmas and the what some of the reasons behind those feelings may be. They asked us to brainstorm a way to put these thoughts and feelings into a story that we could experience as a community.


Every project needs a conceptual launching pad to begin shooting toward images that flesh out the concept. I Hate Christmas was that concept. Next we began talking about form. We knew drama was the direction we wanted to head. And, with this bah-humbuggy sort of statement, who wouldn't think A Christmas Carol? And, sure we could have gone that direction. After all, we knew that was a favorite story of our senior pastor. And, we knew we had the experience and talents of a good director in Jason Hill.


But in this stage of the process we began thinking about resources. What was at our disposal? What ideas had been lurking underneath the surface of previous projects? This is where Jason and Sarah Hill's commitment to the project became a driving factor. They have the ability to write scripts. Would they consider writing this project? And, if so, what kind of story would we want them to tell?


Within a few conversations we knew we wanted to include a strong musical component. We knew we had several strong possibilities of actors who could sing and singers who could act. Sarah felt strongly that she'd like to write the music. Here, Margaret Smith's expertise became crucial to the project. As a vocal director and an experienced actor and director of musical theatre, we needed her buy-in to the production.


So where were we now? (keep in mind, this is about April 2008) We knew we wanted to produce an original musical that told a story relating to the concept "I hate Christmas." We knew we had a director, script writers, music compser and vocal director. I thought that was plenty. I was wrong.


Each decision opens up a whole new world of possibilities and problems. In my ignorance I felt that the vehicle of a musical was pretty narrow -- simple to determine. I mean I'd seen The Music Man and Fiddler on the Roof. I'd watched Westside Story and Mary Poppins. What more was there to know?


And this is where it got interesting. We began naming musicals that could serve as an influence for this project and not one of those titles I'd mentioned even came up. Instead names like Moulin Rouge and Once and ... Buffy the Vampire Slayer?


We quickly scheduled a movie marathon at the Hills' home to get to the bottom of this idea. By the end of the night, as we lay around on their huge comfy sectional and cuddled with their fat cats and laughed at the antics of their adorable toddler, Simon, it was decided. The musical influence for Union Center Christian Church's 2008 production would be -- ta da -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer!!


And this is exactly what I love about the creative process. It takes the most unsuspected random components, throws them together, adds hard work, lots of feedback and clear direction and churns out a brand new creation. Something that never existed before now exists in all of its newborn vulnerability and glory.


To drag on that metaphor a little bit longer, this production has felt an awful like a full-term pregnancy. We began talking in April and it's now December (well that's almost full-term). Every stage along the way has brought with it new joys and challenges. We auditioned the cast and ensemble in June and for six months they have spent hours and hours and hours rehearsing, memorizing, and blocking. In September, a carpentry crew began drawing and sawing and painting and hammering a set to match the design an area set designer drew for us. About that same time the crew expanded to include cookie-bakers and coffee-makers and costume-sewers and graphic-designers and audio-mixers.


And this is the hardest work of all. Enabling every new volunteer to bring their full expertise and energy to the project while staying in line with the original concept. Protecting the story. Encouraging excllence.


And, perhaps, what has drawn me most into this particular project is the absolute certainty that no one could do this alone. I mean, have you ever watched a group of actors figure out how to get food when they are starving? Or how to actually find a prop that represents what they've been imaging for months? This is where Debbie McCoy's commitment to the project as producer was crucial. Well, this and about one million, three-hundred-thousand and fifty-two other reasons. Her attention to detail and compassion for people kept the production schedule moving forward month after month and deadline after deadline.


The perfect example for this brand of teamwork is the sub-project of getting each of the ten original songs in the show from Sarah's mind into the hands of the vocalists and musicians who needed to perform the songs. Sarah could write and record the melody through fancy music software, but that is not enough. Songs have different personalities. How does that personality remain the same as the notation on the screen changes hands from composer to arranger to performer?


I'll tell you how. Teamwork. Conversation. Feedback. Tedious, repetitious, hair-pulling hard work, that's how. This is where Neil Allen stepped in. His labor and commitment to the task made this possible. Without him, the show couldn't have happened.


The same is true for Brandon and Bethany and Brenda and Garry and MacKenzie and Joel and Suzanne and....


See why I love this so much?!?


And the show is good. We are blessed with hard-working, intelligent and resourceful volunteers, but we are not perfect. We're actually a pretty rag-tag group. The team is made up people who are suffering all of the ordinary - and some, extraordinary -- stresses of life. Most of us have at least thought to ourselves a couple of times that, goshdarnit, we hate Christmas, too! But when I sat in the back of the sanctuary at 11:39 last night and listened to the final note of the final song of the final scene in our final rehearsal I am quite certain I was in a holy place. I am certain that our Maker was pleased.


Our goal in this project was to grow in our skill while at the same time grow up together. I hope those things are true. And, tonight, the last crucial part of the team will show up. It's the audience. Without the chance to tell them tell them the story -- to breathe and inflect and gesture and emote every last nuance of the story -- there is no birth. No baby to show for all the months of waiting and hours of labor.


I, for one, can't wait to see their faces.

One of many music rehearsals of the title song, I Hate Christmas.

The brainstorming never ends. This session happened at the end of four hours of rehearsal.

The cast and ensemble rehearsing the show finale Happy Ending.

Nancy Gesel using power tools like a pro to bring a set into existence. (in September!)

Miranda, Barb and Hope taking a break from building set.