New CD: Nick Zubeck - "Tracker"

A criminally unheralded fixture of the Toronto music scene, Nick Zubeck is a versatile and accomplished guitarist whose talents have led him to play with The Great Lake Swimmers, The Lavender Gloom, Polmo Polpo, Barzin, and the Book of Gnomes. As a songwriter, he has released two albums under his own name (2001's A Meek Spectacle and 2003's Hiding Out and Laying Low), both of which were marked by his unequaled use of lush delicately-layered textures and unconventional song structures. His clever, skillful lyrics explored subject matter ranging from the dark and introspective to the quirky and playful, and the discs were received by reviewers as "... (a) beautifully dreamy....blend of folksy and experimental beats," a and "mellifluous acoustic album... a sunshiny wholesome listen."

Tracker, Zubeck's greatly anticipated new full-length disc, builds on the melodic and thematic elements of his previous two albums, while underscoring the decidedly more confident, single-minded, and mature musician that he has become in the past five years. Engineer Jeremy Darby (Lou Reed, David Bowie, Johnny Cash) recorded the bed tracks for the album over two days in June 2007 at Canterbury Sound. The core band features Nick on guitars and vocals, Darren Wall on bass, Marshall Bureau on drums, Robbie Grunwald on keys, and Justin Haynes on electric guitar, plus an array of special guests. Mixed and co-produced by Sandro Perri, and mastered by Harris Newman (The Acorn, Arcade Fire, D'Urbervilles), the music is colourful and varied, straddling a number of styles while retaining a focused and unique vision.

Ahmadinejad's no dummy

I've written about Iran and President Ahmadinejad before, but I have had a couple of recent thoughts about him, particularly in light of the ramping-up of the US military (some call it "he largest military armada since WWII" - reference), and the unchanging fact that Iran has almost twice as much oil as Iraq (reference: the CIA world factbook), but is also a nuclear threat.

While the President of Iran does spew some pretty abhorrent antisemitic rhetoric, it seems to me that he's also pretty bright, and because I don't think it's always wise to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I would like us to consider for a moment: if I knew that my country was next in line for possible invasion by the world's strongest country, possibly the smartest thing I could do would be to escalate my production of nuclear materials, being as forthright about it as possible, so that there can be no mistaking by anyone that I do have nukes and I have no intention of dismantling them. By comparison, Iraq clearly did not have nuclear weapons at the time the US invaded (though this was their trumped-up premise for invasion), and that was a bloody (literally) cakewalk for the States.

Hand-in-hand with brandishing my weapons, I would also work very hard to be seen as unhinged and dangerous. See, you might threaten a country who had nukes if you thought it would lead to negotiation - as it did with the Russians - thereby ultimately getting what you wanted in the first place, but if you worry that the person you'd be threatening might just push their own button and prematurely bring on the apocalypse, you wouldn't dare.

Ahmadinejad positions himself as a West-hating, antisemitic fundamentalist Muslim with ties to terrorism, inciting the destruction of all his enemies because he knows that, holding nuclear weapons, that makes him untouchable. In the end, both he and the US know very well that nuclear weapons are not actually made to be deployed, but to sway the balance of power. As long as both he and the States have them, military conflict must be off the table.

I'm convinced that the President of Iran acts out of deep love for his people, his country and his beliefs, so he has very cleverly made it impossible to know for sure whether or not he'd actually blow the planet out of orbit just to defend them.

the novel I'm not going to write

I went for a hike over lunch through the thick underbrash behind the office. usually there's a little path through, so I went around the long way intending to come back via said path, but the water was higher and I couldn't get across. I fought through very thick underbrush along the edge of this little stream trying to find a way across and tried at one point but almost fell in. I didn't. but almost. but I'm really filthy, which a nice little addition to my hating work. perhaps I will begin to wear dirty clothes to work with bad ties.

I also collected bullrush heads to see whether they'd work as either a rice or a flour substitute, and looked up a recipe for dandelion wine.

a funny thing about the walk was that I kept kind of emerging from thje thickets and seeing well-dressed people walking around, presumably on their lunch or errands or whatever, and I'm sure they thought I was either checking on pot I'd grown or stashing a body or a freakish scientist of some sort.

I'm reading some odd authors these days - Charles Bukowski and Philip K Dick. My wife says I should write a satire about working in an office - "an episode of the office, meets crazy, smart, frustrated man... a postmodern satire of society..." I think she would also be happy if I somehow made it read like James Herriott. I don't think I have what it takes to write a long thing like a novel, though. Maybe a short story. Maybe. But it'd have to be really short.

restating the case (on prayer pt II)

[Foreword: In July I wrote about my struggle to understand prayer (see "on prayer"). Since then I've had a number of discussions on the subject, none of which have led to any definitive conclusions, but I am aware that I've maybe delved a little deeper since then, so I thought I'd re-write the entry and see what happens...]

I don't think prayer works. And yes, I do know that the word "works" is kinda loaded because it implies that God is supposed to respond to what we ask by acting the way we want Him to, and that's a fundamentally flawed idea. If God's thoughts are truly not our thoughts, and God's will is sovereign, and we know that He knows best, it's probably a good thing that He doesn't (generally) do what we ask (/tell) Him to. But does He ever do what we ask? The standard /pat /most common answer is, Yes of course He does, even if we don't recognize it.

And yet, in this world where create suffering and pain, and where God allows Sin to exist and its consequences to play out, why would He choose to act? More pointedly, why would He choose to act sometimes and not other times? Because clearly there are lots of prayers that go unanswered (or if you prefer the more traditional Christian rhetoric, to which God answers, "Sorry, no") - try Googling "prayer requests" and find a couple boards online; they're totally despressing - and a lot of them seem to be things you'd think a loving, compassionate God would have a vested interest in answering... like millions of mothers in Third-World countries begging God to let their kids live (uh... these ones are not online, of course), for instance: isn't that a good thing to pray for? Generally, I think we'd say it was. In fact, I think God would say it was. And so saying something so thoughtless and callous as "God knows best" in situations like that, where someone dies before their time, tragically, falls dreadfully short of adequate.

Isn't it more likely that God hates when such things happen, but that He recognizes suffering of that sort as a consequence for our own actions? Living as I do in North America at the top 3% of the world financially I am both directly and indirectly responsible for the suffering and death of people in other less wealthy (spelled "s-l-a-v-e") countries. Sin (capital "S") trumps God's plan, I think. God may create a new baby and design him or her to become a brilliant oncologist, and then that baby is born into a family of 12 with two parents who die of AIDS before he/she is 2, and the child is forced into child labour or combat dies of starvation or worse... and I think it's patently stupid to say that God planned that for that person. Instead, isn't it more likely that God's plan - God's supreme will - got trumped by the Sin that He allows to exist, so that instead of a cure for cancer all we got was another wasted life?

SO... in the same way, how does it make sense for us to believe that God answers prayer and responds to our requests, when we are constantly, as a race, undermining His will and His plan by inflicting all kinds of evil on one another? I almost feel like God answering prayer would be God actually breaking His own rules and contradicting His will: that sin and free will should be allowed to continue. It's the classic can-God-make-a-rock-so-big-that-He-can't-pick-it-up? Either God allows Sin to continue to exist, and its consequences to play out, OR He intervenes and contravenes His own rules and selectively answers some prayers, but He can't do both at the same time. If He does, as we may think we see in miraculous healings and other "answers to prayer," how can He possibly play favourites and choose some people to save and not others? What kind of God allows one village to survive a plague while the next one over is wiped out by it? I suggest that, instead, the condition of our continued existence in this universe is that we have to pay - both personally and as a planet - for our Sin. God allows suffering and death because there even more important things He wants us to figure out, like how to be kind and compassionate to one another for Him, in His name, because under the rules of our existence we're the only ones who can alter the consequences of the things we as a race have done. I think I believe that God doesn't answer prayer because He wants us to take action, not rest on our laurels while we pray in earnest for Him to act. We are the physical body of Christ, his hands and feet and eyes and mouth and heart, and He calls us to be the change, to step up and be the miraculous power of the Divine.

So then maybe we're missing the point of prayer altogether. If prayer is not a cosmic shopping list - and I can't find any evidence that this is its purpose - what is it for? I think I can understand thanking God for things, just purely out of gratefulness, and I sort of get the idea of communication with God being integral to maintaining the relationship (though perhaps this over-personification? God knew us all intimately before any of us ever acknowledged His existence...), but I think we're off-base asking God to do things for us. For one, if we do believe that God is involved in our lives, He is likely waaay ahead of us on such things anyway, laying all kinds of groundwork, closing and opening various doors (to use popular jargon), setting things in motion etc.... and so what He really wants from us - particularly those of us in positions of such fortune - is for us to accept our responsibility as Christ-followers and start working out our own salvation, praying at least for the wisdom to see how and where we can be of most use, and even more for the humility to accept and submit to God's supremacy and will.

inertia begets inertia (a rant)

so... the problem with someone who has been out of work for ages and ages - even if they claim they've been looking for that whole time - is that it shows that they have pretty much given up, or at least that there is some kind of fundamental problem with their "job search." No one goes (in one case) ten years without finding even one job... I think at that point they've just set their sights too high, or demand too much money, or somehow want more than they're owed. And so they're stuck.

If you're an electrician, for example, and you haven't worked in a decade, it's not because you're "unlucky" (as one person claimed), it's because you want too much. Eventually, for instance, anyone else would break down and go wait tables or work at the Home Depot or even flip burgers something - anything to keep even a little bit of money coming in, and to stay active and interactive, and to at least have something on your resume, even if it's not your "chosen career path." In other words, if you haven't worked in ten years - failing some legitimate sort of restricting disability - either you're proud, or you're lazy, or both.

Sure it's hard being a degreed astrophysicist with a brain the size of a pumpkin and not being offered a job heading up NASA, but so figure out another way to get there: volunteer at the local planetarium, write a few articles about how small-minded Stephen Hawking's "theories" are and send them to Scientific American, build yourself a time machine and teleport yourself back to the last time you had a job... y'know, be creative. Because once you have stopped creating, stopped putting your brain to work - daily - on the things you are good at, you're done. I mean shit man, sign yourself up for a Halo tournament and kick everyone's ass if that's what's floating your boat these days... but just go out there and try to make something of yourself (!), however you can.

If not, that's totally your decision, but don't then whine to everyone around you about your ten- year run of "bad luck" on the job market. It's just not true, and we all know it.

sound the alarum! (things nobody is talking about)

1) the number of serious accidents on the 400 series highways seems to have dramatically increased this year. Why is no one talking about a possible correlation with the new regulations for truckers allowing them to be on the road for longer without a rest?

2) the Canadian dollar is now on PAR with the US dollar. When was the last time this happened? In the 70s, - 77, I believe - just before the (first) major North American oil shortage.

3) Workopolis is really dragging its feet when it comes to its recruiting customers: long downtimes, lots of technical problems, job posting errors, site inaccessibility, and all for at least the last 9 months - could this be a plot to try to get some of these firms to drop the service so that Workopolis can back away from the backlash of users complaining the site is too agency-saturated?

On Prayer

I've stopped being able to believe in prayer, and therefore being able to pray. I said this in an ealier post, but I have concluded, in face of the overwhelming evidence, that God will do what God will do, regardless of whether we want and ask for something different or the very thing He ends up doing.

Yesterday I realized that a lack of belief in prayer stems from a lack of trust in God, and today I'm going to add that a lack of trust in God stems from the decision either that God is not all-powerful and therefore cannot always help us, or that He is, but He doesn't always care enough to keep us from harm.

How do we reconcile the fact that this world has natural consequences that God generally allows to play out with the possibility that God answers prayer? People die, I have finally concluded, because that's the way it is; further, more often than not I think people die because of things that humankind has done, from so-called "original sin" right down to polluting the environment by driving. So God answering prayer - particularly in a way that seems pretty random and haphazard, given how many people pray and how many of those prayers are "not answered" - is not something I understand. In fact, I don't know if I even really believe in it. More and more I've started wondering whether maybe God will do what He will do, regardless of whether or not we pray, and the prayers we do offer are, at their core, simply submission to that will... although "submission" implies a giving over of our choice, and actually I don't think we do have a choice... in which case it's more like acknowledging to God that we know that God does what God wants... which seems a little pointless. or fearful. or both.

"God always answers prayer, just not always in the way(s) we want or expect."
"Consider the sparrow..."
"God's thoughts are not our thoughts."
"our perspective is very limited."

Pat answers are not only not good enough, they have begun to make me angry...

"nothing happens that is outside of God's will."
...this last one is an interesting one, because it naturally assumes a causal relationship: God willed this bad thing to happen; or at the very least, God knew it was happening and allowed it. I tend to think God's will is a little broader than that, in that He has allowed our world to function in a state of Sin... Sin's existence is His will, because it's the other side of the free will coin... so then God allows Sin to exist, and it's Sin that causes shit to happen to "good" people. So it's not a direct causal thing, but it's the consequences of our living in a state and a world of Sin, which in turn God has allowed.

Finally, it occurred to me last night that Christians always slap one another's wrists when we take verses our of context, but then we do it All The Time when we are talking about God's promises. A prime example (the one that made me think about this) is Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for your good and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future!" It's an amazing verse, and I love it, but I realized that God is specifically saying that to Israel before He rescues them (for the umpteenth time). It's a promise to them to save them from their enemies, a reiteration of His promise to them as a people, and finally also a promise to send Jesus, but it's probably misguided to then stretch that further to have it be a promise to us from God for all kinds of situations where it might make us feel better.

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