violins with a jewel-shaped heart

Source: WIRED . Link below

One way to look at string theory is that everything is made of  vibrating strings/ music.

And now...what if  we found that a jewel was at the heart of it all?
  
"The amplituhedron looks like an intricate, multifaceted jewel in higher dimensions."


See:

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER A JEWEL AT THE HEART OF QUANTUM PHYSICS

my pet S-words

This is no skubala: several of my areas of study are "S-words"
I bet no one has ever preached a sermon with an alliterative outline like this:

• simulacra
• semiotics/signs
• synesthesia
• set theory
• Sephardic
• sound theory
• Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
•  
• string theory
• Spirit Christology
• Spanish Language and Culture (my major)
• Second Corinthians
• Second Timothy
• Sermon on the Mount
• self-disclosure
•  
• sexuality/spirituality
• subversion
• structure of Matthew
• subversion
• Second Temple Judaism

a post about sex...and "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things"

I have been accused of being obsexxed with posts about sexuality.

A quick look number of posts by category ( "labels' )...see graph at top right under "Topical Diving" suggests otherwise.  Looks like I may be obsessed with the "role of the pastor" or "ecclesiology." (or U2!)
But that's all  about sexuality,too...right? (:

To those who worry about this obsexxion:.

First of all, it shouldn't be surprising to catch posts on sexuality here; as the header at the top of the page explains that such is one of six overall categories that this blog will specialize in.

Secondly, if  Bell is right, then I can't not talk about sex:

For many, sexuality is simply what happens between two people involving physical pleasure. But that's only a small percentage of what sexuality is. Our sexuality is all the ways we strive to reconnect with our world, with each other, and with God." (Rob Bell, "Sex God," p. 42)...

Part of my passion is to play with the intersection of topics that don't seem related.  Tim N.  calls it my

 "pushing toward the unobvious",   

So, with any topic that I study, I will eventually and inevitably ask:
"What does that haveto do with the price of tea in.."
                      uh, I mean
"What does that have to do with sex(uality)?"

If you folllow freakonomic theory, the answer will likely be "quite a bit."

You'll see that many of my pet topics just happen to start with "S" (hey, maybe that's the sole reason that "sexuality" shows up here(:..):

• Synesthesia
• String theory
• Sound Theory
• Set Theory
• Sapir-Whorf Hypotehsis
• Semantic domain

• Sexuality

These may of course seem unrelated, but they can't be.

Asking how any of them intersect is fruitful.
Asking how any of the  first six intersext with the seventh may be fruity...and/or cutting-edge research.
After all, this post, and every post, is

a post about sex.

 (see Maybe it's ALWAYS about sex and politics).

Of course, anyone in this blogneigborhood realizes that the whole idea of a list  of "unrelated" topics
 is an invitation  to test Aristotle's thesis:

 “The greatest thing by far is to be master of analogy....it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.”(Poetics, 1459 a 5-8, "The Basic Works of Aristotle") See: "St Mike Nesmith on genius and madness"

Now, onto the topic of the day...which may seem unrelated, but of course will be:

Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things

What was your first thought upon reading that phrase?

Didn't you smile and say something like "Yeah, women are dangerous things!"

 BUT..

The phrase did NOT read:

Women, Fire, and Other Dangerous Things

Why did you make that assumption?

The phrase--which is a book title--is of course as set up for us to think about our thinking (and then rethink it).  How/why  does our mind categorize? The book, by  George Lakoff deals with ...well,cognitive linguistics (zzzz?), with a classic example being the categories of the title: s.

The Importance of Categorization

Many readers, I suspect, will take the title of this book as suggesting that women, fire, and dangerous things have something in common--say, that women are fiery and dangerous. Most feminists I've mentioned it to have loved the title for that reason, though some have hated it for the same reason. But the chain of inference--from conjunction to categorization to commonality--is the norm. The inference is based on the common idea of what it means to be in the same category: things are categorized together on the basis of what they have in common. The idea that categories are defined by common properties is not only our everyday folk theory of what a category is, it is also the principal technical theory--one that has been with us for more than two thousand years.The classical view that categories are based on shared properties is not entirely wrong. We often do categorize things on that basis. But that is only a small part of the story. In recent years it has become clear that categorization is far more complex than that. ... One of our goals is to survey the complexities of the way people really categorize. For example, the title of this book was inspired by the Australian aboriginal language Dyirbal, which has a category, balan, that actually includes women, fire, and dangerous things. It also includes birds that are not dangerous, as well as exceptional animals, such as the platypus, bandicoot, and echidna. This is not simply a matter of categorization by common properties, as we shall see when we discuss Dyirbal classification in detail.  lakoff, Chapter One, pages 5-8 here, see also first  two chapters complete   on PDF here

...An excellent example is the classification of things in the world that occurs in traditional Dyirbal, an aboriginal language of Australia. The classification is built into the language, as is common in the world's languages. Whenever a Dyirbal speaker uses a noun in a sentence, the noun must be preceded by a variant of one of four words: bayi, balan, balam, bala. These words classify all objects in the Dyirbal universe, and to speak Dyirbal correctly one must use the right classifier before each noun. Here is a brief version of the Dyirbal classifcation of objects in the universe, as described by R.M.W. Dixon (1982):

• Bayi: men, kangaroos, possums, bats, most snakes, most fishes, some birds, most insects, the moon, storms, rainbows, boomerangs, some spears, etc.

• Balan: women, anything connected with water or fire, bandicoots, dogs, platypus, echidna, some snakes, some fishes, most birds, fireflies, scorpions, crickets, the stars, shields, some spears, some trees, etc.

• Balam: all edible fruit and the plants that bear them, tubers, ferns, honey, cigarettes, wine, cake.

• Bala: parts of the body, meat, bees, wind, yamsticks, some spears, most trees, grass, mud, stones, noises, language, etc.

It is a list that any Borges fan would take delight in.

---

The fact is that people around the world categorize things in ways that both boggle the Western mind and stump Western linguists and antropologists. An excellent example is the classification of things in the world that occurs in traditional Dyirbal, an aboriginal language of Australia.

The classification is built into the language, as is common in the world's languages. Whenever a Dyirbal speaker uses a noun in a sentence, the noun must be preceded by a variant of one of four words: bayi, balan, balam, bala.These words classify all objects in the Dyirbal universe, and to speak Dyirbal correctly one must use the right classifier before each noun  Lakoff, page  52ff,  link

It won't take long to make connections now between two of my hot topics:

• Sapir-Whorf
• Semantic Domain
• Set Theory   (see Lakoff's index under "sets")

How do we define, categorize, compartmentalize?

These are great questions for my hot "labels":

• Role of the pastor
• ecclesiology

But what does this all have to do with sex?




Pursue that, will you?

But for starters, let Lakoff lead.
Read pp. 409-415 of his book  here/
Or below:
Lakoff-women Fire and Dangerous Things








--

More on Lakoff:

GeorgeLakoff.com


-- George Lakoff on how he started his work on conceptual metaphor Idea Framing, Metaphors, and Your Brain - George Lakoff: Prof. George Lakoff - Reason is 98% Subconscious Metaphor in Frames & CULTural NarrativesL

The End of Space and Time? - Professor Robbert Dijkgraaf

Overview

Robbert Dijkgraaf's focus is on string theory, quantum gravity, and the interface between mathematics and particle physics, bringing them together in an accessible way, looking at sciences, the arts and other matters.

Extra lecture materials

PDF Presentation for "The End of Space and Time?"

Listen to the lecture

String Theory in 2 Minutes or less --award winners

singing the triumphs of God's peasantry at everyday watering places

cartoon credit

Len's post "ON MUSICIANS AND WELLS" connected so many dots for me..
(The title called to mind the work Jars of Clay and others do, but that has nothing ..or everything,, to do with the post)
See tags below for Brueggemann, sound theory and string theory, just for starters.
Makes me want to go to a bar and sing  (see "Worship in the Bar/Brothel"),
or at least read John 4 as if I've never read it before (:
..and break down and finally read 

 Brueggemann's ,"Cadences of Home"-

God is like music: professor and the prima donna

And the professor is Moltmann.
Wonder if the Molt would agree with

• Len Sweet  ( "string theory [means] then life is at base music..For anything that vibrates gives off sound..so..you and I..are at base a song.. There is no one who isn't musical..My personal definition of Jesus is 'God's perfet Pitch.’")

and

• The Grateful Dead 

about the topic at hand.

Anyway..the "at hand" is a grreat post from  (thankfully blogging again) Rude Armchair:

"God is like music"

Noise is destiny

"To God, all is signal..

The universe emits noise..

Daylight is noise..

Noise is destiny because the universe will end in noise"

-"Noise," by Bart Kaslo

Michio Kaku on Conan: a one inch reading of God's mind, time travel , wormholes etc

HT: Skib

Extra Dimensions of Ttme, Travelling salesmen/forerunners, and "monumental restructuring of our intuition"

They say that confirmation  (or rejection) of string theory as the fundamental "Theory of Evrything"
will not likely happen in our lifetime..

...but anything can happen, and may likely be likely.
Sometimes suddenly and

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Brian Greene
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

serendipitously.

And who are the "they"of "they say"?
I hope they, of all people, know that if anything can happen, anything can happen.

And often that "anything" is predicted and prophesied by those branded as heretics or populists...or just plain nut cases.
That is the point to point out.

Often, when someone has suggested , or found, something so revolutionary that  it messes up our fundamental assumptions about the world, life and reality...we assume they are nutsoid.

But you  know what happens when we assume (ass-u-me)...........
that our intuited reality is ultimate reality.

"A feeling is stronger than a thought,"  the travelling salesman said.
But often the travelling salesman is right..even if accidentally so.
Especially if they don't  know the math or reason why they are right.
Just because someone is wrong about how they are right doesn't mean we are right to deny that they
are right. (:


 Let's meet two forerunners to string theory  (which, of course, if postulated 200 years ago would have been ridiculed, but now is the "obvious" candidate for The Grand Theory, implies  that "the universe, at base, is music" and that everything is made of tiny vibrating and loopy violin strings)..

These no-names are not household names, as they should be.
Luther didn't start the Reformation, either...and you likely don't know the names of his four forerunning ancestors either.

Ever heard of  Leonhard Euler?

He discovered a formula in the 1800s..the Eueler beta-function.. that seemed to work:

for  

..but no one knew how or why..so it was shunned and shelved..

Until  1968 when Gabriel Veneziano stumbled upon  its  secrets, and two dudes named  Nielsen and Susskind in 1970   officially offered solid evidence  that the crazy forerunner was right: what we see as fundamental partcles are actually tiny vibrating strings..


How about Theodor Kaluza?

In 1919 , he was bold enough to say aloud that there may well be more than three (spatial) dimensions.


...an "insanity" which now makes sense of string theory.
 In fact, string theory requires it as a given assumption.

Here's a challenge given: Challenge givens.

Extra dimensions of space?  Nine of them?  Most curled up in a little ball?

Radical enough..

But could it be that one of the secrets to confirming string theory could be another unthinkable?
Can we intuit our intuition so that we trust it enough to question it?.

Here's the thesis:

Maybe string theory requires extra dimensions of time, as well.
(hang that, and related proposals on a church door, and see if they are called theses or feces)

• And maybe the Bible, especially a theology of the Kingdom and kairos, has been consistent with this all along.
• And maybe George Eldon Ladd of Fuller Seminary was an accidental travelling  forerunner..because time running 'backwards" in these extra dimension could makes sense of Hebrews 6:1-5: "we have already, in this age/world, tasted the powers of the future age.world."
• And maybe the possible "Luther of physics" (or huge heretic,,time will tell)  is right about  Einstein being wrong: faster than the speed of light is possible...and (I don;t know if he has considered this) perhaps that includes the direction  and dimensionality of time itself

Brian Greene, in "The Elegant Universe," (embedded below, or here)  introduces the possibility  of extra time dimensions, but only covers it in two paragraphs (pp. 204-205)  It's time for someone to pick up the torch and write two tomes, and see what happens...

"Given the requirement of extra dimensions, is it possible that some are additional  time  dimensions, as opposed to additional space dimensions....[which would] clearly require an even more monumental restructuring of our intuition" (pp. 204-205, emphasis mine) 

-

Monumental restructuring of our intuitions?
So what's the big deal?
Let's test-drive  that possible impossibility (remembering the "driving in England" principle) before time runs out.

We  might even wind up with Frank Tipler:
" Christianity is a branch of physics"

Time will tell.

"Space travel," a character in Ray Bradbury's "Martian Chronicles" said,  "has made children of us all."

Maybe time travel, even extradimensionally, will make children, physicists,  and
sense  of us all, as well.

And/or maybe he...and all of us...are just travelling salespeople who are full of strings, skubala and shekinah.

See:

• Time and Time Again
• A Two-Time Universe? Physicist Explores How Second Dimension of Time Could Unify Physics Laws
• Mathematician suggests extra dimensions are time-like
• Does Time Run Backward in Other Universes?: Scientific American

• Grand Unified Theory: Wave Theory - Backward Time

• ---------------------------------------------

• "Music is time travel" or "The Quantum Physicist Neil Young and Singing Cells Walk Through Walls"
• THE KINGDOM’S RETROACTIVE RETROFUTURE: SEND ME MORE ARROWS
• Time Running Backwards

• 
  

Brian Greene explains string theory to Colbert and Letterman

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Brian Greene
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election March to Keep Fear Alive

string theory, m-theory, and parrallel world

"EXPOLRATION:Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics at City College of New York, discusses string theory, m-theory, and parrallel worlds with Dr. Brian Greene, professor at Columbia University, and Dr. Lisa Randall, professor at Harvard University":


arrow of time:

Brian Greene TED Talk on string theory

Colbert Does Real Science

This clip

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Brian Greene
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care reform

was my introduction to Colbert, and I found it as I was a Brian Greene fan.

After my initial disorientation, I am now a Colbert fan.

I had no idea that Colbert wasn't just another guy with a TV show, interviewing someone I was interested in.

I was abducted..in classic abductive method. I thought, "Is this Colbert guy for real?"

Which of course is really the real question, and precisely the point.

If you don't get Colbert, get abducted...or read and watch this.

If you don't get abduction, read this (or this)

Colbert is so real that has been known to occasionally blow his cover.

But check this article, if you still wonder if he is really real:

• Best science on TV: Comedy Central's Stewart, Colbert

Bill and Ted's Excellent String Theory ...& palpable holiness you can dance to

Remembering Len Sweet's summary of string theory ("the universe, at base, is music,"),

agreeing with Stephen Webb that a hermeneutic of acoustemology is emerging,


and (on a lighter note!!),

following up on my post on Townshend's "Lifehouse," where music is spiritual God-connection, and saves the world...

..recall such a theme shows up in various ways in the canon/cannon of what someone has called the "alternative hymnal," and leads to some stunning music (Rush's "2112" and Zappa's "Joe's Garage," the latter producing this gorgeous instrumental of "palpable holiness")...after all if part of your concept album is that music spiritually and literally saves the world, there is a bit of pressure to make some good music as part of the story.

One more pop culture reference on that same note..this one way more pop culture:

In "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," (:

when Bill and Ted visit the future and find their own music has saved the world and ushered in an era of harmony; they meet "The Three Most Important People in the World," seated on thrones, and played by Martha Davis (The Motels), Clarence Clemons (E Street Band), and Fee Waybill (The Tubes) .
The vibe of the song that plays then sounds a bit like The Motels, so many assume the song is by that threesome as a supergroup..but it's:

"In Time," by Robbi Rob (connected to Pearl Jam, see what he's up to here).

It may not even work for you; and it may never change the world.
It may or may not have a touch of "palpable holiness."
It may not be from the future, but it is timely...again and always.
It may sound like the U2 knockoff ripoff ("With or Without You"..now that song IS a candidate as a "from the future" prophetic song!) many accuse it of being
(one theory is that the section Bono added to later versions of WOWY in concert, with "one heart, one soul" is actually a winking reference back to the Robb song)

And...it may not even be an accident (in the usual or theological sense of that term) the opening line references Revelation 21.

So here it is:

No fear, no loss, no tears,
The time is almost here.
Our dreams will all come true, I promise you,
‘Cause I can see for miles and miles.
In time we’ll be dancing in the streets all night (all night, all night).




No fear, no loss, no tears,
The time is almost here.
Our dreams will all come true, I promise you,
‘Cause I can see for miles and miles.
In time we’ll be dancing in the streets all night (all night, all night).
In time, yes, everything will be all right (all right, all right).

It’ll take time but we’re going far,
You and me, yes I know we are.
In time we’ll be dancing in the streets all night.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
In time we’ll be dancing in the streets all night.
All night.

One heart, one soul, one mind,
Our eyes will not be blind.
We’ll see this rain come down without this sound,
We can all, we can all break free.
In time we’ll be dancing in the streets all night (all night, all night).
In time, yes, everything will be all right (all right, all right).
It’ll take time but we’re going far,
You and me, yes I know we are,
In time we’ll be dancing in the streets all night.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah.
In time . . .

In time we’ll be dancing in the streets all night (all night, all night).
In time, yes, everything will be all right (all right, all right).
It’ll take time but we’re going far,
You and me, yes I know we are,
In time we’ll be dancing in the streets all night.
All night, we’ll be dancing,
We’ll be dancing, we’ll be dancing,
All night . . .
We’ll be dancing in the streets all night.
Dancing . . .
In time, we’ll be dancing . . . all night.
We’ll be dancing in the streets all night.

Not quite fullblown end times revelation.
...but it's ready for church.....and you can dance to it.

New Heresies That Preacher-Types Can Learn from Brian Greene's "kids book"

I recently said of Liz Babbs' book on Celtic spirituality that "it may well rank among the top five books that should be included in seminary curriculums, but likely aren't..."

I was serious, but it was kind of an off-handed remark, and I hadn't really thought up a list of such contraband and banned books, but..

Maybe I'll go ahead and construct my complete list of those five (said list will have to include a book I was somehow graciously allowed to choose for a seminary preaching class).

Today's book, I bought for a quarter at the library sale (the other book I bought, as you can see here, may also be a seminary fave(:....................)

It's by one of my favorite writers: physicist Brian Greene, PhD.

But this time, it's an oversized, coffee table...uh, story book/picture book.

!!

And besides being a delightful story, it bears a timely message to us preacher types still stuck in the "propositional truth" sermon mode of modernity.

Greene's other books are award winning books on string theory are well-written, but deal with incredibly complex physics..

Uh, so does this one.
It's just cleverly disguised as a kids bedtime story book.
A retelling of the myth of Icarus.

Amazingly (and this may be wrong on so many levels, or is it quite right as a sign of the times?),
the books, designed to be held and experienced in three-dimensional reality, is largely and virtually viewable online at Google Books!!)

Here's a quote by Green about the book, "Icarus at the Edge of Time," which he makes in the accompanying video.. Note I have taken the liberty to (muck like a preacher steeped in modernity) to place in bold type those words that we preachers desperately need to hear...and no surprise these are terms we were warned against:

"but this time...this reworking of the story.. takes a small nugget of science...general relativity, and allows it to be experienced by the reader through power of a story, the power of narrative. You don't have to study; you don't have to take exams, you just have to allow the story to wash over you, and the weird wonderful feayures of science...revealed by Albert Einstein ... can just be taken in viscerally..


When we designed the book we didn't want the imagery to be literal, but we wanted to create an atmosphere..of a journey...
[The book] is not long.. but [readers] can puzzle through the strange twist of the story..

Below are excerpts from an Amazon.com interview with Greene. Again I have taken liberty to place in bold type key words for recovering preachers...and once again, no surprise,
note how these are all the "heresies" we have been told to stay away from!!:

Unlike anything Brian Greene has previously written, Icarus at the Edge of Time uses the power of story, not pedagogy, to communicate viscerally one small part of the strange reality that has emerged from modern physics. Designed by Chip Kidd, with spectacular images from the Hubble Space Telescope, it's a short story that speaks to curiosity and wisdom in a universe we've only begun to fathom.

Q: After writing two big four-hundred-plus page bestselling books, what made you decide to write an illustrated book for all ages?
A: There's an emotional side to science which the general public rarely experiences. When Einstein's calculations in 1916 showed that his new general theory of relativity could explain strange aspects of the planet Mercury's motion, he experienced--by his own description--heart palpitations. He'd revealed a fundamental cosmic truth and it filled him with awe and reverie. Yet, by contrast, in the public sphere science is still largely viewed as merely a cold body of knowledge. To many people, science is aloof, distant, abstract. I remember, some years back, reading a poem of Whitman’s about an astronomy student who grows tired and frustrated by his professor's teachings, and blissfully leaves the class to go outside, look skyward, and simply experience the wonderment of the star filled heavens. There are many for whom this poem would resonate. This highlights for me the need for people to connect with science in a new way--outside of the classroom and beyond the textbooks. My two previous books tried to make some heady ideas of modern physics widely available, and they did this through straightforward exposition. In Icarus At The Edge Of Time, my intention is to open a different kind of avenue onto science--a more visceral, more emotional side that a fictional narrative more readily accesses.
Q: Where did the idea to re-imagine the Icarus legend (set in outer space and involving black holes!) come from?
A: I recently told my two and a half year old son a bedtime story that involved space travelers moving near the speed of light. Within days he was telling his own animated stories of dinosaurs and monsters outrunning a new and wonderful concept--"the speed of dark." Which got me thinking. Storytelling is our most basic and powerful means of communication. We listen with a different kind of intensity--and open ourselves most fully--to a gripping tale. So why not allow some of science’s greatest wonders to be experienced not through pedagogy but through the force of narrative? Science in fiction, as opposed to science fiction. Scientific insights that are absorbed rather than studied. Icarus At The Edge Of Time is my first attempt to explore this terrain. Instead of a journey near the sun--a "light" star--Icarus heads to a black hole--a "dark" star. And then the wonders of Einstein's relativity kick in, warping the more familiar ending into a painful conclusion, to be sure, but perhaps one that's more hopeful than the original.
... Q: Who do you see as the audience for this book?
A: The intended audience is broad. While I've found that science-enthusiasts get a big kick out of the story (it's not often that general relativity is the lynch pin in a narrative!), I wrote the story with two kinds of imaginary readers looking over my shoulder--adults who don't generally have much contact with science, and kids who love a short adventure story.
Q: Since the writing of your last book you have become a father. How has fatherhood impacted you as a writer?
A: I feel a stronger urge to go beyond a connection with readers that's purely intellectual. The intellectual side is critical of course. But I think you communicate far more effectively if you can engage the reader on multiple levels. I've always felt this way. But I now experience it everyday--all the time--with my son, and also my one-year-old daughter. Fatherhood has heightened my recognition that to communicate you need an emotional link.

Q: Your passion for science and making it come alive for people of all ages is well known--as evidenced through your founding of The World Science Festival and also in a recent New York Times op-ed in which you wrote about "the powerful role science can play in giving life context and meaning," and stated, "It's the birthright of every child, it's a necessity for every adult, to look out on the world . . . and see that the wonder of the cosmos transcends everything that divides us." How do you feel about the way Science is taught in most schools today and what would be the biggest changes you would recommend?
A: We need to get beyond the urge--however important--of merely teaching kids the results of science, the methods of science. We need to communicate the stories of science. If a kid thinks of science as a subject taught in a classroom, we've failed. Kids need to think of science as the greatest of adventure stories as we've sought to understand ourselves and the universe around us. Kids need to recognize that science is a perspective, a way of life--it's something you hold with you long, long after you leave the classroom.

Q: What were some of the books that most inspired your passion for Science?
A: When I was really young, it wasn't actually books that inspired me. It was great teachers. From my dad (a self-educated high-school drop-out) to a couple of public school teachers where I grew up in New York City, I was fortunate to be surrounded by people who knew how to nurture and excite a young mind.

Q: So do you think anyone will ever actually find out what happens at the center of a black hole?
A: Absolutely. But not by jumping in.

Q: Is it a challenge, as a physicist and mathematician to write in a way that everyone understands?
A: It is a challenge, but for me its both a useful and exciting one. I find that translating cutting-edge research into more familiar language forces me to strip away extraneous details and zero in on the core ideas. Often, this helps me to organize my own thoughts and has even suggested research directions. And it's exciting to see ideas that are close to my heart and those of other researchers in the field reach a wider audience. The questions we are tackling are universal, and everyone deserves the right to enjoy the progress we're making.
...
Q: Where did you get the idea to illustrate this book with photos from the Hubble Space Telescope?
A: That was Chip Kidd's idea. On reading the story he immediately felt that an abstract, as opposed to literal, visual treatment would be most effective. I agreed completely. And was kind of blown away when he came up with this design. It is so simple, but so powerful.
-LINK

Keltic Ken @ the Super Bowl, St Pete's Lifehouse, and the New Boss of Emerging Church

Keltic Ken's great post, after The Who performed at the Super Bowl, worked for me on
several levels:

-reminded me of how The Who, and one of those Super Bowl songs, had escorted me on a time-travel trip just weeks before.

-got me thinking how far ahead of his time Pete Townshend was with the whole famous/infamous "Lifehouse" project............and what a prophetic picture of wikichurch it was.

On the latter lesson:

Lifehouse, as any Whooligans know, never happened.

Or eventually did, in various forms, depending on who you ask.

Or will happen, if you listen to Pete in random recent interviews.
("So, I still have this crazy urge to make the fiction real.")

Heck, there is even a great band named in honor (see "Lifehouse skit, and cigarettes on sale at Berean Christian Store") of the failed success, successful failure...whatever it was/is/will be.

Read all about Lifehouse at this Wikipedia link.
And this article.
Or hear from Pete Townshend himself:

For twenty-nine years I have been entangled in this thing called lifehouse. I blamed the frustration it caused me on its innate simplicity and my innate verbosity; one cancelled out the other. The story contained ideas that were once regarded as overly ambitious. I felt like a jungle explorer who had stumbled upon an Inca temple of solid gold and become impeded by roots and vines in a knot of undergrowth, only yards from civilisation. One day I would emerge crying aloud that I'd discovered something marvellous, but would be patted on the head and indulged in my triumphant ranting. The playscript is the result of this awkward, though not particularly heroic, journey. I have come to the end of a creative adventure in which I struggled as much to overcome my own impatience as obstacles in my path.

..

What is the story for? Why should it be heard? This play is essentially about the necessity for human beings to congregate regularly in order to share their emotions, and their responses to the spiritual challenges of art, great and small.

-link, read more

Unfortunately, some of the best commentary on Lifehouse are Townsend's article, and John Atkins' article, in the booklet accompanying the "Who's Next (Deluxe Edition) CD" are nowhere online. Until this excerpt, right now:

Lifehouse was to be a sprawling concept work of multiple dimensions: big-budget feature film, theatre event, double album, song cycle, concert performance piece, and general purpose statement about youth, modern society, spiritual harmony, and the future of rock and roll...it incorporated such elements as science fiction, electronics and mysticism and what we know now as 'virtual reality.'
-John Atkinsstr

Sounds like church as it could be/should be (:

As crazy as it it was, Lifehouse was based in a version of God via sound theory and string theory (click those phrases as "labels" beneath this post..and note Len Sweet, "the universe at base, is music");
it predicted the internet (before Al Gore did);
it got the importance of genre-mixing;
it cast a vision for radical audience (congregation) participation.

It suggests that God shows up, and we show up and we get our music tuned right!

No wonder Atkins wryly concludes,"If not exactly doomed to failure from the outset by its unwieldy complexities, the viabilty of Lifehouse was certainly open to question."

"Pete wanted to create," Atkins remembers,"...an active, ongoing, tangible, participatory event."

Is that church, or what?

The plan, inasmuch as there was such a thing, was for The Who to take over the theatre with a regular audience, develop the new material onstage and allow the communal activity to influence the songs and performances. Individuals would emerge from the audience and find a role
-Atkins

I have not read a better description of what happens, and what emerges, on a typical Sunday gathering of our flock! (:

Anyway, thanks to Keltic Ken for stirring this up.

Ken even gets how prophetic the title line from "Won't Get Fooled Again' ( intended as part of the Lifehouse event), is a prophetic reminder and to, and watchword for the emerging church.

"Won't Get Fooled Again". A very appropriate song to close the performance, since that tune has been referenced in recent days to describe the bubbling discontent in American society with politics, obscene greed, etc.
"...and I'll get on my knees and pray, we don't get fooled again"---an interesting prophetic statement that seems to carry more weight in 2010 than when we first heard it in 1971.
-Keltic Ken

Amen, I have prayed that line for years...

Also in that song, check out (and pray up) the line ( 7:58 in the clip) "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
It works both as a psalm of lament (a new wineskin pastor who still acts in the power of the old changes nothing") and as a rhematic reminder of Who (Jesus, the Big Boss) is the same yesterday, today and forever..

And is the very Life and Lifeblood of any lifehouse we dare attempt to build or live in.

'Come to the LIFEHOUSE, your song is here'.
------------------------------------------------
PS:
And music buff as you are, Ken, did you know about the other Who song to include the "teenage wasteland" line? The song called "Teenage Wasteland?"
If so, you win a huge prize!

Here it is:

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
And I don't need to be forgiven

My kids ain't gonna break my heart
My greed ain't gonna spoil their part
This life just has to be a new one
I'm gonna tan underneath the new sun




Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

Don't have the latest suit
The long grass is my fruit
I am really ordinary man
The family is free to do just as they please
And we all sleep together in the caravan

Hey you! Don't walk on the turnips!
My Lord...when will they ever learn it?
Look there! Nations of traveling children
Nowhere to go to escape the chill wind

Don't cry
Don't raise your eye
It's only teenage wasteland

My kids ain't gonna break my heart
And my greed ain't gonna spoil their part
This land just has to be a new one
I'm gonna tan underneath the new one

Sally take my hand
Travel south cross land
Put out the fire
And don't look past my shoulder
The exodus is here
The happy ones are near
And let's get home
Before we get older

Teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland

They're all wasted!

Hear also one Lifehouse version of the song most folk think IS called "Teenage Wasteland":




Related:

Two classic Godhaunted songs you never heard