Does MacPhisto have a prayer?

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"Jesus laughed in the Holy Spirit; and prayed, 'Daddy, I thank You that You have hidden Your secrets from the professional and the religious; and instead embedded them as gifts to the children and the childlike."
-Jesus' prayer in Luke 1o:21

So many Christians..especially those that Christians like U2 call "squeakies,"
didn't get (or "got" and didn't like) U2's 1990's incarnation as prophetic subversive, over-the-top satire and commentary-kitsch: ZOO TV/POP MART.
Disappointingly, but predictably, it was pastors who in particular who didn't take the time or imagination to get the point; they often "slid down the surface of things" and concluded U2 had backslidden, and unfound Who they had been looking for.

Of course, Bono dressed as the devil would raise a red flag (:

But only for those who haven't read Screwtape:

Bono's 'Satan' persona, Macphisto, has probably raised more Christian hackles than anything else U2 have ever done, with most Christians failing to understand what Bono is up to. In an interview with a prominent Irish paper earlier this year Bono commented that the whole concept of the Macphisto character was one of mockery - taking his idea from the adage 'mock the devil and he will flee from you.' Such irony and tongue-in-cheek humour is common throughout the work of the band and is a very effective way of bringing people to think about the good and evil in the world. Bono mocks to make his point - and this point is transferred to thousands of people with an effectiveness that preachers can only dream about.

The Church has never coped well with its artists and U2 are no exception. They have refused to play by anyone else's rules, and have frequently overstepped the tight boundaries of 'permissible behaviour' drawn up by the church. As a result the church has often viewed them with suspicion. Even one of their most explicit songs of Christian faith and longing for a better world, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for" was taken by many Christians as evidence that U2 had lost their faith..

..Bono: One night I was doing my Elvis-devil dance on stage with a young girl, in Wales, and she said "are you still a believer? If so, what are you doing dressed up as the devil?" I said "have you read the Screwtape Letters?" Which is a C.S. Lewis book that a lot of intense Christians are plugged into. They are letters from the devil. That's where I got the whole philosophy of mock-the-devil-and-he-will-flee-from-you. So she said "yes" and I said "so you know what I'm doing." Then she relaxed and said "I want to bless you."
link

The MacPhisto character as "obvious" a devil persona as one could create (red horns), but is also in a very postmodern way far more fluid as to exactly "who" he represents and re-presents. The Elvis connection was intriguing, as was MacPhisto's earlier pre-incarnation/cousin: Mirrorball Man, the televangelista (Follow the "obvious" and ancillary matches between "Matrix" characters and who they partly portray: For example, Neo is clearly a Christ-figure, but he is also every Christian; Trinity is obviously a Trinity figure, but also the Holy Spirit; Morpeus morphs between John the Baptist and Peter; Cypher is Lucifer..Hello? Lu-Cypher.. and Judas; etc.).
The history and evolution of the MacPhisto has been well-traced here.

But a conversation with Ryan yesterday (a link to his blog here for no other reason than a shameless plug) got me rethinking why I almost always use clips of MacPhisto when I teach my Ministry Skills Institute courses for pastors and leaders longing to engage culture; and especially when i am asked to teach on spiritual warfare.

The final night of the ZOO TV tour, in particular, raises several points.

For one, Bono makes explicit the devil typology; and to get a jab, apologetic and word to any squeaky pastors still listening (drawing a fish in the sand), he digs deep theologically into the sovereignty of God (see the important "The Devil is God's devil" connections here)...and in/directly alludes to the critiques: "People think I've forgotten about Him, but I haven't"...

Not to mentions talking points around theodicy; fallenness, free will and just about everything else systematically brings up; but is more helpfully addressed in systemic theology....and courses for pastors on U2.

Here it is; exegete it:



As a bonus to fans/fanatics, here's a rare clip of Bono singing "Desire" in full MacPhisto character. The band soon dropped this
song from MacPhisto's repertoire (though Vincent Price , Alice Cooper, and St. Schizoprenia would like it), moving into some fascinating and telling theological territory. Why were certain songs appropriate for MacPhisto to sing? There was "Daddy's Gonna Pay Your Crashed Car," of which Bono has said, "Daddy" could be God or the devil (See Tim's helpful commentary here)....and "Ultraviolet," long rumored to be the "prayer" of Satan to Jesus; wanting to know if he can be redeemed. I think "Acrobat"(a sort of commentary on Romans 7, among other things) was also sung a bit by MacPhisto; amazing theological lessons there; my son has always seen the "bastards" as demons and/or religious "squeakies".

Maybe the two are synonymous.

Which is why MirrorBall Man (the televangelista)=MacPhisto=Elvis=us.
And there "is no them; there's only us."

Shudder.

Maybe I am a squeaky bastard.

PS.Here at this link is some fan discussion on theology U2 1990s style.. I have thought more about MacPhisto in my older article copied in red below. Read on at your own risk. But I do make the claim that not only is 1990s U2 consistent with what they were before (more obviously Christian); but what they did for at least two tours in the 2000s (more obviously Christian).

Which means MacPhisto still inevitably shows up; though not in drag.

Bless you, Ryan!
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CHECKMATED BY MACPHISTO?

The story is told that in the painting "Checkmate," the MePhisto character (an alternate name for Satan that we have already eluded to Bono co-opting and tweaking the spelling a bit to MacPhisto) is gloating over his winning chessboard move over the only other character in the painting, Faust (Hello? Recognize that name from operas) The "Bomb" CD is a virtually a tribute to Bono’s dad, Bob Hewson, who is "the last of the opera stars," Bono sang on "Kite" on the "Elevation tour; and .the "reason why the opera is in me," his son sings in "Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own"); which is also the name of the painter. The point of the piece is that sometimes man is checkmated by the devil. The legend accompanying the painting is that one day, a Russian chessmaster (in many versions, Gary Kasparov), noting the theme and the title, but having scrutinized the chessboard to the sudden realization that by the artist’s accident, the game does not have to end in obvious checkmate (He sees a possible move that Faust could take and win), yells out in the museum to the shock of the other observers: "It’s not true! It’s a lie! He’s not been checkmated!" Of course, this story "preaches," and has for hundreds of pastors over the years(one example here ), that:

Though it may look like the devil has won, Jesus (and the Christian) do indeed have the victory after all.

Nice story, you say? Good point, even if a bit cliché? But it is the same story and same point as the "Vertigo" song/sermon. Christ’s love is "teaching me to kneel" and defeat the satanic temptation to make "all of this" mine. So the joke is on the devil, God used the enemy’s plans and temptation to make me stronger, invoking God’s sovereignty, just like Jesus did in the wilderness "vertigo" temptation in the elevated place of the temple pinnacle. It was tough, taxing; swaying and dizzying; and I may have escaped by the skin of my teeth (or the crucifix around the neck), but I made it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ….that’s how the song and the Scripture and the story ends..The devil does not have us checkmated after all.

By now, all intelligent readers, the kind who dig for profound symbolism sometimes occurring in Bono’s more spontaneous/singing-in-tongues (the band calls it "Bongolese"), scat singing moments; those sections that don’t always make the lyric sheet and show up in concert in varying versions; will have already answered the question: "What moves this theory about a direct connection between the "Checkmate" painting and that deceptively simple IPOD-selling song? Note well, even the "official" CD lyrics, for once, quote Bono’s spontaneous scatting lyrics in the midsection of "Vertigo." And they agree with what he seems to be clearly (!) saying in live television versions so far: "CHECKMATED!" (usually followed by "Hours of fun!" and something else not as easily decoded. Some have heard, in alternate versions, "shots fired/shots fall or "gospel!" Interpretation of scat-tongues-art references, anybody?)

Oh, it shouldn’t go without saying that Bono, as an avid chess player, who surrendered dreams of being a professional chessmaster years ago, as those passions were channeled and steered towards… I should say elevated (But remember the Rabbi Cohen would warn that "elevation is not sublimation," so "chess" references are allowed to resurface)… into rock stardom and Kingdom-preaching. And in a very fun and perceptive article, Angella Pancella goes as far as to suggest that chess strategy is Bono’s overall life-strategy. "No really; that’s my theory," she winks. Pay this perceptive ‘hours of fun" article a visit here.

All this to say: It’s a spiritual sequitur, a logical syllogism for all of life: Elevation leads to vertigo. And as we flow with that process, we find that Christ, and those of us in Christ on this ride, win and checkmate life and Lucifer through hard-won kneeling persisteverance. It does flow. Yet it’s not a shoe-in that we "go with the flow" of all that the Bus Driver has been hired to rabbinically teach us through the crucible and crisis of vertigo, and thus come out stronger. Passing the twin tests of elevation and vertigo ; and the truth itself , is designed to set us free; but sometimes it is sovereignly destined to first make us miserable. Freedom, though free indeed, has a pricetag indeed. And on this particular temple-bus at the pinnacle of the elevated Andes , that freedom had a scent which, though in reality the aroma of heaven, had me begging for a barf-bag and a miracle drug. And a "fast car" off that mountain (Oops, yet another new U2 song relates here! More in chapter four)

VERTIGO HAPPENS! HALLELUJAH!

But when the reason is righteous, and the season is right, one should invite and even invoke vertigo! "If it be Thy will," of course, but more times than we have guessed or gambled, the will of God WILL will it.

I occasionally enjoy playing devil’s (uh, I should say "angel’s") advocate when I preach and teach. I often ask a group "shock-value" questions as a wake-up and shake-up call to the necessity and validity of the vertiginous (yes, it’s a word!) encounter; the test of temptation. In light of the fact that "sometimes we can’t make it on our own, " and need to go with Jesus to hear, and experience, a challenging and dizzying "Sermon Way Up the Mount," disciples need to remember to remember that in those disequilibrating times when elevation gives birth to vertigo, let the Spirit be midwife, and what will mercifully be born again and again in you is untold freedom and hilarious strengthening. Here, then is the first question I might cast out: "How many ever pray the Lord’s Prayer, including the line ‘Lead us not into temptation?’"

And since all answers are a nodding "yes and amen," the subsequent question has earned a hearing: "Would, or could, GOD ever lead anyone, then, into temptation?; especially since we have been taught by Jesus Himself to pray it would never happen?" Since most have detected that, by my mischevious inflection and sly smile the expected right answer is "Of course!," it’s an appropriate time to take holy advantage of the stunned to silence room and have them turn from their shock to either Matthew 4:1 or Luke 4:1. Either verse reads right on the lines that "God, the Holy Spirit" is without apology recognized; indicted as the Agent leading someone into a very real and literally demonic temptation.

And just who that Someone is, is telling and is troublesome: "Then the Holy Spirit lead Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil." Granted, and important to highlight: God does not do the tempting; the tempter is clearly the devil, but in God’s stunning sovereignty, he has personally arranged the time and place of the temptation; He Himself has set the boundaries and parameters of the boxing ring; He himself is out in front ushering Jesus..and often us..right into a head-on . What in heaven’s name and hell’s court is verti-going on?

THE DEVIL IS GOD’S DEVIL

"The devil is God’s devil!," a much better theologian than me, but one also famous/infamous for "shock value sound bytes" quipped a few hundred years ago. By that biting byte, Martin Luther has not more than he could chew in hand..er, mouth. He meant simply that God is so supernaturally and sovereignly ‘in charge’ that he is even in charge of, Superintendent of; in fact he created, "Ol’ Scratch."..Satan himself. Which is why the Spirit can risk, allow, even set-up our wilderness temptations with Satan. He can trust, that like Jesus, who "at the end of this satanic temptation, came out of the wilderness stronger and more full of the power of the Spirit, and more prepared to minister than ever, " (Luke 4:13-14).

We who follow in the footsteps of Christ, even and especially when they lead to the devil’s door and an "elevation plus" vertigo test, we pass the test! And the joke is on the dumb devil, Ol Scratch scratching his damned head as we..the eternally undamned and newly undammed…come out stronger in Spirit. And if Romans 8:28’s al- inclusive sweeping claim that "God works all things together for good for those who love God, and are the called according to his purpose" is taken at face and faith value, that "all things" includes "all" all things, including satanic temptation, and Satan himself. With that Romans verse in mind, a more modern theologian, one who is in league with Luther (and U2) in that she was also earthy in a heavenly way, one tested and tempted in the evil vileness and extreme vertigo of Ravenbsruck concentration camp, one Corrie Ten Boom, offered this prescription, "When the devil sticks his gun of accusation or condemnation in your face, just stuff Romans 8:28 in the barrel of that gun, and turn things around by stuffing it back in his face."

THE MOST SHOCKING SCRIPTURES IN THE BOOK

Let’s take the test. Only two possible answers for each question below: A)God or B)Devil. Choose only one each time. Sounds easy, so take the test, without looking up the accompanying Scriptures until you have turned in your exam. (Number two pencil only, please):

1.)Who sent an evil spirit to terrorize Saul? (1 Sam. 16:14; 18:10)
2.)Who sent a deceiving and lying spirit? (1 Kings 22:22)
3)Who authorizes satanic harassment of Job (Job 1:12)
4)Who can destroy both body and soul in hell? (Matthew 10:28)
5)Who sent a deceiving influence, so that wicked people are damned? (2 Thess. 2:11)

How did you do? Isn’t it obvious that the only correct answer to each of the above is..God!?
Huh? Is that the good news or the bad news, you ask? Whose side are you on, anyway? Cool down, mama! Now you can look up the Scriptures, and triple check that I am not just making this up, or nuts. I think the lesson, though so much more should be said to be sure our theology is biblical and balanced, is: God is so sovereign that he uses..and even though we are not as comfortable as these Scriptures sometimes are in saying so, He is some sense "sends"…. evil, and wrings good purposes out of them. He is not evil, nor the author of evil; and does not enjoy our suffering and evil; he does not want AIDS, cancer, rape, slavery, etc…...but the devil is God’s devil. God is either good and sovereign or not. These Scriptures, stretching and shocking as they are, actually steer us towards his radical "in charge-ness," He is ridiculously sovereign. The devil is active, but he is on a leash…a long one, granted..but God’s grabbing the other end.
OK, four more questions. Ready? Of course not! Same two possible answers, God or the devil, for these below:


1)Who sees to it that a sinner is saved? (1 Cor. 5:5)
2)Who is the god of this world? (2 Cor 4:4)
3)Who helps keep Paul humble? (2 Cor, 12:7)
4)Who teaches Paul not to blaspheme? (1 Tim 1:20)

All done? You got an "A" of course, if every answer above is, as verified by the verses, .the devil! Don’t get me wrong, the devil ain’t good, but he works for God at the end of the day. Church folks don’t get this. Bono gets it. As much as he hates, and campaigns against the devil’s evil (and he and we should) …God uses evil. He wins. Satan is trumped and checkmated in the End. This is the full-orbed gospel, an the message of Elevated Vertigo.
Yes, these are the other shocking questions I love to ask at church gatherings. Did they work?

HOLY LINGERING OR LUNCH WITH THE DEVIL: THE WISDOM TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE

"This generation will be remembered for three things: the Internet, the war on terror, and how we let an entire continent go up in flames while we stood around with watering cans. Or not," Bono preached to evangelical congregations on his Africa awareness tour, hoping for crumbs from our generous spread and table. "Let me share with you a conviction," he often challenged a hushed church, " God is on his knees to the church on this one. God Almighty is on his knees to us, begging us to turn around the super tanker of indifference on the subject of AIDS."

He is right.

Even though we can lean back on the lavish and wild sovereignty of God to work good out of evil, nowhere does that justify us doing nothing so that evil (temporarily) prevails because we know that it will (at the End) be vanquished. And there is enough evil and suffering in the world..and in us; we don’t need to ask for any additional of either, even if we know they force us to grow. Yet, when it is a God-thing, and a "Holy Spirit set-up," there is wealth and wisdom in a holy lingering and loitering at "a place called Vertigo," again, as/ if/when God leads. This is not a passive indifference, this is an active trust that when we are forced, by God and/or circumstances, we can fall to our knees (of course, a wise theologian/activist is quick to add there is a time where God calls us to "please, please, get up off your knees" and butts, and battle evil) in know Who is in charge..

But these activist times to be an enemy of evil in practical ways, is not what I mean by lingering in Vertigo. Even though the unease and suffering we submit to, and absorb there, might feel the same brand as the evil we are to fight, it is not. Another caution: the lingerer in a personal vertigo season of testing, must be prayed up in Vertigo , or s/he will be preyed on. A "just passing through" temporary resident of Vertigo Heights must be intrinsically and insistently motivated in that lingering by a Holy Spirit-inspired calling and quest to plunder and sqeeze and seize life-lessons about oneself that can be learned at no other locale. The joke is on the devil. His bomb is defused and dismantled. It is of course easy to cross the line, and stay too long, as St. Bono has often admitted; either because it feels like God is still wanting you there; or just because "swaying to the music" is fun. "I might sit down with the devil, but I’m not going to have coffee with him". More recently quoted in context of raising AIDS awareness and taking teasings and flack from mates for courting of politicians, popes and presidents , "I’d have lunch with the devil, if it meant money for Africa." Bono is characteristically first to admit "I’m not the best commercial for Christianity", and readily owns up to the truth that his discernment radar has not always tracked, especially in the disorientation and dizziness of fame and spotlight. Fame might be a gift from God that the devil is quick to distort (remember Mirrorball Man…or MacPhisto to the fans: "You’ve made me very famous, and I thank you"); but "celebrity is (also) currency," Bono tells Oprah, the church, and anyone who listens. The devil’s jokes always backfire, Corrie. Every good gift comes from God. Including one of the often dissed and dismissed gifts of grace: Vertigo.

DUELING DEMONIC DUALISM

C. S. Lewis, as previously mentioned, is such a lamppost for Bono (What other theologian is referenced in an animated music video for a "Batman" movie song…only U2 could be behind that! ) that we probably don’t need to link you to any more examples, except to say if you don’t know the story about the "dancing Squeaky" and how a common love for Lewis saved the dance and day for her, and her dancing partner, a Mr. Paul Hewson with horns, here’s the scoop.

Lewis was at his best at reminding us of everything we should’ve known: there are not two gods, God and the devil, who have always existed and are opposites in the all-American "good guy, bad guy" scenario. This ridiculous theology, though, is often our default, unconscious understanding. Many evangelicals will actually suggest that the devil has always existed, and always been bad; forgetting that "Evil is only fallen good," and God made Lucifer; made him good; he simply chose to fall and attempt to claim God’s throne.

That is Christianity; the "good and bad eternal opposite" jive is dualism, related to the hell of extreme Hellenism. But the radical monotheism of Christianity, in which we and three forth of U2 live, move and have their being there is by definition , and design a one-God deal; and He so big that the buck stops with Him, meaning laments like "Jesus.. I know You’re looking out for us..but "sometimes Your hands aren’t free?" are doubts cased in honest faith, which can stand up in Gethsemane, Vertigo or hell-on-earth.

It is no coincidence that both signature songs we have been feasting on here, "Elevation" and "Vertigo" have been accused of being throwaways, musically and lyrically. The deceptively simple rockroots music and fun melodies/riffs, and our inherent Western lens of dualism, may cause some to altogether miss the glorious depths of the lyrics of each, and the holy linking of the two: Elevation leads to vertigo. I hope it doesn’t take the bus ride from hell..I mean Lima to Huancayo…for many to make the link and leap.
link

doing spiritual warfare sideways, stealthily, screwtape-ily...and with a little laugh,loud fart,red horns and a bit of pink paint

Old bad joke:

• Kid 1: Do you believe in the devil?
• Kid 2: Nah, I think it's like Santa Claus.
• Kid 1: What ya mean?
• Kid 2: It's really your dad!
•  

Old pastor's line:

• Pastor:I don't believe in the devil
• Congregation: (stunned silence)
• Pastor: (dramatic pause) I believe in Jesus!"Believing in someone means to put your ultimate trust in them. I believe the devil exists alright. I just don't put my ulimate trust in him."

Navigating spiritual warfare can be a delicate balance.

C.S. Lewis caught this in the classic preface  to the classic book, "The Screwtape Letters"
(Not many books have a classic preface! By the way there is a recently unearthed alternative preface here).

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.

How ironic that those who "do" the most spiritual warfare can wind up influenced the most by the devil.

I like Guy Chevreaux's image of waging spiritual warfare "sideways"...that is by focusing on Jesus, not the devil.  See also Jon Acuff's hilarious posts about praying to Satan and "putting the devil on notice" (sadly offline until this controversy is solved...sigh, itself possibly some spiritual warfare).

So...
You can see what a risk Bono took....commercially, with Christian fans,
and spiritually... in the 1990s, when (influenced by Lewis and Screwtape), he began taking the stage in character as the devil ("MacPhisto").  Some classic moments emerged (see posts below tagged for "MacPhisto," as well as the  MacPhisto Center Stage website).

The act has seveal profound and prophetc points:

"I don't believe in preaching at people," he told me, during a 1982 interview. A constant theme in his music, he added, is the soul-spinning confusion that results when spirituality, sensuality, ego and sin form a potion that is both intoxicating and toxic. "The truth is that we are all sinners. I always include myself in the 'we.'...I'm not telling everybody that I have the answers. I'm trying to get across the difficulty that I have being what I am."

Bono took this inner conflict on stage during the media-drenched Zoo TV shows of the mid-1990s. The key moment was when the singer morphed into a devilish alter ego named Mister MacPhisto, who wore a glittering gold Las Vegas lounge suit and cheesy red horns.

Night after night, Bono would pull some girl out of the audience to join in his "Elvis-devil dance." Stockman's book includes a fascinating account of what happened one night in Wales, when one of these dance partners had an agenda of her own.

"Are you still a believer?" she asked. "If so, what are you doing dressed up as the devil?"

Their voices hidden by the music, Bono gave her a serious answer. "Have you read The Screwtape Letters, a book by C.S. Lewis that a lot of intense Christians are plugged into? They are letters from the devil. That's where I got the whole philosophy of mock-the-devil-and-he-will-flee-from-you," said Bono.

Yes, the girl said, she had read The Screwtape Letters. She understood that Lewis had turned sin inside out in order to make a case for faith.

"Then you know what I am doing," said Bono.

But no matter what happens on stage, plenty of believers remain convinced that Bono's devil suit was highly appropriate. While the singer and his band mates have made some mistakes, Stockman said he is convinced that the controversies that continually swirl around U2 are actually evidence of deeper divisions among believers.

U2 is attacking, in word and deed, the modern church's retreat from art and popular culture.

The church "has put a spiritual hierarchy on jobs," said Stockman. "Ministers and missionaries are on top, then perhaps doctors and nurses come next and so on to the bottom, where artists appear. Artists of whatever kind have to compromise everything to entertain. Art is fluffy froth that is no good in the Kingdom of God. What nonsense."

             Terry Mattingly


Who would've guessed that Bono dressed as the devil would, among other things
(The band needing to mock-the-devil-and-he-will-flee-from-them, sell a lot of records/tickets etc)
issue a call to the church to live out the priesthood of
all believers, and serve a flat Kingdom.

I bet the real devil really hated that.
As well as the critique of ecclesiology that Mac (no mean theologian) sideways-ly suggested:

"...the word 'effective' has led many churches astray. Because our goal is that God's power and purposes be at work through our weaknesses, we can concentrate not on the results, but the means in the very gifts of God's tabernacling...

As Yoder Nefeld points out, 'this is why alternative cultural forces of truth, justice and peace are so important. When they are yielded by a community that is in Christ; then its very life is exorcistic.'

The church's call is to exorcism, not effectiveness.

Perhaps one of the most recalcitrant spirits that needs to be exorcised is that of needing to be effective."

-Marva J. Dawn, "Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacling of God," pp. 132-133

Surely the band's background in the charismatic renewal  (as mixed a bag as that was, they  almost drowned) helped give them the language and experience  to deal fairly directly (sideways?) with the devil in Berlin:

During the tour you'll also play the Olympia stadium in Berlin, the place Hitler built for the Olympic Games in 1936. At the moment, people are arguing over whether to begin the Olympic Games of the year 2000 in that same building. Do you have strange feelings when you play in a monument to Nazi architecture??

Bono: I think it's important to go to these places. The Hansa Studios, where we recorded Achtung Baby, was used both by the Allies and the SS as a ballroom. And when we went there you could ask yourself: Are there still any demons here in the room? We had the sense that if there had been any demons, music had driven them out. I think fear of the devil leads to devil worship. And I don't want to give fascists power to the extent that you might be afraid to go into a building where they once were. We have the same here in Ireland with provisional IRA -- and they're probably much better organized than the neo-Nazis. They're a paramilitary group, they have a network and they're fascists. They don't represent a majority, either in the south or in the north of Ireland. Even among Catholics in the north of Ireland they don't represent a majority. I think we need to stop speaking about these people in hushed tones -- we should laugh at them. I would paint the stadium in Berlin pink [laughs]. That's what I would do.   link

When they got there, it seems like they were a bit surprised at how intense and thos places and prinipalities felt.  Some versions of the story even hint at some kind of exorcism service/prayer.
Somewhow they sensed were there to sent to subvert .

Even the  "Achtung, Baby" album title was a sidways exorcism, subversive salute/mooning of Hitler/the devil:

U2's soundman Joe O'Herlihy used the phrase "achtung baby" often during the work on the album in Berlin. The phrase is used first in the Mel Brooks film The Producers, about the making of a musical called "Springtime for Hitler", a guaranteed Broadway bomb. The name was chosen so that it could not be taken seriously, deflecting focus from the serious lyrics on the album and thus protecting U2 from further critical attacks like they received with Rattle and Hum. "Achtung" is the German word for "attention", so the title translates to "Attention, Baby!" - an utterance of warning.
Bono actually says "achtung baby" in the album, during "The Fly" - it's about two minutes into the song. This is clearer on its live versions: Bono shouts "achtung, baby!" right before the Zoo TV screens flood the audience with images and cheap philosophy. link

That "flooding" and overkill with images was a reverse and subversive spiritual warfare..not too subtle but still stealthily sideways.

It's a mocking of a devil who is so dumb he probably didn't even know he was being casted in the cast, cast aside and cast out .  It was a prophetic punch, laugh, mock...maybe "loud fart" (great phrase by another "pastor" of U2, Eugene Peterson.

And if you're offended, there is ancient precedent for farting  sidewise as a spiritual warfare technique: see this...

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By the way, both Pope Benedict (Pope to hold Mass in Berlin's 'Hitler's Stadium') and Hitler himself (video: Hitler Finds Out U2 Tour Gets Postponed) 
have stories to tell. (:

simulacra-kklesia (part 10): Subvert it by being really fake or falsely real?

simulacra-kklesia (part 10):



Perhaps the only ways and means of
breaking the back of the spirit of Simulacra is to
(mixing the metaphor here)
enter the belly of the beast,
and convert/subvert it;
plundering it asunder.

No incarnation without redemption;
no buying back without going back..

back to Simulacra-city;
not back to Egypt
(or are they the same thing?).

I might have to risk putting on and pulling off an entire and entirely slick (seeker-sensitive, of course!) simulacra
"worship service"
to prove the point.

Not (just) to critique more institutional, programmed megachurches;
but (just?) to critique me:

the "really" fake one..

..like the real rest of us.

A new Christian magazine came (unsolicited) in the mail today.
The cover photo--of a female Christian celebrity---reminded me of a Playboy Magazine cover
(not that I have seen one....recently!);
the airbrushed and hairbrushed model had been posed and poised that way.

I still harken back to Tschetter's article about the "Sports Illustrated" swimsuit issue as a projection (in both senses of the term) and sexualization
of an image:

Aphrodite.

Maybe aka Simulacra.

Maybe I'll have to dress up in a speedo (I did preach in a swimsuit once) Sunday (:


I don't really want to sexualize and seduce/reduce the sheep.
I long to be a sheep-whisperer shepherd, but I don't want to whisper hyperreal sweet nothings of simulacrap in their ears.

I'd rather promise them that I promise that I will really try to try to be be really real...really.

The Alarm sang about "Absolute Reality,"
MacPhisto prophesied about our virtual plight,
and many have called us back into real reality,
which has been virtually, and really, hijacked.
The Matrix is even wrapped around us"when we go to church" (see 2:24ff below):



But I was pleasantly surprised to find an unexpected older (but newly relevant..again) source
speaking into this mess: E. Stanley Jones (not usually mentioned alongside The Alarm, MacPhisto, and The Matrix..just look at him..he'd never don a mullet or horns, and he would probably not have watched R -rated and (Holy) Ghost0 writtenfilms like the Matrix). But thank God that Mark Sayers, in his excellent new book, knows how much we need to read or re-read him:

E. Stanley Jones...noted that Jesus told his primary critis, the Pharisees,
that the Kingdom of God was within them. Jones said that Jesus was referring to the fact that he Kingdom of God was a reality that operated in our world just as concretely as the reality of gravity,....and that God's kingom was inside them. Therefore, if they acted in sin, the consequences would be felt in this life, not just the next.

Jones says:

."...The laws of the Kingdom are not something imposed on the siuation, but are written into the very structure of our being, into our tissues, our blood cells..into the total organization of life.They are the way we were made to live...God has stamped within the structure of our being His Kingdom"
(Mark Sayers,

"The Trouble With Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises"

p. 172)

Real reality, Kingdomness, absoutute reality, unplugged from matrix-simulcara,
is fundamentally and wildly natural.

Jones often said that if we live Kingdomly, the universe will back us.

So maybe I don't have to do the full blown spoof Sunday.

Maybe I can subvert simulcara by merely modelling the real.

Nah, who knows where that might lead;
we might actually get honest in our gatherings. (;
Hand me the devil horns and the dress. (:
Can I comb my hair first?

the more deeply we attempt to engage our culture through the projected world, the more vulnerable we are ourselves to idolatry, because the essence of the projected world is made images. Both roots of idolatry are at work in the formation of images for the projected world. Our making of images to present our work in ministry is not invulnerable to idolatry
-Tschetter

.

There came a point in most U2 shows where MacPhisto showed up that Bono said,
(after blasting virtual simulacra with a sermon and crank phone call as in the intro of video below)
"Off with the (devil) horns, and on with the show.." ( see 8:13ff below):



The catch is he knew that even when he shunned the costume,
the rest of the concert was inevitably part show..

Even though it was also and always church.

Maybe if we just start by admitting that,
we can take off the horns.

On the Vertigo tour, a hornless Bono was heard to say:

"We got the show,
We do the business.
But this is not show business."
(4:48ff below):


Okay, If church has to be at least part "show,"
maybe I can sneak in a little simulacra this Sunday.

I might even be as radical as to use a microphone.

Just don't watch for me on TBN.
Or the Sports Illustrated, or Christianity Today, centerfold.
---

I'd rather read..and write... a really good book, like
the Mark Sayers book
we already quoted:

"These are great tools for everyone trying to find the Way, the Truth, and the Life in a world of shortcuts, deception, and death. Amid the noise and seductions of our culture, may Mark's work help us to be both relevant and peculiar to this chaotic world. May we raise up a generation of radical nonconformists with everything that is wrong in the world, a generation that turns the world upside down so that it aligns with the Kingdom of God”.

-Shane Claiborne, Author of The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.

“Mark Sayers is something of a spiritual genius who is able to both name and diagnose the angst of an entire generation caught up in the web of consumerism and hyperreality. This book is laced with the kind of wise and prophetic insights that take the reader to the heart of some of the most important issues of our age. Nothing less than a clue to the spiritual healing of a generation lies hidden in the pages of this book”.

-Alan Hirsch, Author of The Forgotten Ways and author (with Michael Frost) of The Shaping of Things To Come. Alan is founding director of Forge Mission Training Network.

"the media is the antichrist"

mac"It is information meltdown – text, sayings, truisms, untruisms, oxymorons, soothsayings, etc., all blasted at high speed, just fast enough so it's impossible to actually read what's being said," the Edge once explained.

As a sequel to my previous posts on U2's live version "The Fly," and its many and sundry projected maxims and "iconic ironics, " I need to add this clip from Boston 1992...Vintage Fly era..

I caught many of my old favorites:


"guilt is not of God"
"everyone is a racist except you"
"it's your world, you can change it/charge it"

Some I had not been able to make out before:

"pesssimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy"
"fear is an american problem"
"we are all a part of the malaise"

My new favorite:

"the media is the antichrist"

May be true! And what better way to express that truth...through media!

Enjoy the clip...and enjoy below it a helpful excerpt of one professor's take on the whole thing.



EXCERPT FROM
"'The Fly' on the Stage: Readings and Misreadings of the 'New' U2"
( A Paper Presented to the Music Area ofThe Popular Culture Association
April 13, 1995 Samuel R. Smith, Center for Mass Media Research, University of Colorado)

From As the song ends the video monitors light up with "EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG." As the band then launches into "The Fly" we reach, quite early in the show, what proves to be the band's critical master stroke. As the band performs the song, the screens are appropriated by a rapid-fire barrage of videotext - as many as perhaps twenty words or phrases are flashed onto the screens in a single second, while others are drawn out over several seconds, one presumes for effect. The words and phrases themselves are curious in places. A string like "WIFE / VICTIM / RAPE / FOOD / SEXY / WAR / BLOODY / KIDS / TRASH / MOM / FRENZY / FISH / COLOUR / NIGGER" makes no apparent sense - you merely have random words generated and presented in, as Jameson might predict, a blank pastiche.

Other sequences, though, appear more substantive. In one procession we get this string repeated two or three times: "CHARGE IT / WEAR IT / DEBT / DOUBT / HYPE / HOPE." This is closely juxtaposed with another repeated string: "GUN / PUSSY / SCHOOL." This last part is obscure, perhaps, but the debt string appears purposive in light of both the consumerist theme I assert above and the context in which the word "charge" will recur later.

In addition to word bursts, the audience is presented at intervals with phrases which range from the hopeful to the platitudinous to the sarcastic and cynical. "THE FUTURE IS FANTASY; SUPERFICIALITY IS GOD; AVOID CONFLICT; IGNORANCE IS BLISS; IT'S THE REAL THING; CONSUME LATER; DO NOT ACCEPT WHAT YOU CANNOT CHANGE; CHANGE WHAT YOU CANNOT ACCEPT; BELIEVE EVERYTHING; DO YOU BELIEVE ME; YOU ARE A VICTIM OF YOUR TV/HATRED/APATHY/SELF; IS THIS ALL WE GET?; YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE; WHAT DID THE FIRST PUNK ROCK GIRL WEAR TO YOUR SCHOOL?; WORK IS THE BLACKMAIL OF SURVIVAL; I WANT IT NOW; BE GENTLE WITH ME; THIS IS NOT A REHEARSAL; ENJOY THE SURFACE; FREE MANDELA; THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT; AMBITION BITES THE NAILS OF SUCCESS; IT COULD NEVER HAPPEN HERE; TASTE IS THE ENEMY OF ART; BELIEVE" (with the "BE" and "VE" fading, leaving only "LIE"); "MANIPULATION IS ART; YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE; EVERY ARTIST IS A CANNIBAL; CELEBRITY IS A JOB; DEATH IS A CAREER MOVE; MOCK THE DEVIL AND HE WILL FLEE FROM THEE; REBELLION IS PACKAGED; RELIGION IS A CLUB; CONTRADICTION IS BALANCE; I'D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING; GUILT IS NOT OF GOD; TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME; EVOLUTION IS OVER; SILENCE = DEATH; DEATH IS INEVITABLE; EVERYONE IS A RACIST EXCEPT YOU; ROCK AND ROLL IS ENTERTAINMENT; WEAR A CONDOM" (U2 1994).

The cumulative effect is numbing. The pace of the bursts makes catching and processing everything impossible, and in this sense U2 has quite successfully presented a microcosm of our mass mediated consumerist everyday lives. We are literally assaulted by sales pitches - I have heard estimates of anywhere from 1600-3200 per day - and seemingly no institution is innocent of contributing to the noise. In the videotext above, we see that most elements of our culture are represented - corporations, religions, advertising, schools, art, criticism, all are in some fashion called on the carpet.

The problem is that the form allows for no consideration of depth. All messages have been democratized, and the sublime is diluted at every turn by the ridiculous ("wear a condom" is potentially life-saving advice; "I want it now" is the impulse which arguably necessitates the condom message). On the surface, then, meaning has been rendered unknowable, and in the final moments of the song we find the band cynically undercutting sloganeering and the shallow ideology of social change. "IT'S YOUR WORLD YOU CAN CHANGE IT" is projected on the screens, then recycled over and over in a rapidly accelerating loop (in total this phrase is looped at least thirty times in twenty seconds, with one burst probably looping it fifteen-twenty times in five seconds). Upon seeing this the crowd explodes in a frenzy of cheering - on the heels of such a confusing mush of mixed signals, we shouldn't be surprised to see idealistic young U2 fans seizing fervently upon a moment of hope.

However, it only appears that this phrase has been presented over and over in a reaffirming cycle of hope. In fact, the third and fourth loops replace "change" with "charge" - "IT'S YOUR WORLD YOU CAN CHARGE IT." Again, consumerism is challenged, and this time it is challenged within the context of U2's traditionally positive social-consciousness. They have always been a band spreading the rhetoric of change, but here they undercut the message, implying that the potential for change is undercut by rampant consumerism. We are, it seems, mortgaging much more than our financial futures. As noted, the song began with "EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG"; fittingly enough, as the final chord fades into the crowd's frenzied cheering, the monitors resolve into "WATCH MORE TV."

We might read this performance as a subtle, yet pointed indictment of a culture hijacked by television and its attendant consumerism. The shallowness of the culture is certainly evident in every facet of the presentation, and Bono's televangelist and Macphisto (devil figure)indulge in a decadent wallow which, at the very minimum, paints an unseemly picture. Macphisto's appearance, ninety minutes in to the show, signals the coming-out of the self-indulgent parody. Gold-suited, gold glittered platform shoes, washed out pale makeup and bright red horns - "Look what you've done to me," he tells the crowd. "You've made me very famous, and I thank you." He then announces that his time among the audience is almost over (we're into the encore at this point) but he is leaving a legacy in his wake. "I leave behind video cameras for each of you."

"'The Fly' on the Stage: Readings and Misreadings of the 'New' U2"
A Paper Presented to the Music Area ofThe Popular Culture Association

April 13, 1995
Samuel R. Smith, Center for Mass Media Research, University of Colorado

Link

"makeup so thick it resembles a death mask"

As you might guess, I am not a huge fan of Pat Boone's music, nor was I a member of The Moral Majority.
 
But this bold column  that Cal Thomas (former head of Falwell's Moral Majority) wrote in defense of Pat Boone's  brilliant (temporary, 1997) "heavy metal" era is priceless.

Pat Boone had some fun tweaking his squeaky clean and Christian image, and recorded an album of metal songs (accompanied by folks like Dio and Blackmore).  And  even (jn a MacPhisto-like move) appeared alongside Alice Cooper (also a deep Christian, in case you didn't know) in leather biker gear
at the American Music Awards.

Video here:


Watch the video, and (other than the typical dumb scripts at award ceremonies), and decide if you would agree with TBN..

Who, a result, cancelled his "Christian" show. 

Cal Thomas responded:

Man is not supposed to live by bread alone, but in the matter of the cancellation of singer Pat Boone's cable TV program, "Gospel America," it would appear that for some TV evangelists, man does live by bread quite a bit.

The owner-hosts of the Trinity Broadcasting Network dropped Boone's show when viewer-contributors threatened not to send more money because Boone wore a homogenized "heavy metal" outfit to promote his cleaned-up album...

Which is the more offensive image:  Pat Boone in a modified heavy metal outfit, or some overweight religous TV hosts who sit on overstuffed couches,with makeup so thick it resembles a death mask, and tacky sets that mimic the interior of Graceland?  Boone demonstrated uncommon Christian charity in his response to the show's cancellation.  He said he judged the harder rockers without even listening to their music or trying to understand them as human beings with value.
-Cal Thomas, complete column here, it's a must read

...and all this was before the scandal broke..

Bono goes over my head...this time literally

image credit

I had my wife's camera for the first time at the U2 concert in Oakland, so I didn't have the night shot settings right...which means the members of U2 glow in most of my videos (that will preach!)..

Having said that...

Here at the bottom of page is my  Oakland "Miss Sarejevo" clip... a profound song about  moving ahead with something as earthly and "unspiritual" as  a beauty pageant even in the midst of war and violence.  Official music video helps context:


A few things hit me after Oakland:

1)Lyric change to "is there a time for synagogue?"....Bono loves Jewish imagery more than we might realize...
2)On that note, I noted for the first time that the repeated lyric references to "is there a time for..."
connects well to open of the repeated lines of the concert's narrative arc/liturgy/leitourgia: "What time is it in the world?" (commentary on that here and  here and here)
3)Bono...after singing  the bridge of the song (the Pavorotti section), rides the literal bridge he was on, right over me.  Bono loves to connect with fans, but often with his more prophetic stage acts (from MacPhisto to the more subtle ones) and theological references, he goes way over the fans heads...like he literally did mine  in the video here. (:



 ss
--

Documentary, "Missing Sarajevo":

"No Line"/"And There Was Light"

It should go without saying that listening to U2's "No Line" CD and reading NT Wright's "Surprised by Hope" is quite the Dovetail experience.
One is soundtrack to the other.

That's likely old hat and no news to anyone hanging out here.




But it can't go without saying that soaking up the U2 record in holy random tandem with
"And There Was Light," Lusseyman's luminous journal of sudden blindness at age eight, and Buchenwald Concentration Camp ten years later..

is amazing.

Lusseyrman on getting accustomed to blindness:

"Every Sunday, an old beggar used to play three tunes on his accordion in the courtyard of our apartment house...(this) created a thousand dimensions in space...
With sound, I never came to an end, for this was another kind of infinity."
-Lusseyrman, "And There Was Light".p.25, emphasis mone


"We are people borne of sound/The songs are in our eyes"-U2, "Breathe"

"We are people borne of sound/The songs are in our eyes"
-U2, "Breathe"


"Infinity's a great place to start"
-U2, "No Line on the Horizon"

---------------
Lusseyrman:

"We suddenly heard a military band drawn up on either side of a monumental entrance. The music it made sounded like dance tunes. The inscription over the gate read KONZENTRATIONSLAGER BUCHENWALD.

I passed through this gateway going in the opposite direction fifteen months later, on April 18, 1945. But here I come to a halt. I can't say how, but it is no longer I who am conducting my life.
It is God, and I haven't always understood how he went about it...

...There is no truth about the inhuman, any more than there is truth about death; at any rate not on our side, among us mortal men. Such truth could only exist for our Lord Jesus Christ, absorbed and preserved by him in the name of his Father and ours."
-p.272

As to the U2 connection here?

"At the moment of surrender..of vision over visibility...I folded to my knees...I've been in every black hole..I did not notice the passersby...Counting down till the pain would stop, anybody?

Let's paraphrase MacPhisto for the new millenium:
"Goodbye all you neo Nazi skinheads, I hope they give you a moment of surrender."

honestly..i only watch ZooTV, Colbert & SpongeBob

see also:

• "Salvation on the Small Screen"

• 2 pix of me watching TV..for those convinced i never do

• Does MacPhisto have a prayer?

two embarrassing book purchases that help my quixotic quest for reduction of seduction and the strangulation of triangulation..and keep from building a stage and props

I pray some and try hard not to be an idiot..
..or the seducer  (see this, this and this) that the pastor/teacher role and expectation  can inevitable invoke/evoke.

So once again I found myself buying a book at the thrift store (the price is right, and it's a place where O have learned big lessons about how and how not to pastor..that sordid story here), buying a book I wouldn't buy at full price; one with  a title or cover I'm a bit embarrassed by..

This time it was  "The Art of Seduction"...which I bought to help me in my reduction of seduction.
Very Screwtape-ian..and MacPhisto-esque of me, eh?

(There are no pictures in the book, and it is SFW..unless you are a pastor!)


Oh, one of the  others in the stack I was concerned the clerk might misundertand also.





It was  "No One Left to Lie to: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton,"
making the case for Clinton's impeachment.
What I didn't want the clerk to think it that I was some  conservative who automatically hates liberals.  What I love about the book it makes an articulate and compelling case; argues not so much from sex but violence (violence to cover up sex)..and it is written by a liberal (Oh, there's  one more good book on Clinton by a liberal..a Jew who had voted for him, but wouldn't again).





The author makes the case that Clinton was a master at "staging" things  (p. 101); even using his daughter as a "prop" (78)...and these were seductions  and "detractions" of the public to cover up his private seductions.

I try to be so careful and prayerful that I don't stage things, or use things/people as props.  But that's what we pastors do by default (Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain..)

See these links on "stage":

• "It takes more than a stage to create a community:The Problem with Pastors as Rock Stars-

• as the EBay Atheist wondered, what's a stage doing in a church, anyway?

• "a hall with a stage and a place where I could sit and be lectured on the subject."

And on "props," Vincent J., Vera has already said it...sung it (embedded below).I don't know if VV ever saw the double meaning of "taking the props" home, but if you think of "props" in the vernacular sense of "Kudos"  "appreciation" and "proper respect"  those too are items that pastors take home at their own risk...

..and self-seduction.

simulacra-kklesia (part 5/cinco): todo es duende y spiritual

I don't know why I like reading Watchman Nee in Spanish.

Maybe because it's knowing the work was translated from Chinese into English and then into Spanish made the product either:

-a copy of a copy of a copy at least three generations removed from the original...thus having lost much in translation

or

-by some Spiritaneous serendipity saved from "lost in translation" or simulacra, and in a sense "even better than the real thing,"

I am not the scholar to judge, but intuitively, it feels like it reads the writer's heart.

So i picked up Pascal's Pensees in Spanish. At our gathering Sunday, it was there on the coffee table as the rabbi dude and I were talking. I opened the book to a random "pensee," (#648) and read:

"Dos errores: 1. Tomar todas cosas literalmente. 2.Tomar todas cosas spiritualmente."

Translation:

"Two errors: 1. To take everything literally. 2. To take everything spiritually."

Of course, this was originally written in French, so we face a similar third gen factor.
But I bet the translation worked. Spanish is closer to French than my ruddy English, anyway.

Tweaking the language a bit, but hopefully meaning the same thing:


Either we believe

it's all spiritual

or we believe

everything is spiritual.

The second is life; the first death.

"It's all spiritual" is the old/new docetic/gnostic heresy. Can't go there, matter matters.
"God likes matter, " C.S. Lewis said, "he made it."

"Everything is spiritual" is good theology (See the Rob Bell videos by this title here. It's good TV, if not quite Zoo TV)and duels dualism.


I would venture that music is the primary means of
overcoming simulacratic (and socratic) nature of our times and church.
Only then will we hear and feel the need to pray God yanks us out of our commercialism and complacency.

But not just any music.

Musical metaphor that is:

1. lament (see Well-Ended Stories That Don't End Well)

2. honest
3. spiritual

as opposed the the normative and formative repertoire of church as usual:

1. happy-clappy (hear Bono speak to this is a delightful and devastating audio quote here:
   and then dare to pray Jesus' gut-wreneching prayer here: ""The Lord Be With You...Even When He’s Not")
   
   

2. untruthful (see CCM makes you lie)
3. religious (Our only real enemy, the one who came to "steal, kill and destroy" in the context of John 10:10 is not the devil...he is nowhere mentioned in that section, no matter what we preachers have told you...but the religious person/false teacher.)

All three need to be refused and defused. Maybe we can get started by reading (singing along to in full MacPhisto drag):

• Honest Liars and King's X,
  

• i preach=lie for a living

• Not (Just) About Dogs...and hangovers

Back to the top:

Maybe the Spanish language/culture is the key anyway. A careful reading of this post on

• "Es una mentira como una catedral."

might suggest that a Spanish mindset inherently "gets" that religion lies;
and that holy simulacra can lead us to the One who leads us into all truth.

The well known playful pun on the word 'papa':

--"pope" and/or "potato"--

may be telling that Sapir and Whorf were right.

One more helpful Spanish connection

At their worst, U2 comes off with bombastic pretension. At their best, they achieve what very few artists in any genre can: they create work with a sustained intensity that transforms the particular into the universal. U2 has that rare ability to communicate what the late Spanish writer, Frederico Garcia Lorca called 'duende'; that "mysterious power which everyone senses and no philosopher explains" (In Search of Duende, 1998, New Directions.)

"I have heard an old master guitarist say: 'Duende is not in the throat; duende surges up from the soles of the feet.' Which means it is not a matter of ability, but of real live form; of blood; of ancient culture; of creative action."

Searching for the duende in the music of U2 may seem like the ultimate form of sycophancy or pretension, but as Miles Davis once so elegantly riffed, so what? No other band from the past two decades has so consistently given listeners reason to believe in the transcendental power of rock 'n' roll. U2 has the primacy of duende's "creative action" to thank for it.

..Lorca believed duende recreated familiar forms:

"The duende's arrival always means a radical change in forms. It brings to old
Planes unknown feelings of freshness, with the quality of something newly created, like a miracle, and it produces an almost religious enthusiasm."

...Few other bands come close to these dizzy heights. "Sometimes" is pure duende.

Lorca also stated "with duende it is easier to love and understand, and one can be sure of being loved and understood." U2 acknowledges that "tonight", as in other moments, weakness may overcome strength, but that's OK- everyone has those moments. It's in this realization that "Sometimes" crosses from the particular to the universal, cutting deep into the heart's core to pull out an emotional response that has nothing to do with Bono's father, but everything to do with our shared vulnerability as fragile living beings.

Music of this caliber and class feels as primal as shelter and food. U2 is keeping duende alive in their sound. All we can do is listen. by David Kootnikoff ,
link

Twice the writer observed U2's movement from particular into universal, as characteristic of duende. You may remember that Wathrall noted this same progression (and its opposite) about the band and found it characteristic of post-simulacra elevation.
Maybe they're the same thing:

It's very tempting to understand U2's exemplary postmodern song (on which, in good postmodern fashion, I shall isolate and focus on here), "Even Better Than the Real Thing," as a celebration of the very postmodern condition Baudillard characterizes as the triumph of the simulacra.....but heard in this communal register, the erotic meaning of the lyric, "I'm gonna make you sing" has when...addressed to a particular lover becomes transformed, elevated into a celebration of communal singing as an ecstatic experience that transcends even the feeling of real love between individuals (This universalization of love-by which U2 seeks to transmute the entire audience into a belived--works, as Plato decribes in The Symposium by generalizing from the particular; it is thus striking that Bono sometimes performs the same gesture in reverse; by bringing a particular audience member on the stage to sing to her personally, as a particularization of the general audience he seeks to reach through her. With the very idea of an esctatic experience transcending personal love, we tread, I would suggest, into the territory of the holy.....Christianity itself was born out of such a fundamental attunement of universal love....without imposing borders. (91-93)

So more on that in parte siete of this series manana..

Oye, there may be uno, dos, tres, catorce parts to this after all.







*

*


*



*

Peter Gabriel: "Come Talk To Me"

A classic God-haunted Peter Gabriel song and performance.
This song, on this tour, always brings up U2 connections for me:

-A la U2: phone connections...
MacPhisto's phone calls; the more recent "Honey, I'm home!" calls..

-A la U2's "Achtung Baby," much of the content of this album is tied to the failed relationship of a prominent band member..

-A la U2:Most songs that seem to be about relationships with girls are ultimately/also/inevitably about relationship with God; and rabbinically elevating one relationship toward the other
(Note : "Come on, come talk to me" becomes "Come down, come talk to me.." etc)

-A la U2 (2009-10): in the round...

-A la U2: Prophetic props and theatrics..

Plus, check out the the drums at the 5 minute mark:



see:

Girls or God