Mend My Rhyme, Ten Years Later

It’s surreal to think that it has already been ten years since I released Mend My Rhyme: The George Herbert Project, on April 4, 2015. In this short, seven-track album, I took eight poems by the Anglican devotional poet George Herbert (1593-1633) and set them to music, singing five of them, reading two of them, and—yes—making an attempt at rapping one them. I listened to the album again this week and was pleased to find I’m still happy with it.

The Inspiration for the Album

I had been introduced to George Herbert’s poetry in my British Literature class during my senior year of high school. Three years later, during my sophomore year of college, three things converged in Spring 2014 to give me the idea for making a tribute album. First, I had been listening to Heath McNease’s album The Weight of Glory (2012) and its “hip hop remix” The Weight of Glory: Second Edition (2013); in both versions of the album, each song is inspired by a different work by C. S. Lewis. Second, I was memorizing Herbert’s “The Pulley” to recite it, and writing an essay to analyze it, for an English composition class. Third, I had been working on an instrumental track in Apple GarageBand, just for fun. When it somehow occurred to me to wonder if “The Pulley” could be read over that instrumental, and it worked, I realized I could do a project in the style of McNease’s Lewis tribute, only this time almost all the words (I invented a chorus for “Paradise”) would be the author’s own.

Incidentally, the initial reason I became interested in Herbert’s poetry in high school was because of what Lewis had said about him. In the memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis writes that, while he was still an unbeliever, he found that Herbert “seemed to me to excel all the authors I had ever read in conveying the very quality of life as we actually live it from moment to moment; but the wretched fellow, instead of doing it all directly, insisted on mediating it through what I would still have called ‘the Christian mythology’. … The only non-Christians who seemed to me really to know anything were the Romantics; and a good many of them were dangerously tinged with something like religion, even at times with Christianity. The upshot of it all could nearly be expressed [as] … Christians are wrong, but all the rest are bores” (HarperOne, 2017, pp. 261–262).

The Structure of the Album

I realized that the poems I had selected from Herbert’s book The Temple generally fell into two broad thematic categories: poems about restlessness apart from God, and poems about finding rest in God. This “rest”/“restlessness” contrast is explicit in the first track, “The Pulley.” From there I discovered I could order the tracks in a fittingly poetic fashion. I hadn’t yet discovered and become obsessed with chiastic structure—but of course the structure would turn out to be very close to chiastic.

• Track 1, “The Pulley,” is about restlessness, and the poem is read (A1).

• Track 2, “Paradise,” is about rest, and the poem is sung (B).

• Track 3, “Vanity II,” is about restlessness, and the poem is sung (C).

• In track 4, “Love I and II,” “Love I” is about restlessness, and is rapped, whereas “Love II” is about rest, and is sung (D).

• Track 5, “Denial,” is about restlessness, and the poem is sung (C).

• Track 6, “Love III,” is about rest, and the poem is sung (B).

• Track 7, “The Dedication,” is about rest, and the poem is read (A2).   

The Artwork of the Album

I had a lot of fun working with my friend David Rhee to create the cover and liner notes booklet for the album. Because I took centuries-old poems, which Herbert would have written by hand, and turned them into very modern songs, which I produced using only digital instruments, we wanted the artwork to reflect that convergence of old and new, organic and artificial. David also wanted me to have a hand—literally—in the production of the artwork. For the cover, David put a parchment-like texture, covered with the words of the poem “Denial,” in the background, and put my handmade trace of Herbert’s portrait, enmeshed with two intersecting red bars (suggesting a cross and modern art), in the foreground. Inside the booklet, each track was given its own page. For tracks 2 through 6, we found stock images online that fit with the themes or imagery of each poem, and I traced them by hand just as I did the Herbert portrait. For track 1, “The Pulley,” we couldn’t find a good image of a pulley lowering a bucket, so I drew that from scratch. For track 7, “The Dedication,” David took a photo of my own outstretched hands for me to trace.

What I Would Do Differently

Herbert scholars and lovers of classic poetry generally may be horrified by what I’ve done with these poems, but I was relieved, on revisiting the album this week, that at least I didn’t do as much violence to the construction of the poems as I might have. My one regret in terms of respecting the source material is that the way I interpreted “Love I” and “Love II” ignores Herbert’s punctuation and line breaks. I had an underdeveloped understanding of the craft of poetry at the time of composing the tracks, but the semester I was finishing up the album I wrote another essay on Herbert, this time on “Easter Wings,” which helped me appreciate how Herbert uses line lengths and enjambment. If I had composed “Love I and II” even a few months later, I might have tried to pause a musical phrase only where there was a comma, period, or line break in the poem, so that the shape of the songs would always match the shape of the poems.   

The other things I would differently would be to not experiment so much with the stereo mix, and to not record the vocals for all the songs in a single half-day session. Granted, I was renting a recording booth and I had one chance to get it all right, but that wasn’t a good choice for my voice.

The Jedi Archives: The First Eight Posts

I’m having a lot of fun contributing to Tim Lawrence’s Jedi Archives project. Here are links to my first eight posts:

Pieces of Junk: Escapes from desert planets in the first film of each trilogy.

So Uncivilized!: Escapes from desert planets in the third film of each trilogy.

Dangerous Idealists: Similarities and differences between Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and Count Dooku.

Doing Her Duty: Parallels between Episodes II and VIII.

Bombs Away!: The significance of the Resistance bombers in Episode VIII.

Jabba the Hutt: An Oligarchic Soul: Jabba the Hutt matches Plato’s profile of the oligarch.

The Empire Strikes Back Against a New Hope: Episodes IV and V form a chiasm.

The Force Awakens from the Revenge of the Sith: Episodes III and VII also form a chiasm.

Welch Writes a Paragraph: A Rhetorical Analysis

I love this paragraph that begins Chapter 7 in Edward T. Welch’s thoughtful, practical, encouraging book on ordinary Christians counseling one another, called Side by Side (Crossway, 2015). Welch writes: 

“I had been keeping my recent fears to myself. My wife knew, and she was helpful, but a good rule of thumb is that when you are stuck in hardships or sins, you keep enlarging the circle of those who know until you are no longer stuck. I think this is a good rule, but I had decided I could get through it on my own” (p. 67).

It may not seem like much—it’s nothing flashy—but this is a great piece of writing. I say this because of its elegant simplicity and because of how the form matches and serves the content. 

This is a book about Christian counseling, written by a Christian counselor to be read by Christians giving and receiving counsel. So it’s appropriate that, throughout the book, Welch shows a gift for writing in a way that approximates the way I imagine he would talk in a counseling session or with friends. Reading the book, I can imagine Welch talking to me and one or two other listeners in a comfortable, non-threatening living room or office. His writing style conveys a feel for the kind of atmosphere that would support the personal, sensitive conversations Welch wants Christians to be able to have with one another. 

Because he is writing to an audience of ordinary Christians who may not have formal theological training—precisely to convince them that they don’t need that advanced training to be competent to counsel one another well—he uses uncomplicated syntax and simple words. There are only three sentences in this chapter-starting paragraph. The first one is short and to the point; it brings us right into the heart of Welch’s story. Though the second one is a long one with several clauses, it isn’t jumbled at all; it has a progression that is easy to follow. The third sentence is of medium length compared to the other two, and it closes the thought opened by the first sentence. If William Zinsser, the author of the classic book On Writing Well, had read this paragraph, I think he would have commended it for its sturdy sentences and lack of clutter. Zinsser might also have pointed out that this is a paragraph made up almost entirely of one- and two-syllable words. The only three-syllable words are ‘enlarging’ and ‘decided.’ If Welch had used larger, more technical words or a roundabout syntax, it would have undercut his purpose of communicating the accessibility of counseling for all believers. 

The simplicity is also important because in this passage Welch is demonstrating some vulnerability. He is sharing about his own weakness. When we confess to something, we can’t dress it up in niceties. We have to be direct and plainspoken, and Welch models that here.

Finally, I notice his use of repetition. ‘Good rule’ appears twice. ‘Stuck’ appears twice. “Knew” is echoed by “know,” and “get through it on my own” is a restatement of “keeping … to myself.” This is another feature that reinforces the conversational immediacy of the text. In conversations or speeches, repetition is needed for underlining main points more than it is in writing.

Being me, I also notice this repetition creates a pattern that is suspiciously chiastic: 

• I had been keeping my recent fears to myself [A’: the problem of self-reliance]

• My wife knew, … but a good rule of thumb is that when you are stuck [B’: ‘knew,’ ‘good rule,’ ‘stuck’]

• in hardships or sins, you keep enlarging the circle [X: the solution at the crux of the matter—puns intended]

• of those who know until you are no longer stuck. I think this is a good rule, [B”: ‘know,’ ‘stuck,’ ’good rule’]

• but I had decided I could get through it on my own. [A”: the problem of self-reliance]

Probably the chiasmus was unintended, but isn’t it interesting that he uses the word “circle” at the very point that the paragraph turns around to come full circle itself? But a chiasmus doesn’t have to be deliberate for it to exist. This is a form that is embedded in our patterns of thinking and speaking. Again, this paragraph is so effective because it seems so ordinary. But this is extra-ordinary craft in writing. But this level of intentional craft can be learned through observation, imitation, and practice, just like Christian counseling.

The Good King by Ghost Ship

One of the good things to come out of Mars Hill Church was that it gave birth to a number of Christian bands that, even after Mars Hill’s collapse, continued to produce music that is both theologically rich and stylistically eclectic. My favorite Mars Hill Bands are Citizens, Kings Kaleidoscope, and The Sing Team, but I also really like Ghost Ship’s debut album, The Good King (2013). One of the things I like about the album is its thematic unity. True to its title, every song is about Christ the Good King and His character and deeds. Even the songs not explicitly on this theme fit within this framework. The songs on the album are also, I am convinced, arranged as a chiasmus.

Tracks with asterisks after them (3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) refer to Christ’s kingship, but the central track of the album, the turning point of the chiasmus, is entirely dedicated to enumerating His kingly attributes.

Tracks 1 and 11: “Mediator” and “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”

Christ the Good King is the intercessor through whom we are reconciled to God and through whom we pray to God.

Tracks 2 and 10: “Orion” and “Where Were You”

Both songs are based on Job 38. Christ the Good King is sovereign over all creation, yet also shows intimate concern for us.

Tracks 3* and 9: “Lion Man” and “Behold the Lamb of God”

Christ the Good King is both conquering lion and sacrificial lamb.

Tracks 4* and 8*: “Jude Doxology” and “The Gospel”

Christ the Good King is our savior, redeeming us from slavery to sin and death.

Tracks 5* and 7*: “Son of David” and “Holy, Holy, Holy”

Christ the Good King removes spiritual blindness so that we can see Him as He is. (In this rendition of “Holy, Holy, Holy,” a Trinitarian hymn, the last line is changed to place emphasis on God the Son as “King of kings.”) 

Track 6*: “The Truth”

“The Truth” at the heart of the album, thematically and numerically, is Christ the Good King. This King is “mighty,” “loving,” “sovereign,” and “faithful.”

Love and Death in Pirates of the Caribbean

In my post yesterday, I sketched out a proposed chiastic structure for Dead Man’s Chest, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with what I identified as the turning point:

Scene X: The Kraken attacks ship #2; Elizabeth’s dress is blamed for the attack but it’s Will’s fault

The turning point should be a thematically significant moment if it is to be at the heart of a true ring composition. I didn’t think this one scene could carry that much weight. It’s a major action set-piece, but doesn’t have much going for it narratively. Later in the day I talked with Tim Lawrence about it, and he helped me identify that the turning point should actually be two scenes: this one, and the scene preceding it. So here’s a revised theory of the turning point:

Scene X’: Norrington learns how he can get a pardon from Becket; Elizabeth, using Jack’s compass, realizes she has an attraction for Jack

Scene X”: The Kraken attacks ship #2; Elizabeth’s dress is blamed for the attack but it’s Will’s fault

Adding Scene X’ fits with the patterns I’ve already traced. It brings in another key Norrington moment to complement Scenes B’ (arrest warrant) and B” (pardon); it sets up Jack and Elizabeth’s flirtation in Scene G” (which deepens Jack’s betrayal of Will in Scene G’); and it is also relevant to the ring because it involves Jack’s compass, complementing Scenes D’ (compass confused) and D” (compass clear).

But why does the turning point need to include both X’ and X”? It’s because X’ complements A’, and X” complements A”:

Scene A’: A wedding without a groom (teacups filled with rain)

Scene A”: A wake without a body (mugs filled with grog)

The film opens with Will and Elizabeth’s wedding being cancelled because Becket arrests them for treason. Then, in Scene X’, we realize that Jack is another threat to Will and Elizabeth’s ability to marry. Immediately following this, Scene X” gives a preview of how the Kraken will finally destroy the Black Pearl and consume Jack. Then, the final scene of the film shows the survivors grieving that event, a fate they fought throughout the film to avoid. So Scenes X’ and X” really are the twinned turning point scenes of the film because they are also twinned with the film’s bookends.

More than that, this ring composition makes sense for the film—it’s not something I’m imposing on the film arbitrarily—because the whole story, at heart, is about characters who try to avoid marriage, death, or both. The beginning, middle, and end points of the ring only reinforce this. 

The film begins with a wedding without a groom. Something comes in between a man and his commitment to a woman, and all that this commitment would entail: fidelity, stability, fatherhood. In Will’s case, the hindrance was unwanted. But Davy Jones cut his own heart out so he could forsake his beloved, and although Bootstrap Bill stuck around long enough to father Will, he did not stay behind to raise him. Jones and Bootstrap chose the supposed freedom represented by the sea and by piracy over the responsibility of the hearth. In the turning point of the film, Elizabeth realizes she is likewise tempted to bail on her own wedding. For a moment, the desire to be with a pirate (and thus become a pirate herself) is more compelling.

The film ends with a funeral without a body. Yet just as no one can really miss their own wedding, no one can really miss their own funeral. In the film, people keep trying to forestall the inevitable, with disastrous results. Dying sailors sign on to join Davy Jones’ crew so they can delay Judgment Day by one hundred years—and proceed to experience one hundred years of hell on earth. Jack keeps scheming after ways to not have to die in exchange for the extra thirteen years Jones gave him—and how many sailors have to die for his folly before he finally runs out of schemes? The turning point scene in which Will watches the Kraken take down a merchant ship gives Will ideas for how to stop the Kraken from taking down the Black Pearl, but those strategies can only buy Jack a little more time. The Kraken that swallowed Jack’s hat is like the crocodile that swallowed Captain Hook’s clock: a living reminder of the shortness of time and the certainty of death.

But how do these two themes—marriage and death—relate? What’s the connection between the wedding and the funeral, and between Elizabeth’s choice between two men and Jack’s looming appointment with the Kraken? Here’s my theory: marriage is one way of dying to self to serve the good of another, and thus avoid a different and far worse kind of death. Jones, Bootstrap, and Jack each refuse sacrificial love so they can live to serve themselves, and the end result for each of them is death, not just physical but spiritual. A man could skip his wedding, but if that is a harbinger of a life-long pattern of living for himself, the result won’t be a funeral without a body, but a funeral without mourners, and worse, an eternity alone. 

Fortunately for Jack, in the eleventh hour he realizes he cannot abandon his friends and crew, and he willingly risks his own life to save them. This doesn’t keep the Kraken at bay, but it does mean Jack is mourned as “a good man.” In contrast, the heart of Davy Jones locked away in a chest—a refusal of death by love—reminds me of this passage from C. S. Lewis’s The Four Loves (HarperOne, 2017): 

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and you heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell” (155-156, italics added).

The choice facing all these characters is the same one facing all of us: Death being inevitable, when and how do we want to die? We can either submit ourselves to small daily deaths now, or we can die eternally later.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Ring

I rewatched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest a few days ago, and that prompted me to dust off and post this theory of mine that the film has a chiastic, circular pattern. It makes sense for the film to have a ring structure, given that the fate Jack Sparrow is avoiding from the start eventually (inevitably?) comes to pass, and given that there are two different times that characters get stuck moving in circles (literally). I’ll admit, however, that a weakness of this theory is that the turning point in a ring structure should be the story’s most important scene. At least in the way I’ve organized things below, I’m not convinced that X marks the spot.

Scene A’: A wedding without a groom (teacups filled with rain)

Scene B’: Becket issues an arrest warrant for Norrington

Scene C’: Jack uses the death of a prisoner to cover his escape; Jack emerges from a coffin (a mock resurrection)

Scene D’: Jack gets the black spot; Jack loses his hat; Jack’s compass is confused

Scene E’: The Kraken attacks ship #1; Jack’s hat is blamed for the attack but it’s Jack’s fault

Scene F’:  Jack goes to an island to escape the Kraken; Jack is almost sacrificed; Will is trapped in a sphere

Scene G’: Jack betrays Will, who asked him for help to save Elizabeth; The black spot disappears (a three-day reprieve begins) 

Scene H’: Will is imprisoned on the Dutchman; Bootstrap Bill whips Will

Scene X (turning point?): The Kraken attacks ship #2; Elizabeth’s dress is blamed for the attack but it’s Will’s fault

Scene H”: Will hides aboard the Dutchman; Bootstrap Bill is imprisoned for helping Will

Scene G”: Jack tempts Elizabeth, who asked him for help to save Will; The black spot reemerges (the three-day reprieve ends) 

Scene F”: Jack goes to an island to control the Kraken; Jack falls into an open grave; Will is trapped in a wheel

Scene E”: The Kraken attacks ship #3; Everyone knows it’s Jack’s fault

Scene D”: Jack’s compass is clear; Jack gets his hat back; Jack meets the fate promised by the black spot 

Scene C”: Jack is swallowed by the Kraken (a death—for now); Elizabeth uses Jack’s death to cover the crew’s escape

Scene B”: Norrington obtains Becket’s pardon

Scene A”: A wake without a body (mugs filled with grog)

P.S. September 8: See my follow-up post here.

The Empire Strikes (the Story) Back(wards)

Read from top to bottom, this is the plot of The Empire Strikes Back. But if you read it in reverse, it’s the plot of A New Hope. 

• Han and Luke are given distinguished roles in the Rebellion.

• Han tries to leave because of Jabba but stays to save Luke.

• The Empire attacks the Rebel base.

• The heroes flee the Empire in the Millennium Falcon.

• There is a duel with Vader. The person who wins also loses.

• The heroes escape the collapsing cave of a ravenous worm.

• The heroes hide in/with the Empire’s trash.

• The Millennium Falcon is drawn by necessity toward a hostile planet.

• During a training exercise, Luke is taught not to trust what he sees.

• A spy leads the Empire to the heroes.

• A bounty hunter endeavors to collect Jabba’s price on Han’s head.

• There is a debate, between a scoundrel and a Force-sensitive, over the terms of an agreement.

• Someone loses a limb.

• Luke learns of a connection between his father and Darth Vader.

• Luke is rescued while at least partially unconscious.

• R2-D2 insists on having knowledge that C-3PO dismisses.

• Leia dispatches an envoy from her frigate.

The Empire strikes back by reversing the gains of the Rebellion.