Monthly Archives: May 2025

LITERATURE, Republic of Letters

Futility and Meaning in Willa Cather’s “O Pioneers!”

Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
– Ecclesiastes 1:1-3

Imagine being a woman on the threshold of adulthood – ready to set out and make a life for yourself. For a woman in late nineteenth century Nebraska, that likely means marrying and settling down on your own farm. But then your father’s dying wish is that you carry on his life’s fruitless endeavors. He unshackles the albatross from his neck and chains it to yours, since your brothers have no imagination and your mother wishes she had never left her home country. And you have a young brother you must now essentially raise as your own child. A burden far too much for a 20-year-old woman to bear.

Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! masterfully portrays the ruggedness of a harsh landscape as it was broken and transformed by the blood, sweat, tears, and lives of European immigrants who moved to America in search of something better than they had. Cather’s depiction of their lives suggests they didn’t find it, but maybe they made a better life for their grandchildren, although the emergence of the Dust Bowl a few decades after this book ends suggests they didn’t. In fact, their very efforts to remake the landscape likely caused the ecological disaster that ensued, which then spurred a new emigration, this time to California. In the end, their efforts to remake the land were futile. Their life’s work literally blown away on the wind.

O Pioneers! is generally thought of as an homage to the strength of the American prairie and the strength of the people who supposedly conquered it. At face value, that is true. At the time of publication (1913), the widespread drought to hit the American prairie region was still decades away. It is also often held up as a pillar of feminist triumph, with a strong female lead who is fiercely independent in her efforts to tame the land. That is a superficial and ultimately inaccurate reading, since Alexandra Bergson ultimately realizes her life’s meaning cannot be found in toiling over the land or crunching numbers in an account book.

Cather’s greatest strength in this novel is her ability to say so much with so few words. This brevity reflects the openness of her prairie home. She’ll often use brief phrases in the voices of her characters to make brief but deep statements, often in the mouth of Carl Linstrum, Alexandra love interest. Carl is the one who leaves the Divide as a teenager once his family decides to give up and return to St. Louis. Carl spends his life drifting, working as an engraver and dabbling in art. As an aside, that gave me a chuckle as my Swedish great-grandfather Oscar Engstrom worked as an engraver, and I grew up surrounded by his framed watercolors. Though he died before my grandparents even met, he has cast a long shadow over me, inspiring my own interest in watercolor.

Perhaps Cather is reflecting herself in Carl’s character as someone who left Nebraska yet found herself haunted by it, as evidenced in her work. One of Carl’s more poignant quotes is telling:

Freedom so often means that one isn’t needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing. When one of us dies, they scarcely know where to bury him. Our landlady and our delicatessen man are our mourners, and we leave nothing behind us but a frock-coat and a fiddle, or an easel, or a typewriter, or whatever tool we got our living by.

All we have ever managed to do is pay our rent, the exorbitant rent that one has to pay for a few square feet of space near the heart of things. We have no house, no place, no people of our own. We live in the streets, in the parks, in the theaters. We sit in restaurants and concert halls and look about at the hundreds of our own kind and shudder.”

– O Pioneers! – Part II, Chapter IV

Today we might leave behind a smartphone, a video game console, and a pantry full of mass-manufactured chemicals masquerading as food. Apart from that, little has changed. We live lives of brutal obscurity. At best we might wave at our neighbors while taking the dog out, but deep down we know we won’t be missed when we move from one apartment to another or one job to another. We are cogs in a machine. Rolling stones that gather no moss. Carl (and Cather) comment on the same obscurity and brutality of life that Steven Wilson brilliantly analyzed in his album Hand. Cannot. Erase. just over 100 years after Cather wrote O Pioneers! Nothing is new under the sun.

Cather had the opportunity to experience both the ruggedness of the open land and the suffocating closeness of the city. She writes as someone who knows the futility of city life firsthand. And yet she never moved back to Nebraska, despite multiple novels ostensibly romanticizing rugged prairie life.

Or is she really romanticizing it? She did leave, after all, something her main character wanted so strongly for her little brother, Emil. Having not grown up in the Great Plains, I can’t exactly relate to Cather’s nostalgia. (I grew up in northern Illinois, though, and I will likely always have a soft spot in my heart for the flat fields of corn speckled with farms and distant treelines.) Yet after reading O Pioneers! I am left with a torn sentiment of the landscape so masterfully described, conquered, and lived in. It seemed to keep its more thoughtful inhabitants enthralled. They both hated and loved it. Both Alexandra and her father seemed to love it passionately, yet it is clear Alexandra is yoked to it.

As the book rolls through Alexandra’s life, the reader begins to wonder what she has to show for it? Yes, she has tamed the land, and she has even shown herself to be shrewd with business. She saw the potential her father saw in the land that others missed and even abandoned in hard times, buying their plots on credit and paying off the debt once the land soared in value. But beyond the land and some employees, what does she have? Two brothers who can’t stand her and another brother who doesn’t fit with the landscape, much like her lost, found, lost, and found again lover, Carl. She has no family of her own, no meaningful life beyond the day-to-day existence. It’s as if she, like her deceased father lying in his grave, is being swallowed up by the land while still alive. What is the point of her life? To continue fighting the land and the stubborn people who inhabit it?

Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

– Kansas (Kerry Livgren) – “Dust in the Wind”

Every time Carl walks back into Alexandra’s life, a subtle sense of regret pops up, as if she knows life has more to it than what she has created. She wishes she could go with him wherever he might go, live how he lives, be with the only man who ever seemed to understand her. From the get-go in this story, he’s the only other character besides Emil who seems to have a strong sense of empathy (he rescues little Emil’s kitten from a telegraph pole on a blustery winter day). And yet his sensitivity is what makes those around Alexandra dislike him. Her brothers call her foolish for considering marriage at the age of forty.

Sadly it takes extreme tragedy for Alexandra to finally break free from the yoke her father placed on her and make her own choice. Or more accurately, it was an outside force that broke the yoke – the murder of Emil and Marie. Once this yoke is gone, then Carl is willing both to return and to stay, something he never seemed able to do before. While the story ends on the rosier implication that Alexandra has finally found peace with her lover returning to the Divide, she actually finds that peace a couple chapters earlier. The death of Emil rocks her world unlike anything else she has experienced. Her emotional breakdown culminates in her being caught out in an evening storm in the graveyard at the graves of her father and brother. Her friends find her and bring her home and put her to bed. As she nods off, she revisits a dream she has had repeatedly since her youth, yet this time the dream is fulfilled:

As she lay with her eyes closed, she had again, more vividly than for many years, the old illusion of her girlhood, of being lifted and carried away by some one very strong. He was with her a long while this time, and carried her very far, and in his arms she felt free from pain. When he laid her down on her bed again, she opened her eyes, and, for the first time in her life, she saw him, saw him clearly, though the room was dark, and his face was covered. He was standing in the doorway of her room. His white cloak was thrown over his face, and his head was bent a little forward. His shoulders seemed as strong as the foundations of the world. His right arm, bared from the elbow, was dark and gleaming, like bronze, and she knew at once that it was the arm of the mightiest of all lovers. She knew at last for whom it was she had waited, and where he would carry her. That, she told herself, was very well. Then she went to sleep.

O Pioneers! – Part V, Chapter I

This passage is the most important in the book, yet it is very easy to miss or dismiss: a dream following an exhausting physical and emotional experience. Yet Cather writes that this has been a recurring dream for Alexandra, one that only now in the midst of tragedy is made clear. Alexandra finds her peace, meaning, and purpose in the true source of peace, meaning, and purpose – Jesus Christ.

Why, might you ask, do I conclude that Cather is referring to Jesus in this passage? Let’s look at the description of Jesus in His glory as seen in the book of Revelation:

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

– Revelation 1:12-16 (ESV)

Cather’s description of this “mightiest of all lovers” mirrors the description of Christ from Revelation. The description of his skin as a bronze color is a direct reference, and I think that is the clear giveaway. Everyone else in this story is almost assuredly of extremely fair skin. The major characters are either Scandinavian or Bohemian, not races known for dark complexions. In Cather’s description, this individual is shown with a white cloak that “was thrown over his face.” The description of Jesus in Revelation explains why his face might need to be covered in this interaction with Alexandra: eyes like a flame of fire and a face shining like the sun in full strength. Not exactly something which someone experiencing traumatic emotions would want to be confronted.1

With this encounter with Jesus, Alexandra is changed. Following this she travels to the prison in Lincoln to visit her brother and friend’s killer and offer him forgiveness. The grip the land has over her is loosened, allowing her finally to open her heart to Carl Linstrum and embrace the beauty, meaning, and purpose God gives us with love and marriage. Her breakdown in the cemetery and encounter with God in a dream shows her that what really matters is far more than what we build and grow with our hands and sweat. The people we love and the connections we make is what matters. How we treat others, how we care for those who need it, how we treat the world around us: those are things that matter. No matter what we build, it won’t ultimately give us the satisfaction we seek, no matter where we live or what we do. Carl Linstrum was right: “there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years” (Part II, Chapter IV). Or as Solomon put it, “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

  1. I came to this conclusion before consulting any secondary readings on O Pioneers! Some literary scholars (but not all) disagree with what I believe is an obvious interpretation of this passage. Many critics identify the person Alexandra sees in her dream as Death, going so far as to say that she had a death wish. David Stouck says as much, using rather bizarre language to describe the transformation Alexandra undergoes after the dream: “The final possibility of a marriage between Carl and Alexandra is perhaps sheer wish-fulfillment on the author’s part (that desire to be united with the eternal mother), but it is always held in perspective by the repeated account of Alexandra’s dream wherein only the mightiest of all lovers can carry her off, that lover being identified towards the end of the novel as none less than Death” (Stouck, 30). This is a remarkably inaccurate reading of this passage, especially considering how Alexandra’s behavior changes in the aftermath. Maire Mullins points out that it is following this dream that Alexandra goes to visit Frank Shabata in prison to offer him forgiveness for killing Emil and Marie. Mullins rightly recognizes the Christlike imagery in this dream. Mullins interprets the earlier dreams as Alexandra wrestling with her suppressed erotic desires. She argues that Alexandra spends the majority “of her life sublimating the erotic power that lies within her,” focusing on her farm instead. When she had these dreams Alexandra would try and block them out by taking a vigorous bath, even literally pouring cold water over herself in an effort to scrub out any hint of sexuality. Mullins accurately acknowledges the presence of Christ in the ultimate satisfying dream that Alexandra has, but she oddly claims the dream merges Christianity with Native American myths, a theme she tries to draw from other parts of the text. I believe this is reading something into the passage that simply is not there. Further, she limits the transformative power of Christ in Alexandra’s life. Mullins concludes that this encounter in the dream allows her to forgive Shabata and finally connect with Carl Linstrum through “the conscious connection to the erotic and spiritual power within.” This is the problem with the overarching feminist theory Mullins applies to her reading from the beginning of her article. It discounts the power of Christ to truly transform a person’s desires, instead limiting it to some vague sense of self-realization where Alexandra accepts her sexuality. In actuality, she finds the peace and meaning she has been searching for all along, finding that it is not in the land or in the sexuality she seeks to repress. It is in Jesus. With that ultimate realization, she is finally able to let Carl into her life since his presence will not impact her value or worth, just like her impact on the land will not impact her value or worth. Those things are inherent through her relationship to God. ↩︎

Works Cited

Mullins, Maire. “Alexandra’s Dreams: ‘The Mightiest of All Lovers’ In Willa Cather’s ‘O Pioneers!'” Great Plains Quarterly 25, no. 3 (2005): 147–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23533606.

Stouck, David. “O Pioneers!: Willa Cather and the Epic Imagination.” Prairie Schooner 46, no. 1 (1972): 23–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40629091.

Republic of Letters

Can a Progger Be Christian?

2 Comments

For what it’s worth, I’ve been traveling since last Wednesday.  I went from Michigan to Colorado, Colorado to Kansas, and now, I’m enroute back to Michigan.  My soundtrack has been prog, prog, and then a bit more prog.

Version 1.0.0

A few days ago, the mighty Tad Wert and I reviewed Steven Wilson’s new album, The Overview.  Though we questioned a few things about Wilson, we loved the album.  During his review, however, Tad brought up the majesty of the universe as described in the Psalms.

Today, this was posted on Facebook: “An interesting review of Steven Wilson’s latest album, which I’ve added here as Andie/The Tangent get name-checked. Quite an enjoyable read, despite the reviewer’s annoying habit of adding somewhat superfluous (and potentially divisive) references to The Goat Herder’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Being in the car for hours on end, I turned this comment over in my mind.  Now, it’s worth noting, our website (the one you’re currently reading) is named after the Catholic patron saint of music, St. Cecilia.  Of the five main editors of Spirit of Cecilia, three are practicing Catholics, one is a Methodist who leans toward Eastern Orthodoxy, and one is a skeptic.  Frankly, I’m amazed at how restrained we are when it comes to the issue of religion.

Still, after reading the Facebook comment today, I had to ask: can a Progger be a Christian?  For some, the immediate answer is to turn to Neal Morse or Glass Hammer.  But, frankly, both artists are so open about their faith that each might appear to be the exception that proves the rule.

So, for the sake of a good argument, I offer all praise to Morse and to Glass Hammer, but I’m going to leave them out of the discussion.

Then, I gave it a bit more thought, and I realized that the Christian religion is deeply embedded in much (certainly not all) of the progressive rock tradition.  So, I chose my songs from several different eras of prog.

Yes, Close to the Edge:

“My eyes convinced, eclipsed with the younger moon attained with love
It changed as almost strained amidst clear manna from above
I crucified my hate and held the word within my hand
There’s you, the time, the logic, or the reasons we don’t understand”

Clearly referencing the Gospel of St. John.

Genesis, Supper’s Ready:

“There’s an angel standing in the sun
And he’s crying with a loud voice
“This is the supper of the mighty one”
Lord of Lords, King of Kings
Has returned to lead his children home
To take them to the new Jerusalem”

Clearly referencing St. John’s Revelation.

Talk Talk, New Grass:

“Lifted up
Reflective in returning love, you sing
Errant days filled me
Fed me illusion’s gate in temperate stream
Welled up within me
A hunger uncurbed by nature’s calling
Seven sacraments to song
Versеd in Christ, should strength desert me
They’ll come, they come”

Again, a clear reference to the New Testament and, specifically, a liturgical understanding of Christianity.

Roine Stolt, Humanizzimo

“With the blood of Jesus on the nail
We turn the balance on a scale
In pain and fearless suffering
Lies a message from the King of Kings”

Again, a clear reference to the passion of Christ.

The Tangent, Le Sacre du Travail:

“And all the blue plaques in all the buildings
Say they’re “Investors in Our Souls”
But I don’t believe them, not ’til I see it
Until I put my finger in the holes“

Yet again, a clear reference to Doubting Thomas.

Big Big Train, The Wide Open Sea:

“Lying ahull
Ride out this storm
Doused all the sails
I let the boat drift

And so upon this tumbling sea
Fathoms below
Heavens above me

I’m setting sail for Les Marquises
From cradle bound for Calvary”

I could be wrong, but this very much reminds me of Jesus calming the waters.

Every one of these songs requires some biblical literacy.  Were Yes, Genesis, Talk Talk, Roine Stolt, Andy Tillison, and Big Big Train divisive?  Without a doubt. Was Tad being divisive? I certainly doubt that was his intention.

So, back to the main question. Can a progger be a Christian?  It seems so.

Art, Faith, LITERATURE

Andrew Klavan’s The Kingdom of Cain: Beauty from Darkness

Andrew Klavan is one of the most intelligent and thought-provoking cultural critics working today. It doesn’t hurt that he’s also an excellent mystery writer. His Cameron Winter series of novels has given me hours of great enjoyment, and he’s just getting started with it.

Besides mysteries, Klavan also writes nonfiction, including the bestselling The Truth and Beauty, where he discusses how nineteenth century romantic poetry reflects eternal Truths. His latest book, The Kingdom of Cain, is subtitled Finding God in the Literature of Darkness, and he isn’t kidding when he says Literature of Darkness! He focuses on three horrific and infamous crimes, and then he describes how each one led to extraordinarily beautiful and inspirational works of art. So how can the terrible crime of murder lead to great art? As he puts it in the Introduction,

The opposite of murder is creation – creation, which is the telos of love. And because art, true art, is an act of creation, it always transforms its subject into itself, even if the subject is murder. An act of darkness is not the same thing as a work of art about an act of darkness. The murders in Shakespeare’s Macbeth are horrific, but they are a beautiful part of the play. (p. 17)

To continue reading, click here.

Music

A Review of The Overview of Steven Wilson

Steven Wilson has released a new album, The Overview. Always surprising, rarely disappointing, Wilson is one of our favorite artists. Producer, songwriter, guitarist, singer, and remixer of countless classic albums, he truly is a man who can do it all. Brad Birzer and Tad Wert share thoughts on his latest opus.

Tad: Brad, you and I both have had a love/hate relationship with Steven Wilson. His almost obsessive focus on dark themes bothered me years back, but I couldn’t help but be seduced by his songwriting. The man writes and performs some of the most beautiful melodies ever recorded. His past few albums have been very good, in my opinion, albeit each very different. I’m interested in your thoughts on his latest, The Overview.

Brad: Thanks so much, Tad.  Glad to be reviewing with you!

I know I’ve had the chance to tell this story before, but I first encountered Steven Wilson through Porcupine Tree.  My wife and (then) two kids were shopping in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and a local alternative station was playing “Trains” from In Absentia.  This would’ve been the fall of 2002.  I immediately went to a local CD store and bought not only In Absentia but also Up the Down Stair.  One of my excellent students, Chase, found out about my new-found Porcupine Tree obsession and gifted me with the PT compilation boxset, Stars Die: The Delirium Years.  It was one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever received, and I was smitten.

From there, I dove into everything I could find related to Wilson and Porcupine Tree.  So, I’ve been a fan for twenty–three years now, and I’m amazed how much of my CD collection revolves around Wilson.  Whether it’s Porcupine Tree, No-Man, Blackfield, Storm Corrosion, Bass Communion, IEM, solo material, or one of the billion albums Wilson has remastered, my home is a repository and archive!  I also have several books on Porcupine Tree, Wilson’s deluxe autobiography, and a huge number of deluxe editions of the album releases.

You’re right, though, I do have a love/hate relationship with Wilson.  Let me note: I admire the man deeply.  But, a few things he’s said and done drive me a bit crazy.  It’s really hard to be his fan as he constantly wants to distance himself from us.  Even when we follow him album to album, genre to genre, he has to make skeptical comments about us, implying that we demand too much of him and hold him back musically.  And, from any objective standard–whether it’s Grace for Drowning or The Future Bites–the man just exudes progressive rock.  He’s always exploring, always changing, but he has tried to distance himself from the label.  I don’t get it, and I find his attitude incredibly frustrating.  Maybe he simply has a really restrictive view of progressive rock.  To me, progressive means exploration.

I also thought that as much as I loved The Raven Who Refused to Sing, the album seemed very much a remake of a Tangent album without acknowledging or giving Andy Tillison all due credit.

As far as I know, Tad, these are my only complaints.  And, given how much joy Wilson’s music has brought to me, they’re incredibly minor complaints.  Of all my loves re: the present scene of music, Steven Wilson is certainly at the top–along with Big Big Train, IZZ, The Tangent, Glass Hammer, and a few others.  I would especially rank Hand.Cannot.Erase as an all-time top five album for me.


And, I’ve not even gotten to The Overview yet. . .  Tad, what are your thoughts on what you like and dislike about Wilson?

Tad: Well, Brad, my experience was much the same as yours. I saw that Alex LIfeson played on Fear of a Blank Planet, so I got it cheap from BMG Music Club (remember those?), and I was hooked. I grabbed everything I could find that Wilson was involved with. I loved Porcupine Tree and Blackfield; NoMan not so much (at least until they put out Schoolyard Ghosts).

As I said earlier, I wish he would lighten up a little in the lyrics department. Life isn’t all bad! I guess that he finds depressing subjects more inspiring. On the plus side, I think he is an excellent guitarist and singer. His production work is unparalleled; I don’t think anything he’s produced will ever sound dated – it’s all timeless and of incredibly high quality.

Okay, let’s talk about the subject at hand: his new album, The Overview. It’s two long tracks, one more than 23 minutes long and one more than 18 minutes. You can’t get more proggy than that, can you? I think he wants the listener to hear this as an album, and not a playlist of tracks. Given this is the age of Spotify, that is pretty countercultural! 

On first impression, I think the section entitled “Objects: Meanwhile” is one favorite. It has a nice piano motif that builds throughout. The lyrics, well, they’re pretty depressing:

The tiniest lives fill their hives up with worry
To make it to church, well, she needs to hurry
When late she will bow down contrite
While a meteor trunks out the light

And there in an ordinary street
A car isn’t where it would normally be
The driver in tears, ‘bout his payment in arrears
Stll, nobody hears when a sun disappears
In a galaxy afar

That seems to be the overarching theme of this album – how insignificant humans and their concerns are, compared to the vastness of the universe. Wilson makes this explicit in the section “Perspective”, where a woman narrates ever-increasing numbers on a literal astronomical scale.

“A Beautiful Infinity/Borrowed Atoms/A Beautiful Infinity II” is the best section of the album, with its Floydian slide guitar and seductive melody. I love it. However, “A Beautiful Infinity II” continues the general theme of nihilism and hopelessness:

There’s no reason for any of thi
Just a beautiful infinity
No design and no one at the wheel
Just an existential mystery

I swear, if I ever got the chance to meet Mr. Wilson, I think I would share with him Psalm 19, which begins, 

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

That said, this section is some of my favorite Steven Wilson music ever. I have listened to this album from start to finish many times now, and this is the part I enjoy the most.

I suppose Wilson is saying that in an honest overview of the cosmos, humanity isn’t really worth much. In that regard, he echoes the psalmist who asks, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” Brad, I promise I didn’t begin this review planning to quote psalms, but they seem kind of appropriate, given the majesty of this album’s music!

Brad: Tad!  I love it.  The Psalms, BMG Music Club, nihilism.  Yes, I don’t disagree as I think the lyrics are depressing as well.  That’s par for the course with Wilson, though.  From what I can tell–in interviews and through his autobiography–he’s actually a really kind, upbeat person, but his art is always dark.  It’s dark, often, in terms of chord structures, and it’s dark in terms of his lyrics, and it’s generally dark in terms of the art that accompanies his album releases.

I suppose it’s one reason I love HAND.CANNOT.ERASE so much.  It’s dark, but it’s also deeply redemptive.  There’s a very healthy humanism at the heart of that story.

Despite the darkness of the lyrics on The Overview, I am pretty taken with them.  As probably you and most readers know, Andy Partridge of XTC wrote a chunk of the lyrics on the first track.  As such, they’re clever as all get out, while also being cynical.  Frankly, though, I like the perspective Partridge and Wilson offer–that as we go about our lives, making minute decision after minute decision, the universe in its incomprehensible majesty goes about its business as well.

I especially like these lyrics on the second track:

Snow is falling but it can’t be seen from here

And back on Earth, my loving wife’s been dead for years

I see myself in relation to it all

What seemed important now like dust inside the squall

Each moment for me is a lifetime for you

For whatever reason, they resonate with me.  It’s not that his wife’s death is any less tragic, it’s just that it’s placed against the backdrop of what seems infinite.  If anything, I actually found this a hopeful lyric.  After all, the man’s love for his wife continues, despite her absence.

I also really like Wilson’s musical approach to the whole album.  The way that he places various parts of the song together reminds me very much of Paul McCartney’s side two of Abbey Road.  Wilson, interestingly enough, has stated that while he admires the Beatles for what they accomplished, they were never an influence on him.  Still, it seems that in the construction of The Overview, they were, at least to a certain extent, an inspiration.

I did think that Rotem’s spoken word parts on the second track would wear on me, but, even after innumerable listens, I’m fine with it.

So, being a true Wilsonite, I bought the deluxe edition of The Overview.  It comes with a booklet as well as a blu-ray.  As I listen to the album, I generally listen to the blu-ray–which seems to bring the best out of the two tracks.  I hear things with the blu-ray that I don’t with just the CD release.

So, Tad, I’m loving the album.  It came out. . . what. . . six weeks ago?  And, I’m now on six weeks of immersing myself in it.  I find each listen a joy, and I keep discovering new things in it.  It’s a treasure.  Again, I would still rank Wilson’s Hand.Cannot.Erase as his best album and I would rank The Future Bites as my least favorite of his albums.  In the big scheme of things (ha–see what I did there!), The Overview sits comfortably close to Hand.Cannot.Erase.

Tad: Ah, Brad, this is why I enjoy these joint reviews with you – you provide proper perspective and rein in my first-take reactions to lyrics! I love your willingness to find hope in Wilson’s words, and now that you’ve pointed it out I can see it as well. I’d rather someone be hopeful than despairing, so I feel better about his emotional health. 

If I had to rank Wilson’s albums, I think I would put his first, Insurgentes at the top, but it depends on the mood I’m in. The Raven That Refused to Sing is awfully good, and To The Bone is a wonderful take on 80s pop/rock. I do agree that The Overview  is one of his best, and I have really enjoyed listening to it the past few weeks.

So, readers, it looks like The Overview gets two solid thumbs up from Spirit of Cecilia! Check it out on your favorite music streaming service, or better yet, buy a physical copy and keep Mr. Wilson in business. Thanks for stopping by!

Music

Airbag’s The Century of the Self: Literate Rock for Freedom Lovers

Greetings, Spirit of Cecilia readers! Brad Birzer and Tad Wert have been impressed with the music of Norway’s Airbag. They combine excellent, Pink Floyd-adjacent melodies with thought-provoking lyrics. In the summer of 2024, they released their sixth studio album, The Century of the Self, which was one of the best albums of that year. Brad and Tad finally get around to discussing its merits – better late than never!

Tad: Brad, I absolutely adored Airbag’s previous album,  A Day at the Beach, and the lead-off track, Machines and Men, is one of the best songs they’ve ever done. Now that they’ve followed up that triumph with The Century of the Self, what strikes you right off the bat with that album?

Brad: Thanks so much, Tad.  It’s great–as always–to be reviewing with you.  Yes, I very much love and admire Airbag, and I have from their beginning, whether on Kscope (briefly) or Karisma.  They confirm what I’ve thought for ages, that is, a prog band is only as good as its bassist.  Great guitarist, too.  Great drummer as well.  Love the keyboards, too.  So, win-win-win-win.  What a great band.  An amazing band.  I had to throw “amazing” into the mix, as I’ve typed “great” one too many times!

Granted, they wear their Pink Floyd love on their sleeves, but, frankly, I think that makes them even better.  Very glad to have some Floydian music still being produced.  And, yet, whatever the Floyd influence, it serves as an inspiration for the band.  They’re not enslaved to it, but inspired by it.  Strangely and perhaps paradoxically, the Floydian influence makes Airbag even more unique.

I didn’t realize they were already on their sixth album.  Given their sheer output, as well as the solo output of Bjorn Riis, I find the music even more astounding.

So, what strikes me right off the bat?  An excellent question, Tad.  After having listened to the album a half a dozen times, I’m struck by two things.  The bass and the lyrics.  Both, extremely courageous.  How about you?

Tad: Brad, you and I agree that a good bassist is essential to a prog band. I think of what Yes might be without Chris Squire, and it would never have been as groundbreaking and influential as it ended up. Or how about Steve Babb’s work with Glass Hammer? He is the key to that group’s greatness.

Along the same lines, Anders Hovdan does a terrific job anchoring Airbag’s music. A lot of their songs take time to fully develop, and Hovdan’s insistent bass lines provide interest for the listener. I love the way the entire group take their time building up a song. They often start out quietly, and they inexorably build in energy and sound until there is a most satisfying release. Their melodies are not overly complex or complicated, but I would certainly classify them as “progressive rock.

That said, I think Bjorn Riis (guitars and vocals) seems to be the main driver of Airbag. His songs always intrigue me. I’ve told you before that I have to like a song’s melody before I worry about the lyrics, but when I first heard the opening track on The Century of Self, I was immediately struck by the lyrics. They’re brief enough to share in their entirety:

Did you come here to find some peace and hide?
Too much confusion in your head at times
Don’t want to bend, conform, you’ll never obey
Don’t want no part of this conspiracy

I see these people keeping their heads down
Denying everything they used to be
Don’t try to touch, don’t ever get too close
They’ll make you suffer and they’ll make you bleed

Who do you feel you are today?
Who will you crucify and slay?
It’s driving me insane

Did you believe they’d ever let you go?
There is no escape, there is no turning back
You’re canceled now, they’ll cancel everything
They’ll make us suffer and they’ll make us bleed

Who do you feel you are today?
Who will you crucify and slay?
It’s driving me insane

source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/airbag/dysphoria

Brad, it seems to me this is a protest against the illiberalism of contemporary “cancel culture”, and that is a brave stand to take these days! So, I went back and looked through some of their previous songs, and there is definitely a consistent streak of individualism and a plea for personal freedom running through them. I think they are today’s version of a countercultural music group, and I admire them for that. I am really interested in your thoughts on their lyrics, since you are able to uncover deeper meaning from them than I usually do!

Brad: Yes, I totally agree, Tad.  There’s something quite special in Airbag’s lyrics that call out for us to be more individual than we’re comfortably being in the current morass of society.  I think Airbag is definitely protesting against the loss of free speech and free ideas that seems to have spread throughout Europe and the western world (America is not excluded).  I suppose part of this is my age, but it’s hard not to look back at the 1980s and especially 1989 as a golden era in western civilization.  Not only were we growing economically, but free societies were trouncing unfree societies.  Despotisms and authoritarianism and totalitarianism were on the run.  A pope and a president were beating the life out of them.  Now, we sit in silence as our “betters” tell us what to do and what not to do.  I wouldn’t have necessarily have expected protest to arise from Norway, but amen.  

Those lyrics are worth repeating, Tad:

Did you believe they’d ever let you go?
There is no escape, there is no turning back
You’re canceled now, they’ll cancel everything
They’ll make us suffer and they’ll make us bleed

And, then, of course, we’re not guiltless:  

Who do you feel you are today?
Who will you crucify and slay?
It’s driving me insane.

Track two, “Tyrants and Kings” continues the libertarian themes:

Join the cause
Say no to everything we fear
Get used to lying
You’re a prisoner now
Take no stand
There are no sides there’s only ours
You shoot to kill
You’re a soldier now

The “get used to lying” line brings to mind Solzhenitsyn’s note that all totalitarianism is built on lies.  The huge lie of the society and all the little lies that one must employ to survive.

Looking through the lyrics of the remaining three songs, they too speak to the loss of individual dignity.

So, bravo, Airbag!  Keep fighting the good fight.  And, thanks, too, for the killer bass lines.

Tad: Brad, thank you for highlighting the lyrics to “Tyrants and Kings”! Yes, Airbag is a band that appeals to me both in musical terms and lyrical ones. That is quite rare these days. And, like you, I’m impressed these Norwegians are reminding the rest of us what is truly important. 

So, gentle reader, if you are interested in excellent progressive rock with a Floydian flavor, and highly literate lyrics, do yourself a favor and check out Airbag’s latest album, The Century of the Self. You won’t be disappointed!

Faith, LITERATURE, Philosophy

Ross Douthat’s Believe: Apologetics for a Skeptical Age

Ross Douthat is a New York Times columnist who opines regularly on issues of morality, faith, and culture. His latest book, Believe, is an interesting entry in the crowded catalog of Christian apologetics. 

Douthat chooses to devote most of his book to making the case for a higher reality than the one we can measure scientifically. As he puts it in the introduction,

Whatever mysteries and riddles inhere in our existence, ordinary reason plus a little curiosity should make us well aware of the likelihood that this life isn’t all there is, that mind and spirit are just an illusion woven by our cells and atoms, that some kind of supernatural power shaped and still influences out lives and universe. (p. 7)

Believe is not a long book – eight chapters, 206 pages – but it is packed with weighty argument and evidence for a “supernatural” reality. The chapter titles outline his thesis:

  1. The Fashioned Universe
  2. The Mind and the Cosmos
  3. The Myth of Disenchantment
  4. The Case for Commitment
  5. Big Faiths and Big Divisions
  6. Three Stumbling Blocks
  7. The End of Exploring
  8. A Case Study: Why I Am a Christian

What is welcoming about Douthat’s approach is his invitation to simply accept the evidence around you and acknowledge that some sort of creative intelligence is the likeliest explanation for our universe. He doesn’t even get into why he believes Christianity fits the bill until the final chapter. As a matter of fact, he posits that belief in any of the major religions – Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam – can lead a person to ultimate truth better than nonbelief:

Your choice might be the wrong one ultimately but the right one for you in that moment, or the wrong one but with enough that’s right in it to make an important difference in your life. And if, in the end, your initial conversion doesn’t convert you the the true faith, the religion you enter will have hopefully acquired enough truth and wisdom in its long development to make a ladder upward, from the mire of meaninglessness and the snares of indecision toward whatever the full plan of your life is meant to be. (p. 149)

In The Mind and the Cosmos chapter, Douthat points out that 

It isn’t merely that the universe appears improbably fine-tuned to enable our existence. It’s that our own consciousness seems improbably capable when it comes to discovering that fine-tuning, like a key fitted to a lock. (p. 61)

In other words, it’s a miracle that the universe is habitable for us and we are able to discern that habitability. 

From that basic argument, Douthat builds his case, eventually addressing three “stumbling blocks” that prevent people from believing in God: 

  1. Why Does God Allow So Many Wicked Things to Happen?
  2. Why Do Religious Institutions Do So Many Wicked Things?
  3. Why Are Traditional Religions So Hung Up on Sex?

His answers to these questions are thoughtful, comprehensive, and convincing. 

It isn’t until the last chapter that Douthat makes the case for Christianity as the best explanation for reality and how we should live. As he acknowledges, he’s a Christian because that was the dominant religion of the culture in which he was raised. At no point in the book does Douthat promote Christianity at the expense of the other major religions (although he is careful to warn the reader against getting involved in cults or Satanism!). This fair-minded approach is very effective, in my opinion, making his points hard to refute. 

Believe is the latest in a long line of Christian apologetics (the first of which is probably Augustine’s Confessions, but I’m not sure), but it is somewhat unusual in its acceptance of other ways of reaching the truth. Douthat is primarily concerned with winning people over to a belief in a Creator God who cares about his creation. Once one has made the commitment to that belief, Douthat is confident that a sincere seeker will eventually be rewarded with a greater understanding of how we should order our lives, and, as a result, live much more fulfilling lives.

Republic of Letters

It’s 5/4: Dave Brubeck Day!

It’s 5/4–Dave Brubeck Day!

https://bradleyjbirzer.substack.com/p/54-happy-dave-brubeck-day

The Unessential Brubeck

A review of Philip Clark, Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time (New York: DaCapo Press, 2020). Xvii + 403 pp of text + discography, bibliography, and index.

I do not remember a time in my life when Dave Brubeck’s music did not provide the soundtrack. Indeed, his music is inextricably tied up to and with my own life. Some of my earliest memories come from staring at Brubeck’s album covers—Time Out and Time Further Out by S. Neil Fujita and Joan Miro, respectively—and trying to make sense of the abstractions. And, as family lore goes, even as a kid I loved dancing to music such as “Take Five,” even waking up the entire household in the middle of the night by blaring the stereo system at full volume. As was the case with probably many of us of my generation, Time Out was one of my father’s favorite albums and Brubeck one of his favorite musicians, rivaled only by Herb Alpert. To this day, I have stacks and stacks of Brubeck CDs and boxsets, and his music plays throughout the house and the office. Maybe not daily, but certainly weekly. When my older brother, Todd, and I get together, we still talk Brubeck. Even now, as I pour through various prog and jazz albums, I’m always on the lookout for Brubeck’s influences.  

As a case in point, Pat Metheny’s latest, From This Place—arguably this jazz master’s best—reflects widely and deeply the compositional structure of Brubeck’s best album, 1964’s Time Changes. The resemblance is simply too obvious to ignore. Even the theme is critical. Brubeck’s album was inspired by a short story involving two cellmates and a crust of bread. The religious essence of the album is blatant, with Brubeck trying to find that which ties all humans together, regardless of ethnicity or race. It is, for all intents and purposes, a meditation on human decency and divine agency. Metheny’s latest calls us to be the best we can expect of ourselves as Americans.

In 2012, when Brubeck died around Christmas time of that year, I vowed that I would one day write a biography of him.  Despite preliminary research and reading, I’ve really not dived into this project, but Brubeck remains a profound part of my life, nonetheless. 

Two stories from Brubeck’s own life mean everything to me.

First, at Ronald Reagan’s last summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, held in Moscow in 1988, the Reagan administration insisted that Dave Brubeck represent America as her greatest cultural achievement. Brubeck’s producer, Russell Gloyd, recognized this grand achievement for what it was. “You have to put this in perspective,” he argued. “There was Perestroika, the whole awakening of the Soviet Union, the whole concept of what was taking place at that time in world history. This was the first time there was hope of a real chance for an understanding between the East and the West,” he continued. “For Dave to be the representative artist meant everything to everyone who was close to us.”

The atmosphere was tense.  Reagan was exhausted from his trip, Gorbachev’s security was worried about assassination plots, and it was a ridiculously hot and humid day in Moscow. “I walked in thinking that this was the hardest room Dave had ever had to work in his life,” claims Gloyd. After a number of lackluster diplomatic niceties in the stuffy room, Brubeck walked up to the piano, sat down, and started playing “Take the ‘A’ Train.” “It brought down the house,” Gloyd reports. “People were up and cheering. I’ll never forget Bob Dole—he looked like a little kid. He had his one good hand raised above his head like he was at a football game. He’d turn around, and there was a Soviet general, loaded with medals, doing the same thing! They looked at each other like, ‘You like Brubeck? I like Brubeck! We like Brubeck.” It was, Gloyd notes, “the greatest single twenty-minute set in his life.” The Cold War became much less frigid that day.

Second, though he came from a Presbyterian family, Brubeck converted to Roman Catholicism as an adult. “I never had belonged to any church. I was never baptized before,” Brubeck remembered. “I was the only son in the family who wasn’t baptized a Presbyterian. It was just an oversight.” To be certain, religious music—from the African-American community as well as from the white/European community—had always intrigued and influenced him. He wrote liturgical-jazz pieces about Easter, Christmas, and Martin Luther King. 

Though he had written a number of specifically religious themed albums and pieces, however, his greatest expression of his Christianity came when Our Sunday Visitor (headquartered in Huntington, Indiana) commissioned Brubeck to write a Mass.  He, in very Brubeck fashion, entitled it, To Hope! A Celebration, and performed it—with Gloyd conducting—at Washington National Cathedral. The premier music review website, Allmusic, writes of it: This stunning work incorporates jazz interludes into the hypnotic Responsorial “The Peace of Jerusalem” and “Alleluia,” a particularly challenging section for the choir. The vocal soloists are impressive; tenor Mark Bleeke’s feature “While He Was At Supper” is especially moving. The overall effect of this beautiful work is absolutely stunning; it resists being labeled in any one category, it is simply great music.” Fundamentally optimistic about the human experience, Brubeck had said in a commencement address in 1982: “What is really important in the community, in the worst of times, is often music. It’s the cement for the community that holds it together, and the thing that gives it hope.”

Sadly, neither of these stories can be found in Philip Clark’s just published “biography,” Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time (New York: DaCapo Press, 2020).  Though the cover proclaims this to be “the definitive investigative biography of jazz legend Dave Brubeck,” there is not a single mention of Brubeck’s 1988 trip to Moscow or his conversion to Catholicism. Just how definitive is this biography by Clark? Bizarrely, Brubeck is not even born until page 302.

When I first learned of the existence of this book—on February 19—I purchased it at a Books-a-Million within a few hours of the news. Rather than wait for the cheaper Amazon.com version, I had to have the book immediately. I was thrilled it existed, and I dove right into it. Alas, rarely have I been so disappointed by a book.

When it comes to writing—on a sentence by sentence basis—Clark is outstanding.  According to the dust jacket, he has written for a vast number of music periodicals as well as for the London Guardian and the London Times. There’s no doubting his grammar or style. But when it comes to composing a book of this length, he is. . . to be polite. . . lacking.  It turns out that Clark knew Brubeck relatively well and had interviewed him a number of times in the last twenty years of his life. Though we learn nothing of Brubeck’s Catholicism or his trip to Moscow—both so essential to his life—we do get editorial comments such as

“As the bus breaks for the London border, with the motorway to Brighton stretching ahead, [bassist] Moore falls into earnest conversation with Iola Brubeck. Heads nod remorsefully, then Moore’s grotesque caricature of President George W. Bush’s nervy Texas drawl hits a manic crescendo reminiscent of an operatic made scene.”

Or, this tidbit: 

“As I wrote all these years later, that Brubeck’s accounts of his country’s gravest shame should have such damning relevance to Trump’s America felt unbearably poignant and tragic—time overlaps, but it is also cyclic.”

I am certainly no fan—in any way, shape, or form—of Presidents Bush or Trump, but I very much fail to understand why these things matter in a biography of Dave Brubeck, who was so much better and worthy of so much more than what Clark presents in this book.

Clark is at his best in the book when not writing the biographical parts.  Indeed, Clark excels at explaining Brubeck’s techniques, his influences, and his influence. During parts of the book—especially Clark’s section on Brubeck’s influence on rock and progressive rock—I was riveted.  Clark is also good when it comes to Brubeck’s defying the horrific racialist laws, habits, and customs of much of 1950s and 60s America. Brubeck was not only an optimist in his view of humanity, he was deeply humane in his understanding of the dignity of the human person. He never backed down from what he believed correct, and his actions on race relations are nothing short of heroic in his own lifetime.

If you’re looking for a fan-boy appreciation of Brubeck’s talents and his understandings of race relations, Dave Brubeck: A Life in Time, is a fine outing.  If, however, you’re looking for the “definitive, investigative biography of jazz legend Dave Brubeck” run as far away from this book as possible. One of the greatest talents to come out of 20th-century America, Brubeck deserves so much better.

Until someone actually does the critically hard work of looking closely at Brubeck’s life through his music as well as through his letters and papers and getting into the very bright and endlessly creative soul of Brubeck, no definitive biography yet exists.  The best book on Brubeck remains Fred M. Hall, It’s About Time: The Dave Brubeck Story (Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1996). It’s an excellent book, and the stories above come from Hall’s work.

Or, just listen to Brubeck’s music. He poured himself into his art—into every note.

Music

In Concert: A Great Orchestra, A Hot Conductor, A Thrilling Night

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Friday, May 2, 2025.

It had been more than 15 years since I had heard the Chicago Symphony Orchestra live – and nearly 25 since I had heard them on their home ground, Orchestra Hall in Symphony Center. So last year, when the CSO announced that young conducting phenomenon Klaus Mäkelä (referenced in my highlights of 2024 post) had accepted the post of Music Director Designate, I decided that a renewed acquaintance with one of the USA’s top orchestras was long overdue.

Orchestra Hall, dating all the way back to 1904, is a unique venue in and of itself: its wide but thin stage and steeply raked balconies make for a intimate (if not always comfortable) concert experience. Renovations in the 1990s added gallery seats above and behind the stage, as well as a suspended shell to soften and deepen a challenging acoustic. So it wasn’t hard to imagine the musicians feeling like they were in a fishbowl as they clambered atop multilevel risers in front of a full house.

But beyond the typical pre-concert buzz, there was a question in the air. By and large, Mäkelä has made his reputation in post-Romantic and 20th-century music — well-regarded recordings of Sibelius and Stravinsky, Chicago guest shots focused on big pieces by Shostakovich and Mahler. Would his take on the core classical repertoire — works the CSO has performed since its start in the 1890s, conducted by everyone from founding conductor Theodore Thomas to previous Music Director Riccardo Muti — measure up?

That question was answered in a flash, as Mäkelä and CSO Artist in Residence Daniil Trifonov whipped up a fresh, appealing reading of Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2. None of the overbearing, ponderous sludge that unimaginative historians accuse Brahms of here! Trifonov’s playing was always flowing, supple and strong, with no hints of pounding or cloudy tone; CSO principals Mark Almond (horn) and John Sharp (cello) made the most of their lyrical solo moments with warm tone and deep expressiveness; and the orchestra sounded lithe and limber in the extended opening, energetically playful in Brahms’ scherzo, chastely gorgeous in a delectable Andante, and delightfully bouncy in the closing Allegretto. All the while, Mäkelä was sculpting the overall sound, focusing balances, dynamics and timing for maximum emotional impact. The scattered spontaneous applause after every movement (the grinning conductor and pianist had to restrain themselves before pouncing on the finale) was proof that the music hit home, even before the final ovation and the outsized reaction to Trifonov’s encore (a Chopin prelude lasting less than a minute).

After intermission came a centennial tribute to the CSO’s late Principal Guest Conductor Pierre Boulez (who conducted the orchestra the last time I’d heard them — a dark, lush program of Ravel and Bartok in Ann Arbor, back in 2010). Well executed by brass septet and precisely conducted by Mäkelä, Boulez’s Initiale lived up to its billing — a tart, postmodern appetizer announcing itself pointedly, quickly tying itself into contrapuntal knots, then breaking loose for a final flourish. Complete with a tuba mute (which always makes me smile)!

But it was the last work on the program, Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, that really showed what Mäkelä and the CSO can accomplish together. The orchestra’s tone was at its richest, its dynamic range wider and its rhythmic flow freer than in the Brahms. Mäkelä threw himself into the piece with greater animation and more sweeping body language — but also with a greater willingness to let the players take the reins, dropping his beat to focus on accents and phrasing for surprisingly long stretches. The powerful resonance of Dvořák’s opening themes and their punchy development, the breadth of feeling in his Andante, the infectious swing of the Scherzo’s cross-rhythms, and the hard-won, dramatic climax — they were all there in vibrant technicolor, fully formed, overflowing with life and vigor. You could tell that Mäkelä dug leading the CSO, and they obviously dug playing with him. And the audience absolutely loved it, leaping to its feet as Makela acknowledged the symphony’s featured musicians, brought the orchestra up for their bow — and modestly pointed to Dvořák’s score as the applause continued.

When he becomes the CSO’s Music Director in the fall of 2027 (while at the same time taking over Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Orchestra), Klaus Mäkelä will be 31. Based on last Friday night’s concert, he’s got an amazing head start — both on a lifetime of personal musical growth, and building a potentially astounding rapport with one of the top orchestras in the world. Believe me, I’ll be back to Chicago much sooner next time!

— Rick Krueger