clive "staples" lewis: the untold story

One is appalled at the dearth of attention afforded Clive Staples Lewis's seminal role in the popularization of gospel music. Even in musicological circles, little mention is made of "Grandpops" Staples, clear proof that even in the latter half of the 20th century the colour of a man's skin was still reason enough to have him and an essential aspect of his life's work excised from at least two sets of history books.  (C.S. can be clearly heard on this early Staples recording of Uncloudy Day, singing low harmony and playing tremelo guitar.) 

not pictured: Clive Staples Lewis

One's mind boggles at the fact that so-called Lewis "scholars" still subscribe to the "Jack is dead" theory, conflating the November 22nd death of John F. Kennedy and the release of the Beatles' second record with Clive's decision to go on the road with Roebuck, Cleotha, Pervis and Mavis, late in 1963. Coming at the end of a particularly prolific year in the lives of these artists, the tour was in support of the recently recorded albums Swing Low, Hammer and Nails, The 25th Day of December, Letters To Malcolm, and The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, all of which were released on the Riverside label over the course of the following year (1964). Even the most definitive Lewis biographies make no mention of "Jack" scribbling away on his manuscripts for Screwtape Proposes A Toast  or Of Other Worlds (published under the pseudonym "Walter Hooper") backstage between sets at the Apollo, or during sessions at Checker Records.  

not pictured: Clive Staples Lewis

It is no coincidence that Lewis's literary output dwindled once the Staples crossed over into the mainstream with their recordings for Epic and Stax Records in 1967/68: the escalating pressures of television broadcasts and public performances, and the fact that the group was increasing in demand as session musicians with high-profile acts like Booker T & The MG's, The Band, Ike & Tina Turner increasingly eclipsed the low-paid literary efforts of Lewis's youth. 

not pictured: Clive Staples Lewis

His last known studio work was on Mavis Staples' 2010 recording You Are Not Alone, to which Clive contributed celeste, mellotron, organ, piano, tambourine, vibraphone, Wurlitzer organ and background vocals, credited as Patrick Sansone - a clear reference to Elwin Ransom, Lewis's literary alter-ego. Clive "Staples" Lewis was 111.

by Ronald K. Reed, B.A. (General Studies) photo credit: Andrea Loewen

c.s. lewis | serious pleasures

I quite agree with what you say about buying books, and love all the planning and scheming beforehand, and if they come by post, finding the neat little parcel waiting for you on the hall table and rushing upstairs to open it in the privacy of your own room. Some people - my father for instance - laugh at us for being so serious over our pleasures, but I think a thing can't be properly enjoyed unless you take it in earnest, don't you?

C.S. Lewis,
letter to Arthur Greeves,
March 7, 1916

jesse | done with this stuff

anthony f. ingram | instagram photos

evelyn hofer | harlem church, 1964

bible club

June 18 2012, The New Yorker

ron reed + chris kern | reading list

1983/84, CalArts
My buddy Chris Kern and I sat outside a studio one night and concocted. Probably amusing only to CalArts actors of the Libby Appel / Robert Benedetti era, but... For the record.

hafiz | saints bowing in the mountains

Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear.
For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colourful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.
I see saints bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.
Speak to me of your mother,
Your cousins and your friends.
Tell me of squirrels and birds you know.
Awaken your legion of nightingales—
Let them soar wild and free in the sky.
And begin to sing to God.
Let's all begin to sing to God!
Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear,
Yet Hafiz
Could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!

gregory | fans

New Yorker, May 21, 2012

john patrick shanley | storefront church

photos | white rock, closing time

I photographed these three shops with my iPhone,

then came back with my fancy camera a few minutes later.

photos | london drugs pavement

photos | wall, flowers, blue glass

photos | safeway

photo | water street painter

new yorker | god of sport

click to enlarge

The New Yorker

March 26, 2012

January 16, 2012

photos | may 6 | value village

photos | may 5 | bandidas taqueria

harry kessler | like medieval cathedrals

The Russian composer Nicolas Nabokov recalled that Kessler viewed works of art as "living creatures belonging to the same species as himself." He writes wonderfully of the importance of revisiting the deepest works at different stages of one's life, for they will change appearance, "like medieval cathedrals at different times of the day." Make haste when you are young, he advises, or "it is too late, and you have missed the morning light of the masterpieces." Such light floods the journals of Kessler's youth, when he believed that one painting or poem could change the world.


from Diary of an Aesthete, by Alex Ross
The New Yorker, April 23, 2012 portrait by Edward Munch

nelson boschman | gastown

photo by Nelson Boschman

photos | ladder

sherwood anderson letter

Letter to Taylor Critchfield Company, a Chicago-based advertising agency

Chicago
June 25, 1918

Dear Barton:

You have a man in your employ that I have thought for a long time should be fired. I refer to Sherwood Anderson. He is a fellow of a good deal of ability, but for a long time I have been convinced that his heart is not in his work.

There is no question but that this man Anderson has in some ways been an ornament to our organization. His hair, for one thing being long and mussy gives an artistic carelessness to his personal appearance that somewhat impresses such men as Frank Lloyd Wright and Mr. Curtenius of Kalamazoo when they come into the office.

But Anderson is not really productive. As I have said his heart is not in his work. I think he should be fired and if you will not do the job I should like permission to fire him myself. I therefore suggest that Anderson be asked to sever his connections with the Company on August 1st. He is a nice fellow. We will let him down easy but let's can him.

Respectfully submitted,

Sherwood Anderson

adam gopnik | the big reveal

The Bible, as every Sunday-school student learns, has a Hollywood ending. Not a happy ending, certainly, but one where all the dramatic plot points left open earlier, to the whispered uncertainty of the audience (“I don’t get it—when did he say he was coming back?”), are resolved in a rush, and a final, climactic confrontation between the stern-lipped action hero and the really bad guys takes place. That ending—the Book of Revelation—has every element that Michael Bay could want: dragons, seven-headed sea beasts, double-horned land beasts, huge C.G.I.-style battles involving hundreds of thousands of angels and demons, and even, in Jezebel the temptress, a part for Megan Fox. (“And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.”) Although Revelation got into the canonical Bible only by the skin of its teeth—it did poorly in previews, and was buried by the Apostolic suits until one key exec favored its release—it has always been a pop hit. Everybody reads Revelation; everybody gets excited about it; and generations of readers have insisted that it might even be telling the truth about what’s coming for Christmas.

Revelation, far from being meant as a hallucinatory prophecy, is actually a coded account of events that were happening at the time John was writing. It’s essentially a political cartoon about the crisis in the Jesus movement in the late first century, with Jerusalem fallen and the Temple destroyed and the Saviour, despite his promises, still not back. Revelation is really like one of those old-fashioned editorial drawings where Labor is a pair of overalls and a hammer, and Capital a bag of money in a tuxedo and top hat, and Economic Justice a woman in flowing robes, with a worried look. Revelation is a highly colored picture of the present, not a prophecy of the future.

Yet the project of draining the melodrama from Revelation may scant some significant things even as it draws attention to others. It is possible to draw too sharp a boundary between prophetic and merely symbolic images, between mad vision and coded cartoon. Allegorical pictures of contemporary events have a way of weaving in and out between the symbolic and the semi-psychotic. This is close to an eternal truth of art: one person’s editorial cartoon is another’s weird nightmare. James Gillray, the late-eighteenth-century English cartoonist, meant his gallery of grotesques—armed skeletons and demonic imps and Brobdingnagian heads—as satiric images of contemporary British politics, but they became the image pool for Goya’s “Caprichos.” Even if there is some twist of satire to every wacky turn in Revelation, the writer’s appetite for lurid imagery — the prophetic side we sense in it — is surely part of the book’s intended effect


excerpted from "The Big Reveal"
The New Yorker, March 5, 2012