Idol Chatter: January 2008 Archives

I don't know what it is that causes people to share the most intimate details of their personal lives with complete strangers, but I've had dozens of music artists tell me that it happens to them almost every night after a show. Fans often tell them about their struggle with anxiety or cutting, or their plans to commit suicide, and while the artists have a genuine desire to love and help these fans, they certainly aren't equipped to deal with what may be life-threatening issues in the few minutes they have while loading up their van.

Enter the HeartSupport Tour, featuring headliners, popular Christian rock-rap band Family Force 5 with special guests Falling Up, Spoken, and This Beautiful Republic.

HeartSupport.com is a new ministry of Fireproof Ministries, the folks who founded XXXChurch.com, which reaches out to those addicted to porn with a message of healing, hope, and love. Members of the ministry just attended the Las Vegas Porn Show, handing out 144 Jesus Loves Porn Stars t-shirts and 3,500 Jesus Loves Porn Stars Bibles.

In an announcement that surprised many (OK, at least the writers that run in my circle), Salem Communications announced last week that they are ceasing print publication of CCM Magazine. The final issue will be April 2008.

For more than 30 years, CCM has been the standard in Christian music publishing and it's a bit of a shocker to think that it's about to be put to pasture. For those technosaurs like me, a web-only format is a little disappointing. (Try reading a webzine in the bathtub.)

But with technology changing at warp speed and younger fans finding both their music and news online, it makes sense that the magazine that was on the forefront of the industry thirty years ago is changing with the times. The web format gives CCM opportunities to respond faster to breaking news and use blogs and chat rooms to interact more with fans. They also have podcasts from artists and streaming music.

For a 40-something mom with a grown daughter, I have to confess that the whole tween scene is a bit too cutesy for my tastes, and I've never been a big fan of throwing kids into the limelight; we've seen what that kind of pressure can do (can anyone say Spears?).

But with the tidal wave of squeaky clean pop entertainment flooding the market these days, Fervent's tween pop/dance trio pureNRG, made up of Carolyne (12), Caroline (13) and Jordan (15), were destined to make a big splash when they launched onto the music scene last May.

The trio's self-titled debut CD is filled with upbeat, optimistic, catchy pop songs that are a hit with the pre-teen crowd already driven to frenzy by Jump 5, "High School Musical," and Hannah Montana. They released two DVDS, one a personal behind-the-scenes look at the teens and their faith, the other an interactive dance DVD (with guests Brandon and Brittany Hargest of Jump 5) that teaches pureNRG fans the step-by-step dance moves to the group's two hits, "What If" and "Footloose."

"Vanaja" is a groundbreaking film about caste, culture, class and most importantly the feelings and emotions of a young mother, and a must-see for movie lovers and those who appreciate art and culture.

Vanaja, the titular heroine, is a young 14 year-old daughter of a poor, low-caste fisherman, struggling with dwindling catches and mounting debt, who yearns to learn the Kuchipudi style of dancing. She uses her wits and smarts to worm her way into the home of a rich landlady in the village, Rama Devi, in hopes of learning Kuchipudi dance while earning her keep.

Originally released in Arabic in 2005, the novel Girls of Riyadh or Banat al-Riyadh, was immediately banned in Saudi Arabia due to controversial and inflammatory content. Black-market copies of the novel circulated and the daring originality of Girls of Riyadh continues to create a firestorm all over the Arab world and has been a bestseller across much of the Middle East.

It is no surprise that this novel caused an uproar. This is the story of women who negotiate their love lives, professional successes, and rebellions large and small against the strict traditions of their society. This novel represents the mongrel culture of a globalized world, reflecting the way in which the Arab world is being changed by new economic and political realities. Even though the story is set in Riyadh, the characters travel all over the world shedding traditional garb as they cross over into Western society.

Girls of Riyadh narrates the love stories of four young Saudi girls, Lamees, Michelle (half-Saudi, half-American), Gamrah, and Sadeem in the form of emails. This novel reveals the social, romantic, sexual adventures and tribulations of these four young women from the elite classes of Riyadh. Every week, after Friday prayers, an anonymous female narrator sends an email to the subscribers of her online chat group. The novel unfolds in 50 such emails spanning over a year.

These are women who have embraced modern culture and way of thought, as did the story's author. First-time novelist Rajaa Alsanea, 25, grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the daughter of a family of doctors and is a dental graduate student, living in Chicago. Similarly, the world that her four women characters inhabit is a modern one that contains flirting with boys at the mall, and this affluent contemporary existence causes the girls to collide endlessly with the customs of a culture rooted firmly in an ancient way of life.

--written by Visi Tilak

Young, bright-eyed, handsome and charismatic to the core; an optimist and a visionary with a profound ability to evoke a deeply rooted, and perhaps dormant, sense of populism in the hearts and minds of Americans. Yes, it has hardly gone...