Paul O'Donnell: September 2008 Archives

An art festival called Prospect 1 New Orleans promoters call the largest exhibition ever held in the United States opens November 1st in New Orleans, and one of the largest exhibits, naturally, will be Noah's Ark.

Los Angeles-based artist Mark Bradford, who often uses materials from the city's streets in his work, has built a 64 ft. by 22 ft. sculpture of a boat out of plywood left over from construction barriers and hoardings--many with posters and handbills still affixed--with two stacked shipping containers as a base.

Though early reports said Bradford would construct the ark from detritus from houses ruined by Katrina, the L.A. Times reports that the ship took shape in the parking lot of the Third Church of Religious Science in L.A. before being shipped to its site in New Orleans' Third Ward.

"I have my coffee, and I sit and watch Oprah," a woman tells The New York Times in a story today. "It's my favorite time of day." Not exactly front-page news you say? The woman in question is a Saudi, and like many of her female compatriots, she looks to Oprah for clues on how to make life seem worthwhile in a society dominated by conservative Islam. In a country where women can't vote, drive or show their faces in public, the Times story says Oprah has become an icon with almost mystical attributes. "The idea that she will come and help them is a dream for them."

The New York Times's site has reposted a 2006 article about tennis star Roger Federer, not because of Federer's resurgence at last month's U.S. Open, but because the piece is by David Foster Wallace, the beloved and very funny writer who committed suicide last week after suffering depression most of his adult life.

You can read several megs of stuff about Wallace's life and work by Googling his name: knock yourself out, as he'd say. What attracted my eye was the headline "Roger Federer as Religious Experience."

Johnny Cash died five years ago today, and every day he becomes more religious. Or rather, each day you can find another Christian praising Cash's sorrowfully guilty, sin-prone faith and calling for today's Christians to be more like him. It's an odd canonization, at odds with what the rest of us expect from Christian role models, that began shortly before his death and accelerated when he passed on in the fall of 2003.

Three years ago, Touchstone magazine, recalled Cash's late-in-life rebellion against the record industry--they published an ad featuring a vintage photograph of Cash flipping the bird as a sarcastic appreciation to the executives who abandoned him, then wrote, "Yet there is something in the Cash appeal to the youth generation that Christians would do well to emulate."

The trend has culminated in "Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction," a compelling cultural critique by Rodney Clapp published earlier this year. Clapp offers Cash as the embodiment of an authentic American morality, and he parses Cash's image in theological and political terms. By every measure Clapp applies, Cash outshines the hubristic, triumphalist and rule-obsessed Christian of today's America. The key to Cash's sainthood is precisely his humble imperfection.

Before you read this item, reggaeton fans, remember: what's the use of gaining the world if you lose your soul?

Hector Delgado, a pioneering practitioner of the Latin rap genre reggaeton, announced yesterday that he's devoting himself and his musical career to God. "My way now is to serve Christ in spirit and truth," says Delgado, who is known as "El Father."

Reggaeton, a once arcane, Caribbean-influenced and particularly salacious form of rap, has taken the world by storm recently, and Delgado remains one of its bigger stars. But his transformation may not be the body blow fans may fear. Is there a better sign that a musical genre has matured in its success than a star who finds Jesus?

Fans of "El Father" (but not the other Father) might take heart, too, that Delgado is still contractually required to tour his current album, "Final Judgment," though he says the CD will include Christian messages among its hotter cuts.

Not long ago we blogged that Andres Serrano, the artist whose photograph, "P--s Christ"--a hazy shot of a crucifix dunked in the artist's urine--raised Cain with social conservatives back in 1989, was planning a new exhibit at a Manhattan gallery,...