PicoBlog

The day before Dr. Jill Biden presented her inaugural attire to the Smithsonian’s permanent collection, I made my way to the National Museum of American History to visit its beloved “The First Ladies” exhibition. Anticipation was high! A glass box stood empty in the center of the display with a large sign announcing the imminent arrival of Biden’s ensembles. (You can read about that incredible day here.) I had the best possible guide to get a fuller understanding of this major moment in first lady fashion: Curator Lisa Kathleen Graddy.

One of my all-time favorite movie scenes is from Ford vs Ferrari: the Daytona race. The scene starts with Ken Miles (Christian Bale) racing against his Ford teammate Walt Hansgen for the right to race in the legendaryLe Mans. Ken is neck and neck with Walt, and he tells Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), his coach, manager, and sponsor, that he can go faster than the prescribed speed limit they set: 7,000 RPMs.

Today's podcast episode of Music & Meaning has dropped! In this episode, I interview Leah Payne about her new book, God Gave Rock and Roll to You published by Oxford University Press. Together, Leah and I guide you through a fascinating labyrinth of spiritual and sonic convergence. APPLE PODCASTS SPOTIFY PODCASTS First a short story. Having come up in jazz and pop in my native California, I moved to Nashville in 1989 to work with new friends at the heart of contemporary Christian music's history—in particular, the Hearn family of Sparrow Records.

I’m all caught up with The Ultimatum: Queer Love, and my TikTok feed is nonstop TU:QL videos, and suffice it to say I am so infused with rage I am ready to commit arson. This is why I don’t watch reality shows, especially ones with rep so unbelievably bad it borders on homophobic. I have some big intense things that I want to yell about. But first I’ll start with a few scattered thoughts:

We know Vanessa's dad is some kind of "IT guy" from California right? I worked in Silicon Valley tech bros there wouldn't identify as "IT guy"s unless they worked for IBM or something. So chances are he's old school, probably got into the field in the 90s, before the first tech boom. My read of Vanessa and Xander is they're from somewhere in the bay area, but maybe a really middle class neighborhood (those still existed in the 90s and 2000s, I grew up in one), not exactly small town, but suburban and segregated.

You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want. // John 5:39-40, The Message // Over the last few weeks I have read A Church Called Tov, Jesus and John Wayne, The Righteous Mind, and I’m almost finished with The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

Just like the fabulous Blues Brothers, Helge was on a mission from God. This is the true story of Helge Meyer. He made it his mission to help the starving children and their families of former war-torn Yugoslavia from 1991 -1995. Yugoslavia, was a socialist country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from its foundation in the aftermath of World War II until its dissolution in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars.

Elijah is one of the more important figures in the Bible, but there have been very few films about him—certainly very few that lasted more than half an hour. So I was intrigued when I saw that the final film in ‘God’s Stories’, the nine-part Arabic movie series that I’ve been writing about this summer, was going to be all about him. The first eight films in this series have sometimes come at their subjects from unusual angles, but the subjects themselves have all been fairly standard: five films are based on the book of Genesis, one is about Moses, and two are about Samuel and the kings he anointed.

If you’ve ever wanted to spend a lot of money watching a bunch of fleshy white guys in golf shirts drinking a ton of free booze while ignoring Stevie Nicks, have I got a trip for you! America’s corporate Mardi Gras arrives in Las Vegas one week from today. It’s the Super Bowl, and if you’ve never been to one in person, let me run down the experience for you: it kind of sucks.