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The Promise of Prayer
Prayer should be the intersection between the natural and the supernatural. This is a critical discussion comparing and contrasting the promises of prayer in the bible, our expectations and our observations. I use the first person, using myself, or my former Christian persona as an example.
Here were my presumptions:
- The Bible is the revealed word of God through a collection of mostly anecdotes. The only evidence I have for that is tradition and the belief of the majority of others in my community of believers and also the precautionary principle as demonstrated by Pascals Wager.
- I am told that prayers work by a large community, and have anecdotal evidence to support the claim. Also the anecdotal evidence supports what the Bible says about prayer. The bible says the following about prayer.
A. * 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
B. * Psalm 145:18,19 "The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth. He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him. He will also hear their cry and save them."
C. * Proverbs 15:8b "…The prayer of the upright is His delight."
D. * Isaiah 45:11 "Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel…ask of Me of things to come concerning My sons; and concerning the work of My hands, you command Me."
E. * Isaiah 65:24 "It shall come to pass that before they call I will answer; and while they are still speaking I will hear."
F. * Jeremiah 33:3 "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know."
G. * Mark 11:24 "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."
H. * John 14:13,14 "And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name I will do it."
I. * John 15:7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you."
J. * John 16:23,24 "…Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you…ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full."
K. * Romans 8:26 "Likewise the Spirit also helps our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."
L. * 1 Peter 3:12 "For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are open to his prayers."
M. * 1 John 5:14,15 "Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him."
Anecdotal evidence is regarded as weak and defeasible.
In the list above, of which may not be all inclusive, only A, B, G, H, I, L and M have qualifiers that could justify an unanswered prayer. It would seem that all the bases are covered.
- A. conditions are "humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways".
- B. conditions are "He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him".
- G. conditions are "believe that you receive them".
- H. conditions are "whatever you ask in My [Jesus] name", which is an added qualifier, different from the old testament.
- I. conditions are "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you".
- L. conditions are " righteous".
- M. conditions are "according to his will".
I would like to point out that there is no comprehensive list anywhere in the bible that talks about the conditions of prayer. I think that is an oversight that I would not expect if the Holy Spirit was responsible for the text through the ages.
So what is the point of prayer?
I think it is the method that god provided to us to interact with him. It is a point of intersection between the natural and the supernatural. It would seem to be a good place for a test. And if it is meant as the method that god provided to interact with us, I think that I could reasonably expect god to want to participate. Since he knows how we think, he would know that this would give us confidence about our relationship. Relationships are more successful when we know we can trust our partner. And in fact, unless I am remembering wrong, our relationship with Jesus is supposed to be the perfect example of a marriage. Since this is the case we should be able to show that intercessory prayer works. However in at least ten studies, it didn't (Power of Prayer, American Heart Journal). If the testing method is alleged to be faulty, then I think it is the responsibility of Christians to set up a double blind test with the participation of non Christian experts with a protocol that is agreeable to everyone to show that prayers work.
So lets say that Christians set up a test as described above and that out of 1000 studies, some numbers of prayer work. And in the control group, the same thing happens. The results are inconclusive. This seems to be the typical outcome in scientific prayer studies (suspect or not). In the control group, some reasons this could be are the test protocol is invalid or has been compromised, god was skewing the odds for some reason, or that chance is just as effective as prayer. If we assume that god is skewing the odds for the reason that he won't permit us to test him, that would seem to mean that it is impossible to test prayer and the only reliable way of knowing that prayer works is to maintain the sanctity of the intent and look at the personal interaction. We could keep our own prayer log. But in this case, we can expect god would know and once again skew the odds. Therefore we can't use any empirical method to test prayer. But since it seems to work sometimes, it is evidence of a miracle. And the investigation into the odds of how likely it would be to turn out the same way to due to chance is given no thought.
Empirical studies have shown that the following are likely to be true, and sufficient to use as presumptions in research.
- People are naturally terrible at estimating probability.
- People are naturally terrible at perceiving and interpreting probabilistic data.
- People "remember the hits and forget the misses"
- People like stories and are willing to give the teller of the story the benefit of the doubt about the truth of it.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it comes from someone they like.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it is believed by the larger group.
- People will change their evidence based viewpoint if it contradicts the viewpoint of the group.
- People overestimate the degree of belief in others.
- People are more likely to believe a story if it fits with what they already believe or want to believe.
- People are likely to use the precautionary principle as illustrated by Pascals Wager in minimizing risk.
These schemes of reasoning are detailed in the books such as the ones I have read "How We Know What Isn't So" by Thomas Gilovich, and to a smaller degree Daniel OKeefe's "Theories of Persuasion" and Robert Cialdini's "Influence". Cialdinis "six weapons of influence" depend on a couple of them. These are common patterns of reasoning that can be identified and predicted. In fact they are used effectively in Politics and Advertising and they explain the persistence of the existence of the "rumor mill".
There is a concept called "Negative Evidence", "Negative evidence is the absence of evidence that might reasonably be expected to be found were the issue in question true" (Freeley, 113). There is another concept known as "Ockhams Razor". Ockhams Razor states that when given the choice of options for an explanation, the one that is less complicated or depends on less variables is more likely to be correct. Using the data contained in the books listed above and my personal experience with prayer, I think a simpler hypothesis to explain prayer is that it is a myth.
So lets stipulate for a minute that I am an amateur and that reading a few biased books doesn't mean anything with regards to the truth of the lord. With this stipulation in place I would like some expert to explain my recent experience.
My 86 year old grandmother was a model of righteousness in her church community. Without getting into it here, only condition M fits her circumstances, it which case it was gods will that she die a slow, painful and humiliating death from cancer in the face. The intercessory prayer of her church community had no noticeable effect. This is the personal prayer experience of a community of presumably righteous Christians. This is the way I predicted it would happen based on probability. Why not answer the prayers and let her die in her sleep and get around the suffering?
I have no reason to believe in supernatural factors with regards to my prayers or "my walk with god". And I assert that no one else does either. If they do, I'd like to see them because a world with a loving god in it manipulating things for the better is something that I would be interested in.
American Heart Journal. Intercessory Prayer.
"anecdotal evidence." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 2007. Answers.com 11 Mar. 2007.
Freeley, Austin J. 1993. Argumentation and Debate: Critical Thinking for Reasoned Decision Making 8th ed. Wadsworth Publishing Company
Cialdini, Robert. 2001. Influence: Science and Practice. Boston. Allyn and Bacon.
Gilovich, Thomas. 1991. How We Know What Isn't So. New York. The Free Press: A division of Macmillan, Inc.
Holy Bible.
"Ockham's razor." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 11 Mar. 2007. http://www.answers.com/topic/occam-s-razor
Okeefe, Daniel J. 1990. Persuasion Theory and Research. Newbury Park, California. Sage Publications.
Power of Prayer. New York Times.


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@ekolsky study: Social customer service adoption growing despite uncertain ROI (#scrm) http://t.co/UXuvQYQO (via @customerthink)
Robert Jordan: Knife of Dreams (The Wheel of Time, Book 11)
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I'm still reading Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. When he passed L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth decology I could have cried. Maybe WoT will be made into the worst movie of all time? Still, I've been following the saga of Rand al'Thor for more than a decade now, and I want to see how it ends. Rumor is that the next book, Memory of Light, will in fact conclude the saga. To borrow a phrase, "There should have been only one." (**)
Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver (The Baroque Cycle, Vol. 1)
My family got me Quicksilver for Christmas. I'm not far into it, but it's clearly a Stephenson book: lots of historical connections, multiple timeline unfolding simultaneously, meticulous historical detail, 100 pages in the plot is still a total mystery, big "thud"factor... Should be a great read.
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Anything edited by Chris DiBona is worth spending the time to read.
David Kahn: The Codebreakers : The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet
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Let's try to get a little more insight now from Howard Pankratz. He's a veteran reporter with the Denver Post newspaper. He's been talking with law enforcement officials and he has a special insight on this because he covered another mass shooting, the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. Mr. Pankratz, welcome to the program.
HOWARD PANKRATZ: Thank you very much.
INSKEEP: You've heard some of our reporting just now. Is there anything that you can add, any insight that you're hearing from the authorities you're talking with?
PANKRATZ: Well, you know, what I'd like to do is, we had a very good eyewitness, a gentleman by the name of James Wilbourn(ph), and he saw this man enter the theater, it was Theater 9, and Mr. Wilbourn said that the shooter was dressed in black, wearing a flak jacket and a gas mask. And once he was in the theater, he dropped a canister on the floor. Mr. Wilbourn said that the canister spewed a noxious gas and at that point the gentleman raised the gun, shotgun, and started shooting.
He probably was one of the closest people to this man as he entered the theater. What the Aurora police are now telling is that they've recovered one rifle, one handgun and a gas mask in the theater. The adult male, who's about 24, in his early 20s, offered no resistance when he was arrested.
Originally the Aurora police said there were 14 dead. They say there are now 12 confirmed dead, 10 bodies inside the crime scene. Two more people died at area hospitals. The victims were taken to at least six hospitals in the Denver area. Aurora has a huge medical campus. It's called the Anschutz campus out there. It's a hospital that was built probably about six years ago, and they probably are the best hospital in the region.
INSKEEP: I do want to ask you, Mr. Pankratz, because you covered the Columbine shooting in 1999, I don't wish to make too direct a comparison between them, such different incidences, so different in time, but tell me this part of it - how do police, how do authorities handle a situation like this? How do you go about investigating it? What do you figure out what to do?
PANKRATZ: Well, in Columbine, of course, the law enforcement officials responding set up a perimeter around the school, and they were heavily criticized for that. And of course since that time, all over the country, if you have a mass shooting, the police try to interdict, intervene, immediately. And from what we know there were - because of the movie that was showing - a fairly large number of police in the area. They immediately took action. They were taking people who had been shot away from the scene. They were telling the people who were in the theater to run, to get out of there.
And so basically since Columbine there has been a huge effort by law enforcement to intervene immediately rather than set up perimeters. So that's one big change in American law enforcement.
INSKEEP: And in this case the man is in fact in custody, and his apartment, they're trying to get into the apartment at this time.
PANKRATZ: That's correct.
INSKEEP: Mr. Pankratz, thanks very much.
PANKRATZ: You're welcome.
INSKEEP: That's Howard Pankratz of the Denver Post. Some people have heard these facts, so we apologize for that, but others are just waking up. So let's repeat again - there's been a shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, a dozen reported dead, according to police. This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.


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Home » ReR Label » GROUND ZERO: Consume Red
GROUND ZERO: Consume Red
First Volume of a three CD project. Ground Zero makes a monster structure that starts screaming and gets more and more intense and massive until you don't imagine there is anywhere else to go. Then it gets bigger. A classic. L
Only available at this price as part of the ReR Sale Offer (minimum) 4 titles)
Code: ReRGZ2
Price: £5.00


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This market research report offers a perspective on the actual market situation, trends and future outlook for yeast in Argentina. The study provides essential market information for decision-makers including:
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NEW YORK — Nerlens Noel is coming off a major knee injury. Alex Len is in a walking boot.
One of them could be the No. 1 pick Thursday in an NBA draft that appears short on stardom, and neither looks ready to get his career off to a running start.
"This draft is really unpredictable, a lot of guys with injuries and you don't have any, like, LeBron James," Len said Wednesday. "So it's going to be interesting."
Ten years after James climbed on stage to start a draft that goes down as one of the best in recent memory, the No. 1 pick again belongs to Cleveland.
The Cavaliers won't find anyone who can play like James on the court — if they keep the pick — and even the climbing the stage part will be a challenge for the big men who opened their college seasons against each other and are competing again now.
Noel tore the ACL in his left knee on Feb. 12, ending his lone season at Kentucky. The 6-foot-11 freshman led the nation in shot blocking and his conference in rebounding, but hasn't been able to show the Cavaliers if his offensive game has grown.
The only basketball work he did during his visit to Cleveland was shooting some free throws. Perhaps the pants he wore with his sports jacket and orange tie were just too tight, but Noel was walking gingerly as he exited a hotel ballroom after meeting with the media Wednesday.
"I wanted to do more. Unfortunately I got hurt, but I mean I definitely felt right before I got injured I was really coming along as a player and just really coming into my own during that part of the season," Noel said. "But like I said, unfortunately I got hurt, so I wasn't able to show as much as I wanted to."
Nor has Len, but that hasn't stopped the 7-1 center from the Ukraine who spent two seasons at Maryland from climbing into the mix at No. 1. His left foot started bothering him around February, and he found out after the season that it was a stress fracture.
He was aware he was projected as a top-10 pick before the draft combine, but may go much higher even though his visits to teams have consisted of nothing more than interviews. He no longer needs crutches but will be in the boot for perhaps two more weeks.
So, with all these injury questions, what about playing it safe and picking a healthy guy?
"I mean, probably a lot of people wish it could be that easy," Kansas guard Ben McLemore said. "But it's a process for the teams, they've got to see what's available and what they really need. And like I said, this draft is up in the air and nobody knows what's going to happen, who's going to get drafted in which order."
Orlando has the No. 2 pick, followed by Washington, Charlotte and Phoenix.
McLemore, Indiana's Victor Oladipo, Georgetown forward Otto Porter and national player of the year Trey Burke of Michigan are among the other players who will hear their names called early at Barclays Center by NBA Commissioner David Stern in his final draft.
It's a class that won't draw any comparisons to the one that James led, which featured future Miami Heat teammates Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, along with NBA scoring champion Carmelo Anthony among the first five picks.
Brooklyn Nets general manager Billy King said a number of teams are trying to trade out of the draft and acquire extra picks for next year, which is expected to be a stronger class. But he doesn't know if there will be enough teams interested in being trade partners to get those deals done.
"There are good players in this draft, but right now, there are not impact players. What I mean by that is that there's no one you look at in this draft that within two years will be an All-Star, say like Kyrie Irving was, players like that," said Minnesota Timberwolves president Flip Saunders, referring to the guard Cleveland took with the No. 1 pick in 2011.
"And so in order for you to move up and dilute your talent pool and your roster, you've got to get an impact-type player, and I just don't believe ... there's good players, probably pretty good players in this league, but are they going to be that impact player who's going to be an All-Star or future Hall of Famer? That's what you don't see. And sometimes that's something you don't see for two or three years in a row."
McLemore has in some ways been hurt by healthy, since by being able to work out he's given teams something to nitpick. Noel and Len have been largely free of criticism while sitting on the sideline.
Instead, Len is hoping his first impression of the season is one that holds up, when he had a career-high 23 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks against Noel in Maryland's loss to Kentucky, right in the building where they will be Thursday.
"I did well against him. So, it's not up to me, it's up to teams," Len said of a team choosing between the two.
Neither player said he knows what the Cavs will do. There has been speculation they are open to dealing the pick, something teams rarely consider in a year with a clear-cut No. 1.
Noel said he had gotten no sense from the Cavs that they had concern about his knee, which could keep him off the court until early in the regular season. And in a draft full of questions, he believes selecting him is the right answer.
"I'm a good teammate, I definitely love to work," Noel said. "I want to get better. I want to be great, I want to reach my potential, be the best player I can be. I definitely do countless hours in the gym and I'm definitely working to get there."


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3D Printed Patient-Specific Surface Mould Applicators for Brachytherapy Treatment of Superficial Lesions.
American Association Physicists in Medicine (AAPM). 41 (abstract in Medical Physics)(6), Cumming2014.pdf (148.57 KB)
(2014). 3D-printed surface mould applicator for high-dose-rate brachytherapy.
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(2014). PLUS: Open-source toolkit for ultrasound-guided intervention systems.
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(2014). Prototyping Clinical Applications with the Public Library for Ultrasound (PLUS) Toolkit and 3D Slicer.
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(2013). Prototyping image-guided therapy applications using the SlicerIGT platform.
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(2013). SlicerIGT: Open-source platform for image-guided needle interventions.
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(2013). Tracked ultrasound calibration studies with a phantom made of LEGO(r) bricks.
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"The Habitation of the Blessed" by Catherynne M. Valente. Release Date: November 1, 2010.
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"The Ring of Solomon" by Jonathan Stroud. Release Date: November 2, 2010.
"The Broken Kingdoms" by N.K. Jemisin. Release Date: November 3, 2010.
"The Nemesis List" by R.J. Frith. UK Release Date: November 5, 2010.
"The Distant Hours" by Kate Morton. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"Full Dark, No Stars" by Stephen King. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"Empress of Eternity" by L. E. Modesitt Jr.. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"Seed Seeker" by Pamela Sargent. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"The Painted Darkness" by Brian James Freeman. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"Money Shot" by Christopher Rowley. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"The Flock" by James Robert Smith. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"House of the Star" by Caitlin Brennan. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"The Sentinels" by R.A. Salvatore & Geno Salvatore. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"The Boy from Ilysies" by Pearl North. Release Date: November 9, 2010.
"Factotum" by D.M. Cornish. Release Date: November 11, 2010.
"The Painted Boy" by Charles de Lint. Release Date: November 11, 2010.
"Songs of Love and Death" ed. by George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois. November 16, 2010.
"The House of Discarded Dreams" by Ekaterina Sedia. Release Date: November 16, 2010.
"The Way of the Wizard" edited by John Joseph Adams. Release Date: November 16, 2010.
"Luka and the Fire of Life" by Salman Rushdie. Release Date: November 16, 2010.
"Night Star" by Alyson Noel. Release Date: November 16, 2010.
"The Silent Land" by Graham Joyce. UK Release Date: November 18, 2010.
"Hull Zero Three" by Greg Bear. Release Date: November 22, 2010.
"Surrender to the Will of the Night" by Glen Cook. Release Date: November 23, 2010.
"Midsummer Night" by Freda Warrington. Release Date: November 23, 2010.
"Disciple of the Dog" by R. Scott Bakker. Release Date: November 23, 2010.
"Above His Proper Station" by Lawrence Watt-Evans. Release Date: November 23, 2010. (*)
"Stonewielder" by Ian C. Esslemont. UK Release Date: November 25, 2010.
"Shadowheart" by Tad Williams. Release Date: November 30, 2010.
"The Bone Palace" by Amanda Downum. Release Date: November 30, 2010.
"The Spirit Eater" by Rachel Aaron. Release Date: November 30, 2010.
"King's Wrath" by Fiona McIntosh. Release Date: November 30, 2010.
"Law of the Broken Earth" by Rachel Neumeier. Release Date: November 30, 2010.
"Guardians of the Phoenix" by Eric Brown. Release Date: November 30, 2010.
"The Wolf's Hour" by Robert McCammon. Release Date: November 30, 2010.
(*) cover not available yet; I used the one from the first volume of the series
Order Corvus HERE
Read FBC Review of The Ten Thousand HERE
INTRODUCTION: Two years ago in the series debut The Ten Thousand, Paul Kearney created the secondary world of Kuf which has a large landmass populated by numerous people who are currently under the sway of the Assurian Empire. To the north and east, separated by various seas and the remote fastness of the Harukush Mountains, lies the home of the legendary Macht people—warriors of great renown and ferocity who are divided into various city states under the aegis of Machran. So the Greeks vs the Persian Empire with some little touches of the fantastic and a twist or two, but otherwise The Ten Thousand was a pretty faithful retelling of the classic story with the same name.
Speculative fiction allowing both historical time-compression and event simplifications, fast forward 23 years only - rather than the roughly 50-70 from the historical timeline - and several years of events rather than several decades and Corvus an enigmatic young military genius has appeared out of nowhere in the Macht lands and is taking over them with force and sweet words and this book is his first part of the story; in an excellent narrative choice, the story is told through the eyes of others, most notably the former commander of the Ten Thousand, Rictus now the most famous and acclaimed mercenary leader of the Macht.
FORMAT/CLASSIFICATION: Corvus stands at about 460 pages divided into 27 named chapters and an epilogue. The book starts with a map of Kuf. There are several threads with various POV's, most notably Rictus and his sidekick/sub-commander Fornyx, Karnos - the Speaker of the most important Macht city of Machran - Phaestus, a friend of Rictus and leader of another Macht city, the smaller but geographical crucial Hal Goshen, while of the women, Rictus' wife Aise and Karnos' fiance Kassia who is also the sister of Machran's army commander Kassander are the most prominent.
Corvus is military fantasy; it stands well on its own with a clear definite ending, though of course the story continues next spring/summer towards its logical destination in The Kings of Morning.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: "We just keep marching," Rictus said softly. "That is what we do. We carry the Curse of God on our backs and go into the dark together."
"Corvus" starts with Rictus in charge of his now large mercenary company, fighting successful campaign after successful campaign in the spring and summer for whichever Macht city pays best and returning to his wife and daughters in a hidden mountain cottage for the winter.
But now a young charismatic conqueror has appeared in the Macht lands and he is planning to unite them at sword point if need be; and of course Corvus needs Rictus for credibility and for other reasons that are pretty easy to guess once you advance a little in the book. The Macht love their "freedom", even if it is only the freedom to war among themselves and enslave or kill the weak, so the job is not easy.
"Corvus" is a page turner that will keep you hooked until the end even though you can easily guess its general thrust. It is also a novel of heroism and brutal fighting with explicit descriptions of gore, military camps, logistical considerations and life in a besieged city or in the besieging army.
Paul Kearney's major strength as storyteller of battles, fighting and war is on display here and as in all his previous similar work, whether in the just reprinted Monarchies of God series or in The Ten Thousand, he makes you root for both sides. The freedom loving Macht led by the city of Machran and its unlikely but brave and determined leader Karnos and the destiny man with a dream Corvus clash brutally and there can be only one winner; while we sort of know how it will end, the skill of the author is such that we are kept in suspense to the end and we somehow want both to win...
In addition to the big picture, there are several personal story-threads, some dark and violent, some domestic and of course the back story of Corvus himself - something not hard to guess anyway - but very well done and with great touches, not the least his Kufr Companion Cavalry and his reluctance to try his father's "Curse of God" black armor that is so prized among the Macht.
And in these side stories, we see the war and its human cost through the eyes of the women and children adding an extra dimension to the usual "band of brothers" blood-and-guts subgenre.
"Corvus" (A+) delivered what I expected of it with brio and reinforced the standing of Paul Kearney as a master of military fantasy.
Official Iain Banks Website
Iain Banks at Wikipedia
Order "Surface Detail" HERE
Read FBC Review of 'Transition"
Last year's Transition was my number 1 sff novel of the year and this year Surface Detail will be most likely #1 sff of the year. Actually as structure goes, Transition was a pretty complex novel that required at least one reread for full appreciation, while Surface Detail is straightforward, though of course rereading it brings a fuller appreciation.
Surface Detail is also a Culture novel, the best since the early three and the first in which the global vision of the Culture as part of a well developed galactic community that started in Excession and Look to Windward, while being explicitly articulated in Matter, pays off big time.
I have seen before this attempt to proceed from relatively local adventure novels like the first three Culture books, to having a fully developed coherent "big picture" framework as in Matter and Surface Detail and it is not easy, but when it succeeds, it does big-time.
Because beyond being a very entertaining novel, Surface Detail is much more, an articulated vision of an Universe that while purely materialistic as far as its inhabitants know, allows the major goodies associated with traditional religion: souls, afterlife, though of course logically it has some of its drawbacks like Hell(s). All of course was implied from the first Culture novel (Consider Phlebas), but here and in Matter the edifice hinted before is explicitly built.
FORMAT/CLASSIFICATION: Surface Detail stands at about 630 pages divided into twenty nine chapters, the usual IM Banks "what happened later with the characters" coda and a tongue-in-cheek epilogue that was hinted already in chapter two; I considered the possibility slightly far-fetched at the time, though there was a general "you know, it actually could be" feeling there. About what, well read the book to find out...
Surface Detail has several threads with all kinds of POV's: humans in the extended Culture sense like Ledejde - the "ingenue" decided on justice at all costs, even if it's inconvenient for the great and the good like the mighty Culture itself, Vateuil, "the ultimate warrior", Veppers, "the businessman from hell" - not quite literally, but close and Yime, "the Culture agent", non-human quadrepds "Pavuleans" Prin and Chay who take a literal journey in (the Pavulean) Hell and the "elfin" Legislator-Admiral Bettlescroy-Bisspe-Blispin III and of course the Culture Ships/Minds of which the The Abominator-class picket ship Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints and its bad boy avatar Demeisen take over the novel alongside Veppers.
Surface Detail is readable perfectly well on its own though a familiarity with the rest of the Culture novels only adds to its enjoyment.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: The main idea of Surface Detail can be summarized simply: the laws of the Universe allow mind-states aka "materialistic souls" and any sufficiently advanced civilization can build a virtual afterlife since physical immortality in the Real is still undesirable due to issues like finiteness of space and resources. Some of course build Heavens, but some build Hells too...
Of course many of the most advanced (stage 7 and 8) civilizations object to the existence of Hells and the Culture is the most powerful of such, but unfortunately some events recounted in "Look to Windward" made it recuse itself from the debate for a while now. When the Pro-Hell and Anti-Hell forces decide to fight a virtual war - "The War in Heaven for the fate of the Hells" - to decide the issue for ever, the Culture (officially) stands on the sideline which gives an unexpected edge to the Pro-Hell side. And of course like all virtual contests, the result needs to be accepted by both parties since after all there is the Real where the war may otherwise spill with potentially catastrophic consequences.
While not directly involved with the war - except for Vateuil whose career as AntiHell grunt-to-marshal is recounted in his thread - all the characters above will nonetheless play an important role in its context and resolution.
I will let the three characters that dominate the novel speak for themselves:
"All those years, all those times I tried to run away, the one thing nobody ever asked me was where I might be running to." She smiled a small, thin smile at the avatar, who looked surprised now. "If they had asked," Lededje told her, "I might even have told them: I was running away to the Culture, because I'd heard they'd escaped the tyranny of money and individual power, and that all people were equal here, men and women alike, with no riches or poverty to put one person above or beneath another." "But now you're here?" Sensia offered, sounding sad. "But now I'm here I find Joiler Veppers is still deferred to because he is a rich and powerful man."
Veppers (full quote here):
There was nothing worse, Veppers thought, than a loser who'd made it. It was just part of the way things worked – part of the complexity of life, he supposed – that sometimes somebody who absolutely deserved nothing more than to be one of the down-trodden, the oppressed, the dregs of society, lucked out into a position of wealth, power and admiration. ..... Still, at least individual losers were quite obviously statistical freaks. You could allow for that, you could tolerate that, albeit with gritted teeth. What he would not have believed was that you could find an entire society – an entire civilization– of losers who'd made it. And the Culture was exactly that.
"What, this?" he said, looking down at the ash-dark burn on his skin as Lededje stared at it, openly aghast. "Don't worry; I don't feel a thing." He laughed. "The idiot inside here does though." He tapped the side of his head, smiled again. "Poor fool won some sort of competition to replace a ship's avatar for a hundred days or a year or something similar. No control over either body or ship whatsoever, obviously, but the full experience in other respects – sensations, for example. I'm told he practically came in his pants when he learned an up-to-date warship had volunteered to accept his offer of body host." The smile became broader, more of a grin. "Obviously not the most zealous student of ship psychology, then. So," Demeisen said, holding up his hand with the splinted finger and studying it, "I torment the poor fool."
This is not say that the rest of the cast, especially Vateuil, Yime, Prin and Chay do not have important complementary roles but for me those three elevated the novel beyond all recent Culture novels which lacked precisely that: powerful, larger than life characters and here we have Veppers and Demeisen, while Ledejde is the most sympathetic Banksian character in a while for her quiet determination.
I talked about world building and sense of wonder in the introduction, while the coming together of the various threads is handled very well but I would like to add that there are so many great touches that I could fill two pages talking about them and those give Surface Detail a very rich texture. The novel has a lot of humor and I found myself laughing out loud at quite a few scenes, with the quotes above just a small sample.
If there is one negative is that the whole is somewhat less than the sum of the parts in the sense that each thread is very engrossing and with lots of specific goodies - the Pavulean Hell, the virtual War, the Unfallen Bulbitian and the Tsungarial Disk have each their goodies so to speak, in addition to the awesome stuff in the threads following Veppers, Ledejde and Falling Outside The Normal Moral Constraints/Demeisen - but the main story is quite straightforward. So in a sense you could look at Surface Detail as a core-story with beautiful ornate wrappings which one enjoys more in themselves than as part of a larger tapestry.
But that does not matter since Surface Detail (A++) is as good as speculative fiction on a large scale and about "big issues" gets from all points of view: great writing, powerful characters, coherent and detailed world building and just sheer sense of wonder and inventiveness. If you want to experience the best that sf has to offer these days and understand why written sf is still such a vital part of the "landscape of imagination", Surface Detail is the one 2010 novel for you. And the book has the added bonus that you can start exploring IM Banks' wonderful Culture universe just by reading it, even if you have not read previous Culture novels.
"Hatter M: The Nature of Wonder" by Frank Beddor, Liz Cavalier & Sami Makkonen (Reviewed by Robert Thompson)
Official Card Soldier Wars Website
Order "Hatter M: The Nature of Wonder" HERE
Read A Preview HERE (PDF)
Read Fantasy Book Critic's Reviews of "Seeing Redd" + "ArchEnemy"
"Hatter M: The Nature of Wonder" written by Frank Beddor and Liz Cavalier. Illustrated by Sami Makkonen. Cover art provided by Vance Kovacs. Release Date: October 15, 2010. Published by Automatic Pictures.
The Looking Glass Wars trilogy may have concluded with last year's novel, ArchEnemy, but Frank Beddor's extraordinary reimagining of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass live on through a series of graphic novels chronicling Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan and his thirteen-year search for Wonderland's Princess Alyss who became lost on Earth after escaping through the Pool of Tears during Aunt Redd's coup d'état. . . events that transpired in the first volume of The Looking Glass Wars trilogy.
In The Nature of Wonder—the third Hatter M geo-graphic novel after the Eisner Award-nominated and 2009 Silver IPPY Award-winning Far From Wonder, and the 2010 Gold IPPY Award-winning Mad With Wonder—Hatter Madigan travels to Washington D.C. in search of answers and ends up crossing paths with agents Horatio Alabaster and Philomena Ark of the Bureau of the Illuminated Forces, the evil Colonel Obsidian Stoker, and Abraham Lincoln on the day of his assassination. From here, the graphic novel follows Hatter as he and Agents Alabaster & Ark go on a quest in search of the White Flower Tribe, which leads to a lengthy flashback involving Hatter as a Millinery cadet, his older brother Dalton, and the sisters, Princess Rose and Princess Genevieve. Concluding the graphic novel is a classic western tale of a small town terrorized by outlaws and the one person who makes a stand against them...
Like the other Hatter M graphic novels, The Nature of Wonder offers an entertaining mix of story and art, highlighted by Sami Makkonen's psychedelic visuals and writing imbued with Frank Beddor's trademark humor and wild imagination. Admittedly, the third Hatter M graphic novel feels a bit on the short side—probably because of a prologue and epilogue that fails to add anything significant to the story apart from referencing Mad With Wonder—but The Nature of Wonder features a colorful supporting cast led by Horatio Alabaster and Philomena Ark, and it's once again fun to see how Hatter Madigan's adventures on Earth intersect with actual history. Plus, I liked how the flashback sheds some light on Hatter as a person, and it was rewarding to finally see Madigan enter a hat shop that sold more than just hats.
Of course, what I love most about the Hatter M geo-graphic novels is the packaging—specifically the beautiful wraparound covers—and the awesome bonus content. In this case, the extra goodies include a 5-page preview from the upcoming fourth Hatter M geo-graphic novel, The Zen of Wonder; investigative reports on the Bureau of the Illuminated Forces and the White Flower Tribe; a gallery of paintings inspired by Hatter Madigan's cards; journals and artwork composed by Alyss during her stay in England; and an excerpt from ArchEnemy, the concluding volume in The Looking Glass Wars trilogy.
As a whole, The Nature of Wonder is another lovingly crafted Hatter M geo-graphic novel that is a must-have for any true fan of The Looking Glass Wars...
NOTE: On November 10, 2010, Automatic Pictures will publish a brand new Hardcover edition (See Above) of the first Hatter M geo-graphic novel, which has been out-of-print for a while now. Besides sporting a striking new wraparound cover and the new subtitle, 'Far From Wonder', the graphic novel also features, among other new bonus content, two extra chapters illustrated by Sami Makkonen. The first, titled "Dublin", finds Hatter Madigan squaring off against the creature, Spring Heeled Jack, with the aid of a thirteen-year-old Bram Stoker. The second chapter meanwhile, called "Siberia", finds Hatter confined in a Siberian prison camp, questioning his duty to the royal family of Wonderland, with reporter Madga Pushkin making a brief appearance. Personally, I enjoyed "Dublin" more than "Siberia", but both chapters shine in their own special way, while strengthening what is already an outstanding graphic novel. In short, even though Far From Wonder is a reprint, the graphic novel is a reissue that LGW fans will definitely want in their collection...
I also think that the Booker prize is fine the way it is focusing on this genre as the AC Clarke prize is fine the way it is focusing on sf, however loosely defined. So outside of various current "literary" novels I've reviewed here, I would like to present some more I loved a lot and which I think can appeal to people who tend to read mostly sff.
As usual, I will limit myself to one book or series - yes, literary fiction has series too and even the 2009 Booker winner Wolf Hall is the first part of a planned duology - per author since nothing is more tedious than seeing a general list repeating ten times the same author, but I also strongly suggest checking out more works by the author in cause if the book presented here tempts you.
I will not include books reviewed on FBC so far since I will make a separate list for that though I will include different books by some authors (Hilary Mantel, Kazuo Ishiguro, Roberto Bolano, Margaret Atwood) I've already reviewed. I will include mostly links to Google Books previews or snippets since when available they are quite useful and will give you a direct taste of the book in cause. Wikipedia or Amazon otherwise.
The Sea of Fertility Tetralogy ( Spring Snow (1966), Runaway Horses (1969), The Temple of Dawn (1970) and The Decay of the Angel (1971)) by Yukio Mishima
exotic, reincarnation, great characters, great worldbuilding and page turners to boot; three times Nobel prize nominated and whom is rumored to have lost by a whisker in 1968; a loose tetralogy following one character's interactions with four young people he believes are successive reincarnations of each other.
The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata
page turner that is both allegory and a gripping description of a marathon go match; another novel that was an important part of a Nobel prize winner's work.
The Defense by Vladimir Nabokov
maybe not the best Nabokov, nor the most sf-nal (Ada is alt-history for example) but a big favorite of mine for its great tale of chess and madness; also one famous book for which the movie is pretty good since it respects its spirit whatever liberties it takes with the text.
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
family saga, mystery and pulp-sf; Booker prize winner and top five novel of the 00's of mine.
Seven Japanese Tales by Junichiro Tanizaki
the one collection on the list since each story here is superb; a mixture of themes and settings from contemporary to the writing (mostly 1910-30's though one as late as 1959) to historical fiction showcasing Junichiro Tanizaki's "typical" mixture of eroticism, strange and exotic
another Nobel prize nominated author who almost won
2666 by Roberto Bolano
sprawling, subtle, funny and then ultra-dark; one of the few "must" novels of the 00's imho; I hope to review it here by early 2011.
The Forbidden Forest by Mircea Eliade (aka St John Nativity Night or even Faerie Night in the original Romanian language title)
one of the few novels I read in three languages several times each; sadly the English language edition is rare and expensive but good college libraries have it - I read it that way first and kept it borrowed on and off for almost all my time in graduate school here since it was banned by the communist regime I grew up under; later I bought the French edition and then even later, a Romanian language edition and I wish someone would reprint it in English too since I would buy it on the spot at a decent price...
epic, (slight) paranormal, romance, world building, great characters and a powerful sense of history; the last 100 pages and the ending are still among the most emotional ones I've ever read even today after many readings of the book; the one "marooned on an island novel" for me
When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
another Booker shortlisted novel and while maybe not the author's best, a favorite of mine despite being loosely classified as "detective/crime" fiction; exotic world building at the boundary with the imaginary and a great denouement
The Magus by John Fowles
the one pure mainstream novel that reproduces the sf-nal sense of wonder; it just blew me away many years ago when I read it first in Romanian and then I read it in English several times too; one of those famous novels I think any sff fan should at least look at
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
epic tale of glitter, misery and Revolution; world building, great characters, page turner in this Nobel prize winner novel; the author paid dearly for the Nobel though, suffering humiliation in the supposedly "thawed" Kruschev' Soviet Union; the first book I bought and read here in the USA, days within my arriving in 1990. A bunch of movies too with the most recent Russian miniseries the best rendering of the novel I've watched, though of course Omar Sharif and Julie Christie still have their timeless charm...
A Time to Love and a Time to Die by Erich Maria Remarque
nobody does better exile and alienation in a foreign country than EM Remarque and his tales of people blown by the winds of war in the maelstrom of Europe 1930-1940's when a passport stamp made all the difference between life and death still resonate with me very strongly today; this one though is a bit more straightforward; Germany 1943 among bombings, rubble and the specter of the Eastern Front and the title says it all; while Arch of Triumph - another personal favorite that takes place in 1939 Paris - may be more accomplished, this one is just a big, big personal favorite.
The Stranger by Albert Camus
too well known to say more in a paragraph and a landmark of the literary world of the 20th century; also a crucial part of a Nobel prize winner work; try it since you will be surprised how gripping it is
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
another well known novel about the Devil in Stalin's Moscow; the posthumous publication was a landmark event; the 10 episode Russian miniseries is the best adaptation of several I watched; and Behemoth the black cat on the cover above is still awesome :)
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann
the "most difficult" novel on the list but another landmark of 20th century literature which shows that an author can write great stuff decades after receiving the Nobel; the descent into madness both personal and societal and with sff-nal elements too.
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
way before Wolf Hall, there was this one which I read on US publication some 15-16 years ago and reread a bunch of times since; while less accomplished technically it is still a big time favorite; same great world building and characters but in the French Revolution. And of course a superbly ironical title.
"Wintertide" by Michael Sullivan (Reviewed by Liviu Suciu and Cindy Hannikman)
Official Michael Sullivan Website
Order "Wintertide" HERE (print) or HERE(Kindle)
Read FBC Review of The Crown Conspiracy
Read FBC Review of Avempartha
Read FBC Review of Nypron Rising
Read FBC Review of The Emerald Storm
INTRODUCTION:In the space of two years, Michael Sullivan has moved from a small press debut author that was featured in one of my first "Indie Spotlight Reviews" to a "name" in the fantasy field who sold-out his first novel and is getting both critical acclaim and fan appreciation. In my 2009 end-of-the-year rankings, Avempartha went head to head against the "big names" and made both my Top 2009 Books list and Cindy's Top 2009 Book list, while The Crown Conspiracy made Mihir's Top 2009 Reads too.
"Nyphron Rising" started the epic part of the series which had a lot of ground prepared in The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha two mostly standalone adventures, while in "The Emerald Storm" the series ramped up considerably and the world expanded; the twist ending made "Wintertide" one of my top titles of the second part of the year. So very high expectations, but even so I was not prepared for the punches that Wintertide pulls which left me in need of complete reread of all five books to get an inkling where the series might be going in its finale...
FORMAT/CLASSIFICATION:"Wintertide" stands at about 330 pages divided into 21 named chapters that follow several main POV's: Hadrian, Royce, Arista and Amilia, the lady in waiting and "mouthpiece" of Empress Modina as well as a young street kid Mince who is a new character. All the colorful characters from previous novels like Regent Saldur, Sentinel Guy, Archie, Marius reappear and there are several other characters that grow in importance here. The novel starts with two detailed maps of the world and ends with the most emotional and twisty chapter of the series so far.
While "Nyphron Rising" started getting into the heart of the main story of the series and The Emerald Sea thickened the plot and expanded the world, Wintertide returns to the heart of the action in the Imperial capital of Aquesta, where the two regents are preparing to celebrate the marriage of an Empress and the rebirth of an Empire with the burning of a witch as closing entertainment.
As its two predecessors from the heart of the series, "Wintertide" is adventure fantasy in an epic context.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: Liviu:"'Black queen takes king. White rooks retreat. Black queen captures bishop. White rook to bishop's four, threatening. Check. White's pawn takes queen and bishop. Jade's tomb, full face."
While a bit spoilerish at least if you know what the above means, the paragraph quoted is something that makes a book worth reading by itself; of course getting there and understanding it takes a while and Wintertide has much more, from action, to intrigue, to heart-breaking drama and a lot of subplots closure. The big picture becomes even more intriguing since quite a lot of assumptions are challenged by the end of the novel. And there is only one more installment to go...
Since it is book 5 and I strongly recommend reading at least the previous two installments to fully appreciate this one, the only thing I will mention about the story is that as opposed to the world expanding The Emerald Storm, Wintertide returns to a more compact geographic location and urban/castle action including a knight tourney that offers quite a lot of comic relief to the tension buildup as Wintertide (the event) gets closer and closer.
The dramatic ending of the novel made me go back and reread books 1-4 for clues about where the author may take the series in Percepliquis, and I made a big list of "things to watch for/possibilities" but the one thing I am sure of is that the series ending will be one of those "put down everything and read immediately" novels.
Wintertide (A++) is the second top-rated combo (with The Emerald Storm) of 2010 for me and establish the series as one of the best traditional epic fantasies currently being published and a top 10 novel of mine.
Cindy: After completing Emerald Storm I wanted the next book right away. After a few months of waiting the wait is finally over. One thing about authors is that they make you wait and wait for books and then you get the book and there's a feeling of let down. Let me assure you if you've been following this series at all you won't be let down.
At this point in the series we're so far into it that it's hard to do an analysis of the plot and characters because part of the appeal for the series is the growth of the characters and plots as you read.
Wintertide is everything that I've come to love and expect about anything written by Sullivan. It has all the characters that I'm familiar with. After having them fleshed out a bit in the previous book everything just seemed to flow and come together.
There is a sense of more to come, yet Wintertide has a feeling of the end is almost near. While reading I was impressed with everything but at the same time I couldn't shake the feeling that this series that I have come to love is starting to wind down.
Without being all dramatic the ending will keep you hanging and waiting for the next book.
Like Liviu I really feel that this is one of those series that has a place in the fantasy world. I know it's a series that I will gladly be returning to time and time again. Sullivan has earned my respect and admiration with all the work that he's achieved and I can't wait to see what he pulls out of his hat for the final book. If these past few books are any indication I'm sure it'll be a memorable ending. Well worth the read and time to look into the series and the next book is a must read for myself!


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The recently renovated Roseto Hotel includes a bar and a garden equipped with tables and chairs. A buffet breakfast is included in the room rate.
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Hotel Roseto, hotel pisa
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Queens' Float 1966 |
In 1967, the Bible Club showed us things that should NOT change "In These Changing Times" |
FBLA 1966 - "Business A-Go-Go" was their take on "Where the Action Is in '66" |
Jean Laxton made a spectacular cave woman for Kappa's entry in the parade. |
Probably the only thing better than a parade passing in front of our house was the honor of having a float constructed in our garage. I was a member of Kappa, one of three service clubs open to the girls in school. My house was the designated "float" house for our club.
Each year, I cleaned out the garage, rearranging the lawnmower and paint cans and old screens to make room for our creation. I'm not sure if my parents were glad for the annual cleaning or annoyed at hosting a gaggle of giggling girls night after night, but they managed to endure three homecoming floats.
For weeks, the living room filled with chatter and laughter as we folded, tied, and separated the layers of tissue to form carnations. Yes, we made tissue flowers from either Kleenex or toilet paper. Apparently other types of materials for floats had not been invented, were not available, or were too costly for our club. A tissue-covered truck was the only "look" I ever knew when it came to Homecoming float décor.
As for the club competition for outstanding floats, Kappa was never a winner. Get your camera ready because here comes the parade of winning floats:
"We're buzzing to the tune of '66." In 1966 the theme for Homecoming was "Where the Action Is." The Admiralettes won "Most Original" for a bumble bee playing a record player to welcome back the class of 1956.
(I wonder how many boxes of Kleenex they went through because that's a LOT of tissue paper flowers.)
"College I-A-Go-Go: Tomorrow's Future Depends on Where the Action Is In '66."
It was always hard to outshine the Art Club who won "Best Theme" for creating a paper Cousin Itt to promote going to college.
The Art Club did it again in 1967 winning "Most Spirited" with the White Rabbit hurrying to welcome back the class of 1957. The Homecoming theme was "These Changing Times."
(Did you notice the Art Club didn't use tissue paper flowers? They had access to materials and skills the rest of us lacked.)
"We're Changing Time." That same year, the YMCA's creativity was rewarded by the float's being named "Most Original."


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Haroon Mirza challenges the boundaries of sound, noise, music and art in one of his latest offerings which opened in February 2011 at Lisson Gallery.
The idea of assemblage in contemporary art is nothing new. Since the seminal 1961 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the incorporation of everyday objects, disparate artworks and found materials into an artistic whole has dominated contemporary practice, undertaken by such diverse variety of figures as Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg and Tracey Emin. Frequently overlapping and giving way to installation, the mediums challenge the notions of ownership and authority while standing in staunch opposition to the art market in their denial of commodification. As a result, installation art typically flourishes at times of economic downturn, and today contemporary artists are engaging in the medium with new vigour.
Haroon Mirza extends the traditions of assemblage and installation to emphasise the role of noise, sound and music and the varying relationships between them. Simultaneously practicing as a DJ and a visual artist, Mirza is representative of a new body of artists further negating the existing boundaries between forms. Mirza's work is predominantly aural, with the visual elements constructed primarily for their part in the cacophony of sound. This characteristic emphasis on sound creates uniquely immersive installations, using readymades, furniture, analogue and digital technology, as well as other artworks to construct a cohesive whole that gradually emerges before the visitor.
However, in contrast to the central audio focus, several aspects of Mirza's work invert this idea once again in a baffling sub-text. For example, one installation features a video of African drummers, and yet the video is silent, begging the question, why would a video of drumming (arguably audio writ large), then have the audio taken away? Winner of the 2011 Northern Art Prize, Mirza has carved a reputation as leading exponent, and antagonizer of the position of aural constructs in the gallery setting. Opening on 15 February, Mirza's solo exhibition at the Lisson Gallery incorporates these soundscapes together with their resultant installations and a mish-mash of media to explore the recurring themes of music, religion, the functionality of objects and issues of authorship, as well as emphasising the place of sound and noise in contemporary art.
The major emphasis on the creation of sound, whilst maintaining a very specific setting (these installations are all new, and at the time of going to press, un-constructed in situ) is deliberately limiting. In February, the exhibition will be constructed over the Lisson Gallery's three Bell Street rooms, and while each installation is separate, they also form a composite part of the whole. The viewer-listener will be immersed within this composite, in that they are able to move around the installations, yet unable to walk through the individual installations – inviting them to find the optimum point at which to enjoy the work. It welcomes interaction on a rudimentary level, and yet remains ambiguous.
At the Lisson Gallery the overwhelming sense will be of an intrusive, almost all-conquering soundscape, most aptly expressed in one of the works, An_Infinato, where Cycles (1972/7), a 16mm film from Guy Sherwin, is juxtaposed with unused footage from Jeremy Deller's Memory Bucket (2003), all alongside a characteristically sound-orientated assemblage utilising a jet of water threaded through a sonorous metallic waste bin, to hit the internal workings of, and subsequently play, a dismantled electronic keyboard. Each aspect of the installation contributes uniquely to the audio in a manner that almost negates the visual physicality of the work. Aside from a surrealist ad hoc construction, the balanced keyboard contributes only its confused electronic screech, as its internal organs are exposed and attacked. The 18-minute running time of Sherwin's off-cuts dictates the viewer's full experience of the work by determining its length, but it is unlikely to be experienced in such a way.
With An_Infinato, Mirza is emphasising the artist's control over the situation by introducing a repetition that is too convoluted for the viewer to notice without in-depth study. Mirza refers to his works as "unfolding compositions in time" and it is supposed that the audience's patience will be rewarded by a clearer understanding of the temporality involved in his practice. Although the footage from Deller's film was taken legally when Mirza was working as an assistant on its production, the legitimacy of the work is questionable because of this appropriated nature. Having gone on to win the 2004 Turner Prize, Memory Bucket is both social critique, and surrealist observation, to an extent that highlights the shortcomings of An_Infinato itself.
Installation is inherently immersive and Mirza's work, while displaying the visual results of sound, indicates taking this sensory experience even further by hinting at the incorporation of scent and taste in Taka Tak, exploring the role of Pakistani street food in the social dynamic of Middle Eastern nations. More so than in Europe, for many Asian and north African countries, eating out, in street markets and pavement cafes, is an intrinsic part of the everyday, and an opportunity for men, in particular, to socialise, do business and converse in the public realm with the expectation that female socialising is confined to the private domestic setting.
Taka Tak takes its title from the rhythmic sound of the street vendor's knife hacking at and mincing the goat's meat that creates the popular dish of the same name. While we watch a local chef expertly create this delicacy for the umpteenth time, a pulsating audio emits from one Qur'an stand, while light flickers from another, and a wooden Sufi sculpture spins on a vintage record player. The incorporation of food and religious motifs conjures up the everyday for the Pakistani resident, but the secular social setting of the street market is contrasted by the life of religious dedication and isolation indicated by the Sufi. Taka Tak concentrates not only on the immersive powers of such a street scene, and the potential for furthering the evolution of installation in the creation of a multi-sensory, as opposed to a bi-sensory experience, but also on the contradictions inherent in Islam, and by association, organised religion in general. This is a subject of fascination for Mirza, who focuses on the Islam that he knows best, but extends his critique and interrogation across religions as a way of exploring similarity as well as difference. The installation gives an intriguing impression of time and place, particularly through the video of the chef at work, of which Mirza says: "The chef's performance in Taka Tak is the thing that appeals to me most. It's food and music coming together seamlessly!"
The most explicit religious reference is the furniture, video, audio and light onglomeration of Adhãn, which takes the five times daily Islamic call to prayer as its point of reference and creates a gradually coherent soundscape through the audio contribution of each element of construction. A sleek mid-20th century sideboard holds a television set, while a matching chair contains a flickering light-box, all interspersed with the adhãn (call to prayer) that has been transformed by a selection of musical motifs (musical motifs which Mirza hopes to highlight as being viewed as sinful in traditional Islam): "It's about the contradictions found in Islam. It's a critique of religious faith in general." Religion is a major point of interest for Mirza in much of his past work, but he is reticent to expand further on its contradictions. It is possible to infer that Adhãn is about the dogma of prayer, the regimental attitude of practising Islam especially in Muslim countries and the contrast of this solemn call to prayer with the opinion that all other music is sinful. Mirza seems to be arguing that this is nonsense, and musicality lies at the heart of Islamic worship.
As Mirza strives to place his emphasis on sound, the visuals of his pieces are sacrificed – the works are notably lacking in aesthetic appeal. While some of the readymades take on a sleek, modernist look, others look tired and dated, as if they are a shabby critique of our disposable consumer culture. What is most important, and what contributes to the works' ambiguity, is that they have to be experienced in person, posing a challenge for mediums such as this magazine, for example, to suitably translate. Mirza's work, and his concept, border on incomprehensible and it's common to react to what we don't understand with anger and frustration (a response that Islam arguably suffers). The works promise to reward patience, but simultaneously threaten to aggravate said patience further the more time you devote to them. In this manner, Mirza is emulating Varèse and Duchamp, who he references as his primary influences, in continuing to challenge what can be art when placed within the gallery. However, lacking their shock value, it's questionable how significant such an argument can be in 2011. While the emphasis on the aural (and as technology allows other senses) deserves further exploration, this exploration is in its infancy, something that Mirza and his ilk will look towards developing in works still to come.
Haroon Mirza was showing at the Lisson Gallery from 15 February – 19 March 2011. www.lissongallery.com.
Ruby Beesley


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Protest Stencil Toolkit
Patrick Thomas
Laurence King
Barcelona-based Patrick Thomas, has created the essential toolkit for the graphics of protest. This comprehensive book contains 46 die-cut stencils and a stencil typeface that can be used to create slogans and visual messages. It's tempting to go straight outside and start marking your territory, however there is a wider message at play here.
Over recent years, street and guerrilla art has become increasingly popular and rather than being considered destructive, it has taken on a new meaning in our contemporary landscape. Taking a significant step towards the democratisation of the practice, David Cameron chose to give Barack Obama one of Ben Eine's typographic works; an artist known for using the underpasses, bridges and train carriages of south London as his medium.
Protest Stencil Toolkit builds upon this relationship between stencil art, social consciousness and bringing art to a wider audience. We can't all be the next Banksy or Blek le Rat, but with this book of classic symbols from great protest movements as well as new images reflecting contemporary concerns – we can certainly try.
Bethany Rex


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Editor's note: Johnnie Moore is the author of Dirty God (#DirtyGod). He is a professor of religion and vice president at Liberty University.
By Johnnie Moore, Special to CNN
(CNN) - Jesus was a lot more like you than you think, and a lot less clean cut than this iconic image of him that floats around culture.
You know the image. It's the one where Jesus is walking like he's floating in robes of pristine white followed by birds singing some holy little ditty. He's polished, manicured, and clearly – God.
But despite the Christian belief that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, Jesus was a rather dirty God.
He was the "earthly" son of a carpenter, and life in the first-century was both more lurid and unfinished than our collective religious memory seems to recall.
To that end, I suggested recently to several astounded colleagues of mine that Jesus actually had to go to the bathroom, perhaps even on the side of the road between Capernaum and Jerusalem.
What tipped them over the edge was when I insinuated that Jesus, like almost every other human being living in the rural world in that time, might have even had dysentery on an occasion or two.
Someone said, "You mean that Jesus might have had severe diarrhea?"
"Yep," I replied, "That's exactly what I mean."
It seems like an obvious statement if you believe that Jesus was "fully God" and "fully man" (as most evangelicals believe and call the Incarnation), but to some of us it seems in the least, inappropriate, and at the most, sacrilege, to imagine Jesus in this way. We might believe that God was also man, but we picture him with an ever-present halo over his head.
But, actually, the Jesus of the Bible was more human than most people are conditioned to think.
I call this the dirty side of Jesus. He was grittier, and a lot more like us than maybe we believe, and that's one of the reasons why so many thousands of people followed him so quickly.
They could relate to him.
He was the teacher from a small town who knew and understood the economic insecurity that was common in the first century. Times must have been rather tough for Jesus at points in his life, for he even spoke of being homeless, having to sleep on the ground with no roof over his head.
He also knew what it was like to have his message rejected and how it felt to be misunderstood. Jesus was regarded with such little significance in his hometown that one of his critics once remarked sardonically, "Isn't this the carpenter's son?" Jesus eventually had to move to different city (Capernaum) because his teachings so infuriated the people living in his hometown that they drove him out of Nazareth and even tried to throw him off a cliff.
The real Jesus had dirt underneath his fingernails and calluses on his hands. He probably smelled badly from sweating profusely in the Judean sun on his long hikes to Jerusalem, and Jesus was, without a doubt, rumored to be a hypocrite or absolutely mad for all the time he spent with prostitutes and those afflicted with leprosy.
Not exactly have a clean-cut image.
He had a rather shady reputation.
Some people thought he was a revolutionary. The religious leaders called him a heretic, and others even accused him of being a drunkard and a glutton - in no small part because of the vagabond group of disciples he had with him. No serious religious leader of his day would have ever recruited such people.
For his core 12 disciples, Jesus included a tough-as-nails, bombastic fisherman (Peter), a chief tax collector named Matthew (the most hated popular figure of the time), an eventual traitor who was stealing money out of the offering bucket (Judas), a prolific doubter (Thomas), two jocks nicknamed the "Sons of Thunder" (James and John) and Simon the Zealot, a member of a radical political party which believed in using violence to kick out the Romans.
Jesus was sarcastic, too.
He often snapped back at the Pharisees with a tone fit for late-night television, and in a terribly embarrassing moment for all those around him, Jesus even called these respected religious teachers "snakes" that were probably sons of "Satan."
That's not exactly the behavior of a sweet, self-help teacher with a halo over his head.
It's the behavior of a frustrated man who might also be divine, but sure knows how it feels for annoying people to get under his skin.
Christians believe that Jesus chose to be born fully human, too, but why?
Lots of theologians have laid out opinions over the centuries, and in their opining they have tried once again to hijack Jesus' humanity by defining it in philosophical terms. I believe it's simpler than the philosophy and church councils and centuries of argument.
The brilliance of Christianity is the image of a God, named Jesus, arrived with dirty hands.
Jesus came in a time period when Greco-Roman gods were housed in gigantic temples and portrayed with superhuman powers and with superhuman physiques. Gods were believed to be far away from people on their mountains or hemmed up in their sanctuaries.
Jesus arrived in defiance of this prevailing imagery.
Jesus didn't come flinging lightning bolts from a mountaintop, or playing politics in Rome. He came to live in a typical Middle Eastern village called Nazareth that was home to a couple hundred typical people. He didn't decide to brandish his power, but to spend most of his time with the powerless and disenfranchised. And when he started a religious movement that reshaped history, he did it in the most profound and anticlimatic way:
He let himself be killed, and then he busted open a tomb.
In Jesus we meet a Savior who understood the desire to sleep just a few more hours, and who had to control his temper sometimes. In Jesus we find a God we can relate to because he chose to relate to us.
He was the God who became dirty so that the world's souls might be made clean.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Johnnie Moore.
For information on how to book Johnnie Moore for your next event, visit PremiereSpeakers.com/Christian/Johnnie_Moore.


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Mini Bar
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Polka Spots -- Refined Outrageousness!
"my favorite part about being an adult is that my pillow fort now has a mini bar."
This design can be purchased as a coaster, magnet, towel, or greeting card.
- Coaster -- 4x4", cork-backed
- Magnet -- 2x2", with strong earth magnet
- Towel -- 18x24", microfibre suede
- Greeting card -- 5x7", with brown kraft envelope; blank inside
Our original designs are printed on magnets, coasters, towels, and greeting cards.
Magnets and coasters are made of smooth tumbled marble. Magnets are finished with strong earth magnets; coasters are cork-backed.
Our microfibre suede kitchen towels are super absorbent and soft as can be. Throw them in the wash (even with bleach!), and dry them at any temperature.
Laser-printed greeting cards come with brown kraft paper envelopes and are blank inside - perfect for any occasion.
We proudly make all our products in our New England studio.