It’s not often I read a work of fiction within a year or two of its release. Aside from the Harry Potter series, it usually takes me at least five or ten years — if not fifty — to get around to reading a well-known story. The reasoning is mostly that stories are often more timeless, while nonfiction has a tendency to be more relevant if read closer to its publication time.

Anyway, I’m getting off track. The point is that I read a new piece of critically-lauded fiction: Flight, by Sherman Alexie. Mostly because my girlfriend said, “Here, read this. It’s a quick, easy read and a great story.” And she was right.

Flight is about a fifteen-year-old half Native American foster kid named Zits. He has low self esteem, due to his zits and his revolving-door stays with foster families all throughout the Seattle area. He channels his low self worth into violent acts and disrespect for his foster parents, which is hardly surprising.

And then Zits meets Justice in a jail cell. Justice tells him how everything is wrong, how Native Americans deserve to do whatever it takes to take back their land from white people, how to shoot a gun. And after weeks and weeks of this righteous indoctrination, Zits walks into a bank with a pistol and a paintball gun.

The story really takes off, though, before he sees the consequences of his violent act, when he wakes up from what he presumed to be his own death to find himself in the body of an FBI agent in the 70s that was fighting against the Native Americans. And, from there, into the bodies of several historical figures fighting either for or against the freedom of the Native American people.

Flight is a unique take on the all-too-common coming of age story. While the whole idea revolves around time travel (or reincarnation, in a weird way), it still seemed the most appropriate way for the universe to help a lost boy find his way, realize the consequences of his violent tendencies and break away from that cycle.

All in all, it was a beautiful and enjoyable read that I highly recommend for any teen or twentysomething.

Conversation #1 and Conversation #2 are two short comic books that discuss the philosophy of art, what it means to live and whether creating art is necessary for life to be worth living.

The style of each book is that James Kochalka, creator of American Elf, personal favorite comic, collaborates with one other comic artist. They write the dialog and guide the direction of the art together, and interfere with each other so that both the dialog and the art are a conversation of styles and philosophies. In the first book, Kochalka collaborates with Craig Thompson; in the second he works with Jeffrey Brown

Both comic books were highly enjoyable, especially as someone who enjoys comics, philosophy and the analysis of art. Both were right up my alley, so being $5 each it was a bit of a no-brainer to invest in a copy of each. Kochalka’s mindset on free expression and open honesty — both things I love about American Elf — come through well, and getting to appreciate the work of two other comic artists I wasn’t familiar with was great.

My only complaints about the books would be that, for one, they were both really short, and also that the conversation meandered in and out of topic a bit much at times, which occasionally made the ideas hard to follow. I wouldn’t say this interfered with my enjoying them, but were the only things that held them back from being a perfect read.

It’s not too often that a widely popular book ends up being even better than imagined. At least for me. Call me picky, but it rarely happens. So when I picked up a cheap copy of Chuck Klosterman’s self-described “low culture manifesto” Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs that I know to be highly popular with the uber-hipster crowd, I figured it’d be entertaining at best.

It turns out that Klosterman uses pop culture to reflect on a lot of deep sociological and philosophical ideas that are relevant for most subscribers to western life. He brings up Marilyn Monroe and Pamela Anderson in crass detail to explain the sexual evolution of America over the last 50 years. He uses the video game The Sims to rant about how we are slaves to the process of living. He states his opinion that MTV’s The Real World and other early reality TV has shaped every young American into one of a handful of prototypical personality types. And he talks about how fascinating serial killers are. Just because.

I suppose I was expecting some massive collection of cultural references that tie together in a clever way that strikes upon valuable insights haphazardly and unintentionally at best, meant more for ironic amusement than anything else. I’m assuming I came to this notion based on my perception of his “average reader.”

But Klosterman truly does have a grasp on a lot of bigger-picture ideas that he very directly discusses at every turn. He just happens to use “low culture” like MTV and video games to help ease into those ideas, making it an ideal introduction to sociology and modern philosophy for the young unaccustomed.

I already have another Chuck Klosterman book waiting in the wings to be read. I bought it quietly on a recent trip to Urban Outfitters, which might say more about me than I originally thought.

I’ve had the same wish for the past five years. My wish is that I’ll live forever. A lot of people don’t understand that… It’s a wish! Go big! I don’t wanna fucking die! How simple is that? I have no interest in dying… Out there? I don’t know what’s out there. It’s unknown. This is known. That’s unknown . I’m sticking with the known. “But Lewis, if you had faith,” my Christian friends say, “the angels will come and they will take you to heaven…” “Well,” I tell them, “until there are photographs, the legal system would say that’s hearsay.”

paraphrase of Lewis Black on his new album

A few weeks back, I had the distinct pleasure of getting to see David Bazan live at a house show here in Nashville. As many are well aware by this point, Bazan has made a major transformation from “leader of a Christian band” (Pedro the Lion) to “openly agnostic solo artist.” It would be easy to assume that someone who was that entrenched in the culture of western Christianity would be having quite an awkward adjustment — especially after “coming out” to the world via one of the best albums released in a long time. It was, essentially, his “breakup album with God,” for lack of a better description.

I was expecting to sit in a living room with a guy who was full of “umms” and “ahhs” that played his songs and mentally prepared himself for a barrage of questions about his departure from faith. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. Not only did my fellow listeners treat him with the utmost respect, he was confident, bold, outspoken and, dare I say it, happier and more comfortable than I’ve ever heard of him being. It was as though he had finally settled into his right place.

Especially in North America, evangelical culture persists a lot of black-and-white mentality about what is truth and what is lie, what is to be believed and what is to be rejected. In the past few years, I’ve seen a growing population of Christians who debate and argue and divide themselves over nitpicky theology, which I find more than a little bit disconcerting. Over time, I realized that this mentality is rooted in a desire to prove their beliefs in a concrete fashion which, if you think about it, is kind of ridiculous.

An idea that’s been rolling around in my head for my long absence from blogging here — originally seeded in a growing and poorly-worded curiosity about the validity of the other major religions — boils down to this: faith is just that.

Faith, in the religious sense, means believing in something that cannot be proven. If, as Lewis Black wishes, we can prove that God and heaven and angels and an afterlife exist without a shadow of doubt, it wouldn’t be faith. It would be fact. In the same way, we can’t disprove the beliefs of others, especially when they are in agreement with millions of others.

Western Christianity has made a lot of effort in the past 50 years to prove why Christianity is “it” and everything else is not. It shows a supreme lack of confidence in the unknown and in being wrong. To truly have great faith, one must submit to the fact that, at some point, he has to stop proving, accept what he believes and live accordingly. Or stop believing it.

Certainly we need people who can read and interpret the Bible and the Koran and the holy scriptures of Hinduism in order to form a foundation of beliefs, but interpretation is not something for everyone. In fact, the more that get involved in interpretation, the less unity there seems to be, which completely throw the idea of a body of believers out the window. Our culture’s Jeffersonian push on education has somehow caused us to forget that faith and education are near-polar opposites. Christian culture’s desire to have concrete answers to the eternally unanswerable and ridiculously inane questions of life is causing it to crumble in on itself.

Perhaps if most of us dropped the habit of (mis)interpreting, debating and arguing ideas, submit to the philosophy that it’s not only okay but recommended to not know everything, then focused on practicing the undeniable core of our beliefs — to love and respect and ask everything in humility — we’d all be better off.

Perhaps Bazan’s confidence is seeded in knowing that he doesn’t need to know all the answers or ask all the question to live an inspired and beautiful life.

Required reading/listening:

• The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, by David Dark
• The Religion Episode, by the Grapes of Rad
• Curse Your Branches, by David Bazan

Oh hey. I guess it’s June now. When did that happen?

New albums from Roky Erickson, The Hold Steady, The National, LCD Soundsystem, Gayngs and Horse Feathers ruled the month, it seems. Otherwise it was a fairly quiet month.

1. Roky Erickson with Okkervil River – “Please, Judge” (True Love Cast Out All Evil)
2. Horse Feathers – “Thistled Spring” (Thistled Spring)
3. The Hold Steady – “We Can Get Together” (Heaven Is Whenever)
4. The National – “Bloodbuzz Ohio” (High Violet)
5. Gayngs – “The Last Prom On Earth” (Relayted)
6. Earth – “The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull” (The Bees Made Honey In The Lion’s Skull)
7. Avi Buffalo – “What’s In It For?” (Avi Buffalo)
8. Jesse Malin and the St. Marks Social – “Burning the Bowery” (Burning the Bowery)
9. LCD Soundsystem – “Dance Yrself Clean” (This Is Happening)
10. Sufjan Stevens – “Redford (for Yia-Yia and Pappou)” (Michigan)
11. Zomby – “Daft Punk Rave” (Where Were U in ’92?)
12. Iyaz – “Replay” (Replay)
13. Jason DeRulo – “Whatcha Say” (Jason DeRulo)

And, and always, you can listen here: