Arts & Culture

JONES | Lessons from my Time as a Pre-Teen Zealot

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As a child, I was fascinated by Christianity. The ritual aspect of it was, I think, what appealed to me most: the concept of slowly and constantly improving oneself through meticulous observation of holidays, prayers, communion, etc. Ironically, I went to fairly laid-back Presbyterian and Lutheran churches with my parents, so I was denied the liturgical, repetitious grandiosity of Catholicism, for which my young, faithful and perhaps even slightly bureaucratic soul was clearly hungering. In retrospect, I was more fascinated by the rituals themselves than what underpinned them: belief in a responsive and singular God.

Arts & Culture

Spinning Singles: Green Day, “Still Breathing”

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No one is going to blame you if you spaced out for Green Day’s 2012 three-album, 37-song outpouring ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tré! The trilogy called into clear relief the inherent contradiction in the trio’s 2009 21st Century Breakdown. Green Day’s broad brush, lite manifesto take on politics was both far too milquetoast to seriously listen to as political punk, but too sincere and ideologically weighty to reward casual listening like fellow aging punks Descendents. The band kept 21st Century Breakdown and American Idiot’s big budget production and streamlined production for ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!