Customer Reviews

Like a House on Fire: Renewal of the Arts in a Postmodern Culture

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anyone who's heard Steve Scott's brilliant new wave record/ CD, Love in the Western World, will notice that I named this review after a song on that album. Steve also often names his pieces after his songs or vice versa, which is the first thing that makes this book great; the interconnectedness of all things Steve Scott, for whom life and art and faith are not disconnected pursuits. This book, like his music, like his poetry yells that they don't have to be. If that isn't good news for the artist, I don't know what is.

This book sort of picks up where Crying for a Vision (Stride Books, England) left off, but really both books are a jumble of essays loosely organized around a common theme, and not very "booky" at all. Having said that, House will still be over many reader's heads, and they'll naturally be tempted to put it down. I don't advise that: instead jump around. Skip the way deep histories in the first two chapters and dive in later. "A Jar of Dead Flies" ran in some version in now defunct True Tunes magazine. Part of "Am I Really Here or Is it Just Art?" appeared in HM magazine (just celebrating 20 years--see my magazine guide to get it from Amazon), which is to say they really are independent essays.

"Am I Really Here" relates to Scott's poetry over tape loops album, The Butterfly Effect, which it would be very cool to read and then listen to respectively in an arts/ reading group. House is full of bits like that (the last two essays are projects) that could be discussed over a cup of joe (or a pint of Guiness), with each member of the group bringing examples from their own or other's art (it would really open up the part on post-modernism to thrash it out in a group).

Christianity Today had an article on how traditionally Catholic and various stripes of Protestant colleges are regaining their original vision, which sort of means that how they reinvent themselves is up for grabs. I can't even imagine what might happen if someone used House as a textbook. Imagine reading a book about art by someone who actually made art. Steve Scott's now and then chapbooks, The Boundaries, are being collected into one volume by Stride, and Crying for a Vision is due to be reprinted.

Steve's CDs are also (sometimes) available through RadRockers.com (search under Scott). The 77s were his back up band on Love in the Western World, which RadRockers called " a deliciously creepy, way before its time alternative rock classic, with similarities to David Bowie, Roxy Music and the Police...Lyrically deep and brilliant, with vocal inflections similar to Lou Reed." His other rock collections are Magnificent Obsession and Lost Horizon. His other albums are more experimental, like The Butterfly Effect, or Crossing the Boundaries, which was part of an installation with visual painter Gaylen Stewart, Empty Orchestra (the literal meaning of Karaoke), and More Than a Dream (odd reversions of Scott rock songs). So for an art book by an artist, check out Steve Scott.

Steve Scott is so beyond his time it ain't funny. As a Christian musician, he has produced far too little music. If he had 50 albums, I'd buy ever single one of 'em. That being said, I had no idea his writing would be so deep, so profound.

"Like a house on fire" reads like a college textbook, and it should be required at any Christian campus teaching arts. Why as an artist do you create? What is the role of an artist in society? What is the role of a Christian? Are they compatible? Can the arts be redeemed? There is enough food for thought in here to keep your mind fed for months, and to get you renewed in serving Jesus with a purpose beyond what you thought possible.