Sinden.org

Earlier today, Scott encounters Apostles Church (New York NY) with a free, seemingly heaven-sent granola bar.

For a minute on the subway, I was afraid my Judaism would cause the granola bar to react to my stomach like holy water to a vampire, but I took my chances. No heartburn yet.

According to their obnoxiously-designed website, Apostles Church NYC believes in proclaiming Jesus, assimilating believers like in Star Trek, developing leaders, renewing the city, and planting churches, which is my favorite part. I imagine little sapling churches springing up in Central Park trying like hell heaven to sprout a few buds before the athiest [sic] lawnmowers plow them into oblivion, laughing maniacally.

The Body of Christ: Now with Chocolate Chips! from in the what?

Labels: Advertising, churches

I've often found myself making the case that the "Hallelujah" Chorus is overused.

Tonight, I heard the piece in question used in a Charmin ad. Charmin, in case you have forgotten, sells toilet paper. The add campaign features red and blue bears, as does the website. As far as I can tell, colored bears have no bearing (!) on the use of this piece of music, but there it is nonetheless.

The use of Handel's music here is an aberration, but it proves my point that society has commandeered this piece of music in its ongoing worship of consumerism. If it's being used to sell things (let alone being used to sell toilet tissue) it should only be used very carefully in our liturgies.

we worship a God who is both strong and soft

Marva Dawn would probably point out the device/commodity relationship in the advertising here. The chorus here functions as a "device" that produces the "commodity" of good feelings about toilet paper.

Here, the ad sets up the choice of strength versus softness. Perhaps the chorus summons up a feeling of victory over the other bath tissue brands who have failed to provide for our society's desperate need for this distinction. "At last!" we say. "Strong and soft paper! Charmin saves the Jew and the Gentile alike! Halleluja!"

Naturally advertising is about us, but Handel's music is not. How ironic is it that we worship a God who is both strong and soft? A dialectical tension that cannot exist in material things does exist in our God. Music describing this multifaceted God is stripped from its subject/object and given to the service of material things.

It's not our fault, but the "Hallelujah" chorus has been tainted. Because of its cultural connotations, however, church musicians must employ it judiciously. After all, we aren't in the business of "selling" the resurrection, are we?

This Charmin ad in particular is a hard sell for me. Didn't King George II stand up when he heard this music? It seems to me that the product in question has more to do with sitting down.

Labels: Advertising, Handel

Common usage also applies the term to devoutly religious people, particularly Christians; however, it is also used to describe devout members of any religious persuasion, and perhaps its particular application to Christianity is a combination of the fact that Christians are the majority religion in the Americas and Europe where the term is commonly used, and the fact that Christians describe themselves as a "flock" and Christ as a "shepherd."

from Wikipedia's "Sheeple"

Previously: Christians - sheeple as culturally persecuted

Labels: Advertising, cars, Christianity, web

It doesn't bother me so much that a new online videogame advertising the Toyota Scion xD is violent, but I am offended that it seems to be blatantly anti-Christian.

The innocuous sheep-faced humanoids of the game are "sheeple". And who are we supposed to believe the sheeple are?

Know that the Lord is God. It is he that made us, and we are his;* we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Psalm 100:3

Yes, Toyota. When we're not busy drawing fish in the sand, we Judeo-Christians like to think of ourselves as sheep.

We are, in fact, his people and the sheep of his pasture. Sheep-people, if you will.

The advertisement I was forced to endure in the movie theater (because no, I wasn't going to walk out before Harry Potter 5 started) featured a "little deviant" wearing the disemboweled carcass of a "sheeple" in the spirit of Jesus' remarks in Matthew 7:15

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves."

The sheep in the advertisement and the game itself are defenseless. They are the "harassed and helpless" sheep without a shepherd that the author of Matthew describes in 9:36. (The ones we sing about "harvesting" to the tune ORA LABORA.

Jesus also uses the sheep as a metaphor for the children, "the greatest in the kingdom of heaven":

What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?

Matthew 18:12

The sheep in the game also bleed green. [NEED BIBLICAL REFERENCE FOR THIS!!!]

And, finally, there's the infamous "Sermon on Mt. Sheep":

“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”

John 10:1-18

More to the point: Toyota's advertisement refers to sheeple murder as "evolution". The implied message that Toyota wants it's car buyers to inhabit is "Gray-painting Christians are cramping our style. This car will show them who's boss. I'll be a little demon! Try to stop me now!"

To help them with their new worldview, Toyota offers a fictional guidebook. The ads feature a tattered tome with the title "Book of Deviants" in goldleaf gothic script.

I take all of this to mean that I read this to be somewhat anti-Christian, and I don't think I'm too far off base here. I suspect this is what the marketing campaign is after.

Tapping a cultural undercurrent of Christian antagonism to sell cars is pretty . Especially when the kind of car they are selling is an eco-friendly compact (32/38 mpg), which is exactly the kind of car a progressive Christian might be interested in.

Labels: Advertising, cars, Christianity, web

Today on the current issue of Living Church, a periodical about the Episcopal Church and its affairs, I noticed the back cover was devoted to an advertisement for MyPipes.org

As you enterprising link-clickers have already discovered, there's nothing there! The site just says "Coming Soon" (which at the very least is a step up from the undercapitalized "Coming soon" and the hopelessly casual "coming soon"). But what is the site supposed to be?

Well, you guessed it: something about organ music. The advertisement prominently features an organ pipe and says something about organ mp3s.

I distinctly remember the phrase "turn your iPod into a virtual cathedral".

A quick check reveals that mypipes.org is registered by Zarex corporation. So, it could be interesting.

But let me just ask first: why take out such a prominent advertisment if the site isn't active at all?

Wasteful.

What about "Coming [small picture of organ pipe] soon"?

I mean, come on.

Labels: Advertising, organ, web

William Crotch has a funny name. I know this because choristers laugh when you say it. Also, on a few copies of the choristers' music, his last name is circled.

So, ha ha. Very funny. But who is this William Crotch exactly? Well, turns out his name may be funny, but Crotch was a serious musician.

The son of a carpenter (like Jesus?), Crotch was a musical child prodigy. At 18 months, he was already picking out tunes on the family house organ (also like Jesus?)

Now, back in the time of Crotch (is that a good name for a band, or what?), the circus was a popular form of entertainment. Unlike today, however, circuses (pronounced: SIR-cuh-sees) consisted not of animal entertainment, but mostly child entertainment. It is for this reason that persons with Dwarfism were often employed by later circuses: they were the new "children" in an era of oppressive child-labor laws.

HIDDEN (a Crotch size clarification): There's nothing small about our Crotch. He eventually reaches full size.

In the circus, William Crotch resided in a tent that contained an organ, whereupon he would bedazzle his listeners with his improvisations. These were probably not great musical feats, but for a two year old to improvise chords to a melody learned by ear is certainly something. Also, he got free cotton candy.

HIDDEN (inappropriate remark): One wonders if this tent had a fly, and whether it was open or closed.

Today's "soccer moms" descend from a league of overbearing "circus moms" who enlisted their young children in these precocious presentations of prodigy. Crotch's mother, Isabella, accompanied Crotch and the circus on a grand world tour.

HIDDEN (another one): It was in this way that her young Crotch gained much exposure.

Anyway, long story short. Crotch the freak-show boy-wonder grew up to be Crotch the mildly adequate composer. Though he did play the organ at Kings College, Cambridge, which is pretty cool.

Incidentally, when I program my own concerts, I want to end up with a poster that looks like this:

Crotch
selections from Palestine
also, music by Bach, including his
Air on the G String

Crotch also may have provided the basis for Louis Vierne's Carillon de Westminster if he did indeed design the Westminster Chime.

Crotch the painter: Crotch's talent didn't limit itself to music. He was also a painter.

Alma mater tangent: It is with not a small amount of pride and a tinge of nostalgia that I note that an image search for crotch brings up a number of unflattering pictures of Paris Hilton and photo taken in an Oberlin music theory classroom.

Labels: Advertising, funny names, King's College (Cambridge), Oberlin, organ, William Crotch