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Three Things Guest Curator:
Tom Becker
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We are excited to introduce you to Tom Becker of The Row House. Tom has been a Three Things reader from the beginning and we were excited to ask him to jump in and create an issue of his own.
Tom is the Curator of The Row House Forum in Lancaster, PA, founded in 2010 as a platform for “engaging current culture with ancient faith.” Tom is married to Becky, and they have five children – two in Denver, two in Philadelphia, and one in Lancaster.
Find him online on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, or on his blog. You can also read his reflections on Christianity and culture in his book Good Posture.
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Virgil Wander
A novel by Leif Enger
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I always wanted to live in the apartment above The Watson Theater in my hometown. I recently discovered it’s been renovated, but I won’t be moving soon. Watsontown, like many American small towns, is no longer lived in, shopped in, or played in as it once was.
Leif Enger invokes a similar nostalgia (or may I call it grief?) over his upbringing on the Great Lakes in his enchanting novel Virgil Wander. His fictional town of Greenstone, MN also has a theater on Main Street where the protagonist, Mr. Virgil Wander, lives. Virgil nearly dies – "my heartbroken Pontiac breached a safety barrier and made a long, lovely, some might say cinematic arc into the churning lake" – and returns to The Empress amidst economic decay, cultural stagnation, and characters scratching existential itches.
The setting is evocative, if underwhelming. Town life goes nowhere fast, but Enger paints scenes of warm movie nights with friends around food and dream-like, meditative kite-flying sessions over Lake Superior helmed by a mysterious Finn named Rune. No wonder I couldn’t put it down.
Grab a copy of Virgil Wander, or tune into this interview with Leif Enger. I confidently commend it to fellow wanderers who doubt whether any wonder can be found in a small, dying place.
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"The Accidental Room"
99% Invisible
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"What’s your favorite podcast?” If only more people would ask me that! I get a small rush answering, "99% Invisible, of course.”
In their own words: "99% Invisible is about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world." It’s one of the most popular podcasts today with well over 300 episodes. The founder and host, Roman Mars, is a winsome, curious guy with a sweet energy. He’s the kind of guy I want to have a smoothie with.
To get you hooked, just listen to one of my favorites: "The Accidental Room". You’ll marvel at a small group of artists in Rhode Island who found a sliver of dead space in a mall and created a secret apartment. They occupied it under the noses of security and customers for nearly four years!
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The Return of Pedro the Lion
Aarik Danielsen
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Some of you remember the band Pedro the Lion, a project by Dave Bazan. My daughters and I caught some of their live performances back in the mid-2000s at Cornerstone Festival and remain fans. His brutal honesty about going toe-to-toe with the God of the Bible speaks to me, though I don't share his repressive evangelical upbringing.
For the first time since 2004, Pedro the Lion is back with a new album named after Bazan's hometown of Phoenix. It seems Bazan not only grew up in the desert, he’s also battled the desert of depression his whole life. I grieve over this because I have a few loved ones who are similarly afflicted. Sadly, emotional and mental struggles isolate those we love, just like that kid on the yellow bike in one of the album's music videos. I want to be that kid who rides up next to them, if only they were willing.
Read "The Return of Pedro the Lion" over at Think Christian and be sure to check out the new album.
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Weekly Miscellany
A few extras we couldn't fit in elsewhere
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Andy is finally getting around to reading Ellis Potter's pithy, oh-so clear mini-treatise on epistemology, How Do You Know That?. And (to repeat himself) he has reached book 15 of 16 in Robin Hobb's masterpiece The Realm of the Elderlings series. If you like fantasy, read Robin Hobb. (Also, Americans, I apologize for the overly masculine fantasy covers. Don't judge a book by its axe-wielding heartthrob. The UK covers are works of art.)
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Phillip is looking forward to this July’s L’Abri Conference in Nashville called “Being Human in a Fragmenting World” where he’ll be doing a few workshops and curating a dreamy book table. All Three Things readers are more than welcome! He’s also working his way through that big surveillance capitalism book, which his wife has advised him not to read in public lest he be taken for a conspiracy nut.
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Current Thought Projects
Ideas we're mulling over long-term
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Andy is trying to convince people that magic is real (yes, real). He is enlisting the likes of Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, and Rowling, but has yet failed to convince anyone but himself. In short, he thinks modern people are missing the dryads for the trees, and we may even need (to quote Charles Taylor) to "leaven Christianity with a dose of paganism." Over to you.
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In all of his reading lately, Phillip has circled back to a line from The Supper of the Lamb: "One real thing is closer to God than all the diagrams in the world." The same holds for images, a truth borne out everywhere from the second commandment to a recent episode of Hidden Brain. He's trying to write about it.
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