"I would rather die than hate you."

To commemorate America's most explicitly--though not exclusively--Christian holiday, I'd like to share a few selections I couldn't fit into the space of a tweet. First, a little something from the always-magnificent Ray Waddle in yesterday's Tennessean.
This from the New York Review of Books. The most helpful account of life in China I've read in a long time.
And I Have No Enemies. Liu Xiaobo's witness strikes me as deeply in sync with King's, and his posture's been a very helpful point of contemplation in light of events (and talk about the events) in Tucson.
We are a beginning.

Boney King of Nowhere

"Nothing which is ready-to-hand or present-at-hand within the world functions as that in the face of which anxiety is anxious."
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

Redemption Songs

Here's the deal. We have an amazing and outrageously redemptive phenomenon happening in Nashville these days with The Contributor. And to my deep delight, the operation is housed at DPC. Anyway, the poster broadcasts the fact of a fundraising event this weekend, but it doesn't say diddly concerning the music on offer that evening. I'll fill you in. There's Julie Lee officiating and performing. Robby Hecht, Lex Price, Elizabeth Foster, Nathan Phillips of the Winston Jazz Routine and the Choir At Your Door, Odessa Jorgensen of Bearfoot, Angel Snow, Jason Goforth, SARAH MASEN, STEPHEN MASON of Jars of Clay, Harvey Gerard of HOBOTRON, DAVE PERKINS of Chagall Guevara and everything cool EVER, Anita Smith, and Sierra Hull.
All this and the monthly Art Crawl too. Come round and be enriched.
UPDATE
It now appears that TaRee J. Avery and ACTION! are also set to bring their powers to bear on the evening.
Too. Much. Love.