Proof of Life: still here, don't give up on me

A Surprise Package post from the office where I feel like a hostage — featuring new music and an old(er) favorite.

This is just a quick March 4 update from my office at the university, where I am staggering through Week Nine of the winter term. (If you want details, see the note at the end of the post.)

I may not be able to write substantial reviews and reflections right now, but I’m going to take some of these moments when I should be sleeping or exercising to offer some recommendations of things that are sustaining me and giving me hope — you know, things that live up to that Philippians 4:8 standard of whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise.

So here are a few highlights that have been like “candles and stars” helping me “find my way through” (to borrow some phrases from one of my favorite Sam Phillips songs).

Mitski!

I wondered if Mitski’s last record, The Land is Inhospitable and So Are We, would be, by my measure, her masterpiece. But I am already in love with the album that arrived last Friday: Nothing’s About to Happen to Me.

U2!

As you probably know by now, U2 stunned fans around the world with an Ash Wednesday release of the EP Days of Ash, one that finds their signature protest-song spirit rekindled to an intensity I haven’t heard from them in many years.

The first two tracks would stand up strong alongside the best tracks of their last full-band studio release Songs of Experience (which is good, because most of that record played for me as a persuasive case for the band to consider retiring). “American Obituary” (dedicated to the poet, the mother, the American citizen Renee Nicole Good who was murdered in broad daylight, with spite and lawless fury, by an ICE agent) and “The Tears of Things” (which takes its title from the extraordinary new book about prophecy and lamentation by Fr. Richard Rohr) make it clear that they might still have a great album or two in them, if they can avoid committee-driven hit-making strategies and do what they do best.

The weaker points in the record show their obsession with arena-audience singalongs and scoring cool points with the kids. (I guess that’s what collaborating with Ed Sheeran is about? Is he still cool with kids?)

But I cannot deny that I’ve been listening to it on repeat, because I remember how U2, in the mid-80s, ’90s, and 2000s had much to do with breaking down the walls of my cloistered, fear-founded community and helped me follow Christ’s call to love the world by living in it fearlessly rather than withdrawing from it in judgment. U2 have shown what it can look like if rock stars serve as the hands and heart of Jesus in the world, and this music often sounds like it’s empowered by those hands, that heart.

And wow, do we ever need more artists to consider this example, answer this call, right here, right now.

I’m also keeping these new tracks in heavy rotation, as solace in the rising tide of cruelty and violence, as lament through the accelerating destruction of American democracy and decency, and as guiding lights as those of us who still believe in love, liberty, and justice for all.

Blake!

James Blake’s “Death of Love” is my favorite thing he’s recorded since “Retrograde” thirteen years ago. I find myself deeply moved by his prayerful delivery of the lines “We can’t follow you where you’re going.” I’m reminded of what the apostles must have felt when Christ pointed forward to his pending departure. And I wonder what they felt when, after conquering death, he vanished from their presence with the promise of a Holy Spirit to guide them. Surely they must have felt so much of what some of us are feeling — “Okay, but we would sure rather have Jesus, body and soul, right here among us, right now, in this present darkness.”

Beck!

There’s a weird timeliness to the revival of Beck’s cover of “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime,” which played over the credits of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but now finally takes a place of prominence on his new Valentine’s Day release of the same title. I find the song as moving as ever.

Hawke!

I’m not quite sure what to make of the lyrics for the new Maya Hawke song yet, but I sure like the sound of it!

Gabriel!

Peter Gabriel’s second new song of 2026 is out in both “dark side” and “light side” mixes. I prefer this one:

Cinder Well!

Anne and I, over our dinner hours (which are really only about half an hour these days), recently rushed through Season One of Small Prophets, the new BBC fantasy/comedy from Mackenzie Crook, the creator of Detectorists (one of my all-time favorite TV series). And so, of course, I fell in love with its theme song, just as I did with Johnny Flynn’s theme song for Detectorists. This is my introduction to the L.A.-based artist Cinder Well. Her voice reminds me a little of Laura Gibson, which is a good thing.

Oh, yes — Anne and I highly recommend the series, and we hope we’ll have Seasons Two and Three and Four to enjoy soon.

Scott!

Jill Scott has returned, and if you need some motivation, just press play on this:

... and Amy Grant!

I highly recommend this excellent interview at Variety with my childhood crush and first musical hero Amy Grant, given by the consummate professional Chris Willman.

Note: Regarding the recent scarcity of my posts — my calendar is currently completely filled with

• classes,
• student conferences,
• department meetings,
• responsibilities related to a hiring process in our department,
• responsibilities representing the English department at student recruitment events, and
• commitments to grade mountains and mountains of short stories and essays (which I was supposed to respond to weeks ago).

I love my job — I really do. But I’m arriving on campus in the morning, and I’m often driving home more than twelve hours later. I miss Anne. I miss my friends. I miss my church! I can’t remember the last time I did any reading for pleasure. If I see a movie, it’s probably on a screen in the office where I’m working or grading papers. If I’m listening to music, I’m probably stuck in traffic, or I’m exercising — which, by the way, I don’t, because there’s no time. You know things are tough when the thing you have to cancel in order to fulfill the demands of your job is therapy — the thing that helps you cope with being too busy.

To those friends who have asked me to offer them feedback on writing, or blurb their book, or review their music or their movie, or meet for coffee — I’m sorry. I have a greater desire to do those things than you have desire for me to do them!

To those of you who support this website, your generosity is astonishing to me, and I intend to deliver what I’ve promised as soon as I can claw my way out of this season of overcommitment, panic, and fatigue.

Stick with me!