(If you have not read the Butchertown post yet, you might want to check it out before you peruse this post)
And finally, the business at hand:
Over lunch yesterday, my buddy Mike Evans and I had a conversation about blood sacrifice and he mentioned an article from Paste Magazine (read it) that compared the lyrical content of Death Metal with Christian hymns and worship songs.
What’s the connection?
Sunday night I made the connection between pagan blood sacrifices and the sacrifices that took place in the Old Testament Temple, and we have been talking about how we should understand the connection between the two in the post comments.
Christians sing gory songs like “Nothing But the Blood” (my favorite hymn).
Death Metal-heads sing “The Cryptic Stench” by Cannibal Corpse, a violent and blood-drenched song that includes lyrics which could be sung by a Sunday School class.
How do we understand this? Is there a connection that exist between all of these things … Old Testament, pagan sacrifice, Death Metal, and the crucifixion?
Read the article and let’s keep talking about this in the comments below.
I bet you have though to yourself, “I should figure out what that is”, “wow, that’s a stupid name for … whatever that is”, or something similarly dismissive.
Its okay, this is not a post to chew anybody out, it is a post that will take a shot at explaining why twitter is all the buzz for youngsters with their hipster glasses, apple laptops, and coffee mug filled hands.
Here’s a screen shot for you:
That’s really all you need to know. The website/web service’s name is “twitter” and the goal is the answer the question, “what are you doing?”
Space is limited, so use your 140 characters carefully.
For some of you (and maybe, eventually, yours truly) that simple explanation will be enough to incur a “that’s stupid” and you will be able to continue your wonderful life, wonderfully, having suffered no loss of life-value as a result.
Let’s be honest, I might end up joining you.
As for now, however, I have boarded the twitter train and I am going to ride it out for a little while, here’s why:
1. Twitter takes the place of mass text messages – Rather than typing out a text, scrolling through my contacts, selecting all the numbers I want the text sent to, sending that text, and using my text plan up, I can send out one message and let twitter do the rest. All I need are equally techno-savy friends who will join twitter (no charge) and have your updates sent to their cellphone.
2. I work with college students … who have thick callouses on their thumbs from manipulating electronic devices – Textual communication (copyright Lee Wilson) is their favorite means of communication. It doesn’t (shouldn’t) take the place of face to face conversation, but it can help expedite the occurrence of those conversations.
3. It is great if you know people internationally – rather than paying large fees for international text messaging or being bound to a computer to talk on google chat or skype, I can send text messages to specific individuals via twitter (hear that @jasonnichter)
4. Minutiae matters to me – some people hate smalltalk, I used to be one of those people. The more I have thought about it the more I realize that part of really knowing somebody well is knowing the details of their lives, the things that the average person finds insignificant. While it is no replacement for personal interaction, I really do want to know that @devinmaddox is playing jeopardy with his wife and @bendockery is flying into the Denver airport.
5. Twitter has potential – as the technology has grown, you can now connect your blog to twitter (as I have) and send out post updates. You can also tweet photos from your cellphone if you want to.
You may not want to waste your time, but I think I am going to stick around to see what might be coming along next for twitter.
You can check me out at twitter.com/leewilson, be sure to “follow me” if you do decide to tweet.
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Still confused about twitter? Check out this really helpful video from commoncraft:
Sunday night I made the connection between pagan blood sacrifices and the sacrifices that took place in the Old Testament Temple, and we have been talking about how we should understand the connection between the two in the post comments.
