The entertainment world was stunned Saturday evening to learn of the untimely death of actor Paul Walker, only 40 years old, of the phenomenally successful Fast and Furious movie franchise. Ironically, the car enthusiast Walker and his racer friend Roger Rodas both perished when the red Porsche Carrera GT Rodas was driving lost control on a Southern California road, struck a tree, and burst into flames.

In response to the outpouring of shock and sadness from fans, Erin Gloria Ryan, news editor at Jezebel, thought she was making an insightful point about celebrity worship when she cynically tweeted, “None of you really love Paul Walker. You just love the IDEA of Paul Walker.” She is very wrong about that.

First of all, while I’m as critical as anyone of our sometimes irrational relationship with the famous, people often forget that celebrities are human beings too. Many of them are horrible human…

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One way to mistell stories of penitence is to envision penance as a linear process of restoration. You do a bad thing, you feel bad, you make amends (often in a way which involves saying ritual words like “I’m sorry,” or doing something which offers an obvious symbolic parallel to your wrongdoing), status quo ante. There can be truly sublime portrayals of this kind of almost mathematical penitence—think of the armor-falling scene from The Mission, which was the very first thing I thought of when I first started working on this series—but it’s an oversimplification of the twisting, unpredictable paths of penance and redemption in the real world. We never do get back to where we started. And the strongest theme which has emerged in this series on portrayals of penitence is the possibility that penitence is usually impossible.

That’s one reason it’s appropriate to close…

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A recent short film advertisement for Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey is the toast of the advertising world.  The spot follows four young men across the rainy, verdant Irish countryside singing the old farewell song “The Parting Glass.”  By the time they sit down and raise a glass, we’re sure that one of their number has recently passed.  But as the church bells ring, a beautiful bride is revealed: it’s the wedding day of Jerry, one of the four friends.

Most commentary has focused on the successful evocation of the essence of Ireland and the bittersweet poignancy of the reveal of the bride, but both of these miss the primary appeal of the ad, which rests in its portrayal of unironic and affectionate male friendship.

Like all advertisements, this spot presents us with the world as we would like it to be, not as it is.  In the wake…

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Unlike most of the Top 40 songs on the radio dial, Lorde’s smash hit “Royals” is fairly minimalist (sonically). If you listen to her album Pure Heroine, this makes sense. From “400 Lux” to “Tennis Court,” her songs are infused with vibrant observations from her day-to-day life in New Zealand and praise for the simple life. In a word, she’s anti-materialistic. Her message is basic—music should describe life as it is actually lived, not some flights of fancy with “Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece,” or, least of all, “tigers on a gold leash.”

That sort of message has long been the preserve of country music—“I’m glad that we stopped kissing the tar on the highway/We move in the tree streets/I’d like it if you stayed” sounds Luke Bryan-esque—which is perhaps why the pop world still doesn’t know what to make of her.

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There is a great scene in Little Miss Sunshine where Dwayne, the mostly mute high school kid, tells Frank that he wishes he could wake up and be 18, skipping all the crap associated with high school. Frank responds by talking about Marcel Proust, the writer who had a life full of suffering but in the end realized these were the times where he really learned, and the good times were just a waste of time.  And so if Dwayne did pass through all of high school, he would miss out on those prime suffering years.

Thanksgiving offer us an annual opportunity to think about the various things we are grateful for. Most often, this comes in the form of thanking others for things they have done for us. This direct expression of gratitude yields a whole lot of positive outcomes – it makes us feel happier and less depressed and…

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Justin Bieber makes me sad. Or maybe it’s just the circus surrounding his life, which is mostly the result of the media.

Bieber makes me sad because I love pop music. I love its ability to transport you to another dimension, to lift your soul, to make you happy and even, at its best, foster spiritual contemplation. There is nothing more fun than falling in love with a great pop record. And Justin has not made that record yet. He’s put out some terrific songs, but he has yet to deliver a truly great full album. And it’s sad, because Bieber has the talent to be truly great.

If I ever had five minutes alone with Bieber, I would slip him a copy of one of my favorite records of all time, A-Ha’s Scoundrel Days. A-Ha were the Justin Bieber’s of the 1980s, or at least they…

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Much of last Friday’s news coverage centered on tributes and remembrances of JFK as we marked the 50th anniversary of his death.  But tucked away in several newspapers, journals, online magazines and personal blogs were tributes to C.S. Lewis, who also died the same day fifty years ago.  Though many people associate Lewis’ name with his most popular collection of works, The Chronicles of Narnia (several of which have been recently made into major motion pictures), Lewis was a prolific writer and thinker whose works ranged from fantasy to philosophy.

As I read the posts and articles about him, I thought of how Lewis has shaped my own personal life, especially in my thinking about authentic friendship and how to choose and nourish the kind of friendships that are lifelong.  Lewis’s treatment of friendship in his book The Four Loves is one that should be applied to our…

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The television show Undercover Boss is restoring my faith in humanity, one episode at a time.

It’s a clever little show. The CEO of a company works in different retail outlets of his or her company under a pretty serious disguise. The employees think they are on a different reality show, one where the “new guy” is trying to win money to start his or her own venture. The employees think that they are judging and observing the new guy, when in fact it is they who are being observed.

Let’s stop here for a moment. This is one of the first things I like about the show, namely, that the CEOs are interested in knowing what is happening at the very bottom of the food chain. The CEOs want to see what is working and what is not at the point at which their product is meeting its…

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I’m about as disconnected from the popular music scene as anyone I know; my favorite rock artist is Billy Joel (whom I discovered in high school and have barely moved on from since), and the last Lady Gaga song whose release I distinctly remember is “Bad Romance,” which came out (unbelievably) all the way back in 2009. So it was with a certain initial indifference that I noted a friend of mine taking to Facebook to complain about the chorus of “Do What U Want,” the diva’s latest hit:

You can’t have my heart And you won’t use my mind but Do what you want (with my body) Do what you want with my body You can’t stop my voice cause You don’t own my life but Do what you want (with my body) Do what you want (with my body)

…

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Comedy legend Bill Cosby recently appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to promote his new television special Far From Finished.

Cosby coyly, but unapologetically, took issue with the profane language Stewart used in his standup set when the two comedians appeared at a Wounded Warriors benefit earlier this year.

“The people were laughing so hard because you were swearing and cursing. I’m 76 years old. What you have to understand, Jonathan, from whenst I cometh, when people cursed, the next thing is somebody was going to hit you. See, now there’s a whole new culture. People curse and they laugh. But for me, when you were cursing, I started crying.”

Broaching this subject matter is nothing new for Mr. Cosby. For decades he has made a point to reach out to younger comedians who hold cultural sway at the time and let them know what he thinks…

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