23 January 2011

Mennonite choir boys to men

Spent the afternoon and evening with two friends at the Concert Hall in the city watching/listening to "A Thousand Hallelujahs" - a concert celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Faith and Life Men's Choir (Mennonite Church sponsored group).

I really want to say a lot about this, but I feel that time is of the essence, and this event just robbed me of three hours, plus travel time to and from, so I'll be brief:

1 - Mennonites can be, and often are, full of themselves, even if they say they aren't.
2 - Mennonites can sing, but they often sing really boring, derivative, songs.
3 - Some Mennonites can write/compose (Paul Bergman, Alexa Dirks, Flying Fox & the Hunter-Gatherers), but their work wasn't performed at the concert tonight. (Some Mennonite guy from B.C.'s "piece" was, and I hope they got a deal for that commissioned "new" sacred music.)
4 - Mennonites are thoroughly, painfully, middle-class white people (Yes, I speak of myself as well, obviously.).
5 - Mennonite boys (and men too) like to sing African songs - enthusiastically.
6 - Any and all words a certain well-known Mennonite-named children's entertainer puts to song sound trite.
7 - If this is the product of the radical reformation, well ... I guess it's official ... been there, done that. There's no t-shirt, but there will be a free-will offering at the intermission (church-speak for a request for funds, brought to you by your prosperous, upscale, sponsors).

I imagine if certain folks read this, they'll be disappointed in me. Well fair's fair. I'm disappointed in them (and myself for that matter).

To perfect the night the three of us stopped at Starbucks for coffee and a snack on the way outta town.

(Jordan Toews! You made my night! Thanks for taking the time to talk.)


2 comments:

El Presidente said...

Well Paul, I can't argue with you on this one. I'd love to. I live to disagree with you. This ones a no-brainer though. As someone who spent years "performing" in these great Menno singalongs I have to agree that they are not only pompous and self-congratulatory but boring as hell. My only knock on you is that it seems it took you until this late stage in life to realize this. At least you didn't pay for a ticket. You didn't, right?

DS

p.s. My other complaint...you should have Tweeted this PK. Much more timely. And brief. And you could have been one of those pompous a-holes wandering around the venue entrance pecking at your Blackberry (or Iphone or what have you) delivering your snide comments to your legions of devoted followers. Namely, me. Just sayin'...

p.s.s. We're still on for the rink dogs for G + J's wedding, right? I've been scoping mustards for weeks.

Anonymous said...

Oh if only you had a cell phone