In this issue

• Semipalmated creatures

• A caption contest

• A nod to epistemology, a head shake at apologetics

• Shad, The Killers, William Prince, Destroyer

• An ad for low-quality 1990s electronic musical instruments

Shorebirding: a summer and fall tradition

Every summer the conversation goes something like this:

“Late August is coming,” says Sunny.
“Yeah, shorebird migration!” I respond.
“I mean we should plan for our anniversary,” she responds.
“Right!”

Birders like myself tend to measure the year less in important dates and more in seasonal movements (this is my excuse, anyway). Shorebirds, or “waders” in Europe, comprise a broad group of sandpipers, plovers, and their relatives. Many shorebirds frequent muddy or rocky shorelines, shallow ponds, and muddy edges of lakes. There’s a brief spring migration window to see migrant species in late April and early May. Then there is “fall migration,” which can go from late June into November, whenever birds are done breeding, rearing, or growing up enough to make their first flight south.

That’s true of migrants, anyway. A few species are widespread breeders in North America (I’m looking at you, Killdeer). In Central BC, we’re lucky to have a few more that breed in our many ponds (including Greater Yellowlegs, Solitary Sandpiper, and the gorgeous American Avocet). But the other species mostly breed in the far north, so those of us who don’t live north of the tree line have to go out looking when they pass through.

Finding a good shorebird spot can be a challenge. Shorebird watching opportunities were limited where I previously lived in Creston and the Fraser Valley, where puddles in farm fields, shallow sloughs, or a few lake sites would occasionally have some sandpipers.

100 Mile House is blessed with a huge bounty of lakes and ponds. But the variable water levels mean that a site full of shorebirds one year may have nothing the next year. When I first visited the local Soda Lake, I was met with an amazing selection of wonderful waders, including some rarities (another local birder found a very rare coastal Ruddy Turnstone at the lake). Since then, the bare shoreline has almost disappeared and the shorebirds along with it. In recent higher-water years, one of my favourite spots was an accidentally flooded construction site (it finally dried up a few weeks ago).

The migrant shorebirds begin arriving in July. I’ve even found the occasional Semipalmated and Least Sandpipers in late June. In the BC Interior, most species peak in August and September. A few later migrants continue through the fall. Observers on coastal mudflats may see shorebirds in the thousands, but on our tiny interior ponds a dozen birds is a great turnout.

Different shorebird species frequently mix together. It is a birder’s task to get out the scope or binoculars and decipher some sandpiper puzzles.

There are the peeps: common, tiny sandpipers. These include the brownish, yellow-legged Least Sandpipers, and their slightly larger, brighter, dark-legged Semipalmated and Western Sandpiper siblings.

The peeps have a few larger lookalikes in the same genus (Calidris). These usually sport varieties of the same drab brown or gray plumage patterns. Bill colour, leg shape, face pattern, wing size, and calls are all factors in identification.

Then there are plovers, usually taller birds with blunt bills who feed by walking around and stopping abruptly. Killdeer is the most common plover in almost any pond, shoreline, or gravel parking lot. Its smaller, cuter lookalike, the Semipalmated Plover, is the other regular plover where I live.

Then there are all kinds of others: the lanky Tringa sandpipers, including the common Yellowlegs; the fat, squat, long-billed Snipe and Dowitcher species; the tall gorgeous Stilts and Avocets; tiny, striking, swimming Phalaropes; the Long-billed Curlew, found here in grasslands away from water. Coastal sites can host many other shorebird species, including Oystercatchers, Turnstones, Surfbirds, Whimbrels, and the titular Wandering Tattler.

During fall migration birders have a chance to find the uncommon and rare species that pass through. Walker Valley, my local bird hotspot, has a few muddy islands that emerge in late summer. I’m always on the lookout for the next shorebird rarity. I found two this year: a few Stilt Sandpipers and a juvenile Short-billed Dowitcher, very similar to its Long-billed counterpart but for the orange stripes on some feathers. Our valley also seems to get a late migrant species or two most years, including some of the less common Plover species and Dunlin. So until the water freezes, I’ll be shorebirdin’.

Reader contest: captions!

It’s time for a classic caption contest with this photo of two Solitary Sandpipers at Mud Lake in 100 Mile House, BC. I’ll be the contest judge. Will you be the winner?

Faith, doubt, and paths of curiosity

A story, a preface to future discussions of religious belief, and an aside about evangelical apologetics

Those of you who knew me in my high school, college or Tierra Nueva days would have known a very serious Christian. I was involved in different Christian ministry roles throughout my life,. I prayed often, alone and with others. I was evangelical in a broad ecumenical sense. I tried to think critically about beliefs and practices in whatever particular church scene I was in, with mixed results. I eventually joined the Orthodox Church in 2017 or so. While I questioned and changed many beliefs over time, there was a core faith in God and the Christian gospel that was, aside from the odd half-dreaming moment before sleep, untroubled.

Some factors led to this changing quite suddenly a few years back.

For a while I had been critically reconsidering the veracity of some dramatic spiritual experiences. These were mostly from my time in charismatic circles where miraculous occurrences and divine encounters were accepted and celebrated (still a magical time in hindsight, but somewhat ambiguous).

I also studied history at an evangelical seminary (while already Orthodox). One class was dedicated to epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge, how you know what you know. Thinking through foundations of knowledge and belief helped me realize how some deeply held convictions were shakily built on doubtful (or at least baffling) experiences. I occasionally felt frustrated with some of the more simplistic epistemological positions I heard from some fellow students in a school with an active apologetics program.* I felt a responsibility to take a sincere, unflinching look at my reasons for believing.

*An aside about apologetics: For strangers to the evangelical world, the 1970s-2000s saw a huge (and marketable) fascination with Christian apologetics, arguments in defense of Christian belief. These offered rationalistic arguments for a set of propositions about God, the Bible, and sometimes Young Earth Creationism and End Times beliefs that are less in vogue these days. Reading a few of these books and websites in my early teens was an exercise in belief reinforcement. I would find them mostly very unsatisfactory from without. At best they were open-minded emulations of CS Lewis’s style of rational arguments for belief in Mere Christianity. At worst, they relied on pseudo-science, simplistic history, poor stereotypes about what non-Christians believe, and middle-school semantic gotchas: “It’s rational to have faith. Don’t you have faith in the chair every time you try to sit down?” The genre does seem to have matured in recent years, depending where you look.

(I don’t mean to be too harsh toward evangelical publishing. Other religious groups have their own versions. In the 2000s, Richard Dawkins and other “New Atheists” were anti-religious mirror images of evangelical apologetics, and sometimes of even lower quality, And don’t forget the Da Vinci Code craze).

One night while considering some of these epistemological ideas, a question landed like a gut punch: what if it isn’t real? What if there is no God? An answer to the question wasn’t readily obvious. I’d certainly asked this before in my life, but this was the first time the possibility of a godless existence seemed, well, possible.

That was my entry into a frightening new, potentially empty, reality. I self-examined and prayed, unsuccessfully looking for a potential spiritual source of my malaise. For a couple of years, I went to sleep unsure if I would wake up in the morning with a semblance of belief or arrive as a sad agnostic. It was a kind of excruciating middle ground. The question of belief was wrapped in long habit, in family and social considerations, in daily practice.

After the initial shock subsided, I found a new sense of intellectual adventure, one with real import. I had burning questions: Does God exist? Can God be known? What should I think about my own religious experiences? How can I understand the lives of religious people across traditions? Does authentic divine revelation exist? How do I treat scriptures, my own and others? What’s the deal with existence? What if Scientology is the true path?

So I had some fun. I did a lot of reading and thinking. I tried to learn some philosophy basics to follow discussions of ontology (it turns out Hegel is hard). I revisited Plato and some early church fathers. I tried reading Dawkins (which I don’t recommend) and other, better cases for unbelief. I sampled other religious texts. I rediscovered Sergei Bulgakov with much more interest than my initial skimming. I dabbled in pop neuroscience. I watched birds.

I had fascinating conversations with friends, finding it much easier to relate to others with ambiguous faith journeys. I kept up the practices of faith, even if I was often unsure what reality lay behind what I was doing. A couple of Orthodox priests that I spoke with counseled me not to be too alarmed. “It’s a good thing to be disillusioned,” said one, “because then we are stripped of our illusions.” Occasional less helpful conversations with other people reminded me how I’ve been a difficult conversation partner for my doubting friends in the past (hint: listen to a person’s actual questions and struggles without trying to diagnose them).

I’ve settled a few questions for myself satisfactorily, though surely not comprehensively. The short story is that I’m still in, so to speak, still an Orthodox Christian trying to keep walking the path. But some fundamental ideas about God and faith have changed dramatically. Many beliefs I might have earlier considered essential and dear have fallen away. Plenty of fascinating questions remain open and unanswered for me, and I’m keen to consider some of these in future newsletters. Consider yourself invited to the conversation.

Have similar questions fascinated you? Are you interested in discussions on particular related topics? If there’s something you’d like to ask, weigh in on, or learn more about, suggest away.

Music of the decade part 2

Continuing the series on recent music, here are two reviews from me followed by a couple of guest reviews. Feel free to send your 2020s music recommendations or reviews my way.

Shad - TAO

Canada’s vaguely spiritual positive rapper and failed CBC radio host/successful Netflix show host Shad’s latest feels like an arrival.

I was introduced to the Rwandese-Canadian’s conscious rap with his 2010 TSOL, an album of fun solid jams and lyrical sophistry, but nothing exactly original (the album infamously beat Drake for the Hip Hop Juno award). For most of his career, Shad has sounded like a lighthearted Common Sense, basically an accessible, clever, fun and occasionally profound 90s sound, sometimes hampered by Shad’s choice of guest rappers and vocalists. There are fantastic standout songs in the rest of his catalogue, and it almost all sounds pretty cool. But TAO has an energy, confidence and pop sensibility only inconsistently found in Shad’s back catalogue.

The opening track (and CBC radio single) “Out of Touch” hits with energy that fits his characteristic mix of fun and seriousness, with punchy, soulful chorus vocals by Phoenix Pagliacci. “Work” finds Shad rapping about economic blues over an 80s Run DMC-style jam with intricate record scratching by Scratch Bastid. On “Slot Machines,” Shad’s high processed vocals praise and mourn empty electronic pleasures. He unleashes tongue-in-cheek battle rap bravado on “Body (No Reason).” One of the album’s best moments is on “God,” where the voice of an older Rwandese woman (probably a relative) gives a speech about humanity and compassion to introduce Shad’s intense, swaggery social commentary. “Okay,” she concludes at the end of the song, “God bless you, thank you so much. You've always been a joy to us… Love you. Love you.”

The mellow and wry “Black Averageness” sees Shad validate Black mediocrity against pressure for constant excellence: “shout out all my Africans who learn to data process / To fatten up the pockets / Deal with racist bosses / Stanley at The Office / Turn it off and watch this.” Shad’s continues with more first-person mellow lyrical gems: “People want me to be bad, but I won’t / People want me to like jazz, but I don’t / Wish I did / Too many notes.”

My personal favourite is the long eerie instrumental and vocal funk jam, “Storm,” complete with a backing choir and a poetry overdub. Shad’s vocals only come in on a disaster-haunted bridge about dread and loss, name-dropping Whitney Houston and Kurt Cobain.

He still falls into his well-trod 90s conscious rap style on a couple of tracks; “TAO part 2” plays like a song from any of his first few albums, though I appreciate the samples from CS Lewis’ The Abolition of Man.

Thematically, the album us loosely based on Lewis’s book about modernity’s conquest of nature and loss of morality, as well as the writings of other recent digital critics (sadly, no Ellul reference). Shad intersperses his midbrow social critique with self-deprecating humour. On “Slow,” an interlocutor interrupts his rant about over-digitized humans: “Uh, kids like ‘He nice but he sound like a old person/All this soul-searching, and no twerking.’“

It’s a catchy album that makes for a slick, fun, energetic listen.

Three tracks to listen to: Storm, Work, Black Averageness

 The Killers - Imploding the Mirage

The quintessential 2000s radio pop-rock band with a hint of postpunk cool fully embraced 80s nostalgia on this glorious anthemic escapade. It’s recognizably The Killers, but if The Killers were 80% Bruce Springsteen with good doses of Toto, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Gabriel and The Smiths.

The opening “My Own Soul’s Warning” cannot get any more shameless in trying to be “Born to Run,” and the result is a wonderfully huge-sounding song. “Dying Breed” offers another big heartland rock chorus after a slow build over a sample of Can’s “Moonshake.” There are big guitar solos (“Caution”), great guest vocals from KD Lang and Weyes Blood ("Lightning Fields” and “My God” respectively), early 80s post-punk guitar tones (“Running Towards a place”), and moody percussive synths invoking Toto’s “Africa” (“When Dreams Run Dry”). The groovy bass line on “Fire in Bone” is basically straight out of Peter Gabriel’s’ “Sledgehammer” (the song references 1986, the year of Gabriel’s SO). The concluding title track invokes the staccato vocals of Haim and other 70s and 80s inspired 2010s pop. But where others would transition into a smooth chorus, The Killers go full cheesy, energetic E-Street Band.

Over all of it frontman Brandon Flowers lets loose and belts big, high, reverbous choruses. There are songs about getting older, songs about marriage and commitment, Interior West slice-of-life stories. The spiritual undercurrent that runs through the album is obvious from the opening lines of “My Own Soul’s Warning”:

“If you could see through the banner of the sun
Into eternity's eyes like a vision reaching down to you
Would you turn away?
What if it knew you by your name?
What kind of words would cut through
The clutter of the whirlwind of these days?”

Other songs are full of biblical allusions. “Fire in Bone” is a retelling of the parable of the Prodigal Son. Flowers, raised Mormon, belts lyrics that hit that U2 is-this-about-God-or-his-wife-or-something-else sweet spot. (Contemporary Mormon Music/CMM anyone?)

But Flowers is not Bono. There are some uninteresting songs and moments on the album. It’s frequently over-polished, enough to make repeat listening stale. But it is big and gutsy. It turns out to be a lot of fun to hear The Killers cosplay 80s rock, minus the saxophone.

Of course, if there’s one thing the album is missing, it’s saxophone.

Three tracks to listen to: My Own Soul’s Warning, Caution, Imploding the Mirage.

Reader recommendations

(From Wondering Tattler response power couple Joel and Lauren Bentley)

William Prince - Gospel First Nation, Reliever 
By Lauren Bentley

William Prince put out Gospel First Nation and Reliever that year, and they are both exceptional. I tried to learn to play The Spark, the single from Reliever, on ukulele during the pandemic, but I don't know how to play the ukulele!

_{(Since Lauren didn’t say so, I’ll have to add that William Prince is a rich-voiced, mellow country and folk singer from Peguis First Nation in Manitoba who has played at the Grand Ol’ Opry).}

Destroyer - Labyrinthitis
By Joel Bentley

On an album about the limits of language, Dan Bejar, the mastermind behind Destroyer, sure has a lot to say. Incoherent ramblings, non-sequiturs, jokes, rants, asides—the songs undulate between wordy and wordless, with a constant tension between lyrical grandstanding and a sonic pull.

“Everything you said was better left unsaid” he scolds, before stumbling over his own words: “I eat the wine; I drink the bread.” This push and pull gives way to pure sound on the title track, where a toddler’s gaggle is the only language present.

“Fancy language dies and everyone’s happy to see it go,” he admits on the epic standout “June.” Yet he can’t quite seem to accept it. The breezy disco groove of the song suddenly gives way to an extended spoken-word bridge, where Bejar offers his best irreverent drunken ramble, pontificating about a “scrapyard angel”, a “hydrogen bomb” and “psychotic passwords.” It’s both chaotic and riveting.

It feels like there are “a hundred million words” crammed into these ten tracks, and as the closing line says, “That is maybe too many words to say.”

I don’t quite understand it all, but I keep trying to unravel the album’s koans.

Three tracks to listen to: June; Eat the Bread, Drink the Wine; Labyrinthitis
_{(Nice punctuation there, Joel).}

Do you have recent music recommendations from 2020 and after?

Keep them coming. I’ll probably do one more feature before moving to other topics and time periods.

A keyboard for me, a pop music mix for you

I recently bought a used 1990s Yamaha keyboard, the cheaper version of the model I grew up playing. Its low-quality midi sounds, sappy beats, and chorded accompaniments inspired one of my more creative songwriting pushes. The best songs, or at least my favourites, make heavy use of the imitations 80s and 90s synth leads and string pads and electric piano sounds alongside the built-in beats. Rhumba and Slow Strings? 2/4 March and Synth Brass? US Rock and Electric Piano 2? You bet!

I also scoured my old songs for outlying pop ballads and R&B choruses that didn’t fit my usual Dylan/Springsteen/Young acoustic material. I find home recording to be quite the chore, so I don’t have any music to share online. I guess this cheap synthesizer project is the side project of my acoustic music that I also don’t record. You’ll just have to imagine it. (If you ever visit, I offer free concerts for friends).

I’ve never been a pop radio guy; I’d much much rather listen to Tom Waits or Bad Religion or Vivaldi than to Taylor Swift. But with my own pop songwriting on my mind, and the above talk about the Killers’ 80s-infused pop rock, I’m reminded of how much I love the lush synthesizers, big percussive bass and huge drum fills of 80s pop and new wave.

The 80s saw post-punks and prog-rockers and goths put down their guitars and flutes and scary haircuts to make some excellent catchy tunes. The 80s pop sensibility has had a bit of renaissance in indieish synth pop since the 2010s (after Mumford and Sons dealt the banjo-induced death blow to indie folk’s cool status). In the post-Washed Out, post-Drake music landscape, after revivals of soul, house and disco, we’ve been left with some moody, eerie, smooth, reverbous, full, creative sounds and great rhythms out there in the broader pop world.

Or maybe I’ve just reached the “adult contemporary” phase of life.

Well, I’ve put together a pop music mix for your enjoyment. It’s pop in the broad pop-rock, neo-soul, synth-pop, R&B, new wave, bedroom-pop, electronic, art-pop, indie-pop, gospel, dream-pop, bubblegum sense. I’ve waded through some Lorde clones and bland songs about parties so you don’t have to. I leave you with songs that I think hold up after a few listens when the sugar rush dies down. Artists span the decades from Phil Collins to Lauryn Hill to Haim, with lots of big synth, bass, and drum sounds and a few saxophone solos. Embrace your inner yuppie and listen.

You can find playlist on Spotify here, or send me an email and I can share the mix as an mp3.

Stuff of the issue

• Onomatopoeia: Whoosh

• Bird insult: Red-whiskered Bulbul

• Book: Kate Bowler – Blessed

• Highbrow takedown: “Everybody knows that Dr. Brewer made a fool of himself... the fact that he died does not alter the other fact of what he did when he was alive... Dying makes a great difference to the person chiefly concerned, but has no retroactive effect upon the events of his life, and only sentimentalists allow it to influence their estimate of personal character.” Elliot Coues, 1897.

• False teeth exporter: Liechtenstein

• Song: Sixpence None The Richer – “We Have Forgotten”

• Birding hotspot: Jetty Island, Everett, WA.

-Paul