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Shawn Crawford

Shawn Crawford

Shawn Crawford lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, surrounded by the Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan archives, the Cain’s Ballroom, and the spirit of Leon Russell. He left academics to make some real coin in the nonprofit sector. He just launched a publishing joint, The Calliope Group, and edits the site Calliope Crashes. Born in Kansas, his mother is named Dorothy. No he’s not joking, yes he’s seen a tornado, and no people in Kansas do not grow up in a world devoid of color. Email: sdcrawford65 [at] gmail.com

Holy Ghost Story

Posted on Monday, Aug 26, 2019 1:05AMMonday, August 26, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford Preachers at our Baptist church had to ask for an Amen. We weren’t just going to spontaneously let one loose. God can’t drive a parked car, my youth minister would say. Meaning you had to exert your own will as well in the pursuit of a righteous life. When it came to…

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Ode to Ida

Posted on Monday, Jul 29, 2019 1:45AMMonday, July 29, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford A pioneer occasionally runs so far ahead of the culture the world forgets her contributions by the time they start to catch up. Such is the case with Ida Lupino, a woman so talented and visionary she practically invented the indie movie studio to achieve what she wanted. If you remember Lupino…

Tagged Filmakers, Hollywood, Howard Hughes, Ida Lupino, RKOLeave a comment

Burn the Witch! Some Notes

Posted on Monday, Jul 1, 2019 1:45AMMonday, July 1, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford C.S. Lewis, the Evangelical icon who would be thoroughly nauseated by Evangelicals, once wrote we should not kid ourselves into believing the Reformation had anything to do with religious freedom. Once he escaped the stake, John Calvin had no problem watching Michael Servetus burn. Although he did ask for a beheading instead.…

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Fire it Up

Posted on Monday, Jun 3, 2019 1:20AMMonday, June 3, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford Growing up, a lighter branded you as suspect to any Baptist worth his King James Version. Because really, other than smoking and setting houses on fire to incinerate the family within just for kicks, what did you need a lighter for anyway?  If you wanted to light something righteous like a candle…

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The Kids and the New Coal Mine

Posted on Monday, May 6, 2019 1:50AMMonday, May 6, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford In 1904 America, of boys between the ages of ten to fifteen, 26% worked full time away from home.  In the textile mills of New England, children began working at age six for twelve to sixteen hour shifts.  When dozing off, cold water would be thrown on them.  Ingrates.  At the turn…

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Stay Hungry

Posted on Monday, Apr 8, 2019 1:20AMMonday, April 8, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford Like most Kafka stories, “A Hunger Artist” inserts you into a bewildering situation, appears to offer you some solace and meaning, and then bewilders you all over again. The Hunger Artist is just that: a man that starves himself for a living. But unlike Gregor Samsa awaking to find himself an enormous…

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Jesus with the Light Brown Hair

Posted on Monday, Mar 11, 2019 1:20AMMonday, March 11, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford In 1987, Anderson University, an Evangelical school in Indiana, acquired 140 works by the artist Warner Sallman, including Head of Christ. You may have never heard of Sallman, but in terms of sheer sales and presence, his Head of Christ makes him the most popular 20th Century artist in America. Exponentially more…

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Our Own Private Waste Lands

Posted on Monday, Feb 11, 2019 1:45AMMonday, February 11, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford If T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is the sacred text of Modernist poetry (With Joyce’s Ulysses the sacred novel), then his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” provides the theology to interpret and understand the poem’s byzantine lines and obscure references. How we pored over both, seeking to fathom the mysteries locked…

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My Life in One Sobering Graph

Posted on Monday, Jan 14, 2019 1:50AMMonday, January 14, 2019 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford (The following is an excerpt from Crawford’s lecture at the Lausanne, Switzerland conference of The Society of Data Analysts Committed to Reducing Any Complexity to a Single Sobering Graph. Researchers will remember the group’s acrimonious split from the Social Scientists United for Reducing Any Cultural Crisis to a Single Meme. In a…

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Formalities

Posted on Monday, Dec 17, 2018 1:45AMMonday, December 17, 2018 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford In January of 1841, passengers arriving from Europe would be greeted by anxious New Yorkers on the docks. They all had the same question: “Is Little Nell dead?” Such was the anxiety caused by Charles Dickens’ novel The Old Curiosity Shop. But why couldn’t tortured New Yorkers simply read to the end…

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Get on the Bus

Posted on Monday, Nov 19, 2018 1:25AMMonday, November 19, 2018 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford In the 70s our church caught bus fever as an effort to bring in the sheaves with greater volume (we pass the salvation savings on to you!). We began deploying a fleet of ancient school buses, painted Baptist blue, out into the neighborhoods of town to bring anyone that so wished to…

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Staying

Posted on Monday, Oct 22, 2018 1:55AMMonday, October 22, 2018 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford Why do we stay? We lack the resources or the opportunities. We remain faithful to a place given to us through an accident of birth. We rage and complain but never wander very far, the reasons a cipher to ourselves. Even in America, a land of nomads and self-fashioning, most of us…

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Lost

Posted on Monday, Sep 24, 2018 12:55AMMonday, September 24, 2018 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford Make it one for my baby, and one more for the road—Arlen/Mercer On the 4th of July, the kids start acting jakey once the sun approaches the tree line. It’s maybe, kinda, sorta, starting to get dark, so shouldn’t we break out the fireworks? No. But soon you’ll relent and allow some…

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The Passion of the Urban

Posted on Monday, Aug 27, 2018 12:55AMMonday, August 27, 2018 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford Oatmeal for breakfast. Kale salad for lunch. Surely a slice of pie with dinner won’t ruin the diet after you’ve been so disciplined all day? Welcome to Moral Licensing, the term psychologists and researchers use to describe the process by which we use a “good” behavior to later justify a “bad” choice.…

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The Bible Tells Me So

Posted on Monday, Jul 30, 2018 1:05AMMonday, July 30, 2018 by Shawn Crawford

by Shawn Crawford For a Baptist, the Bible exists like gravity. Not believing in gravity will not change the outcome if you step off a building; not believing the Bible will not change the consequences if you ignore its precepts and commands. Both are laws of nature, fixed and unchanging. To really understand what it…

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