RE: Cornerstone attendance

[Drew Johnson <djohnson at snowplow_org>]

On Thu, 26 Jun 2003 FlipRollem at aol_com wrote:

> i plead newbie-itis again.
>
> cornerstone sounds like a fascinating event.  is there a link i could open
> and peruse for more information?
>
> thank you,
> flip
> plaster wall in Rubbertown
>

Sure.  There's www.cornerstonefestival.com for the big one.

In short, C-Stone Fest is the perennial festival of Christian Music That
Doesn't Suck.  That is to say, musicians who embrace Christianity as more
than a nice thing to do every once in a while go and have a time for about
four days.

OTR first showed up at C-Stone in 1991 at the New Band stage...they've
been back again and again and again.  Their shows tend to be packed.
Musicians who sometimes don't get more than fifty people to show up at
their shows get literally thousands at Cornerstone.

In addition to the music, there are many, many, many seminars and films
throughout the fest to watch/learn from/listen to.  The flicks tend to be
tasty ones with good meat to talk about.  This year they're showing
_Thirteen Conversations About One Thing_, _Bowling for Columbine_,
_Spirited Away_, _My Neighbor Totoro_, and _Ringu_ (the Japanese film from
which _The Ring_ took its premise.), among many others.

The seminars range all over the place.  Some of them, quite frankly, suck
in my opinion.  Last year they had a tremendous showing of good speakers;
this year is a little lighter on stuff that I'm interested in, except for
the Imaginariums and Flickerings tracks of seminar goodness.  Imaginarium
is the lit crit track - talking about literature and film and God and geek
culture in one fell swoop.  It's good stuff; this year they're talking
about ideas regarding Word vs Image and the idea of the Abject or
Otherness in horror and Japanese popular cinema.

Flickerings is a film festival and seminar track that tries to encourage
making Christian film that does not rely on conversion experience and to
encourage Christians to not just watch media but to interact with it and
think critically.

C-Stone is run by the JPUSAs, the Jesus People USA, a generally nice bunch
of Christians who at one time came from the hippie sub-culture.  JPUSA was
started, in fact, by a bunch of young hippie burnouts in the early 70s.
Currently, they run a commune in Uptown Chicago that works with the
community, runs a bunch of helpin' ministries to the people over there who
are in need (Uptown still has its share of poor folks), and runs a senior
housing project.  They've their detractors (the loudest actually being
many folks who are alumni of JPUSA that left for one reason or another who
run a web-board at jpusainfo.org), but it's an experiment in Christian
communal living and working that seems to have worked for many a moon.

-Drew J

O Drew Johnson - djohnson at snowplow_org - Ld Robert Bartholomew, SCA  )   ^ ^
O    I also have the garlic powder. - Diablo - 10/4/98, goats.com    X  (_|_)
O            Check out rft.melm.org - Radio Free Tomorrow.           | (bunny)

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