In the spirit of Life of Pi, let me begin this review with a story. It was June of 2017, and I was on a Qatar Airways flight bound for Southeast Asia. I was a senior in college and had accepted a six-month internship with a missionary organization there. Seated next to me was aContinue reading “Book Review: The Life of Pi”
Author Archives: jeshuahayden
Ten Songs That Made Me
What makes a perfect song? In February of 2024, Rolling Stone published their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Sitting atop that list were stone-cold classics such as Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition,” The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows,” Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.”Continue reading “Ten Songs That Made Me”
What I’ve Been Listening to This Summer: 7 Album Reviews
Do you still listen to albums? In this era of iTunes and YouTube and Spotify, records have lost some of the prominence that they once enjoyed. Songs are usually appreciated in isolation, randomly shuffled, suggested by algorithms, or compiled into playlists with tunes by a variety of artists. These new listening styles have their perks.Continue reading “What I’ve Been Listening to This Summer: 7 Album Reviews”
What I’ve Been Reading This Summer: 7 Book Reviews
Greetings! As a literature teacher, I enjoy few things more than sharing great stories with people. Now, with autumn fast approaching (*pumps fist wildly*), here’s a list of books that I discovered for the first time this summer – some old, some new; some great, some not-so-great… Whether you agree with my reviews or thinkContinue reading “What I’ve Been Reading This Summer: 7 Book Reviews”
What I’ve Been Watching This Summer: 7 Movie Reviews
Greetings, friends! It’s been a while since I’ve posted content. Life has been WILD this summer, and with the school year kicking into gear, I haven’t had much time recently to write. However, I’ve got some exciting ideas for a future blog series, and I plan to start fleshing them out as soon as IContinue reading “What I’ve Been Watching This Summer: 7 Movie Reviews”
To Love the World Again: A Literary Analysis of Only God Was Above Us
“Only God was above us!” Those words, which are visible on a newspaper headline adorning the cover of Vampire Weekend’s fifth album, were spoken by a survivor of one of the strangest disasters in aviation history.1 On April 28, 1988, the passengers of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 watched in horror as their airplane’s ceiling wasContinue reading “To Love the World Again: A Literary Analysis of Only God Was Above Us“
Sounds of Springtime: A Literary Analysis of Father of the Bride
I didn’t want it to be a cool photograph of the earth in space; I wanted it to have a little bit of that tension of being Mother Nature, the planet we live on, but also something border-line uncomfortable with the raw digital whiteness surrounding it. This was how Ezra Koenig described the cover ofContinue reading “Sounds of Springtime: A Literary Analysis of Father of the Bride“
Dark Night of the Soul: A Literary Analysis of Modern Vampires of the City
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov, there’s a scene where two brothers, Ivan and Alyosha, are discussing religion in a tavern. Ivan is a skeptic, and he objects to God’s goodness on account of the world’s suffering. According to Ivan, the future “harmony” that believers long for, where all sorrows will be consoled andContinue reading “Dark Night of the Soul: A Literary Analysis of Modern Vampires of the City“
Encountering Opposition: A Literary Analysis of Contra
When we are young, our relationship to the world can aptly be described as a kind of infatuation. Like a kid with a crush, we’re carried away by the thrill of discovery, convinced that the object of our love can do no wrong. Yet as we grow older, we all experience a “loss of innocence”Continue reading “Encountering Opposition: A Literary Analysis of Contra“
Wide-Eyed Wonderment: A Literary Analysis of Vampire Weekend
Take a moment and think back to your childhood, adolescence, and/or young adulthood. How did life look from those perspectives? Everyone’s upbringing is unique, and some people are forced to grow up much too fast. However, for many of us, these years were characterized by the thrill of discovery. There was eagerness to map theContinue reading “Wide-Eyed Wonderment: A Literary Analysis of Vampire Weekend“
Words for Wayfarers 