Tyler Blanski

Tyler Blanski (born January 12, 1984) is an American author, musician, and record producer based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

Biography

Tyler Blanski graduated from the Perpich Center for Arts Education

Perpich Center for Arts Education

The Perpich Center for Arts Education is an agency of the State of Minnesota that works to improve arts education for Minnesota students and educators through programs and partnerships centered in the arts. A campus in Golden Valley houses the Center's three main components: the Professional...

in 2002, studied at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

The Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Oxford, England, is a programme for international students to study in Oxford. It was founded by Dr John Feneley in 1975. For the first thirty years of its existence, until 2006, the Centre was affiliated to Keble College, Oxford. CMRS currently...

at Oxford in 2005, and holds a bachelor of arts from Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, United States, is a co-educational liberal arts college known for being the first American college to prohibit in its charter all discrimination based on race, religion, or sex; its refusal of government funding; and its monthly publication, Imprimis...

, Michigan, 2006. He currently lives in Uptown, Minneapolis, where he is a local musician and writer.

He is most known for his Christian memoir writing and poetry, and is one of the leading contemporary proponents of "Romantic Theology," cataphatic theology

Cataphatic theology

Cataphatic theology is the expressing of God or the divine through positive terminology. This is in contrast to defining God or the divine in what God is not, which is referred to as negative or apophatic theology.-Terminology:...

applied to heterosexual relationships, and typified in marriage. His writing is notably influenced by the writings of Dante, Charles Williams, John Donne, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Musicianship

According to "Round the Dial", Blanski's musical covers of musicians Nick Drake, Simon and Garfunkel, Nina Simone, and Ray Charles are most expressive of his progressive "post-folk" style. One reporter from the Hillsdale Collegian states that Blanski's music enchants listeners with poetic narration on the aspects of love from the little moments to planning a life together.

Ezekiel Records & Creative Group

In 2008 Tyler founded Ezekiel Records & Creative Group, and released his debut album Out From The Darkness, which has been heralded by Altsounds.com as "simple, effective, and elegant folk-rock.".

His song "Hard Water" was featured on Rift Magazine, and typifies the Blanski motif of young love, hard work, and fighting for independence: "She's waiting tables and I know that I'll be painting houses till we've paid off the thousands that we owe. And then we'll move south, and then we'll buy a house, and then we'll lay a fence post of our own." Ryan Young of Trampled by Turtles

Trampled By Turtles

Trampled By Turtles is a progressive bluegrass band from Duluth, Minnesota. The group is most famous for its high-tempo, fast-paced songs but also features lead vocalist Dave Simonett's lyric writing abilities in slower ballads. Their high-energy concerts have attracted an ever-growing,...

praises, "Out from the Darkness bridges the gap between awesome and bitchin' CDs."

Think Out Loud

In October, 2010, Blanski appeared on KARE 11 Television to share Think Out Loud

Think Out Loud

-Think Out Loud: Music Serving the Homeless:Think Out Loud: Music Serving the Twin Cities is a compilation album where 100% of the album profits go directly to serving the homeless in the Twin Cities, through charitable giving to agencies like Sharing and Caring Hands and St. Stephens.The project...

, a Twin Cities collaborate effort to end homelessness through music. 100% of the album sale profits are to be donated to agencies like Sharing and Caring Hands and St. Stephens. The album was inspired and produced by Tyler Blanski, recorded and mixed by Mark Stockert and Adam Krinsky, mastered by Tom Garneau, and features artists like Chris Koza, Charlie Parr

Charlie Parr

Charlie Parr is an American country blues musician, born in Austin, Minnesota, United States. He started his music career in Duluth, Minnesota. His influences include Charlie Patton, Bukka White, Reverend Gary Davis, and Dave Van Ronk. He plays a National resonator guitar, a fretless open-back...

, Cloud Cult

Cloud Cult

Cloud Cult is an experimental indie rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota led by singer/songwriter Craig Minowa. The name originated from the ancient prophecies of indigenous North Americans.-History:...

, Pieta Brown

Pieta Brown

Pieta Brown is an American musician and singer-songwriter who has released four critically acclaimed albums and three EPs in the last decade. She has performed with artists such as Mark Knopfler, John Prine, Amos Lee and Calexico.-Early life:...

, Roma di Luna, The Pines, band members from Romantica and Trampled by Turtles

Trampled By Turtles

, Psalm One

Psalm One

Psalm One is a Chicago-based hip hop artist described as a cross between Lauryn Hill and Devin the Dude. Psalm One was born Cristalle Bowen in Englewood, where as a child she attended Church, singing in the choir and playing guitar, piano, organ, and drums. In junior high she began gravitating to...

, Chastity Brown

Chastity Brown

-Chastity Brown :Chastity Brown is a Knoxville, Tennessee-raised American musician based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota...

, Ashleigh Still, Chris Morrissey

Chris Morrissey (musician)

Chris Morrissey is a musician currently living in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Chris plays the bass. Chris currently plays with and has recorded with a number of bands:* Mason Jennings* Haley Bonar* Bill Mike Band* Tarlton...

, and several others. Most of the 21 tracks on this CD are originals, but Blanski does cover such a variety of artists as Ray Charles, Nina Simone, Simon and Garfunkel, and Nick Drake.

Authorship

Clay Eyes, Blanski’s first published collection of poetry that has been featured in Davey's Daily Poetry, was also released in 2008. Blanski's poetry centers on a strong mysticism and anti-disenchantment.

Tyler's second book of poetry, Loveletting, which received a week-long dedication from Davey’s Daily Poetry, and his satire Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of Your Sex Life were both published in 2010 by Ezekiel Records & Creative Group. Blanski's poem "O Soulish Violets in Springtime Five Fallible Senses," which expresses his strong hostility toward pragmatism and empiricism, was published in issue #20 of Geez Magazine, where he writes: "I need more than signs."

Mud & Poetry

In September, 2010, Fresh Air Books, an imprint of Upper Room Books, published Blanski's creative non-fiction book, Mud & Poetry: Love, Sex, and the Sacred, a young man's honest declaration of his longings for love, God, sex, a motorcycle, and possibly, a wife who is good at math. The book's Foreword is written by Michael Bauman

Michael Bauman

Michael E. Bauman is Professor of Theology and Culture and Director of Christian Studies at Hillsdale College. He is also a member of the faculty of Summit Ministries, in Manitou Springs, CO...

, professor of theology and culture at Hillsdale College

Hillsdale College

. It was a Finalist for National Indie Excellence Award.

Mud & Poetry is a retelling of Dante's "Divine Comedy", in contemporary prose-style. The book is the clearest expression of Blanski's belief that Christian marriage can be a means of grace and viable way of "working out your salvation." He here builds on the cataphatic theology he first argued in a 2005 article: "rather than dogmatically organizing our relationships around chastity, Christian lovers should emphasize the very Figure of their faith and let the details of their relationships consequently fall in place."

In 2010 Publishers Weekly commented: "Blanski is on a mission to shake up Christianity. The themes he addresses are not new, but his edgy and hip prose breathes new life into them."

Blanski's controversial CNN article, "How Christians Should Rethink Sexuality," gives a brief synopsis of his Christian convictions about sex and marriage. He says, "Christian sexuality at its best is actually an expression of what churchgoers call the trinitarian life - a holistic, all-encompassing, committed love, the kind of love we reach for in marriage. A single person’s sex life does not have to mean the sex act itself. It can be a harvesting of all that sexual energy and directing it towards something bigger than sex itself." A few weeks later, his article "The Benefits of Monogamy: Why Christian Sex is Better than the Kama Sutra" on ABC's Good Morning America restated Blanski's synthesis on what he calls "the Chastity Cult" and "Savvy Bachelor Sex": "Savvy Bachelor Sex turns people into appliances, just another body in a long line of bodies. But we are not making love to biochemical mechanisms: we are making love to people. And this is what Christian sexuality celebrates. Christians believe God made us as sexual, embodied people of passion and personality. Faithful marriage uniquely affirms the heart and soul of our deepest desires: love, trust, belonging, and, yes, great sex."

Published works

Clay Eyes (Ezekiel Records & Creative Group, Minneapolis, 2008)
Loveletting (Ezekiel Records & Creative Group, Minneapolis, 2010)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs of Your Sex Life (Ezekiel Records & Creative Group, Minneapolis, 2010)
Mud & Poetry: Love, Sex, and the Sacred (Fresh Air Books, Nashville, 2010)

Discography

Out from the Darkness (Ezekiel Records & Creative Group, Minneapolis, 2008)

Think Out Loud: Music Serving the Homeless in the Twin Cities (Ezekiel Records & Creative Group, Minneapolis, 2008)

External links

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