 |
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Two hoots
Tom Shugart has a great post about his 29th wedding anniversary, and, in particular, a wonderful description of his wedding day and the bride's and groom's outfits (they're a hoot!). Check it.
And for Iron Chef fans, check out the Iron Chef Drinking Game, also a hoot.
Blogging in another year
I have ambitious plans. Very ambitious. I’d like to see the house put completely in order! Eleanor the 3-year-old is off to spend the night with Granny. That just leaves the easy-going 1-year-old Audrey. She’s playing by herself in Eleanor’s room right now; I’m next door in the office.
So much to do! Take down the tree, pack the ornaments and decorations, feed the cats, do something about the clutter. The house is bursting at the seams thanks to Christmas. Six new books to read, thanks to Christmas (plus five or six that are already in the queue). Beer, champagne, Bowling for Columbine on video. A busy afternoon and a fine evening ahead. Welcoming another year with my sweetie. So it’s work, work, work and then relax. As it should be…
But, I miss blogger! And my friends with whom I converse in this odd way, so here I am, at the computer.
A new year’s comin up fast. Then it will be back to work and back to blogging, although with more responsibility forthcoming, I’m going to have less time to blog, I’m afraid.
Still, right now, there’s time to say: Happy New Year!
Friday, December 20, 2002
Post pulled in honor of holiday spirit. Peace.
Thursday, December 19, 2002
Run, Run Rudolph
Maybe you’re young and single. Maybe you’re struggling to make ends meet in (another) down economy. Maybe your love life, work life, and drug life are all tangled up. If so, you’ll likely find the songs on the CD The Edge of Christmas relevant, not to mention rocking. It might even spark some warm feelings in your jaded old heart.
Then again, maybe you came of age about when Reagan rode into Washington with nuclear guns a’blazin. Like I did (came of age that is; I stay away from guns). If so, then this album is for you, too, even though the nostalgia factor may be a bit overwhelming.
Or, perhaps you just appreciate the artifacts of rock-pop culture, in which case you’ll probably enjoy this blast from the 1980s, a decade that is in the spotlight right now on VH1's amusing series “I Love the ‘80s.”
The Edge of Christmas collects 12 songs, 10 of which were recorded during the ‘80s, with the other two just before or just after that decade. They are all winners, save one. In a good many of the songs, Christmas is something desperately needed – either the idea of peace, the reuniting or reconciliation with loved ones, or the desire to put a positive exclamation point on another tough year. It’s all exemplified by The Payolas’ “Christmas is Coming.”
“Christmas is coming/It’s been a long year/I wish you were here” goes the chorus. The song details the singers’ scrappy existence: unemployment, apartment kitchen in need of repair (an inch of water on the floor, but the landlord doesn’t care, “he only wants more”), playin records too loud.
The Payolas weren’t familiar to me back in the day, but that song is a gem. Most of the artists on the CD are familiar, though. Here they are, in order:
Queen (“Thank God it’s Christmas” gotta love that title, and the song. Bombastic, yeah a bit, but Freddie pulls it off.);
Pat Benatar (“Please Come Home for Christmas” – don’t laugh, it’s a credible blues ditty and she belts it out nicely);
The Pretenders (“2000 Miles” – what can I say, Chrissie Hynde. Heartbreaking and beautiful);
Kate Bush (“December Will be Magic Again” – I get the gist, but not much else; its unintelligible and annoying after a while, i.e. it’s Kate Bush);
David Bowie w/ Bing Crosby (“Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy” – weird wild stuff, and it works; great vocal by Bowie, worth the price of admission);
Cocteau Twins (“Winter Wonderland” – never a fan, but this is quite nice);
The Smithereens (“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” – pure, unadulterated rock spirit -- these boys had it)
Dave Edmunds (“Run Rudolph Run” – a great Chuck Berry song that rocks so tightly that even Chuck would smile; this and the previous are a one-two punch guaranteed to have your butt movin.)
The Pogues w/ Kirsty MacColl (“Fairytale of New York” – has there been a greater rock band? Or a more original rock Christmas song?)
The Ramones (“Merry Christmas (I don’t want to fight tonight)” – “where is Rudolph, where is Blitzen, baby?” …immortal)
The Waitresses (“Christmas Wrapping” – a pun on rapping, ‘cause that’s what it is. Would have also made a good blog entry)
Christmas Wrapping
"Bah, humbug!" No, that's too strong
'Cause it is my favorite holiday
But all this year's been a busy blur
Don't think I have the energy
To add to my already mad rush
Just 'cause it 'tis the season.
The perfect gift for me would be
Completions and connections left from
Last year, ski shop,
Encounter, most interesting.
Had his number but never the time
Most of '81 passed along those lines.
So deck those halls, trim those trees
Raise up cups of Christmas cheer,
I just need to catch my breath,
Christmas by myself this year.
Calendar picture, frozen landscape,
Chilled this room for twenty-four days,
Evergreens, sparkling snow
Get this winter over with!
Flashback to springtime, saw him again,
Would've been good to go for lunch,
Couldn't agree when we were both free,
We tried, we said we'd keep in touch.
Didn't, of course, 'til summertime,
Out to the beach to his boat could I join him?
No, this time it was me,
Sunburn in the third degree.
Now the calendar's just one page
And, of course, I am excited
Tonight's the night, but I've set my mind
Not to do too much about it.
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I'll miss this one this year.
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I'll miss this one this year.
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I'll miss this one this year.
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
But I think I'll miss this one this year.
Hardly dashing through the snow
Cause I bundled up too tight
Last minute have-to-do's
A few cards a few calls
'Cause it's r-s-v-p
No thanks, no party lights
It's Christmas Eve, gonna relax
Turned down all of my invites.
Last fall I had a night to myself,
Same guy called, halloween party,
Waited all night for him to show,
This time his car wouldn't go,
Forget it, it's cold, it's getting late,
Trudge on home to celebrate
In a quiet way, unwind
Doing Christmas right this time.
A&P has provided me
With the world's smallest turkey
Already in the oven, nice and hot
Oh damn! Guess what I forgot?
So on with the boots, back out in the snow
To the only all-night grocery,
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
In the line is that guy I've been chasing all year!
"I'm spending this one alone," he said.
"Need a break; this year's been crazy."
I said, "Me too, but why are you?
You mean you forgot cranberries too?"
Then suddenly we laughed and laughed
Caught on to what was happening
That Christmas magic's brought this tale
To a very happy ending!
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Couldn't miss this one this year!
Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Couldn't miss this one this year!
~ Chris Butler, The Waitresses
Wednesday, December 18, 2002
The Rebel Jesus (Jackson Browne)
All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying into their homes
As the sky darkens and it freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tales
Giving thanks for God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus
Well they call him by 'the Prince of Peace'
And they call him by 'the Savior'
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus
We guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why they are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus.
But please forgive me if I seem
To take the tone of judgement.
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment.
In this life of hardship and of earthly toil
We have need for anything that frees us.
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus.
From the highly recommended Chieftains Christmas album The Bells of Dublin.
Monday, December 16, 2002
Holiday forecast
Light postings, scattered musings, and only a 10 percent chance of linkage.
I'll be taking the last 11 days of the year off, so that means I won't be at my usual blogspot. Hence the forecast.
Happy holidays. I hope this post finds you in fine fettle. May your holidays be bright, your cockles warm (cockle: a bivalve mollusk having a rounded or heart-shaped ribbed shell), and your fires stoked (stoke: to stir up and feed. Dude, it's almost Christmas. I am stoked.).
Friday, December 13, 2002
Dispatch from bizarro America
The so-called conservative media has yet to recognize the size and scope of the massive demonstrations in support of a war against Iraq. The demonstrations, which have been even larger in the right-leaning European countries, have grown to the hundreds of thousands, although one would be hard-pressed to find those figures in the media.
It is outrageous that CNN’s coverage of a small gathering of some 100 people supporting the administration’s stance that Iraq poses no immediate threat to the United States, or even the Middle East region, was equal to recent pro-war rally in Washington that drew an estimated 100,000 to 200,000.
The thousands of honest, war-loving citizens of this great land are being marginalized, left out of the political debate. Their only option is to take to the streets.
“President Bush needs to quit these policies of social welfare, higher taxes for the highest incomes, and tough business regulations,” said one man, who had taken off his suit coat and loosened his tie for the rally. “The only way for this country to be truly strong and safe is to wage war. Besides, my stock portfolio is heavily weighted with defense, oil and pharmaceutical companies.”
He collared a local reporter whose TV station is so biased as to use a peace sign as part of its newscast graphics.
“Are you going to listen to what we are saying here in the street? Or are you going to file a report calling us dangerous, violent kooks, just because we believe this country needs to flex a little muscle and, God willing, drop a nuclear bomb on Iraq?” he yelled, hurling a brick through the window of a homeless shelter for emphasis.
We are holding our breath waiting for fair media treatment of this upstanding citizen. The press and pundits are mouthpieces for the President, who said in a press conference recently that his Department of Defense was not going to be used for war-making except as a last resort, and that the best course to pursue would be one where it is not needed. “The cost of war is great, the path to peace noble. Never let one be confused with the other,” he lectured.
Yet the President could be using the still-sizable military not just in Iraq, but also to subvert movements afoot in other countries threatening to use their natural resources and protect their markets for the benefit of the majority of their citizens. Why has he backed away from this time-honored American activity? This is a question you will never see in today’s op-ed pages. No, today’s pundits are forever wailing about what can be done about the need for universal healthcare, more funding for schools (they would take money from the defense budget!), and tougher environmental protection laws. And the liberals complain about a conservative press?
“I don’t know what to do. Without an enemy to hate, I might start thinking about the emptiness of social-climbing consumption. Yet this society doesn’t seem to feel my pain,” said one 30-something protester, who was partaking in the gathering from the front seat of his Land Rover. “Jeez, look at the line at Starbucks,” he added.
At least the man was lucky enough to have a V-8 model SUV. Since fuel economy standards were increased they have been hard to find. In fact, another many-billion-dollar chunk of the defense budget has been appropriated to explore alternative energy sources, including substantial support for hybrid and alternative-fuel vehicles and better public transportation – an increasingly unpopular stance.
This is one reason the current administration does not want to hear the protestors’ message: “More War for Oil!”
Thursday, December 12, 2002
Question and answer
Questioner: However much I want to be an engineer, if my father is against it and won't help me, how can I study engineering?
Krishnamurti: If you persist in wanting to be an engineer even though your father turns you out of the house, do you mean to say you won't find ways and means to study engineering? You will beg, go to friends. Sir, life is very strange. The moment you are very clear about what you want to do, things happen. Life comes to your aid -- a friend, a relation, a teacher, a grandmother, somebody helps you. But if you are afraid to try because your father may turn you out, then you are lost. Life never comes to the aid of those who merely yield to some demand out of fear. But if you say, "This is what I really want to do and I am going to pursue it," then you will find that something miraculous takes place. You may have to go hungry, struggle to get through, but you will be a worthwhile human being, not a mere copy, and that is the miracle of it. ~ Think on These Things by J. Krishnamurti
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse
Found the following at Bill Connolly's thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse, appropriately enough, because that would make a good title for this great pieceby Laurie King-Irani, Salvaging the Wreck:
When I first moved to Lebanon in 1993, I had nightmares of tanks ramming our apartment, bombs falling in the garden, bodies rotting in the street. All of these things had, as it turned out, happened in that neighborhood of East Beirut where we first lived. My neighbor Francine told me her war stories as we sat on the roof of our building watching the sunset. Lighting cigarette after cigarette, she related her shock--which had not yet subsided nearly two decades later--of seeing Phalangist militia men dragging bodies of Palestinian refugees killed in Dbaye camp to be burned in a bonfire in the parking lot of the supermarket where I shopped each week for my groceries.
She related that the Christian militamen checked to see which of the corpses had been circumcised. These were assumed to be Muslims, and into the fire they went. Christian corpses, Francine surmised, must have gotten the "honor" of a mass grave burial, maybe not far from our apartment building.
One day she described the smell of smoke, garbage, and rotting bodies wafting through the streets on a hot summer evening. She reached out, lightly scratched the back of my hand with her polished fingernails and said, "That is how deep civilization is, that is how thick. Scratch just a little and it comes right off. Once you know that, it's hard to function anymore!"
But Francine did function--wonderfully. She was funny, thoughtful, kind, and lively. She was a great hostess, a devoted mother and a loving wife. And she helped me descend into the wreck that was Beirut and survive some of the knowledge that I found there, as did so many other women like her whom I came to know, love, and respect during my years in Lebanon.
Diving down to the depths of human experience, plunged there by a war they had not chosen, they had survived and come back up to the surface clutching some very precious jewels in their hands: they knew of the dangers of hatred, the perils of dehumanizing the other, preaching ideological purity, and excusing murder. They knew how absurd it was that a group of people could actually believe--no, even act upon--the bizarre belief that their religion/ethnicity/political party entitled them to kill anyone who was not like them or who did not fit into a set of neatly labeled boxes. They would have had no patience for such concepts as "axes of evil."
Monday, December 09, 2002
A toast for an old friend
Forty winks, huh? Yeah, it goes by in a wink, dudn’t it? But you know, if 60 is the new 50, then 50 is the new 40 and 40 is the new 30. And the 30s rock! Especially the second time around, right? Gotta be true, my friend, cuz you are rockin and rollin til the break of dawn! Just look at the flowin beauty from your 40 years on this planet. Or the beauty flowin. I can’t ever remember which. But it’s right there on your blog, rw, Ray-man, Billy Ray, B-Bob, Billy “Shot of Love just rocked the glasses right off of my face” Sweatman. Gorilla, you’re a desperado. But you’re a damn good one. It suits you.
40! Damn. Wasn't it just yesterday that you were handing the wheel to Kevin in that crazy Thunderbird? "I'm tired of driving; here, you drive for a while." Wasn't it just the other day that you went off to fame and fortune in New York? And the big city turned it's big shoulders? Showed you its chilly side? Yes, I know you, good friend, crazy poet, silly singer of sad songs.
I know the price you’ve paid. Oh yes. It ain’t easy, is it? But you're still here and you're taking flight. Don't worry, it's after the fall.
Here's to 40 more interesting years.
Yesterday
I was high yesterday. I was up there. No, actually I was down, as in, to earth, as in grounded. I can’t explain it, but yesterday was a good day. I didn’t log-on once. I didn’t think about the corrupt administration. Okay, maybe for a minute when I saw the headline on the front page, below the fold, about weapons inspections in Iraq, but most of the front page was dominated by football – the victory in the SEC championship by UGA, the upcoming Southern Football Conference showdown between Atlanta and Tampa Bay. For a change, I took my cue from the paper and thought about football.
Yesterday unfolded. Yesterday had variety. Yesterday was just a day. Wintry sky, bare branches, cold, still, peaceful. Yesterday was full of activity for Leigh and I.
Leigh made pancakes yesterday morning, blueberry for us, bear-shaped with chocolate chip eyes and mouth for Eleanor, and one about the size of a half dollar for Audrey. We all had slept late, and when we finally did wake up, we all piled into our bed for snuggling, although for one-year-old Audrey this means crawling on us and giving us kisses and head-buts (an expression of affection). Before we knew it, we were all getting ready to go over to our friend Bob’s house to help him decorate his Christmas tree.
It was a thoroughly delightful time. I love it when my kids are good. Eleanor watched a video, using a half hour of her one-hour TV time limit, and then helped with the decorating. I decorated some, and played with Audrey some – she particularly liked playing with the bright, candy-cane-style coasters. There wasn’t one meltdown; a spirit of bonhomie gripped young and old alike. Ornaments were hung, sparking discussions of holiday’s past, and of other friends and family members. And the tree was transformed before our eyes.
Bob heated up a couple California Pizza Kitchen pizzas for lunch, and I munched a piece, standing up while preparing to feed Audrey. We sat on the floor near the tree – it was a very relaxed affair -- and I fed Audrey some banana Yo-Baby yogurt and a small container of applesauce.
We made our goodbyes at about 1:30. The day was moving forward again, as we unhitched from Bob’s place, and sailed back home, stopping at Leigh’s mothers to pick up some homemade cookies. Leigh had an annual neighborhood women’s get-together to go to, and needed to take a food item. Her mother had saved the day the night before, when Leigh, exhausted after throwing our daughter’s one-year-old birthday party, was unable to summon the energy to make something. But before bolting out the door and down the street, she helped me put the tykes down for their naps. And, wonder of wonders, they both went willingly and were asleep in minutes.
From 2:15 to 4:30 peace reigned at the Partington household. I fixed myself some left-over birthday cake and ice cream and checked in to see how the Falcons were doing and whether Michael Vick had done anything miraculous. I thought I’d catch a nap. But, for some reason (sugar!) I wasn’t the least bit tired anymore. Instead, I straightened the house a little and cleaned up in the kitchen, including scrubbing the stovetop burners, something I’d been meaning to do for a while. In fact, it had been bugging me, as in, Jesus Christ, when am I going to find the time and energy to do that. You know, stress. There was no stress yesterday. It just got done, while the kids napped, in the time it took, whatever that was. Because yesterday was full of activity, yesterday had scheduled happenings, but yesterday was not stressful.
At about quarter to five, my parents arrived. My mom brought dinner, chicken cacciatore. I got her set up with a pan to boil the pasta and a pan to heat the already-prepared sauce. My dad played with the kids, who’d just gotten up from their naps. Leigh came home from the party.
My parents were there to babysit, because after dinner, Leigh and I had plans for a date, an early Christmas present from me. When Leigh drops really, really strong hints, I tend to pick up on them, and she said several times “I sure hope someone is getting me tickets to The Tallis Scholars.” So immediately after polishing off the delicious dinner, we were out the door, barely pausing to issue a few last-minute tips, which is all my parents need at this point.
The Tallis Scholars, a choir devoted to Renaissance music, were appearing at Spivey Hall, an amazing little concert hall with world-class acoustics. The morning paper had noted, “The 10-member English choir, founded nearly 30 years ago and still directed by Peter Phillips, will perform an evening of glorious a capella polyphony --- where each voice has a destiny all its own --- tonight in the warm, clear acoustics of Spivey Hall in Morrow.”
Leigh had played some of their music for me, and I thought it sounded nice, but you know the difference between live performance and mediated performance? It couldn’t have been illustrated more clearly. We had great, fifth-row seats. What can I say? The show was heavenly, glorious, as the AJC staff writer correctly predicted. Pure, mysterious beauty. And best of all, I had no preconceived notions, no expectations. I was just glad to be out on a date.
But when we exited the hall into the cold, night air, Leigh and I were nothing if not buzzed. What to do after the show? Leigh actually suggested going home to have a drink, to save money, but I knew better. The ever-excitable Eleanor, no doubt fed more than the usual allotment of sweets by my parents, would probably still be awake and needing some type of attention – water, a hug, a CD to fall asleep to. So, reasoning “it’s only money,” we went to a bar for wings and beer. Such reasoning had failed to produce only a week earlier, when I used it to convince myself and a friend to see Springsteen in concert, but the lesson here is to be consistent, and things will even out.
In many ways the contrast with the Springsteen concert couldn’t have been more stark, although that’s a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. My friend had noted after the concert, when we were commiserating more than anything else, that he guessed he’d outgrown Springsteen. Good point. Leigh and I talked about how we’d grown and outgrown together (over ten years as SOs), about where we were, where we might go, how we might get there. Amazing how art can elevate you so that you can see things in new lights, with new hopes and passions. We didn’t say we were casting anything off, at least I’m not writing off rock-n-roll, but we both decided that art was something we should pursue together more often: the symphony, ballet, High Museum of Art, plays.
Yesterday, art walked in, and, miraculously, Leigh and I were able to receive it. Yesterday, art was life, and life was art.
"Good” reading
Quote, unquote because the subject matter is so unpleasant. But as long as Mark Morford and Chris Floyd keep telling it like it is, I’ll just have to keep pointing to them.
Morford: Henry Kissinger In Hell. Because what we really need now is more murderous criminal masterminds in power.
It's the GOP's infamous rapid-punch, pile-on strategy, and it goes something like this:
Overload our collective gag reflex with enough reckless laws and appointments, enough shockingly irresponsible decisions any one of which would, by itself, offend and appall anyone with a cognitive pulse, and they all simply become a numbing swirl of indecipherable atrocities no one has the will to object to anymore. Just like Liddy Dole's hair -- it's happening, it's unstoppable, why fight it? (more)
Floyd: Global Eye – Apt Pupils
The sheer pig-ignorant lunacy of this "grand strategy" is now coming to deadly fruition all over the world. And incredibly, even after the supreme blowback of Sept. 11, the policy is still being followed. For in addition to arming and bankrolling extremist dope lords in Afghanistan, the Bush regime is courting Islamic warriors from Iraq -- Shiite leaders exiled to Iran -- in hopes of using them to help unseat Saddam, The New York Times reports. (more)
Thursday, December 05, 2002
You shoulda been there
With Frank, Doc, Chris, Gretchen and I. And 500 geeks. But if you weren't at Gnomdex, you can always get the flavor by reading a feature article :
Technology conferences are all the same. They have huge trade show floors filled with glitzy displays across acres of carpet-covered concrete, less-than-satisfying sessions with experts — some in the pay of a company pushing its products, some not — and thousands of people. Cybercominternetworkworld. Attendees often walk away from such meetings exhausted and wondering what the fuss was about.
Then there's Gnomedex, a tech conference that proudly states it will be different by its name alone. The full name for this conference, in its second year, was Gnomedex II, Attack of the Gnomes. Held August 23 and 24 at the Marriott in Des Moines, Iowa, in the heart of Silicorn Valley, the conference drew about 500 curious computer users.
To get the story of Gnomedex — why the name, what it is — you only have to get the story of one man, Chris Pirillo. (more)
And you can go here and here to get my own and Frank Paynter's real-time impressions of the conference, if you're really into it and don't have anything else to do. Scroll up in both cases.
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Bruce Springsteen, Philips Arena, Atlanta, Dec. 2 2002
Springsteen is nowhere near the artist he was in the mid-70s up to the early 80s, when every succeeding album, up to but not including Born in the USA, was a step forward, a deepening of a quintessentially American tale told with passionate rock. I know this, but my affection for his early music, which spoke so eloquently to my adolescent yearning for something – an alternative, a vision, a life – is such that I find it hard to let go.
So it was that I IM’d my good buddy, the one who shared those youthful rock-n-roll dreams with me, to ask him if he’d like to see “the Boss.” The tickets were expensive, but I reasoned that “it’s only money.” I’d only seen Bruce one other time, in the mid-80s at the Omni, Atlanta’s former basketball arena, and that was, I think, the last time he’d played the city with the E-Street Band.
We both thought the HBO special with the band was mediocre and we had the same assessment of his new album, but we hoped a live show would transcend some of the limitations of the recording studio and television show. It didn’t.
Philips Arena is the new, glitzy basketball/hockey arena, replete with corporate suites and club area. It’s fitting that Springsteen should play an arena that replaced the basic, workman-like venue of the Omni in order to cater not to the community but to the corporate dollar. Like the Omni, Springsteen was once humble and hard-working, all about reaching people through basic music of great heart – music that gained depth through Roy Bittan’s piano and lyrics that saw poetry in the working class struggle for faith, hope, and dignity. For a tour during the glory days, Springsteen would move around the concert hall to verify that the sound would reach everyone when the lights went down.
The glory days ended about the time “Glory Days” was recorded. Now Springsteen is another overpriced, flat and nearly meaningless act in the great spectacle, producing slick pop anthems that invariably take the easiest, most simplistic route to an ostensibly stirring statement. (Example of an embarrassingly bad lyric: “a little vengeance and this too shall pass” is an observation on 9-11.) Great rock can be relatively simplistic, as Bruce and others have shown, but the trick is to use the simplicity to add power to the statement. John Fogerty’s ringing guitar solos, for example, or Woody Guthrie’s timeless, accessible lyrics.
The arena was sold-out. Our seats were up and under the overhang of the upper level. This had the effect of filtering out what I suspect were precious few musical subtleties, but I don’t know, because I never moved during the 2 and ½ hour show. The band was tight, as expected, but they were used to hammer the songs home, and then hammer some more …and pause…before hammering out a two-minute crescendo.
Should I have expected more? Well, no, of course not, mid-life-crisis hopes to the contrary. But a few more genuine moments would have been nice. There was “You’re Missing”, “Into the Fire”, “Night” and “The Ties that Bind” on the plus side, but they were overwhelmed by an evening of “oh, jeez, not Dancing in the Dark” and the like.
Rather than tear down the walls and receive the honest response of an exhilarated audience, he went through the rote motions, hitting the too easy notes that brought the expected, ritual response. Bruce Springsteen is an artist trapped in his own skin, his own myth, his talents decaying through lack of light. He needs rebirth, reinvention, rebellion – he needs to listen to his younger self.
Bruce, it’s a death trap, a suicide rap. The song Born to Run, I mean. The concert at Philips Arena, too. Come on, Bruce, rise up…*honestly*.
Monday, December 02, 2002
Look at the big board!
It just works this way sometimes. Somebody shows her appreciation for your blog efforts and you hop over there and... the feeling’s mutual. Lisa English’s RuminateThis is a great blog. She’s a passionate, politically engaged person. We can learn much from her. See her latest post on activism.
Also, check out the quote from Henry Kissinger she posted:
Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government. ~ Henry Kissinger speaking at Evian, France, May 21, 1992 Bilderburgers meeting. Unbeknownst to Kissinger, his speech was taped by a Swiss delegate to the meeting.
Is it me, or does he sound like a Mafioso?
Dr. Strangelove, perhaps?
“First, we manuuuu-VACTURE zee Eveel, we create zee conditions, we fan zee flames.
Zen we terrify zee populace relentlessly with zee MEDIYAAH.
Zey vil BAYG us to keep them zafe…..and…..my friends…..zeee HONELY VAY vil be to create a world government zat veeel cater to OUR interests.
You zink me strange? You vined ziss far-fetched? Are you forgetting our azz-ETTS? We control zee mediyaah….UND….we have zee military technology -- billions upon billions of dollars worth – that this world has scarcely seen.
We discredit EVERYZING that challenges our azority. Heh, heh….you know…9-11 vas Beel Clinton’s fault. And, we all know Al Gore is barely human (he’s wooden, remember?) and a poor, clueless nut.
Eeef zey have skrong grassroots support and connect with zee peeple, we vil ELIMINATE ZEM.
Remember, a relentless azault is zee only way. We’ve fought many wars. Mercy is for the weak!
Terror works, my friends. We’ve given the world a taste of it, but NOW IS THE TIME TO TURN UP THE HEAT! Yes, even to use it at home. We’ve planned it before, but democracy obstructed us. But …vee know how to take care of that:
Promulgate evil.
Zank you!
I hope you haff enjoyed your meal. Please stick around for the evening’s entertainment: all zee vay from New York: The Rockettes!”
You know what they say about assumptions...
Listening to an NPR report the other morning, I heard something about North Koreans coming to South Korea and feeling overwhelmed. They used an example of someone from the North going to a Star Bucks and feeling overwhelmed by the choices of coffee drinks.
They then talked about how many of these North Koreans relocating in a country that is engaged with our fast-paced global economy became depressed, drank too much and had similar mal-adjusment problems. They speculated that the reason was that they weren’t used to the freedom in their occupations, the expectation that they were to take initiative, assert themselves, etc.
I think it was probably more the feeling of alienation with hyper consumerism. How can life have much meaning when it is completely dominated by this competitive consumption model? And by framing the story as it did – and ignoring the evidence of its own reporting -- the NPR piece only reinforced this model; in fact, one reason it didn’t explore consumerism is that it was delivered from the perspective of the superiority of the Western way, shaking its figurative head at the poor, backward quarters of the world that have trouble adapting.
But everywhere I look these days, I feel a lack of depth, the paucity of any real exploration of our world and what is driving it and what it’s like to live in it and live with it. Blogaria, of course, is an exception.
|
 |
