A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to NPR and I heard reporter Libby Lewis giving a report in which she mentioned Lewis Libby. Not especially interesting, but I thought it was mildly amusing.
Note: I've copied this quotation directly from the White House web site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/06/20060629-3.html). And you can tell it's not been cleaned to make Bush look better. (Note the "sic" in the first paragraph if you choose to visit the transcript.) The question mark is mine. The transcriptionist decided to use a semicolon and follow it with some more rambling that I've omitted in my block quote above.
Of course, he said it with all of the heartfelt sincerity that someone like him can muster. That is, he said it without any indication whatsoever that any sense of irony was warranted. Today, we call that "heartfelt sincerity" where in other--better--times, we might call it "dimwitted numbskullery".
I'm not a big fan of the profanity and I like to be kind in speaking of others. But sometimes I just want to scream out: "Schmuck!"
My photographic skills are not quite brilliant, but I'm happy enough with these shots that I'm willing to share them.
I believe these are the first loons I've ever seen in the wild. Awfully pretty birds, they are.
Last weekend, we went to MINIs On Top 2006. We went up on Friday and I was wearing a t-shirt of my own design. I got several compliments on it, so I'm taking that as an encouragement to mention my t-shirt designs here. These are available through cafepress, in case you're interested. The two designs I'm offering at the moment couldn't possibly hold much interest for anyone outside of New Hampshire. Perhaps future designs will appeal to a wider audience. I'll be sure to post new designs here as I produce them. As with everything I post, I welcome your feedback.
On Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, I stopped in to the local supermarket. Beth had asked me to pick up some deli meat and as it was being sliced, I found myself in conversation with a couple of the guys who worked there. The younger-looking one (who I'm guessing is somewhere between 14 and 18 years my junior) asked what kind of music I listen to and all I came up with was "a wide variety of stuff".
Then he asked whether I listened to any really obscure bands. I was still kind of in a daze from Monday and I don't think all of my synapses were really firing at full strength, so I just kind of fell into letting him know that my favorite band is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and that I also really dig Morphine and Pixies.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are just not for everyone. For some reason, for me, Henry's Dream did click after a day of repeated listening, and I've never looked back. I think that most people could listen and listen and listen some more and still never "get it". That's fine. If you can't "get" Stevie Ray Vaughan, then I think you're missing something fundamental. If you can't "get" The Beatles or Ray Charles or Johnny Cash or Robert Johnson, then I think you're missing something fundamental. But if you can't "get" Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, so be it.
As for Morphine, if you haven't heard them, please make a point of it. Get your hands on a copy of their second album (Cure for Pain) and give it a listen. Will it change your life? Probably not. But it will show you a possibility you probably hadn't ever thought of. If you don't dig it, that's OK. But it's worth a shot. I mean that. It's REALLY worth a shot.
"What music do you know of that's really worth tracking down, for a 20-ish person who's interested in expanding his/her musical horizons?"
Get your hands on anything by Blast Off Country Style. (No, it's not country music!) It's sort of really good bubble-gum pop, believe it or not. Teenage music. (Themes include being a high school nerd looking forward to getting into a top college.) Not angsty, really. Fun. Catchy. Just a good time!
Get your hands on Professor Longhair's Rock 'n' Roll Gumbo. It's a spectacularly clean, crisp recording of an old dude playing rock and roll like you've never heard before. There's nothing abrasive about it. It's not making a statement. It's not anti-establishment. It's not cutting-edge. It's just plain perfect. Listen and learn.
Find a copy of Candy Machine's A Modest Proposal. Here's where you'll find an edge. It's hard and it's fast, and it might just make you wonder why Soundgarden and Alice in Chains ever got press. Okay, so maybe it was a little late to the party, but it has more of a punk attitude and an altogether better sound than any of that stuff.
Listen to Clifton Chenier, especially Bayou Blues. Think the accordion is for polkas? Think again! This record rocks, and you'll be hard pressed to find a more perfectly plaintive vocal than what Clifton laid down on "The Things I Did For You".
When I was a kid, I was always aware of Chuck Berry. He was just sort of a part of the landscape. His time had come and gone, but I always knew he was the true King of Rock and Roll (Elvis wasn't even court jester. Elvis wasn't even in the castle. Elvis was just a drunk clown, wishing his money and fame could make him worthy of kissing Chuck Berry's ring.) My fear is that Chuck Berry has dropped out of the collective consciousness of people younger than myself. I really hope not. Whether you think you know Chuck Berry or not, find some really old Chuck Berry and listen to it. My favorite tracks are "Jaguar and Thunderbird", "Anthony Boy" and "Jo Jo Gunne". But it's all good.
I happen to like a band called Daisy Chainsaw who had a bit of a hit with "Love Your Money" about 14 years ago. The last I heard, the lead singer, Katie Jane Garside, had decided to pursue a career in opera. I don't know how that worked out (or even whether it's true), but I know it was her girly-girl vocals that really kicked this band into a different orbit. Sonically, I think of them as being really sort of Brit-Grunge. But I don't know whether the Grunge community wanted anything to do with them.
Less obscure than lots on my list is Lyle Lovett. The country community seems to have disowned him long before it disowned Dixie Chicks. (Too odd, too quirky, too versatile, too clever?) You may know him more as the former Mr. Julia Roberts than as a musician. (You may also know him from several movie appearances. He has a face that, shall we say(?), isn't easily forgotten.) But the bottom line is: This guy can write a song like nobody's business. He's the only musician who I consider to be a country artist who I thoroughly enjoy listening to.
Last week started very badly, with the news that my much beloved uncle, Elie, had succumbed to the cancer he had been fighting since late last year. The burial was on Monday, and so Beth and I drove down to Long Island to be there for that. It was nice seeing family (some of whom I hadn't seen in a couple of decades), although the circumstances for bringing us together were the saddest imaginable.
Beth only met Uncle Elie once, at our wedding, but she ended up doing a lot of crying at his burial because (1) it meant the world to her that he came a couple of thousand miles to our wedding when my own father wouldn't even make the trip a couple of dozen miles and (2) she knew how wonderful a person he was, how much he was loved by so many people, and how unfair it was that he should have to die so young.
What I found at Uncle Elie's burial was that I felt compelled to participate quite heartily in the shovelling. For some reason, the possibility of letting the cemetery workers and their machinery put the dirt over him was a bit too unbearable to accept. I felt it needed to be done by people who knew him and who loved him instead of by strangers just doing their job.
On May 9, Beth and I attended our first town meeting. This seems to be a peculiarity of life in New England. Once a year, the town has a meeting in which residents are welcome to speak their minds on various issues and to vote. It was an interesting process.
I was disappointed by the low turnout. In a town of over 6,000 people, I don't think any of the Articles received more than 325 votes. That's pretty sad, especially to someone who cherishes the idea of democracy and who thinks that direct democracy should be considered a nobler system than representative democracy.
The way things worked is that there were five uncontested elections and two or three other Articles that were voted on by paper ballot without public discussion. The balloting for these issues was open all day, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. At 6 p.m., the town meeting began.
I don't believe that the room had more than 250 people in it at any time during the meeting. For each of the remaining Articles, there was public discussion. Anyone who wanted to say their piece on any particular issue was invited to come forward to speak into the microphone in front of the stage. When everyone who wanted to speak to a particular issue had done so, we voted on the article in question. It was all Yea or Nay. A couple of Articles were voted on by secret ballot (dropping a "Yes" or "No" card into a box), but most were voted on by the raising of voter cards to signify our "Yea" or "Nay". Some results were obvious and were not tallied. Others were less apparent and were tallied.
I went in expecting just to listen, but I ended up going up to the microphone a few times. Much to my surprise, even Beth went up to the microphone once. The issue on the agenda that was of most importance to both of us (and which we felt most strongly compelled to speak out about) was an early item on the agenda. It had to do with whether the town was in favor of moving towards a municipally run curbside trash removal and recycling program.
While this town has very much to be proud of, its current recycling rate should be a source of great shame. I wasn't trying to make anyone feel ashamed, but I did want to make a point of fostering a sense that a much higher recycling rate is very easily attainable and should really be a community goal.
After a while, Beth and I were both pretty famished, as we hadn't eaten before going to the meeting. Beth's legs were also falling asleep from sitting for so long. So when the few issues that seemed most vital had been dispensed with and the next couple of items scheduled were the least interesting to us, we took the opportunity to leave for a dinner break. After eating, Beth wanted to go back home. So she drove us home and I headed back out to catch the tail end of the meeting.
I spoke up on another issue or two towards the end. Beth watched on the TV. (As mentioned before, this town has a lot to be proud of. One such thing is that it has its own television station that broadcasts various meetings (annual town meeting, zoning board meetings, town select board meetings), among other things). I haven't yet caught a rerun of the town meeting. Perhaps I will someday. I would like to. Partly because I think it'd be fun to point and laugh at myself, but more because of the discussion that I missed while we were out to dinner.
We, as a voting body, were somewhere between the size of the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. This means that we were really quite a small number of people making our decisions. This was direct democracy, and I hope that someone who didn't attend this year's meeting (either here in Newport or in some other town) will read this blog entry and decide, based on my next sentence, to attend next year's meeting.
If I had been present for the votes I missed, and if I had voted "yea" for one of them, my vote would have been the vote that pushed the balance of the Article from a losing tie to a winning majority.
How's that for a wake up call as to the importance of participation?
As I said, I would like to catch a rerun of the town meeting. I'm very interested now in hearing the debate on that Article that lost by virtue of a tie. I will probably come out of it thinking what I thought going in: I really don't have any strong opinion on it either way. Or I might discover that I would have been opposed to the measure anyway, and not feel at all bad about not breaking the tie. But I might (and here's where the possibility is extremely interesting) end up kicking myself because by missing that vote, I missed out on a chance to do some real good.
The point is: When you have a chance to participate in democracy, you should take that chance. Your participation might just be more important than you ever expected.