about a dream that sticks with me

One Sunday morning I was sleeping late and dreamed of lying in bed with X. Lying there, dressed in sleepwear, comfortable in each other's presence, talking. Not about anything in particular—just current events, passing thoughts, and so on. For a moment, my feeling wandered from intimacy to romance, but that feeling passed and I relaxed again. In real life, I would go out of my way to avoid her. And yet, what a treat was this Sunday morning spent together. I wondered later how I could dream something so in conflict with my better judgment. The reason is probably as simple as loneliness. There are few people further away from me than X, so her being so close meant that everyone else was that much closer.

(posts) Ringworm's "Snake Church"

about listening, sometimes, and a lack of perspective

Some people are desperate for someone to listen to them. Others, you feel special because they chose you to talk to this time.

(posts) "Sultans Of Swing" by Dire Straits (1978 or 1979)

something about "The Age of Grief" by Jane Smiley

I enjoyed this collection of short stories more than I have enjoyed any fiction work in a while. The protagonist of "Long Distance"--my favorite here--reaches a moment of realization that his life had already plateaued. The New York Times review put it well--"he can no longer pretend there are endless possibilities." This story finishes strongly. "The Pleasure of Her Company" also worked well; in it, a single woman befriends a couple that just moved in next door. She learns later that the couple liked having her around because she distracted them from the disintegration of their relationship. Smiley ends this one with a gut punch, too. The title piece is good despite its relatively lesser conclusion. The protagonist's emotional shifts and withdrawal emerge from modestly set narrative points. "Dynamite" and "Jeffrey, Believe Me" are my least favorites, but even those were good reads.

about being dull

 
A knifeman forces an 84-year-old priest to his knees at the altar and slits his throat. Why is it that this horrific episode did nothing for the imagination? Is it because it is situated within the shapeless war on terror instead of the short rash of violence wrought during the early Norwegian black metal scene?

(posts) the video for "Blindspot" by Today Is The Day

(posts) The Jackson Five, "I Want You Back"

about the temp

I am filling in at the front desk this afternoon. A body is needed here. A desk is needed for the body. If someone needs me, they do not belong here.

something about "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville

In 1831, the French government sent Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont to study the American prison system and American society in general to inform political developments in France. Tocqueville saw virtue in an aristocracy and was skeptical of the egalitarianism preached in the United States.

Tocqueville published his findings, De La Démocratie en Amérique, in two parts (1835 and 1840). His commentary, translated today as Democracy in America, is a staggering read. It is at least as insightful as any other wide-scope religious, political, and economic study of American culture (which are all prone to hasty generalizations) produced before or since. Given the fact that Tocqueville spent only nine months in the United States, this is an especially remarkable achievement. 

(posts) a quick sketch of a guy

something about the Roger Waters album, "Is This the Life We Really Want"

Last month former Pink Floyd bass player and singer Roger Waters released Is This the Life We Really Want?, his fourth solo effort (not counting his three-act opera, Ça Ira). Unlike the previous three, the new album could almost be mistaken for a lost late Waters-era Pink Floyd album. It is fantastic. Passages and arrangements echo The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall, and The Final Cut. But this is not a nostalgia project. Waters' patented simple, impossibly catchy musical and lyrical refrains and singing to his own acoustic guitar-driven tunes provide a framework around which the album often employs traditionally Pink Floyd sounds. (Finding and using those sounds without sounding like a Floyd knockoff should be credited in large part to the accomplished, deft producer, Nigel Godrich.) This album is more Floydian than Pink Floyd's post-Waters-era A Momentary Lapse of Reason. And, yet, Is This the Life We Really Want? is undeniably a Rogers solo effort. His vocal retains its edge, but he is restrained and sounds less emotionally charged than he did singing with Pink Floyd. (Obviously, this can be attributed in part to his having aged.) The perspectives and opinions expressed in the lyrics are more political and more outwardly focused than his Pink Floyd lyrics.


Note: The bass guitar is brilliant on this album.

another opinion

This week USA Today published an opinion by the Heritage Foundation's John Malcolm supporting the presidential authority behind Executive Order 13769 ("Executive Order Protecting The Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into The United States"), the so-called "travel ban." President Trump may have the authority, but Malcolm's argument in support is flawed. He writes, "Presidential authority to protect our homeland should not be second-guessed by courts based on some hidden intent divined from tweets and statements made by surrogates in the heat of a presidential campaign." First, Malcolm's attempt to attribute to surrogates Trump's Muslim ban campaign rhetoric is wrong. In December 2015, during the campaign, candidate Trump said at a rally, “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.” Second, and worse still, Malcolm tries to nullify the intent behind campaign promises. Of course candidates make false promises, but we still have to pretend the promises are true.


Notes:

• At issue is the scope of presidential power over the border. The Supreme Court has allowed parts of President Trump's travel ban to go into effect and will hear oral arguments on the case this fall.
• The "he did not mean it" argument was once part of the legal defense.
• Every previous President made an empty promise.

Source: "Travel ban is president's authority," USA Today, July 5, 2017

(posts) the video for "You Make My Dreams" by Hall and Oates

Notes:

• The best band with the worst videos. 
• Cocaine?

about being attached still at the roots

The blonde-headed young man slides self-consciously into frame. His eyes are pulled twice to the camera, furtively each time; he nods hair away from his face. He knows he is being seen but denies the seer. Finally, a casually intentioned look toward the camera's eye--mutually frank, unwise, and uninvested.

Recording themselves downtown, the boys were making memories, however forgettable in the grand scheme. It is that association between memory and place, time and space, that now leaves me missing home. My hometown: flawed but well planned grids of city streets; tree-heavy suburban neighborhoods where kids get excited about spending the night at friends'; where the beginning and the ending last until I die.

about Megyn Kelly's cold, hard stare

Megyn Kelly and NBC faced a lot of criticism last week ahead of their decision to air a piece on controversial conspiracist Alex Jones during Kelly's new Sunday night show. Why give Jones a platform for his odious views? The guy claims the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged or faked to undermine private gun ownership rights.

But after the interview aired, media critics grudgingly formed a consensus that the segment was a success. The Washington Post piece "Facing Alex Jones, NBC's Megyn Kelly manages to avoid a worst-case outcome" is typical:

Rather than let Jones run away with it, "Sunday Night" let him show himself to be an impertinent, ill-informed, foulmouthed, possibly deranged egomaniac with a forehead constantly beaded in sweat. It showed viewers how Infowars grew and sustains itself by peddling right-wing merchandise and Jones-endorsed dietary supplements. It looked briefly back at Jones's early days as just another cable-access kook in Austin, and revealed the flimsy, almost nonexistent definition of "research" (articles he and his staff find online) that sets the Infowars agenda.

... Good night and good luck, in a "Sunday Night With Megyn Kelly" kind of world, has been replaced with the cold, hard stare. Which, as it happens, remains Kelly's surest and perhaps only journalistic asset.

This piece withholds journalistic credit from Kelly, arguing that Alex Jones revealed himself to be a sweaty, crackpot buffoon. The Post just gives Kelly credit for her icy stare. She deserves more. Jones counterattacked with accusations of media liberal bias. But Kelly refused to engage on Jones's terms. A lot of other journalists would have been baited. By remaining on the offensive, Kelly allowed her righteous narrative to prevail. And Jones, as the Post points out, looked crazy--with a lot of help from Kelly.

(posts) DEP's "Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants"

Craigslist ad, "Bass Ho Walking the Streets and Looking for Work (NoVA)"

Hey sailor, need someone to play bass for a gig?

I'm a bassist with over 20 years experience in multiple genres. I have hundreds of tunes under my belt and can learn, read, or fake my way through anything else. I have chops for fingerstyle and slapping. I know how to do this, and like any Ho that's been doing this for a while, I have some tricks to please the customers. I have reliable toys and a ride as well.

Why go with a ho?
- A Ho knows what they are doing, and can get right in on the action with little warm-up time. I don't need a movie and dinner to do my thang.
- A Ho knows not only how to please one client, but all different kinds of clients. I love you long time...
- You don't wanna deal with the crazy ho after you had your fill? No problem, I'm out after I get dressed and paid.
- I got no agenda other than makin money, so you have all your artistic freedom, control, etc.
- You can still go back to your steady if you want, I'll still be around if he/she goes out of town and you're lonely.

So if you find yourself needing a bass player for a gig or more, hit me up. But like any Ho, I ain't doing anything for free except unless it's for my pimp (my wife). And if I don't got her money when I come home, Lord help us all......

I've been checked by the doc, and I'm clean, so let's rock! 

Note: URL [https://washingtondc.craigslist.org/nva/muc/6163711118.html]

(posts) Car Bomb's video for "Black Blood"

about "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote

In this short piece by Truman Capote, a seven-year-old narrator lovingly remembers the last Christmas he shared with his intellectually disabled, elderly distant cousin. That season, the pair followed their tradition of making fruitcake and giving gifts. Capote's unadorned writing colors the events with innocence.

In the years following that Christmas, the boy goes away to school and his cousin succumbs to old age and dementia. In the wonderfully sentimental passage below, Capote masterfully captures the heartbreak one feels when a loved one passes:

Life separates us. Those who Know Best decide that I belong in a military school. And so follows a miserable succession of bugle-blowing prisons, grim reveille-ridden summer camps. I have a new home too. But it doesn't count. Home is where my friend is, and there I never go.

And there she remains, puttering around the kitchen. Alone with Queenie. Then alone. ("Buddy dear," she writes in her wild hard-to-read script, "yesterday Jim Macy's horse kicked Queenie bad. Be thankful she didn't feel much. I wrapped her in a Fine Linen sheet and rode her in the buggy down to Simpson's pasture where she can be with all her Bones...."). For a few Novembers she continues to bake her fruitcakes single-handed; not as many, but some: and, of course, she always sends me "the best of the batch." Also, in every letter she encloses a dime wadded in toilet paper: "See a picture show and write me the story." But gradually in her letters she tends to confuse me with her other friend, the Buddy who died in the 1880's; more and more, thirteenths are not the only days she stays in bed: a morning arrives in November, a leafless birdless coming of winter morning, when she cannot rouse herself to exclaim: "Oh my, it's fruitcake weather!"

And when that happens, I know it. A message saying so merely confirms a piece of news some secret vein had already received, severing from me an irreplaceable part of myself, letting it loose like a kite on a broken string. That is why, walking across a school campus on this particular December morning, I keep searching the sky. As if I expected to see, rather like hearts, a lost pair of kites hurrying toward heaven.

Note: "A Christmas Memory" was published in 1956.