Thought of the Day: “Who We Are.”
"All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are."
—Pablo Neruda (via The Writer’s Almanac)
Brief Summaries of Public Radio #4: Nextbook.org (6/23/2008)
Show: The Nextbook Podcast
Episode Date: June 23, 2008, "Within Four Walls."
Length: 9 Minutes.
Producer: Nextbook is consistently strong web-based/print/podcast on "Jewish literature, culture and ideas." (rss, podcast subscription).
What I Didn’t Know:
- Eastern State Penitentiary, on the outskirts of Philadelphia and defunct since the 1970s, once housed a synagogue. Discovered during a recent archaeological dig (the prison has been museum and site of scholarship since 1988), the synagogue served Jewish inmates beginning in the 1920s. The site is now under study and restoration. This report from Nextbook includes a fascinating oral history from the synagogue’s rabbi (still alive) and a kosher butcher who used to supply the congregation with meat.
One More Time: Like Seeing God
I can’t quite put my finger on why but I find this video indescribably moving. I wasn’t there. The lyrics hardly stirr my soul. Its as best a catchy dance number. Then why does it make me tear up?
Maybe it’s the unity of spirit, how everyone seems be giving and receiving, the band the music, the crowd their excitement and how the two compound each other. Maybe it’s as simple as the dorky way one of the member of Daft Punk claps his hands as the song opens (as if that’s necessary. The song is already 90% beat). Maybe there’s something quasi-revival tent about the proceedings, which the gaudy lighting and the arms thrust upward of the audience.
Or maybe I just have a week spot for "Let’s throw a worldwide party" songs (See Madonna’s "Holiday" or Kool and the Gang’s "Celebration"). That’s a muxtape in the making.
Not sure. But God, would I love to see this band live sometime. It looks better than chocolate.
One Sentence Movie Reviews: “I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang”
I am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932): "Is a system worth maintaining if it harms those its supposed to help?"
Seen: As movie #263 in my quest to the entirety of the AFI 400.
Word of the Day: “Succor”
Succor (noun): "Help, relief, aid."
Seen: Ironically, in this obituary of iron-hearted North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.
My Awesome Home State:
I’m incredibly proud of my home state today. According to an article in yesterday’s Detroit Free Press, Michigan has the highest African-American voting rate in the country at 57%. The Midwest region, according to the US Census, has the highest voting rate of any group of states in the nation.
Its a dumb old cliche’ to believe that people are more authentic, "more real" in the middle of the country. Its qually idiotic to believe that that same middle is filled with rubes who paint their garage doors red white and blue and begin planning 4th of July parades in February.
Civic participation is not cool. It will not get you laid or backstage to meet the band. It is, however, the very foundation of democracy, the system that allows us to be who we are. I’m incredibly proud to be borne of a part of the world, where cynicism nothwithstanding, this means something. A lotta something. The numbers bear it out (via Negrophile).
One Sentence Movie Reviews: “Why We Fight”
Why We Fight (2005): ‘War is this country’s biggest business and as such, the darkest stain on our soul."
Notes: Documentary on our national relationship with war. Posits that war is essentially a shakedown from greedy defense contractors to ensure a constant influx of government contracts. A bit simplistic at times but if even 10% of what director Eugene Jarecki suggests is true, this country has a lot of explaining to do and should be ashamed of itself.
Segment about a father who lost his son in the World Trade Center and believed that the War in Iraq was retribution for 9/11 will break your heart.
Seen: After picking of a cheap DVD copy at, of all places, an Office Max.
Thought of the Day: “Practice”
"Every day you miss practicing, it will take you one day longer to get good."
—Ben Hogan (read in Twyla Tharp’s book that I’m currently enjoying the hell out of)
Notes: Thought about this as I was running a 4.5 mile race today.
Americana after the 4th of July :
Still in that 4th of July spirit as I will be until roughly, Halloween? Allow me to recommend a gift for yourself or the favorite cheeseball in your life from Etsy.com Americana Primitive category which has enough rustic stars & stripes and red-on-white-on-blue to make Betsy Ross go goth.
I’m particularly fond of this Miss Liberty and Uncle Sam sculpture:
As well as these more practical kitchen cannisters.
Which yes, look like something where your grandmother might have hidden away gingersnaps. Not mine, mind you, who was a Detroit Jewish socialite and believed everything in the home should be made of deep wood and thick enough to hold a truck in place on a hill.
It’s a style choice for me then, without root. I love the look of old Americana. I didn’t grow up with it don’t relate to it (other than as a proud American) and don’t mind that most of these Etsy choices are made by ordinary working craftsmen, artists and collectors, not disadvantaged/homeless/veterans/talks to Jesus/born 200 years ago artists who seem to be the litmus test for much of what we consider "folk" and "primitive art" these days. Nope these are just folks working in the tradition so weirdos like me can celebrate the 4th of July all year long.
Thoughts for the 4th of July:
Let us remember this in November…
Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world
The whispers too they
intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit
now aroused they
carousing in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptismal smoke where yes
there will be fire
And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open eye
And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea:
we are the ones we have been waiting for.