Sacred Sunday: “Give Good Gifts,” Anon.

Among the many lessons my mother taught me, “don’t be mean, don’t be stupid” (I’m paraphrasing) ranks pretty highly. Equal with this was the other lesson that life is hard for everyone for some reason. Everyone you meet has a story and is probably having a hard time in some aspect of their lives, do why not be kind? (She also taught me about beat poetry, sterling silver hallmarks, the stock market, and how to use a power drill, but those are less germane to this Shaker hymn.) These were two wonderfully important lessons for any kid to learn and this Mother’s Day I’m reminded, as I usually am, that all checks and money orders should be sent to her, not me, if you find me to be an agreeable person.

Salubrious Saturday: “Takin’ Pills,” Pistol Annies

So, I have this friend. I’m going to call her Alice. Alice is a pediatrician. Alice is a respectable, honorable, upright citizen of her community. She helps little kids stay healthy. Alice was my partner in crime in college. Alice was my go-to trouble buddy. One time I interrupted her studying for some “important” medical thing (like clinical exam or whatever, psh) because some disgusting sea slug had been dropped on the sidewalk by an over-zealous bird outside our dorm. Did she get shirty with me for interrupting her study time? Calumny! She ran down four flights of stairs, without her shoes on, to go outside and see said disgusting sea slug. And then she said we should put it in a certain person’s bed. And then she went back to studying. This other time? She helped steal all the traffic cones in town (it was a really small town), and the next day, the town council pasted a letter on almost every telephone pole issuing an amnesty for said missing traffic cones. I should have kept the letter.

My friend Lily? She biked through a blizzard to meet at a bar during finals in grad school. We had many rounds. Then she biked home. …In a blizzard. Charlotte? She and I had Manhattans on the roof of our graduate program’s central building the day before we graduated. Were we supposed to be up there? Are you kidding? Grace picked me up from work at 10:30pm at night, drove me to her house, set me up on her sofa in front of a roaring fire, woke me up the next morning at 7am, and drove me back to work. All so I wouldn’t have to spend the night at the office.

The older you get, the more the list of “Friends who will bail me out of jail,” and “Friends who will be in jail with me” blurs. I’m a (more) responsible adult now, and, for a whole variety of reasons, the likelihood of serious hijinks has seriously diminished. But knowing I have a group of women who I can call and say, “hey, you remember that time…” is the thing that will keep me young and happy forever.

Funk Friday: “Tukka Yoot’s Riddim,” Us3

So here’s something twisted: kids who were born in 1993, when this record came out, are old enough to drink now. They’re gonna be hitting the bars tonight buying drinks with real IDs. Curse you, relentless passage of time.

I remember buying my first legal drink. I ordered a glass of red wine in a Legal Seafood restaurant in a mall. I didn’t get carded, the wine was a bit blech, it felt very anti-climactic. Ordering a drink at a bar, of course, was very different. I really did feel like I was getting away with something. I kept waiting for someone to tap me on the shoulder and give me a condescending “Okay, honey, let’s go.” But no one did. So, bars were no longer mythic – less Mists of Avalon, more Terminal B Airport Lounge.

So, a bar is a bar is a bar. (You of course are a bar, but were always a bar. (Robert Frost, up top!)) The best bar I have ever been to is basically an enormous living room, filled with squashy sofas and arm chairs. The drinks are reasonably priced, the food is delicious, and the service just desultory enough to allow you ample time to wonder if you’ll die in the chair you selected, and then realize you won’t really mind because it’s so very comfortable. In fact, the bar in “Tukka Yoot’s Riddim” slightly resembles this Elysium of bars. So, while drinking tends to cram a half-hour of loose amusement into three hours of unpleasantness, you might as well do it sitting in a blue velveteen low-rider sofa listening to an upright bass player. Word to the wise, newly-minted 21-year olds.

Oh and one more thing: shots are the Devil’s plaything. Shots are how the Saxons fell. Don’t do shots. Promise me. Ok? Look me in the eye. Ok. Now be home by 11. And would it kill you to wear pants that fit?

Throwback Thursday: “Academic Festival Overture, op. 80,” Johannes Brahms

I listened to this piece on loop during the last month of both my undergraduate and my graduate programs. Normally I like the statelier tempo of George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, but Kurt Masur captures the real heart of this piece, which is basically, “oh please can this just be over already I am very very tired.”

There isn’t anything quite like the mad dash to the finish of any educational program. You had no idea you had the capacity to write three papers and take four exams in the same week until you don’t have a choice in the matter. The last month of my graduate program was especially heinous. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner could be found for $0.75 in the vending machine closest to the library. My fuse was short as number of hours of sleep I allowed myself at night. Fully inked yellow highlighters were currency. I would do wall sits in between paper drafts to keep my legs limber (because clearly I couldn’t take an actual walk, that would take too much time). The little dots next to my friends’ names on GChat would be red throughout the day until after 10pm, when they would turn over to green because they wanted company, moral support, and spell-check help. It was a dark time.

And then, slowly, these massive boulders got pushed down the other side of the mountain, one by one, until one Tuesday afternoon. I finished a paper, closed my computer, and after sitting for a minute, realized…I just did it. I just did all my work. I called my friend Rebecca who lived down the street and said, “I…uh…I think I just…finished.” “Yeah…I think I did too…” We sat in silence on the phone for a minute. “This is weird.” The daze lasted for about a day or two. But then…

…at 8:30 in the piece, jubilation! Gaudeamus igitur! We got capped and gowned and graduated and drank champagne with little raspberries floating in it and called ourselves Masters. It was a hell of a feeling. So to all the students in my Capstone course, to all my friends who are turning in those papers now – keep your spirits up. I promise it will be over soon.

Worldly Wednesday: “La Vie Est Belle,” MC Solaar

I was living abroad during September 11th and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, so it was easy to know what the world thought about these things. I’d talk to my neighbors, the woman who worked at the coffee shop, my local friends. It’s harder to keep your finger on the pulse of international public opinion when you’re in the States, and ten years of living on American soil again can leave one feeling oddly disconnected. When I want to remember what it was like to watch my country from afar, I put on this song.

MC Solaar, a Senegal-born French rap and hip-hop artist, wrote and recorded this in 2003 about the U.S. invasion of Iraq. (Interestingly, the album from which this song is taken wasn’t released in the U.S. until 2006. But that’s neither here nor there.) MC Solaar is known for his nuanced, interesting lyrics, which certainly why I love him so much, and I find the lyrics to this song so arresting. The line “like in football, the goalie wants to shoot the ball” always stuck with me since I first heard it.

English translation follows after the French lyrics. Apologies for the mistakes.

—

La vie est belle
La vie est belle
La vie est belle

Seul dans ma chambre un jour normal
J’apprends dans les journaux que j’ suis dans l’axe du mal
Je lis entre les lignes et j’ comprends qu’on veut me killer
J’ ferme la serrure pour être un peu plus tranquille
Dehors c’est la guerre et j’ crois qu’elle vient vers moi
Malgré les manifs qui vivra la verra
Je mets des sacs de sables dans mon salon
Des salauds veulent me shooter
Comme au foot le stoppeur veut shooter le ballon
A la télé j’entends qu’ j’ suis l’ pire des mecs
Longue vie aux non violents, la propagande est impec
J’flippe: des troupes spéciales des B52
J’ regrette ce que j’ai fait, j’ crois qu’ j’aurais pu faire mieux
Mais l’erreur est humaine, j’avoue j’ai fais des erreurs
Prendre position c’est prendre une pluie de terreur
Au nom du Père du Fils et du Saint Esprit d’ l’Imam et du Rabin
Plus jamais ceci

Comme un oiseau sans ailes
Je vole vers le ciel
Mais j’ sais qu’la vie est belle

Comme un oiseau sans ailes
Je vole vers le ciel
Mais j’ sais qu’ la vie est belle

Moi j’ suis un missile
J’ suis pas coupable
On m’ guide par satellite
Pour faire un travail impeccable
Toutes les technologies sont mises à mon service
Dans le but de chasser le mal
Et que j’agisse pour un monde peace
J’ suis dans un porte avion et fais c’ qu’on me demande
Ce soir je dois frapper un type qui est tout seul dans sa chambre
J’ suis un oiseau sans aile suppositoire de fer
500 km à faire et puis pour lui c’est l’enfer
Ca y est j’ suis parti j’ vole vers son domicile
Et je préserve la paix en commettant des homicides
J’ perce les nuages vers l’abscisse et l’ordonnée
Objectif mémorisé j’ connais les coordonnées
J’ suis de fer, nu de chair, arrive à l’improviste
Vole au dessus des manifs de ces millions de pacifistes
Au nom du Père du Fils et du Saint Esprit d’ l’Imam et du Rabin
Plus jamais ceci

Comme un oiseau sans aile
Je vole vers le ciel
Mais j’ sais qu’ la vie est belle

Comme un oiseau sans aile
Je vole vers le ciel
Mais j’ sais qu’ la vie est belle

Et sur la chaîne info j’apprends qu’un missile arrive
Il s’invite chez moi pourtant c’est pas mon convive
On bombarde ma ville mon quartier mon bâtiment
Ce soir tu vas mourir tel est mon ressentiment
Tranquille je range ma chambre et puis je vois les photos
De moi même, de mon ex, vacances au Colorado
des bivouacs en montagne avec nos sacs à dos
Là-haut donne des discours avec tous ces ados
Je vois mon père et puis ma mère sur des clichés loin de là haut
Moi qui les trouvais durs j’ fais la même à mes enfants
Ils dorment tranquillement, ils doivent compter des moutons
Ou bien faisaient des rêves quand il y a eu l’explosion
On a tué ma famille sans même la connaître
Moi, ma femme et mes enfants semblent ajouter aux pertes
Des missiles kill, dans le civil, kill
Des enfants dociles, le monde est hostile
J’ai rien fais, ils n’ont rien fait, ils n’avaient rien fait
Ils parlaient de bienfaits mais je ne vois que des méfaits
Non ce n’est pas du rap c’est, crever l’abcès
Que s’ils sont absents, c’est grâce à vos excès
J’appelle les synagogues, les mosquées et les temples
L’Eglise les chapelles, militant et militante
Au nom du Père du Fils et du Saint Esprit d’ l’Imam et du Rabin
Plus jamais ceci

Je vole vers le ciel mais j’ sais que la vie est belle
Je vole vers le ciel mais j’ sais que la vie est belle

Au nom du Père du Fils et du Saint Esprit d’ l’Imam et du Rabin
Plus jamais ceci

Life is beautiful (x3)

Alone in my room, a normal day
I learn in the newspapers that I’m in the axis of evil
I read between the lines and I understand they want to kill me
I lock things up so I can be a little calmer

Outside, it’s war, and I believe it’s coming towards me
Despite the demonstrators who’ll live, who’ll see it
I put some sandbags in my living room
Some bastards want to shoot me
Like in football, the goalie wants to shoot the ball

On the TV I hear that I’m the worst of the guys
Long life to non-violents — the propaganda is flawless
I flip: some special B52 troops
I regret what I did, I believe I could’ve done better

But mistakes are human, I swear I’ve made mistakes
Taking a position is just asking for a rain of terror
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Imam and the Rabbi
Let this never be again.

REFRAIN: (x2)
Like a bird without wings
I fly towards heaven
But I know that life is beautiful

Me, I’m a missile
I can’t be blamed
They guide me via satellite
To do a flawless job
All the technologies are put at my service
In the goal of hunting evil
And so that I act for a world of peace

I’m in a carrier plane and I do what they ask me to
Tonight I need to hit a guy who’s all alone in his room
I’m a bird without a wing: a suppository of fire
500 km to go, and then it’s Hell for him

There it is, I’ve left, and I fly towards his home
And I preserve the country while committing homicides
I pierce the clouds towards the abscess and the ordered
My objective memorised, I know the coordinates

I’m made of fire, he’s made of flesh. I arrive at the improvised protest
I fly over the demonstrations of these millions of pacifists
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and the Imam and the Rabbi
Let this never be again.

(REFRAIN)

And through the chain of information I learn that a missile is coming
It invites itself to my home, although I don’t welcome it
It bombards my city, my quarter, my building
“Tonight you’re going to die; such is my resentment.”

Calmly I tidy up my room and then I see the photos
Of myself, of my ex, of vacations in Colorado
Of walks in the mountains with our backpacks
There I had conversations with all these youths

I see my father and then my mother on black-and-white plates
I, who found them difficult — I did the same to my children
They sleep peacefully… they must have been counting sheep
Or maybe having dreams, when there was an explosion

They killed my family without even knowing them
Me, my wife and my kids seem to be added to the casualties
The missiles kill — in the civilisation, kill —
docile babies; the world is hostile.

I didn’t do anything, the babies didn’t do anything, and they wouldn’t have done anything.
They talk about benefits but all I see are misdeeds
… that is, to burst the abscess.
If only they weren’t around! It’s all thanks to your excess.

I call upon the synagogues, the mosques and the temples
The Church, the chapels, military men and women
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Imam and the Rabbi
Let this never be again.

I fly towards heaven, but I know life is beautiful. (x2)

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and the Imam and the Rabbi,
Let this never be again.

Termagant Tuesday: “Cultural Exchange,” Louis Armstrong (et al)

Years ago, at a house party in a dodgy part of D.C., I got into what soon became an argument with some random guy while refiling my drink. I was in my early 20s and very ego contra mundi; with my college degree, international job, and over-priced one-bedroom apartment, I had a lot to prove. So anyway, I’m at this party. It’s a mix of people – some international types, some private sector types, probably about fifty people or so. Some friend of mine from work had brought me, and, after a few whiskey-sodas, I was having a pretty good time. Robbie Williams, of all people, was on the stereo, I remember that distinctly, and I remember thinking, “why is Robbie Williams playing?!” as I walked to the bar (aka someone’s dining room table) in the corner to get another drink.

Which is where I met this guy. His name was Jonah. We did the obligatory “where do you work” tango, and got to talking about his job. Jonah worked at the State Department facilitating educational exchanges of foreign college students to the United States and vice versa. Jonah seemed a little down on it, and I pressed him to explain why. Jonah said that he thought educational exchanges were fine, but really, what encouraged the growth American values abroad was the spread of capitalism. I furrowed the ol’ eyebrows and said that seemed a bit of a limp argument. If it were purely capitalism and free markets, why is America a nation of immigrants? Because America is an idea, and that idea is self-determination. Capitalism is an expression of self-determination, it isn’t the end-all, be-all.

We parried and thrusted about this for a while until Jonah, whose stock value was rapidly decreasing, snorted and said something like, “well, I mean, come on: the Soviet Union.” To which I responded, “uh…what about the Soviet Union?” He said, “blue jeans, man. People wanted to buy blue jeans.” I arched an eyebrow. “You mean to tell me that, according to you, we brought down the Soviet Union and ended the Cold War with…pants?”

I probably should have left it there, but, well, I didn’t, and I battered him on how the greatness of America lies in the delicate balance between the power of the market and the power of the individual and how people wanted the choice of what kinds of things to buy (like pants), and so on. If I’d been able to continue, I would have added the power of music – especially the freedom encapsulated in jazz. But I think Louis Armstrong articulates this far better than I did. And I bet no one tugged at his elbow and gently suggested maybe it was time to go.

—

From reports on Dizzy Gillespie
It was clear to the local press he
Quelled the riots in far off Greece
Restored the place to comparative peace
That’s what we call cultural exchange.

When Diz blew, the riots were routed
People danced and they cheered and shouted
The headlines bannered the hour as his
They dropped their stones and they rocked with Diz.
That’s what we call cultural exchange.

Yeah! I remember when Diz was in Greece back in ’57.
He did such a good job we started sending jazz all over the world.
The State Department has discovered jazz
It reaches folks like nothing ever has.
Like when they feel that jazzy rhythm
They know we’re really with ’em.
That’s what we call cultural exchange.

No commodity is quite so strange
as this thing called cultural exchange.
Say that our prestige needs a tonic?
Export the Philharmonic.
That’s what we call cultural exchange!

We put “Oklahoma” in Japan.
“South Pacific” we gave to Iran.
And when all our neighbors call us vermin,
We send out Woody Herman.
That’s what we call cultural exchange.

Gershwin gave the Muscovites a thrill (with Porgy and Bess)
Bernstein was the darling of Brazil (and isn’t he hip?)
And just to stop internal mayhem
We dispatch Martha Graham.
That’s what we call cultural exchange
That’s what we call cultural exchange

Yeah, and if the world gets whacky
We’ll get John to send out Jackie!
(You mean Jackie Robinson?
No man, the First Lady!)
That’s what we call cultural exchange
That’s what we call cultural exchange.

Modernism Monday: “Not Half,” Alfie

Normally I’m pretty perky on Monday. Today, though…man. The problem is, this weekend was particularly fun, and I know this week at work will particularly suck. So there’s really only one song I can think of that will make me feel like I’ve got a compassionate friend. Check out the horn interlude (you knew it was coming) at 1:43. I had this on my headphones when I was grocery shopping once in college and I actually literally started dancing down a vegetable aisle. I regret nothing.

Sacred Sunday: “Beata Viscera,” Pérotin

This gorgeous piece of music was written in Paris in the early 13th century, during the time of Notre Dame’s construction, by a man named Pérotin. My favorite version of this piece is sung as a solo by a countertenor in the Hilliard Ensemble, but this version done by Le Concert Spirituel, I enjoy enormously. I love how the entire choir is singing and I love how the volume builds. The thing I love the most is the sense of mystery, which is what I find the most comforting about religion. Life is confusing, so it calms me down to know that the origins of life (from a spiritual perspective) are confusing, too.

—

Beata viscera
Marie virginis
cuius ad ubera
rex magni nominis;
veste sub altera
vim celans numinis
dictavit federa
Dei et hominis