To follow up on yesterday’s super-inspiring Peruvian llamas post, about which a number of you wrote me to suggest perhaps I needed a vacation (thanks, genius), here’s a song that will make you feel like you just won one for free. And because you got lippy with me, I’m going to tell you, in the longest, wordiest possible way, how it was I came to find this song. Aren’t you excited? …Say you’re excited.
Long before there were iPods and MP3 players (aside: I love how we still say “MP3 players” even though the market for Apple alternatives only existed for about 20 minutes), there were discmen and CDs. And poor students have existed since the beginning of time, or at least since the beginning of the $800 college textbook (hi, Dad!). So it was a big deal when my university’s student union would have CD sales. This being a student union at a small university in the middle of nowhere that nevertheless attracted a healthy international student body, the selections were really weird.
This one particular afternoon, after I’d slept off my hangover (sorry, Dad…), I padded down the street to the union to get a cheap late lunch before gently installing myself in the library. And when I walked through the front doors, what hit my senses first? Well, yes, stale beer on the floor, but – a huge rack of CDs. Hot damn! I got three: a Meatloaf album, a classical thing of some kind, and our pal Louis Prima.
Whenever I have a hard day that still allows some room for bucking up, unlike those days that are so frustrating you just want to hide in a dark closet, I put this on.
Now aren’t you glad I took you on that stroll down Memory Lane? …Say you’re glad.
Ever wake up and think, “oh, the hell with it?” No? Well you’re probably hiding a deep sadness so go see someone. I’ll wait.
…Ever wake up and think, “oh, the hell with it?” Yes? Yeah, it’s a gross, hands-in-the-air, “I’m moving to Paraguay to raise llamas at this rate” kind of feeling. So put this song on. I recommend very, very loud.
I’d like to learn how to fish. I don’t really know why. I guess it just seems like something a normal, calm, reasonably happy person would do in their spare time. I don’t know whether I’d classify my hobbies as such, given I don’t classify myself as normal or calm. Come to think of it, I don’t really know what my hobbies are.
The dictionary defines a hobby as “an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.” By that logic, the following things could be hobbies of mine:
Sleeping
Holding a wedge of cheese and eating it like an apple with the fridge door open, at night, with the lights off
Avoiding Swiffering my floors
Noodling aimlessly on my piano
Walking aimlessly around D.C.
Staring off into space
Taking a Buzzfeed quiz when I should be [fill in anything remotely more useful than taking a Buzzfeed quiz]
Reading a New Yorker profile of someone interesting, regretting my degrees and career choices, frantically opening my computer, and searching for jobs in the profile-ee’s field
Daydreaming of how great life would be as a [insert profession of New Yorker profile-ee]
Looking at real estate I’ll never be able to afford unless I abandon reason, ethics, and hope
I’ve lived in D.C. for ten years now. Before that, I lived in the U.K. Both places have the same arresting, and misunderstood, quirk, which is this: everyone spends the first five minutes of each new interaction trying to size the stranger up. This manifests itself in different ways in both places. In the U.K., I was asked questions about what school I attended, where in New England precisely I had lived, and – delightfully – what my family was “in.” (That one in particular made me feel like I was at Epcot Center and the British person to whom I was speaking was actually an acting student from Gays Mills, Wisconsin.) The obvious purpose behind all this was to assess where in the crusty social strata I fell. Here is where the misunderstanding kicks in. I learned over the course of many years that it doesn’t stop there, that there was a further point beyond that one, which was to ascertain how much of their own life were they now going to feel comfortable divulging. It really didn’t have much to do at all with stereotypical snootiness, beyond the tacit acknowledgement of the existence of a social strata in the first place. They just wanted to know who they were talking to so they didn’t do anything stupid.
The exact same principle exists in D.C. Washington also has social strata, layered on top of which is the fascinating reality that no one just sort of ends up here: people come to D.C. by choice. Therefore, where you work can speak immeasurable volumes about who you are, and everything that means: your politics, your background, your values, your level of cultivation, your drive, your everything. So, the very first question you get asked in D.C. is, “So where do you work?” Again, like the U.K, this isn’t only a yardstick of how you stack up against this stranger as much as it’s a gauge of how much you can relax around them. Say you and your work friends from the E.P.A are out at a bar blowing off steam after a terrible day, and you run into an old college acquaintance who’s got some friends of her own in tow. You’re not going to ask people where they work so you can pat yourself on the back again for going to Bennington. You’re going to ask them where they work so that you know whether you can sound off about that coal country Senator who is still deciding whether or not to block the passage of muscular clean water legislation, or whether that new guy in the madras shirt is his legislative aide.
This is one of the many reasons I felt so at home in the U.K., and why I feel equally – if ironically – at ease in D.C. I like living a life that cautions me against gum-flapping about Russia because I might be sitting next to the new President of the German Marshall Fund at the symphony. True story. (It was so awesome OMG.) Puts me mind of my favorite Wodehouse quote, whose hilarious “Jeeves and Wooster” stories were turned into one of the best TV shows ever made:
“I’m not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare who says that it’s always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping.” — P.G. Wodehouse, “Carry On, Jeeves”
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?
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.
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.
It’s Derby Day, Tune-Up fans, “the most exciting two minutes in sport.” For my international readers who don’t follow or care about horse racing – unforgivable! – the Kentucky Derby is arguably the most important race of the year, and has been held on the first Saturday in May every year since 1875. It is the first in what’s called the Triple Crown: the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness (held in Baltimore, Maryland), and the Belmont (in Elmont, New York, and no, that’s not a typo). Whoever wins the Derby continues on to compete in the other two. Kentucky being the seat of American horse country, it makes sense for the race that begins the Triple Crown to begin here.
The Derby has a number of traditions. Official drink: the mint julep (which was invented in Washington, D.C., at the Round Robin bar, in case you had a trivia night planned later today). Official flower: the red rose. And, official song: My Old Kentucky Home. Some call it the most moving moment in sports when the horses take the field and this song is played. I think that’s a bit rich, and I love the Dixieland version much more. So raise your julep and have yourself a grand day. My money is on Wicked Strong (7-1 odds), by the way. Obviously.
Vo is a Vietnamese musician who specialized in traditional music. The instrument she is playing is called the đàn bầu. The đàn bầu is a single-stringed instrument whose pitch you change by pulling it with the bar on the end, which is made of buffalo horn. Vo is an incredibly cool person for a whole variety of reasons, not least of which is that it is a seriously big deal to play traditional music as a woman – it’s (now almost) entirely dominated by men. After she emigrated to the U.S., she collaborated with a number of groups, most notably Kronos Quartet (one of the major interpreters of Steve Reich’s music), and won an Emmy for her music in the documentary film, “Bolinao 52.” Vo is a a big fan of blending eastern and western music, and this interpretation of the Johnny Cash song is touched with genius. A hearty thanks to a friend and colleague who sent this to me.
What with all the hoo-hah happening in the world (yes, I am a defense analyst, hello), it occurs to one, especially this American one, that there are certain things we all count on to maintain order and stability. Among these things, which would include trade and commerce, diplomacy, and a worldwide dislike of Justin Bieber (at least among those old enough to make powerful decisions), is the United States Marine Corps. Say what you will about the use of American power abroad, you can’t deny that there is a reason why “Marine” has a powerful ring to it. To salute my male and female friends in the Corps, most especially one friend in particular who is welcoming his first child into the world, I offer up this zippy Bob Crosby number. Semper Fi!
The Daily Tune-Up 