Skin Orgasms:

Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ can do this to me.

Interview with Art Garfunkel

Artie comes across as a bitter guy, very resentful of Paul Simon.

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll

This song came up on my mp3 player while I was driving today.

I was struck by the irony of it -- not funny, haha, irony; irony can often be sad and even bitter. The song is about a brutal, racially-motivated crime that occurred in Baltimore on my sixteenth birthday -- February 9, 1963. And I was listening to it as a 68yo man and it made me think, of course, of the events of the past few weeks in Baltimore. The similarities and contrasts made me think of how far we've come in my lifetime -- and, sadly, how far we have to go.

According to Wikipedia, the verdict came down on the day of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. Dylan had attended the speech and read about the case on way back to New York.

The album was released in early 1964, and I spent most of 64-65 listening to it and similar music.

What Does the World Need Now?

Jackie DeShannon (channeling Burt Bacharach) eloquently argued in 1965 that the answer to that question was (and presumably is), "Love, sweet love."

Tossing aside any alleged need for mountains, cornfields, wheatfields, and other things presumably advocated by various factions, she comes back repeatedly to Love, and, more specifically, Sweet Love.

Whatever one might think of her/Bacharach's argument (which made it to #2 on the charts at the time), I trust that absolutely no one would say that the need is for another college bowl game. But that is what Tucson wants to foist upon us.

Arizona athletic Greg Byrne confirmed to the Star that there have been discussions about bringing a bowl game back to Tucson, but said it’s far from a done deal. 

“We are aware of conversations,” Byrne told the Star. “Nothing has been decided, but we obviously want to try to promote Tucson and the state of Arizona as much as we possibly can.”

Tucson had a bowl for ten years or so late in the last century. It started out as the Copper Bowl, and then went under a variety of aliases before moving to Phoenix, where it's treated as the disreputable cousin of the Fiesta Bowl and continues to change its name periodically (I have no idea what it currently calls itself).

I'm not much of a fan of Tucson, as I have no doubt mentioned a time or two in the past. Danny White, the former ASU QB, has often said that when he has to drive through Tucson, he takes a big breath just before getting there, so he won't have to breath any of their air. I think that might be taking it a bit far, but I'm not far behind Danny in my feelings.

That said, Tucson would probably not be any worse a bowl venue than Shreveport or some other places. But we come back to the recurring question -- Why?

If there is to be such a bowl game, it will match teams from the Mountain West Conference and Conference USA. No doubt this is in response to hundreds of thousands of people signing an online petition demanding such an inter-conference showdown.

How about this, Tucson? Instead of another bowl game, give us some Love. Preferably Sweet Love.

Kids and Great Music

Here's a video of a flash mob performance of Beethoven's Ode to Joy (or Himno a la Alegria) in a public square in Spain.

What I especially liked about it was the pleasure little kids were taking in the music (I loved the boy, at about the 3:40 mark, who had climbed up on a light pole to see better and is holding on by one hand and conducting the orchestra with the other – though I imagine his mother didn't approve).

Little kids can appreciate great music if they are exposed to it. If all they ever hear is crap, then that's what they will live their lives with.

Merry Christmas

My favorite carol.

Jingle Bells Isn't a Christmas Song

Or at least it wasn't intended to be. It was written to be part of a kids' Thanksgiving presentation:

Though, for most of us, "Jingle Bells" has come to be practically synonymous with Christmas, James Pierpont wrote it in 1857 for a Thanksgiving program at the large Boston church where he taught Sunday school. He titled his song "The One-Horse Open Sleigh" and made the rhythm so jaunty and the words so catchy that his 40 little Sunday schoolers learned it almost instantaneously. (A friend of Pierpont's, admiring the song, called it a "merry little jingle," and helped give the tune the name by which we know it today.) The children's first performance was such a success that they were asked to repeat it at Christmastime, whereupon the sleigh apparently took on the identity of Santa's sled, and "Jingle Bells" became a Christmas song forever.

Unpopular Opinions

I read an item (by Jim Geraghty of National Review) quoting a bunch of people who had been invited to tweet an unpopular opinion that they hold. Herewith:

Bob Dylan stinks. 

The singularity is not near. 

New Jersey is the greatest state in the history of states. 

Fat Elvis was the best. 

Chris Brown is hot and so is his music and his dance moves. 

Obama looks cute when he's golfing. 

Will Ferrell is vastly, vastly overrated. 

I have an aversion to the Amish. 

Roger Moore was the greatest James Bond. 

Tofu is delicious. 

I don't do "aaaawwww" over animal pics. 

The Electoral College is a good thing that needs to be preserved. 

Hobbit movies are like Ambien. 

A limited nuclear exchange wouldn't be all that bad. 

Higher education is grossly fetishized, overrated, frequently ruins people, and is often wholly useless. 

Five Guys is ridiculously overrated.

I don't know that all of these qualify. I think a lot of people are beginning to question the value of college (or at least its cost-benefit ratio). I disagree about Five Guys -- great burgers. And a few I'm unqualified to judge -- I don't know who Will Ferrell is, and I've never seen a Hobbit movie (and probably never will). But nonetheless, I'll join in with a bit of Baby Boomer apostasy:

The Beatles were an OK band, but really nothing special.

While I'm at it, I might as well add a bit more along the same lines. While I very much enjoy Christmas carols (O Holy Night is, I think, my favorite) there are some that are so obnoxious the composers ought to be drawn and quartered. The Little Drummer Boy is without a doubt the most worthless POS to ever pass through human vocal cords. The Twelve Days of Christmas is not quite as bad, but gets a dishonorable mention for sheer quantity. Whenever it starts, I shudder with the knowledge that, once started it will go on and on and on and ...

Skydiving in Eloy and Singing Some CCR

For the third time in my life (first time in about twenty years) I jumped out of a plane last Thursday. Kathleen and I drove down to Eloy (halfway between Phoenix and Tucson) where Skydive Arizona works out of the town's small airport.

It was, of course, a lot of fun. It was a different experience from my previous skydives because those gave me greater control --  I held the straps of the canopy and thus controlled the rate of descent, got to choose to do loops, etc. In this case, the instructor did everything, which was less fun in that I was just a passenger along for the ride. At the same time, it was more fun in that I didn’t have to remember much of anything beyond crossing my arms as I went out the door.

We jumped at 13,000 feet, did a free-fall to 5,000, and then floated down from there.

The price was $189, which is a good bit higher than I remember, but I guess twenty years can account adequately for the increase (besides which, they throw in a certificate and a t-shirt).

The airfield was on a road that ran past some cotton fields. As we were leaving, Kathleen said she had never seen cotton up close, which to someone who grew up in Arizona seems strange. We stopped and she inspected the plants as I sang:

When them cotton bolls get rotten
You can’t pick very much cotton
In them old cotton fields back home.

We’ll leave aside Kathleen’s comments about my singing, but after she was done with that, she added that she had never heard of the song before. Therefore, I’ll close with this.

Back in the USA

I’m in the US (more specifically, in Oak Park, Illinois) for the rest of the year – I’ll be spending time here in the Chicago area and in Phoenix. Early next year, I’ll be heading down to Ecuador for a year or so.

In the meantime: