It has chamrs

[pecunium]

There are days I am grim. Most days I am content. I'll read something, and get pissed of, maybe toss of a rant, but I'll mellow back out to conent.

Then there are the times I am not. Music... Thank God for music. On "That Tuesday", when it seemed the entire world was playing chicken little (oh... the follies, great and small), I was uplifted by the homely (there were cows to milk) and the sublime (Wynton Marsalis playing Haydn's Horn Concerto... I like Mozart. I like Beethoven. In their ways they are perfect... nothing they have written is a patch on the third movement of that piece, esp. about 2:45 into the segment).

And there are the odd little anthems from popular music.

Of late there are a couple of those, sort of semi-depressive, semi-keep slogging on. "Dancing as fast as I can" by Oysterband, and, today...

Dance Band on the Titanic

It's a gay little ditty about keeping your chin up when panic and despair seem reasonable.

I did a guest post yesterday, about the conference (yes, it's been on my mind, and the YouTube video [which got a comment, and it was actually not appalling] seems worth trying to spread around) at Majikthise.

I've said I can script the responses to a post, or comment. I got one of the standard ones, in e-mail; from my photoblog. So a small amount of effort was done to look me up. Mind you, because of how I posted at Majikthise, I was pretty findable. There were links to this blog, and everything.

But this one (and I have no reason to doubt the person was actually asking for his friend), was more than the usual, "how do we know you are what you say you are?" No, it was headed, "Credential Check" and asked if I could do something like post my discharge papers to the web.

No. Not gonna happen. One, I can fake 'em. Two, the only way to have it be verifiable would be to do something like include my full name, date of birth and SSN. I don't think so. I sent a list of google strings, and some specific pieces from elseweb.

But really, a trivial amount of poking about on the web on the subject of interrogation, and torure, will find a lot of references. So... I've been telling the same lie, for six years (about this time: It was, IIRC, about six years ago last week I started this Lj. I was at Walter Reed. It looks longer, because I backdated my newsletters home from the war, but yeah... this is my "blogiversary). A lot of people, not all of them sympathetic, have bought on to the lie.

That, or I'm actually what I said I was.

Ok... enough. Something else from Harry to lighten the mood. This is one of my favorites, even if, on relfection, it's a bit apropos.

Comments

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

Sing "Nearer My God to Thee"... The iceberg's off the starboard bow, won't you dance with me?

I have nothing substantive to say. I just like Harry Chapin.

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

The Muppets Show clip is sublime. Thank you. I relate so heavily.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It is almost a truism that all people I think sane and reasonable are of such an opinion.

I like him too. Fell into the hole which can be youtube watching him today... that and the Muppets, and Johnny Cash.

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

I added DBOTT to my playlist when your post recalled it to mind. It's the kind of day where that's the most chipper song on there.

Even God couldn't sink this ship!

[calimac.livejournal.com]

esp. about 2:45 into the segment

Ah, you have a fondness for the beginning of the recapitulation. Yes, that's always a good part.

While you're listening to Harry Chapin, spare a moment for his brother Tom, who being still with us today, has the opportunity to put his gloss on recent events.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

We're doing this gig for The Lord.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The entire piece is a set-up for the recapitulation... that's when it lifts you out of the music and carries you away.

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

Destination sweet salvation, good-bye home sweet home!

I had forgotten how much I love this song, thank you for reminding me!

[georgiamagnolia.livejournal.com]

There is very little of my life within memory that has not had some Harry Chapin song or other as the soundtrack. My love for him is abiding, he comforts me when I am sad and celebrates with me when I am joyful. If I sound heretically worshipful, well, so be it, the man was a songwriting god among men. He is missed.

[sharon-masters.livejournal.com]

i was lucky enough to see him live years ago, and had a songbook he had printed signed (sigh--- lost with an ex love). Taxi is still one of those songs that you never let go of once you hear it during the day.
Music in general is something that has imprinted every important phase and person in my life.
Music is the 20th century's poetry, and what we memorize is not stanzas but verses and chorus's.

[mycroftw.livejournal.com]

I have to admit that I have a fondness for the Mozart (which is odd, because he is very much not my style, except when performing). OTOH, that's probably because of "Ill Wind" (Flanders and Swann).

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I love Mozart. His music is outstanding, stellar (and the horn concerto used in Ill Wind is glorious [as is Ill Wind... I have to delvelop my embouchure]... it reminds me of the Haydn's trumpet concerto), but this piece....

It is, for me, Platonic. It is an ideal to which music aspires. To wax over the top... the spheres play music like it.