From Moxy Fruvous, a song written during the last Gulf War
Gulf War Song
We got a call to write a song about the war in the Gulf
But we shouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings
So we tried, then gave up, ’cause there was no such song
But the trying was very revealing
What makes a person so poisonous righteous
That they’d think less of anyone who just disagreed?
She’s just a pacifist, he’s just a patriot
If I said you were crazy, would you have to fight me?
Fighters for liberty, fighters for power
Fighters for longer turns in the shower
Don’t tell me I can’t fight, ’cause I’ll punch out your lights
And history seems to agree that I would fight you for me
So we read and we watched all the specially selected news
And we learned so much more ’bout the good guys
Won’t you stand by the flag? Was the question unasked
Won’t you join in and fight with the allies?
What could we say…we’re only 25 years old?
With 25 sweet summers, and hot fires in the cold
This kind of life makes that violence unthinkable
We’d like to play hockey, have kids and grow old
Fighters for Texaco, fighters for power
Fighters for longer turns in the shower
Don’t tell me I can’t fight ’cause I’ll punch out your lights
And history seems to agree that I would fight you for me
That us would fight them for we
He’s just a peacenik and she’s just a warhawk
That’s where the beach was, that’s where the sea
What could we say…we’re only 25 years old?
And history seems to agree
that I would fight you for me
That us would fight them for we
Is that how it always will be?
See all those blogs to your left? I cruise those on a daily basis. The reason I do is because they lead me in directions I never intended to take. When I sit down to a blogroll full of asterisks, I’m like a seed: all potential, ready to grow. For the most part the folks on the left (no pun intended, and anyway maybe Reflections in D Minor should be on the right!) speak my language but they speak it about things I’m not currently talking about. So they are my teachers.
For me weblogs are all about learning. You see that other section there above the blogroll, the one with a list of all of my blogs? That’s all about my learning. It’s all about keeping up with something, whether it be Open Space Technology, the emergence of Wirearchy, the fate of the Toronto Maple Leafs or recent advances in Irish woodenflute technique, those blogs are places that allow me to discipline my thinking about things I care about. I’ve had other blogs come and go over the last couple of years, and I have others you don’t know about (yet). But they are all about learning.
And this one, Parking Lot, this is the really open ended one. This is where the acknowledgement of Denise Levertov’s birthday in wood s lot results in me combing Google for more of her poetry online and then assembling a little collection. And Mark Woods picks up on that and we come full circle. And I end up knowing a lot more about Denise Levertov than I ever thought I would.
I add people to the blogroll once in a while, usually because they have said or linked to something that really resonated with me. So I thought I would pay my teachers a little due and start giving them props when they made it to the roll.
This evening I added Time’s Shadow. I did so because Dave has said a few things lately that have really resonated with me. Among them is this:
You will also note the phrase, “manipulate their attention,” which is, I believe, a component of Zen Buddhism. It’s more highly developed there than in stoicism, which shares a lot with Zen. We’re terrible masters of our attention. Usually our attention is mastered by others, as part of our evolutionary past. We’re wired to be members of groups, of social organisms which exist by marshaling the attention of constituent members to attend to the priorities of the group, often to at least the neglect, and sometimes the harm, of the individual.
It doesn’t have to be something I agree with, but it’s something to chew on. Right now I’m wondering if it really is true that we are wired to be a part of groups. I don’t know. I think there is some hardwiring there that tends us to solitude too, but then the fact that I’m writing this thought in a blog probably doesn’t do much to bolster my case. I do wonder though if society doesn’t demand a little TOO much connectivity, and that we are losing parts of ourselves in the process.
One more thing. I don’t usually tell people that I’ve added them to the blogroll. If Dave Rogers checks his referrer logs he’ll notice it soon enough. The reason I don’t tell folks is because I don’t want to come across as wanting a reciprocal link. If people like what I’m doing here, they’ll link to me. If not, I don’t lose sleep over it. I have so few readers, that most of the stuff collected here is for me anyway, and the site meter tells me where the eight people have come from. Turns out half of them are Googlebots checking out whether or not I have Joni Mitchell lyrics collected here. The other three are me logging on to my own page. The last one is Lynn. Hi Lynn! *waving*
Anyway, welcome to my blogroll Dave.
A brilliant little book and photo essay by Japanese author Natsuki Ikezawa and photographer Seiichi Motohashi about the people of Iraq. In the fall of last year Ikezawa travelled around Iraq visiting archeological sites and meeting the people. It makes for a profound meditation on the prospect of war against this nation.
The book is free to download in .pdf
Walter Bynner: Architect of the Spectra Hoax
Opus 101
He not only plays
One note
But holds another note
Away from it –
As a lover
Lifts
A waft of hair
From loved eyes.
The piano shivers,
When he touches it,
And the leg shines.-Witter Bynner
(courtesy of Golublog)
Poems about War: Caterina opens a new blog as an antidote to cheap sentimentalism. Thanks Caterina!