"My family is American, and has been for generations, in all its branches, direct and collateral."

-U.S. Grant

You may be familiar with "Alt-Country Chanteuse" Neko Case. I follow her on twitter. She's working on a new recording and on Friday night, she posted this to Twitter:



I briefly thought about what a Neko Case record would sound like if I were indeed charged with completing it. I had no ideas. So I went to the obvious joke instead. It is rare for me to engage in outright Twitterwhoring, (partly because it's never worked for me. I've had the same 60 followers since I started tweeting 3 years ago. *Shout out to City Deli of Shanghai.*) so I framed my reply as content for my self followers. Surprisingly, she responded–which led to the following exchange:



So I guess I'm going to finish Neko Case's new record. I'm thinking about calling it either "Blacklisted II" or "acb Brings the Flood."

In a less than 24 hours I will bear witness to a live performance from one of history's greatest rock bands: Radiohead. It will be my first time seeing Radiohead live, so to commemorate the occasion I present to you a live version of their song "Like Spinning Plates."

The Greatest Songs Ever Recorded

Episode 7 [Concert Edition]

The radio in the office at work is often glued to "US 99." When the station's last enthusiast leaves in the evening, I will sometimes change it. But sometimes she works my schedule; and sometimes I actually have work to do in the office. On such days, when I have been subjected to "Modern Country" (or as I like to call it, pop music with a fake southern accent), I have to come home and recalibrate my aesthetic sensibilities.
Something like this usually works:

The Greatest Songs Ever Recorded
 
Episode 6 [NATO Summit Edition]

The Greatest Songs Ever Recorded

Episode 5 (Mother's Day Edition)

The Greatest Songs Ever Recorded

Episode 4 [Safe For All]

I'm a bit behind on posting these and I had other songs picked out, but this one just came up on shuffle and I couldn't resist including it now.
Steve Reich is the most influential composer you've (probably) never heard of. His compositions, particularly his early work with tape loops, laid the technical and structural foundation for electronic music. This piece, "Cello Counterpoint" is one of his later works. My copy is DRM protected, so I'm posting a video:

The Greatest Songs Ever Recorded


Episode 3 [Safe For All]

For this week's song let's look to one of the greatest albums ever recorded, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. There are many songs I could choose from this recording, but today I'm inspired to select the song that begins the album: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart.

The Greatest Songs Ever Recorded
(Holiday Edition)

Episode 2 [Safe For All]

From Peter Gabriel's soundtrack for The Last Temptation of Christ.

World Sick

I never wrote Part 3. I still might, but I think most of what I would have said has been said already. Besides, I've turned away from the world at large for now. I've abandoned my late night ritualistic viewings of Maddow, Colbert and The Daily Show. I've even been ignoring my "Politics" list on Twitter. (Also, John Derbyshire, wtf?)
I feel somehow fatigued. So let's just listen to some music.

First of a weekly series:
The Greatest Songs Ever Recorded. (Or at least, the greatest songs from my iTunes catalog.)

Episode 1: Water [Parental Advisory]

Part 2:

This is Joe Horn's 911 call:



I hadn't heard of this case until it was mentioned on MSNBC's "Up w/ Chris Hayes" (which is a great program, by the way) this weekend. They were discussing "Stand Your Ground" laws in relation to the Trayvon Martin shooting. The state of Texas has a law similar to Florida's, and apparently, many other states that also allow the concealed carrying of firearms. Joe Horn made that 911 call on November 14, 2007 to report a burglary at his neighbor's house. His neighbor was not at home. When the two men who had broken into the home emerged with a bag (filled with jewelery and cash), Joe Horn ignored the repeated pleas of the 911 dispatcher, grabbed his shotgun, and went outside to confront them. He shot them both in the back, killing them. Some people call Joe Horn a hero. He is not a hero. He is not the champion of justice that he imagined himself to be while talking to the dispatcher. He is a killer. He walked out of his home with a lethal weapon intending to kill two men who were not threatening his life or his property (as if property would even be worth someone's life). He shot them as they tried to run away.

When I listen to the end of that recording and hear the quiver in his voice, I wonder if Joe realized in that moment that he had done a terrible thing. Maybe he had just forgotten, in his anger, frustration, and fear that those burglars were people and that life is not a movie. Then, when he saw them on the ground, their blood pooling on the pavement and the instrument of death in his hands, he remembered. He killed two people. But the mind knows to hide such thoughts in places that conscience cannot easily breach. And when even the law concludes that you have done nothing wrong, well, the conscience concedes. I imagine if you asked Joe now about what happened that day, he would say something along the lines of "Damn right I killed those sons of bitches. They had it coming."

I wonder about George Zimmerman, too. How soon did he have the terrible realization that he was a causeless killer? As soon as the gun discharged? Or perhaps in the silence that immediately followed. Whatever happened that night, and I do not claim to know, his choices ultimately took the life of a 17 year old boy. Surely, he must understand this by now. Then again, maybe not. A lot of people fail to understand why Trayvon Martin died.

Part 1:

I don't know anything about "The Hunger Games." I haven't seen the movie; I've never read the books. In fact, I didn't know any of those existed until a week ago. I have made no emotional investment in its story; I have formed no fictional bond with its characters. However I, like anyone else, have read words on a page and found delight in the images they form when a story takes residence in the mind. I have even sometimes placed myself into a story–or someone I know. A novel consumed comes alive in the reader in ways that cannot be foretold by a text inert in its tome. So I understand the disconnect that can result when a book is adapted for film and the casting choices come to fruition on the screen.

And then there's this: Hunger Games Tweets.
It's a blog curating the tweets of people complaining that African-American actors were cast in certain roles for the "Hunger Games" movie. In one sense, this could simply be an interesting social psychological phenomenon. It could be the case that people imagine the characters in the books they read to be white unless the text states explicitly otherwise. (Digression: Given that race is entirely a social construction, it seems reasonable that an author writing a novel that takes place in a fictional society would avoid mapping the racial categories of contemporary Western society onto that world.) We could devise experiments to elucidate more precisely where these demographic lines are drawn and leave each person to draw her own introspective conclusions.

But I think there's something more being revealed here. Some of those tweets are not simply noting a discrepancy between their imagination and the images on the screen. Some of them are describing, in one way or another, an inability to empathize with a black character. Please read the page I've linked above and tell me if I'm overreacting. When you scroll down you may notice that the curator added a caption to one of the tweets that reads in part, "This is why Trayvon Martin is dead." By the time I had arrived at those words, I had already implicitly drawn that connection myself. As I stated on Twitter yesterday, if people can't summon empathy for beloved fictional characters who are black, what chance do we real, complex humans have?

I've been meaning to give you some content. Some music, a little politics. But I've been lazy. So for now, have some Cop Rock: