RSS SPIRIT

Your Love Degrades Us Both


It is hard to accept another's love. It is much easier to freak oneself into a lather and chase after it. That way we know it is true. Perhaps our ostentatious side demands that those we hold dearest are appropriately precious. Nobody wants the wondrous phantasm of love to be dropped in the lap, handed over without effort. Yet that old song is no triter now: "…love the one you're with."

It is difficult to accept somebody who wants us. Suspicion is our first reaction. What does this person want with us? Does this person not know we are total psycho bags, unfit for domestication? It is actually quite funny to think about the chasm between our behavior when we chase after love and when it chases after us. An infinity of heartbreak between requiter and requited.

The one thing I have learned: those who want us want us for a reason and they just might be right. It is hard, wanting those who want us, I understand. For after suspicion, the second feeling is pity. As in, I am terribly sorry you were such a sucker to fall for me. But take a second look at supplicants, push away the initial feelings. There is something worth exploring in those who proclaim their love for us.

But then a third feeling overcomes us, contempt. It is difficult to give these greedy desirers a disinterested examination. For how dare this person like me? How worthless must they be, out of what gutter trolled they who consider me snoggable? When you start to ask yourself these type of questions, I implore you, stop yourself.

There might be love here. Even if it weeps of pathetic, take a moment to consider: maybe I should do this person tonight?

I do not advocate being a dirt bag. I merely want to suggest that sometimes the question of why, initially, should be subdued. Because one of these days we got to face facts – who wants us is who we want after all.

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The God Juice Comes Out When I Rub These Together




I attended a chamber music competition for high school students not too long ago. You might imagine how much I looked forward to it. With dread and fear actually. That it was scheduled for Sunday morning did not improve its prospects. But perhaps too typically I found my self enjoying it very much. The young performers were great, the musical choices were inspired if not always well done.

Chamber music is classical music meant for private performance, or smaller venues. Composers write it for 3,4 and 5 players. The pieces are short, about 10 minutes or fewer. You can have any combination of instruments – piano, horns, strings and percussion. I heard a variety of compositions and arrangements from the dozen or so performances vying for a modest prize. My personal favorite was a piano, clarinet and cello combination; a nice mix of instruments.

It struck me as I watched well-outfitted young men and women march on, play and march off. This is an under appreciated format for classical music. Chamber music might be a way to get people excited again about classical music. Because let's face it, all is not well in this world. Classical music is increasingly marginalized and esoteric and, that worst ignominy, unheard.

Speaking as a classical music lover, I want it to succeed. But even hearing a world-class symphony these days is a mildly oppressive experience. There is too much reverence, too little noise. We sit in our gilded shell against a large orchestra and hear a rattling crowd who wheeze the death knell of a once glorious music.

Hyperbolic, perhaps. But nobody is talking about a classical revival, are they? I believe that possibly could change with a stealth chamber music strategy. We can woo people back to the wow inspiration of the best classical music. Chamber music I think has the right qualities to attract the modern crowd. It is short, its rhythms are recurring and solos are common. Chamber music critically is an intimate form. It is easier for an individual to approach. The audience can pick up individual instruments easier too. These are all elements familiar to popular music.

First we need to change the name. Frankly, chamber music needs a brand spiffying from top to bottom. For a name I am thinking, Roots Classic. We should unstiffen the look of the players and their surroundings. We do not need porcelain primness executing under a candelabra. We need brand new black Air Jordans conjuring in an abandoned warehouse.

For us classical music lovers, it is painful to watch music that can bring people to a wild and wonderful place degenerate into something brittle and compulsory. The "Roots Classic Movement #1" would attempt to break it down and get people again susceptible to those devilishly deceptively simple melodies.

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The only constant is hotness.


These high end couture storefronts come and go as fast as 'hot new colors for fall.' All bright and cheery they arrive on the block, startling displays entice in the thrice-weekly washed window. It makes the seemingly inevitable going out of business even more ignominious. At the end there is only smudged windows displaying old newspapers plastered to keep the empty shelves from sight.

But recently it was discovered that this ladies boutique down the street has been in the obscenely expensive garment racket for 10 years this year. Tangerine started as a neighborhood hopeful back in 1996. The neighborhood has gone through a lot of change, so it makes this impressive feat all the more so.

Yesterday in the store there was an almost too-good-looking manager on duty. She wore a cowboy denim dress and seemed ready to be spirited away by a decadent Italian Viscount. Besides clothes Tangerine sells some jewlery and other accoutremont for the girl who needs a retro technicolor T-shirt for 68 dollars.

This T-shirt, part of their spring light blue and green wear, gives a clue as to the magnitude of Tangerine's achievement. A store needs to keep it real special on a T-shirt to keep selling 68 dollar ones for 10 years.

In a world where too many storefronts must close during a midnight mad dash out the alley in back, it is nice to see a store make it happen season in, season out.

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Best Performance by a U.S. National Team Member:
Tony Sanneh V. Germany '02


The U.S. heads to Germany in under three months for the World Cup. Expectations run high for the fifteen of us Americans who are devoted fans of the U.S. exploits on the international stage. Who can forget the last cup in Japan/Korea in which the U.S. got to the sweet 16? Frankly we should have beaten Germany in our last match, but lost 1-0. Tony Sanneh on that day had the single most impressive performance ever by a U.S. team member. Do not worry, Tony, we real U.S. fans still remember.

This summer we have been put in a brutal bracket, and the tourney is in Europe where we do not traditionally play well. Let us all forget 1998 in France where we sucked major ass. We did not score a goal, Germany beat us up quite literally and our last game was a loss to Iran. This summer we have Italy, Czech and Ghana in our first round bracket. Oi is all one can say to that. If we get out of our bracket to the next round it would be considered a successful World Cup.

The only way we can do well is obviously, score goals. Yet goals elude the U.S. team in critical times. We have not yet groomed the Michael Jordan or Shaun Alexander of soccer. What's more, scoring goals against incredible defenses like Italy's requires highly sophisticated individual and team technical acumen. Let's face it, we have not displayed this art consistently.

Which brings us to the coach. In every country around the world, people get together and question the judgment of their respective national team coach. America should be no different. Bruce Arena, in this notioner's view, has not proven himself a top-tier coach. Yes he was an upgrade on that Serbian we had before who installed a very negative, defense first strategy. Arena at least understands that resources must be employed to score goals and is committed to taking chances on the offensive side.

But tactically, he has proven to exhibit questionable logistical thinking. Look for further than our last World Cup game against Germany in 2002. Why did he take out McBride, the only forward capable of winning a head ball from the tall German defense? Why did he take so long to move up Sanneh from his right defenseman position? Why was Demarcus Beasley left pining on the bench when he could have played havoc on the left side for the U.S.?

How Arena assembles his offense and how he substitutes will be a critical factor in whether the U.S. can stick a couple into the "old onion basket." America needs playmaking creativity in the midfield and it needs scorers up front who can control a ball on top of the 18 yard line and beat defenders one on one.

For there is nothing so sweet as a winning goal in the World Cup. By any means necessary the U.S. need to figure out how to push a couple past the goal line and wiggle into the knockout round.

U.S. World Cup Schedule and full World Cup brackets at USSoccer.com
http://www.ussoccer.com/teams/mens/fwc/index.jsp.html
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"I want to rock down to Milwaukee Avenue. And then you'll take me higher."

Pink bulbous clouds careen diagonally overhead on a March twilight. Is it fall or spring? Inside storefronts keepers chat on phones while children and dogs stare forlornly out windows. A black puddle in the gutter ripples waves across its surface. I look up and wonder at the globes of rainbow light that magnificently surround ugly street lamps.

I hear myself sing: "I want to rock down to Milwaukee Avenue. And then you'll take me higher."

A good thought froths up as I walk over a squat steel bridge. Cars clang over it as I solve a problem and am thankful. Also a bit amazed. How can I just be walking along playing with things all distracted then there arrives suddenly a sharp, clear answer? Its rightness self-evident by the feeling it conjures.

I have walked down this street many times. This avenue ferries an odd lot assortment of sidewalkers. Sharpies, bag-carriers, excitables, youth packs and others requiring askance glances. The clouds above cast on us a last ditch pink from the waning sun. They are headed out of town on a southwest express wind. We pedestrians below are destined merely to meander around the neighborhood.

I hear myself sing: "I want to rock down to Milwaukee Avenue. And then you'll take me higher."

The wind can be brunted by placing heavy brick buildings at my shoulder. But at alleys and intersections I can only duck down against the gusts. Stores surround and disgorge and engorge ped-X-ers. It is the weekday crowd not wanting but needing something or other to fill a shelf or hold some papers.

On a sneaky side street I turn off. Milwaukee Avenue's glare, window scenes, cars and bipedal obstacles still ring in my skull. I know it is only another dirty slab of concrete. Its lights are noisy and crass. Its sounds aspire to no mellifluity. But when I watch a skittering dust devil spiral up plastic bags and loose newspaper, something refulges in me, a bright dancing clarity both undeniable and unendurable.

[photo credit: http://www.exposingmyself.net/]

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Dateline: Where Flesh Meets Screen

One gets on Match.com, Salon.com, et al, and one gets excited. Look at all that love for sale, one thinks. Acres of available meat looking to meet, mate and marry for now and forever, amen. What make these services particularly seductive are the search capacities. Want a GBF with a proclivity for salsa dancing and power tools? Type in a few keywords and a gallery of freaks appears on your screen. Like the commercial says, "They are waiting to talk to you now."

Alas the reality is, like so much in this world, not quite as advertised. Sure it can happen, people meeting, mating and living happily ever after on a bed lined with unicorn fur. The reality: for every 8 gazillion dates entered into, one or two lucky bastards finds real love. The most common story of online dating: guy hunts for girl, chats up girl, presents façade to girl that experience has shown will impress, makes a date with girl and then either gets some or the whole thing is a bust.

The problem with online dating is primarily a function of the medium. It is easy to lie online. It is easy to present oneself as something palatable to another human being when one is not. Also the vast amount of choice in online dating leads to a grazing mentality. Why stick with one bit of tart when one can nibble on one piece while simultaneously hunting for the next tidbit to munch on?

The main problem is the candy store nature of the format. Everyone is trying to sell their ass so nobody ever sees an authentic human being on the other end of the profile. In real life, say at one's job, one gets to see the three-dimensional individual before making a choice whether to pursue or reject. One can see the cranky morning side, the under stress side, the bored and mischievous side.

Online dating is a good place to get some, preferably with a foreigner who does not understand the language well and will not be able to stalk you because they cannot read street signs properly. Leave love to life and let the internet do what the internet does best: indulge our disgusting perversions in a variety of media.

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"My words will ruin you."


They recently did a big write up on Philip Larkin in the NY Review of Books (available online.) Perhaps one of the most vicious lyricists who worked in the English language, he put the lie to the notion of poet as melancholic romantic emoting emetically.

But there is something so well wrought in his words, his conjurations so clearly conceived, that he is a poet people keep returning to. Even after they have sworn the Tory Limey beastie off for good.

Anthony Thwaite edited an edition of "Collected Poems" which is all the Larkin anybody will ever need on the shelf. A small black and white picture of a grim faced begoggled bald man stares at you on the cover; one should get a feeling of what one is in for.

Despair, anguish, alienation – all these themes Larkin effortlessly cobbles into something approaching apotheosis of the short lyric form. Who would have thought that poetry would be somehow perfected by such a cold, solitary English bigot? More evidence that artistic achievement has nothing whatsoever to do with progressive morality:

Here is one of his best known poems to cry upon:

This Be The Verse
Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

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