Newt Gingrich was the subject of much mockery this week when he proposed a permanent lunar colony by the end of his second term. Perhaps he was joking when he said one day it could be the 51st state. But, there are plenty of people who, while they may be dubious of Newt Gingrich's ability to lead us into space, take it as an article of faith that mankind will some day leave the Earth and colonize the moon, then other planets, then move on beyond our solar system to explore and exploit other solar systems.
I, alas, am dubious, though with caveats. First, "some day" is a vague time frame. I'm ill prepared to speculate what mankind might accomplish in, say, 5000 years, let alone 50,000 years, or 5 million years. But, a lot of science fiction envisions our civilization spreading off the earth in this century. Indeed, a lot of science fiction imagined it taking place in the LAST century. Plenty of science fiction imagined us having moon bases and Mars colonies by 1999. By 2012, we were going to be shuttling back and forth to Saturn. I talk to a lot of people at science fiction conventions who feel like, if only politicians would get their priorities straight, we could be setting up shop on Mars by the end of the decade. For now, I'll just say that it's difficult for me to imagine any permanent base of any significance by the end of this century.
Caveat two: "Of any significance." Obviously, we HAVE a space station. We had a space shuttle. We made it to the moon. I don't doubt that China or India or even the US might go back to the moon for a visit as a matter of national pride. Maybe we'll get our act together enough to pay a visit to a nearby asteroid. But the kind of "city of wonders in the sky" space station of science fiction is difficult to foresee within the next 100 years. "Cramped RVs parked somewhere between here and the moon," maybe.
Caveat three: I'm only talking about human space flight. Obviously, we've done amazing stuff with rovers, probes, and telescopes. I anticipate the trend will continue. We might be stuck on the planet, but our tools can really travel.
That third caveat, by the way, is the real reason I don't think humans will be heading for another planet anytime in the coming century. The weak point in "manned space flight" is the "manned" part. We simply aren't engineered well for traveling to another planet. Humans have absolutely horrific fuel consumption, we generate a tremendous amount of waste, we are overly complicated and prone to breakdowns. Our sensory arrays are a mess. Our one tiny advantage over machinery is our ability to behave erratically. Mars rovers aren't likely to head for a funny-looking rock on a whim, kick it over, and by chance find some kind of martian worm. But, while our ability to behave randomly and benefit from lucky outcomes may have a huge evolutionary advantage here on earth, outside the bubble of our own biosphere, it's more likely to get us killed.
Consider interstellar travel. When science fiction authors contemplate it, they have to resort to magic to move humans through the void at speeds not just faster than light, but faster than boredom. If it takes the Enterprise five years to get from star to star, Kirk doesn't get to sleep with too many alien babes before he becomes to fat and bald to be a player. Some science fiction writers do tackle this issue by introducing generations ships which are basically self contained worlds. But, trying to move a human biosphere across the void requires a stunning amount of resources compared to moving a robot the size of my cell phone from here to another planet.
Any argument I've ever heard for us leaving the earth seems either self-negating or better tackled by leaving humans out of the equation.
Popular arguments are:
1. We have to leave because a collision is inevitable. We need only look at our moon to see that massive collisions do occur in our neck of the woods. But, unless the object is truly massive, I don't see how evacuating the planet is a superior approach to using robots to intercept the threatening object and steer it away.
2. We will find some resource out there that not here.
Suppose the thing we desire is information. Machines can go wherever we need them to and gather the data we need. If a machine can't go there, we can't go there. Suppose the thing we need is some exotic mineral. The main problem here is that we understand the periodic table pretty well, and any exotic mineral we need is either here already, or else so unstable that it's going to vanish from wherever else it might be found. If we understand chemistry at all, then the same building blocks of nature are going to be found all over the universe. They don't have anything in the Andromeda galaxy we can't put our hands on here. Of course, some matter is more interesting than other. Suppose we get lucky enough to discover life on another world, either Mars or Europa. Yay! The impulse to go and study would be strong.
And that impulse would absolutely have to be resisted. Because if we do find another ecosystem, I can think of nothing more irresponsible than to place a human in the middle of it. Suppose we flew a spaceship filled with humans to Europa. It's a well built machine, with an artificial ecosystem capable of supporting us. Since we can't pack enough food for the journey, we probably have some sort of algae and brine shrimp farming going on, possibly in combination in recycling our waste. Now imagine this ship gets whacked by a rock the size of softball a mile above the surface, and we suddenly spray brine shrimp and algae and human excrement over a hundred mile swath of ice. Then the ship smashes into the surface, and the liquefied remains of the crew seep into the cracks we've opened in the ice. We would have forever contaminated the very thing we went there to examine, an ecosystem untouched by man.
3. We have to leave our planet because we'll outgrow it. You don't have to be blind to see that we are placing severe ecological stress on our planet. We are altering the atmosphere, acidifying the oceans, and creating entire islands of waste plastic. We suck nutrients from the soil by growing crops in places they were never designed to grow. And, we're starting to get really packed in. It's tempting to look at Mars, and dream of a little elbow room. But, honestly, is the fact that we've screwed up our current ecosystem a good argument for leaving it behind, the way Newt Gingrich might abandon a sick wife? Or, couldn't the money and energy spent on a hypothetical mission to Mars be used instead to clean up some of the crap we've dumped in our seas?
The fact is, our current technology is capable of building a space probe and sending it to another solar system. Perhaps the journey would take fifty thousand years. Obviously, we aren't going to spend money on a project that requires so long for a payoff. But, the weak link here is the human need to see results of a project in our own lifetime. On the scale of the universe, fifty thousand years is just a blip.
Perhaps one day we'll beat death, and a race of immortal humans will be able to plan projects that span thousands of years. If not us, then the better designed beings that follow us.
For now, we're stuck with this world, and we're stuck with our fellow men. I advise we take care of both.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Friday, January 06, 2012
Answering the Polygamy Equivalency
Yesterday in New Hampshire, Santorum explained his opposition to same-sex marriage by equating it to polygamy:
Santorum retorted, “Are we saying that everyone should have the right to marry?”
When the audience member told him yes, he shot back, “So anyone can marry can marry anybody else, so, if that’s the case, then everyone can marry several people.”
I hear this a lot, and I always find it a bit perplexing. It seems to be arguing that, if we allow monogomous gay marriage (which is growing in societal acceptance), it opens the door to polygamy (which is opposed by a much wider margin).
But, it doesn't seem to me that gay marriage is the real slippery slope to polygamy. Instead, the slippery slope would be "everyone can marry several people," which is certainly legal and widely practiced by some heterosexuals. Newt Gingrich has married three women, John McCain, two, and Rush Limbaugh, the paragon of all values conservative, is on wife #4. Admittedly, they obey the legal nicety of abandoning their old wives before remarrying, but still, if a heterosexual person wants two, four, or ten spouses, our laws allow it, as long as it's sequential. Isn't the social acceptance of multiple sequential spouses far more likely to lead to polygamy than monogamous homosexual marriage?
Again, I think that people who worry that homosexuals might destroy the meaning of marriage are ignoring the reality that heterosexuals have already devalued it substantially on their own. Homosexual enthusiasm for the institution might be society's best hope of making it mean something again. I suspect that the first generation of legally wed gays will fight extra hard to make their marriages work, since they won't want to give gay marriage opponents the satisfaction of saying, "See, I told you this wouldn't work."
Santorum retorted, “Are we saying that everyone should have the right to marry?”
When the audience member told him yes, he shot back, “So anyone can marry can marry anybody else, so, if that’s the case, then everyone can marry several people.”
I hear this a lot, and I always find it a bit perplexing. It seems to be arguing that, if we allow monogomous gay marriage (which is growing in societal acceptance), it opens the door to polygamy (which is opposed by a much wider margin).
But, it doesn't seem to me that gay marriage is the real slippery slope to polygamy. Instead, the slippery slope would be "everyone can marry several people," which is certainly legal and widely practiced by some heterosexuals. Newt Gingrich has married three women, John McCain, two, and Rush Limbaugh, the paragon of all values conservative, is on wife #4. Admittedly, they obey the legal nicety of abandoning their old wives before remarrying, but still, if a heterosexual person wants two, four, or ten spouses, our laws allow it, as long as it's sequential. Isn't the social acceptance of multiple sequential spouses far more likely to lead to polygamy than monogamous homosexual marriage?
Again, I think that people who worry that homosexuals might destroy the meaning of marriage are ignoring the reality that heterosexuals have already devalued it substantially on their own. Homosexual enthusiasm for the institution might be society's best hope of making it mean something again. I suspect that the first generation of legally wed gays will fight extra hard to make their marriages work, since they won't want to give gay marriage opponents the satisfaction of saying, "See, I told you this wouldn't work."
Monday, January 02, 2012
The Hazards of Love, Explained
I've been obsessing over the Decemberist's album the Hazard's of Love. It's a fantastic fairy tale love story told as a rock opera. Most of the story is relatively easy to follow, but there are some gaps that are left open to interpretation. I thought I'd take my stab at interpretting things. If you haven't heard the album, you can probably stop reading right here. I'm addressing this post to people familiar with the work who may be puzzled by certain plot points.
The grand arc of the story is easy. A maiden named Margaret rides into the forest and finds a wounded fawn. She attempts to help the fawn and before her eyes it changes shape into a man, William. Margaret and William share a night of passion. When she returns home, she longs for him, and soon discovers she's pregnant. She returns to the forest and reunites with William, who is deeply in love with her. But, William is the adopted son of the Queen of the Forest, and the Queen is jealous that her child's heart now belongs to someone else. A villianous rake who has murdered his own children passes through the woods, discovers Margaret, and kidnaps her. The Queen is eager to remove Margaret from the forest, so she helps the Rake escape by crossing a raging river. William chases after them, but his horse is afraid to enter the river. Having no time to build a boat, and with the waters too wild to swim, William begs the river to calm down and not drown him, and, in exchange, when he returns, the river can have his life then. The river accepts the bargain; William kills the Rake and when the villain enters hell he's greeted by the ghosts of his dead children who will torment him for all eternity. Alas, all does not end happily ever after, for William still has his bargain with the river, which floods the fortress where he and Margaret have reuinited. As the waters rise, William and Margaret accept thier fate and exchange wedding vows, so they will be united in marriage even in death.
The album contains these major mysteries:
1. At the end of the second track, "The Hazards of Love Part One," a woman can be heard shouting. What she shouts is tough to say, but I believe it is the Queen shouting "You'll feel my wrath, yes!" It's definitely a pissed off shout, and it's deep female voice, which matches that of the Queen. Musically, I think it's a tip of the hat to Pink Floyd's The Wall, where a shout leads into "Another Brick in the Wall"
2. Based on lyrics in the same track, there's some debate as to whether Margaret is a prostitute. I think, given the setting of a "bower," that she is instead a Lady in Waiting, who does entertain men, but chastely. I also think that the "sister" who comes to visit her in the next track is actually the Queen of the forest in disguise. The evidence is that when the "sister" speaks, the Queen's musical theme is playing. When she asks Margaret who the father of her unborn child is, she's searching for confirmation that William has betrayed her trust by falling in love with a human woman. My biggest argument that Margaret isn't a prostitute is that her pregnancy is a scandal to forces her to flee the bower. If the bower is a brothel, as some people argue, then an unwanted pregnancy was probably a pretty run of the mill work hazard, hardly worthy of fleeing into the wilderness to hide.
3. The most controversial claim I'll make is that one of the tracks on the album is out of sequence. Track 8 is The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid. In it, William asks for the freedom to enjoy the night as a man. The Queen agrees, but tells him she'll take his life come morning. However, William certainly seems alive on the rest of the album, so did she not keep her word? Also, William's pleas that he wants to enjoy the night come after he's knocked up Margaret, so he's already been having plenty of fun with his evenings, unless this scene is treated as a flashback or a memory. (In the song immediately before, William and Margaret sleep together beneath a sky full of stars, so perhaps William is dreaming.) In this light, his curse makes sense. The Queen has granted him the freedom to be a man during the night, but during daylight he changes into a white fawn. The Queen did this to ruin his chances of ever finding permanent love with a human woman, but didn't count on Margaret being kinky enough to be turned on by the whole half man/half fawn thing.
4. Another mystery is whether William is the Rake's son. The Rake boasts of murdering his son, burning the body, and burying the ashes in an urn. The Queen tells William that she rescued him from a "cradle of clay." The Queen tells William:
"How I made you
I wrought you
I pulled you
From ore I labored you
From cancer I cradled you
And now: this is how I am repaid?"
"From ore I labored you" could certainly be interpretted that he was nothing but minerals when she found him, which would certainly be the case if he was ash. The beauty of this interpretation is that it makes revenge against the Rake a double revenge. But, despite the poetic justice if it were true, I don't think this interpretation is correct. My main argument would be that the dead boy is singing right along side his sisters during the revenge song. William is one of the distinctive voices on the album, and this boy ain't him. Unless Colin Maloy, the songwriter, says otherwise, I think that William and the burnt son are different people.
5: In the last song, a lot of people seem to feel that William and Margaret are taking a boat back across the river and their ship is sinking, probably because the word "sinking" is actually used.
"Margaret, array the rocks around the hole before we’re sinking
A million stones, a million bones, a million holes within the chinking"
My objection to the boat theory is that William would have to be an idiot to go back to the river, and even more of an idiot to try to take Margeret back to his mother's kingdom. Also, what kind of boat is carrying a million stones? Instead, William has probably been clever enough to think he's not going to go back to the river. But, alas, the river comes to him, flooding the castle where he's rescued Margaret. He has no time to get her to safety. They've retreated to a chamber where they are trying to plug up all the holes so the rising water can't reach them, but the water is gushing through more tiny holes than they can fill. He knows he's brought this fate on her, but tells her that, if they must die, they will die as man and wife.
"But with this long, last rush of air let’s speak our vows in starry whisper
And when the waves came crashing down, he closed his eyes
and softly kissed her."
Thus, death may bring an end to life, but not to love.
Obviously, there's no definitive way of knowing if these interpretations are correct, but I think it's a pretty good mesh with the lyrics. The only remaining point I'm undecided on is whether Margaret is still pregnant when she dies, or if she had the child earlier. In the seventh track, she sings:
"And isn’t it a lovely way
We got in from our play
Isn’t it babe? A sweet little baby"
Is she still pregnant as she's singing this? "A lovely way we got in" could mean that she's pregnant. But, the way she coos "sweet littly baby" makes it easy to imagine she's cradling the child as she sings. If so, what is the fate of the child? It seems odd that it would just vanish from the lyrics. But, I can't see anything that makes a case either way. It's probably the most unsatisfying mystery of the album, since there are no real clues to work with.
The grand arc of the story is easy. A maiden named Margaret rides into the forest and finds a wounded fawn. She attempts to help the fawn and before her eyes it changes shape into a man, William. Margaret and William share a night of passion. When she returns home, she longs for him, and soon discovers she's pregnant. She returns to the forest and reunites with William, who is deeply in love with her. But, William is the adopted son of the Queen of the Forest, and the Queen is jealous that her child's heart now belongs to someone else. A villianous rake who has murdered his own children passes through the woods, discovers Margaret, and kidnaps her. The Queen is eager to remove Margaret from the forest, so she helps the Rake escape by crossing a raging river. William chases after them, but his horse is afraid to enter the river. Having no time to build a boat, and with the waters too wild to swim, William begs the river to calm down and not drown him, and, in exchange, when he returns, the river can have his life then. The river accepts the bargain; William kills the Rake and when the villain enters hell he's greeted by the ghosts of his dead children who will torment him for all eternity. Alas, all does not end happily ever after, for William still has his bargain with the river, which floods the fortress where he and Margaret have reuinited. As the waters rise, William and Margaret accept thier fate and exchange wedding vows, so they will be united in marriage even in death.
The album contains these major mysteries:
1. At the end of the second track, "The Hazards of Love Part One," a woman can be heard shouting. What she shouts is tough to say, but I believe it is the Queen shouting "You'll feel my wrath, yes!" It's definitely a pissed off shout, and it's deep female voice, which matches that of the Queen. Musically, I think it's a tip of the hat to Pink Floyd's The Wall, where a shout leads into "Another Brick in the Wall"
2. Based on lyrics in the same track, there's some debate as to whether Margaret is a prostitute. I think, given the setting of a "bower," that she is instead a Lady in Waiting, who does entertain men, but chastely. I also think that the "sister" who comes to visit her in the next track is actually the Queen of the forest in disguise. The evidence is that when the "sister" speaks, the Queen's musical theme is playing. When she asks Margaret who the father of her unborn child is, she's searching for confirmation that William has betrayed her trust by falling in love with a human woman. My biggest argument that Margaret isn't a prostitute is that her pregnancy is a scandal to forces her to flee the bower. If the bower is a brothel, as some people argue, then an unwanted pregnancy was probably a pretty run of the mill work hazard, hardly worthy of fleeing into the wilderness to hide.
3. The most controversial claim I'll make is that one of the tracks on the album is out of sequence. Track 8 is The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid. In it, William asks for the freedom to enjoy the night as a man. The Queen agrees, but tells him she'll take his life come morning. However, William certainly seems alive on the rest of the album, so did she not keep her word? Also, William's pleas that he wants to enjoy the night come after he's knocked up Margaret, so he's already been having plenty of fun with his evenings, unless this scene is treated as a flashback or a memory. (In the song immediately before, William and Margaret sleep together beneath a sky full of stars, so perhaps William is dreaming.) In this light, his curse makes sense. The Queen has granted him the freedom to be a man during the night, but during daylight he changes into a white fawn. The Queen did this to ruin his chances of ever finding permanent love with a human woman, but didn't count on Margaret being kinky enough to be turned on by the whole half man/half fawn thing.
4. Another mystery is whether William is the Rake's son. The Rake boasts of murdering his son, burning the body, and burying the ashes in an urn. The Queen tells William that she rescued him from a "cradle of clay." The Queen tells William:
"How I made you
I wrought you
I pulled you
From ore I labored you
From cancer I cradled you
And now: this is how I am repaid?"
"From ore I labored you" could certainly be interpretted that he was nothing but minerals when she found him, which would certainly be the case if he was ash. The beauty of this interpretation is that it makes revenge against the Rake a double revenge. But, despite the poetic justice if it were true, I don't think this interpretation is correct. My main argument would be that the dead boy is singing right along side his sisters during the revenge song. William is one of the distinctive voices on the album, and this boy ain't him. Unless Colin Maloy, the songwriter, says otherwise, I think that William and the burnt son are different people.
5: In the last song, a lot of people seem to feel that William and Margaret are taking a boat back across the river and their ship is sinking, probably because the word "sinking" is actually used.
"Margaret, array the rocks around the hole before we’re sinking
A million stones, a million bones, a million holes within the chinking"
My objection to the boat theory is that William would have to be an idiot to go back to the river, and even more of an idiot to try to take Margeret back to his mother's kingdom. Also, what kind of boat is carrying a million stones? Instead, William has probably been clever enough to think he's not going to go back to the river. But, alas, the river comes to him, flooding the castle where he's rescued Margaret. He has no time to get her to safety. They've retreated to a chamber where they are trying to plug up all the holes so the rising water can't reach them, but the water is gushing through more tiny holes than they can fill. He knows he's brought this fate on her, but tells her that, if they must die, they will die as man and wife.
"But with this long, last rush of air let’s speak our vows in starry whisper
And when the waves came crashing down, he closed his eyes
and softly kissed her."
Thus, death may bring an end to life, but not to love.
Obviously, there's no definitive way of knowing if these interpretations are correct, but I think it's a pretty good mesh with the lyrics. The only remaining point I'm undecided on is whether Margaret is still pregnant when she dies, or if she had the child earlier. In the seventh track, she sings:
"And isn’t it a lovely way
We got in from our play
Isn’t it babe? A sweet little baby"
Is she still pregnant as she's singing this? "A lovely way we got in" could mean that she's pregnant. But, the way she coos "sweet littly baby" makes it easy to imagine she's cradling the child as she sings. If so, what is the fate of the child? It seems odd that it would just vanish from the lyrics. But, I can't see anything that makes a case either way. It's probably the most unsatisfying mystery of the album, since there are no real clues to work with.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Favorite Albums I Discovered in 2011
I've been seeing a lot of "Best of" lists in recent days, and been thinking about my own favorite music discoveries of the year. This isn't a "best of 2011" list, since most of the albums and artists I've been listening to recorded their work years ago. But, it was all new to me.
This year marked a significant shift in my music listening habits. Save for a few rare instances, I'm buying 100% of my music online now. As a result, I'm spending a lot more time mixing my own playlists, and I buy a lot of single tracks to fill these in. Gone are the days when I'd have to shell out money for a CD to get one good song. So, this means that if I find an album that holds my attention, it's a really good album.
Probably my favorite album discovery was How We Quit the Forest by Rasputina. Rasputina is progressive cello rock with hints of steampunk and goth. Her literary and historical interests are very strong, and half of the pleasure of listening to Rasputina is researching the obscure historical trivia she's referencing, or else having her sing a song about something that you knew about, but had never known was songworthy until now. Alas, Rasputina is so far ranging in her topics and musical approaches, most of her albums are a mess of stuff that doesn't really fit together. She has an annoying fondness for gimicky, jokey songs that really stop being interesting the second time you hear them. But, her instincts also drive her to write songs with haunting lyrics and beautiful melodies, and can produce songs so perfect they give me songasms.
How We Quit the Forest has only a few joke songs (Onward Christian Soldiers, Diamond Mind, and Dwarf Star). And, as her joke songs go, these are pretty good ones. But, she really goes all out on more serious topics, singing about relationships in The Olde Headboard, senility in Rose K, human cruelty in Herb Girls of Birkenau, and standing by a troubled/sick friend in Sign of the Zodiac. And, if there has ever been a better song, wierder, more perfect song about alienation and love than The New Zero, I can't think of it. Seriously, my friend Mike Edmonston told me about this band last spring, and I've been hooked since the first you-tube video I sampled, a cello driven cover of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here.
In contrast to my online discoveries, I happened to run across Radiohead's albums Amnesiac and Kid A while I was in a thrift store. The CDs were only 99 cent, so picking them up wasn't a huge gamble. I've like Radiohead in small doses, but never really fell in love with their albums before. But both Amnesiac and Kid A are works of art that need to be listened to in thier entirity. They are atmospheric, moody, and haunting, with most of the voice work digitally altered until it's nearly impossible to understand. But, rather than being annoying, the warped voices add to the overall emotion of the albums, and seem to be a statement in themselves about how difficult it is to communicate honestly. I don't use drugs, but these albums give me a feeling of altered consciousness, of sinking into a surreal landscape where the familiar becomes unrecognizable.
While I'd been lukewarm to Radiohead, I've loved the Decemberists since I first heard them, and have nearly all their albums. One I didn't have until recently was The Hazards of Love. It's a concept album, where all the songs blend together to tell the story of a shapeshifting son of the forest who seduces a mortal woman. When I heard about it, it was a bit too fairy-tale for my tastes. Also, I had the bad luck of listening to The Rake's Song out of context, and was just put off by it. It's sung by a man who boasts of murdering his three children after his wife dies so he can return to the life of a wanton bachelor. The Decemberists have a flair for dark humor, but, out of context, this song was too dark even for my tastes.
Now, I've heard it in context and, wow, The Hazards of Love is easily the Decemberist's best album. Ironically, it manages to do this without having any of thier best songs. There's nothing from this album I'm going to pull out and put onto my Decemberist playlist. The songs really only make sense in the context of the other songs. The Rake's Song doesn't work unless it's matched by the revenge song that comes near the end of the album where the spirits of the dead children rise from the water to greet thier murderous father. Many of the catchiest songs echo and thread throughout the work, like the refrain of the title, "The Hazards of Love," or the chorus from the song "The Wanting Comes in Waves." Most of the characters in the musical play are matched with musical themes, and the music will shift from theme to theme as the characters interact. I find myself looking forward to driving places that take more than an hour to get to, so I'll have the chance to listen to the whole album at once, which is really the only way to approach this. Otherwise, it would be like trying to watch a movie in three and four minute snippets.
One last note: My year got off to a good start with Jonah Knight released an EP of songs based on my novel Nobody Gets the Girl. While it seems like that should be on my list of favorite albums, I confess that Jonah really knocked the Nobody soundtrack out of my year end thoughts by putting out an even better album, The Age of Steam: Strange Machines. Steampunk is a growing trend in a lot of media, and some artists embrace of it seems more opportunistic than inspired. But, The Age of Steam is a perfect blend of geeky and creepy and just sounds sincere. You can tell Jonah loves the subjects of time machines, airships, haunted guitars and the restless dead. Also, he does a cover of "Bad Moon Rising" that will make you forget the original version, which had a pop, upbeat melody. Jonah's slow, haunting take really highlights the menace woven through the lyrics. This version really makes going out at night when a bad moon is on the rise sound like a very poor choice.
I feel like I need to note an absense on this list: For the first year in almost a decade, I didn't find any new Mountain Goat albums to obsess over. This is a combination of having filled out nearly all of his back catalog, and being somewhat let down by his new album this year, All Eternal's Deck. AED had one song that produced one of the aforementioned "songasms," High Hawk Season. Damn These Vampires and Prowl Great Cain are also very strong songs. But, past that, the album just never caught my imagination. I felt like John Darnielle pulled back on this album and didn't do many songs that were really personal or daring. I know it has to be emotionally draining to produce albums like The Sunset Tree or The Coroner's Gambit, but there was something clinical and clean about All Eternal's Deck that robbed it of emotion. But, I'm not losing faith, and await the next album he produces so it can wipe away my rather feeble memories of this one.
This year marked a significant shift in my music listening habits. Save for a few rare instances, I'm buying 100% of my music online now. As a result, I'm spending a lot more time mixing my own playlists, and I buy a lot of single tracks to fill these in. Gone are the days when I'd have to shell out money for a CD to get one good song. So, this means that if I find an album that holds my attention, it's a really good album.
Probably my favorite album discovery was How We Quit the Forest by Rasputina. Rasputina is progressive cello rock with hints of steampunk and goth. Her literary and historical interests are very strong, and half of the pleasure of listening to Rasputina is researching the obscure historical trivia she's referencing, or else having her sing a song about something that you knew about, but had never known was songworthy until now. Alas, Rasputina is so far ranging in her topics and musical approaches, most of her albums are a mess of stuff that doesn't really fit together. She has an annoying fondness for gimicky, jokey songs that really stop being interesting the second time you hear them. But, her instincts also drive her to write songs with haunting lyrics and beautiful melodies, and can produce songs so perfect they give me songasms.
How We Quit the Forest has only a few joke songs (Onward Christian Soldiers, Diamond Mind, and Dwarf Star). And, as her joke songs go, these are pretty good ones. But, she really goes all out on more serious topics, singing about relationships in The Olde Headboard, senility in Rose K, human cruelty in Herb Girls of Birkenau, and standing by a troubled/sick friend in Sign of the Zodiac. And, if there has ever been a better song, wierder, more perfect song about alienation and love than The New Zero, I can't think of it. Seriously, my friend Mike Edmonston told me about this band last spring, and I've been hooked since the first you-tube video I sampled, a cello driven cover of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here.
In contrast to my online discoveries, I happened to run across Radiohead's albums Amnesiac and Kid A while I was in a thrift store. The CDs were only 99 cent, so picking them up wasn't a huge gamble. I've like Radiohead in small doses, but never really fell in love with their albums before. But both Amnesiac and Kid A are works of art that need to be listened to in thier entirity. They are atmospheric, moody, and haunting, with most of the voice work digitally altered until it's nearly impossible to understand. But, rather than being annoying, the warped voices add to the overall emotion of the albums, and seem to be a statement in themselves about how difficult it is to communicate honestly. I don't use drugs, but these albums give me a feeling of altered consciousness, of sinking into a surreal landscape where the familiar becomes unrecognizable.
While I'd been lukewarm to Radiohead, I've loved the Decemberists since I first heard them, and have nearly all their albums. One I didn't have until recently was The Hazards of Love. It's a concept album, where all the songs blend together to tell the story of a shapeshifting son of the forest who seduces a mortal woman. When I heard about it, it was a bit too fairy-tale for my tastes. Also, I had the bad luck of listening to The Rake's Song out of context, and was just put off by it. It's sung by a man who boasts of murdering his three children after his wife dies so he can return to the life of a wanton bachelor. The Decemberists have a flair for dark humor, but, out of context, this song was too dark even for my tastes.
Now, I've heard it in context and, wow, The Hazards of Love is easily the Decemberist's best album. Ironically, it manages to do this without having any of thier best songs. There's nothing from this album I'm going to pull out and put onto my Decemberist playlist. The songs really only make sense in the context of the other songs. The Rake's Song doesn't work unless it's matched by the revenge song that comes near the end of the album where the spirits of the dead children rise from the water to greet thier murderous father. Many of the catchiest songs echo and thread throughout the work, like the refrain of the title, "The Hazards of Love," or the chorus from the song "The Wanting Comes in Waves." Most of the characters in the musical play are matched with musical themes, and the music will shift from theme to theme as the characters interact. I find myself looking forward to driving places that take more than an hour to get to, so I'll have the chance to listen to the whole album at once, which is really the only way to approach this. Otherwise, it would be like trying to watch a movie in three and four minute snippets.
One last note: My year got off to a good start with Jonah Knight released an EP of songs based on my novel Nobody Gets the Girl. While it seems like that should be on my list of favorite albums, I confess that Jonah really knocked the Nobody soundtrack out of my year end thoughts by putting out an even better album, The Age of Steam: Strange Machines. Steampunk is a growing trend in a lot of media, and some artists embrace of it seems more opportunistic than inspired. But, The Age of Steam is a perfect blend of geeky and creepy and just sounds sincere. You can tell Jonah loves the subjects of time machines, airships, haunted guitars and the restless dead. Also, he does a cover of "Bad Moon Rising" that will make you forget the original version, which had a pop, upbeat melody. Jonah's slow, haunting take really highlights the menace woven through the lyrics. This version really makes going out at night when a bad moon is on the rise sound like a very poor choice.
I feel like I need to note an absense on this list: For the first year in almost a decade, I didn't find any new Mountain Goat albums to obsess over. This is a combination of having filled out nearly all of his back catalog, and being somewhat let down by his new album this year, All Eternal's Deck. AED had one song that produced one of the aforementioned "songasms," High Hawk Season. Damn These Vampires and Prowl Great Cain are also very strong songs. But, past that, the album just never caught my imagination. I felt like John Darnielle pulled back on this album and didn't do many songs that were really personal or daring. I know it has to be emotionally draining to produce albums like The Sunset Tree or The Coroner's Gambit, but there was something clinical and clean about All Eternal's Deck that robbed it of emotion. But, I'm not losing faith, and await the next album he produces so it can wipe away my rather feeble memories of this one.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
The War on Christmas
First, as an atheist, I'd like to apologize for the behavior of some of my brethren this season. Specifically, I'm talking about the atheists who flooded the lottery system for a town in California in order to claim 15 of 18 spaces reserved in a public park for a holiday display. Ordinarily, these spaces were used by local churches to stage nativity scenes. This year, however, only three churches could put up displays due to the atheists having snatched up the other spaces. Adding insult to injury, the atheists only put up three rather boring winter solstice displays, then left the remaining dozen spaces empty.
Some people will argue that a public park shouldn't be used for religious displays, period. I find this a little confusing. It seems to me that public parks as shared space should be available for use of all the public, and, last I checked, Christians composed at least some small portion of the population. I would think that as long as the local government is neutral on content, allowing religions other than Christianity to put up displays if they wish, there's no violation of anyone's rights unfolding by letting churches stage their nativity scenes in a park. If you can stage a Shakesperian play in a park, why not the nativity? A nativity scene is just a very boring play. Some teenagers in robes stand around with sheep and a donkey, staring adoringly at a baby doll in a straw-filled wooden box for hours on end. The highlight of the evening is if the donkey poops. How does this harm anyone?
I firmly support the right for atheist groups to put up a display promoting their point of view. But to leave the majority of spaces empty just shows they weren't interested in spreading a message, they were interested in silencing Christians. I can think of no motivation beyond spite.
It is, bluntly, the work of jerks. The fact that these jerks happen to be atheists embarrasses me. No one should gain pleasure by stopping their fellow man from partaking in an activity that he enjoys if no one is harmed. It's just petty.
That said, I find it tiresome that some right wing commentators use this time of year to trot out the predictable phrase, the War on Christmas.
If Christmas is in any existential danger, it's not from atheists. Instead, it's in danger from the corporate Christmas machine. Christmas has become a brand, a rather naked excuse to drive American's into a shopping frenzy that results in shoppers breaking down mall doors, pepper spraying fellow shoppers, and brawling over sneakers. I know that there's a reporting bias here; no one is going to report a story of shoppers entering a Walmart, quietly finding the items they want, then checking out with a polite cashier. It's only the extremes of naughty that make the Drudge Report.
Still, I can't help but feel that Christmas has been warped by our collective affluence. I find an analogy with our obesity epidemic. American's used to do a lot of manual labor and eat less processed foods, and were, on the whole, much thinner. But, we got smart, started working desk jobs and making more money, and began eating out all the time. We ballooned up. Christmas faced a similar problem. There was a time when gift giving meant more, because people didn't have as much free money as they do today. (Arguably, the free money is actually cheap credit, but that's another column.) A girl who got a doll on Christmas morning was thrilled, because she didn't have that many toys. Today, kids have more toys than they can ever play with. I've watched kids opening gifts and been struck at just how jaded and ungrateful they seem now. It doesn't get much better with adults. Because we're affluent relative to the Victorian era where many of our traditions began, most of us already have all the stuff we need to live a comfortable life. So, Christmas gifts almost by definition are becoming stuff that we don't need. I was struck by a gift center in a department store the other week, where the items being sold were obvious intended for no other purpose than giving away, since they were in decorative holiday boxes already. The gifts were little doo-dads and trinkets. A hammer with a flashlight in the handle. Binoculars with a compass built in. Clock radios for showers. Golf balls with little christmas trees on them. Bars of soap shaped like snowflakes.
No one would ever buy these items for themselves. But, because we absolutely must give gifts, these useless, pointless items are purchased, given, then promptly go into drawers, or storage buildings, or landfills.
Just as our affluence has led us to devour too many empty calories, we now clog the arteries of our holiday traditions with valueless gifts. And, just as our wastelines have expanded beyond the bounds of health and attractiveness, Christmas has expanded, swelling across the calendar to all but swallow Thanksgiving and Halloween, which are now events concurrent with the Christmas season, rather than events that preceed it.
I admit, I'm saying this as an outsider who walked away from Christmas many years ago. It may be that those of you who still celebrate the holiday like walking into malls at Labor Day and looking at the Christmas displays going up. But, I still can't help but think that, if Christmas doesn't mean as much as it used to, it's not the fault of atheists.
Some people will argue that a public park shouldn't be used for religious displays, period. I find this a little confusing. It seems to me that public parks as shared space should be available for use of all the public, and, last I checked, Christians composed at least some small portion of the population. I would think that as long as the local government is neutral on content, allowing religions other than Christianity to put up displays if they wish, there's no violation of anyone's rights unfolding by letting churches stage their nativity scenes in a park. If you can stage a Shakesperian play in a park, why not the nativity? A nativity scene is just a very boring play. Some teenagers in robes stand around with sheep and a donkey, staring adoringly at a baby doll in a straw-filled wooden box for hours on end. The highlight of the evening is if the donkey poops. How does this harm anyone?
I firmly support the right for atheist groups to put up a display promoting their point of view. But to leave the majority of spaces empty just shows they weren't interested in spreading a message, they were interested in silencing Christians. I can think of no motivation beyond spite.
It is, bluntly, the work of jerks. The fact that these jerks happen to be atheists embarrasses me. No one should gain pleasure by stopping their fellow man from partaking in an activity that he enjoys if no one is harmed. It's just petty.
That said, I find it tiresome that some right wing commentators use this time of year to trot out the predictable phrase, the War on Christmas.
If Christmas is in any existential danger, it's not from atheists. Instead, it's in danger from the corporate Christmas machine. Christmas has become a brand, a rather naked excuse to drive American's into a shopping frenzy that results in shoppers breaking down mall doors, pepper spraying fellow shoppers, and brawling over sneakers. I know that there's a reporting bias here; no one is going to report a story of shoppers entering a Walmart, quietly finding the items they want, then checking out with a polite cashier. It's only the extremes of naughty that make the Drudge Report.
Still, I can't help but feel that Christmas has been warped by our collective affluence. I find an analogy with our obesity epidemic. American's used to do a lot of manual labor and eat less processed foods, and were, on the whole, much thinner. But, we got smart, started working desk jobs and making more money, and began eating out all the time. We ballooned up. Christmas faced a similar problem. There was a time when gift giving meant more, because people didn't have as much free money as they do today. (Arguably, the free money is actually cheap credit, but that's another column.) A girl who got a doll on Christmas morning was thrilled, because she didn't have that many toys. Today, kids have more toys than they can ever play with. I've watched kids opening gifts and been struck at just how jaded and ungrateful they seem now. It doesn't get much better with adults. Because we're affluent relative to the Victorian era where many of our traditions began, most of us already have all the stuff we need to live a comfortable life. So, Christmas gifts almost by definition are becoming stuff that we don't need. I was struck by a gift center in a department store the other week, where the items being sold were obvious intended for no other purpose than giving away, since they were in decorative holiday boxes already. The gifts were little doo-dads and trinkets. A hammer with a flashlight in the handle. Binoculars with a compass built in. Clock radios for showers. Golf balls with little christmas trees on them. Bars of soap shaped like snowflakes.
No one would ever buy these items for themselves. But, because we absolutely must give gifts, these useless, pointless items are purchased, given, then promptly go into drawers, or storage buildings, or landfills.
Just as our affluence has led us to devour too many empty calories, we now clog the arteries of our holiday traditions with valueless gifts. And, just as our wastelines have expanded beyond the bounds of health and attractiveness, Christmas has expanded, swelling across the calendar to all but swallow Thanksgiving and Halloween, which are now events concurrent with the Christmas season, rather than events that preceed it.
I admit, I'm saying this as an outsider who walked away from Christmas many years ago. It may be that those of you who still celebrate the holiday like walking into malls at Labor Day and looking at the Christmas displays going up. But, I still can't help but think that, if Christmas doesn't mean as much as it used to, it's not the fault of atheists.
Saturday, December 03, 2011
Through the Looking Glass
This week produced one of those moments in politics where I felt, once more, that I lived in a Looking Glass universe. The heart of the weirdness started when Newt Gingrich said something right on the borderline of common sense, always a dangerous place for any politician to wander. Gingrich said, if I may paraphrase, that our child labor laws hurt poor children who would enjoy long term benefits in life if they were allowed to work at an earlier age. He went on to say that the poorest of poor children grow up in households and neighborhoods where no adult works, so they never witness good work habits. Finally, his proposed remedy was to hire the children as janitors in their public schools.
There are three basic arguments here. First, poor children would benefit if child labor laws were changed. My libertarian sensibilities lead me to believe this statement is true for all children, not just poor ones. I'm not saying children should be put to work in sweat shops, nor that they should be allowed to work schedules that would take away time from their education. But, in my personal experience, people who started working early in life (often outside the legal employment grid, working as baby sitters and mowing lawns) tend to be more mature by the time they reach college age than the kids who've managed to avoid any real labor. Of course, the real issue today may be, if we did remove the working age barrier, and let individuals employ whoever they wished no matter what their age, would there be any jobs available for young workers? Still, on this point, I think Gingrich was taking a common sense position, but many commentators acted as if he was advocating child abuse. The Nation ran an article titled "The Nastiness of Newt Gingrich" and the New York Times had an editorial titled "Newt Gingrich's War on Poor Children."
The latter essay, by Charles Blow, directly attacked the second premise of Gingrich's argument, that poor children don't see adults working. I'll concede that Gingrich didn't throw out any percentages, so his claim is a bit overly broad. By the census statistics Charles Blow sites, fifty percent of all households in poverty have at least one parent working full time, and another twenty-five percent have a parent working part time. That still leaves one in four children fitting Gingrich's assertion. But, Charles Blow goes on to look at the "poorest of the poor," since that is who Gingrich singled out, and seems to feel like he's delivering a devestating rebuttal when he declares that 1/3 of these households have at least one working parent. Meaning two out of three of these households don't have an employed adult providing a role model for their kids. Either Charles Blow is really bad at math, or he thinks his readers are, to trot out a statistic supporting Gingrich's argument and wave it around as evidence that Gingrich is wrong.
But it wasn't this editorial that most pushed me into Looking Glass land. It's was Gingrich's solution to the problem of childhood unemployment. By arguing that they should work at their schools, Gingrich is suggesting that the government hire them. Isn't this... I dunno... a stimulus plan? Instead of removing barriers to kids finding work in the private sector (for instance, by having a lower minimum wage for teenagers), he's proposing that government do the hiring directly. Isn't this something that, if President Obama proposed it, Newt Gingrich would denounce as socialist manipulation of the free market?
For all the Tea Party types who are starting to support Gingrich (who is, I admit, a towering intellectual genius when placed against Perry, Bachmann, and Cain, and a portrait of political courage when stood up next to spineless Romney), pay close attention to what Gingrich is revealing about his political instincts in this off the cuff remark. He may talk up small goverment and free enterprise, but Gingrich is a political creature to his deepest core. He's a font of ideas, but many of these ideas are about how government can improve people's lives. If he winds up as president, there is no way he'll govern as a hand's off, libertarian type. The problems of the world are nails sticking up that he doesn't want people to trip on, and government is his hammer. That people who claim to want small government can choose a man like him over someone like Ron Paul is mystifying to me. At least, it's mystifying until I remember, oh, right, I'm through the Looking Glass.
There are three basic arguments here. First, poor children would benefit if child labor laws were changed. My libertarian sensibilities lead me to believe this statement is true for all children, not just poor ones. I'm not saying children should be put to work in sweat shops, nor that they should be allowed to work schedules that would take away time from their education. But, in my personal experience, people who started working early in life (often outside the legal employment grid, working as baby sitters and mowing lawns) tend to be more mature by the time they reach college age than the kids who've managed to avoid any real labor. Of course, the real issue today may be, if we did remove the working age barrier, and let individuals employ whoever they wished no matter what their age, would there be any jobs available for young workers? Still, on this point, I think Gingrich was taking a common sense position, but many commentators acted as if he was advocating child abuse. The Nation ran an article titled "The Nastiness of Newt Gingrich" and the New York Times had an editorial titled "Newt Gingrich's War on Poor Children."
The latter essay, by Charles Blow, directly attacked the second premise of Gingrich's argument, that poor children don't see adults working. I'll concede that Gingrich didn't throw out any percentages, so his claim is a bit overly broad. By the census statistics Charles Blow sites, fifty percent of all households in poverty have at least one parent working full time, and another twenty-five percent have a parent working part time. That still leaves one in four children fitting Gingrich's assertion. But, Charles Blow goes on to look at the "poorest of the poor," since that is who Gingrich singled out, and seems to feel like he's delivering a devestating rebuttal when he declares that 1/3 of these households have at least one working parent. Meaning two out of three of these households don't have an employed adult providing a role model for their kids. Either Charles Blow is really bad at math, or he thinks his readers are, to trot out a statistic supporting Gingrich's argument and wave it around as evidence that Gingrich is wrong.
But it wasn't this editorial that most pushed me into Looking Glass land. It's was Gingrich's solution to the problem of childhood unemployment. By arguing that they should work at their schools, Gingrich is suggesting that the government hire them. Isn't this... I dunno... a stimulus plan? Instead of removing barriers to kids finding work in the private sector (for instance, by having a lower minimum wage for teenagers), he's proposing that government do the hiring directly. Isn't this something that, if President Obama proposed it, Newt Gingrich would denounce as socialist manipulation of the free market?
For all the Tea Party types who are starting to support Gingrich (who is, I admit, a towering intellectual genius when placed against Perry, Bachmann, and Cain, and a portrait of political courage when stood up next to spineless Romney), pay close attention to what Gingrich is revealing about his political instincts in this off the cuff remark. He may talk up small goverment and free enterprise, but Gingrich is a political creature to his deepest core. He's a font of ideas, but many of these ideas are about how government can improve people's lives. If he winds up as president, there is no way he'll govern as a hand's off, libertarian type. The problems of the world are nails sticking up that he doesn't want people to trip on, and government is his hammer. That people who claim to want small government can choose a man like him over someone like Ron Paul is mystifying to me. At least, it's mystifying until I remember, oh, right, I'm through the Looking Glass.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
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