200 people have died in the attack on commuter trains in Madrid last Thursday. Over 1400 were wounded. Before we delve into politics, let's think about what those numbers mean.
Spain has a population of 40 million. The United States is home to over 290 million, or over seven Americans for every Spaniard.
To appreciate the impact of these attacks, on the people who lost loved ones, or know others who did, multiply the dead and wouned by seven or eight... This tragedy for Spain approaches what 9/11 meant for us. Let's respect that. And however you feel, let's respect the decisions the Spanish people have made, just as we asked the world in our time of grief and outrage.
Now, back to the news. This update is about a day and a half late. Job hunting and resume sending tends to interfere with this enterprise. It was on Monday afternoon, while I sat in the car near a downtown Santa Ana law office, that I heard the election results on NPR:
Reiterating a campaign promise, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the leader of Spain's Socialist Party and new prime minister-elect, pledges to pull his country's 1,300 troops out of Iraq if the United Nations does not take control by June 30.
Zapatero's Socialists won an upset victory in Spain's general elections Sunday. Turning out in unexpectedly high numbers, Spaniards voted to remove Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's ruling party from power. Analysts say the results reflect anger over last week's deadly terrorist attacks in Madrid, which many blame on Aznar's support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq.
The voter backlash was also fueled by the widespread perception that Aznar's government had tried to exploit the attacks for political gain by blaming the Basque separatist group ETA. On the eve of the vote, a groundswell of anger and demands for full disclosure forced Aznar's government to reveal the arrests of three Moroccans and two Indians.
Earlier, the NY Times reported that President Bush called to congraulate the new prime minister, and "reiterated our solidarity with the Spanish people."
Reiterate? How do you reiterate something that you didn't, um, iterate?? 80 to 90 percent of Spain OPPOSED sending their troops to Iraq. Bush NEVER expressed solidarity with the Spanish people. I guess unilateralism means never having to say you're in solidarity...
With Spain's strong economy, Aznar and his party seemed headed to victory a week ago, despite widespread dislike for his arrogant, authoritarian manner. His arrogance led him to drag Spain into Bush's War - the war on Iraq, not the war on terror. That drew his country into the terrorist line of fire. Aznar could have shown the courage of the soldiers he sent and simply faced the music. He should have said: yes, it was al-Qaeda, they're targeting us now, but let's stand together. Instead, Aznar chose to exploit a national tragedy for political gain by blaming Basque separatists, a tactic which outraged most of the independent voters. His government cried "ETA!", while they CONCEALED the fact that they were arresting members of al-Qaeda! It even ordered the state-owned TV station to avoid covering the widespread protests against the ruling party, and aired a documentary on ETA instead. The party founded and led by Franco supporters was now raising his spectre. So the voters punished them, and now Spain is finally heeding the will of its people. This election was not a blow to democracy. It was a blow to authoritarianism.
Hmm. Arrogance. Lying. Exploiting a national tragedy to punish domestic enemies. Does Aznar remind you of anyone? Anyone?
Blair had his "sexed-up" dossier, Bush had Niger and the missing WMDs, and now Aznar has had his comeuppance. A few months ago, a very smart friend of mine asked me: What was wrong in deposing a bad man like Hussein? The answer, I think, lies in the corruption of our own character. The more dangerous we make our enemies to be, the more desperate we become, and the more willing we are to bend the rules and violate our principles. And those who rise to power in times of paranoia are the least scrupulous kind of people. Democracies may or may not be able to force change in other regimes. And reasonable people may disagree on whether we ought to do so. But we should always adhere to our professed values, because the legimitmacy of all our actions, at home and abroad, depend on it.
What makes this turn of events absurd is, after anthrax and Saddam, the chickenhawks finally can tie something evil to al-Qaeda and not have to lie about it...and they lie about it! Maybe the title to Al Franken's book wasn't overkill after all.
Finally, let's be clear on one thing. There was no cowering, no retreating from al-Qaeda here. While Spain's involvement in Iraq may have led to the attacks, the attacks themselves did not drive voters into the arms of the Socialists. Anyone who conscientiously followed the news from day to day saw that the government's response - which avoided taking on the real terrorists - angered the public which saw it, correctly or otherwise, as duplicitous and appallingly cynical. Just read the NPR report, or better yet, listen to the audio, especially the comments by the Christian Science Monitor journalist. While writing tonight, I haven't heard any other analysis. But I am now looking up what Josh Marshall has been saying - basically, the same thing. Only he does it all in a few sentences.
Of course, I am hardly clairvoyant and often, not even timely. I know a few things about contemporary Spain, but I certainly am not an expert. What lent me a modicum of insight was my experience as an American over the past two and a half years, as a witness to our government's willingness - nay, eagerness - to demonize anti-war protestors, critics of globalization, environmental groups, skeptical nations, even the teacher's union, with words like "terrorist" or "traitor". Such loose talk can trivialize the real demons, the unequivocal terrorism that truly threatens the free world. And it makes those in any potential coalition a little less willing to follow where America wants to lead.
The Original Scone Blog (plus some food for thought)
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Sunday, March 14, 2004
So many words unspoken
When she quietly entered through the curtain last night, after two bands and almost two hours, almost no one in the crowd noticed. My sister asked, "Is that her?" Low slung jeans, bright ski cap, a cherubic face in the shadows. It was Mary Lou Lord, alright.
Seven years had gone by since my college girlfriend introduced me to her music. Ironically, we had broken up by then. But the chemistry of our musical tastes continued. Back in college, I was into "classic" rock, and then folk. During 1995 & 1996 I was listening to a lot of Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Zeppelin, Neil Young, as well as newer folks like Pete Droge and Sarah McLachlan. Rachel was into "indie" rock, 10,000 Maniacs, Guided by Voices, Helium, the Cranes, Mazzy Star, Lemonheads, and later Belle and Sebastian and Sleater-Kinney. Our musical worlds were not far apart, and in effect doubled through playing each other CDs and later, sending mix tapes.
So along comes this Boston-based singer who hung out in Seattle with Kurt Cobain, a folkie girl on Kill Rock Stars with a punk ethic. Which is pretty much the folk ethic - authentic, anti-materialist, do it yourself, independent, keep it simple stupid. Her first song I ever heard was "Some Jingle Jangle Morning":
"Song about a sunbeam, song about a girl
Her voice still rings and echoes in my mind
So many words unspoken, so many worlds apart
Your memory is all you left behind..."
I saw her twice in 1998, in San Francisco. The first time, she opened for Whiskeytown. The other time, the Raging Teens and Slim Dunlap from the Replacements opened for her. She covered Dylan, she covered Pete Droge, I never heard someone of such impeccable musical taste. For a singer, she was also 100% fan, and a huge fan and friend of Elliott Smith. That was the night of the Academy Awards, and Elliott performed "Miss Misery" from Good Will Hunting in front of half of America. That was 1998.
And now it's 2004. Elliott Smith is dead. Whiskeytown frontman Ryan Adams is the biggest and most brilliant thing in alt-country, big enough to spawn a backlash. One of the girls in opening act Sister South (think acoustic and pretty Dixie Chicks) wore a T-shirt that said, "Ryan Adams Sucks". I later found out that Ryan Adams himself puts out the shirts. Talk about beyond irony.
And Mary Lou Lord? Rehab, motherhood, still busking on the street... She just keeps on trucking, neither burning out nor fading away.
When she came out, I hoped that six years ago would tessllate into yesterday. Instead, I felt the full weight of six years had passed, a lot of water under the bridge. My interest in music waned and has recovered just recently. Other things took priority: teaching, law school, the real world. I only heard about the concert through Vicky, whom I had introduced to the novelty hit "His Indie World":
"I don't think I fit in to his indie world,
Guided by Voices and Velocity Girl
Eric's Trip and Rocketship, Rancid, Rocket From the Crypt
Bikini Kill and Built to Spill, it's plain to see that I don't fit..."
I remember the weirdly compelling music wafting from the dorms of my fellow frosh: Alice in Chains, Suede, Primus, Jane's Addiction. The same folks later tuned into Matchbox 20 and Asian pop. We like to yak about musicial integrity. What about the listener's musical integrity?
So many words unspoken, so many worlds apart... It's not just her tuneful ear, or her intimate voice, or the life she's chosen - a life dedicated to music - not just her music, but the music of the troubadour giants on whose shoulders she sings.
It's the noisy six-year silence to which I can relate only too well. I like to read more than I like to write. I'm also better at the former. The components that make me a writer (appreciation of language, respect for insight, a love of words) make me a bigger fan. When I read Jonathon Kozol's first-hand account of inner-city schools, Louise Gluck's poem on friendship between a believer and an unbeliever, or Natalia Ginzburg's meditation on real virtues, I want to give a shout out to their vision. But I also lose the desire to share mine with its similar but duller perspective.
One way to clear my inferiority complex would be not to read anything by professional writers. Ignorance is bliss, right? Because poor writing or thinking agitates me as much as its superior counterpart leaves me in thrall. I get depressed when I read Michael Kinsley claim in Time that "Greed is good" for the economy (then why aren't people investing in WorldCom or Martha Stewart Omnimedia?) or NPR's Rob Gifford compare Roh Moo-hyun and Chun Doo-hwan as if they were fellow presidents tainted by similar scandals (Roh violated a parliamentary technicality, while Chun overthrew the government and imprisoned his political opponents). Actually it's the inability to respond with equal measure. People who think their weblogs are doing something are fooling themselves. But if you write or shout or sing out of love, or hate, or a need to purge your soul, then yeah, bring it on.
Mary Lou Lord @ Club Spaceland, March 13, 2004
First impressions: I thought she seemed a bit nervous and/or tipsy. Or maybe just plain tired. (Turns out she and the band Gingersol have been playing every day for nineteen consecutive days! I didn't know.) She told the crowd she has spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder she described as writer's cramp for the voice. She apologized for her condition. So the first few songs - Western Union Desperate, His N.D. World (the Americana version, and a request on her second song), He'd Be A Diamond - she sang the low notes instead of the high ones. Sometime she sprechstimme-d in a sweet growl - think Renee Zellweger. More than once she remarked, "I’m getting too old for this shit..."
And then she shut out her worries, the chatty El Lay barflies, the cheapo guitar, and let her music take over her voice.
It started to happen with a cover of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning", by the great Richard Thompson. Her voice was still clipped but she never faltered in singing of a love between a British gangster, a girl, and the title motorcyle. The intricate melody drew me to notice her proficient guitar-playing too.
After ten or so songs, she brought on the previous band, Gingersol, to back her electric set. She sang "Stars Burn Out" (dedicated no doubt to her friend-muses Kurt, Elliott, et al), 43, and then "Aim Low". Despite the tricky sound system and the drowning power of her band, the indie soul of her last great song (2000) shone brightly. It's like Mount Kilimanjaro, a musical peak standing by itself. Why not more? Maybe it's as the song says: "You can't lose if you don't take part." Sigh.
Despite making the "Real Life Rock Top 10" (with a bullet!) of Greil Marcus, the art critic and fellow alum (class of '63 I think), I can 't find the full lyrics anywhere on the web. I found the line above on a Brazilian's blog, listed as her "Frase do momento" for February 23rd. That day, she was listening to "Aim Low", had just watched "Peixe Grande" ("Fish Great" says the universal translator), and ate Sesame Chicken. Sounds like an American girl to me.
Speaking of American girls, the song reminds me of a few:
"I never asked you if you'd like to go dancing
It saved hearing that you might decline
I never told you that I wanted to be with you
I aimed low when you walked on by."
She followed with "Lights Are Changing", which like the previous three, were written by or co-written with Nick Saloman of the famously obscure Bevis Frond. As an interpreter, she is always confident and loose. The opening chords are familiar, she quipped, and sang "I was born in a small town". Then she repeated it to the tune of "There she goes", before starting the song in earnest. The band was sharp, especially drummer John Florance, whose mighty drum rolls even caused the band once to turn their heads.
The only full-band song she sang of her own was "Some Jingle Jangle Morning". But she has made the others her own, while ironically, her song alludes to Nirvana, Guns and Roses, and Bob Dylan (and their songs that allude to drugs). Nonetheless, the lyrics are intensely personal and defy easy interpretation. For me it conveys a feeling of love and realization of loss - realizing a part of your life is irretrievably gone. It may be an old lover, or the Northwest scene, or the person you were way back when. I can identify with the song now in ways unknown when I first heard it.
Lord went solo acoustic again, and played "Sayonara" which I had never heard before. She followed with "I Figured You Out", "Camden Town Rain" and "Birthday Boy" - probably the three songs of hers I listen to most. Elliott Smith wrote "I Figured You Out", but never recorded it - he once said at a concert that "I thought it sounded like the Eagles and I thought it sucked. So here, check it out, see what you think." As she finished, she added, "And no, it doesn't sound like the Eagles."
By the latter two songs, I noticed she had regained her range, probably during the electric set. Her voice soared without losing a whisper of intimacy. Along with "Some Jingle Jangle Morning, "Camden Town Rain" is among the finest songs she has written. They also place the bulk of her most memorable work in the early 1990s. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that. Right, Pearl Jam?
I wonder if the handful of fans who she recognized had followed her for a decade. They were slightly older than me, so it's possible. She even dedicated "Birthday Boy" to Daniel, by personalizing four familiar lines.
Before we left Club Spaceland, I stopped to say hi. I heard her say to a fan that her new album was "pretty good" with a half-satisfied look on her face. I told her I'd last seen her in SF, at Bottom of the Hill. It was Academy Awards night. Rachel came out to see you. "Oh, Rachel," she said. Yes, she remembered the show. She had somebody tell her when Elliott would be performing on TV.
She is only a troubadour, soul sister of Dylan, before Dylan changed the rules, and she has survived the angst. Look: she has just walked onto the plaform, smiling at the subway riders, strumming a guitar. She's got the heart to back it up.
Seven years had gone by since my college girlfriend introduced me to her music. Ironically, we had broken up by then. But the chemistry of our musical tastes continued. Back in college, I was into "classic" rock, and then folk. During 1995 & 1996 I was listening to a lot of Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Zeppelin, Neil Young, as well as newer folks like Pete Droge and Sarah McLachlan. Rachel was into "indie" rock, 10,000 Maniacs, Guided by Voices, Helium, the Cranes, Mazzy Star, Lemonheads, and later Belle and Sebastian and Sleater-Kinney. Our musical worlds were not far apart, and in effect doubled through playing each other CDs and later, sending mix tapes.
So along comes this Boston-based singer who hung out in Seattle with Kurt Cobain, a folkie girl on Kill Rock Stars with a punk ethic. Which is pretty much the folk ethic - authentic, anti-materialist, do it yourself, independent, keep it simple stupid. Her first song I ever heard was "Some Jingle Jangle Morning":
"Song about a sunbeam, song about a girl
Her voice still rings and echoes in my mind
So many words unspoken, so many worlds apart
Your memory is all you left behind..."
I saw her twice in 1998, in San Francisco. The first time, she opened for Whiskeytown. The other time, the Raging Teens and Slim Dunlap from the Replacements opened for her. She covered Dylan, she covered Pete Droge, I never heard someone of such impeccable musical taste. For a singer, she was also 100% fan, and a huge fan and friend of Elliott Smith. That was the night of the Academy Awards, and Elliott performed "Miss Misery" from Good Will Hunting in front of half of America. That was 1998.
And now it's 2004. Elliott Smith is dead. Whiskeytown frontman Ryan Adams is the biggest and most brilliant thing in alt-country, big enough to spawn a backlash. One of the girls in opening act Sister South (think acoustic and pretty Dixie Chicks) wore a T-shirt that said, "Ryan Adams Sucks". I later found out that Ryan Adams himself puts out the shirts. Talk about beyond irony.
And Mary Lou Lord? Rehab, motherhood, still busking on the street... She just keeps on trucking, neither burning out nor fading away.
When she came out, I hoped that six years ago would tessllate into yesterday. Instead, I felt the full weight of six years had passed, a lot of water under the bridge. My interest in music waned and has recovered just recently. Other things took priority: teaching, law school, the real world. I only heard about the concert through Vicky, whom I had introduced to the novelty hit "His Indie World":
"I don't think I fit in to his indie world,
Guided by Voices and Velocity Girl
Eric's Trip and Rocketship, Rancid, Rocket From the Crypt
Bikini Kill and Built to Spill, it's plain to see that I don't fit..."
I remember the weirdly compelling music wafting from the dorms of my fellow frosh: Alice in Chains, Suede, Primus, Jane's Addiction. The same folks later tuned into Matchbox 20 and Asian pop. We like to yak about musicial integrity. What about the listener's musical integrity?
So many words unspoken, so many worlds apart... It's not just her tuneful ear, or her intimate voice, or the life she's chosen - a life dedicated to music - not just her music, but the music of the troubadour giants on whose shoulders she sings.
It's the noisy six-year silence to which I can relate only too well. I like to read more than I like to write. I'm also better at the former. The components that make me a writer (appreciation of language, respect for insight, a love of words) make me a bigger fan. When I read Jonathon Kozol's first-hand account of inner-city schools, Louise Gluck's poem on friendship between a believer and an unbeliever, or Natalia Ginzburg's meditation on real virtues, I want to give a shout out to their vision. But I also lose the desire to share mine with its similar but duller perspective.
One way to clear my inferiority complex would be not to read anything by professional writers. Ignorance is bliss, right? Because poor writing or thinking agitates me as much as its superior counterpart leaves me in thrall. I get depressed when I read Michael Kinsley claim in Time that "Greed is good" for the economy (then why aren't people investing in WorldCom or Martha Stewart Omnimedia?) or NPR's Rob Gifford compare Roh Moo-hyun and Chun Doo-hwan as if they were fellow presidents tainted by similar scandals (Roh violated a parliamentary technicality, while Chun overthrew the government and imprisoned his political opponents). Actually it's the inability to respond with equal measure. People who think their weblogs are doing something are fooling themselves. But if you write or shout or sing out of love, or hate, or a need to purge your soul, then yeah, bring it on.
Mary Lou Lord @ Club Spaceland, March 13, 2004
First impressions: I thought she seemed a bit nervous and/or tipsy. Or maybe just plain tired. (Turns out she and the band Gingersol have been playing every day for nineteen consecutive days! I didn't know.) She told the crowd she has spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder she described as writer's cramp for the voice. She apologized for her condition. So the first few songs - Western Union Desperate, His N.D. World (the Americana version, and a request on her second song), He'd Be A Diamond - she sang the low notes instead of the high ones. Sometime she sprechstimme-d in a sweet growl - think Renee Zellweger. More than once she remarked, "I’m getting too old for this shit..."
And then she shut out her worries, the chatty El Lay barflies, the cheapo guitar, and let her music take over her voice.
It started to happen with a cover of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning", by the great Richard Thompson. Her voice was still clipped but she never faltered in singing of a love between a British gangster, a girl, and the title motorcyle. The intricate melody drew me to notice her proficient guitar-playing too.
After ten or so songs, she brought on the previous band, Gingersol, to back her electric set. She sang "Stars Burn Out" (dedicated no doubt to her friend-muses Kurt, Elliott, et al), 43, and then "Aim Low". Despite the tricky sound system and the drowning power of her band, the indie soul of her last great song (2000) shone brightly. It's like Mount Kilimanjaro, a musical peak standing by itself. Why not more? Maybe it's as the song says: "You can't lose if you don't take part." Sigh.
Despite making the "Real Life Rock Top 10" (with a bullet!) of Greil Marcus, the art critic and fellow alum (class of '63 I think), I can 't find the full lyrics anywhere on the web. I found the line above on a Brazilian's blog, listed as her "Frase do momento" for February 23rd. That day, she was listening to "Aim Low", had just watched "Peixe Grande" ("Fish Great" says the universal translator), and ate Sesame Chicken. Sounds like an American girl to me.
Speaking of American girls, the song reminds me of a few:
"I never asked you if you'd like to go dancing
It saved hearing that you might decline
I never told you that I wanted to be with you
I aimed low when you walked on by."
She followed with "Lights Are Changing", which like the previous three, were written by or co-written with Nick Saloman of the famously obscure Bevis Frond. As an interpreter, she is always confident and loose. The opening chords are familiar, she quipped, and sang "I was born in a small town". Then she repeated it to the tune of "There she goes", before starting the song in earnest. The band was sharp, especially drummer John Florance, whose mighty drum rolls even caused the band once to turn their heads.
The only full-band song she sang of her own was "Some Jingle Jangle Morning". But she has made the others her own, while ironically, her song alludes to Nirvana, Guns and Roses, and Bob Dylan (and their songs that allude to drugs). Nonetheless, the lyrics are intensely personal and defy easy interpretation. For me it conveys a feeling of love and realization of loss - realizing a part of your life is irretrievably gone. It may be an old lover, or the Northwest scene, or the person you were way back when. I can identify with the song now in ways unknown when I first heard it.
Lord went solo acoustic again, and played "Sayonara" which I had never heard before. She followed with "I Figured You Out", "Camden Town Rain" and "Birthday Boy" - probably the three songs of hers I listen to most. Elliott Smith wrote "I Figured You Out", but never recorded it - he once said at a concert that "I thought it sounded like the Eagles and I thought it sucked. So here, check it out, see what you think." As she finished, she added, "And no, it doesn't sound like the Eagles."
By the latter two songs, I noticed she had regained her range, probably during the electric set. Her voice soared without losing a whisper of intimacy. Along with "Some Jingle Jangle Morning, "Camden Town Rain" is among the finest songs she has written. They also place the bulk of her most memorable work in the early 1990s. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that. Right, Pearl Jam?
I wonder if the handful of fans who she recognized had followed her for a decade. They were slightly older than me, so it's possible. She even dedicated "Birthday Boy" to Daniel, by personalizing four familiar lines.
Before we left Club Spaceland, I stopped to say hi. I heard her say to a fan that her new album was "pretty good" with a half-satisfied look on her face. I told her I'd last seen her in SF, at Bottom of the Hill. It was Academy Awards night. Rachel came out to see you. "Oh, Rachel," she said. Yes, she remembered the show. She had somebody tell her when Elliott would be performing on TV.
She is only a troubadour, soul sister of Dylan, before Dylan changed the rules, and she has survived the angst. Look: she has just walked onto the plaform, smiling at the subway riders, strumming a guitar. She's got the heart to back it up.
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