I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
2003-01-18 - 1:32 a.m.
It snowed last night and I like the way they described it on WFUV; "No accumulation, just enough to make it pretty." There was enough that I actually had to shovel the walk though. That was the only downside to it. Other than that I pretty much vegetated all day. My only contact with the outside world was when I called Carey.
Tonight I went to see John Forster at the Minstrel Coffeehouse. That's the place in Jersey that I saw DVN at last month. It's quite close to the place I saw Deirdre on Sunday. It's a long ride, over an hour, but I haven't see John Forster in years. The first time I saw him was opening for Christine Lavin. WFUV played Entering Marion quite often when it was first released. I even went to see the off-Broadway review of his songs. Seeing him reminded me why I like him so much. He really is the Tom Lehrer of the 21st century. His songs are hilarious and even better when you hear them live. Helium the title track of his second album is not one of my favorites on the CD but live I almost burst out laughing. He is accompanied on many songs by his wife, Vicky. On Helium she sings the helium voice parts while he lip synchs. He tells the audience to watch him not her when she's singing. The effect is so funny. John has a second career as a singer/songwriter of songs for children. He had some of those young fans in the audience.
The opening act was Emmeleia. They are an A Capella trio. My first reaction to hearing that was not good. I think that DVN's assessment of themselves as A Capella that doesn't suck is a good one. After hearing them I can tell you that Emmeleia doesn't suck either. Actually they rock the Casbah. They have a strange repertoire. They started with some shape-note songs from the Sacred Harp and a modern shape-note song. They also did folk songs, an Appalachian ballad, and sets of songs in Bulgarian and Georgian (from the Republic of Georgia, not the state). They did all of them beautifully. Carey would have loved them. I could see Carey, Gella, and Melissa singing their songs.
The only down note on the evening was that I didn't know anyone there. I went to talk to two of the Emmeleia during the break and was ignored. Someone versed in Eastern European music was monopolizing their time and when I tried to say something it was as if I weren't there. Soon after I wasn't. I gave up and went back to my seat.
There was one thing that I wanted to say to John Forster but too many other people wanted to talk to him and I didn't want to hang around and wait. One of my great memories of the last great Dave Van Ronk was his singing Entering Marion. When he finished he found it so funny he let out one of his unrestrained belly laughs. That's the second time in the last week that I was reminded of Dave. He was a great one.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile 2003-01-18
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