Song of the Day: Wolf Larsen - Kitchen Door

Beautiful song, suggested to me by YouTube!  Great lyrics, too.

"Wolf Larsen - Kitchen Door"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfFhxA2JFOA


Lyrics, from SongLyrics.com:
http://www.songlyrics.com/wolf-larsen/kitchen-door-lyrics/


Listen while you read!
No was her name
No was the lion that no one could tame
But Faith was his name
Faith came around with a smile on his face anyway
He said, tell, tell me now
Tell me the worry that knit up your brow

She said slow down this train
Slow down the iron that runs in my veins

I can hear you tap tappin at my kitchen door
I can hear the river run, and the rive want more
Don’t you know, I’m already sure
I can hear you tap tappin at my kitchen door

But No kept her name
No got so quiet she put out her flame
But Faith stayed the same
Faith came around with that smile on his face the next day
He said, follow me down
Follow me down with your pick and your plow

I can hear you tap tappin at my kitchen door
I can hear the river run and the river want more
Don’t you know, I am already sure
I can hear you standing quiet at my kitchen door.

Should the government do __?__

We obviously have a government, many levels of government actually.  But what should it be doing?  Is it doing too much?  Easy way to tell, according to Penn Jillette.  Jilllette wrote a great article in Newsweek recently, well worth considering.
"Penn Jillette: How I Became a Libertarian"
http://www.newsweek.com/penn-jillette-how-became-libertarian-453565


 Jillette's description of how he became a libertarian is instructive.

I really come to it [libertarianism] from a purely hippie point of view. I have always been a peacenik, and in the '80s I met a man named Tim Jenison. I was then just kind of your standard liberal, and Tim was libertarian.

I started giving all the arguments for why the government had to be more powerful, and Tim said a really simple sentence to me. He said, “Do you think it’s OK to punish people who’ve done nothing wrong?” And I said “No”—even though I felt somewhere in my heart that it was a trick question. And then he said, “Why is it OK to reward people who’ve done nothing right?”

He said, “Can’t you see that you can’t reward without punishing? They’re the same thing.” And that shut me up for a little while.

Let's make sure you understand that, my seven* readers.  If you reward people who don't deserve it, by definition you are also punishing people who have done nothing wrong, because they are not being given the same reward.  Flip side of the same coin.


So what should government do, and not do?

Ultimately the best definition of government is that it is an organization that has a (legitimate, in some people's opinion) monopoly on the use of force.  With that in mind, it is easy to understand Jillette's guideline on what government should, and should not, be doing.  The simple rule is this: Unless you, personally, would be willing to wield a gun to tell someone else what they should and shouldn't do, then you shouldn't ask someone else to do it for you.

Again, Jillette's friend challenged him.

Then Tim started saying, “You know, you’re so against force.  [many examples given]  You are insanely peacenik in terms of the way you see war, what the country should do. Why do you think it’s so OK for the government to use force to get things done that you think are good ideas?”

To which Jillette eloquently stated (pulling out a couple key paragraphs):

I started thinking that one really good definition of government is that government is supposed to have a monopoly on force. The government is the guys with the guns, and we are the people who tell the government what they can do. So in my morality, I shouldn’t be able to tell anyone to do something with a gun that I wouldn’t do myself.

And that is, in a nutshell, my entire view of politics: that I have to look over what people want the government to do and say “If I were given all the power, would I use a gun to accomplish what they want to accomplish?”

But I do know that if this is a government by the people, and I’m one of the people, and the government is the one with guns—I know that it is immoral for me to use the government to use force, to use guns, to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. And that’s how I became a libertarian.

I'm going to repeat the key sentence, and close with it:

 I shouldn’t be able to tell anyone to do something with a gun that I wouldn’t do myself.

 
* estimated

Ernest Hemingway - The Capital of the World

Another short story that I think is brilliant.  Like the Jack London story I posted a week ago, this story is precise and grim.  Very different, superficially, but I get a similar vibe from both.

"The Capital of the World"
by Ernest Hemingway
http://pdbooks.ca/books/english/authors/hemingway-ernest/short-stories/part-one/the-capital-of-the-world.html


Some commentary, from GradeSaver.com:
http://www.gradesaver.com/complete-short-stories-of-ernest-hemingway/study-guide/summary-the-capital-of-the-world

What do you think?  Is Paco an idiot who died senselessly?  Or is he a hero in the sense that he never lost his idealism?

The latter possibility is described by GradeSaver:

There is only one exception to the general gloom at the Luarca, and that is Paco. He is the only character described as having any joy or wonder. Generally, this is referred to as a sense of the “romantic.” Paco is the only one with beliefs, ideals, and illusions, some of which he absorbs from those around him. As he is speaking to the two other waiters in the dining room, Paco thinks to himself, “He himself would like to be a good catholic, a revolutionary, and have a steady job like this, while, at the same time, being a bullfighter.” He adopts the beliefs and ideals of the Anarcho-Syndicalist, the priests, the middle-aged waiter, and the bullfighters who surround him.

In one sense, Paco’s malleability is one of his weaknesses, as is his idealism. It can be argued that Paco is merely a gullible, easily awed country boy who had overly-grand dreams for himself and met his end through overconfidence. On the other hand, there is a real sense of sympathy and even nostalgia in Hemingway’s description of Paco and his short existence. Paco’s dreams are not the dreams of a fool, merely the dreams of a youth. In the second to last paragraph of the story, Hemingway writes, Paco “died, as the Spanish phrase has it, full of illusions. He had not had time in his life to lose any of them, nor even, at the end, to complete an act of contrition.” Perhaps it is better for Paco, Hemingway implies, that he perished attempting to fulfill his dream of becoming a bullfighter than rotting away as a second-rate coward or has-been in a place like the Luarca. Given the reader’s knowledge of the type of deep depression and despair that overtook Hemingway at certain points in his life, this reading of the story must receive serious consideration.

Prince

Wow, we've all heard the news by now.  Prince, dead at 57, on Thursday, April 21, 2016.  Just one week after I apparently saw his last concert (April 14, 2016, Fox Theatre, Atlanta).  Should have known something was up when his private plane had to land in Illinois on the way back home to Minneapolis.  I mean, if he had the flu (reason given why he rescheduled the original April 7th Atlanta date) you would think he would just push on ahead to Minneapolis which would only be another half hour away, hour at the most.

I'd post a few songs, but they'd probably just get taken down.  Having said that, here are two great links.  Listen if you have time, they're pretty long ... but worth it.

From Creative Loafing (local Atlanta paper):
"Prince's Last Concert: Live at the Fox Theatre 4/14/16 [Full Audio]"
http://m.clatl.com/cribnotes/archives/2016/04/21/princes-last-concert-live-at-the-fox-theatre-4-14-16-full-audio

From Consequence of Sound:
"Prince’s legendary Coachella 2008 performance posted online in honor of late musician — listen"
"During which he covered Radiohead, The Beatles, Sarah McLachlan, and The B-52s"
http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/04/princes-legendary-coachella-2008-posted-online-in-honor-of-late-musician-listen/


Finally, I was proud to see that Google updated their home page very quickly.
https://www.google.com/doodles/a-googledoodle-4-prince-1958-2016

Jack London - To Build A Fire

One of the finest short stories I have ever read.  Actually came up in a chat with a work colleague, a field manager for a contractor we work with.  I would never have guessed we had this in common, an appreciation for stories like this.  You just never know.

This simple, harsh story is so well told, so concise and precise, to me it is a joy to read.  It is not pleasant, of course, London could be very grim.  But he is brilliantly descriptive here, in my opinion.

London also seems to "get" animals, and write about them as well as anyone I've ever read, which makes this story, and many others of his, even more enjoyable.

From JackLondons.net:
"To Build A Fire"
By Jack London
First published in The Century Magazine, v.76, August, 1908
http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html

Or if you want it read to you, here it is on YouTube:
"Jack London - To build a fire (audiobook)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8WnlrUKsBU

There are moments of philosophy and reflection in the story.  Maybe a way of thinking that we need to adopt in more aspects of our lives.  Absorb not just the facts but the significance.  For example (italics are mine):

But all this—the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all—made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it. He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man's frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man's place in the universe. Fifty degrees below zero stood for a bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear-flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks. Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head.

Brilliant stuff.

Prince "Piano & A Microphone" (and about 37 amplifiers) Tour

Raise your hand if you thought that someday--SOMEDAY--you were going to party like it was 1999.  Be honest!

Now, keep your hand in the air if you NEVER imagined Prince would have fallen off the radar for decades (at least in terms of general popularity) and yet ... when he does go on tour decades later tickets are scorching hot, and you consider yourself lucky to pay hundreds of dollars per ticket (not scalped, I had multiple browser windows open to order as soon as tickets became available!).

Okay, my hand was in the air the whole time.  What about yours?

By the way, prior to the concert I played some Prince songs for my daughters.  They just looked at me like I was crazy.  Typical 80's stuff, they said.  As if they know what even means.  :)   I told them that they needed to check out Purple Rain, the movie, to understand Prince--except maybe they're not old enough yet!  Here's a documentary that helps explain it (same link as what I posted yesterday).
Prince In The 1980's - Full Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRNYiFxR2Ps

So the concert was last night.  Originally scheduled for a week ago, April 7, it was delayed because Prince was sick.  So it was rescheduled for a week later.  How was it?  Honestly, it was a bit of a letdown.  First a couple links with reviews.

From Funkatopia:
"Review: Prince, Piano & A Microphone – Atlanta"
http://funkatopia.com/funk-concert-reviews/review-prince-piano-a-microphone-atlanta/

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution, or the AJC as they seem to prefer now:
http://buzz.blog.ajc.com/2016/04/15/the-photos-people-managed-to-take-at-the-prince-concert-in-atlanta/
http://music.blog.ajc.com/2016/04/14/concert-review-prince-enchants-at-intimate-fox-theatre-show/

My take?  First of all, the 7p show that I went to was only 1 hour, 15 minutes (yes, I timed it).  1:20, as mentioned in both reviews above, is being generous.


I thought that the sound was horrible, as bad as any concert I've ever been to.  My post title tells the story.  It didn't come across at intimate at all the way the piano was over-amplified.  The bass portion of the keyboard was horrifically distorted, and drowned out Prince's voice, which was in great form by the way.

I particularly liked "Nothing Compares 2 U" and "I Feel 4 U."  Not a surprise given my post yesterday, I suppose.  "I Would Die 4 U" was a lot of fun, too.

The show ended unexpectedly early, and the Fox Theatre didn't seem to realize he was done at first.  Lights stayed dim for a while fans chanted for another encore.  "Purple Rain" was a common chant.  But after a while the lights came up abruptly and fans were asked to exit.  Very awkward, amateurish really.

Lesson learned: Don't go to the early show.  You won't get the full experience.


I looked around to find a Prince song to link to here.  Very few results.  Okay, so Prince doesn't seem to allow his videos on YouTube.  But he did do a Super Bowl halftime show a few years back.  And the NFL posted it, so I'll go with that video here.  I don't usually think much of such shows, but I thought Prince did a really good job, even though it was in the rain.

Prince Performs “Purple Rain” During Downpour | Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show | NFL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NN3gsSf-Ys

Song of the Day: Prince (and Sinead O'Connor) - Nothing Compares To You

In preparation for Prince's concert tonight in Atlanta I was watching a documentary him, and they mentioned how he was a very good songwriter.  Interestingly, they said that he seemed to do better writing for women!

"Prince In The 1980's - Full Movie"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRNYiFxR2Ps

Listen at 56:09, to see how he wrote "Manic Monday" for The Bangles.

Then listen at 57:40 for this:
"Isn't it interesting that Prince wrote so well for women.  His big hit covers are by women.  His range and his attitude suited the female voice."

Why do I find this interesting?  Because I seem to prefer female singers to male singers ... yet I love Prince.  Maybe that's the reason!

The documentary made another good point at 58:22.  "Sometimes he did not do the best versions of his songs."  They were talking about this song in particular:
"prince & candy dufler nothing compares 2 u"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHV-rd4Ey0o

You probably remember this version, which is simply fabulous:
"Sinead o' Connor - Nothing Compares to You (Best Quality)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB1TKw8_b1s