The next 5 songs are from the 2002 edition of my Valentine’s Day CD.  This was the 3rd year that I celebrated V-Day & made a CD, which I gave to my favorite female friends.  Someday I hope to have my own Valentine…

Versions of love – some innocent or platonic, some not

Succulent – Bif Naked (Bif Naked, © 1994)

…I want to be your entire world…
…you make me feel, succulent…
…let me show you how to kiss me better…

An incredile song by an incredible woman.

Valentine’s Day 2002  song 4 of 20

Went to see Bif live in Madison, WI on a school night a couple of years back.  Only time I have done such a thing, which is good since the car broke down on the way home.

This is how I want to make someone else feel; someone who also makes me feel succulent.

New Year’s Eve about 11:30 PM

your next bold move – ani difranco (gascd, © 2001 / reckoning, © 2001)

Listening to this on the gascd.  Think I’ll start with this – it says a great deal about how I feel…

1 Jan 02 Listening to Call It Democracy & went out to see the moon & sky.  Quiet out, kind of a shame but I hope it stays that way!  Put on A new millennium… to quiet things down, gascd was a little too lively for just prior to bed.  This was the 1st time in several years that I stayed up past midnight on New Year’s Eve.

5 Jan  Where did my America go?  We are all complicit!  Thank you Dr. Stivers!  I can now verbalize so many more of my thoughts.

The dream vs. history/reality of the America I come to find after being indoctrinated, 1st in school, then in the military.  Where is & what happened to “My America?”  But Ani sums it up better.  (Could also be used to illustrate a lot else.)

coming of age during the plague
of reagan and bush
watching capitalism gun down democracy
it had this funny effect on me
i guess

i am cancer
i am HIV
and i’m down at the blue jesus
blue cross hospital
just lookin’ up from my pillow
feeling blessed

and the mighty multinationals
have monopolized the oxygen
so it’s as easy as breathing
for us all to participate

yes they’re buying and selling
off shares of air
and you know it’s all around you
but it’s hard to point and say "there"

so you just sit on your hands
and quietly contemplate
your next bold move
the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable
and sell them to seagulls flying in circles
around one big right wing
yes, the left wing was broken long ago
by the slingshot of cointelpro
and now it’s so hard to have faith in
anything
especially your next bold move
or the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself

you want to track each trickle
back to its source
and then scream up the faucet
’til your face is hoarse
cuz you’re surrounded by a world’s worth
of things you just can’t excuse
but you’ve got the hard cough of a chain smoker
and you’re at the arctic circle playing strip poker
and it’s getting colder and colder
everytime you lose

so go ahead
make your next bold move
tell us
what’s the next thing you’re gonna need to prove
to yourself

ANI ON “YOUR NEXT BOLD MOVE”

It’s one of those [songs where I'm] looking back; that’s the song that starts out, "coming of age during the plague of Reagan and Bush." Just really trying to recognize the surreal journey of, "how did we get here as a society?" 1980 and the election of Reagan really was the turning point and, I think, just started this scourge of conservativism and destruction and terror and horror that we continue to live within. Evidence: Bush II. Another thing that contributes to the deflated energy of that song is [the absence of] hopefulness about the American attention span, as dictated and decimated by the media, by television, and as controlled by corporations as it is now. Because of Ralph Nader and the Freedom of Information Act, we have all of this information, for instance, about how the FBI destroyed progressive political movements in this country — well, didn’t destroy, but completely undercut the power and the effectiveness of, and the momentum of, what was happening throughout the early and mid-seventies by infiltrating movements and creating in-fighting and destroying leaders such as Abbie Hoffman, by framing him on drug charges and making him go underground, and of course all of the dynamic political leaders of that day being shot, being just taken out of commission. Cointelpro, the consolidated effort of the FBI and the CIA and our national government to destroy the Left, had such a huge effect. And then the strong-arming of the Right, starting in the 80s, in the wake of that decimating of the Left, brought us to this pretty perilous place, where corporations do own the government, they do control our culture, they are usurping every aspect of our lives as citizens, and it’s harder and harder, like in that song, "they’re buying and selling off shares of air," and, "it’s as easy as breathing to participate." It’s so hard to begin to deconstruct that as citizens. So it’s not a happy little ditty, I guess.

Of lunacy and lunar cycles…  31 December 2001 – 2 March 2002  song 1 of 17
Philosophy and its (self-imposed?) limits  song 13 of 16  (Apr – May 2001)

My disenchantment with my country.

Warning:  Major shift coming from introduction of me to engagement with the idea started by the ‘stray’ comment. 

in or out – Ani DiFranco (imperfectly, © 1992) 

guess there’s something wrong with me
guess i don’t fit in
no one wants to touch it
no one knows where to begin

i’ve got more than one membership
to more than one club
and i owe my life
to the people that i love

some days the line i walk
turns out to be straight
other days the line tends to deviate
i’ve got no criteria for sex or race
i just want to hear your voice
i just want to see your face

i say i’ve got spots
i’ve got stripes too

their eyes are all asking
are you in or are you out
and i think, oh man
what is this about
I mean tonight you can’t put me
up on any shelf
cause i came here alone
and i’m going to leave by myself

i just want to show you
the way that i feel
and when I get tired
you can take the wheel
to me what’s more important
is the person that i bring
not just getting to the same restaurant
and eating the same thing

23 Sep  Recording.  20 Dec  I doubt if I can describe this – I just feel it in my soul… 

My lifelong feeling of being different; having differences : and a statement about conformity : and a justification for being different

Friendships ¥ Beginnings and Endings  17 July 2001 – 4 Dec 2001  song 8 of 21
Katie  Songs to help you get through the day 3 – 9 Sep 01 song 15 of 20

‘Nuff said.

Excuse Me Mr. – Ben Harper (Fight For Your Mind, © 1995)

Something that many more men need to be saying.  We need to take a stand for what is right – how we should treat each other and the world we live in.  (implies that I believe that we have oughts)

Friendships ¥ Beginnings and Endings  17 July 2001 – 4 Dec 2001  song 2 of 21

Fight For Your Mind is an incredible album.  I saw Ben 2 days in a row, at Alpine Valley, WI and Deer Creek, IN, summer 2002 touring with String Cheese Incident.  I went on what I refer to myself as My Hippie Trip Weekend, July 12-14th, 2002, with my good friend Adele.  Great time.  Good stories.  Like how I gave myself a concussion when it was 100+ degrees in Indiana but it was too hot to tell.  Being treated like scum and run off immediately at Alpine Valley after picking up the garbage.  "You can get anything you want at…"

My Friends – Dar Williams (End Of The Summer, © 1997)

…
And I know there’s all this beauty and this greatness she’ll defend,
But I think it’s in my friend.

And if I had a camera
Showing all the light we give
and showing where the light extends,
I’d give it to my friends.

Sometimes I see myself fine, sometimes I need a witness.
And I like the whole truth,
but there are nights I only need forgiveness.
Sometimes they say, “I don’t know who you are
but let me walk with you some.”
And I say, “I am alone, that’s all,
you can’t save me from all the wrong I’ve done,”

But they’re waiting just the same,
With their flashlights and their semaphores,
And I act like I have faith and like that faith never ends
But I really just have friends.

I always seem to think that I’ve shared this song more with people than I have.  I guess that it’s because I have recorded it twice & even put it on a disc I made & gave to Katie entitled Katie – Songs to help you get through the day.  I originally recorded it on Mill 7, which is just shorthand for the 7th disc I made for myself starting on 1 Jan 01.  It doesn’t even have a name yet since life just gets in my way sometimes, but was recorded from 23 May to 17 Jul 01.  2001 was a horrible year for me in many ways.  I had to choose to end what I thought was my most important relationship with someone I thought was my ‘best friend.’  Clearly, I was wrong about that, but this song was for my real friends, people like Joan, Katie, Leigh & Shane….

So here’s the note from Katie – 2 Jul  This song is so beautiful!  It makes me cry every time I listen to it.  How do I ever forget how good friends feel?

Friendship…  I appreciate wise discussions of friendship almost as much as a good friendship. 

Millennium 7  23 May – 17 Jul 2001  song 11 of 17
Katie  Songs to help you get through the day 3 – 9 Sep 01 song 11 of 20
Of lunacy and lunar cycles…  31 December 2001 – 2 March 2002  song 16 of 17

Serves as an entry to a discussion of friendship.

school night – Ani DiFranco (reckoning, © 2001)

You are are a miracle but that is not all
You are also a stiff drink and i am on call
You are a party and i am a school night
And i’m looking for my door key
But you are my porch light

…and the fact that i adore you
is but one of my truths

sadness & desire  Apr 13 – 30, 2001  song 15 of 18

27 Apr 01 / Dec 01  Tech & moral snippet –

Todorov believes that the amount of good has stayed the same during the past century, but that evil has grown.  This is another concept that I have a hard time coming to grips with.  I have absolutely no idea how to measure the value of a ‘good,’ much less to measure good (or evil) at its most abstract. 

but then what kind of scale
compares the weight of two beauties
the gravity of duties
or the ground speed of joy?
tell me what kind of gauge
can quantify elation?
what kind of equation
could i possibly employ? (DiFranco, school night)

I think he may be referring to what appears to me, at least, to be the appearance of greater evil and less good.

Why here though – to show off my soc?

Philosophy and its (self-imposed?) limits  song 8 of 16  (Apr – May 2002)

I used this song to illustrate my disagreement with Todorov as to his claim of increasing evil in my final exam for Sociology 469.04 Fall 2001 at Illinois
State University.   The notes for this one are odd because I included the notes from both uses of the song.  It was, of course, on Philosophy… because it had been used in an academic paper.  It was used in a vastly different sense on sadness & desire and resides in the complex desire half.  It is fairly evident from which lines were quoted.

I think it is here primarily because of its social aspects.  The material in this sociology course with Dr. Stivers had a profound effect on me.  I think Todorov is on the right track with his ideas on morality.  But this can be profoundly disturbing as there isn’t much in his theory to "motivate" moral behavior. 

If someone were to ask me why people behave morally, I would have to answer in two ways: first, because we feel profound joy in doing so and, second, because in doing so we conform to the very idea of humanity and so take part in the realization of that idea. (Todorov, Facing the Extreme, p. 287)

A second disturbing aspect of Todorov’s methodology is that he looks at the extreme edges of morality to find the normal.  In his case, concentration camps and totalitarianism.

My intent is to use the extreme as an instrument, a sort of magnifying glass that can bring into better focus certain things that in the normal course of human affairs remain blurry. (Todorov, p. 29)

We also read Colin Turnbull’s The Mountain People as a look at what happens when a social group undergoes complete moral breakdown.  Here’s another question I answered for the final: 2. The society of the Ik tribe as described in The Mountain People was not totalitarian. Yet moral virtue disappeared. Contrast this society with its absence of morality with the totalitarian societies Todorov describes. Why was virtue more prevalent in the
totalitarian societies?  Maybe I’ll post that someday; was considering it anyway but I guess this justifies it.

Another profoundly disturbing part of Todorov was that it was a fall semester.  Can you imagine ending a semester only to find yourself days from Christmas while dwelling and writing on this material?  Profoundly and critically important; not exactly uplifting though. 

Picked out on Saturday Evening 7 April 01

work your way out – Ani DiFranco (Ani DiFranco)

Yeah, I think this comes next…

we are all polylingual
but some of us pretend
that there is virtue in relying
on not trying to understand…

but oh how far we could go if we just started to share…

the negative philosophy, or critique : short version is about difference; long about how we choose to create the “other” & the implicit assumptions that supposedly then follow… :: the positive philosophy : on how to communicate across/despite gaps…

168 Hours… (of thunderstorms & a Full Moon)  April 1 – 7, 2001  song 14 of 21
Katie  Songs to help you get through the day 3 – 9 Sep 01 song 6 of 20

If you are observant (and care enough to be so) then you can see I was cranking out the compilations at this point in my life.  Remember that finished liner notes weren’t nearly as quick though as getting the CDs recorded.  The opening, out of place, comment about being picked out is in the original notes for 168 Hours…..  It shows that at least the last 3rd of that compilation was picked out and sequenced, and quite probably recorded, all in one evening.

There was an awful lot of things going on in my life at this point.  Some were very positive and some were just the opposite.

(Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired – Traffic (Shoot out at the fantasy factory, © 1973)  Hope

Stevie & his freaking organ!  Amazing band, amazing song! 

You’ve got to smile and turn the other cheek…
…but by tomorrow you’ll be smiling…

I’ve been listening to this song for almost 30 years now.  It has meant a variety of things to me over the years but I took it in a very hopeful sense in the early days of 2001.

Hope, Belief, Desire  how do you want to be?  Late Feb → Mar 2001  song 15 of 16

I’ve now been listening to it for over 30 years and doubt I’ll ever quit listening.  I think I wouldn’t rate it quite as hopeful now, but this hopeful interpretation from early 2001 still and will always influence any current view of its meaning in my life.  Besides, I was looking for, and far more importantly, finding hope when this was 1st put near the end of HBD.

Remember The Tinman – Tracy Chapman (New Beginning, © 1995)  Hope

“Who stole your heart or did you give it away?”
Finding it is not an all or nothing event.  It is a long, hard, painful, back-and-forth dance. 24 Feb 01

Part of you gave it away, now, part of you wants it back!  27 Feb 01
(in a related taking back control vein – see Control by Poe.)

…remember the Tinman
go find your heart and take it back… 

Hope, Belief, Desire  how do you want to be?  Late Feb → Mar 2001  song 10 of 16
Katie  Songs to help you get through the day 3 – 9 Sep 01 song 2 of 20

For this project I imagine this was about what I had given away but now wanted back.  It served as a gentle alert that my soul was having issues, but that it was on the right path because it was fighting for a way to be better.