Her favorite album of 2010

"I made a mistake today" starts 'Weightless,' a 17-year-old song re-recorded more recently for 'Boduvt,' the album from Agents of Venus released earlier this year. The words are sung by Allen Towbin in a sort of ethereal way over a progressive sort of guitar arpeggio that hails from a happy-enough G major chord yet still sounds ominous. The overall effect is to suggest a very bad mistake indeed; even after several listens, even knowing where the lyrics are actually going, it is still difficult to hear Towbin sing that line without imagining the song unfolding like a musical version of Taxi Driver.

But that's not the direction in which 'Weightless' goes; that would be too easy for Phil Ristaino, my good friend and favorite lyricist of all time. Instead, the song continues thusly:

I made a mistake today
And gave my whole life away
To shoulder the burden of your trust
I don't care you think I'm wrong
I'd rather be left alone
Sifting the sand for light in dust

'Boduvt' is a big beast of a record, my favorite released this year, with a wide mix of pop and rock styles, expert playing by gifted musicians on inspired songwriting, and always the lyrics, which are never what the seem except for how they so often seem to be brilliant. Phil has begun posting them over at the site, when you can also hear most of the album. (Pro tip: A good introductory sampler would include Fall Off the Earth, Stereo, The Post Relevant Movement, and, of course, Weightless.) Phil was kind enough to write a few billion words for me about the making of the album and just what the hell he means on it.

* * *

Q: 'Weightless' is 17 years old. Was there any debate about re-recording it and putting it on the album, or was it universally popular?

Can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point?

I struggle with my feelings about organized religion. A Reform Jew, I enjoyed my Temple experiences as a kid and teen. Then I stopped being observant (even for a Reform Jew) because I didn't like the menu choices for Passover. Which just goes to reinforce the degree to which my feelings about organized religion are not about organized religion but about me. Now I'm raising a son to be a Reform Jew, thanks to a very giving Catholic wife. And I don't feel like my Temple/Hebrew School/etc. experiences scarred me in any way, short of maybe making it impossible for my heart to ever side with my head and go full agnostic with a side of atheism. I can't point to anything I was ever taught at Temple that I really disagree with.

Like many of the people I despise (or whatever), my feelings about my own organized religion differ from my feelings about other organized religions. I know my fair share of friends and family who are deeply religious (well, the fair share for someone from the Northeast; probably a Bible Belter would have different ideas), and I worry sometimes that my concern for them is symptomatic of some kind of Squeaky Wheel syndrome. I have no issue with someone who takes great strength from their faith, especially in times of need. No, I have an issue with someone who won't shut up about God/Jesus. I don't think it's polite to subject others to constant outbursts about any passion to begin with, really; if someone doesn't respond enthusiastically to my "How 'bout those Patriots!" I'm not going to keep saying it. Worse, these people turn out to be human as the next guy, usually, and there's an especially rotten element, for me, to the person who talks about living up to Jesus's ideals but consistently has trouble walking the walk. These people, of course, deserve all the slack for their failings that I would hope to get for mine, but I find it hard to be that generous with someone who acts like they are asking themselves what Jesus would do at every turn and then sharing their answers with the rest of us.

As I mentioned, this is all likely unfair, at least a little. How many deeply religious people do I know who do not talk about it constantly? (And clearly, I am thinking of organized religion here at an interpersonal level; religious extremism is a much more serious charge for which organized religion has to answer, but not the one that interests me today.)

I also think organized religion gets used as a mental crutch. In the U.S., at least, there are far too many people who are against certain rights of the disenfranchised because their priest/minster/pope/whatever said to be, or because the rest of their congregation is. How many of these people, outside of the influence of their particular organized religion (but rather applying their own interpretations of Jesus's teachings), might have been more human in this way? But they never had a chance.

When I have arguments with the voices inside my head on this subject, they tend to ask me what business it is of mine, my last point notwithstanding. If I want some Southerners to stop worrying about a bunch of gays and pregnant women they don't know, and what those gays and women want to do, probably I should stop worrying about a bunch of Southerners I don't know and what they think, although that's a particularly tough Mobius strip from which to find the exit. This issue excepted, though, the voices ask, what is it to me if some minds seemingly got warped by some reverend?

And that's when some doofus GOP Representative steps in to crystalize the issue. Thanks, doofus!

We've missed you. Have you missed me?

Backstory here: Apparently Sarah Palin's stupid reality show is about to start airing, and someone at Huffington Post was nice enough to watch it so we didn't have to. The incredibly stupid quote that follows is the incredibly stupid Palin on her seemingly stupid family's reaction to writer Joe McGinniss's moving in next door while working on a book about her: They put up a fence, prompting Palin to wane poetic. Now she's explaining that they otherwise would have had to stop doing whatever they were doing before, which, wouldn't you like to know, amiright? Anyway, Palin, big thinker that she is, is ready to lead again, with the help of her magic fence:

"I thought that was a good example, what we just did," she says. "Others can look at it and say oh this is what we need to do to secure our nation's border."

Because, you know, it's the same thing.

Dear bigots

Thank you for voicing all of your stupid opinions on the 'Ground Zero Mosque' that is not a mosque, or at Ground Zero, or a hell a lot of your business. Those of us who actually work with or are friends with Muslims have really enjoyed being embarrassed by our more 'patriotic' fellow citizens. If you'd like to give Muslims, gays, and your other frequent targets a break, I will volunteer for a return to the good old days, and some tried and true Jew baiting.

Yer pal
Troy

Not a joke

The Polish have this very nice custom, as do some Spanish cultures and no doubt others, where you can tack letters on to a name to make it a diminutive to express affection; Aneta becomes Anetka, for example, the way my wife and her family tack on an -ito or -ita. I think this is something we should adopt here in the U.S. That way, I could call you Anetka to let you know that I'm fond of you, or call you Aneta to let you know I think you're an asshole.

A little love and understanding

Let me see if I've got this straight: George Steinbrenner's dead. He was an enormous asshole, I didn't know him, and now he's dead, just like just about everybody else who was ever born. He was a dink who wasn't as important as he thought he was except in a very small sphere, and even there he wasn't as important as he thought he was except that he wouldn't shut the hell up, the way a tooth you otherwise needn't pay much attention to could suddenly become important by sheer dint of how much it was annoying you. That about cover it?

Analyses of Frost's Mending Wall from eliteskills.com users

I really like what seems to be the central question - the speaker's willingness to go deeper in asking why he does this every year. Why do fences make good neighbours? What are we walling in, and what are we walling out? The missed conversation is the point at which the speaker and his neighbour could truly become better friends, and the darkness he speaks of later could be lifted.

At the time of publishing Frost was living in England with his family, having moved there a year before (in 1913). At this point in history the world was gearing up for the first world war, and perhaps the two neighbours are Britain and Germany, who had an arms race from 1912 onwards. Frost could be questioning why there always has to be separation and competition in society, and whether it is or isn't necessary. The wall keeps breaking as the tension between the two nation heats up, and at some point someone is going to try and knock down the wall, possibly an allegory for invasion. "Good fences make good neighbours" could simply mean it is important to stay out of one another's way. Obviously that is what kicks off the war when a nation executes Ferdinand. It could quite easily be compared and contrasted with Frost's 'Neither Out Far Nor In Deep'.

We think the poem mending walls is about ponies and his desperation to have a pony.

I believe that this poem is much deeper than the surface. if you look at the time this poem was written World War one had just started and the cival war was only fourty years prior. I see this as Frost's way to look at segergation.

i think,this famous poem of frost has more deeper meaning. poem not only after the good fences make good neighbors it is also up to something.!

If Frost lived where i do with punk ass neighbor kids leaving their shit in my yard[toys, bikes, footballs etc] he would burn that poem

I personally believe that educated people read poems. Poems are art and if you cannot appreciate them then you need to shut the hell up. You guys are idiots... I love Robert Frost. If you want a life lesson read "The Road Not Taken".

I think that Robert Frost doesnt really like his neighbor at all. I think that he just uses the "spring-mending time" as a chance to mess with hie neighbor. For *-sake he wants his neighbor to think that Faires are the ones tearing down the wall. (I have no problem with Faires either. They are awesome!!) Whats up with this Liam dude anyways???

Did anyone ever think that perhaps there is no neighbor? there is just the wall. Maybe Frost was being more literal than one may believe at first. Maybe, the wall literally made a good neighbor too him. The supposed neighbor character says practically nothing throughout the whole poem except that "good fences make good neighbors" which could have easily been not the voice of the character but rather the narrator's opinion of the wall. I believe that another valid interpretation could be that Frost is speaking to the wall and not the neighbor and addressing it with confusion about it's existence and why it separates him from from the rest of the world. perhaps the wall is a metaphor for the barriers between mankind such as race or religion which nature, in the form of the swollen, frozen, earth is trying to eliminate so that mankind may be one.

kill robert frost.. kill his neighbors and destroy the wall.... jajajaja...
by zombies....
ive gonna eat your brains...

This poem talks of various barriers that man has created among themselves to separate from one another. The barriers may be race, caste, religion, colour, etc. Nature does not approve this artifictial separation. It wants man to be united not be separated. Man tries to get separated going against the wish of nature. 'The wall' symbolises these barriers while 'the something' symbolises nature.

this poem is about keeping a wall between you and your wife

Here there are no cows

Our girl gets a new neighbor -- a journalist (if you want to take her at her word):

Welcome, Joe! It’ll be a great summer – come borrow a cup of sugar if ever you need some sweetener. And you know what they say about “fences make for good neighbors”? Well, we’ll get started on that tall fence tomorrow ...

Dear Copernicus

Please, for the love of God: Stay the hell out of the poetry. At the very least, ask an assistant who knows where a bookstore is to get you Cliffs Notes.

Yer pal
troy

Classing up the place

Sure, you should watch this. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen Colbert do, the Daily Show do, the funniest thing I've seen probably since Monty Python. It might not look like much, or as much, now, because it set the template for every Daily Show piece in the 10 years since it aired. So you should watch it, yeah. But mostly, I'm just linking to it so that I can watch it whenever I want.

The Cooperation Nazi

I'll admit to being paralyzed the last couple of weeks; with the healthcare reform 'negotiations,' there really has been too much preposterousness for me to process, much less post. But back on the horse with everyone's favorite totally not-senile recent presidential candidate, John McCain, speaking today on repercussions:

"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."

Um, two questions: Was there cooperation before this? Because I think I missed it. And "for the rest of the year"? Seriously? Was there a meeting, at which this time frame was agreed upon? Did they put Mr. Happy Fun Guy in charge of making that decision? Who's got the fly-on-the-wall stuff here?

My absolute favorite euphemism ever

... comes from Tom Schaller at fivethirtyeight.com, and it needed a perfect storm to come into being:

Those qualifiers aside, in 10 of the top 12 Senate race states, Democrats are in a better registration situation today than they were going into the 2004 elections. The two exceptions—Arkansas and Kentucky--are not particularly surprising, given that they include many of those 22 percent of the counties nationally where Obama underperformed relative to John Kerry in 2004.

I'm a great admirer of artfully constructed sentences, and this guy is my new hero. He takes the state of the economy in 2004, the state of the economy in 2008, George W. Bush's performance in his second term as president, John Kerry's appeal as a presidential candidate, and Barack Obama's appeal as a candidate running against John McCain and Sarah Palin, and somehow comes out of it with the new Some of my best friends are black. "I'm not racist; I just happen to live in a county where Obama underperformed relative to John Kerry in 2004!" That's exactly how I would say it. You know. If I were racist.

Riiiiight ...

Thanks for that, Miss.

About a Train

When I lived in the next town over, I took a train that got in to the lower level of Grand Central. We would all trudge upstairs to get to the grand concourse or whatever it's called -- the main part of the terminal. You were an ant in a line, next to other lines of ants, with some man or woman's ass in your face as he climbed the stairs in front of you, and all that implies. It felt kind of 1984, although I haven't read that novel in a couple of years, so maybe I've got the message wrong.

Now I live in the town next to the next town over, and there's a different train that gets in to the main level. You get out of the train and go on your way. You don't feel like Winston. (Or O'Brien, depending on your job.) Just those 60 seconds you save not going up those stairs anymore, along with that sense of conformity and confinement, turn out to make a world of difference -- perceptually, anyway. And I guess that's what I'm wondering. Am I a blind chump, thinking that my day is materially different for forgoing that one minute that used to start it? Or is a large part of life genuinely these little differences?

That's not really 'Little Kobe' ...

RUN!!!!!!! RUN, ABBY CADABBY, RUN!!!!! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!!