The Band of a Lifetime--A Loooooooong Post

People of the Solipsist's generation have grown up with U2.   Their first album, Boy, was released in 1980, when the Solipsist himself was on the cusp of adolescence.  They've been a part of the landscape ever since.

War (1983): U2 Is Gay!

We don't express it like that.  That's what we think, though.  U2 is for girls.  Little sisters try to convince us U2 is important: "Did you know that 'New Year's Day' is about Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and blah blah blah."  We know what's really going on.  What they really mean is that Bono is sooooooooo cute!  "New Year's Day" is kind of catchy, though.   And the drums at the opening of "Sunday Bloody Sunday."  "Men at Work," now, THAT's a cool band.

The Unforgettable Fire (1984): The World's Biggest Underground Band

"And did you know," the little sisters go on, "that 'In the Name Love' is about Martin Luther King!"  Yeah, yeah.  They're still just drooling over Bono.  Still, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" does have one of the great intros of any rock song ever.  It never sounds quite right live, though.  And then there's "Bad," Bono staking his claim to "rock's greatest screamer."  (He's no Daltrey, but he has his moments.)  In the meantime, we toil through adolescence, the radio always on in the background.  The soundtrack of our lives takes shape.

The Joshua Tree (1987): World Domination

"With or Without You" is one of those songs that you know that, years later, you'll remember where you were when you first heard it.  The Solipsist is a freshman at Syracuse University.  Just returning to the dorm room and flipping on the radio.  The song is actually ending.  Still, the pulsing, yearning bass line, Edge's playful guitar weaving in and out.  Hooked.

U2 is coming to town!  No point even trying to tickets, right?  Still, what the hell, the Carrier Dome's on the way.  Might as well just check out the box office.  No line!  Are there still tickets?  There are!

You take your best friend to the show, and she manages to lose her ticket in the bathroom (thankfully, after you've passed through the gate, so no harm done).  Everyone slightly buzzed.  Once the show starts, no one sits down for the next two hours--except, strangely, for the people behind US.  They sit like they're at the philharmonic.  They don't complain about us standing and blocking their view, so, no biggie.  Still, it's odd.

Achtung Baby (1991): Reinvention

For months, ahead of the album's release, the rumors buzz:  U2 has gone disco!  They're making a dance album!  In fact, Achtung Baby is nothing so much as a middle finger to the critics who mock U2 for their earnestness.  "Fine," the album seems to say, "You think we're fake?  You think we're nothing but a social-protest group whose act has gotten stale?  You think we've gone commercial?  Well, here you go.  We're U2.  We can do anything we want.  And when we sell out, it's gonna be the greatest fuckin' sell-out in the history of rock and roll!"

You either love it or you hate it.  The first release from the album, "The Fly," strikes some as "overproduced."  If this is the new direction--this techno-pop electronica--we're not sure how we feel about it.  Soon enough, though, we hear the rest of the album.  As "One" comes to an end, the DJ rhapsodizes, "Well, there's a song you could listen to about 900,000 times!"  He's right.

The soundtrack of our lives gains a new depth.

Pop (1997): Well, It Was Fun while It Lasted

After tolerating Zooropa (1993), which at least has its moments, you pick up what seems to be U2's swan song.  Pop is. . . well, it's pretty awful.  While U2 can probably WRITE pop songs, one wonders why they would want to.  Are they being ironic?  At a music awards show, U2 performs.  Bono comes out in some kind of hooded sweatshirt and rasps his way through "If God Will Send His Angels."

It's time to put away childish things:  comic books, living at home, and, apparently, U2.  You are a grown up.  You're married.  Musically, you've embraced the sublimity of Elvis Costello, and you've wrapped yourself in the smug superiority that comes with being able to throw out casual references to Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen.  U2--you can be nostalgic about them.  "Boy, I remember seeing them at Syracuse back when they were good!"  You hope they'll just pack it in and wait for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000): Resurrection

So U2's coming out with a new album?  Why?

You resolve not to buy it.  Why bother?  Still, from the first shimmery chords of "Beautiful Day," you sense there's something different about this one.  It's not until you first hear "Walk On," though, that you give in and decide to buy it.  They're back.

The album is both a return to their roots and a creative leap forward.  "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out of"--what a horrible, unwieldy title.  Still, it's not quite like any other rock song you've ever heard: The melody--between "You've got to get yourself together/You've got" and "stuck in a moment and now you can't get out of it"--does something strange and inexplicable, going down when it SHOULD go up--or something (you wish you had the musical vocabulary to explain this better).  But it works!

And then 9/11, and music seems briefly more relevant---everything is briefly more relevant after 9/11.  And you put your finger on it: The songs are sad; they're dark; yet they all seem to contain a glimmer of hope--a little bit of joy beneath the minor keys.  Things are bad, but your band is still there.  Life goes on, and the soundtrack of your life goes on, too.

How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004): Deification

Bush somehow wins a second term.  U2 seems more relevant, more necessary, than it has in a long time.  "With a mouth full of teeth / You ate all your friends / And you broke every heart thinking every heart mends," Bono sings, a suitable indictment of the current American regime.  He continues, "Where you live should not decide / Whether you live or whether you die."  So, "St. Bono," as he's called by the snarky media, continues his quest to cure the world's ills.  Now, however, he's more than a protest singer: He's meeting with presidents and popes; he's traveling the world with Jeffrey Sachs to discuss ways to cure world poverty; he's guest editing magazines and writing op-eds to highlight the needs of those whom society overlooks.  (A satirical headline in "The Onion": "Rest of U2 Perfectly Fine with Africans Starving.")  Bono is rumored to be in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize (as Bob Dylan is rumored to be up for the Nobel in Literature.  It will be interesting to see who wins one first).

No Line on the Horizon (2009): Where to?

Following their strategy from Achtung Baby U2 releases "Get on Your Boots"--a decidedly mediocre song as the first single from the latest album.  Also like Achtung Baby, though, the album has plenty of goodies tucked into it.  But it hardly matters at this point.

Who is the greatest band in the history of rock and roll?  Of course, the Beatles are sui generis, but after that, the picture gets a little cloudy.  Most would say there is a fairly fixed pantheon of bands that deserve to be in the conversation.  Beyond the Beatles, you usually have Led Zeppelin (obviously), The Who (well, OK), and the Rolling Stones.

(Digression: Personally, the Solipsist thinks the Stones are a overrated.  They've undoubtedly had some great songs, but they haven't done anything really important since the early 80's--if then.  End of digression.)

But what about U2?  They've been at it for thirty years, now, and show no signs of letting up.  They've stuck together.  If they do engage in ego-related spats, they keep it all under the radar, the Edge, Adam, and Larry apparently perfectly fine with deferring to Bono as their face and voice.  And most importantly, they are still creating, still evolving, still looking for something new to say musically.

The Solipsist takes comfort in this.  For our generation, for better or for worse--for better AND for worse--U2 has provided and continues to provide the soundtrack of our lives.  It's good to think that the soundtrack will continue to be composed as we travel at least a little further down the road.

Kirsten's Choice

"You have the right to an attorney."  As any U.S. citizen--or anyone who's seen an episode of "Law and Order"--knows, the right to legal representation is a cornerstone of the American judicial system.  And not only is everyone entitled to a lawyer, but anyone accused of a crime is entitled to a competent lawyer.  No simple country chickens can stand before the bar pleading someone's case.  ("Futurama" reference.  Sorry.)

The Solipsist thought of this when he read a lengthy front-page article in today's Times, imputing something scandalous in the fact that the newly appointed Senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand, served as a lawyer for the tobacco industry.  Somehow, this fact merited a four-page (in the internet version) investigation.  (By way of comparison, on the same page, a report of the increasing collaboration between Afghan and Pakistani elements of the Taliban--literally a life-and-death matter to Americans today--merited only two pages.) 

The gist of the article was that Gillibrand worked for a law firm that was a major player in the defense of "Big Tobacco" against government lawsuits.   Apparently, Gillibrand did her job well.  She was seen as a "rising star" by many of her clients and colleagues.  (Indeed, considering her current position, this was an accurate assessment.)

The tone of the article, however, suggested that Gillibrand had done something wrong.  Much was made of the fact, for example, that her law firm had a policy that would have allowed a lawyer to recuse herself from the case if she had strong moral objections to big tobacco.  Gillibrand's non-recusal, therefore, is somehow the equivalent of a moral "endorsement" of the tobacco companies.

The Solipsist is certainly no fan of the tobacco industry.  Still, he cannot find it in his heart to condemn a young lawyer for doing her job.  Could she have refused to participate?  Sure.  Would this have had negative repercussions for her career?  Officially, no, but let's be realistic: How bright is the future likely to be for a young lawyer who refuses a plum assignment for some of her firm's most major clients?  And once she accepted the case, was she not legally, professionally--indeed, ethically--required to provide the strongest defense possible?

While we could wish that a tough attorney's clients were all innocent exemplars of moral fiber, we all realize that this is not going to be the case.  In short, far from convincing this reader of Senator Gillibrand's ethical dubiousness, the article proved to the Solipsist that New York has a good attorney filling Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.  What more could one ask for?

Choosing Sides

What is with people today?

If you've been following the news, you've probably heard about the recent cop-killings in Oakland.  If not, a brief summary:

Last Saturday, after a routine traffic stop, one Lovelle Mixon opened fire on the two motorcycle cops who had pulled him over, killing them both.  He then fled into an apartment building.  The SWAT team was called in.  During an ensuing firefight, Mixon shot two more policemen, one of whom was killed instantly, and another who died a few days later.  Mixon, unsurprisingly, was also killed.

Overall, the reactions of local citizens have been overwhelmingly supportive of the slain police and their families.  Some Oakland residents, particularly people of color, have mixed their sympathy with criticism of the police, who have, assuredly, used some heavy-handed tactics against the citizenry--again, particularly people of color.  In fact, in another case that has received some national attention, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Police shot and killed an unarmed man--a man who was handcuffed at the time--at a train station early on New Year's Day.  (For what it's worth, one should mention that the BART Police and the Oakland Police Department are separate and unrelated entities.)  So it is only too understandable why Oakland residents are somewhat leery of the police, and even why some might think--in some way--that the cops who died at the hands of Mixon somehow "had it coming"; that they were paying a debt (if only a karmic debt) for crimes committed by their fellow officers.

But what leads to outrage is the sight of marchers in Oakland who were not just protesting police violence, but who were actually honoring Lovelle Mixon as a victim of the system!  A freakin' martyr!  Understand, this was a man who was on parole after serving five years for armed carjacking.  A man whose DNA has been linked to the rape of a twelve-year-old girl.  No matter how you feel about police--and even if you think that these officers deserved what they got--do you really want to carry around pictures in support of this guy?  What's your argument: "He's not so bad.  After all, it's not like he raped an ELEVEN-year-old girl."

Don't people understand that in our media-saturated age, one of the easiest ways to undermine any chance of your argument being taken seriously is to link it to the wrong images?  What could be legitimate grievances are thereby instantly diminished in the court of public opinion.

The saddest point is that now, some of the liberal voices who would normally be standing with the victims of police brutality, will shy away from their side, remembering them as the people who celebrated a cop-killing rapist as a tribune of the people.

Bergeron's World

In 1961, Kurt Vonnegut published "Harrison Bergeron."  In this story, America has become a politically correct nightmare society: Everyone is equal.  And, unlike the pigs in Animal Farm, no one is more equal than others.  To ensure this, anyone with above-average qualities is hobbled by the authorities.  The strong are forced to wear heavily-weighted boots and other impedimenta, so as to bring them down to a baseline level; the eponymous protagonist's father, a man of above-average intelligence, is subjected to jarring noises sent through an earpiece so as to prevent him from forming dangerously intellectual ideas.

But in this world where no one is allowed to rise above anyone else, the one who must be most forcefully pushed down is Harrison Bergeron:

"Nobody had ever borne heavier handicaps. . . .  Instead of a little ear radio for a mental handicap, he wore a tremendous pair of earphones, and spectacles with thick wavy lenses. . . . Scrap metal was hung all over him. . . . In the race of life, Harrison carried three hundred pounds."

The reason for such handicaps becomes apparent when Harrison sheds his extra baggage on national television.  The audience sees standing before it a god among men: incredibly strong, unfathomably graceful, unbearably handsome.  Before Harrison can complete his revolution, though, he is struck down by a shotgun blast from the "Handicapper General."  The story is set in the year 2081.

Vonnegut was off by a few decades.

The Solipsist was reminded of "Harrison Bergeron" today.  A bit of background:  YNSHC works at a college and chairs a committee charged with developing programs to assist students in need of skills development.  At the moment, while the rest of the economy is crashing and burning, this committee finds itself in the odd position of having lots of money to spend.  The only catch is that the money must be spent by the end of June, or the college must return it.

Well, this real-life "Brewster's Millions" scenario is not too bad.  In fact, this committee had a perfect use for these one-time funds: We would purchase a very high-class software system that provides instructional support in math, reading, and writing, to students ranging in ability from elementary school all the way up through junior college.  English teachers loved it.  Math teachers loved it.  Administrators loved it.

Of course, there was a catch.

The Solipsist was told today by the office for students with disabilities that the program was not "508 compliant."  "508" refers to the section of the federal code that deals with people with disabilities.  Essentially, it says that any organization that receives ANY federal money (which is just about ANY public institution) must ensure that all services are accessible to all people, regardless of disability.

OK.  Seems reasonable as far as it goes.  So what's wrong with this piece of software?

Well, people with visual impairments wouldn't be able to use it.

But, the program has a feature that will actually read the text on screen out loud.

Well, yes, but a blind person wouldn't be able to position the cursor over the icon to turn on the "voice" without assistance.

!!!!!

So, to sum up: This software program, which would potentially benefit almost every student at the college--including the VAST majority of students with disabilities--is verboten because a relative handful of students MIGHT have difficulty using it.

In what universe does this make sense?

Understand, the Solipsist is all for access.  He believes that everyone should have the opportunity to get an education regardless of age, race, sex, ethnicity, or disability!  

(Digression: Height's another story: The short can drop dead for all YNSHC is concerned!  End of digression.)

But how does it help the visually impaired that the college is not able to purchase this software--which may even BECOME compliant with the legislation before too much longer?  Isn't this cutting off the nose to spite the face?  Not even Harrison Bergeron had to cut off his nose!

. . .And Architecture is a Slingshot

Technology has been described as a double-edged sword.  

(Digression: This is true.  After all, double-edged swords AE technology.  Agriculture, interestingly, is a single-edged sword.  Animal husbandry is a trebuchet.  Marine biology is a blowgun. . . . End of Digression.)

Technology provides immense benefits, but it also has immense drawbacks.  In addition to the ever-present and obvious possibility of nuclear self-annihilation, one of the most pernicious effects of technology is the effect it has on its users--the effect of learned helplessness.   To wit, Emi Ha (Questions, Comments, Complaints) is having Tom-Tom issues.  (One assumes she is referring to the navigational device and not the primitive drum.)

For those of you not following her blog: Shame on you!  Start immediately.  In the meantime, though, the Solipsist will summarize: Emi Ha is a directionally challenged Canadian transplant, who is somewhat lost now that her trusty Tom Tom has decided to go on the fritz.  It is doubtful whether she will be able to leave the house, and, since she has two small children who probably count on her for food, this could be a serious problem once the refrigerator is empty.  We will keep our loyal readers posted on her progress.

The reason the Solipsist is spending so much time summarizing another blog is that he has absolutely no idea what to write about.

Well, that's not true.

He HAD nothing to write about until Emi Ha's post got him thinking about technology dependency.  Tom Tom, of course, for the directionally challenged (although so far the Solipsist is perfectly happy with Yahoo! Maps--not that that's any less technologically dependent).  What about cell phones?  Sure, they're convenient, and one could now hardly imagine being without one, but that's not the scary part.  The scary part is this:

Quick: What's your home phone number?

OK, you knew that one (probably).

What's your Mom's number?

The Solipsist knows the answer to this because HIS mother hasn't moved since the Solipsist was five years old.  Indeed, he still knows by heart his best friend's childhood phone number: (718) 830-0434.  But if YOUR parents are divorced, and your father has moved since you were a child (or at least since you first started using cell phones), then the Solipsist is willing to make a small wager that YOUR father has the same phone number as HIS father: "Dad."  Such are the mixed blessings of cellphone address books.  YNSHC has this recurring fear of being arrested.  The police offer him his one phone call but DON'T allow him to use his cellphone.  What if he can't remember the number?

And what about computer dependence.  Since the beginning of this year, a legion of poor benighted souls have been. . . un-nighted?. . . thanks to the Solipsist's guidance.  But what if he can't get to a computer?  What if YOU can't?  For that matter, the person behind the Solipsist (and for that matter WOS, as well) has probably written more in the last three months than he had in the previous ten years.  Why?  Because blogging makes it easy.  The thought of writing outside of the comforting borders of a Google template has become daunting.

The Solipsist recommends that every day you take the opportunity to do something without the aid of modern technology for which you COULD use modern technology.  Dial a number without using your cellphone's speed dial.  Look up a word in an actual (as opposed to virtual) dictionary.  Type on a typewriter (assuming you can still find one).

And, what the heck, now that you've finished reading today's Solipsist, turn off the computer for a little while!

See you tomorrow.

Colbert Update; Thoughts on Writing

Stephen Colbert won the contest to name the room on the Space Station.  His write-in candidacy trumped all of NASA's recommendations--"Serenity" came closest, but Colbert beat it by some 40,000 votes.  It's still up in the air, however, as to whether NASA will accept the public's choice.  Perhaps NASA is hoping for a victory in the electoral college?

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You will note that the Solipsist is currently reading The Well-Crafted Sentence: A Writer's Guide to Style.  This is not an attempt at self-improvement (of course, if it happens, it happens).  Rather, it is homework.  YNSHC is looking into replacing the textbook for a writing class.  Currently, he uses Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams.  A fine little book, but ridiculously overpriced.  No word yet on the price of the book currently under consideration, but it might be time for a change anyway.

Can style be taught?  OTHER people's style, maybe.  Style can be developed, of course.  And what the Solipsist likes about the above-mentioned books is that they take a somewhat "mechanistic" approach to the development of writing style.  They demystify the process so that people can look at writing in terms of its constituent parts: words, phrases, clauses, sentences.  Style, after all, is choice (as a former writing teacher said).  And in order to speak intelligently about style, one must be able to articulate the choices a writer is making.

For example: The Solipsist likes to begin sentences with coordinating conjunctions  ('and,' 'but,' etc.), even though many writing teachers will tell you (wrongly) that this is not allowed.  Yes, yes, it is a practice best used sparingly and strategically.  But YNSHC likes it nonetheless.  Another stylistic tic of YNSHC is a tendency to lapse into the passive voice.  This is partly due to the affectation of avoiding the first-person singular ('I').  It--the passive voice--does, however,  worm its way into the postings with somewhat disturbing regularity.  Perhaps an unfortunate consequence of the Solipsist's time in academia.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the "passive voice"--or with any other rhetorical construction--as long as one is employing it consciously.  

(Digression: "There is" is a distinctly weak way to begin a sentence.)

(And, to the extent possible, one should avoid the weak-chinned "is" as the main verb in a clause.  End of Digression.)

Again, style is choice.  The point of most writing instruction--at least in the experience of YNSHC--is simply to get students to think carefully about the choices they make.  Far too many students enter writing classes thinking that writing just "happens"--that you're either gifted or not.  They have little idea that they themselves are the sole determiners of whether a piece of writing makes sense or evokes a response, to say nothing of a desired response.  The more a teacher can demystify the process, the better.

So It Goes

"What a mistake we [humans] are.  We have mortally wounded this sweet life-supporting planet."

--Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

And Vonnegut was a humanist.

Toward the end of his life, though, he was also quite the misanthrope.  One can hardly blame him.  This was a man who, as a German POW, famously survived the bombing of Dresden in WWII--an act of barbarity that never stopped haunting him.  At the time his final book, A Man Without a Country, was published in 2005, the US was in its fourth year of Bush's regime, the fourth year of post-9/11 paranoia, and the 2nd year of the war in Iraq.  Who could blame him for feeling blue?

Still, there is something uniformly depressing about the mini-essays in this last book.  One would like to think that Vonnegut is kidding when he describes his utter fed-up-ness with modern humanity, but the overwhelming repetition of the central complaints--people have royally screwed up, the world is going to hell, there is very little hope--disabuses one of that notion.

Was this a persona?  Was he really that depressed?  He does take time to give kind words to some of the everyday people he encounters--his family, other artists and writers, and a postal clerk with whom he has fallen in love (silently, platonically, of course--Vonnegut was no elderly lecher).  Regardless, though, the reader often feels he is being browbeaten by a truly decent if overbearingly strident liberal scold.

Vonnegut was a great American writer, and he deserves his place in any pantheon of 20th-century men of letters.  As an atheistic humanist, he said that the funniest joke one could make upon his death was to say, "Well, Kurt Vonnegut is in heaven now."  But if there is a heaven for a humanist, it's probably just the act of living on in the fond memories and esteem held by those fellow apes who survived him, i.e, us. 

So let's forgive Vonnegut his curmudgeonly final words.  He's earned them.  Still, the Solipsist cannot whole-heartedly recommend A Man Without a Country.  Dust off your copy of Slaughter-House Five or Cat's Cradle instead.