thought dream 031809

"Let us, therefore, not look for certainty and stability." Blaise Pascal

"Gimme some of those jelly doughnuts." Elvis Presley

This early spring sunlight looks wet and underfed.

You've taken the Body of Christ and let it rest
upon your tongue.

I've taken the train from New York to Denver,
losing my coat along the way.

In Chicago.
Everything gets lost in Chicago.

We took his radio up into the attic. You played
Harlequin, and I was a dog-faced Columbine.

When the fire broke out, all the animals
in the menagerie burned to death.

Elephants, whales, lions and crocodiles
roasting alive in lower Manhattan. 1865.

Only Ned, the learned seal, was saved.
By a Brooklyn fireman.

We took his radio up into the attic. We drank
wine and danced around in our underwear.

You've taken the Body of Christ on a train to
Chicago. You've lost the Body of Christ in Chicago.

You played Harlequin, and I was the giraffe
burning alive in Barnum's American Museum.

This early spring sunlight won't stay still.
Keeps crawling through the window. Keeps
fiddling with the dials on the radio.

I left all my camping gear in Denver.
My old LPs. A battered copy of Pensées.

We lost our coat in Chicago. We lost
the early spring sunlight and the radio
and Harlequin in Chicago.

We lost New York in Chicago.
We lost everything.

Only Ned, the learned musical seal, was saved.

Rage in the Streets Over AIG

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Rage in the Streets

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Discovery

It is actually impossible to walk through mid-town Manhattan listening to Count Basie & His Orchestra play "Honeysuckle Rose" (their first recording, 1937) and not develop a jaunty stroll or break into a smile for everyone around you.

Count Basie + Lester Young + Fats Waller = A Force Greater Than You Know.



From: The Complete Decca Recordings

Interestingly, Basie and the boys recorded "Honeysuckle Rose" at Decca Studios, just 20 blocks north of where I was strolling this morning. Can music have a ghost? Can it linger in the streets of New York City for 71 years, waiting for someone to walk by who's listening to it? Is the music always present and we just hear it when we pay enough attention? Was my iPod even necessary?

The Red State Obama Couldn't Win

One of the most impressive aspects of Barack Obama's victory in the 2008 Presidential Election is that he won NINE "red states" that had gone for Bush in 2004: Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia.

Obama won Virginia. Amazing.

Obama won North Carolina! Incredible.

Obama won INDIANA!!! Only two other Democrats have won Indiana in the last 96 years: FDR in 1932 and 1936, and LBJ in 1964.

But there was one "red state" Obama couldn't win. . . . One of the five boroughs of New York City: Staten Island.

Staten Island has always been the dirty little secret of "Liberal" New York City. For the last eight years, I have listened to liberal New Yorkers raging furiously against the dumb idiots in the Red States. They have joked about letting the Red States secede from the "real" U.S. They have sent around a map of this "real" U.S. made up only of "blue states." Never once have I heard a New Yorker even whisper that part of their own city was a "red state." (Unless an asshole like me brought it up.)

[Is Staten Island why "Liberal" New York City has had a Republican mayor for the last 15 years? Even Salt Lake City, Utah, can elect a Democrat for Mayor.]

Obama managed to win Nassau and Suffolk counties out on Long Island - not exactly hotbeds of radicalism. But he couldn't win part of New York City.

Obama won rural counties out in WEST TEXAS, for God's sake. But he couldn't win part of New York City.

Obama won rural counties in UTAH, a state that went 63% -34% for John McCain. But he couldn't win part of New York City.

Obama even won a rural county in bloody WYOMING, a state that went 65% -33% for John McCain. But he couldn't win part of New York City.

(By the way, that's Teton County, whose seat is Jackson. Better known as the home of Dick Cheney.)


In the end, Staten Island voted in this election by exactly the same percentages as the state of Georgia: 52% for McCain to 47% for Obama.

I've always thought the whole Red State-Blue State dichotomy was false and unhelpful. Grade-school-level political analysis that was actually disrespectful to people in more conservative states who worked their asses off to get progressives elected.

Kudos to all those people in the nine former "red states" who worked hard to show that the very concept of "red" and "blue" states is just not viable.

And instead of raging against the dumb idiots in the Red States, New Yorkers might want to consider getting in touch with the good folks out in Culberson County, West Texas, where Obama won 65%-34%, about helping them win back their own city.

How Democracy Works in New York

Over a million people in the City of New York voted for term limits for their Mayor and City Council members.

Not once but TWICE!

And the measure passed easily both times: 59%-41% in 1993, and 54%-46% in 1996.

One billionaire mayor decides he doesn't like the term limits.

Twenty-nine sycophantic City Councilmen say, "That's okay, you can run again. What do the idiot voters know anyway?"

At a time when many people are trying to move beyond their well-earned cynicism towards the political process in the United States, Michael Bloomberg lays a big steaming turd in the punch-bowl of Democracy.

So, go ahead, drink up. Isn't this the change you wanted?

If we're really lucky, George W. Bush will ask the Supreme Court to get rid of the term limit for presidents.

Don't think this is what Democracy looks like? Let the Monarch Mayor and City Council know. Even if you're not in New York. In fact, especially if you're not in New York. Because, in the end, this isn't about Bloomberg or New York or term limits. It's about respecting the democratic process.

Contact the Monarch: http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

Contact Christine C. Quinn, Speaker of the New York City Council, who helped win over the necessary clowns for Boss Tweed. (Click on "Contact Speaker Quinn" for an email form.)

No Votes for Obama in Harlem

New York Times: Unofficial Tallies in City Understated Obama Vote

Black voters are heavily represented in the 94th Election District in Harlem’s 70th Assembly District. Yet according to the unofficial results from the New York Democratic primary last week, not a single vote in the district was cast for Senator Barack Obama.

That anomaly was not unique. In fact, a review by The New York Times of the unofficial results reported on primary night found about 80 election districts among the city’s 6,106 where Mr. Obama supposedly did not receive even one vote, including cases where he ran a respectable race in a nearby district.

City election officials this week said that their formal review of the results, which will not be completed for weeks, had confirmed some major discrepancies between the vote totals reported publicly — and unofficially — on primary night and the actual tally on hundreds of voting machines across the city.

In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116.

The history of New York elections has been punctuated by episodes of confusion, incompetence and even occasional corruption. And election officials and lawyers for both Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton agree that it is not uncommon for mistakes to be made by weary inspectors rushing on election night to transcribe columns of numbers that are delivered first to the police and then to the news media.

That said, in a presidential campaign in which every vote at the Democratic National Convention may count, a swing of even a couple of hundred votes in New York might help Mr. Obama gain a few additional delegates. . . .

A number of political leaders also scoffed at the possibility that local politicians, even if they considered it vital that Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton prevail in the primary, were capable of even trying to hijack such a contest.

Still, for those inclined to consider conspiracy theories, the figures provided plenty of grist.

The 94th Election District in Harlem, for instance, sits within the Congressional district represented by Charles B. Rangel, an original supporter of Mrs. Clinton.

Assemblyman Keith L. T. Wright, a Clinton supporter who represents the same area, said he was confident that there was an innocent explanation for the original count giving Mr. Obama zero votes.

“I’m sure it’s a clerical error of some sort,” Mr. Wright said.

(Cough.)

But to be fair:

City election officials said they were convinced that there was nothing sinister to account for the inaccurate initial counts, and The Times’s review found a handful of election districts in the city where Mrs. Clinton received zero votes in the initial results.

If New York City election officials say it's okay, then I'm sure there's nothing to worry about.

A Gershwin Friday: Rhapsody in Blue

I'm currently reading The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty Others, by Wilfird Sheed. The section on Gershwin was most enjoyable and inspired me to pick up a CD called Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls. These are recordings of 12 of the 130 piano rolls he cut from 1916-1927, including "Rhapsody in Blue," "An American in Paris," and his very first tune, "When You Want 'em, You Can't Get 'em, When You've Got 'em, You Don't Want 'em."

I've been a Gershwin fan since 1979, when I sat in a dark theatre absolutely spellbound during the opening sequence of Woody Allen's Manhattan, in which "Rhapsody in Blue" plays over Gordon Willis' gorgeous black and white shots of New York City. I went out the next day and bought an LP of "Rhapsody" and "An American in Paris," the first classical album I ever owned. But I had never heard this particular and extraordinary recording of Gershwin's piano roll of "Rhapsody in Blue" until last night. The producers of Gershwin Plays Gershwin have done an amazing job with the sound quality, making you feel like George is playing piano right in your living room - which he would've done if you had known him and he happened to stop by your place. He was notorious for giving impromptu concerts on any piano around. While this recording may lack some of the color and power of the orchestrated versions, you can really hear Gershwin's jazz influence coming through, and it resonates with that essential, hard-to-describe, totally unique George Gershwin sound, with its touches of Jewish music from Russia, African-American music, the exciting and raucous immigrant streets of New York City, art deco and modernist whispers, Ravel and French Impressionism, the thrill and exhilaration of the mechanical and engineering marvels of the early 20th century, all swirling around into something vibrant and wonderfully, beautifully "American."

Here's the first part of Gershwin playing "Rhapsody in Blue," with some great shots of New York.



And here's the second part of "Rhapsody."



YouTube also has a 34-second film clip of George himself, playing "I Got Rhythm."

As well as the opening sequence of Manhattan. [Sorry about the Asian subtitles, I couldn't find a better version. But, hey, that's pretty New York anyway.]