life goes on

At night I dream of bells in the village steeple

Bob Dylan's "Desire" is one of my favorite albums. If I had to guess, I would say I've listened to it a thousand times. I am not sure if I have ever stated this on the blog, but I am an album listener. I do not put my ipod on shuffle, ever. Instead, I will pick out an album and listen to it the whole way through. Doing this puts a song into a proper content as the other songs and the general sound of the record develop a certain feel. In the great albums, that feel is carried throughout the record. For example, the song "Here Comes the Sun", which I am sure everyone knows, is a great song, but when heard with the rest of Abbey Road seems to make even more sense.

"Desire" was made after "Blood on the Tracks", which was the record that put Dylan back on the map. The album features a violin throughout that mixes with Dylan's harmonica in a type of double melody style that I cannot relate to anything else I've heard. There is also a female backing vocal that sometimes seems as a duet. Everyone I have talk to who knows this record, and including myself, thought the voice was Joan Baez, which seems to make sense except that the two of them had a little bit of a falling out sometime before this record was made. It is actually the voice of Emmylou Harris, who is still a significant artist now days.

Most of the songs are stories that develop plots with basic chord progressions. Right now 'Romance in Durango' is my favorite, but this changes several times per year. I love the line "I stayed up for days in the Chelsey Hotel writing Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands for you" in 'Sara', which refers to the song Sad eyed lady... that he wrote for Sara. Probably the most famous song is 'Hurricane'. It seems like he put this song on the album just because he had it done and ready. The song doesn't really fit all that well and I sometimes find myself skipping the song, which is the first on the record, and starting with Isis. "I was thinking about turquoise I was thinking about gold. I was thinking about diamonds and he world's biggest necklace." I think the song means the material things did not compare or pan out like the love of his wife... hopefully.

I have recently been listening to The Arcade Fire's 'Suburbs'. This records seems pretty great and I will comment on it after listening to it another 50 times or so. I also just bought "The essential Woody Guthrie". Again, review to follow.

Some

Happy banned books week! Now is the time to stick up for your right to do whatever the heck you want to do and read a banned book. I am currently reading 'Crime and Punishment' (just could not read Ulysses on trains) and while I am not sure if it was ever banned I would bet plenty of people have challenged it as public reading.

A few quotes I found about banned books:

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."- Mark Twain

Zing.

"Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people."-German poet Heinrich Heine

This was written in 1821 and is creepy because, well, it is just what the Nazis did decades later.

I am no longer a football fan. This is a hard decision for me because I played football, and quite well, for a large part of my life. Michael Vick put me over the edge, or should I say all the hoopla surrounding him here in Philly. I do believe in second chances for most things but Michael Vick was malicious. If dog fighting is what a certain group of people do for fun with dogs that have been trained to fight, then fine, I get it. It is probably done all over the world and we murder animals for meat and eat the meat and life goes on. This guy admits to getting off from hanging dogs over tree branches and electrocuting and torturing them. Again, malicious, and cannot be forgiven.

I also think the NFL is so over the top on advertising and on trying to make us think these players are so great and should be idolized, only to drain money from our pockets. I can't stand the touchdown...commerical...kick off...commercial, and sometimes one or two plays then another commercial. I can not waist 4 hours of my week sitting there anymore. I am done.

To be positive, after the Phillies won their forth straight division title last night Ryan Howard told everyone to hold up so that Halladay, Sweeney, and Schiender, three players who have never had the chance to celebrate like that before, could be the first to pop the champagne and start the party. This is classy. Go Phils.

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