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A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile. The music of idealism, the anthems of equality, the lyrical poetry of peace we heard from Democrats in the days of Bobby Kennedy and Gene McCarthy and George McGovern. But the music died, we all know what killed it, and we all know where we are now.
Mixed metaphors ahead, proceed with caution . . .
We’re Dante in that dark wood, we’re a shadow in the dust on the road not taken, we’re an entire society with an appointment in Samarra, we‘re a ghost ship on the face of the deep, chasing the great white whale of profit. I don’t like where we’re going, I don’t trust the captain, I suspect the hull is full of holes, but what do I know? I’m just a deckhand.
Call me Ishmael.
I can’t remember if I’ve just survived a shipwreck or if there’s one on the way. Probably both. I’m not as young as I used to be, my heart only beats when I’m here, but my eyes are just fine, I know a catastrophe when I see one, and this one is going to be off the charts . . .
The permanently-frozen soils of Siberia contain more than a trillion tons of carbon dioxide and methane, stored during the last ice age. If a small temperature rise causes the ground to melt, the released greenhouse gases could dramatically accelerate the global warming process.
I could provide further gory details, but everyone here understands what the chain reaction of environmental, social, economic, geopolitical, and ultimate death toll consequences are going to be when a trillion tons of carbon dioxide and methane start saturating the atmosphere, and the famines and the resource wars begin.
February makes me shiver, with every diary I deliver. I’d like to see spring, but all I see is a silver thorn and a bloody rose, lying crushed and broken on the virgin snow. There’s bad news on the doorstep, but we have to take one more step, and then another one, and then as many as it takes to save what we can.
There are lovers here, there are poets here, there are tears and there are dreams, everyone here is reaching out to the sons and daughters of humanity out there across this weary world, in troubled sleep beneath the stars of night. I know how hard you’ve tried to awaken them, I know how hard you’ve tried to set them free, but they would not listen; they did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now.
18 Comments
It’s time for us to do the talking, it’s time for the politicians to do the listening. We’ve tried it the other way around, and that doesn’t work worth a damn.
Odd that a certain piece of news, even expected news…can be the undertow that pulls us underwater, Isaiah.
One report came for me yesterday, and I collected all the bits, did enough of the study to write it up. And yet I haven’t; perhaps because I couldn’t afford the tears…I dunno.
But the McLean paen to Vincent was simply lovely; I dunno that I’d ever heard it before. Silver thorn, bloody rose, yes. Spring really is coming, and the days are indeed getting longer. Perhaps as we warm, so will more millions of hearts, and we’ll start to imagine a different story.
Rec’d.
Oh, this is an odd choice, but I would have used this soundtrack to speak for the people of Africa we’re re-colonizing to death.
Recommended for the subtle cultural literacy test and the first comment.
McLean kept a few folks sane during the early 1970s. Vincent is a magnificent intro to Van Gogh’s work.
The mixed metaphors and Ishmael paragraphs really got to me. Isaiah 88, your writing has a way of rendering me speechless. I feel it in a way I cannot describe. So glad you are here at the Lake.
We all know you weren’t even born yet when Vincent came out.
It’s hard to write a diary when there’s tears all over the keyboard, maybe you can do that diary a little at a time. Use Vincent in an Africa diary if it fits, readers have seen the same songs here and there in different diaries, and a lot of diaries don’t have songs at all, so I don’t think you’d be overdoing it if Vincent appeared again in one of your wonderful diaries.
Thank you, wendydavis.
I was one of the people he kept sane, although I started losing ground once Reagan got elected. Now MyFDL keeps me sane. Thank you, TarheelDem.
I really appreciate your friendship and support OmAli, I love posting here. I just try to find ways to express what we’re all feeling, I’m not very good at writing news-focused diaries so I take a little different approach, and try to provide a holistic perspective on what we’re experiencing (if that’s the right word for it).
Those were the days my friend we thought they’d never end.
Thank you wendydavis @ 2 for that wonderful sound track recommend, Where not a word was spoken.
Such beauty is for the fortunate who have eyes to see and ears to hear; for those as well to whom the poet and the dreamer speak; and even for those who have not yet heard but will be unable to block their ears, and for those who have not seen but will be blinded by the light. It is for all. It will be for all.
The promise of spring is that from death comes life.
Thank you, Isaiah88.
Amen.
Thank you, juliania.
Lol; no, I just wasn’t near radio back then.
And hairdryers help wet keyboards, and I’d meant the link at my word ‘soundtrack’ in my comment. But yes, today I have grief, but a bit more outrage, so I’m trying to write it, but mainly to get it out of my system.
Nice post, good music…what could be better, Isaiah? And I just heard the first songbird of the waning winter.
And welcome, tjbs. Rachel Portman who scored it said that she wanted to have the solos clearly speak as voices, and as she wanted the grief to come through without sentimentalism, she instructed: no vibrato. The longer rollover pieces even spoke of some measure of imagined hope, which was not borne out in reality, could not have been borne out, thus…a grim acceptance of fate. At least as I heard it…
Good work. Recommended.
Thank you, economister.
Thank you for the diary promotion, MyFDL editor.
I can’t always get this little rhyme out of my head
But when I do this gets stuck in there and cheers me up some
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXSHQzvDm7E
— Baby Boom Che, John Trudell
Nice to meet another Trudell devotee, Mud. Mr. wd may be even one notch further than I. Inestimable human being, imo.
Trudell is great, thank you, Mud.
Beautiful piece of writing, Isaiah88. Many Thanks for posting!