All week I’m planning to write posts about national holidays that don’t exactly make the official US list of federal holidays. Here’s my plan of attack:
A few weeks ago, I told you about a novel I've been reading called How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie Debartolo. It's about a woman named Eliza who makes her fiance believe she's having an affair so he'll leave her and go on tour as the opening act for a popular band. He's a budding rock star who wants (almost to the point of need) her to travel with him, but she won't fly because her parents died in a plane crash and she's terrified at the thought of stepping on a plane. So rather than having him cancel the tour and ultimately his chance to hit it big, she turns him loose in sacrificial fashion. I haven't finished the book yet, so I don't know how it turns out, but I was struck by something Eliza said during this process. One of the ways she copes with life is music, specifically by listening to an artist named Doug Blackman; more specifically by listening to her favorite song by him called "The Day I Became a Ghost." Eliza is a music journalist, so she meets Blackman for an interview early in the book. Later she meets his son, Loring, who falls in love with her. On her birthday, Loring gives her the original sheet of paper (in a frame) that his father used to write the lyrics for "The Day I Became a Ghost" and Eliza begins to cry. When Loring tells her he was only trying to cheer her up, she says, "You did. It's just that, well, sometimes happiness hurts."
Sometimes happiness hurts. These three words seem like they belong together. Happiness comes in brief spurts and it often sneaks up on a person. Pursuing it rarely leads to capturing it and even when it does, it doesn't stick around long. But when happiness sneaks up on a person, especially when it comes from the actions of another person, it can feel so good it hurts. But actually I don't think it's the action itself that touches us so deeply as much as the thought that someone knows us so well that he or she is able to do something for us that strikes at the heart of who we are. Loring knew Eliza so well that he knew how to move her to the depths of happiness.
Sort of makes you want to go out and find a way to give someone you love a moment of happiness today, doesn't it?
In 1992, I bought a CD titled Racine by Sass Jordan and I played it dozens of times over the years from start to finish. It was one of those rare CDs that doesn't have a bad song on it.
A few random thoughts for the day:
Nominations: A big thank you goes out to Dr. Bear for nominating Little Nuances in all of the categories I listed yesterday for the 2008 Weblog Awards. No further nominations are necessary. Once a blog is nominated, it will be reviewed and considered as a possible finalist. Finalists will be selected and then voted upon in December. I'll post more info as it becomes available.
Election: I don't get real political here at Little Nuances. I have other venues for that. I don't plan to get real political today either. But the election was held yesterday and it seems odd to not at least mention it. I've been involved in politics for the better part of two decades. I've been without a political home for nearly half that time since both major parties now lean further left that I am.
The one dynamic that always amazes me though is the way people in the losing party seem to be on suicide watch the morning after the election. Don't get me wrong; the people we elect matters. But our Republic has withstood some horrible presidents from the gamut of political parties in her history. It survives because our founders put checks and balances in place. That doesn't mean it'll always survive; hence the importance of elections, but our 232-year track record gives me comfort.
So, to my conservative friends, I say: work within the system to make your voice heard; pray for our new leaders; and come back stronger the next time around. To my liberal friends I say: this is your time. You have all three branches of government and at least two years to turn things around. I wish you well.
Dewey: So, have you seen the non-fiction book called Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World at your local Barnes and Noble or Borders? Who would have thought that a book about a cat would be the third best-selling hardcover non-fiction book on the NY Times bestseller list? But that's where it sits as of this writing.
It's the true story about a cat named Dewey who is rescued by a library director one bitterly cold winter morning in Spencer, Iowa. The director was going through tough times, including; the loss of the family farm, a breast cancer scare, and an alcoholic husband. Dewey, frostbitten feet an all, captured her heart and then the heart of the city.
Dewey lived to be 19 and I'm so glad somebody put his story down on paper. My beloved cat Midnight is approaching her 19th birthday and she certainly has a story to tell as well. It's not as dramatic as Dewey's, but not many are. Pets have a magical way of blending into our routines and into our hearts and in the process they either become part of the family, or in my case, help to fill the void of not being married with children.
I haven't read this book yet, but I bought it over the weekend and I'll be getting to it sooner rather than later.
Over the past two years, Little Nuances has been nominated for several Weblog Awards and has been a finalist in two of them. I'm so thankful to everyone who has been part of it. It's that time of year again. Nominations are currently open and anybody can nominate a blog. If you get a chance over the next couple of weeks, nominate your favorite blogs for the awards. It means a lot to bloggers to know that someone else cares enough about their work to go through the nomination process.
If you'd like to nominate Little Nuances, the blog fits into the following categories:
You'll need to give the blog name, the blog url, and the RSS/Atom feed--as follows:
Little Nuances
I read an article in the LA Times over the weekend called High culture meets low culture in a mass-media world written by Scott Timberg. Timberg's article is a good jumping off point for a question I've been thinking about for quite a while: What happens to a society when it becomes so immersed in low culture (or pop culture, such: as reality TV, gossip magazines, sitcoms, pop music, etc.) that it loses its appreciation for high culture (literature, opera, painting, theater, etc.)? Here's an interesting excerpt from Timberg's article:
I WONDER sometimes if we may have succeeded too well in getting rid of distinctions, though. It's hard for me to avoid a low-grade worry that we're losing our ability to recognize quality itself.
"What we seem to have nowadays is more of a hierarchy of media," said [Pico Iyer, the eminent Japan-and- California-based travel writer], "whereby, for example, dance, classical music, opera, and even theater and books, all of which commanded their own sections in Time magazine only a generation ago, are now regarded as lofty and remote subjects for only a handful of connoisseurs." Those pages, he said, are "given over now to a Britney watch or extended investigations into the new iPhone."
I'm a bundle of contradictions when it comes to high and low culture. I honestly don't understand the obsession with celebrities in our culture, but I am highly interested in the latest technology news. I prefer chick flicks over theater any day, but I enjoy theater when I actually take the time to go. I prefer pop-fiction to literature (in the traditional sense of the word), but I do enjoy literature. Its just harder for me to read.
I imagine that most people are like me--we live somewhere in between high and low culture. I don't think that is a bad thing. But a person who never ventures outside of high culture probably has a hard time relating to the person who lives in low culture. And the person who is immersed in low culture probably has little understanding of, or appreciation for, heritage.
High culture isn't necessarily better than low culture, but the two have distinct objectives. Artists in high culture seek the highest artistic levels with seeming little regard for popularity. Artists in low culture seek mass appeal with seeming little regard for artistic level. Those are generalizations and I'm sure many exceptions exists, but there's a reason the distinction exists.
Timberg asked whether guilt plays a role in shaping our tastes. After interviewing people he concluded that guilt doesn't play a role. People consume what they want to consume without regard for the category of culture it might fit in to. I tend to agree with that, although sometimes I find myself thinking that I should get to the theater more often. I don't think such thoughts are rooted in guilt as much as they are a longing for balance. But I could be wrong.
Photo Credit: Michael Maher
