Alexandra Sokoloff, You helped me to see what I had missed in the recent Superbowl half-time show with Kendrick Lamar, and company. I am truly grateful. I feel like "Mr Jones" in Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man": "...You know there's somethin' goin' on around here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones..." I intend to seek it out on Youtube, to watch it again, in the light you have shown upon it. As a writer, of sorts, I have thought that I should be paying more attention to you. Thank You, again, for writing.
Aww, Dylan always did know exactly how to say it! Funny you should post that lyric because I kept thinking of Dylan and all my favorite protest music while I was watching Lamar's piece. And what I was thinking was - "THIS is where the protest music is, today." We need all our great musical stars, TV and filmmakers, theater artists and artists, period — to get on board. Like, yesterday.
I have believed, and have been saying for a long time, that the way forward toward creating the world in which we wish to live, will be via popular culture. Reason, and logic, and passionate rhetoric can take us only so far. Music and poetry and art can stir us and lift us up beyond simply making good sense. I like to remind folks about Melanie Safka’s song “Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma”. The song has a line “…wish I could find a good book to live in…” I am certain that we can develop a shared vision of the kind of world in which we would love to live. It would be the antidote to the current plague.
Alexandra Sokoloff, You helped me to see what I had missed in the recent Superbowl half-time show with Kendrick Lamar, and company. I am truly grateful. I feel like "Mr Jones" in Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man": "...You know there's somethin' goin' on around here, but you don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones..." I intend to seek it out on Youtube, to watch it again, in the light you have shown upon it. As a writer, of sorts, I have thought that I should be paying more attention to you. Thank You, again, for writing.
Aww, Dylan always did know exactly how to say it! Funny you should post that lyric because I kept thinking of Dylan and all my favorite protest music while I was watching Lamar's piece. And what I was thinking was - "THIS is where the protest music is, today." We need all our great musical stars, TV and filmmakers, theater artists and artists, period — to get on board. Like, yesterday.
I have believed, and have been saying for a long time, that the way forward toward creating the world in which we wish to live, will be via popular culture. Reason, and logic, and passionate rhetoric can take us only so far. Music and poetry and art can stir us and lift us up beyond simply making good sense. I like to remind folks about Melanie Safka’s song “Look What They’ve Done to My Song, Ma”. The song has a line “…wish I could find a good book to live in…” I am certain that we can develop a shared vision of the kind of world in which we would love to live. It would be the antidote to the current plague.