Let It Move You

I wrote this last summer after spending an afternoon talking about life with a old man named Nick.  He passed away this Fall, and I've only recently recorded this.  Click the link below to hear it.

Let It Move You

At Least I Know I'm Free

     I had a conversation today with a dear friend of mine during which I expounded from the depths of my patriot heart upon the notion that the great democracy is standing in the doorway of decline. 
     "All empires eventually crumble," she said with a bated smile.
     "Sure, but there have been empires that were close to the brink of decay, yet underwent a resurgence of vitality.  We are the generation," I said to her, "that can make a change.  We are the new decision-makers." 
     "And what will our choice be?"
     Well right.  That's exactly the point.  We stand in the midst of a recession, staring almost powerlessly as our troops march into yet another war, while on our own turf we have an education system that seems almost beyond repair, and our integrity and self-worth are drowning in the rising tide of consumerism.  We are the generation, though, that can begin to change this country.  To bring it out of the jaw of recession, and despite what John Mayer might suggest, we can't afford anymore to wait on the world to change.  It is up to us to pull this country up by its bootstraps and make its citizens once again proud to be Americans.

Reading (?) in the Car

     Ok, so I didn't actually pick up that dangerous habit.  I have however finished the entirety of Seven Years in Tibet in spurts during my commute to and from work for the past few weeks.  A while back I was at a thrift store, and to my great joy I discovered, or re-discovered I suppose, books on tape.  Given that my car is a particularly old and junky piece and still has an old selectively-functioning tape deck, I decided that rather than listening to the same five songs on the radio for an hour of my life every day, I would pick up a few of these inexpensive bits of nostalgia (yes, cassette tapes are nostalgic for me) and expand the literary region of my mind that has recently gone into atrophy due to a severe lack of me-time.
      I'd recommend reading the book if you're at all interested in Tibetan culture or history or religion.  It was fascinating, and written in a style to which I am not at all accustomed - long, narrative prose with no dialogue at all.  It seemed odd at first, but after a few minutes of puzzled distraction, I settled nicely into the story and was transported to the unforgiving mountains of Tibet and the windswept plateau on which the capital of Lhasa sits. 
     I'm excited to start my next set of tapes - Medieval Jewish philosophy of Maimonides.  Light reading, as always.
    

Sometimes I Get Nervous