I sat there, on the second floor of Swem, on the last day of Fall Break, cloistered away, feverishly typing away at an essay for Dr. Reiss’ American Foreign Policy Seminar — a 10-pager on the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process — if you really care that much.
As I sat there, I was trapped within a mental framework derived from Nash Equilibrium Strategies, the History and Mythos of the Jewish Millennial claims on the Levant, and American Meddling —Incompetent Presidents trying to claim a ‘lasting peace, in our times’ as the hallmark of their administrations.
Thank Allah for good music. The new Genius function on iTunes has broken the binds so-securely bound ‘round my frontal lobe. The Taoist wood-spirits, who hide in the ferns and old growth oaks of Matoaka have wandered from their haunts, into my hide-away, and given me two wonderful bits of living soundtrack to usher in the second half of the semester. I have, graciously and pragmatically, decided to share them with you in ‘moving-picture’ form.
First is “Born in the UK,” by Damon Cough, better known by his nom de gitarre, Badly Drawn Boy. It’s a wistful remembrance in the lyric of Mellencamp, but in the style Lerche.
Second is an unnamed track by the ballsy, bluesy, girly … Smoke Fairies. I know. Believe me. I know. These girls sound like they spent a decade in the box-car with Dylan and sold their souls, like Robert Johnson.