Clarity

President Biden continues to soldier on even though the most recent polls suggest that the only man in America less popular than him is the Boston Strangler. This in spite of the fact that he goes to work every day with shoes shined and suit pressed, and his job performance has been a mixture of mistakes and things well done, mostly well done. Pretty good for a man who is almost as old as I am.

But neither of us is in our prime, and both of us have a somewhat smallish chance of making it through the next five years. Robin is unsure enough about me that during the night she sometimes checks to see if I am still breathing. Can’t help but wonder if Jill Biden does the same thing.

(I’ve never asked Robin but always assumed that when she finds signs of life she is relieved, not disappointed)

So who knows what will happen between now and the first Tuesday in November 2024? If Mr. Biden turns out to be the nominee of the Democratic Party of course I will support him, even with my misgivings. Because on the other side, barring some completely unforeseeable and miraculous transformations in the next year, we will be presented with a person whose candidacy can only provoke nausea in a thoughtful person.

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I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man’s reasoning powers are not above the monkey’s.

Mark Twain

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From The New Yorker

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This piece of music gets around quite a bit. We’ve all heard it played in venues from concert halls to when a pro hockey team comes onto the ice. It’s the Fanfare for the Common Man, written by Aaron Copland.

In 1942, Copland was commissioned by the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra to write a fanfare. The U.S. had entered World War II, and then-Vice President Henry A. Wallace was trying to rally Americans against imperialism. Copland was inspired by a speech Wallace gave that spring at the Free World Association in New York City.

“Some have spoken of the American Century,” Wallace proclaimed. “I say that the century on which we are entering, the century which will come out of this war, can be and must be the century of the common man.” Copland would later echo that sentiment himself, saying, “It was the common man, after all, who was doing all the dirty work in the war and the army. He deserved a fanfare.”

NPR: American Anthem

It’s a fanfare for the ordinary man or woman, the GI, the “grunt,”the hoi polloi, for those on whose broad shoulders our idea of America has always truly rested. A strong piece, inspired in its origins.

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From The New Yorker

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I am not a huge fan of awards shows, at least not to the point where I think you can really pick out the best one of any group of artists or works in any given year. But this year something unusual happened Wednesday evening at the Country Music Awards.

Tracy Chapman continues to make history with her 1988 hit “Fast Car” after winning song of the year at Wednesday’s Country Music Awards  …The CMA win is a remarkable achievement given “Fast Car” debuted 35 years ago, and saw a resurgence in popularity in July after country star Luke Combs released a cover of the hit single. Combs’ cover went on to reach No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart, making Chapman the first Black woman to top the chart since it came into existence in 1990.

CNN Online

Fast Car is a great song from Chapman’s first album, written by an artist who was very wise at 24 years of age. It is a ballad, a story song. And if we are not the protagonist in the story, we probably know somebody who is.

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In keeping with the theme of this post, which is ducks of various stripes, I searched the cartoon archives of the New Yorker for “ducks,” and one of those that came up in the search was this one. Now a staple of the thinking of New Yorkers is that the rest of the country, especially the Midwest, consists of a population of buffoons residing in a land that nobody important wants to live in.

But even the buffoon-est of those of us who grew up in the Midwest knows that this is not a cartoon of a duck at all, but of a loon. And loons are their own category of waterfowl. Remembering that old saying “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck” should have informed the staff at the New Yorker. Loons simply do not quack.

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