I get on subjects, I get off subjects and sometimes I don't recognize the posts, even recent ones, that people read.
-"Just hand me down my Martin s..."
What? Clicked on it:
Just hand me down my Martin for soon I will be startin'
Back to dear old Charleston and my kin
Since Roosevelt's been re-elected, we won't be neglected
We've got Franklin D. Roosevelt back again. (July 7)
Oh yeah. Sometimes the stuff written about here is interesting, important even. Imagine a song being written about a president's reelection today--or anytime in your life! I had not realized until I watched that FDR documentary again, I had watched it before and it hadn't sunk in, how inspiring Roosevelt was to Americans. Initially I pooh-poohed "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" and concentrated on other passages in his first inaugural that were more substantive and important--to me, over 80 years later. I'm old but I'm not that old; I didn't live through the depression but that documentary (the second time) brought home to me 80 years later how pervasive fear was in America at the time. "It was everywhere and nowhere," the documentary said. A bank run in New York City, then it would break out on the Great Plains with farm foreclosures, then in Texas. Must have seemed like a Valkyrie flying around the country touching these for death, sparing those, a ghost, substance-less, incomprehensible, deadly. Ghosts are frightening.
And then this fucking guy, crippled by polio, stands up there and says we're panicking for panic's sake...and the country goes "YEAH! WTF." Banality of banalities, it was precisely what the country needed to hear. He goes on to lay out a thrilling (little frightening too!), detailed program of action. His dolt predecessor had said before the inauguration, "We're at the end of our rope!" That was the contrast Hoover presented with FDR. Happy Days are Here Again.
-"As the thunders of the thickening fi..."
Click.
As the thunders of the thickening fight broke in upon her loneliness, her cries...could be heard with great distinctness...Her strength of voice appeared to grow with the increasing darkness, and above the continuous thunder of the cannon were the cries--"God Almighty, help me!" "Lord, save me!" "Have mercy on me!"...(June 10).
Oh God. The Civil War. Red-Tape. I could see that scene in my head when I first read it, Armstrong described it so vividly, powerfully, poignantly. It was so horrible. I can see it now, now that I remember it.
That's now. Those posts are now, too. So odds are I have the South Koreans to thank for reading those posts and for making me remember. Welcome back, South Koreans. Good night everybody.
-"Just hand me down my Martin s..."
What? Clicked on it:
Just hand me down my Martin for soon I will be startin'
Back to dear old Charleston and my kin
Since Roosevelt's been re-elected, we won't be neglected
We've got Franklin D. Roosevelt back again. (July 7)
Oh yeah. Sometimes the stuff written about here is interesting, important even. Imagine a song being written about a president's reelection today--or anytime in your life! I had not realized until I watched that FDR documentary again, I had watched it before and it hadn't sunk in, how inspiring Roosevelt was to Americans. Initially I pooh-poohed "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" and concentrated on other passages in his first inaugural that were more substantive and important--to me, over 80 years later. I'm old but I'm not that old; I didn't live through the depression but that documentary (the second time) brought home to me 80 years later how pervasive fear was in America at the time. "It was everywhere and nowhere," the documentary said. A bank run in New York City, then it would break out on the Great Plains with farm foreclosures, then in Texas. Must have seemed like a Valkyrie flying around the country touching these for death, sparing those, a ghost, substance-less, incomprehensible, deadly. Ghosts are frightening.
And then this fucking guy, crippled by polio, stands up there and says we're panicking for panic's sake...and the country goes "YEAH! WTF." Banality of banalities, it was precisely what the country needed to hear. He goes on to lay out a thrilling (little frightening too!), detailed program of action. His dolt predecessor had said before the inauguration, "We're at the end of our rope!" That was the contrast Hoover presented with FDR. Happy Days are Here Again.
-"As the thunders of the thickening fi..."
Click.
As the thunders of the thickening fight broke in upon her loneliness, her cries...could be heard with great distinctness...Her strength of voice appeared to grow with the increasing darkness, and above the continuous thunder of the cannon were the cries--"God Almighty, help me!" "Lord, save me!" "Have mercy on me!"...(June 10).
Oh God. The Civil War. Red-Tape. I could see that scene in my head when I first read it, Armstrong described it so vividly, powerfully, poignantly. It was so horrible. I can see it now, now that I remember it.
