Red Hornet (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} redhornet) wrote,@ 2006-07-31 23:06:00 |
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to sleep, perchance...
anything to get my mind off the fire I must face tomorrow.
GG, who is now eleven and very articulate for his age, is founder and editor-in-chief of his own e-zine, distributed amidst his family and friends. This week's issue consists of a review of "An Inconvenient Truth" by his dad, a sports page all about the Washington Nationals by his auntie in DC, a synopsis of Madame Butterfly provided by his grandpop, and a few other nuggets. GG added me to his distribution list this week, and tonight I submitted a freelance editorial column for his consideration in upcoming issue #4. We'll see how I land in the queue.
The Church of Bruce:
reflections on hope, promise and redemption
Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz
between flesh and what's fantasy
and the poets down here don't write nothing at all
they just stand back and let it all be—
and in the quick of the night
they reach for their moment and try to make an honest stand
but they wind up wounded, not even dead
tonight in Jungleland.
—Bruce Springsteen, Jungleland (1975)
The Man (I will not call him “The Boss,” he does not like this—ask Terri Gross, she learned this the hard way), our Everyman, Bruce, got it right thirty years ago and he still has it right today. The first step toward promise is action. What was he talking about then? Youth violence? Vietnam? He’d say now that his original intention was simpler than this, that he’d intended to write about a battle of the bands contest and the danger that comes with lack of creativity—our lives will become stagnant and uninteresting, and our creative efforts will lack meaning—simpler still, rock music will die—if we don’t try to take a stand and break out into new. But he just as well could have been talking about the former topics. This is the beauty of metaphor.
Today, replace Vietnam with Gulf War II and wham-bam-thank you-ma’am it is thirty years later. Look where our lack of creativity has gotten us, now. The first step toward promise is action. We cannot stand still. We must create new. It is up to us.
anything to get my mind off the fire I must face tomorrow.
GG, who is now eleven and very articulate for his age, is founder and editor-in-chief of his own e-zine, distributed amidst his family and friends. This week's issue consists of a review of "An Inconvenient Truth" by his dad, a sports page all about the Washington Nationals by his auntie in DC, a synopsis of Madame Butterfly provided by his grandpop, and a few other nuggets. GG added me to his distribution list this week, and tonight I submitted a freelance editorial column for his consideration in upcoming issue #4. We'll see how I land in the queue.
The Church of Bruce:
reflections on hope, promise and redemption
Outside the street's on fire in a real death waltz
between flesh and what's fantasy
and the poets down here don't write nothing at all
they just stand back and let it all be—
and in the quick of the night
they reach for their moment and try to make an honest stand
but they wind up wounded, not even dead
tonight in Jungleland.
—Bruce Springsteen, Jungleland (1975)
The Man (I will not call him “The Boss,” he does not like this—ask Terri Gross, she learned this the hard way), our Everyman, Bruce, got it right thirty years ago and he still has it right today. The first step toward promise is action. What was he talking about then? Youth violence? Vietnam? He’d say now that his original intention was simpler than this, that he’d intended to write about a battle of the bands contest and the danger that comes with lack of creativity—our lives will become stagnant and uninteresting, and our creative efforts will lack meaning—simpler still, rock music will die—if we don’t try to take a stand and break out into new. But he just as well could have been talking about the former topics. This is the beauty of metaphor.
Today, replace Vietnam with Gulf War II and wham-bam-thank you-ma’am it is thirty years later. Look where our lack of creativity has gotten us, now. The first step toward promise is action. We cannot stand still. We must create new. It is up to us.
