The Curve of Your Laugh

Driving the girls to dance this evening, I was half listening to an interview on the World Café. A performer started a gentle, acoustic love song with a phrase that sounded, to my partial ear, like "the curve of your laugh."

That can't be the actual lyric, but I think it paints a great sound. It made me think of Karen's sometimes out of control laughter when something catches her just right.

Years ago, my youngest brother Bob and his fiancée, also a Karen, brought home a new family member: a black lab puppy named Sasha. She was a pedigreed dog, a new thing for Karen and me; we're used to mutt cats and mixed breed dogs.

We eagerly read through Sasha's papers, tracing her line back until we reached a forebear named "Quiver of the River."

That's minor silliness, but it started Karen's laugh, an open, joyous, eyes shut, head thrown back giggle-laugh that lasts until the air runs out, then pauses, almost in disbelief, re-gathers itself, and takes off again.

That laugh has lasted for years, as Sasha grew from a gangly young pup, through her frolicking prime, and into a white-muzzled canine crone. All I had to do was say "Quiver of the River" and the laugh would pick up where it left off.

Now, though Sasha is gone, the laugh remains. It can be triggered by the many wonderful and silly things our girls do, or by comic improv (God bless Ryan Stiles), or by a chance gift of goofiness from the cosmos.

And it still has that lovely curve.

And Did He Ever Return?

I see our old family friend Dick Wertheimer perched on a couch in my parents living room. There's a glass of scotch on the table in front of him and a 5-string banjo perched at a jaunty angle in his lap.

And he is singing:

Did he ever return?
No he never returned.
And his fate is still unlearned (poor old Charlie)
He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's the man who never returned.

Charlie on the MTA was (and is) a standard at family and friends get-together dinners. When we were small, we all listened to Mr. Wertheimer sing and play the 1950's folks standards of his youth. As we grew, we joined in on the chorus. In recent years, we've hauled out guitars and hand-drums and played along.

The song dates from the middle of the last century. It was written for a political campaign in Boston to criticize an opponent for a subway fare increase.

Now, thanks to Governing's 13th Floor blog, I find that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority -- the MTBA -- has, in a rare instance of a municipal sense of humor, named its fare-card after the fictional Charlie.

The CharlieCard will prompt a smile of recognition from Bostonians who know their history and from fans of mid-fifties folk-music.

Protest Song Number (Fn:Count[PROTESTSONGPOSTS])

I heard David Dye interview the singer Will Kimbrough on The World Cafe a few days ago. It's well worth a listen, especially for his song Pride, which neatly sums up much of what I've been feeling of late.

The tune is from Kimbrough's new album, Americanitis. He says, of the song:

A good friend tried to warn me about being too preachy on the CD. I responded by putting a full blown sermon, complete with slide guitar solo, on there.

He calls it a sermon; but if the thoughts are preachy, the musical style is not. The song unfolds in a laconic American folk-song version of sprechstimme, with Kimbrough quietly skewering us for some of our sins:

There's no power in pride.
Pride is a man who goes to war to save face.

And pride is a man who cannot tell the truth
if it might make him look weak.
There's no power in pride.

Our sin is pride and we know it.
We just can't bear to talk about it.

We paste those [pride] stickers right next to the fish
we bought down at the Christian Store.
I'm not bashing Jesus,
But how 'bout we read what Jesus said for once.

I say for balance we take in a little Buddha,
And Johnny Cash.

He has a point.

Another Protest Song

The WXPN All About the Music Blog has a new protest song by James McMurtry.

McMurtry's God Bless America isn't quite the screamer that Michael Franti's Light Up Ya Lighter is, but it speaks to me:

Negotiation's just no fun
And it don't serve our interests none
Gonna turn up the heat till it comes to a boil
So we can go get that Arab oil

And we'll suck it all up through the barrel of a gun
Everyday's the end of days for some
Republicans don't cut and run
Tell me ain't you proud of what we've done

I like it.

Music. Two Very Different Sorts.

I have two very different music links to share. One is a rocking protest song I heard on the way home from work this afternoon. Another is a neat flash-based free-form music tool that I find soothing.

Who Said No One Writes Protest Songs Anymore?
Driving home this evening I found that the weird weather was scrambling the local NPR station. So I punched up the "Jam-On" station on my satellite radio. They played a new song from a soon-to-be-released album, Yell Fire!, by Michael Franti.

I think I've heard of Franti. He and his band Spearhead have been around for many albums. But I don't think I could have picked one of his songs from the musical mix out there. That may change.

The song was called Light Up Ya Lighter. It's one of an album's worth that he wrote and recorded following a non-USO tour of Iraq, Israel and Palestine. Over a tight hip-hop/reggae beat, Franti does a swinging reggae sort of rapping. He has a fairly direct take on the Iraq war:

The army recruiters in the parking lot,
Hustling the kids there juggling pot.
"Listen young man, listen to my plan.
Gonna make you money, gonna make you a man."
Bam, bam.
Here's what you get: An M16 and a kevlar vest.
You might come home with one less leg,
But this thing'll surely keep a bullet out your chest.
So come on, come on. Sign-up. Come on.
This one is nothing like Viet Nam.
Except for the bullets. Except for the bombs.
Except for the youth that's gone.
(Appologies to Mr. Franti. I was taking dictation from the PC speakers.)

Something about this tune really grabbed me. I like the energy. I like the rhymes. I like where the music lives: at the place where rock, rap, and reggae overlap. You can check it out on this MySpace link (I never thought I'd type those words!). The Spearhead website has several free downloads, including the first single, the title tune, from the new album.

I also plan to keep an eye on this guy on iTunes and buy some of his tunes when the album is released.

On The Other Hand....
I found a site called The Pianola a few days back. This is a flash-based application, entirely on-line, that uses little squares, floating in an enclosed space, to control a variety of tones.

The squares play sounds as they bounce off the walls, floor, roof and each other. They are affected by gravity, and their motion changes over time. You can combine tones yourself or start with several pre-sets, from Beethoven to more modern offerings. I particularly like the pre-set titled "F. Low."

This is a wonderful tool for on-line chill-out time.

Pimping My Prius

Yesterday I added a Sirius satellite radio receiver to my Prius. It was an anniversary gift from Miss Karen, though I did the research on which satellite radio system to go with and which receiver to use.

I choose Sirius over XM based largely on Sirius’ programming content. They had more NPR and other public radio choices and they had more of the sort of “hippy music” and folk music that I like.

I do regret that Sirius doesn’t have the same access to baseball games that XM has. Sirius sells on having broadcasts of every NFL game. XM sells on access to all baseball games. To me, baseball is a great game to listen to while driving; football doesn’t work so well on radio. In the end, however, music and news were the deciding factors.

I went with a receiver from Factory Interactive that installs permanently in the car and uses the Prius’ in-dash touch-screen as an interface. Many folks like the portable units, which can be hooked up to radios in several cars and in the home. That’s a cost effective way to go, but I understand that you make a slight sacrifice in sound quality. I like the idea of having a system that works as an integral part of my car’s sound system. The mounting hardware of the portables also might be a problem. In practice, at home I use my laptop and the web to access music; at work it’s not an issue. Eventually, I may look into a portable – or another installed system – for the van. But that is a decision to make after living with satellite radio for a while, to see if we really want to go in this direction for the long haul.

Installing the unit was an interesting challenge. It ate up all of Saturday morning. The unit came with written directions and a DVD containing a step-by-step how-to video. I watched that video all the way through back at the start of the week when the radio first arrived. Yesterday, I put the laptop on a chair in the garage and followed it faithfully, step by step.

I would watch the fellow on the video – Jon – take the first step, hit pause, and go do that step on my car. Then back to the laptop for the next step. In some cases I would stop what I was doing and go back to watch again. Better safe, and slow, then sorry.

The interior construction of the Prius is fascinating. The dashboard comes apart in sections, each held in with pressure clips and, in a few cases, a few screws. Bits just “pop out.” Wires plug in. Everything fits together.

For an experienced person, the installation probably takes less than an hour. For those comfortable taking their car apart, a first time installation would probably take an hour and a half. I am a beginner. I was careful. I took three hours.

I had thought about photographing some of the steps, and posting shots of the interior of my car. Doing the installation, though, was challenge enough.

So far (I’ve only made a few short drives), I’m happy with what I’ve heard. The folk channel gave me some tasty Dylan covers yesterday evening, vintage Arlo Guthrie, and several of the new artists that I like but who I rarely hear on broadcast radio, especially here in southern Delaware. I switched over to the Jam-Band channel at one point and hit on a nice, live, acoustic version of El Paso, by the Dead.

This will work.