Don't You See the Music Here?

Purpose
by Cloud Cult, from The Meaning of 8 and Unplug

There must be purpose here,
cuz most of us keep waking up

(Don't you think it's pretty here)

It's so unexpectedly predictable,
So sloppily intentional,
Does anyone know the punchline yet?

There must be rhythm here,
cuz all of us have a heartbeat

(Don't you see the music here?)

Inside our ribs we tick 
an average of 60 beats a minute

(A-rum-pum-pum-pum
A-rum-pum-pum-pum-pum)

There must be forgiveness here
cuz most of us have our weaknesses

(Tell me what are your weaknesses)

I don't know myself and I'm afraid of you
I'm happiest on chemicals
The goings come and the comings go
Forgive me I'm just an animal

There must be healing here,
cuz everybody here has been damaged
And we'll wear it like a tattoo
Every scar is a smile
To hell with the going down

There must be afterlife here,
cuz we all pray for resurrection
You see the end comes quick as a bullet,
end comes quick as a bullet

Too Much Time?

"One of the most common criticisms I see with Improve Everywhere, left anonymously on YouTube is, These people have too much time on their hands. 

Not everybody's going to like everything you do, and I've certainly developed a thick skin thanks to Internet comments, but that one's always bothered me, because we don't have too much time on our hands.

The participants in Improv Everywhere events have just as much time as any other New Yorkers. They just occasionally choose to spend it in an unusual way. 

Every Saturday and Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people each fall gather in football stadiums to watch games and I've never seen anybody comment, looking at a football game, and saying, All those people in the stands have too much time on their hands."

~ Charlie Todd

Polishing Someone Else's Gold

Guante - "The Family Business" from Justin Schell | 612 to 651 on Vimeo.

The Family Business
by Guante

Jackie’s been here for twenty-five years and he tells me you get used to it. He says your nose learns to seal itself when you dive headfirst into an ocean of dust; your eyes develop nictitating membranes to keep the chemical sprays out; and your hands… they will grow their own gloves, invisible and tough and permanent. I’ve been a janitor for three weeks and I thought I was made of stronger materials.

We play chess in the break room. Jackie asks me what my favorite piece is. I say the pawn because, you know, he’s the underdog; the odds are against him. Jackie identifies with the pawns too, but he finds nobility in their sacrifice, he sees beauty in their simplicity, in the fact that they’re always moving forward.

Jackie shambles from room to room, moving half as fast as me but somehow getting twice as much done. The night shift will mess with your head like that. Jackie smiles, the saddest face I’ve ever seen. Sometimes I look at that face and feel like we are the servants entombed alive with the pharaoh, polishing someone else’s gold while our oxygen runs out, dutifully preparing a grand feast for a god who will never be hungry.

But Jackie tells me that there is honor in this. A good day’s work. An honest living. There is poetry in this.

But what kind of poetry lives in a can of orange naturalizer, the liquid breath of dragons? The mist dissolves every word creeping up my throat, overwhelms every idea. They got me wiping my reflection from the glass, scrubbing the shadows off the walls. They got me so scared of my alarm clock that I can’t fall asleep, even when my muscles drain out from underneath my fingernails and my thoughts stream out of my ears, and I am left with nothing but two eyes that refuse to close for fear of what they might see. 

Is there really honor in this? Or is that abstract notion the carrot they dangle in front of us pawns to move us across the board? 

But Jackie says you can’t think about it like that. He says that without us, the people who live and work in this building couldn’t function, that we keep the gears turning and that it might not be glamorous but it’s necessary. And maybe he’s right. Maybe I am just a working class kid who somehow hustled my way into college and got delusions of grandeur. Maybe now I’m “too good” to go into the family business: a hundred generations of janitors and farmers and infantry and factory workers and pawns.

So I suck it up… and last for two more months. And on my final day before an uncertain future, I make a point to shake Jackie’s hand, and I say:

"I’ve been thinking man. I think the reason pawns can’t move backwards is because if they could, they’d kill their own kings in a heartbeat. 

"Instead, we are forced to keep moving, believing we can get to the other side and become royalty ourselves, but most likely dying on the way there, sacrificed for a cause we don’t even understand. I wish you… I wish you the best, man. I wish you horses and castles."

Jackie smiles, the saddest face I’ve ever seen, and disappears into his work.

Take Your Medicine

Cloud Cult - Take Your Medicine (Live on KEXP) from Jim Beckmann on Vimeo.

Take Your Medicine
by Cloud Cult, from The Meaning of 8

Bought myself a new look
Something gave me another chance to see
Each time, each time, I will try to do better
Right now, right now, is where I guess I belong

Pull my fist from my mouth
I beat myself for a quarter century
Remind, remind
That it's bigger than me
Dissolve, dissolve
Into evergreens

These are things that I keep hidden in belly
I can't see them but they control my life
For a moment you could see right through me
See right through me
Help me make this right
Look at all those skeletons running from their closets
Get them in the light

These are things that I keep hidden in belly
I can't see them but they control my life
For a moment you could see right through me
See right through me
Help me make this right
Look at all those skeletons running from their closets
Get them in the light
Get them in the light

You can take it in stride
Or you can take it right between the eyes
Suck up, suck up
And take your medicine
It's a good day, it's a good day
To face the hard things

Pull my fist from my mouth
I beat myself for a quarter century
Remind, remind
That it's bigger than me
Dissolve, dissolve
Into evergreens

We found
Beautiful babies
Sleeping in our ribs
Get them in the light
Get them in the light

Absorbing America, Absorbed by America

“So my grandfather told me when I was a little girl, ‘If you say a word often enough, it becomes you.’ And having grown up in a segregated city, Baltimore, Maryland, I sort of use that idea to go around America with a tape recorder — thank God for technology — to interview people, thinking that if I walked in their words—which is also why I don't wear shoes when I perform — if I walked in their words, that I could sort of absorb America. I was also inspired by Walt Whitman, who wanted to absorb America and have it absorb him.”

~ Anna Deavere Smith, from “Four American Characters,” TED Talks, Feb. 2005

See also: “What has happened to the human voice?” Studs Terkel, from a 2005 interview.