Just A Little Light
By John Perry Barlow and Brent Mydland
Well, there ain't nobody safer than someone who doesn't care.
And it isn't even lonely when no one's ever there.
I had a lot of dreams once, but some of them came true...
The honey's sometimes bitter when fortune falls on you.
So you know I've been a soldier in the armies of the night.
And I'll find the fatal error in what's otherwise all right.
But here you're trembling like a sparrow, I will try with all my might
To give you just a little sweetness...just a little light.
I have always heard that virtue ought be its own reward,
But it never comes so easy when you're living by the sword.
It's even harder to be heartless when you look at me that way.
You're as mighty as the flower that will grow the stones away.
Even though I've been a stranger, full of irony and spite,
Holding little but contempt for all things beautiful and bright,
Something shines around you and it seems, to my delight
To give me just a little sweetness...just a little light.
This could be just another highway, coiled up in the night.
You could be just another white-tail, baby, stranded on my brights,
There's a tingling recognition like the sound of distant thunder
And I begin to wonder if the love I've driven under won't ignite.
So you know I've been a soldier in the armies of the night.
And I'll find the fatal error in what's otherwise all right.
Something shines around you that seems, to my delight
To give me just a little sweetness...just a little light.
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Shut up, we are all allowed to be in the mood for Grateful Dead lyrics once every three years or so. (I've never posted any before but in case it's less than 1000 days before I do it again, I figured I'd be safe and say three years instead of four.) I don't know why I am in a Dead mood instead of an electronic Celtic mood, since we went to see Jennifer Cutting's Ocean Orchestra on the Millennium Stage at Kennedy Center earlier (and listened to Fairport Convention driving down), and since I have Walk the Line sitting right here on DVD which I intend to watch before Sunday evening so I can draw my own conclusions about whether Joachin Phoenix deserves to beat Heath Ledger, Philip Seymour Hoffman, David Straithairn and Terrence Howard (wow, what a year in that category). I love Reese so I would root for her sight-unseen, though I certainly wouldn't cry if Felicity or Judi won.
Millennium Stage has free performances every day, 365 days a year, on the little stages outside the Eisenhower Theater and Concert Hall at either end of the main floor -- our tax dollars at work for something good, for a change!
Here is the Ocean Orchestra playing "The Matelot Jig" (originally a New St. George piece).
The bronze bust of JFK at the center of the rear lobby leading to the three main theaters and the terrace.
Earlier in the day I wrote a review of "Friday's Child" which held up much better than I was expecting...I know it isn't one of the greats but I expected to be more irritated by Eleen and all the gratuitous styrofoam rock battle scenes than I was. So many great lines in one episode! And Vasquez Rocks, which makes up for a lot in terms of, well, styrofoam rocks. But the real Trekkie excitement of the day was that I got to interview Alice Krige! There's a collection of Borg episodes of Star Trek being released on DVD on Tuesday and Paramount got Krige to do a bunch of phone interviews, and they offered TrekToday the opportunity to speak with the Borg Queen...who can resist that, especially when she's also starred twice with Sean Bean? Though she said she has no scenes with him in the upcoming Silent Hill, sadly. She's very focused and intelligent, not at all goofy -- she refused to have fun with the question of which captain is sexier, Picard or Janeway. But she talked quite intently about the Borg Queen being omnisexual. *g*
1. JANEWAY/CHAKOTAY, Star Trek: Voyager
2. The decline and fall of The X-Files
3. "Original series canon? Oh, the fans don't care about that anyway" on Star Trek: Enterprise
4. The end of the first season of 24. "I know! We kill off the good woman and vilify the others!"
5. Dealing with feminist issues by putting them in the mouth of a shrike so intolerable that she actually made me pray The West Wing would just drop all that stuff already. And joy, she's coming back for the finale. If she and Josh end up together, I will write a multi-chapter fanfic epic in which Donna ends up with Colin Ayres (aka Jason Isaacs) and they live happily ever after while Amy discovers Josh's previous affair with Sam. And then I will feel much better.
1. What color is your hair? Brown with some gray.
2. When is the last time you accepted a dare? Probably in grad school about 14 years ago when I first saw Madonna's Truth or Dare -- a bunch of us played afterward.
3. Do you think you could have an affair? Not if you mean in the cheating-on-someone sense.
4. How often do you feel like walking on air? Oh, quite often. I ecstasy fairly easily.
5. How about despair? Monthly. It's cyclical.
1. Who was your favorite all time teacher? My B.A. honors thesis advisor, Betsy Erkkila. Who was teaching at Northwestern the last I heard (I took two classes from her at Penn before she was my thesis advisor).
2. What did she teach? American literature and culture, particularly women's poetry.
3. What is your best memory from that class? How comfortable she was discussing which major American poets were lesbians. Really different situation than what I grew up with.
4. Did you ever have a crush on a teacher and if so who? When did I ever NOT have a crush on a teacher? Betsy is actually an anomaly in that while I adored her, I did not have a crush on her; for all four years of college my heart belonged entirely to another woman, my freshman English professor.
5. What is the craziest/wildest/weirdest thing you (or someone you know) ever did at school? I know several people from film schools who filmed either themselves or their friends naked for class projects. I started to think people studied filmmaking specifically as an excuse to do this.
Let's see, what else...no shit, only one in four Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances), but more than half can name at least two family members on The Simpsons! In happier news, Travolta and Latifah Confirmed for Hairspray. I have not seen the musical on stage and frankly don't see how Divine can be improved upon but I am willing to give John a chance just to see how he looks in a dress -- been waiting years for that one.
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