“There are these rare moments when musicians together touch something sweeter than they’ve ever found before in rehearsals or performance, beyond the merely collaborative or technically proficient, when their expression becomes as easy and graceful as friendship or love. This is when they give us a glimpse of what we might be, of our best selves, and of an impossible world in which you give everything you have to others, but lose nothing of yourself. Out in the real world there exist detailed plans, visionary projects for peaceable realms, all conflicts resolved, happiness for everyone, for ever—mirages for which people are prepared to die and kill. Christ’s kingdom on earth, the workers’ paradise, the ideal Islamic state. But only in music, and only on rare occasions, does the curtain actually lift on this dream of community, and it’s tantalizingly conjured, before fading away on the last notes.”
from Saturday by Ian McEwan
What? I'm not supposed to pull off the fluff? Like... never?
I took this photo as part of an assignment from friends over on 43Things to take a photograph of "power." I had to think a lot about this one. What do I think is powerful?
Standing up for what you believe, even when it’s not the popular position. Peaceful resistance.
A few years ago in the U.S.--even a few months ago--it felt a little dangerous to say that we shouldn’t be in Iraq. I found out that a few people who I thought of as friends would like to shut me up. They thought I was a threat to the security of our country for saying what I believed.
To me, freedom of speech is at the core of what this country is supposed to stand for. Get rid of that, and you don’t have much left to defend.
As evidenced by the recent elections, some people’s minds have been changed. The large and small actions of hundreds of thousands of peaceful people willing to speak up have made a difference. Oh, and Keith Olberman's comments helped give us courage, too.
It isn't solved, but the ways of talking about it are opening up.
