Sinister: this year, to save me from tears, i'll give it to someone special.

[dagnyrae]

i think i'll start with some notings again:

*i do wish i could be in attendance at mr. jay
eckard's southern soiree; however, being landlocked as
i am with shining monetary shackles, i can only
encourage others to go and take a nice fruit salad in
my honor. preferably the delightfully WT ambrosia type
of fruit salad. i think jay might like that.

*someone mentioned sigur ros: this band, indeed, is
like nothing else. what i can tell you (as an avid
avid fan): jonsi, the gay and half-blind frontman,
plays his guitar with a cello bow (thus producing the
characteristic ambiance). their first album (well, the
first released in america; the actual first was von,
but now very hard to get) was largely in icelandic,
with the exception of track 8, olsen olsen, which is
in hopelandic, the band's made-up language. apparently
the language consists of whatever jonsi mumbled in
practice; not actually words, but sounds. whatever.
the new album, (), is all in hopelandic. 

all that aside, though, the music is incredible. the
first time i listened to agaetis byjurn, i cried. and
i was driving at the time, so it was kind of a
problem. but yeah. i think it was the very most
spiritual musical listening experience i've ever had,
and it have one every time i listen.

and sigur ros means victory rose. how cool is that?

ooo.  yeah.  spiritually orgasmic.

*one last thing. oft bored at work, i've become
somewhat addicted to the crosswords accessed at
www.bored.com. today i wandered around the site's
other links, and discovered that the only other things
there would actually incite boredom, including a
virtual bubble wrap site that featured a piece of
'virtual bubble wrap' with small circles (emulating
bubbles) on which one could click (emulating popping
said bubbles). yikes.

almost as bad as msn's 'top 10 places to kiss' article
(which i of course checked out). too bad there aren't
any ski lifts where i live. i guess i'll have to
settle for the most original locale on their list:
under the covers.

anyone wanna come over?

***

my sister made me an ace holiday music mix. largely
christmas, but there's a hanukkah song in there.

yeah. that one.

the people at the paper seem to like it, anyway.

and there's a techno number on there. three pouncing
minutes of beat and synthesized auld lang syne with
this crazy voice shouting 'happy new year.' it makes
me laugh, and it's stuck in my head now.

well.

better that than U2, i guess.

***

bono spoke at the university tonight. i went, notebook
in hand, to gather information for the editorial i
just finished writing about 20 minutes ago. between
all the standing ovations for bono and ashley judd and
lance armstrong i dropped my pen and had to borrow
from the bloke next to me. but fellowship was the
theme of the night anyway.

millions of orphans in africa have parents who die
from AIDS, and thousands more people are dying or
contracting HIV every day. the statistics were
sobering. the same number of people in my university's
current graduating class is the same number of people
who die every day in africa from AIDS or HIV.  a
little over 6,000.

there was a woman who spoke. out of africa to america
for the first time. she was HIV positive. 

and for some reason i wondered what would happen if
she fell, if she got cut, if she bled out onto that
stage. what the people would have done, who would have
been the first to touch her.

everyone who spoke, all the celebrities, received a
standing ovation.

one man didn't. a doctor. apparently at the forefront
of AIDS research.

and that pissed me off. we didn't recognize him, but
we recognized ashley judd and bono, who received wild
applause and cheers when he performed a surprise song
at the end of the show, some new U2 track celebrating
america and its gracious wonder.

i wasn't so proud of my fellow americans, all those
kids who sat through those two hours to hear a song,
reminisce about hearing the joshua tree for the first
time amongst themselves and then go home and talk
about the moving numbers, the true-life story, the
little choir of african kids who joined in with bono
and his cd backup.

we all left with this little idea that the world would
be better and that we really wouldn't have to do
anything. we could let bono do it. or a group of kids
in lincoln. just to go to that one event was enough.

just to go and cheer for the famous, and let the
everyday go by again and again and again.

well.


i guess some days are better than others.


the war on AIDS? the war on terror? the war on the
world?

i guess those are just for off days, and we get over
those after a few cigarettes and a good night's sleep.

when we stop being scared, we'd be ready to touch a
bleeding woman, we'd be ready to tell her we really
would do something, just by taking her hand and
telling her that someday, the bleeding would end
before her life did.



go do something about something.

don't just talk about it, say you love 'we rule the
school' and then never make the attempt to do
something pretty while you can. 



*rae

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