Open Thread

She died? So sad. I just learned this morning a friend of mine from Ground Zero died too. A really sweet guy- one of the DSNY guys who were stationed down there during the recovery.We didn’t know how ill he was.

Sad thinking about Lennon’s death. Although I want to distance myself from jackal’s snarky disrespect for the dead, I actually don’t think he made that much great music solo. But we need our dreamers, and it was terribly sad to lose this one.

In advance of tomorrow, here’s one of my favorite John solo lyrics:

God is a concept
By which we measure
Our pain

Interestingly, Lennon’s death figures in the sudden blossoming of the pro-democracy movement in Albania in 1990. From http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/student-city:

In Tirana, it rained on Saturday, December 8 [1990]. Around 3:00 p.m., Prime Minister Çarçani came to Student City unannounced while the students sat in class, together with the ministers of education and construction, allegedly to inspect the renovated buildings. “We had to be careful that conditions were not a reason for revolt,” then-Minister of Education Skënder Gjinushi told me, when reflecting on that day.

The students wanted to meet the prime minister, and 400 of them gathered in a hall to present their views. They spoke respectfully to Çarçani but asked for better conditions. When the three officials left, they understood that “something was burning,” Gjinushi said.

That night around 8:00 p.m., the lights went out—again. A small group of mostly engineering students gathered at the transformer to complain. Together they chanted and sang an old patriotic song, “Eja mblidhuni këtu, këtu…”–“Come and gather here, here…”

. . .

That same night, a group of art students protested in a different way. To commemorate the tenth anniversary of John Lennon’s death, some students and professors gathered at the Academy of Arts. Lyrics from Lennon’s forbidden songs adorned the auditorium walls. The group sang — Revolution, Working Class Hero, Imagine — and then danced. Students turned portraits of Alia and Hoxha upside down or replaced them with photos of Lennon. Candles replaced the lights. A letter was written to Yoko Ono; some signed and others refused but without Ono’s address it never got sent.

The memorial was coming to a close around 2:00 a.m. when word arrived of the demonstration in Student City. A small group walked uphill to check it out. At Budi Street they saw the students and Interior Minister Isai, who appeared to be talking with the crowd. “Then suddenly, the police struck,” said one of the Lennon commemorators, the writer Ardian Klosi. “The crowd split. I ran.”

“DH, why? she asking to get into there? dont think that white glove ultra conservative coop would accept her”

no – i want someone to assassinate her – john lennon style

(just kidding of course – i wish her no real harm)

“I basically think Beatles music just reminds older people of memories of when they were younger so they think it’s good even though it isn’t.”

Precisely. Kinda like when you sit back and reminisce over old cartoons. When I was young, the Smurfs ruled. But now, I’d probably rather saw at my fingers with a rusty butter knife than watch that crap. It’s not good. It’s no “King of the Hill.”

Ok…nite everyone!