Songs I Dig: Runaway

There are some songs that just stick with me for whatever reason, that I become obsessed with them, and I listen to them over and over. One such example is TV on the Radio's Family Tree --I couldn't get enough of it for awhile--and I can still listen to Tunde Adebimpe's tale of a forbidden love any day of the week. I imagine ghosts connected to the tree keeping the lovers apart.

There are also songs that conjure up certain memories. Like smells, the memory songs can take me back to a particular place and/or time. There is that All Star song by Smash Mouth which makes me think of the summer of 1999, the one before I graduated from college. The last summer before I had to become an adult. It's a stupid song, but it reminds me of that time of fear and excitement and longing.

This is all a preamble to introduce what I intend (hope?) to be at least a semi-regular feature about songs such as those above. I don't have grand illusions that they will all be winners but I do promise to try and feature either a good song or a good story about a song.

So to start off this feature (called, for lack of a better name, Songs I Dig), I dig Runaway by The National. Off of their latest album High Violet (of which I highly recommend), I started listening to the album on my work commutes, and I got hooked on this song in late January/early February. I can't tell you exactly what the song is supposed to mean, though to me it sounds like love and loss. And maybe about the fight to keep the love and not giving up. Seriously, I'm not sure.



Of course, I think the beauty of music is that it doesn't always matter what a song means, or what the writer intended. Sometimes you can make it your own, and the deep, melancholic voice of singer Matt Beringer put sound to how I was feeling in early February. I was reeling from losing London and all that London was for me (friends, experiences, possibilities, making my own way) and feeling completely helpless about it. Lines like, "there's no saving anything," "I'll swallow the sun," and "We've got another thing coming undone," was the poetic version of how I felt. I might not have been running away, but I was going and I was blind-sided, and it felt like everything was closing in, or that I was '"being led to the flood," if you will. I was sad (still am), and I needed a quiet space to feel my loss, and this song provided it.

Yet, when I listen to Runaway now, I smile through my (sometimes figurative) tears. On my last day out in London, I took the bus across the Thames at Vauxhall. Outside my bus window, on a clear day, with Runaway playing in my ears, I had a beautiful view of Parliament, Big Ben, and the river. A most spectacular view, one that each of the countless times I witnessed reminded me of all that I loved of London. That it was my last meaningful look at London (for a little while at least) was a fitting end to three years well spent. And now, Runaway mostly makes me remember that view and my time in London. Which is why I dig it.


To download a live(ish) version of Runaway for free, go here.

TV on the Radio has a new album out in April. You can get a free download of Caffeinated Consciousness here.

Paging 'Cave' Equality

These days I am spending a significant amount of time at home during the day. One of the things I am doing, along with soul and job searching, is watching a significant amount of home improvement/house buying television. And let me tell you, there is a lot out there, all designed to entertain the middle class masses. (Which certainly should be a subject for a different post!)

One of the trends I have noticed that appears new to me since last I gorged on these shows, is the idea of a 'man cave.' The term is apparently describing a space for the man of the house (because, it seems this idea is always perpetuated by couples in opposite marriage) to do as he pleases. And while I don't inherently have a problem with couples having their own space or spaces in a house (in fact I think it is a good thing), I find a lot of the talk around man caves to be problematic.

The term man cave has entered the lexicon enough to have its own wikipedia page. The 'man cave' is described as a place "where guys can do as they please without upsetting female sensibilities about the house." The page further talks about how it is 'generally accepted' that women decorate the rest of the house, and men need to create their own space as a reaction to 'feminine domestic power.' These caves, generally full of 'manly items' like electronics (since women do not like electronics, duh), are where they can put their beer can lamps away from the eyes of the guests to the house. The page goes on at length about how the 'women's movement' have left men with identity problems and how they just can't please all the women in the whole wide world who want them to be sensitive and manly. Yes, I am paraphrasing, but I think you'll find I am on the money.

I find this whole dialogue around man caves to be full of fail. To start off with, the idea that women decorate the rest of the house without input or thought of men, is an annoyingly sexist idea. Sure this is the case in some households, but I think it is important to dig just a bit deeper. Traditionally women's identity and power have been almost totally defined by the home, and despite the 'women's movement,' women are still overwhelming the ones expected to keep the home. That men should respond to this 'feminine domestic power' by demanding a man cave rather than looking at that inequality, shows a lot of unchecked privilege. For a show to perpetuate this idea, sell it as not only as an accepted, but a coveted norm, make the move for gender equality in the home more difficult.

In all of the discussions of man caves, I have rarely (I won't say never, since as soon as I say never, someone will tell me I'm wrong) seen discussion about a 'woman cave.' And while I shudder to think what home shows would propose to be in these caves (sewing? scrapbooking? vacuum cleaner?), the idea that men need to get away from the womenz, continues to advance the idea of women as nagging, controlling, shrews. Ones that won't 'let' a grown man have his buddies over for a poker game, watch football, or play video games. It also seems to implicitly say that women don't really need their own space, that women would never need time away from their husbands or children.

The whole man cave idea assumes that couples of the heterosexual nature are made up of stereotypes. The wife-as-mother married to the man-child. It doesn't consider that a relationship between a woman and man could be equal, that it could be based in love, respect, and communication. It doesn't say that in a couple, both partners need to have time and space from the other one, even in their own home. It assumes couples would never share decisions about the upkeep of their home, and that if one partner does more of the decorating the other is resentful of that. And it assumes that all women care about are how their home looks to others.

I wish that these shows, because they do shape and reflect a certain way of thinking, would talk more about a cave that both halves could use for time away. That this cave is a safe space from the pressure to look a certain way, a place that is comfortable and fun, a place free from judgement. A place that was respected for alone time, but could be shared sometimes too. Wouldn't it be great if the pop culture narrative from these shows was more evolved than this!

Trailblazers

I share my birthday with some pretty cool people, including Galileo and Susan B. Anthony. (Also, Jo Miller, a poker player, and a girl I went to high school with--all cool in their own right.) Most of you know Galileo, he who the Church condemned for daring to support the theory that the Sun and not the Earth was at the center of the universe. He has been hailed as being responsible for modern science, and is enshrined in pop culture by both Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and in the song Galileo by the Indigo Girls. If Queen sings about you, I think that makes you cool.

Most Americans know, or should know, Susan B. Anthony. A Quaker who campaigned for various social justice causes, the most well-known being Women's Suffrage in America. Famously working with Elizabeth Cady Stanton they created the organisation that would become the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), and lobbied tirelessly for a constitutional amendment. Susan B. Anthony was once arrested for voting; she never paid the fine. Susan B. Anthony was immortalized on a US dollar coin, which is pretty darn cool.

Galileo and Susan B. Anthony were long dead by the time they got their justly deserved comeuppance. In the 1990s, the Church apologised for making Galileo recant what was later found out to be basically the truth, and in 1920 the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, using the original language written by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Their largest legacy is that they helped to create a new world of sorts. One where scientific study and reason was the norm over religious mania. One where women were allowed to exercise a basic democratic right that helps to ensure their rights as citizens. I would wager to say that in the 21st century we must continue to fight for both principles.

I make no claims on ever getting into a pop song, or becoming money, but I do hope that some of what I do can make a difference. Each year on February 15th, I am inspired of these two trailblazers that came before me, and hope that I can blaze a small trail of my own.

Happy New Year, 2011 Style

2010 was an interesting year for me. It was completely brilliant and totally challenging. It brought me great joy and great sadness.

All of that left me really tired and worn out and not feeling like I could write. Also, I was afraid the answer to the Is Sara Interesting question would be no, she's just a bit boring. A result was this blog was silent for the whole of 2010. I'm quite sad about that and the plan is to get it back up and running in 2011. Well, the resolution is to start writing more (or ahem, again) and hopefully some of that will end up here. I've started by picking a new blog style for now. I liked the old one, but thought something new could be fun.

For now I'm processing the start of another year, and how I am going to complete this resolution. As well as some others. I'll report back!