Concert night again tonight down at Stearns Square. Tazzy wanted to go more than I did, so we walked over together, but of course since she's a dog, she couldn't go in, and since I was with her, I couldn't go in either. They've started putting up an ugly orange fence around the proceedings, which goes a long way towards spoiling the whole event for me. I always liked the easy openness of it...the blankets, the beach chairs, the bikes, people strolling around, dancing here and there.Heavy police presence has done nothing to spoil the atmosphere. The cops obviously enjoy the gig. They hum and sway along with everyone else, and always appear genial and friendly. You can imagine that they're there to find lost babies or get ambulances for heart attack victims. But the ugly orange fence is a real downer. It seems to be saying: after 9/11, we can't be too careful. We have to have checkpoints.
So, because I wanted to go with my dog, I couldn't go in. I couldn't get anywhere near the stage. It was the Cherry Poppin' Daddies, a Grammy-award-winning swing group, and I guess they were good, but I just wasn't in the mood. Didn't we learn anything from Woodstock?
Ah, what we may have learned from Woodstock....
ReplyDeleteI recently posted an entry on my own blog that turns out to have an incidental (and, I think) amusing connection. It came to my attention that in July a not very bright but aspiring-to-significance cartoonist, named Chris Muir, wrote a series of cartoons denouncing the "Kantian nihilist" tendencies of the New York Times.
The 'toons consist mostly of a buff half-naked man talking to his underwear-clad Significant Other, explaining to each other where the Times has gone wrong.
Anyway, the phrase "Kantian nihilism" is amusing in itself, to anybody who knows anything about Kant.
At my blog, I link to another blog, maintained by a real honest-to-goodness credentialed philosopher, who explains this, and one can then scroll down to see the comments people have appended to her explanation. This is where we get back to Woodstock. For the whole kerfluffle inspired one commenter to offer a funny vignette of what Kant might have said had he gotten to Bethel, NY.
Random Stoned Hippy: man, that's deep, man
Kant: Bot ju jost don't get it, no? Ze categorical fun imperitive ist der vay dat morality verks [...] by der vay -- vair ist der sex? I vas promised der voot be der sex in der mod here, ya? and it vood be very moral sex too, because it would be categorical sex dat everyone vood be doing it, ya? Did someone lie to me? 'Cause lying ist very immoral, no?