Speaking Confidentially: 28 January 1998

You Gotta Be

Knowledge Is Wealth.
Share It.

You Gotta Be

I thought I was throwing away the price of a whole used CD on one song that I might not even like after two years, but I didn't. Despite her unpromising name, I like Des'ree's I Ain't Movin'. I thought all the songs would be kind of lite dancy stuff. But I hear Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman and I think Joan Armatring, and I am well pleased. I bought the disk Saturday and tonight I am listening to it for the first time.

Booboo and Blake danced with me to "You Gotta Be." Blake chirrupped and bopped, but Boo doesn't dance or sing. Maybe that's why Blake's afraid of him. Actually that kind of breaks my heart. Blake likes Morse, Hamlet, and Monty; he doesn't mind Tigger or Opus. But he huffs at Boo. Blake didn't mind Boo in my arms as long as he got to stay on my shoulder and groove, so the three of danced:

Des'ree, I Ain't Movin', "You Gotta Be" © Sony Music Entertainment

I'm a Closet Medievalist

And I continued to listen to the rest of the album. The sixth track is "Herald the Day," but as I sat here writing and thinking and being my regular self, what I heard was "Harold the Dane." No way, I realized, and consulted the lyric sheet. Oh.

Closet Laundry

Monday night I dreamed about trying to help DEW do her laundry. Monday evening I had indeed done laundry and did not write to her. So Tuesday during the State of the Union I wrote to DEW with pictures from the flower catalog.

I'm a not Closet Sports Fan

After frustrations Tuesday afternoon at work, today was a huge improvement. Someone suggested an adequate--for the time being--solution for one problem and I figured out another one for another problem. Basically I was in a better mood and felt like I accomplished a lot more. When I came up to the same stupid obstacle again, instead of attacking it in vain I took my cue and went out to lunch.

Most of the parade has been cleaned up. I don't understand why exuberance about a city's football team winning a game excuses littering and environmental waste on such a grand scale as yesterday was, but then I also don't understand a) U.S. football, b) U.S. football's appeal, c) why any professional sports team can call itself "Denver" or "New England" or "Seattle" when its players need not be natives of the city or area, d) delirium so markedly removed from the source: the bulk of the parade-goers don't know the players personally, wouldn't like them if they moved to another team, and have nothing to do with the game besides watching it. I guess I think about watching sports as I do about watching sex: why watch when you can do?

Especially watching on television or in huge stands (please drop the sex analogy now). Watching farm leagues I can understand. When a farm or minor league team's name is the New Britain Red Sox, you know the players all live in New Britain (that's in Connecticut). You know the players, you own the businesses that sponsor the teams, and your community directly benefits from the sport. Joining an intramural or community team I also understand. I would never want to myself, but I understand the appeal.

However, I think it's perfectly all right to attend a musical concert even if you cannot play an instrument. I realize that only justifies what I like. Still though I think that to create music on your own must satisfy more wholly and healthily than only to listen.

While living at UConn, I could hardly avoid UConn basketball. I despise how college athletics receive so much more funding than academics; and how donations increase when a school's sports succeed, but not when its academic achievements soar. I've heard arguments that successful sports earn money for a school, but from the spreadsheets I've seen, it looks like donations inspired by the successful team support the less successful teams first and only then does any remainder go to a crucial element like academics.

So once upon a time, the UConn men's basketball team played Georgetown, and Georgetown won. Now, Georgetown played a great game. Everything came together for Georgetown--but not for UConn. And so UConn lost. And everything I heard anyone say about the game focused on UConn's bad luck instead of on Georgetown's prowess. UConn fans didn't enjoy the game; they enjoyed winning. I don't understand that.

If you say you like basketball, then why not enjoy basketball well played? Why do you need the victory? Why not enjoy the skill, the camaraderie? Why must sports focus on one person or team beating another?

Which is why I like cycling, swimming, diving, skating, gymnastics, and track. Cyclists and swimmers draft each other in wind and water, and so yes, one person's performance does affect another's. And there are the team medals in Olympic gymnastics, and skating's and gymnastics' judges can be subjective. But even if a runner doesn't win the race, she can still challenge herself to sprint a little faster this time than she did last time. If an individual athlete's performance affects another's in sports like these, the obstacle for that other athlete to overcome is internal, psychological; she needs to challenge herself. One person can always improve without another person failing.

I am not a Closet Elitist

So whatever. The Broncos' parade happened yesterday and today at lunch I saw what a rapid and thorough job the city has done cleaning up the mess. Also a coworker asked me if I'd ever seen such a huge crowd before--supposedly 650,000 people attended. I didn't count that many from our seventh-storey office. All the orange in the crowd nauseated me (at least the team changed its colors to navy and orange; royal blue and orange repulsed me even more). I happily told him that yes, I had seen a larger crowd and had been part of that larger crowd: the march for reproductive rights in DC in March of 1992.

Well. You can dispute that too. The national news didn't carry the Broncos parade because the State of the Union address and the investigations dominated the day, and I don't rely on the local news to be objective. I've heard the 650,000 figure only from hearsay. I think the National Park Service issued an official estimate of 750,000 for the march I attended, though; and I hope the NPS is more objective than local news (she writes with a sneer).

Speaking of sneers. HAO has called me elitist because I say "soda" instead of "pop" and pronounce "aunt" with an diphthong, not a nasal a. I usually defend myself by saying that elitist I may be, but my pronunciations of those two words are not. (I consider elitist to be assumed or affected, not bred or taught, thus indefensible.) She said she's always thought "ahnt" and "soda" people put on airs. I told her that's because, growing up in an inferior part of the country, she internalized her natural and right mid-West inferiority by resenting her coastal betters. See, I am elitist, but I would never change my natural pronunciation to affect a superior air. I say "envelope" with an "en" instead of "on"; that's lower-class, isn't it? But I did teach myself to say "pail" instead of "bucket" because those words are supposedly class markers. Also I say CarRIBbean, which is flat out wrong, instead of CarribBEan and therefore the opposite of elitist. I also refuse to say "Missourah." Or to drop a "g" unnecessarily.

So I guess the name of my new Des'ree album is I Ain't Moving.

I think "ain't" is fine substitute for "am not" in all but the most formal contexts. Is that elitist? I wouldn't use it for "are not" or "is not."

Go to previous or next entry, the Journal Index, Words, or the Lisa Index

Last modified 31 January 1998

Speak your mind: lisa[at]penguindust[dot]com

Copyright © 1998 LJH