Saturday, December 12, 2009

how memory works

I just finished Black White and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self by Rebecca Walker. It was good, particularly the ending. The last vignette of the book is a reflection on Walker's experience at her paternal grandmother's funeral. She writes about her sadness at this woman's death and the fact that she mourns her Jewish grandmother in a way her brother and sister cannot. Unlike Walker, they are all white, all Jewish, and far younger. They are more greatly linked to the grandmother figure by blood, but not by memory. 



Walker contends that memory is what undergirds our allegiances and builds our families and emotional investments. This assertion, of course, is the argument Walker makes throughout the memoir about her own identity; she is the people she has loved, the things she has felt and experienced and lost, the places she has lived in and left. She is everything documented in the pages of the book far more than she is 'her blood' or any of the identities crafted for her by others based upon that blood identity. Surely, different moments of her past have a particular color and gender and religion, but she is, ultimately, what she remembers. 


Walker writes:


"It seems to me, that this, too, is how memory works. What we remember of what was done to us shapes our view, molds us, sets our stance. But what we remember is past, it no longer exists, and yet we hold on to it, live by it, surrender so much control to it. What do we become when we put down the scripts written by history and memory, when each person before us can be seen free of the cultural or personal narrative we've inherited or devised? When we, ourselves, can taste that freedom."


I have read several good books this year with unsatisfactory, easily forgotten endings. I will remember this one. It made the book feel whole. 


What more could a writer want? 

Monday, December 7, 2009

beggars

I just discovered that one of my favorite bands has released a new record. Thrice is an amazing group - musically inventive with lyrics that center on issues of justice, humanity, courage, and faith. I didn't think anything could top their last two studio releases, Vheissu and The Alchemy Index, but I've got hope Beggars may reach even farther.


Thrice is the kind of band whose songs make you feel like they create music in order to make sense of the violence and suffering in this world. As they play, they seek understanding, and by the end of the song, you, the listener, have gained a bit of clarity and hope, as well. You feel as if the horrors you perceive in the world do exist and that there are other people who recognize these tragedies and injustices as well, and yet believe that there is another way. You feel as if others believe there is a better way, and that it is coming, that it is something in our hands.


It is this theme of resistance, hope, and compassion in Thrice's music that made me do a doubletake when I found the following lyrics in a song called All The World Is Mad (which is actually quite a lovely track - Dustin Kensrue's vocals remind me a great deal of Muse frontman, Matt Bellamy, on this one).


we can't medicate man to perfection again
we can't legislate peace in our hearts
we can't educate sin from our souls, it's been there from the start


If these lyrics are true, Thrice, what then?
I'm sure there is something more to be done or to believe in. With Thrice, there always is.




My heart is filled with songs of forever
The city that endures when all is new
I know I don't belong here
I'll never call this place my home, I'm just passing through

*copyright

don't steal words! don't steal images! if you want to borrow something, ask.