Hope in a Darkening Age...
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"THE END OF ALL INTELLIGENT ANALYSIS IS TO CLEAR THE WAY FOR SYNTHESIS."--H.G. Wells. "It's always a leap into the unknown future to write anything."--Margaret Atwood "Be kind, be useful, be fearless."--President Barack Obama.
Thursday, February 28, 2019
You Make My Dreams
The 80s. Cable TV was the new big thing and with it, MTV: all music videos all the time. One of the first acts to make MTV their home was Hall & Oates, and their first big hit of the MTV era was this one, "You Make My Dreams Come True." The video is an early no-frills effort, but it pops with high spirits and musical energy, and suggests the best of being young in the 80s. Daryl Hall's t-shirt with a suit coat would become a hot style with Don Johnson and Miami Vice, and it has never quite left since. The video also has an improvised, antic, even goofy quality that would soon be replaced by ever-elaborate mini-movies and formalized dance moves in MTV's heyday decade.
I liked this song a lot at the time, as I did their earlier "Rich Girl" (think I had one or two in mind when I heard it) and their remakeof the Righteous Brothers "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling," which got to be unusual in that John Oates had the lead vocal. But those were about all of their songs I remember, so I was surprised to read that Hall & Oates sold the most records of any duo in the rock era. That would include the Everly Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel (before Paul Simon went solo.) Whatever. They were valid musicians, and Hall in particular continues in different venues to this day. Enjoy this one--a bit of infectious fun from a weird decade.
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The Malling of America
available at your online bookseller
Manifesto
..."The answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve, to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day."--Barack Obama Nov. 4, 2008
"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage." Barack Obama January 20, 2009
"If you turn away now – if you buy into the cynicism that the change we fought for isn’t possible…well, change will not happen. If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void: lobbyists and special interests; the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election and those who are making it harder for you to vote; Washington politicians who want to decide who you can marry, or control health care choices that women should make for themselves. Only you can make sure that doesn't happen. Only you have the power to move us forward.--President Obama on Sept. 6, 2012
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