January 05, 2008

Obama Ad "Would" sounds like Philip Glass

I wonder who wrote this music for Barack Obama's new New Hampshire commercial, because it sounds like one of Philip Glass's self-rewritten 1990's-era string orchestra pieces:




Although he seemed upbeat and chipper, Mr. Romney, toward the end of his speech, appeared to momentarily forget where he was, seeming to confuse his New Hampshire audience with Iowans — or perhaps what season it was.

“I’m told I have to let you go,” he said. “You’ve got some harvesting to do.”

This land in this state this weekend is frozen and covered with heaps of crusty snow.

-ADAM NAGOURNEY, "Testing New Themes and Tactics in a New State", NY Times, 5 January, 2007.

WERE YOU AWARE OF IT?

You all know the famous myths about our nation's first president: that he wove his first wig himself from the hairs of the dog he killed so his family could eat. That he rid our nation of the plague of cherry trees. That beneath his gloves he had the giant, hairy paws of a bear. That he was our nation's first president. These are all charming tales.

But were you aware that George Washington...
...grew hemp?
...distilled his own whiskey?
...smoked 70 cigars a day?
...had a rudimentary crystal meth lab in the basement of Mount Vernon?
...kept a laudanum-soaked wad of cotton in his cheek at all times?
...was turned on to hashish by Sally Fairfax, the wife of his best friend, whom he would love from afar for the rest of his life?
...delivered his farewell address at Fraunces Tavern while high on Madeira & Red Bull?
...ate 25 grains of French ecstasy daily "as a digestive"?
...wrote A Book of Etiquette at the age of sixteen, including a final admonition to: "Labor to keep alive in your breast the little spark of celestial fire called 'cocaine?'"
...had false teeth that were not made out of wood but other human teeth?

HOW COULD YOU BE AWARE OF IT IF THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW!!!!??

-John Hodgman, The Areas of My Expertise, pg. 202

"What's that Aroma?" Dixon blurts, knowing quite well, from the Cape, what it is.

[Col. Washington]: "Ah, the new Harvest, how inhospitable of me. 'Tis but a small patch out back, planted as an Experiment,-- if it prospers, next season perhaps we'll plant ten Acres, as a Market-Crop. With luck, between the Navy & the New-York Fops, we could get rid of it all, Male & Fimble, & see us some Profit. Always a few Shillings in Canary-Seed as well, worse comes to worse comes to worst.-- Here then,-- Gershom! Where be you at, my man!"

An African servant with an ambiguous expression appears. "Yes Massus Washington Suh."

"Gershom fetch us if you will some Pipes, & a Bowl of the new-cur'd Hemp. And another gallon of your magnificent Punch. There's a good fellow. Truly, Gentleman, 'an Israelite in whom there is no guile.'"

-Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, ch. 28, in which Charles Mason & Jeremiah Dixon visit Colonel Washington on his Virginia Plantation, & proceed to get wasted & discuss real estate & Washington's strange Jewish slave.


1 comment:

S. Sandrigon said...

Update: Romney's aid said he meant harvesting for votes. Even maple syrup isn't harvested for a few more months. Come & be fishers of men, harvesters for democracy.