"The people are nice, and shit is FREE!"

Yesterday i decided i wanted to watch the Ken Burns's The Civil War and was griping all the way home about having to pay to rent 9 DVDs or buy the series, until I remembered that in the USA we have a institution known as the PUBLIC LIBRARY....it was, like, a revelation.

Despite the fact that they somehow managed to drop my account (which I only had had for about 6 months, if that) they were still nice.

I got through Vol. 1 and 3 as you can only check out three at a time and vol. 2 was broken (it was a VHS tape and despite my MacGyver skillz I was not able to coax the thing into winding properly, so I missed out on "Fredricksburg to Meridian"--but everyone knows the good stuff didn't start happening until 1862 anyway).

A few observations: maybe it's just because I'm a musician, but I found the b/g music distracting this time around. And it's basically the same three or four songs over and over--that Ashokan Farewell that everyone loves so much, that weird bastardization of "Battle Hymn of the Republic" played on the piano, and some form of "Dixie", fast or slow depending on the subject matter. And I can't help thinking it's really cliche to play those "traditional black chorus" spirituals every time they talk about slavery. Once in a while they throw in some song in a minor key if they are showing pictures of dead and wounded.

I also found myself talking to the screen, like the "black people at the movies" stereotype. That General McClellan, what a puissified idiot. If he had had more guts the war could have been over three years early.

I am looking forward to renting volumes 4-6 today, and engaging in more of these wholesome activities.

And somewhere in there managing to do more work on grad school apps and my personal statements.

P.S. Also started learning the tin whistle last night, the one Dad and Franz brought me back from Colonial Williamsburg. Pretty neat only really soft instrument, and it tired my hands and lips out after about 30 minutes. At the end of a 45-minute session I knew all the notes and could find them semi-fast, so I have been able to manage slow songs such as "Home Sweet Home", "I Dream of Jeannie," "Battle Hymn of the Republic" (well, I had been watching a movie about the Civial War, after all), and faster songs like "Dixie" and "Carlen Is Your Daughter Ready" ast a slow tempo. Good times.