here are some amazing quotes, please read:
'i got high to flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. and if the high didn't solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bullshit and cheap moralism.'
'i was living in new york on ninety-fourth between second and first, part of that unnamed shifting border between east harlem and the rest of manhattan. the apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer that didn't work, so the visitors had to call from a pay phone at the gas station. none of this concerned me much, for i didn't get many visitors. i enjoyed exchanging pleasantries with my puerto rican neighbors, and talking to the boys who hung out on the stoop about the knicks or the gunshots they'd heard the night before.'
'it was a guileless need, one without self-consciousness, and perhaps that's how any love begins, impulses and cloudy images that allow us to break across our solitude.'
'i spent my first night in manhattan curled up in an alleyway. i found a dry spot, propped my luggage beneath me and fell asleep. in the morning i found a white hen pecking at the garbage near my feet. across the street, a homeless man was washing himself at an open hydrant and didn't object when i joined him.'
'i chose my friends carefully. the politically active black students. the foreign students. the chicanos. the marxist professors and structural feminists and punk rockers. when we played our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake we were resisting bourgeois society's stifling constraints. we weren't indifferent or careless or insecure. we were alienated.'
'three o'clock in the morning. the moon-washed streets empty. the revelers tucked away by now, paired off or alone, in deep, beer-heavy sleep. and now just the two of us to wait for the sunrise, me and billie holiday, her voice warbling through the darkened room, reaching toward me like a lover. "the trick is not caring that it hurts." i tried to remember where i'd heard the line, but it was lost to me now, like a forgotten face. no matter. billie knew the same trick; it was in that torn-up, trembling voice of hers.'
these were written by our president elect, barack obama, in 'dreams from my father', about his college years in l.a and manhattan.
you might know that i'm kind of fond of our president elect...
but can you believe that we have a president elect who writes well and writes poetically and writes honestly and who spent his first night in manhattan sleeping in an alley and bathing with a homeless guy in a firehydrant?
if you haven't read 'dreams from my father', you should, it's a remarkable book. particularly remarkable in that it was written by our president elect.
i was talking to some friends the other day and i was saying that it feels as if my smartest, best friend from college is president elect and that he's going to be wearing a joy division t-shirt when he's sworn in on january 20th.
moby
but something I saw on the daily show that has me kinda worried
I really like him too.
But something I saw on the daily show has me kind of worried. Apparently one of the people obama has chosen for some kind of high position or other is exactly the same person who has that position in the Bush Administration. Also another one of the people he has chosen is a strong supporter of the iraq war. that was a man. as I'm sure you know, hillary clinton is also wanting that war to continue on for some time longer.
ok I can kind of understand why he chose hillary clinton for secretary of state. it seems odd to say the least though that he's chosen a man who is a really strong supporter of that war for some other high position, and even more strange that someone who was working for the bush administration is going to have the same position in his administration. This is assuming that what was revealed on the daily show about this is actually true.
so i got to wondering whether some one or two people have already had obama shut in a room somewhere with a gun pointing at his head telling him that he has to do this, that and the other thing or else there will be "dire consequences".
maybe that's not exactly the reason, but then i got to wondering anyway, if obama were in that situation, would he submit for the sake of his wife and children, to protect them from having to go through the enormous pain that they would have to go through if he were to get assasinated... would he then allow himself to be a "puppet" for certain special interest groups, or would he expose the people who threatened him and risk his life?
just wondering. I know you were wanting to keep your journal reasonably light hearted ever since the time of obama's great election victory, so I don't expect you to make a comment on that hyperthetical scenario in any journal entry of yours any time soon, but I can't help wondering myself.
anyway, supposing what was revealed the other day in the daily show about a certain few people that have been chosen for high positions by obama was true, what reason do you suppose it would be that he has chosen them? It's the two men i'm wondering about, not hillary. I think i can understand why he would have chosen her.
Perhaps you and President Obama are Kindred Spirits
or perhaps you were very close friends in the before life....Tis quite amazing when you think about it. The cosmos is amazing isn't it. Sigh.
Rachelle LaDelle' Geisheker
"Be True to Love & Love Will Be True To You."
See my myspace page at: www.myspace.com/rachellelovesmoby
My favorite quote of President Obama's that you have posted
'three o'clock in the morning. the moon-washed streets empty. the revelers tucked away by now, paired off or alone, in deep, beer-heavy sleep. and now just the two of us to wait for the sunrise, me and billie holiday, her voice warbling through the darkened room, reaching toward me like a lover. "the trick is not caring that it hurts." i tried to remember where i'd heard the line, but it was lost to me now, like a forgotten face. no matter. billie knew the same trick; it was in that torn-up, trembling voice of hers.'
Barack most certainly has a way with words doesn't he, absolutely tantalizing writing!!
Rachelle LaDelle' Geisheker
"Be True to Love & Love Will Be True To You."
See my myspace page at: www.myspace.com/rachellelovesmoby
Wow, such deep and rivetting words by President Obama
Thank you for sharing those Darling. I will most definately have to read that book. I felt as if I was there, in the moment as Obama described things. He is very eloquent in the way he writes and speaks and I'm very happy he is our President (I know, I don't call him President Elect, I call him President :)
I'm waiting for you to come out with a Moby Christmas Album and/or Single.
Oh, and you should add a profile to Bebo.com, winks*.
Love & Hugs,
Rachelle
xxxx
oooo
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P.S. As my business myspace status has asked since yesterday morning, back to yesterday's journal, is that really a lion on the hat? It looks to me like a white bear wearing a hat itselt, so I'm thinking you may be mistaken and it is actually a polar bear. Absolutely darling hat by the way. I want to get one for BB, although, he won't be needing it here in warm Florida, but still....giggles...
Rachelle LaDelle' Geisheker
"Be True to Love & Love Will Be True To You."
See my myspace page at: www.myspace.com/rachellelovesmoby
I haven't read dreams from
I haven't read dreams from my father and probably wont but I like this side of you a lot more. I hope obama is one of the greatest American presidents of all time because the world is changing very quickly and as an aussie I would much rather have the usa as a world power than just china
Thank You!
God his story is so inspiring. I keep learning new things about his way to the presidency and it just amazes me and gives me strength in my own life goals and journeys. Thanks so much for sharing Moby!
PS- Just FYI "At Least We Tried" brings a tear to my eye every time I listen to it, the music and lyrics coincide perfectly with each failed relationship I've had in the past 2 years of my life. It brings me back to that very moment of me standing alone on a Manhattan street trying to walk away from the things I love or lying in bed waiting for the next phase of my life to start after a heart ache. Thank you for your beautiful music, it too gives me hope and inspiration the same way Obama's story does.
Sincerely,
Joseph P.
http://www.sidebysidemusic.net/Disappear.mp3
jpepe86@hotmail.com
Great read...
I'm almost finished with Dreams from My Father. Just started the Kenya section. Then on to Audacity of Hope. He is quite amazing, isn't he?