I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PHISH-Live Bait 7 (2012).

This free sampler from 2012 is practically a greatest hits collection for me.  There are 8 tracks on the collection and none of them is shorter than 15 minutes.

It opens with a 1995 concert in which “Wilson” segues into “Tweezer” (for a combined total of 30 minutes).  Then there’s a 13 minute version of “Stash” from 2010 and an 18 minute version of “Split Open and Melt” from 1999.  The songs meld very nicely together with just the slightest change in recording sounds making any notable difference.

“You Enjoy Myself” comes from way back in 1992, and it ends with an extended vocal nonsense section–all four of them mouthing crazy sounds in a rhythmic pattern.  The only song of the set that I don’t love is “Runaway Jim,” but the jam section is great in this one.

“Reba” from 1996 works perfectly with “Gumbo” from 1998.  And the set closes with another 1992 recording.  The band opens with “All Things Reconsidered” which Trey explains is a reworking of the NPR theme.  But he then tells the audience that they can sing along to the next song, David Bowie” (which opens with a little nod to the Simpsons).

There’s no sign of a Live Bait 10, unfortunately, but having 9 free releases of highlights from live shows is still pretty sweet.  If only their show in Philly hadn’t sold out.

[READ: June 12, 2014] “The Paper Revolution”

Dinaw Mengestu’s first story (in the 20 under 40 issue) was about a refugee which I felt was more than a stereotypical refugee story.  This new story is about student revolutionaries, and it looks at them in a different (and somewhat confusing) way.

The narrator, who is eventually called Professor Langston by his friend Isaac, is at the University in the capital city, Kampala.  When he first meets Isaac, he finds him an interesting fellow–a man studying politics, because what else is there to study in Africa?  When the narrator says he’s studying literature, that’s when Isaac calls him the professor.

Isaac is full of information that he loves sharing (starting his sentence with “Did you know?”) He lectures about the British rule and their plan to turn this city into a new London if they lost the war.  Isaac fills him with political theory, and the university was the ideal place for it “Every aspiring militant, radical and revolutionary in Eastern and Central Africa was ran to the university.”

He and Isaac watch the “radicals” and can tell from their shoes which ones are truly poor. But there is one boy–so rarely seen as to possibly be invisible–who was the genuine article.  And soon enough there is graffiti on the walls which everyone attributes to him.  But the graffiti is whitewashed and a sign is put up admonishing: “It is a Crime against the country to deface our University walls.”Inspired by this, Isaac puts up his own signs–a paper revolution–mocking the nature of Crimes against the Country.  The last line says “It is a Crime Against the country to read this.” These signs were very successful, with students lining up to read them and then talking about them.  Isaac and the professor go out to celebrate, but the rich boys (whom Isaac says are all named Alex) mock them for being poor.  So Isaac gets into a fight with one of them.  And doesn’t show up at school for a week.

When he does return, battered and bruised, he looks like he was one of the protestors who were beaten by the police.  And suddenly his cache rises–the professor wonders whether he did it on purpose, but that seems impossible.  Soon, people are gathering around Issac to hear his statement, even the rich Alexes listen to what he has to say.

But as in most revolutions, the people in power have the upper hand, and soon they are stomped down.  The government comes out against gathering, even on campus.  But will that last fire get extinguished?

I enjoyed this story and yet there’s really not too much you can say about revolutionary students–very few of their goals come to fruition.  True, I hadn’t read about them in Africa before, but they weren’t all that different in motivation and outcome than so many other campus protests.