SOUNDTRACK: JEANU MACROOY-“Birth of a New Age” (Netherlands Eurovision Entry 2021).
Eurovision 2021 is upon us. It’s hard to really follow Eurovision in the States, but you can see highlights and most official entries online
I tend to think of Eurovision as over the top and campy. But there are often many entries that are anthemic and inspirational.
This entry from Netherlands is one of these. It starts quietly with a pulsing synth and Macrooy singing with a clean powerful voice. After each line, the backing vocalists chany “Your rhythm is rebellion.”
Then like a choir, the voices sing
“Yu no man broko mi” over and over until the song resumes.
The phrase calls to his Surinamese roots and translates as “You can’t break me.”
I found the song and the video quite compelling.
UPDATE: I don’t know exactly what the judges vote on (the live performance only?), but I’m pretty astonished that this song came in 23rd.
[READ: May 10, 2021] “Possession”
I found a stash of old David Sedaris pieces and since they’re all pretty old, they’re quite funny.
This essay starts in Paris and ends in the Anne Frank house.
Sedaris talks about how he and Hugh were looking for a new apartment in Paris. They loved their current place, but the landlord promised it to his daughters. Sure the girls were young and, you know, something could happen to them, but it was unlikely that David and Hugh would ever own their place.
Looking at apartments is like falling in love, but “buying one is like proposing on your first date and agreeing not to see each other until the wedding.” David did not love their new place but High sure did.” Maybe you’re confusing love with pity,” he told Hugh.
Three months after they moved in, they took a trip to Amsterdam, a place often recommended with the phrase, “You can get so fucked up there.” They toured around and eventually came to the Anne Frank house.
I have been there and I agree that, like David, I’d assumed “she lived in a dump, but it’s actually a very beautiful seventeenth-century building, right on the canal.”
As only Sedaris can, he describes how after apartment hunting for so long, this tour was more Open House! than Ticket Line.
He imagines remodeling the place–breaking down walls, putting in new plumbing. It’s not until he reads a quote from Primo Levi
One single Anne Frank moves us more than countless others who suffered just as she did but whose faces have remained in the shadows. Perhaps it is better that way. If we were capable of taking in all the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live.
He did not specify that we would not be able to live in her house, but it was definitely implied.
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