1. License Plate Renewal Statement 2. Panasonic 3-chip digital video camera 3. A list of the "new" 8-letter words allowable in Scrabble, folded up and on top of the stack of papers on top of the printer 4. The dvd of "Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East?" 5. The piece of paper next to the keyboard contains a partial list of people who went to the 8th Annual Open Mic: Letters show at Circle A.
I actually created this chart for the 5th Annual Umali Awards. I will continue my investigations into the lovely sounding phenomenon of "DIWITTY deflation." DIWITTY is an acronym for Day In Which I Talked To You. The plural of it is DIWITTYs.
The Good Review #001: Video for Midnight Oil's "Put Down That Weapon"
[The Good Review, an occasional feature of The Sum Of It All, celebrates something in 500 words or less.]
Ever since I heard that Peter Garrett, who fronted the band Midnight Oil, became the Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment, Heritage and the Arts in Australia's government, I can not stop listening to Midnight Oil. There are many songs that, upon listening, evoke memories and feelings. Put Down That Weapon, and, indeed, all of the songs on that album "Diesel and Dust" brings me back to an excellent, simpler, time in my life.
I was a bike messenger in Manhattan for two summers (1989, and 1990). Lovely job. I had promised myself that I would not listen to my walkman while messengering, but once I got the handle of the streets and the traffic, I broke that promise. In 1990, I bought that Midnight Oil cassette, and I distinctly remember the wash of sound, specifically the synth sound, which had caught me by surprise, that jived perfectly with riding uptown near the Pan Am building. I forget which street that was.
Fast forward to December 2007. I had just biked home in a minor snow storm. A twenty minute commute had ballooned to fifty. Among the many things which had coursed through my mind on that ride was Peter Garrett's singing on Put Down That Weapon. At home, I went on YouTube and looked at the video. Over, and over again.
The video is stark and simple. There's a darkened sound studio, lit well enough to see the members of the band. They are all earnestly playing their instruments. Peter Garrett sings directly into the camera. My friend, Mary, said, after watching it, that the video might give her nightmares. I'm not surprised, Garrett's gaze is intense. What's more, the video is hardly edited. The last 45 seconds or so is just a static shot of Peter Garrett. No cuts. It is just him burning his eyes into the camera and singing, compelling us to “put down that weapon.”
This best part is at the 2:56 mark of the video. This is right at the end of the song’s somewhat chaotic break or bridge. There, Garrett’s Ian Curtis-derived dancing spectacularly follows the song’s transition from chaos to calm. You really have to see it.
