Do National Anthems have to Sound the Same?
Today’s New York Times did a piece – the World Cup of Anthems – that highlighted how the different Cup winner national songs have been celebrated and sung. It was good and interesting but missed one of the silliest things about national anthems: they all sound the same.
I first got to thinking about this thanks to ESPNs excellent World Cup iPhone app. It includes the anthems for the 32 countries that made it to South Africa. Regardless of where in the world they were from they’re ALL THE SAME. All of them sound like they were written in Austro-Hungarian Empire.
I can accept this for the European countries but ALL of them? Please, there have got to be some good local composers who could have infused some local color and culture into these turgid marches.
When I started playing Fifa South Africa on the XBOX 360 the universe of absurd anthems really opened up. The game has anthems for every Fifa member. Nearly 200 of them. And once again, as I let my cursor skip around the world, I heard it again and again – 19th century European marching music.
Don’t believe me?
How about we hear from a few of the nations themselves. Thailand, how does your national anthem sound?
Now, half a world away, it’s time for Costa Rica:
Iceland is much colder than either Thailand or Costa Rica. Maybe that means they’re national anthem is different too.
Well, it’s slower, you have to give it that . . .
Now Peru:
From the mountains of South America to the dry Arabian Peninsula:
No nation or geography seems to be immune to this inexplicable trend. That’s not quite true, there are a few exceptions to the rule. Hats off the countries willing to make a stand and try something different.
India:
Nepal:
And to be honest, those are pretty much the ONLY TWO I came across that didn’t sound THE SAME. I’m not saying I listened to all of them but I listened to enough not to want to listen to any more. I’m sure someone out there has a catalog of all the most awesome anthems in the world. Maybe they’ll share the link so my faith the creative capabilities of humanity can be restored. Until that happens I’m going to assume that we hit our musical apogee back in 1870. And please, say it ain’t so . . .
Fresh Faces 19
I hate how slowly I’m adding faces these days. Totally hate it. But I’m still working and the faces I’m getting are still great. I can’t imagine ever getting sick of meeting people and taking their pictures. It’s just too much fun. Here are the latest set – all taken over the past couple of months. Enjoy!
If you’re around Boston and would like me to take your picture for an avatar/profile pic let me know. More likely than not I’d be happy to do it.
My Life in Reading – 1990
In 1990 my life was up in the air. We were in SF but I was not focused. Nor was my reading. I did read two volumes of Robert Caro’s excellent biography of LBJ. For part of the year I worked as a wildland firefighter up in Marin County. I didn’t get to go to any big fires though. My main task was to survey and mark the boundary of the park. This was before GPS so I spent a lot of time walking through the woods with a map and a compass. I also always brought a book for some trailside reading during lunch. I had a great time up there and spent a lot of time on and around Mt. Tam. That experience led me to read “The Sleeping Lady.”
He Died with His Eyes Open, Derek Raymond
I can remember very little about this. My recollection is that it was a pretty grim and gritty British crime novel. I know I liked it because I went on to read several more of Raymond’s stories.
Invitation to an Inquest, Walter & Mirriam Schneir
The making of the atomic bomb, the stories of the atom spies, the Cold War – these have always been really interesting to me. I can’t recall what lead me to this book but I was glad I read it. I won’t go into details now but I will say my interest and scant knowledge of the Rosenbergs led – through an unlikely series of events – to an unexpected meeting in 1991 . . .
A Bright Shining Lie, Neil Sheehan
Again I don’t know what drew me to this book. It was the first history of Vietnam that I’d read. I recall it being good though and it led me to read a number of other histories of the conflict over the years.
Frogs at the Bottom of a Well, Ken Edgar
I have no idea what this book was about or why I read it.
Miracle at Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen
This was a holdover from my time at the JFK birthplace. It was something we sold there and I purchased it at some point. This book was a pleasure to read – especially the dross I had just finished. Thinking back, I think this was the first book I read on early US history. There have been several more that followed, as you will see in the future years.
Out of the Cold, Robert S. McNamara
Somehow I heard that Robert McNamara was going to be speaking over at Berkeley. For some reason I decided to go. I can’t recall if I went because I was reading this book or if I read this book because I went but I’m pretty sure there was a connection. This fit in with my Cold War and Vietnam reading.
About Face, David Hackworth
More on Vietnam. I recall enjoying this book very much. More than “A Bright Shining Lie.” Don’t get me wrong – both books were excellent – but there is something about
Hackworth’s voice that made this book more memorable for me.
The Path to Power, Robert Caro
My dad has been the greatest source of inspiration and recommendations when it comes to my reading. His library is easily over 10,000 volumes at this point – and probably far more. For as long as I can remember he’s given me books at every opportunity. And if he hasn’t given them to me he’s always offered great recommendations.
The Path to Power was a gift from my father and I enjoyed it very much. My time at the Kennedy birthplace resulted in an interest in presidential history and political history in general. Knowing this my dad thought I might enjoy the Caro biography. He was right on the money.
These books paint a picture of political power: how it is gained, developed, strengthened and exercised. Say what you will about LBJ but there’s no denying that he understood how to amass and use power. Master of the Senate, the third book, is particularly stunning in its illustration of how Johnson worked.
The first volume dealt with Johnson’s early years in Texas. It was an auspicious beginning but you get a sense of what drove the man.
Apollo
There are a lot of books called Apollo as it turns out; and for the life of me I can’t recall which one this was. You probably don’t want to read it anyway . . .
Means of Ascent, Robert Caro
This, the second of Caro’s biography, deals with Johnson’s early days in Washington – and particularly his relationship with Sam Rayburn. I can’t recommend this biography enough. If you’re interested in politics you need to read it.
Sleeping Lady, Robert Graysmith
Were it not for the fact that I was spending a lot of time in the shadow of Mt. Tam in 1990 I probably wouldn’t have read this book. It was one of the first true crime books that I read and I do enjoy the genre but I don’t recall much about this one.
The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell
Certainly a classic. I watched several of the conversations between Bill Moyers and Campbell the formed the core of this book – and I went on to read one of the Masks of God. I tried reading the Golden Bough as well but that doesn’t have a very smooth narrative – it reads more like a simple catalog of curious behaviors.
The Deptford Trilogy, Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies was another gift from my father. This book in particular but just learning of him as an author. I recall little about this trilogy (partly because I read it so many years ago – and partly because I read so many of his stories). What I do remember is that they are written in a language so rich – and tell stories so involved – that I didn’t want them to end.
Twenty Years of Reading – 1989
I was married on January 2, 1989. I was reading A Perfect Spy by John Le Carre on our honeymoon. Arbitrarily I decided to keep track of everything I read. It has seemed silly at points but after more than 20 years I love that I know everything I’ve read since I’ve been married.
Looking over the list, I can see interests rise and fall; I can see authors discovered and their works exhausted; I can see those times I traveled more and the times I traveled less. Because reading has always been important to me it offers a good – if unintended – window into my life.
A few weeks ago I decided to look back and write about my reading. I pulled out the list (actually, a small journal) and went to work. I’ve read more than 450 books since I started and so the post quickly became unwieldy. For each year I was writing a brief overview of what I’d read, links to the books and then a few comments on selected titles. Trying to do that for 20-plus years in a single post was just too much.
Instead, I’ve decided to break it down year-by-year. This makes it much easier for me to write and will make it much easier for anyone to read. It also gives me more time and space to think and write about what I read. Looking through the list I realize that the further back I go the less I can recall but for what it’s worth, here’s the start.
1989
1989 was the year I was married. It was also the year Wendy and I moved from Boston to San Francisco. There aren’t really any discernable patterns to what I read that year. Maybe the closest are the few books I read on JFK (I was working as a park ranger at his birthplace in Brookline when the year started) and a couple on the Cold War, which was an area of interest for me.
A Perfect Spy, John Le Carre
Leaving Home, Garrison Keillor
Remembering America, Richard Goodwin
The Serpent and the Rainbow, Wade Phillips
A Thousand Days, John Scheslenger Jr
The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
I loved these stories. I read it after seeing a few of the stories on television with Jeremy Brett. I’d read a story here or there as a kid and saw some of the Basil Rathbone movies but the Brett portrayal really brought Holmes alive for me.
And as often happens, once I was hooked I wanted to go back to read the original stories – all of them. Over the years I’ve read a few of Conan Doyle’s other stories (The Lost World was great – his boxing stuff not so much . . .) but none captured me like Holmes. Recently my son started to get interested in Holmes as well and I’m hoping he and I can read a few of the stories together.
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age, John Newhouse
Your Cheatin’ Heart, Chet Filippo
When I was in college I worked at Mississippi’s Restaurant in Kenmore Square in Boston. One of the things I loved about the place (and there were many) was that everyone would put together mix tapes to play during their shift. Bill Grant made a mix called “Hank and Frank” that combined the music of Hank Williams and Frank Sinatra. It was a fun mix and it introduced me to Hank Williams – for which I will be forever grateful to Bill.
As with Holmes, I went whole hog. I bought several tapes and LPs of Hank and played them to death. I also decided to find out more about his life and got Filippo’s biography. Williams had a troubled and tragic life. A lot of that comes through in his music. Much more of it came through in his story.
JFK – A History of an Image, Tom Brown
Death in Midsummer, Yukio Mishima
In the Western Lands, William Burroughs
Atomic Candy, Phyllis Burke
Libra, Don DiLilo
The Private Elvis, May Mann
Harry S Truman, Margaret Truman
I bought a copy of this book at Aardvark Books on Church Street in San Francisco. At the time I think I was working at the Guinness Book of World Records museum on Fisherman’s Wharf (I was only 23 and new the the city, what can I say . . .). One day I was waiting for the bus to work on the Embarcadero. Somehow – with only a hundred pages left – I left the book at the bus stop. As soon as I realized what I’d done I got off the bus and ran the many blocks to retrieve my book. Alas, by the time I arrived it was gone . . . 
.
I ended up taking it out of the library to finish. It was OK but not worth buying twice.
Shock Value, John Waters
Crackpot, John Waters
Danger and Survival, McGeorge Bundy
That’s all I have for 1989. I was my first year as a dedicated reader – free from the required reading of college and setting off on what has been a wonderful life of reading.
More Ideas Than Time
I use time so inefficiently. Frankly I squander time in ways that make me feel sick. I guess if I had nothing on my mind it would be OK but I have a million things I’d like to do. How do I get my head organized? How do I get my time sorted out? How can I fit all of my ideas into the time I have? Blah.
Fresh Faces 18
A few months ago now I made a very stupid decision. I’m not going to go into the details but the result is that I curtailed my photography a bit. That hiatus has been a good thing. It’s allowed me to focus on some other areas and to think about new subjects for my photography. In the end there might be a silver lining to what was certainly a dark cloud.
With that overly mysterious intro out of the way, I DO have some new faces to share. These are all from 2010 and I hope you’ll find a few in here that you enjoy. As always, let me know if you have an event coming up that you’d like to have captured.
Liberty and Responsibility
There’s so much conversation about individual liberty being trampled these days. Personally I’m not feeling it myself but you hear a lot about it from conservatives and libertarians. Health care reform is discussed this way, so are things like helmet laws, financial deregulation, etc. All of these – and more – are presented as examples of the government overstepping its bounds and stopping people from doing the things their way.
Last night I was watching Frontline’s program The Vaccine War. It was excellent – using published research from around the world to debunk the alleged connect between vaccines and autism. Toward the end there was a public health official speaking with several mothers who had opted not to have their children vaccinated. He raised the question – what if your choice not to vaccinate results in illness for a child that cannot be vaccinated?
The response was that they were responsible parent and wouldn’t let their child be around other kids if they were sick. The public health official pointed out the often people are capable of transmitting an illness before they show any symptoms. To which there really was no very effective response.
There ought to be some mechanism for people to exercise their desired level of freedom while still assuming responsibility for their actions. This mechanism ought to be onerous enough to force people think hard about the potential consequences of their decisions.
My thought is that anyone wishing to exercise their “full freedom” sign an affidavit stating they understand that they will be held personally liable for any consequences of their actions. For example, if someone wishes to ride a motorcycle without a helmet they would be financially responsible for the cost of the emergency services and/or treatment to the extent it isn’t covered by their insurance.
Or if a child becomes ill as the result of exposure to a disease carried by an unvaccinated person that person (or their legal guardians) would be held responsible for any cost associated with treatment. This responsibility could be guaranteed by agreeing to a lien on any property or through the purchase of supplemental insurance to cover the potential outcome of their actions.
This would give people the freedom to act as they desire without placing the burden of the results of their actions on others. It irritates me that people want to have their cake and eat it too. It would annoy me less if they were forced to pay for the cake (and its consequences).
Not the camera of my dreams but still a dreamy camera
For a while I resisted the move to HD video. Most of the stuff I’ve been doing has been talking head videos for the Web. How much could HD matter? In general, I tend to think that it’s distracting and a waste of time and effort to shoot most of that stuff in HD.
Last week though I had the opportunity to shoot the Tesla Roadster Sport as part of a project I’m doing for an online motorsport community – MMR. In that situation HD made more sense to me. I was planning on borrowing a camera from my pal Matt but I wasn’t able to reach him. With time running out I bit the bullet and decided to buy a camera.
Now I knew exactly what camera I wanted – a Canon Vixia HF S100; but the deck was stacked against me . . . I needed the camera the next day. I also needed to buy it on credit – preferably without any interest for a while (I’ve been out of work for seven months now . . .). That limited my choices to BestBuy, BestBuy or BestBuy.
So I went to BestBuy.
First though I went to BestBuy.com to see what they were selling. Unfortunately, they weren’t selling the S100. Of the available models I went with the Canon Vixia HF M30.
So far I’m happy with it. I shot with it a few times and have been happy with the experience. I like the touchscreen controls a lot. I have a Canon ZR 950 SD camera and find the joystick control a little clunky. The touchscreen works much better for me. I also like the size. I can easily put the camera in my pocket and go out and about. Another thing that’s cool is the ability to span storage. The camera came with 8GB of internal memory and I added another eight. If it runs out of storage on one it switches seamlessly to the other. That’s pretty nifty.
There are a couple of things I don’t like about it. One is the battery life. It sucks. Fully charged I’m lucky to get 100 minutes. Even a smidgen more – two hours – would be great. I’d read a couple of reviews of a number of Canon cameras and seen people complaining about the noise of the lens cover when closed. “What a bunch of babies,” I thought. But you know what, it is disconcerting to hear the thing rattling around.
Another problem I had was with the AV out jack. I plugged in a set of headphones and was greeted by some terrible noise. I got one channel of audio and one channel of REALLY LOUD STATIC. It turns out you need to specify the output device and the default *isn’t* headphones. I was afraid something was wrong with the camera and was on the verge of returning it – but then I read the manual.
I haven’t done anything with the Tesla footage (someone else will be editing that) but I did shoot a heartwarming scene the other day at the Garden in the Woods. As my family and I traipsed along its verdant trails we espied a dead mouse being eaten by two ants. A gross scene perhaps but one that came out fairly well. (Unfortunately, the embedded video isn’t in HD . . .)
The bottom line is that I’m happy with this camera. It isn’t everything I wanted but such is life. It’s better than what I had and it gives me more flexibility.
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