Arloversary.
July 16, 2009 in history and current events, tdih, youtubinated history
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The Edge of the American West 
45 comments
July 16, 2009 at 4:35 am
Russell60
I cannot tell a lie. I put this comment at the bottom…er, the top…of this thread.
July 16, 2009 at 7:04 am
silbey
I realize that it’s probably unseemly for a co-blogger to gush, but that was awesome.
July 16, 2009 at 7:44 am
Jonathan Dresner
Nicely done!
July 16, 2009 at 7:59 am
kid bitzer
holy shit. your talents multiply. this isn’t just blogging, this is beyond.
sorry, silbey: in order to keep up, you’re going to have to post a video in which you perform the entire mikado, taking all the parts.
dana and nelly may be permitted to collaborate on a performance of the symposium, but only if they first set all the speeches to music.
c’mon, people–everybody’s got to up their game! eric’s in the house!
July 16, 2009 at 8:07 am
silbey
sorry, silbey: in order to keep up, you’re going to have to post a video in which you perform the entire mikado, taking all the parts.
You really don’t want to hear me sing.
July 16, 2009 at 8:29 am
kid bitzer
that’s why i didn’t ask for “taking tiger mountain by strategy”.
July 16, 2009 at 8:42 am
kevin
No words. No words. They should have sent a poet.
July 16, 2009 at 8:49 am
dana
Hell will freeze over before I sing on this blog.
So, this is what one does, after one gets tenure? Sweet.
July 16, 2009 at 8:52 am
JPool
That’s a damn fine impersonation.
July 16, 2009 at 8:56 am
eric
Hell will freeze over before I sing on this blog.
Y’all gotta sing along if you wanna end the war and stuff.
(And on behalf of the split decisions, thanks for all the kind words, kind-word-having people.)
July 16, 2009 at 9:26 am
N. Merrill
Did kid just refer to me as “nelly”? That’s old school epithet, right there.
July 16, 2009 at 9:28 am
kid bitzer
damn. my apologies, neddy.
it’s the presence of the double l in your surname that explains my error.
(but does not excuse it).
i really sympathize–god knows i took enough grief about my name in school.
July 16, 2009 at 9:30 am
N. Merrill
I laughed! Sorry, the comment didn’t convey my tone of amusement.
July 16, 2009 at 9:36 am
dana
Y’all gotta sing along if you wanna end the war and stuff.
Bite me, Aquaman.
July 16, 2009 at 9:41 am
Michael Bérubé
I believe you have to sing loud if you wanna end war ‘n’ stuff.
And it’s a shame about Alice’s Restaurant. Used to be you could get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant (excepting Alice) — until the secret NAFTA Superhighway, built by the Council on Foreign Relations in association with the Rothschilds, came along and destroyed everything.
Awesome post, Eric.
July 16, 2009 at 9:41 am
eric
“Sing all. See that you join with the congregation as frequently as you can. Let not a single degree of weakness or weariness hinder you. If it is a cross to you, take it up, and you will find it a blessing. Sing lustily and with good courage. Beware of singing as if you were half dead, or half asleep; but lift up your voice with strength.”
July 16, 2009 at 9:44 am
kid bitzer
ah–but if you had posted a video of yourself laughing–especially a video with the sound of your laughter, accompanied by a laugh-track, illustrated by historical footage of people laughing: *then* that would have conveyed the tone of your amusement.
i’m telling you: eric has revealed the way. text-only blogging is henceforth a thing of the past. it’s history.
tell me when you have enabled video-embedding for comments.
July 16, 2009 at 9:44 am
dana
More cowbell!
July 16, 2009 at 9:57 am
N. Merrill
What kind of sucks about Eric’s media-rich blogging is that it really is better than just the concept, which means suddenly we have to care about production values.
July 16, 2009 at 10:02 am
kid bitzer
oddly enough, i was thinking about arlo guthrie just last week.
a friend remarked on the dearth of popular songs whose lyrics include “pickle”.
after i sang a chorus of arlo’s other hit–lustily, and with good courage–the stunned onlookers were quick to point out that “pickle” has an enviably long list of rhyme-words, which does not include “motorcycle”.
i ventured the guess that he was referring to a motorized version of the dreaded scythe-chariots that terrorized ancient battlefields.
July 16, 2009 at 10:06 am
URK
wow- this is just great. I’m speechless. Good thing there’s a keyboard in front of me and I can still type.
You know, I have to say that I do find R. Paul’s appeal to people outside of the crypto-rascist base pretty understandable. what he presents is a kind of intellectually coherent–no, that’s not right. it’s not coherent intellectually, but it does cohere (if that makes any sense) around a set of (seemingly but not actually laudable) principles. when so many people working in politics, and particularly working his side of the street offer just a grab bag of contradictory positions tied up loosely with populist rhetoric, it’s understandable that folks who ought to know better are willing to sweep the craziest implications/positions/statements under the rug. Not saying that they should (they shouldn’t!) but I see why they,a nd presumabley Arlo might be one of those theys, do.
July 16, 2009 at 10:30 am
kathy a.
eric, this is fab!
July 16, 2009 at 11:13 am
erubin
Giants!
July 16, 2009 at 11:24 am
Josh
I look forward to reading the comments this will get on YouTube’s site.
July 16, 2009 at 12:33 pm
rea
Hell will freeze over before I sing on this blog.
Au contraire, a blog is exactly where people like you and I ought to sing, for obvious reasons. Why, in blog comments, I can flawlessly hit all the high notes’ in the big Queen of the Night aria from Magic Flute:
[Singing]:
“Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen,
Tod und Verzweiflung flammet um mich her!
Fühlt nicht durch dich Sarastro Todesschmerzen,
So bist du meine Tochter nimmermehr.
Verstossen sei auf ewig,
Verlassen sei auf ewig,
Zertrümmert sei’n auf ewig
Alle Bande der Natur
Wenn nicht durch dich Sarastro wird erblassen!
Hört, Rachegötter, hört der Mutter Schwur!”
And I’m not even a soprano!
July 16, 2009 at 12:41 pm
kid bitzer
okay, i was impressed when you nailed the high f.
but i think your phrasing was not brisk enough–a bit plodding in the middle measures–and your dynamics didn’t seem to follow the logic of the lyrics. ask yourself: which words should get the punch? not just: where’s my loudest note? but: what’s my most emphatic threat, as a mother?
it was technically unimpeachable, rea, but i wasn’t feeling the character come through.
July 16, 2009 at 12:45 pm
35:1
I’ll also look forward to reading the YouTube site comments. A quick scan of the web, and I see couple of professors and graduate students have posted it on their webpages, facebook sites, et., al., for their wily students.
July 16, 2009 at 1:18 pm
PorJ
Good Lord…..
Ron Paul???
That was terrific. And it was still really good, even though I completely disagree with Morris Dickstein and those of his ilk who actually believe that Dylan going electric matters a great deal in the history of the world, or the United States.
It mattered to a lot of middle-class and wealthy white college (and high school) kids (mostly men) who later went on to become professors. One could argue – using record sales and radio airplay as a metric – that Paul Revere and the Raiders are more profoundly reflective of American culture in this period than Arlo Guthrie (and don’t forget The Archies). Why didn’t they come against the war?
July 16, 2009 at 1:20 pm
PorJ
That should read “come out against the war”
July 16, 2009 at 1:22 pm
ignobility
That was great, but you should probably keep your normal job.
July 16, 2009 at 1:23 pm
SEK
What kind of sucks about Eric’s media-rich blogging is that it really is better than just the concept, which means suddenly we have to care about production values.
Production values are for suckers. (Which is my way of joining with silbey and not gushing over the work of my co-bloggers.)
July 16, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Jason B.
That’s great. And the shark request has been granted. Hooray!
July 16, 2009 at 2:34 pm
bitchphd
Wow.
Eric, you are such an enigma. An awesome enigma.
July 16, 2009 at 2:36 pm
bitchphd
i wasn’t feeling the character come through.
KB is banned.
July 16, 2009 at 2:58 pm
kid bitzer
an enigma rapped on a fiddle.
July 16, 2009 at 3:08 pm
bitchphd
You’re banned.
July 16, 2009 at 4:20 pm
TF Smith
Ban-ban-ban, ban-ban-Dylan…
July 16, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Linkmeister
Excellent, even without the photographs with circles and arrows on the back.
July 16, 2009 at 6:54 pm
politicalfootball
wow- this is just great. I’m speechless.
Me too. I can’t speak. I can only quote. Wow.
July 16, 2009 at 7:45 pm
md 20/400
Wowie. Even has Muppets. (You did forget the “Muppets” tag.)
July 16, 2009 at 7:46 pm
eric
No, I left it off on purpose. For the element of surprise.
July 16, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Goldrush
We’re also just weeks away from the 40th anniversary of the (August 19, 1969) release of the movie of the song. I saw it while waiting to find out if I was fit to be drafted myself, so it was memorable, too.
July 17, 2009 at 5:15 am
dave
Where can I get an accent like that? My one sucks.
July 17, 2009 at 7:34 am
kid bitzer
arloversary.
it has ‘love’ in the middle.
also ‘lovers’.
also ‘over’.
just got to say, eric, that a day later this still strikes me as ten kinds of awesome.
but how many of you young punks were even alive when this came out? (reminded by goldrush).
oh, and since woodstock’s 40th is coming right up, can we hope for a video tribute to that one, too? with all commenters chanting “no rain”?
July 17, 2009 at 7:29 pm
LizardBreath
Golly.