The changing world of the 1960s opened the door for strong political music. It could be heard everywhere. Bob Dylan recorded “Masters of War” in 1963. This was a gritty response to Eisenhower’s warning of the military-industrial complex. Five years later Eric Burdon’s “Sky Pilot” was released, this was the story of a military priest’s conflicting emotions of his place in the war. In 1969 Edwin Starr recorded a
tune called “War” this was a furious commentary on the futility of war and destruction it creates. In 1971 Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” shot up into the #2 position in the pop charts (#1 on the R&B charts.) This showed a significant change in the country’s atmosphere and soon radio became a new outlet for political expression.

Fiddlin’ Steve Ledford was born in North Carolina in 1906. He had recorded and played with traditional music icons Wade Mainer, Clyde Moody and Roy Hall in the 1930s and Bill Monroe in 1940. He spent half a year in New York recording for the American Recording Company then eventually returned to North Carolina in 1941 to raise cattle and hens. He continued to play music with family and friends until his death in 1980.

Fiddlin’ Steve, his brother Wayne and his nephew James played music together as the Ledford String Band and recorded a song in the fall of 1971. It was about the war’s effect on a loving mother and father, it was called “He’s Comin’ From Vietnam” it was a somber bluegrass tune about a father waiting for the return of his son at a train depot. The LP was released in 1972 on Rounder Records (#0008) under the title Ledford String Band.

Ledford String Band – “He’s Comin’ From Vietnam” (mp3)

In the first few lines, it seems that a Norman Rockwell type scene is about to unfold: a father in a suit and hat, anxiously waiting and searching for a sign of his uniformed boy. But that image quickly dissolves as the fiddle begins and the real story unfolds, “One morning when the office had opened, a man called old in years, stood by the express office showing signs of grief and fear. And when the clerk approached him, with trembling words he said, I’m waiting for my boy Sir, he’s comin’ home today. He’s comin’ home to mother, not comin’ as I am; he’s comin’ home in a casket Sir he’s comin’ from Vietnam.” The confused clerk thinks that the man is at the wrong office and begins to explain that the passenger pick-up is at the station across the way. Then the source of the confusion becomes clear, “You don’t understand me Sir, the old man quickly said. He’s comin’ not as a passenger but by express instead. And when the whistle pierced the air and the train came in on time, the old man rose in a brisk less pace and quickly rushed outside.”

Soon a coffin appears and the clerk begins to understand the father’s grief and fear. As the workers begin to lower his son’s casket down onto the platform it causes nervous reactions in the people at the station that have gathered to watch. He asks them to be careful and suggests that they are not sympathetic to how he feels, “Do not treat him roughly boy. He contained that barring jack, he went away as you boys are, this way he’s comin’ back. He broke his dear old mother’s heart when he left her alone and this is the way they all come back when they join the boys in blue.” The devastation the father feels is overwhelming and he blames his son for the mother’s despair. But here is a song that avoid politics all-together. This is not about discontent with the government; it is not about war or peace, it is not even about soldiers. This song is about the ones who are left at home while the killing and dying is conducted. It asks nothing and points no fingers. However it does remind us that the casualties of war are not always soldiers.

Wars are fought on many levels. In 2006 I attended the wake my dear friend Damon who killed himself after fighting in the Iraq war. I saw the faces of his mother and his father, I held his wife’s hand and when I looked across the room I saw family, friends and comrades. I did not hear arguments about Iraq. I did not see war protesters or supporters. I saw tears and pain in the eyes of us who were left behind. I saw the effect of combat at my own front door. We can not possibly comprehend the experiences of soldiers in combat nor can we imagine the confusion and paradoxes that can be found in every situation but surely the dead have something to teach us about our world.

I have listened to this record two dozen times in the last few days and I wonder if Fiddlin’ Steve knew this father. I wonder how this man from the mountains of North Carolina felt about the war in Vietnam and I wonder how this song would be interpreted today by the North Carolina Tea Party Patriots? It seems that today we are given conflicting information on how we should view our American war dead. For 18 years there was Pentagon ban on showing photographs of dead American soldiers in flag draped coffins. On one hand we are told that the dead are heroes, yet on the other hand we were not trusted to honor those heroes by viewing the hidden costs of war and being allowed to acknowledge their sacrifices. When you listen to this tune consider that by 1975, 58,230 boys were lost to the war, and 116,460 mothers and fathers never saw their sons alive again. Then consider that somewhere in this country today a family is waiting to pick up their boy at the station.

Let’s face it. The Oughts were as mediocre as it gets and we were just as mediocre. We either diddled away our time watching stupid people get famous or we learned not to care about two wars that have lasted longer than both world wars combined. Then, in 2008, we thought we might have rubber-banded out of the American cultural cesspool, only to get Obama’s first year, which might be described as the year GOP-1 learned to hate GOP-2. We doubled-down on Afghanistan and Iraq, bailed out one corporations after another and spent the year debating a bloated bad bill. Barack is Republican enough that Starting A War When Your Poll Numbers Suck might actually be in Barack’s political playbook for Year 2.

Looking for something positive to remember in the decade of the Oughts is like looking in your old toy box for stuff to donate only to realize that you had nothing but crappy toys that not even the most destitute child would want.

Thank goodness there’s the next decade to screw up. And I, for one, believe that Americans are desperately seeking a way to redefine individualism and freedom outside of the self-imposed boundaries of the past. We strive to build a post-racial society and yet, sublimated racism is everywhere because people are more afraid of being labeled racist than being racist. We try to define our individuality without corporations, but anything remotely new or interesting is co-opted by corporations seeking to market to those seeking to define themselves outside the corporation. That song from that new band your friend recommended turns into a jingle for a Cadillac commercial almost instantly. Try to be an original and you’re more likely to see Pitchfork D. Urban Outfitter in the mirror.

Despite it all, I’ve never been more optimistic that a cool and truly unexpected cultural movement is coming this decade. The Tens will shock our staid, bland, apathetic culture of reality shows and American Idols and make us anew. I don’t know what the Tens will be known for, but I’m sure it’ll be 1) awesome, 2) original, and 3) better than the Oughts. Culture always rubber-bands and I can’t wait.

Here are a few predictions of what this next decade will bring:

Political correctness will fade and being a little racist will be okay. I find the sublimated racism we’ve been subjected to thanks to political correctness more offensive than actual overt racism. We’ve become the “I’m not racist, but…” culture. I predict that in the Tens, being overtly bigoted will come back into vogue. It might even become charming and funny, like an endearing dwarf. It’ll be a reaction to all this fake tolerance and sublimated, politically correct racism that explodes into Teabagger Rallies and fistfights on public transportation.

We’ll stop whining that the corporations are winning because they’ve already won. Sorry Professor Chomsky, the game’s over – time to retire. We’ll all have to join the mothership at some point. But more and more people are already starting to find creative ways to live outside of the mothership, while being fed by it.

We’ll learn to treat our politicians the way they deserve to be treated: figureheads that exist solely to make the Huffington Post saucier. The government will never be able to solve all our problems. It may not be able to solve any of them. It may even make our problems worse. From Nancy Pelosi’s face to Michelle O’s arms to how-in-the-world-did-Eliot-Spitzer-score-a-Slate-column-faster-than-his-last-escort, the circus is just that: a circus. This will be perhaps the greatest aspect of this decade: we’ll finally realize that government is totally irrelevant piece of entertainment.

Photo by Flickr user Bah Humbug

It amazes me how much–for someone who professes to so anti-capitalist, anti-consumerism and anti-bourgeois culture– I struggle with the acts of consumption and spending.   I first threw off the shackles of cravings for Wet Seal bangles as a teenager, discovering the joy of thrift stores after a trip to the local Value Village yielded an entire new wardrobe for thirty dollars, one infinitely more interesting than the leggings and floral baby doll dresses I’d been coveting in the window of Contempo Casuals. Almost twenty years later, I remain engaged in a dizzy tango with both the (implanted) desires for material items and the knowledge that a life lived outside of the false strictures of capitalism is a more interesting life, indeed.

Two books have got me thinking about this topic , and have got me reinvisioning the possibilities of my own life outside of prescribed desires and assumptions. The first is one is The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove.  Written by Cathy Erway, another entry in the long line of bloggers turned book writers, the book details the author’s two years of living in Brooklyn without ever eating out at a restaurant.

The whole blog to book phenomena has become quite the gimmick but there are some nicely surprising inspirations that I didn’t expect when I started reading. First, I love the detail with which Erway writes about food. She documents her meals and the experiences over the meals with loving attention to not only the food, but the context for the meals. There is a simplicity to her love for the act of preparing and eating good food that is endearing, one that I yearn to replicate. Second, Erway delves into the different ways to step out of the restaurant/eating out cycle by looking at urban foragers like “Wildman” Steve Brill–who gives tours of New York parks where fabulous edible plants grow like special treasures–as well as freegans who scour the streets of New York, finding incredible amounts of perfectly edible day-old bread, donuts and vegetables. Like the dumpster-diving punks that have been doing that shit for years, though I have never been brave enough to do that myself. It got me thinking about my own food consumption habits, and how the way we go about procuring and preparing our food can be a political act, not a new concept, but one I hadn’t given thought too in a while.  Also, choosing to prepare food at home can be step towards simplifying, and escaping the cycle of fast consumption without thought. I’ll never view my styrofoamed burrito takeout meals again after reading Erway’s study of the the incredible amount of waste that goes into these one-off meals, when you look at all of the extra napkins, plastic cups and utensils and paper bags. Inspired by the book, my husband and I are trying not to go out to eat for a month. We’re currently in our first week of cooking all meals at home. I won’t even talk about how many dishes I’ve done this week, but otherwise, it’s been pretty smooth. I’m actually using the slow cooker that was gathering dust under the kitchen counter for the past few years.

Another book that’s got me thinking about how much is enough is Voluntary Simplicity by Duane Elgin. Originally released in 1981, and revised “for the 21^st” century, the book is basically a manifesto about the reasons to live a life characterized by “ecological awareness, frugal consumption and personal growth.” It’s funny because many of the things that Elgin talks about are concepts that I’ve understood for years, especially since my early instruction in frugality and living outside of the mainstream inspired by the DIY/punk rock movements of the nineties, when it was cool to use and consume as little as possible (except for beer). Yet, I’ve seen those ideals fade among a large segment of the community as people grow older and take on mortgages and have kids. It’s like, what the hell happened? I know that many people have been able to maintain a life of conscious consumption and anti-capitalist ways of existing, and I would like to return to that fold. But I will need to do it in my own way, and in my own time, and by reading books that get me inspired to live in ways more aligned with my dreams and ideals.

Photo by Flickr user maureen_sill

BOOZE:

I recommend using swing top bottles (like old Grolsch bottles) if you have them, or mason jars, since they are usually easiest to find or most likely to be lying around your house.  If you are someone who brews beer, feel free to bottle them in any capable sterilized bottle.  You can sterilize bottles by adding 1 Tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water or Sanitabs if you have them available.  If you use bleach, rinse the containers thoroughly before using to avoid a chlorine taste.

Coquito (Puerto Rican Eggnog):
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
1 can of coconut milk
1 can of cream of coconut (not the same as creamed coconut, check the ingredients for sugar, there should be LOADS of it)
1 can of evaporated milk
1 egg
1 t. cinnamon
¼ t. nutmeg
1 t. vanilla
1½  c. Puerto Rican rum (i.e. Bacardi)

Blend all ingredients in a blender, pour into sterilized swing top bottles or Mason Jars, refrigerate until needed.  Any eggnog or coquito that contains more than 20% alcohol can be aged in a refrigerator if kept under 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  It is suggested you age it at least three weeks, but you can drink it right away or age it up to a year.  The alcohol reacts with the milk and egg proteins meaning the longer you age it, the better the texture and softer the taste of the alcohol.  Seriously, though, we have never complained while drinking young Coquito.

VEGAN VARIANT:
1 can of coconut milk
2 cans of cream of coconut
2 c. soymilk
1 T. cornstarch
1 t. cinnamon
¼ t. nutmeg
1 t. vanilla
1 ½ c. Puerto Rican rum

In a heavy bottomed saucepan heat the cornstarch and soymilk until thickened.  Remove from heat and blend together with remaining ingredients.  Pour into sterilized swing top bottles or Mason Jars and store in the refrigerator until needed.

Mulled Wine:
1 gallon of cheap wine
1 c. vodka
2 c. orange juice
1 c. muscovado or dark brown sugar
1 thumb sized piece of ginger, sliced
6 whole cloves
4 long cinnamon sticks (about 6 inches each)
4 whole star anise
1 T. of whole black peppercorns
½ t. of cayenne pepper

In a large stock pot combine all ingredients and heat just below a simmer for at least 10 minutes. Add vodka after removing from heat and bottle using sterilized swing top bottles or Mason Jars. If you jar this while hot you do not need to refrigerate. If this makes you uneasy feel free to refrigerate it until needed.

Mulled Cider:
1 gallon of unsweetened apple cider
2 c. bourbon
¼ c. muscovado or dark brown sugar
1 orange slice
6 whole cloves
4 long cinnamon sticks (about 6 inches each)
4 whole star anise
1 T. whole black peppercorns

In a large stock pot combine all ingredients and heat just below a simmer for at least 10 minutes. Add bourbon after removing from heat and bottle using sterilized swing top bottles or Mason Jars.  If you jar this while hot you do not need to refrigerate. If this makes you uneasy feel free to refrigerate it until needed.

TEA:

Lavender Tea Blend:
1 c. loose black tea (unflavored)
3 T. culinary grade lavender
1 T. rosehips
1 T. sweet orange

Combine ingredients in bowl and stir together.  Store in an air tight light-free container such as a tin, or in a plastic bag wrapped with paper.

Red Flower Tea Blend:
1 c. loose black tea (unflavored)
3 T. hibiscus blossoms
3 T. rosehips

Combine ingredients in bowl and stir together.  Store in an air tight light-free container such as a tin, or in a plastic bag wrapped with paper.

Bottled Chai Tea:
6 long cinnamon sticks
8 whole cloves
2 T. cardamom pods
¼ freshly cut ginger
2 T. whole black peppercorns
½ c. honey or to taste
1 c. black tea
1 gallon of water

In a large stock pot combine spices with water and honey and bring to a rolling boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add tea.  Let steep another 5 minutes. Strain and bottle in swing top bottles or Mason Jars. Refrigerate until needed.

FOOD:

If you haven’t made fudge before, don’t be afraid, it is ridiculously easy and decadent enough that most people won’t make it for themselves. As with most recipes, the quality of your fudge relies heavily on the quality of your ingredients, in this case your chocolate.  Use high quality chocolate for good tasting fudge.

Dark Chocolate Fudge with Crystallized Ginger:
3 c. semisweet chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz)
pinch of salt
1 c. chopped Crystallized Ginger
1 ½ t. vanilla extract

In a heavy saucepan, melt chocolate, sweetened condensed milk and salt over low heat stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and fold in chopped ginger and vanilla extract.  Pour into a foil or parchment lined 8″ square pan and spread evenly.  Chill until firm (about 2 hours).  Remove from pan (flipping it upside down and peeling back the foil or parchment), cut into squares and wrap portions well in wax paper.  Store at room temperature.

White Chocolate Fudge with Cranberries and Pistachios:
3 ½ c. white chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 oz)
pinch of salt
½ c. dried sweetened cranberries
½ c. chopped unsalted pistachios

In a heavy saucepan, melt chocolate, sweetened condensed milk and salt over low heat stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and fold in chopped pistachios and cranberries.  Pour into a foil or parchment lined 8″ square pan and spread evenly.  Chill until firm (about 2 hours).  Remove from pan (flipping it upside down and peeling back the foil or parchment), cut into squares and wrap portions well in wax paper.  Store at room temperature.

Manjar:
1 can of sweetened condensed milk

If you are unfamiliar with the many names of milk caramel (dulce de leche), Manjar is the Chilean name given to this sugarbaby-like treat.  I learned how to make this at a very young age from my Papa’s family.  We use it on toast or on top of pieces of white cake like icing. Most people I know use it as an ice cream topping.  It is popular in many different cultures and made in a variety of ways with a variety of cooking times.  The easiest method is to boil a small can of sweetened condensed milk completely submerged in water for anywhere between an hour to 4 hours.  For a soft, lightly colored syrup boil the can for an hour, for stiff, dark-colored paste-like spread, boil close to 4.  Make sure you keep the can completely submerged in water or you risk a very sticky explosion.  You can boil as many cans as you like in one pot as long as they stay completely submerged, and if you use smaller cans you should cook them for a shorter amount of time, larger cans for a longer amount.  I recommend starting with 1 ½ hours and going from there.  To remove the can use tongs, dump into a sturdy sink, or just wait for the pot to get cool enough to remove them (this could take several hours).  Once the cans are cooled, you can apply your own decorative labels.

HOUSEHOLD:

Many health food stores (including chains like Whole Foods) have herb sections where you can buy essential oils and various different containers from tins to jars to bottles with spray tops.  Likely, wherever you find the essential oils to use for these recipes you will find containers you can use to package your gifts.  If not, ask a clerk in that section and they should be able to help you find something in your neighborhood.

Bath Salts:
Epsom Salts
essential Oils
jars, tins, or plastic bags

For every cup of bath salts add 10 drops of essential oil, mix in a large bowl before portioning.  Good quality oils are important, and I strongly recommend choosing a different fragrance over a different brand if you find the one you want is too expensive.  Vanilla and Sandalwood are often the most popular and most expensive, so try scents like Sweet Orange or Lavender instead.  For more complex recipes see this site.

Air Freshener:
1 c. distilled water
1 T. vodka or rubbing alcohol
10 drops of essential oil

bottle in a small, dark colored glass or aluminum spray bottles.

Glass Gem Magnets:
Glass gems
¼ inch strong magnets
magazine images
crazy glue or glue gun
Modge Podge or silicon glue

Cut out roughly circular images (a little smaller than the gems) from a magazine. Using modge podge or silicon glue, glue the images to the bottom of the glass gems and let them dry.  After they are completely dry, use a glue gun, crazy glue, or other industrial strength glue to apply the magnet to the back.  You can find glass gems at a floral shop, gaming shop, or craft supply store.  Make sure you buy clear unadorned gems, no shiny iridescent surfaces or they will obscure the image.  You can buy magnets at hardware stores, craft stores and some office supply shops.

Toy Magnets:
Small plastic toys
¼ inch strong magnets
glue gun or crazy glue

Go to a toy store or dollar store and pick out bags of small toys: plastic army men, plastic animals, floral arrangement birds, etc.  My favorites are rubber goldfish.  Using a hot glue gun or crazy glue, apply the magnet to the part you want to be the “backside”.  You might need to use wire cutters to trim off pieces of the toys that stop them from lying flat.

Maps and Pictures and Books on Tape:

The American Memory site run by The Library of Congress has a wealth of images. We spent months picking out maps and photographs to have printed for our family members this year.  Nearly all of them are copyright free, and while this project might seem quick and easy it’s surprisingly time consuming.  Here are a few quick tips:

1.     do your searches in the “gallery view” so you can quickly identify images vs. text or sound files.

2.     unless you have a converter, don’t bother with MrSID images, confine your picks to jpegs.

3.     make sure you adjust the file size to the DPI and image size you want to have printed before you take your file in

4.     search specific collections, such as Panoramic Photographs, Maps, Panoramic Maps, or Advertising

5.     check the copyright information, while most of them are public domain, some collections are not, and companies like Kinkos will refuse to print them if they suspect copyright infringement.

The Internet Archive, archive.org, is an excellent resource for books on tape.  While I’m generally not a fan of books on tape, tending to prefer the printed versions, I found myself completely entranced with the archives of public domain readings on this site.  There is everything from childlike readings of popular folk and fairytales, to authors reading their own works, to old radio programs.  So, even if you are not a fan of books on tape, chances are you have an Internet challenged loved one who does.  A great gift is a CD collection of various books on tape or old radio programs.  I recommend you start with these links:

Old Time Radio Programs

War of the Worlds, October 1938, Orson Welles

The Whistler

Dragnet

Or browse by subject

Audio Books for Children or Adults Who Act Like Them

            Fairy Tales

            Children’s Literature

Audio Book Classics

            Charles Dickens

            Joseph Conrad

            Bronte Sisters

            Jane Austin

            Russian Classics

            Edgar Allen Poe

            Sun Tzu

            General Philosophy

Audio Book Pulp

            Edgar Rice Burroughs

            Sherlock Holmes and other Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

            Jules Verne

            Short Science Fiction Collection

Audio Book Cool Kids

William S. Burroughs

Allen Ginsberg

Jack Kerouac           

e. e. cummings

T. S. Eliot

“Punk” Works

Last Minute Wrapping Paper:

Newspaper
Acrylic paint
Water

My housemate insisted I include my last minute giftwrap in this article because she thinks it’s adorable.  Make a mixture of white paint with a little bit of color and water.  You want it fairly runny or you will end up using a LOT of paint.  Find some old newspaper, preferably something with lots of images, and preferably not with totally depressing headlines… I mean, unless that’s your thing.  Laying it out flat in a stack, paint it quickly with watered down paint.  Hang it up to dry or lay it out flat in a place where animals or children won’t attack it.  You don’t have to use white paint, but I do because it washes out the print a little better and the pastel colors make the paper seem more cohesive.  Also, white paint is cheaper.

Join us as we break through the year’s rhetoric and double-speak as simply as we know how, and leave your own equations in the comments. For the historically minded, take a look at 2007’s edition.

Brigid Barry

Thrift shops > American Apparel
Why buy your ill-fitting 70s throwbacks from a misogynist who overcharges when you could buy them cheap and green from the used clothing store across the street?

Brigid Barry is a freelance copy editor based in San Francisco, CA. She is the Associate Editor of Is Greater Than and also writes short fiction and cultural analysis, and knits in her spare time.

Leland Cheuk

The Economy > The Price of Oil > The Popularity of Private Jets

2008 was a very bad year if you were a corrupt politician, Gordon Ramsey, a UK social services worker, a banker investing in oil futures, or a Republican. But 2008 was much worse if you were, say, a private jet company reliant on flying executives of Sean John or the Big Three automakers. Not only did the price of oil cause Diddy to swear off Cristal-loaded private jets early in 2008. The nose-diving economy caused private jets to become a political football when GM, Ford and Chrysler executives flew into Washington D.C. to ask for what ended up being a $14 billion bailout. I hope 2009 is friendlier to companies like Onesky and Privateair so we won’t have to bail them out in June. After all, it’s not their fault that we’re in the bind that we’re in.

Leland Cheuk is is a currently an MFA candidate at Lesley University’s Creative Writing program. His writing has appeared in MostlyFiction, Punk Planet, and other publications. Recently, one of his short stories was selected as finalist in the 2007 Washington Square Review Contest. He lives in San Francisco and is working on a novel.

Leilani Clark

Mushrooms > Anything made by humans

In Cormac McCarthy’s novel The Road mushrooms are the first organic matter to grow after the an apocalypse brings on nuclear winter. While humans fall into cannibalistic disarray, the fungi keep on trucking. Tenacious and communicative, mushrooms are key to a thriving natural ecosystem. They make a simple hike in the woods into an awesome treasure-hunt. In addition, they are damn good to eat.  In 2008, you could listen to mycillium guru Paul Stamets talking about the glorious power of toadstools on just about every media outlet–from books to radio to YouTube. We should pull up a chair, take notes and learn something new that just might save the world.

Leilani Clark has written for Clamor Magazine and the North Bay Bohemian. She loves free media and defending the working class. She writes about more then mushrooms at www.leilaniclark.com.

Paul M. Davis

Reason > Superstition

The election of 2008 wasn’t only a triumph for those of us who have watched the last eight years in horror as the imperial President attempted to drag this new century into the 17th. Indeed, it was a triumph of a reasoned, pro-science, pro-progress mentality over the superstitious beliefs of the Christian Evangelical crusaders. But it was also the year in which the reasonable majority appeared to wipe the collected mung out of its eyes and return to its senses. To wit, the Republican intellectual schism of August and September 2008, in which numerous vocal figures dismissed the party’s insane Evangelical wing in favor of critical thinking. It was also the year in which a realistic appreciation for regulated markets emerged out of the ruins of post-Friedmanite, neoconservative economic policy. It was a year for sober realism over faith in destructive myths, and even if the reality before us is fucked, it’s preferable to living a collective fantasy.

Paul M. Davis is the editor and publisher of Is Greater Than. His Is Greater Than blog is Attencion!

Whitney Dibo

Gail Collins > Maureen Dowd.

Thank god the New York Times finally landed a female columnist who can write coherent, if shrill, commentary. Collins’ editorials around the election season were hilariously poignant and spot-on, as opposed to Dowd (whose idea of a productive use of New York Times editorial space is to write imaginary conversations between famous people). And Collins doesn’t even have a glamour-shot picture, (almost no makeup – gasp!) a sharp contrast to Dowd’s vampy smirk.

Harry Potter > Twilight

As a child of the Potter generation, it seems painstakingly obvious that to even put the two fantasy novels in same league is treason so high even He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn’t dare do it. Harry Potter is to the Imaginatively Curious as Twilight is to the Sexually Frustrated. I mean – the apple on the cover? Come on.

Whitney Dibo is a freelance writer and also works in the Education Department of Steppenwolf Theatre Company. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2007 with a degree in English and Political Science.

Levi Fuller

Elective democracy > Direct democracy
In Washington, as in many states, “The People” lately have a huge boner for legislating via initiative.  Every once in a while this ends up being a good thing:  Smart, active citizens can ban together and pass legislation that our elected officials are too afraid or busy to pass (witness our recent “Death with Dignity” initiative).  For the most part, however, it’s a complete, unalloyed disaster that has our legislature and courts scurrying to and fro trying to manage the repercussions.

The most egregious recent example of this “tyranny of the majority” is, of course, California’s Prop 8.  Millions of church dollars went to hammer home the message that “traditional marriage” needed defending from the loony left judges who wanted men to marry men and gerbils to marry ducks and kindergartners to be indoctrinated into the ways of homosexuality.  Another, smaller example from Seattle:  Our City Council recently passed a $.20 per-bag tax on grocery shopping bags to encourage people to get reusable bags and curb the ridiculous waste of resources that occurs all day every day in grocery stores.  This bill was much more moderate than San Francisco’s outright ban on plastic bags, but of course it was still too much for the American Chemistry Council, who banded together to get a recall of this simple, sensible bill on the ballot for next year.  For now, the status of bags in stores is in limbo, and every time I shop at Fred Meyer the checker automatically starts putting my item or items in a bag without even asking.  Elective democracy isn’t perfect, and the initiative process can be a useful tool of last resort, but there are times when we should just let our elected officials do the job we elected them to do.

Levi Fuller plays music, DJs on the Internet, curates a quarterly series of compilations, and generally runs himself ragged in Seattle. www.denimclature.com

Matt Gajewski

Buying fruit at red light-stalled intersections > Buying subprime mortgages at red light-stalled intersections

In previous years, the lane line-tiptoeing hawkers at US-1 and Bird Road near my home were all about subprime mortgages: “Hungry and homeless and need investors for asset-backed securities,” “Will disregard borrower’s past credit history 4 food.” But with the housing bubble bursting, the global economy collapsing, 2008 was the Year of Intersection Fruit: sweet-smelling guavas, succulent mangos, to-die-for tamarinds and tangerines and papayas; investors clearly voicing their preference of juicy, vitamin-rich produce over risky, subprime collateralized debt obligations. Let’s hope that 2009 will be no less delicious, and that our nation’s intersections will remain a cornucopia of discount, indigent-vended citrus for many years to come.

Matt Gajewski hosts Pure Imagination, a radio program featuring darkly comic short stories set to music on 90.5 WVUM in Miami, FL. Listen to past episodes at www.vangloria.net/pureimagination.

Narinda Heng

Real food > Bacon-wrapped, deep-fried, gravy-drowned novelties

While I can see the fun in chicken-fried bacon (and am in awe of the genius behind the bacon weave), real food that can be eaten every day (without giving you a heart attack at 40) is infinitely more interesting. The appearance of people like Michael Ruhlman, Michael Pollan, and Alice Waters in mainstream media advocating more sensible, healthful cooking shows that there is hope that we might be able to fit into last year’s skinny jeans someday.

Narinda Heng is planning to start 2009 unemployed. She’ll be writing at Long Cool Hallway and wherever else she can get a word in.

Rob Miller

Hysterical hyperbole > bland euphemism.
The following are exact quotations from ABC World News Tonight as they have described the economic apoplexy during the past couple of months.
At least as we all get closer to selling pencils out of tin cups (or would the modern day equivalent be flashdrives?), we can rest easy that we will be suitably entertained as we watch the news (even if we might be looking at the TV through an appliance store window like a Dickensian waif cuz our electricity was cut off).  But still….

Thus, in order of appearance:

• Troubling downturn
• Confidence is ebbing
• Contracting economy
• The Dow is losing ground
• Has the Bull market run out of steam
• Grim jobs report
• Panic on the trading floor
• Cascading job loss
• Might send investors heading for the ledge
• It was a bloodbath on Wall Street

See?  Isn’t that more fun?  When we started, you could feel your eyes go droopy with the musty, lifeless talk.  Shit, it’s like you’re in some Econ 101 lecture after spending all night proving you CAN play Quarter Bounce with tequila shots instead of beer.  But by the end of the list, you can almost SEE Chuck Norris starring in the movie version with guts and explosions and falling buildings and cars driving through plate glass windows.
It’s more warming than drinking after-shave lotion.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Rob Miller is the owner and founder of Bloodshot Records.

Laura Pearson

Supporting independent booksellers > Buying books on Amazon or at B&N or downloading digital files to your ebook reader. (Plus, talking all about your Kindle just sounds gross.) As we all know, it’s getting more difficult to be an independent anything, and there are oh so many reasons to support nearby, non-chain stores (e.g., Of $100 spent at a local business, $68 stays in the community; whereas at a national chain, only $43 of your $100 sticks around (www.indiebound.org)). Most importantly, in an age where virtual experience often supersedes the tangible, real-world stuff, the time has come to get in close proximity to actual pages… Bookshelves. Book smells. Or to put it in another, lamer way: In 2k9, acquire a spine.

Laura Pearson is a Chicago-based editor and writer. She has written music news stories, as well as book, zine, and comic reviews, but her favorite subject to write about is people who are both contributing to culture and creating culture.

Erica Phillips

The Beijing Olympics > everything else

The rest of the world got served by China this August. From the awesome spectacle of the opening ceremony, to the mod and exemplar facility architecture, and the over-coverage, obsessive interviews and photo opps. The 2008 Summer Olympic Games was the shiny and bedazzling thing that made us all forget everything else.

We forgot China’s human rights record and the Olympic torch parades through Tibet, when residents were not allowed in the streets unless they promised to yell “Go China” and nothing else. We forgot that NBC was making it censorship-level impossible to find Beijing youtube footage anywhere on the internet. We forgot about the diplomatic mess between Russia and US-backed new “democracy,” Georgia. We forgot about Pakistan and Iraq and Turkey and everything, because China stepped up and we were like “Woah, it might not be all about us anymore.”

Erica Phillips currently splits her time between an immigration law office and the Venus Zine headquarters. She is editor / publisher of globalhuman and has written a few things for Love, Chicago.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

Cloud Cult, Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes) > Any other new music I heard this year (or last year)
I heard a lot of great music this year, including great new stuff from Sam Roberts and Malcolm Middleton, but I feel that this album really just is 2008. Taste this bit from “Hurricane and Fire Survival Guide”:

“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired
I’ll laugh my whole way through the hurricanes and fire
That’s why you don’t wanna bring me down.”

The first Black President of the US was elected. You just try and bring me down. I will laugh my way through hurricanes and fire.

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is in the process of building a veritable cornucopia of degrees in physics and astronomy. The black hole of academia is a dark and dangerous place. In a perhaps related story, she also seems to be known as a trouble maker. Her Is Greater Than blog is Disordered Cosmologist Is >.

Elaina Ramer

1929 > 2008
None of the Wall Street dudes who were taking those huge bonuses from dying financial companies really lost much as the markets have crashed and, thus did not throw themselves out the windows of Manhattan skyscrapers. Bummer.

The Half Pint (8 oz.) > The Imperial Pint (20 oz.)
At some point a few years ago, I discovered that my fav local pub, the Poet and the Patriot, serves beer in 20 oz. glasses. I was delighted. This year I discovered that consuming more alcohol makes me neither healthier nor wealthier nor wiser and that the Poet also serves beer in 8 oz. glasses. If I’ve got to cut back, I’d rather sacrifice the quantity of my beverage rather than the quality.

The Wide Leg > The Skinny Leg
Just trust me; I’m right.

The Shoes > The Bicycle> The Public Transit > The Private Automobile
This is as much practicality as it is green washing. For those of us who live in urban areas, walking, cycling, and taking transit are things we do and things we could afford to do more often. Each of the things listed above are affected by the price of gas and the political situation (listed from least to most affected). But when gas hits $10/gallon and people are rioting in the streets, you’ll still have your boots and no one is going to set your bicycle on fire.

Elaina Ramer is a fashionista, bike messenger and radical economist living in Santa Cruz, CA. She completed most of a degree in Global Economics before she dropped out of college to pursue enjoying her youth. Elaina blogs about fashion and global politics at frugal and hep dot com.

Boaz Vilozny

pretty good > best
Let’s face it—it was nice being the world’s dominant nation for a while back in the 20th century, but who wants to deal with all the pressure? It’s high time we stepped back and let someone take over as superpower #1 while we get our own house in order. Any volunteers? China? India? Cuba? Anyone? What if we throw in Afghanistan and Iraq?

Boaz Vilozny is a native of Santa Cruz, California, where he is currently completing his doctoral research in organic chemistry at UCSC. When not busy thinking deep thoughts about molecular recognition, he spends time with his family, plays music, reads, and cooks.

This doesn’t mean these holidays have to be a complete blowout. There are plenty of DIY gift ideas floating around there that can allow you to treat your loved ones without having to resort to any more toxic loans. And thanks for the wonders of the Internet–you are still paying those DSL bills, right?–just about anyone can whip up some homemade holiday cheer that has no resemblance to those itchy knitted sweaters your grandmother used to make.

The DIY movement has reached critical mass online in recent years, with tons of sites offering tutorials and inspiration for gift items as far-flung as screen-printed T’s and knitted iPod cozies. Here’s are some of the best:

Curbly should be your first stop if you want to enter the world of DIY gift-giving. An online community for both pro crafters and wannabes, the site is full of inspiring ideas alongside incredibly helpful video tutorials for items such as art-nouveau birdhouses and old books that have been repurposed into small works of wall art. The site offers a robust discussion forum where crafters trade tips and talk shop, and the overall ethos of the site favors finding economical solutions to grandiose visions.

If Curbly is your first stop, make Instructables your second. A veritable clearinghouse for craft tutorials, if you can’t find the perfect homemade gift here, you’re probably not sold on this whole DIY thing to begin with. The wealth of tutorials on the site–ranging from classy homemade lamps to USB memory sticks encased in Lego bricks–is mind-boggling, and a bit overwhelming. Since the tutorials are user-submitted, their quality can vary, but user ratings allow you to quickly find the best submitters to the site.

Both an online magazine and quarterly print digest, Make magazine is like a virtual Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory to nerdy DIY’ers, with a preference for projects that are technical and eccentric. You’ll find tricks to make bizarre and wonderful devices out of typical off-the-shelf items, and if you have the will (and a bit of technical or engineering prowess), the magazine is full of ideas that will make the face of the plugged-in iconoclast in your life glow. Word of warning: the projects in Make are rarely for the faint of heart, and the materials of choice may end up being pricier than an off-the-shelf gift.

More accessible than Make–in both tone and project difficulty–is its sister publication, Craft. Craft offers tons of tutorials for homemade knitted gear, ornaments and what have you. Keep the Bedazzler in the box, though–the overriding aesthetic of Craft’s projects is cutesy, hip and urban. The site’s updated-daily blog serves as a fount of idea inspiration, displaying the most impressive DIY projects from around the web, and the tutorials are sure to help those who suffer from fumbling finger syndrome. Unfortunately, a subscription is required to view the tutorials, but they are hard to beat for sheer thoroughness and user-friendliness.

Still can’t find inspiration? Try craft discussion forum Craftster, or head over to the Holiday DIY Gift Ideas Flickr Pool, which includes hundreds of photos of homemade gifts by members of the Flickr community. And if you just can’t bring yourself to pull out the glue gun, or are just impossibly clumsy, you can always fake it and head over to Etsy, an eBay for crafters, to find a slew of affordable gifts by DIY mavens gone pro.

The only way I expected to hear Polisar’s voice again was in my own living room, maybe after buying an old record online somewhere. And yet, a few weeks ago, twenty years after last hearing "My Brother Thinks He’s a Banana," I was sitting in a coffee shop and I heard that voice. It was in the background, under the hiss of the espresso machine, but unmistakable. The song was as familiar to me as one sung in kindergarten, like the ABC’s. The teenage barista didn’t know who was singing, but we were listening to the soundtrack from "Juno." A quick Google search showed what I hoped — the song was "All I Want Is You," and it is from that very same record that was in constant rotation on our living room hi-fi.

[mp3] "All I Want Is You"

I downloaded the whole album for a mere eight bucks, and it was just as good as I remembered. Some of the songs were even funnier from the perspective of a "grown up" and a parent. Others seemed more edgy — even a little creepy. I convinced a friend to buy the album for his kids, but it was quickly banned in his home. It’s not hard to see why — lyrics about taking a little sister to the woods and tying her to a tree don’t sit well with parents. Others, such as "My Mommy Drives a Dumptruck," would seem to be in line with modern progressive values, until the song takes a turn for the absolutely ridiculous and, to some, offensive. I find it easier to overlook these slights to parental values when seen as part of the album’s overall tone of complete and unapologetic silliness. Children hear the gender-twisting "Mommy Drives a Dumptruck" just before "I Have a Dog and my Dog’s Name is Cat." For them it’s not progressive or postmodern — it’s just fun and funny. And good.

The simple tunes, carved out with a twelve string guitar and catchy melodies, come straight from the stripped down folk style pioneered by Pete Seeger and hipsterized by Bob Dylan. Those influences are apparent when listening to Polisar’s songs. His lyrics also have much in common with the innocently sinister poetry of Shel Silverstein. The guitar playing is nothing special, but provides the perfect platform for Polisar’s theatrical voice and expressive story-songs. The rhythm of each song is derived from the familiar "chung-chaka-chunk" heard in Johnny Cash’s "I Walk the Line," played either fast, medium or slow. And yet, after playing the album for several days straight on my laptop (On my wife’s insistence we burned a CD so our daughter could listen in her room), the songs haven’t grown old or any less hilarious.

Polisar seems to know exactly what kids want: good melodies, simple music, and lyrics they can relate to. To be sure, Ella doesn’t catch every phrase of every song. The brother who thinks he’s a banana, we are told, has read the Bhagavad Gita. But those details are overlooked. The unfortunate scenario in "My Brother Threw Up on my Stuffed Toy Bunny" is instantly recognizable to anyone in a family with children.

Will the classic recordings of Barry Louis Polisar be rediscovered as children’s music for our generation? Not likely. But for those who like their kid’s music raw and unrefined, these songs are a welcome alternative to the sweet, overproduced, unimaginative fare marketed for children. Even Raffi, who is always popular at our house, sounds like a Canadian milk-toast after listening to "My Brother Thinks He’s a Banana." And who knows? Maybe one day we’ll trust our kids enough to let them listen to songs that make us a little uncomfortable, which is probably how they feel when we listen to NPR. At the very least, the digitized version of Polisar’s record is a gaunlet thrown down for the twenty-first century. There is no excuse for lame children’s music.

At this time, I suspect the true genius of Barry Louis Polisar may be lost for a few generations. Parents who keep their toddlers on leashes are unlikely to see the educational benefit of the brief existential tune, "My Name is Hiram Lipschlitz and my Problem’s Pretty Clear." And the iPod generation, while temporarily infatuated with the sweet and unchallenging "All I Want is You," will not likely be making "One Day My Best Friend Barbara Turned Into a Frog" a staple on their playlist. Perhaps, however, Polisar’s legacy will be heard in other ways. For those of us inoculated in childhood with those irreverent songs, we know kid’s music doesn’t have to be boring, or dumbed down, or even safe. My own post-toddler anthem, "You’ve Got to Keep That Pee in Your Body," has quite a bit of Polisar influence, despite having been written before his rediscovery. The seed was sown long ago, with a scratchy record playing in our suburban townhouse.

At this point, my daughter has half the songs on the album memorized. When I played it for her for the very first time, she sat perfectly quiet beside the laptop with her hands in her lap. After the seventeen songs had finished, the play list instantly queued up the Beetle’s "Get Back." Ella sat upright and looked at me. "What is this? I want to hear the funny songs."

In recent years, however, gentrification has crept south of the Dan Ryan. Pilsen is the only the most recent battleground between the city’s move to gentrification and its ethnic and cultural heritage. Yet with a strong, vocal community, the encroaching high-class sprawl emerging from the University of Chicago’s shopping district has yet to overtake the neighborhood’s core cultural identity. There is perhaps no more immediate reminder of the cultural vitality of Pilsen’s Mexican community than its yearly Day of the Dead celebration. I attended the 29th annual celebration the night of Tuesday, November 3rd, and recorded an on-the-spot account of the revelries, and to observe how a community preserves its soul amid the encroachment of high-priced boutiques and yupster chains.

4:15pm. The events kick off at Dvorak Park. Kids run wild as they and their parents wait to have their faces painted with the customary Dia De Los Muertos skulls. People pay their respects at a Day of the Dead altar in the park’s assembly hall, but the mood is rarely somber–—instead, this is clearly a jubilant celebration of the cycle of life and death.

5:05pm. As more families and individuals filter in, break dancing kicks off in Dvorak Park’s west assembly hall. Amid paper mache skeletons and skulls and faux gravestones, everyone in attendance gathers to watch Breakers Calaca bring the Day of the Dead revelries into a contemporary setting.

5:30pm. It’s a refreshingly diverse turnout for the celebration. A huge swath of the community has turned out—–Mexican families, older white lefties whose bottle cap John Lennon glasses are offset by Day of the Dead face paint and regalia, even a handful of cuffed-jean youths gentrifiers. The only thing as adorable as the preteen kids from Pilsen’s Kidz Circus—who are performing feats of amazement, juggling and hula-hooping on a rolling wheel—are the surly Hispanic teenage punk rockers, scowling under Misfits-esque makeup in their Casualties shirts. This is the sort of old-school community get-together you just don’t find in contemporary suburban America.

6:10pm. Everyone streams out of the assembly halls to begin the parade around the neighborhood. Already running ten minutes late, event organizers are clearly stressing, begging through megaphones over the din of death whistles for marchers to line up behind the police pace car for the parade. After ten minutes of jubilant anarchy, the array of marchers, with giant skulls and Kidz Circus tricksters in tow, leave the park’s confines for the streets of Pilsen.

6:25pm. Marching up S. Morgan St., the parade is getting louder and larger, as pedestrians stop standing agape and join in. Onlookers blow their own death whistles out of windows and holler at marching friends and acquaintances, with the exception of an elderly Eastern European woman features, who looks on disapprovingly. Some people just hate fun.

6:35pm. Now we’re on W. 18th St, Pilsen’s equivalent to Main Street, and the energy is reaching a fever pitch. Under the wing of a circus mime, members of the Kidz Circus jump on the rolling wheel while their fellow would-be-carnies take on the city artery by unicycle. Disaster is narrowly averted when a clearly confused drunken old man fails to move for the oncoming circus wheel, but he’s quickly moved out of the way by event organizers, leaving a clear thoroughfare for the talented kids, who are clearly loving being center of the show.

6:50pm. The parade may have run late, but people quickly and orderly pile into Casa Aztlan, a community center on S. Racine, for Pan de Muerto (Bread of the Dead) and a performance of Panchita y La Muerte, a traditional Mexican folktale. It’s hard to get the energized crowd to quiet down—thankfully the megaphones aren’t resorted to this time, but in time the assembled mass mellows out. That is, except for the mohawked teen in his Casualties shirt, who is sitting in the back, and won’t be told to be silent, thank you very much. Still, enjoying some semblance of attention, the actors begin their performance, a bilingual presentation in which a woman attempts to fool her visitor, Death. Hijinks ensue, as you might expect, as the story humorously documents a concern as universal as the crowd that has assembled to watch the show. Old Chicago and New Chicago are both in attendance here, and there’s a sense of hope that one does not necessarily need to eclipse the other.

[Show as slideshow]

Carnival Cruise Lines simply wasn’t prepared to be embraced. With a wrecking ball in the background, and no food or games in site, 7000 people stood in the lot eating and throwing handfuls of free candy for 3 hours while they waited for the commercial to be shot and the piñata to be smashed. Murmurs of rioting rushed through the crowds as parents started to get nervous for their children, and with only one frustrated and aging man trying to control the crowd; people eventually rushed the piñata for a closer look. Immediately bringing in the police, the event coordinators tried to threaten the crowd saying “there is enough candy for everyone, but if you do not move back there will be no candy for anyone!”

The crowd was already stuffed on the boxes and bins of candy they left out and wanted to be a part of the action. The police (a handful on motorcycles) were only able to control the crowd for about 20 minutes, but as time wasted away they began ignoring the crowd and people’s impatience got the better of them. With no one watching but the same frustrated, shouting, aging man, and no barriers between them and the piñata everyone inched closer and closer, eventually causing them to cancel the event.

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I first got a tattoo at age 18, and continued to get tattooed fairly often throughout my late teens and early 20s. I want to investigate how this happened to me, and in my work I often get into telling the story of my first tattoo and the reasons for it: sharing with my client and subconsciously reaching out to bond. As the story has been repeated it has been elaborated upon and refined. Being tattooed was always a pretty personal experience for me, and the first one set the tone.

I brought no friends along; I told no one; I asked no one’s opinion of what I should get: essentially it was exemplary of what I experience now as a tattoo artist. Often people bring friends with them, and often MANY friends. I have been surrounded by crowds of 5, of 8, of 10 even, and though most tattoo artists would not tolerate this kind of atmosphere, I do, since my power of concentration is strong.

In all my personal tattooing though, I would go to the shop solo. I felt extremely out of place and perhaps I did not want to share my discomfort with a friend. I would almost sneak in, be ignored by the guys working behind the counter, and peruse the portfolios with an unforgiving eye. However uncomfortable I was, I still knew what I was looking for.

I looked for a steady line, an artistic talent that extended beyond tattoo flash–basically someone with a rock-solid hand who would not alter my ideas in any way. I always had my own design, sandwiched in my sketchbook. In retrospect, I misused amazing artists. Both Doug Love and Holly Ellis were forced by me to do another artist’s work, to trace exactly the sculpted lines of another. However beautiful their portfolios were, I disregarded their own natural talent. I could not help it though. My artistic heroes had died fifty to one hundred years before, and I wanted to be emblazoned with the work of these dead men who had made me into an artist at the youngest age that I could remember.

With each tattoo I have felt more myself. For some, tattooing is a work of metamorphosis, of forgetting your old self and forging a new life, of commemoration of the self as a parent, of rebirth in some way. I have always felt that I was an illustrated person on the inside, and the more intricate and colorful I became the more I felt comfortable in my skin. Almost none my tattoos are governed by fads, and in this way I am outside a large part of the tattooed culture in America. I don’t say this as a way to feel superior–it’s just a fact.