Categorical Aperitif

I'm really sorry, folks, but between teaching, tutoring, grading papers, and relative matters, I have been swamped. The good news is that I'm not as depressed as I'd thought I'd be right now because my first big batch of student papers has been better than expected: some of these people can actually write coherent, informed essays, and do so with some style and grace to boot. I may even not want to shoot myself by the end of this semester. Anyway, I think I'm approaching the end of a tunnel. I might even get to do a decent batch of Random Flickr Blogging next week.

I know that posting videos is something of a blogging cop-out, but what the hell; I've been wanting to try this YouTube embedding thing. A little while ago, through E&P, I found out that Richard Thompson has written an Iraq war song—and it's a humdinger:

Richard Thompson Bonus Track! Here's a nifty, intimate little performance of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," a song which I think is just unspeakably great. I've heard several different Thompson versions of it, the bluegrass version by Del McCoury, and other versions I can't recall, and every single time it just reaches right inside me, grabs my heart, squeezes a cathartic mix of curiosity, amusement, concern, sadness, grief, awe, and wonder out of it, and then mercifully lets it start beating again. This song does more in a handful of stanzas than most songs do...ever.

See y'all next week, I hope.

// posted by nash @ 12:22 PM