How's this for a rad idea? How about I do an entry that is all words, no pictures. Not because the camera broke or anything, but I didn't have it with me. I went to see a lecture on Yiddish music, which I thought would be interesting. To get there, I walked along side one in series of anti war protests, which typically enraged me. There are all kinds of people carrying signs that say things like "kill for Israel" which first of all doesn't even make sense and second of all is hardly anti-war, even though they are saying it sarcastically. The protests are attended by pierced faced student youth with natty hair, kind of the Future of America, kind of skate kids who magic marker the word 'fuck' on walls. That latter is a quality I can attest to, because as I walked along, protesters would break from the march and graffitti on any available surface. Which sort of undermines the credibility of the political cause.

There are a lot of helicoptors hovering, which make it seem a little saigon-ish, even though they are news helicoptors. And the protestors are always chanting and whooping. They are really irritating. Many of them carry Palestinian flags,and some of the more radical ones carry Che flags. There was a big banner that said people of color against the war in Iraq.

When I first got here, I considered getting a handgun, because walking the streets at night, many stout homeless people would come up to me and half beg/half demand money, and I would like to shoot them. Of course I didn't get the gun, but now, as of yesterday, the protestors have begun blocking intersections and dragging people out of their cars, and then stomping up and down on the cars. I guess because cars use gas. Which seems like a perfect time to get some target practice, maybe with a semi automatic. Or at least some mace.

I don't think it's a coincidence that people protesting took off from work and school and go around smashing stuff. I mean, if the Cause meant you had to work Saturdays and fast, I am guessing it would not be nearly as appealing and fun as putting on a Che shirt and smashing people's car windsheild. To be accurate in my reporting, only six people got pulled from their cars, it wasn't an epidemic, but many people got stopped and their cars were pummelled by the crowd.

Anyway, I got to the Yiddish music lecture, which was in the overfunded public library, which had a futuristic auditorium with laser guided speakers. The whole room was so fancy and the lighting was so recessed that I felt like I was in one of those places that they freeze your head to thaw out in a hundred years. Which was incongruous with the music being played, which was recording from Turkey from 1908 and so on. I didn't learn much, other than the fact that the Tartars were aligned with the Nazis, which isn't that surprising since the Tartars were Cossacks. But I learned that the Nazis betrayed the Tartars and turned them over to Joe Stalin, who slaughtered them. Just a factoid I picked up, not really a musical one. The real show there were the audience members, some of who were academics studying Jewish music like archiologists looking at Mayan culture, some of who were old Brooklyn Jews who moved out a long time ago and talked about when they were a kid, their mother sang this or that song. There were also about three people who fell asleep there, which, I suppose is what people do at lectures.