the pleasure of ulteriority

Gov't Mule, Mulennium


I love when bands create new words, like "Politicalamity" (see: Extreme, a few weeks ago) or Mulennium.


& I guess this band's name continues our political slant.


When Warren Haynes left the Allmans to focus on the Mule, I was not happy.


Until I payed more attention to the Mule.


This album has all 3 sets of the New Year's Eve performance (Dec 31 1999-Jan 1 2000).


Hence the title . . . which may annoy those of you who believe the new millennium actually began on Jan 1 2001.


But we won't get into that.


I am huge jam fan, so I love these live performances, & was pumped when they finally officially released this one this year. My favorite Mule, though, is  Live . . . With a Little Help From Our Friends, which is a 4-disc set of the previous New Year's Eve show. Their covers of "Cortez the Killer" & "Third Stone From the Sun" just bring it.


& as for Mulennium, highlights for me are covers of "21st Century Schizoid Man," "Dazed and Confused," "Helter Skelter," "Sometimes Salvation," & "I Shall Be Released."


Don't get me wrong: their originals rock, too, but I love to see a band's influences demonstrated by its choice of covers.


You like blues-rock, you like Gov't Mule.


Juniors:
We went back over the poem "A Poison Tree."


I say, dude's dead.


Some of you agreed, some did not.


Again, "poetry, cool."


You responded to Frost, who said "poetry is metaphor."


& how about this one, also from Frost: '[T]he teacher must teach the pupil to think . . . We still ask boys in college to think, . . . but we seldom tell them it is just putting this and that together, it is saying one thing in terms of another. To tell them is to set their feet on the first rung of a ladder the top of which reaches to the sky . . . The metaphor whose manage we are best taught in poetry - that is all there is of thinking. It may not seem far for the mind to go, but it is the mind's furthest. The richest accumulation of the ages is the noble metaphors we have rolled up."


Poetry is ice cream


Or church.


Sophomores:
You finished yesterday's assignment, the group work on a 1/2-sheet of paper.


Then, you thought & wrote about civil disobedience & non-violent resistance.


The vocab quiz was postponed, so you have at least 1 more day to prepare. Remember: only the terms from the book are available.


be cool