Holidays, Hallmark
"Juneteenth"? Right, it's the title of a book by the late Ralph Ellison. Publicity for good writers is a good thing.
Why would Republicans celebrate it? Well...although Abraham Lincoln was not alive on the nineteenth of June, 1865, that was when slaves in Texas generally received the news that he had signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The Proclamation had not been duly celebrated when issued, due to there being a war on and much debate about its having any legal validity in the States named in the original Proclamation. But in 1865 the Proclamation was recognized everywhere. Hurrah.
Next question: Why would residents of other States celebrate a Texas holiday?
Some claim the celebration of "Juneteenth" in States where it was not celebrated in 1865 is something the Left are pushing, so the Right should ignore or despise it.
Meh. I'm all in favor of more celebrations of good books. We could celebrate Handmaid's Tale Day, a day of rest for all credit cards when everyone celebrates the value of paying cash. We could celebrate Huckleberry Finn Day, observed on the nearest river. We could celebrate Good Earth Day, when everybody gets to sneer at people who have failed to claim inherited land.
What we do not need is more government involvement in holidays. In order to be fun a holiday should be celebrated privately by people who want to celebrate something, NOT enforced on everybody as a big public inconvenience.
Music
I know just enough Hebrew to know that the Hebrew words in this song are not a translation of the English words. As usual, translating songs amounts to writing a new song on the same theme in the other language...
As if it weren't hard enough to gather a paying crowd to listen to folk music, with all the really "authentic" and well known performers in that genre retired or dead...as if it hadn't taken somebody like Pete Seeger, Jean Ritchie, or Ewan MacColl to draw a crowd for a folk concert at best--the British now worry about "decolonising" the genre. Which is a good idea, from the point of view of documenting folk music; you want the minority traditions, the "Nobody sings those songs but Weird Win who learned them from per grandmother" songs. From the point of view of building careers or selling tickets, it's a terrible idea. Brits who wanted to hear Heather Wood were sufficiently disappointed by Maddy Pryor's versions (though young come-lately foreign barbarians such as moi admire both singers). They'd have to be real folk music nerds to accept Thai or Zimbabwean music in the place where Child Ballads ought to be.
Which makes one consider how much ill will is caused merely by people thinking that other people are in the place where still other people ought to be. Whatever opened up in the place where my favorite (whatever) closed last year, I'm sure it's disgusting...that sort of thing...
This is not a folk song. It's an art song in the folk style, meaning that we know who wrote it (Catherine Faber) with the intention that it would be easy enough to sing around a campfire that people would go on singing it after they'd forgotten about her, Faber. Who knows? Currently Faber is still alive.
No comments:
Post a Comment