No Secret

It’s no secret that I can’t get enough of The West Wing (except for those episodes in the first season with that annyoing girl). I haven’t been able to get one episode out of my mind. It was the one where CJ’s new boyfriend in the secret service gets shot in a convenience store in New York. I haven’t been able to get the music in the following scene out of my head. I looked it up and discovered that the music was the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen, performed by Jeff Buckley. So I downloaded three versions of the song (by Leonard Cohen who has an awful singing voice, by Jeff Buckley whose version is more guitar-oriented, and by Rufus Wainwright whose version appeared on the Soundtrack to Shrek and is probably my favorite of the three) and learned to play it on the piano. It’s a beautiful tune.

Another Comparison

In my intermittent quest to compare today’s American civilization with that of the decline of the Roman empire, I’ve decided that the general populace awaiting life or death verdicts on the edge of their recliners is much like the spectators at gladiator events, waiting for the thumbs up/thumbs down to signal death or life, on the edge of their seats in the coliseum. Also, I just happened to see Gladiator recently.