This Is Why We Fight, Lovely Rita

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Yup. That's why I was reminded of the
Decemberists' song. It's haunting and
morally ambiguous.


-----Original Message-----
From: Rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
To: bandwraith <bandwraith at aol.com>
Cc: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sun, Feb 26, 2012 6:23 pm
Subject: Re: This Is Why We Fight, Lovely Rita


I'm not making moral judgements about men in war and what they are 
capable of.
It's really easy to be appalled by it all and rightly so but most of us 
will
never know what combat does to men (& women)

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 25, 2012, at 11:55 PM, bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> At the unfortunate news, recently, of the US Marines
> desecrating the fallen bodies of their Taliban foes, I
> couldn't help but think of The Decemberists tune:
> This Is Why We Fight-
>
>       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuCElOJxaH0
>
>  and acoustically:
>
>       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fczvWSANXdo
>
> Frontman Colin Meloy, who looks a little too much
> like Mark David Chapman, is a product of the creative
> writing program at U. of Montana, Missoula. He signals
> his literary roots (and his generation) in another
> Decemberists' number,  Calamity Song:
>
>      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScE_d6uTAHU
>
> wherein he channels DFW with the lyric..."in the year
> of the chewable ambien tab." Besides being a rock
> star, Meloy is the brother of Maile Meloy, who seems
> to be more strictly into fiction, with a MFA in that from
> U. of Cal., Irvine-
>
>      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maile_Meloy
>
> She comes highly recommended, but I've only read
> one of her short stories, "Lovely Rita"from her "Both
> Ways Is the Only Way I Want It" collection. I really
> liked it. She does young disaffected men, well.
>
> Last year, The Decemberists played Prospect Park,
> Brooklyn. I didn't go, but around the time of the
> concert, a local radio station played "This Is Why We
> Fight" and "Lovely Rita" (Beatles) back to back, with
> no special comments about the segue. But I think the
> DJ must have known about the Meloy/Meloy connection,
> right? I mean everything connects, doesn't it?... at least
> in my mind.
>
> Or, maybe I've got that inverted- my mind is the connections?
>
>