This Is Why We Fight, Lovely Rita

[Erik T. Burns]

the official video from "Calamity Song"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni7T18UUBUI is a filmed version of
Eschaton, the nuclear war based tennis variant from _Infinite Jest_

On Mon, Feb 27, 2012 at 1:50 AM,  <bandwraith at aol.com> wrote:
> 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?
>>
>>
>