Just for One Day
by
Nisi Shawl
Another year of glaucoma-filtered
reading. Another year in which I reserve
my eyesight for use in paying gigs such as teaching.
Another election year.
These are trying times; solace comes to me mainly
from music. Lately it’s been the music
of the late David Bowie. I draw a lot of
strength from his 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), which is maybe even more obscenely
relevant today than it was 40+ years ago.
“To be insulted by these fascists is so degrading,” I quote-skeet him on
my Bluesky timeline, to universal agreement.
Favorite track from this album: “Scream
Like a Baby.” I wouldn’t buy no
merchandise and I wouldn’t go to war, the narrator proclaims from his madhouse
blanket nest, pinning his persecution on the paw-in-paw relationship between
capital and militarism. Our future
history lesson continues: They came down hard on the faggots, on the street,
and on Sam, our champion, who jumped into the furnace of destruction spitting
in his oppressors’ faces and singing old songs we all loved.
It’s an older Bowie song I imagine Sam
singing as he burns: “Heroes,” from the album of the same name. Deceptively simple in its melody and rhythm,
it’s a boat engine chugging, tugging us along to deeper and deeper waters,
wider and wider wakes. We remember
standing against the wall while guns shoot over our heads. We kiss as though nothing could ever ever
ever ever fall. We can’t drive them
away. But we can be heroes. Just for one day.
No comments:
Post a Comment