Life is back to normal now. The last couple of weeks have been tense as we finished up the last few details for our party on Saturday. Someone told me that we could expect about 70% of our invited guests to attend. In the end, it was more like 93%—yet another reason why I don't gamble…because you just never know. I have to say that it was a wonderful day, and I felt very loved having so many people come out to celebrate with us.

But the tension—oh, the tension! Home life has been stressful.

I am a pretty chill chick. I haven't always been this way, but I've had a—shall we say, eventful?—past several years. I've lost people, lost some dreams, lost the assurance of immortality that young people are so blessed with…what I'm trying to say is that there are much bigger things out there to worry about than a little party with 50 extra people than you tallied in your head.

Nicholas, my Nicholas…not so chill. And we'll leave it at that.



But, when the day finally arrived, he was the sweet man I married again. Of course, he opened his first beer at 10:00 and didn't stop for four hours, but you do what you have to do. We ended up with a lot of leftover beer, but Nick is staunch in his belief that he did his part—alluding, I suppose, to the minimal adult beverage that I consumed. Really, he did his part and mine...it's teamwork you see.

The weather was perfect, the food was tasty, and the company was superb. It was a golden day in the record of my life.

I have mentioned before that I started falling in love with Nick and his obvious nervousness almost instantly. Well, a few weeks into our relationship he played a David Gray song for me. When the song ended, he looked at me meaningfully and said, "It's the most perfect song I have ever heard." I now get goosebumps whenever I hear Please Forgive Me. The song was an obvious choice when I put together the following slideshow of photos from the party. Thank you to everyone for sharing in our day!

I just watched an obscure rock documentary from 1969, and it got to me.

The decade that most impassions me (besides the way this one is shaping up to be) is the 1960s. So many pivotal battles were fought during those years…battles that changed the face of our country and our definition of the human condition. This is also the decade that I feel produced the best music—but then, songwriters had plenty of charged fodder to write about, didn't they?

It also didn't hurt that in the 60s, the idea of a generation gap came to fruition. The chasm between parents and their children was wider and deeper than it had ever been before. Families warred from within, and the ideologies were polarizing. While a lot of things were being said, not a lot was being heard. Instead, the sides each spoke a little louder hoping that the other would magically realize that theirs was the only truth. In the midst of all that hot air, musicians became the voice of a generation. They penetrated the airwaves and made their way into homes across the country. Music became a courier.

I have loved Simon and Garfunkel almost as long as I've loved the Beatles. It took a little longer because, whereas my father was a diehard Beatles fan from the moment they appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, no one saturated my every waking moment with S&G: I had to stumble upon them on my own. Yes, I was a third grader listening to I Am a Rock. (My mother used to tell me that I was born old.)

But even as a child who really did not understand the strife of that decade, I felt their songs were something more than a catchy tune. They seemed so beautiful, so sad, and so haunting.



They still sing to me more like poetry than popular music. As you've probably guessed by now, the subject of the rock documentary Songs of America was none other than the group who created folk rock: Simon and Garfunkel. It's not polished at all. A lot of the camera work is shaky. The film is a mishmash of footage from 1960s unrest, live concerts, recording sessions, and candid conversations between the two musicians. The roughness makes this glimpse into the past seem raw and very honest.

The film was quite controversial when it aired in 1969. It almost didn't air at all when network executives saw the opening montage (set to Bridge Over Troubled Waters) with images of JFK, RFK, and MLK Jr: it raised their hackles that no strong republicans were featured. Angered that the executives tried to make their documentary out to be a political agenda, they heatedly pointed out that the three men were featured not because of their ties to the Democratic Party, but because they were change agents who were assassinated. The documentary did air, but only once. It is being released with the 40th anniversary of the Bridge Over Troubled Waters album.

For me, one of the most arresting parts of the piece is one of the conversation segments where Art is talking to Paul about the Vietnam War. I have it mostly verbatim (except for some of the stumbling) below in italics. Between the inflection in his voice and the directness of his eyes (which you can see even though he's talking to Paul off to the side and not looking right at the camera), I could completely empathize with this feelings of senselessness.

"It’s very easy to lose sight of what it means for a bullet to come into another person’s insides, and for a man to be killed by somebody else’s gun. For a man to be out in a—he’s home, he’s in Iowa one day, and the next day he’s in a state that he’s supposed to feel this is worth it...for me to be in this bush now, trying to kill that guy and be in a position where this guy could kill me…I’m supposed to feel that this all makes sense to me and it’s worth it. I’m fighting for something that’s worth it being in this state. It’s (shakes his head) crap."

I have seen a lot of footage from the 60s, and nothing has grabbed me like that moment. I usually see marches, protests, and open conflicts between sides. Nothing has affected me as strongly as those softly spoken words that were bleeding with palpable sincerity. I suppose this may be why I love all of S&G's music: the calmest delivery fortifies the message.

Very cool documentary.