Obama in Berlin

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C07EED9123DF934A15754C0A96E9C8B63&scp=1&sq=marc%20charney%20obama%20berlin&st=cse

Conspicuously absent from Marc D. Charney's list of "echoes" in Barack Obama's Berlin speech is any reference to John F. Kennedy's 1963 speech delivered there. Obama did, however, allude to Kennedy when at the end of his speech he described the "aspirations shared by all people ... [to] live free from fear and free from want," claiming "It is because of these aspirations that all free people--everywhere--became citizens of Berlin."

Who made them citizens of Berlin? It was Kennedy, who said--as an introduction to his famous closing line--that "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin."

Wisely perhaps, Obama chose to allude to the less-famous intro to the statement "Ich bin ein Berliner" rather than risk seeming presumptuous by quoting Kennedy's use of the German. In doing so, Obama successfully updated Kennedy's notion for our times. The kind of sentiment expressed here is fully consistent with Obama's particular political genius--his inclusiveness--and helps to explain why the junior senator from Illinois was able to draw a crowd of 200,000 in a foreign city.

Keats' Tombstone

Image of Keats' tombstone from http://englishhistory.net/keats/grave.html
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"Here lies one whose name was writ on water."

This was the inscription that John Keats, who died at age 26 of tuberculosis, asked to have written on his tombstone--no name, just a line of verse prophesying what he thought would be his own pending anonymity. There is a historical irony here--that the verse in stone would prove part of the poetic apparatus that ultimately insured his name was not written merely on water.

Though not a line of strict iambic pentameter, there are a lot of consecutive iambs in this inscription--after the initial stressed syllable, four of them in a row. Instead of the initial iamb, we have a single, short, dramatically stressed syllable--"Here"--a declarative and fittingly pronounced beginning. The rhythm proceeds in iambs till the end, when we check a final unstressed note at the end of "water." Thus we have a ten syllable line, a stress followed by four iambs and ending abruptly with a syllable that is so weak that it simply seems to disappear. The effect of the final unstressed syllable is to stretch out the line a little and to provide a different tone at the end by hinting at the unstated, at implications, instead of offering certainty. The verse begins with emphasis and lingers at the end, pondering and thoughtful, trailing off into speculation and denying the sense of dramatic conclusion that we might expect at the end of such an important line as an epitaph. Even the first syllable of "water," where we expect something with significant declamatory power, is not stressed so heavily as we think it should be, certainly not as much as the other stressed syllables in the line, and that is part of the effect as well. To further emphasize the weakness of the ending, consider an alternative statement: "Here lies one whose name was writ in stone." "Stone" has a powerful finality to it that fits with the intended meaning. The way Keats has it, though, the ending invites us to meditate upon the legacy of his work.

He was a poet to the very end.

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

Tell someone that you just finished reading The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin, and see what kind of reaction you get. You can explain to them that the book is a profile of recent and current members of the Supreme Court and of the events and movements that have shaped their judicial philosophies. Tell them that the author has cracked the facade of that most illustrious of judicial institutions--one that is historically very private--to gain an insider's perspective on the inner workings of the Court. Your partner in conversation will likely be very impressed at your literary accomplishment. You can leave the conversation with a smile at a bit of insider's information of your own, because after having read The Nine you know how imminently readable a book it is. All you have to do is crack open the spine, and from that point on the book pretty much reads itself. No law degree required.

Toobin writes for the New Yorker, and the book is the product of years of covering the Supreme Court for that magazine--and for its literate but popular audience. It is unfortunate that, in ways, the book has been outdated since it hit the shelf--such is the nature of change in today's Court that decisions of the last couple of months might either enhance or defy some of the conclusions Toobin made for his book. But ultimately that is of no matter. The Court that Toobin profiles is one with a significant back-story that goes back decades, and any portrait of the Supreme Court is bound to end in a freeze-frame snapshot of an institution about to change. Indeed, the future of the Court, as the mixed messages of its recent session indicates, is far from settled, but the outcome of the next presidential election will certainly decide whether the Court remains divided almost evenly along ideological lines (with swing voter Anthony Kennedy siding with the Court's conservative faction about 60% of the time). Given the election of John McCain, the Court would be likely to develop a solid right-wing majority the next time a justice is replaced. (Justice John Paul Stevens is eighty-eight. One can imagine abortion opponents hypocritically praying for his death before Bush's term of office comes to a close.)

One thing that you can say about Supreme Court justices as a whole is that they are certainly an idiosyncratic bunch, despite the fact that so many of them at present march in lock-step with each other along ideological lines.

David Souter in many ways stands out. Appointed by George H.W. Bush, Souter was looked at by those on the right as a potential key player in their hope to establish a conservative majority on the Court--one capable of overturning Roe v. Wade--but since his appointment Souter has veered decidedly to the left. Reportedly, Souter does not have a cell phone or an e-mail account, and it is said of him that someone once gave him a television but that he never plugged it in. Toobin also reports that when Souter joined the Court in the late 80s he had never before heard of a popular beverage that some of his colleagues enjoyed--Diet Coke. He seems to have lived in his own professional bubble, aloof to the goings-on around him. There is something fascinating and, in a way, very admirable about Souter's quaint rejection of modern life. While one could argue that a justice should be in touch with the pace of contemporary thinking, one could also say that a justice should be tuned in to the timeless truths of rationality and the law and that the rest is irrelevant.

Clarence Thomas is another stand out, though for very different reasons. I am not the first to speculate that there is a certain degree of self-loathing at the core of Thomas' being. He is, by his own account, a bitterly angry man, and a great deal of his anger is directed at affirmative action, the policy by which he himself was accepted to Yale Law School as well as appointed to the Supreme Court--ironically, as a replacement for Thurgood Marshall. If Thomas displays so much public distaste and bitterness for the policies that made him the man he is today, how must he feel about himself?

I knew this much already about Thomas before reading The Nine. What I did not know, though, was how much Thomas is liked by virtually everyone around him, from his opponents on the Court to cafeteria employees there to the strangers he befriends at NASCAR events and on RV campgrounds. Suddenly, the portrait had become more complex--if anything, more puzzling.

Since the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist in 2005 and his subsequent replacement by John Roberts, the Court has moved to the far right in a majority of its decisions. This is in a way surprising, since Rehnquist himself was staunchly conservative through most of his career. Despite his continued adherence to conservative ideals, Rehnquist did not pursue them as doggedly once he was appointed Chief Justice. Toobin posits a solid rationale for the softening of Rehnquist's position in recent years, but Rehnquist was not the only one whose stance changed. Others have changed more dramatically--not just David Souter but also John Paul Stevens. In a recent interview for the New York Times Magazine, Stevens, a Ford appointee, said that he still considers himself a Republican and a conservative despite his reliable affiliation with the liberal faction of the court. Perhaps what Stevens does--unlike some of his colleagues--is to isolate his personal political views from his jurisprudence, but it is also possible that his view of "conservatism" was defined in a different era, when it meant something different than what it means now. Only two justices--Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Bryer--of the current nine were appointed by a Democratic president (both by Clinton); Souter and Stevens are the two who, mavericks in their own way, have kept liberal principles at play in the Court.

As you read The Nine, you encounter not only the big personalities but also the big questions at the heart of any analysis of the Supreme Court. First of all, what is the relationship between the judicial branch and the legislative branch, and to what extent does the Court have power to create--rather than merely explicate--the law? (The traditional answer is that the Supreme Court only interprets the law, but in reality that is simply not the case.) Also, what role should political ideology play in the Court? Regardless of what is proper for the supposedly blind procedures of justice, there is a disturbing degree of ideological bias in the current Court, and this bias will be a factor in the goings-on of the Court most likely for decades to come.

Another question involves the role of precedent in Supreme Court decisions. For generations of Supreme Court justices, respect for precedent has been standard operating procedure. At present, however, the increasingly conservative body in the Court threatens to tear apart decades of precedent on issues such as abortion and affirmative action that even Rehnquist was reluctant to dismantle.

A final major question involves the conflict between, on the one hand, judicial originalism and, on the other, the notion of a living constitution. Originalism is the notion that the preceise meaning of the Constitution was established by the framers at the time of its composition and that any interpretation of the Constitution that strays from the original meaning is invalid. As Toobin informs us, this approach to interpreting the Constitution is historically a pretty new one that emerged in the 1980s, and it is represented for those of us who lived through the tail end of the Reagan era by Robert Bork, whose appointment to the Supreme Court was denied by Congress. Appointees who could be described as roughly Borkian in attitude (Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito) sooner or later made their way into the ranks of the nine, and originalism might be said to be the defining force behind the Court's recent overthrow of the Washington, DC, handgun ban. That said, the more one scrutinizes the philosophy of originalism, the more impractical and even foolish it seems.

There is a reason that the Court has not stuck strictly to the framers' intents in a variety of domains: the framers lived in a society that is fundamentally different from our own. At what point does a necessary respect for the foundations of the Constitution become a crippling burden to those of us living in the twenty-first century?

Toobin, who on occasion betrays a mild moderate to liberal bias, hints pretty clearly his belief that the alternative to this notion of originalism, that of a "living Constitution," is really the only sensible way of making the Constitution a document that continues to serve the people. Furthermore, it makes sense in context of the bigger picture. The framers were at the core of a revolutionary generation who acted on the principle that if your government does not work for you, you should replace it. The government has to have some flexibility built into it. It is therefore sensible to think that the framers might intend for the document to change over time to accommodate the needs of a changing society.

It must be said that Toobin keeps his editorializing to a minimum, that he is able to praise both conservative and liberal members of the Court, and that he expands into his own commentary only once the necessary details have been relayed.

Above all, the effect of reading The Nine is to come to a true understanding of the relevance of this judicial body. Although Presidents select members of the Court, the Court in a way has more authority in defining what counts for law than the President does. Although the Supreme Court is a fully fallible institution, Toobin makes his readers understand that the system of checks and balances usually works--that power is thereby distributed to more than just the President and a handful of influential members of Congress. The judicial branch is sometimes referred to as the "Third Branch"--a name that indicates its status as the aspect of government that is easy to forget (in part, perhaps, because we think of it as being so localized; we see the court in action on regional issues and when we get speeding tickets, and we forget that there is more to it than that). What Toobin does with The Nine is to get us to realize that the Supreme Court is a truly powerful body, and that those in the know value the President's right to nominate members as more than just a perk of office.

Justice personified is depicted as being blind, but in truth it is not blind at all and never has been. Toobin gives us a chance to see what the eyes of justice see. The image is sometimes baffling, sometimes illuminating, and always fascinating.

Why You Should Listen to The Pernice Brothers

They don't have any new albums out, just some old ones that have kept growing on me over the years. For what my opinion is worth, I think they're one of the most underappreciated bands around.

All Music Guide, Pitchfork, and just about everyone else have all compared Joe Pernice's voice to that of Colin Blunstone of The Zombies. (Usually the word "smoky" is used.) The comparison is inevitable and apt. The similarity owes less to imitation, I would like to think, than to natural ability. Both singers possess voices that sound more fragile than they really are. Their vocals are whispery but not breathy: these guys are actually singing. It's the kind of sound that won't often work for the heavy stuff--It's worth noting that 2006's Live a Little includes a song about The Clash, but The Pernice Brothers seem unlikely to be able to actually pull off a Clash cover. There's a bit of that that Clash influence there, but for the most part The Pernice Brothers' specialty is intelligent pop music for a literate adult audience--music that is geared for the kind of listener who has been around the block a few times and is perhaps sadder but wiser for it.

Joe Pernice's lyrics prove that he possesses a great ear for the sound of words, and for the most part he avoids cliches and goes instead for more original figures of speech and, quite frequently, clever, sardonic wordplay. Pernice is also also a writer of short stories, and his gift for character sketch translates into his lyrics, as in this example from "Cruelty to Animals":

She won't mind if the place we stand is marked by ash. She believes what
doesn't kill her only takes more time to kill her. Then she smiles as she
paints her lips and does her lashes. Stunning as a taxidermy victim in a
silver cage.

The images and clever turns, startlingly good for pop music, continue: "Stuck in dumn amazement like a dog who's told to levitate." "... spinning glue back into horses."

It's true that musically there is nothing revolutionary or bold about his songs, and in fact some of them in tone and sentiment even border on what we might vilify as "light rock" or "adult contemporary." Don't let that easy tone fool you, though. There is admirable craftsmanship in every track the Pernice Brothers have released, and their work is all the more remarkable considering that it's all indie label material. Thirty years ago, one would think, these guys would have been all over the radio. Video really did kill these would-be radio stars.

So, what the Pernice Brothers offer is exquisitely crafted pop songs: shimmering, incandescent, approaching the sublime sometimes in the way that the best power-pop (The Beatles, Big Star, those Neko Case harmonies on certain New Pornographers tracks) can do. There's a bit of the Zombies, a bit of Elvis Costello, that distant hint of Joe Strummer, even some Squeeze and Joe Jackson, perhaps. The Elvis Costello similarity comes across not in the sound of the vocals but in the phrasing; listen to the way Pernice stretches out words sometimes at the ends of his verses, as in "Somerville," his ode to coming home with your tail tucked between your legs after not making a go of it in the city.

My favorite Pernice Brothers album is 2003's Yours, Mine, and Ours. At a first listen, this album seems a little too slick, perhaps. This is partly due to the opening track, "The Weakest Shade of Blue," which is so well put-together that it seems like something only a machine could produce. You learn to live with its over-perfection, though. For a Pernice Brothers song, "Weakest Shade" has moments that are brimming with optimism. You shouldn't get used to that, because the next track, "Water Ban," and most of the rest of the songs that follow strike more troubled notes. The melancholy tone persists to the end of the album and almost drags it down a little in the end; my only complaint about this set is that it needs another track (in addition to the exquisite "Sometimes I Remember") with a little more drive in it to hold up the last few songs. Nevertheless, the songs are in and of themselves pitch-perfect. This is an imminently listenable collection of songs. "One Foot in the Grave"--despite its ominous title--strikes the perfect balance between up and down; this is what power-pop is supposed to do. "Blinded by the Stars" and "Waiting for the Universe" are other stand-outs. Although this is the most heavily rotated album on my iPod, I am still waiting to get tired of listening to it.

My next favoriate Pernice Brothers album, 2006's Live a Little, does not quite, to my mind, achieve the same level of the sublime, but it's still a great album by any measure. Thematically, the songs focus mostly once again on mature perspectives on adult relationships. It does boast my favorite Pernice Brothers song, "Lightheaded," a song about celebrity, fame, and all that glitter and flash that have eluded Pernice. If this is the result of obscurity, though, he comes off all the better for it.

It's easy to consider Joe Pernice--voice, lyrics, melodies--as the sole architect of this band's sound, but that would be a mistake. As important as he is, all of this would fall a little flat if it weren't for the music that holds that wispy voice aloft. What really makes the Pernice Brothers such a spectacular band is the band. These aren't stripped down acoustic numbers that we're listening to, and as much as the craft of songwriting is in evidence here, I wouldn't want to listen to these songs presented in a bare-bones singer-songwriter fasion. That's not what they're designed for, though it's true that an acoustic guitar track is put to good use at the heart of most Pernice Brothers songs. The arrangements are pretty lush for indie music--especially given the strings on Live a Little--but they're never over-produced. The songs really achieve definition from Peyton Pinkerton's guitar lines, which never quite jangle, exactly, though they do parse out the contours of Pernice's melodies to great effect. On YM+O, the keyboards--at first almost unnoticeable, a mix of organ and spacey-sounding synthesizer--also add flourishes that would be sorely missed were they not present, and LAL features some steady piano work. I've started to appreciate the drums, too, lately--not just the precision of a well-kept beat but also the fills on "One Foot in the Grave," for instance, or at the end of "Automaton," which serve as a reminder that, despite the subtlety of the music, this is a rock band we're hearing.

What happens to a band like The Pernice Brothers? They have a sizeable following for a band that releases on its own label, but mainstream commercial success in today's music industry climate seems well-nigh impossible. At this point, I imagine, every record sale counts, so my recommendation is to get out there and buy a Pernice Brothers record first chance you get.