On the 80th Anniversary of the Beginning of the Liberation of Auschwitz…

It’s not an easy day, but I’m remembering better times, such as when Mandy Patinkin translated Paul Simon’s “American Tune” into its native language:

And then I remember that this was a sad song, that even though Simon wrote that last verse of “Loves Me Like a Rock,” he wasn’t always so obeisant to the man who later admitted to David Frost that “It’s not illegal if the President does it.”

“American Tune” has never been a cheerful song. It isn’t as badly perceived as Springsteen’s boisterous three-chord “Born in the USA” (which needed Stanley Clarke to turn it into the song it was supposed to be), partially because it starts dour and goes dark from there:

Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I’ve often felt forsaken
And certainly misused

Oh, but I’m alright, I’m alright
I’m just weary to my bones

Which appears to be the zeitgeist among many who are not determined to cheer Disruption without Vision.

My family’s ancestor came over in 1631 because he was, er, rather too fecund for the family’s forbearance. Which makes him about the opposite of the families who came over eleven years before, after they were thrown out of The Netherlands for being, well, too tight-arsed uptight for the Dutch.

Maybe the miracle isn’t that it might end, but rather that it lasted as long as it did.

The pessimists among us know what to do when the going gets tough–work through the problem until it is solved. So that when the 90th anniversary comes, we can mourn the past without fearing the future.