Blue skies, looming streetlight, and a Wonderful Remark

Monday, bright, dry, and cold.  The sun was up this morning for my drive in, not by much, but enough to call it early morning.  The temperature was something shortly above freezing and while clouds were hanging low above me, the forecast calls for blue skies and temps in the upper 40's (F). 

Monday brings the promise, to the traditional work week, anyway, of a fresh start with new energy.  Since Friday was a solid GTD and catch-up day for me, I walked into an unusually caught-up and clean office this morning.  I love it when it works out that way.

I noticed an odd streetlight today for the first time, driving in on my usual route.  It springs from the sidewalk on the right side of the street (when heading West) shoots up higher than any of the others, then looms out across the road to a point a bit beyond mid-point.  None of the other lights are as high or reach clear out across the road like this one mid-block light does.  No crosswalk or other unusual aspect to that point in the street that I could see.  And why come from the far side of the street to hang the light over the opposing traffic lane?  I'm sure there is a good reason, but now it's an unanswered ponderable for me, something I will question every time I pass under it.

Today's playlist looks longer than it was.  The first song, Van Morrison's Wonderful Remark, picked up half way through and the last one had just kicked off when I pulled into a parking place at North Campus.  Even half of the first track is a dandy, with lyrics (about politicians' lies and half-truths) that seem as right for this time as when it was first written (first recorded version was 1969):

Now, how can we listen to you

When we know that your talk is cheap

How can we never question

Why we give more and you keep

How can your empty laughter

Fill a room like ours with joy

When you're only playing with us

Like a child does with a toy

How can we ever feel the freedom

Or the flame lit by the spark

How can we ever come out even

When reality is stark.......

Listen, how can you tell us something

Just to keep us hanging on, yeah

Something that just don't mean nothin'

When we see you, you are gone

The best bit of lyric, though, is the chorus:

That was a wonderful remark

I had my eyes closed in the dark

I sighed a million sighs

I told a million lies to myself, to myself

Which, of course, should be the dawning realization that it is we who continue to put these folks in charge, abdicate our active role to the monied and powerful interests that are more intentional and purposeful, and tell ourselves whatever lies justify a passive existence.  Like the pathetically whiney John Meyer song, Waiting For the World to Change, we often sit on the sidelines complaining rather than doing anything constructive to change the world we live in.

The full playlist:

 - Van Morrison: Wonderful Remark

 - Pink Martini: Tempo Perdido

 - Fountains of Wayne:  No Better Place

 - David Gray: The Other Side

 - Pat Metheny: Inori (Live)