Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Three Beautiful Things 02/18/14: Types of Intelligence, Sixteen Tons Shelter, "Sometimes a Waltz"

1.  So in WR 115 we looked more closely at Uncle Joe's years working at General Motors, as described in Mike Rose's "Blue-Collar Brilliance" and worked to determine the different kinds of intelligence Uncle Joe's work demanded of him.  As a blue collar factor worker with a ninth grade educated who was promoted to supervisor, Uncle Joe observed, evaluated, analyzed, imagined, anticipated, envisioned, learned to see the workplace through others' eyes, calculated, and computed, for starters, and became a stellar example of the wide range of intelligence countless workers employ without formal education, intelligence that is often unappreciated and unrewarded. 

2.  I got off the bus near St. Mary's Episcopal Church to retrieve the camera I left in the pew on Sunday morning.  Rain drenched me.  I left the church and sought shelter a block away at Sixteen Tons and drank slow half pints of New Belgium/Elysian Trip XIV Oyster Stout and read more of Greenblatt's Will in the World until the Deke joined me.  Then we talked. 

3.  Tonight's mini-Babes with Axes show on the drive home featured Katie Henry's "Sometimes a Waltz".  The song's sound gave me the feeling of one of those epic movies over fifty years ago filmed in CinemaScope.  It's a song that sweeps me away, especially with the gorgeous harmonies the Babes with Axes built and I can't get enough of T. R. Kelley's lyrical bass guitar work.   Next, I'll listen to the lyrics, but I was too swept up by all the sounds to focus on what the song said.  (This is typical of how I experience music.) 

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