Common Grounds

I was reading Alicia’s post at Twilight Café on a coffeehouse in Dallas and it triggered a memory. I was in Denver visiting my friend Carol when she lived there and we went to a funky coffeehouse in West Denver called Common Grounds. Now she and I happen to hold a shared belief that there is something inherently funny about both the accordion and the tuba. They’re a little bit dorky. If you put up a photo of someone playing either instrument you’d get an instant laugh. (I say this affectionately. No offense to anyone who plays either.) Anyway, Carol and I got to Common Grounds and the entertainment that morning was none other than a duo: accordion and tuba.

I just googled to make sure I got the name of the coffeehouse right, and I saw this posted at Craigslist:

Blond in Jean Skirt at Common Grounds 3/8 - m4w - 31

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Reply to: anon-26013512@craigslist.org

Date: 2004-03-08, 8:53PM MST

 

Were you feeling that same bit of chemistry I was feeling (or whatever it was)? I was the blond guy wearing a plaid shirt with a tattoo on my forearm. You were with some guy for a while and then he left. We definately seemed to be checking eachother out for a while. Get in touch with me! Let's talk.

I wonder if they ever found each other.

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Update: Carol called to remind me that our trip to Common Grounds was the day after Lady Di died and that the accordion-tuba duo were playing "God Save the Queen." Somehow that memory escaped me. I'm sure she's right. I remember driving up to Boulder from Denver one night in the big rental SUV that Enterprise gave me when I heard on the radio that she died.

12:57:40 PM      trackback [] 

Conservative vs. liberal models of life

I wanted to respond to Ana’s comment on my last post. I agree that it’d be better for all of us if the debate stayed on a higher level. Definitely. What intrigued me about Franken’s response was that it echoes George Lakoff’s idea of the different metaphors that conservatives and liberals use when they talk about the issues. I posted this quote from Lakoff before that I think lays out the opposing viewpoints:

The progressive worldview is modeled on a nurturant parent family. Briefly, it assumes that the world is basically good and can be made better and that one must work toward that. Children are born good; parents can make them better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the responsibility to take care of oneself and others for whom we are responsible…

 

The conservative worldview, the strict father model, assumes that the world is dangerous and difficult and that children are born bad and must be made good. The strict father is the moral authority who supports and defends the family, tells his wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from wrong. The only way to do that is through painful discipline…

Lakoff also has interesting things to say on how these opposing viewpoints play out in the gay marriage debate (I posted about this earlier). I'm wondering is Franken is deliberately choosing his words to highlight these different models for how liberals (or "progressives" as Lakoff prefers) versus conservatives see the world. It certainly seems as though he is.

10:33:28 AM      trackback []