I'm sorry, I know I've already endorsed this program once this week...but it keeps suprising me in unexpected ways. I just don't understand how I never knew of it before.
This American Life - Episode 210: Perfect Evidence is about false confessions. I was drawn to it this week because that is the subject of my Advanced Evidence class tonight. People confess to crimes that they did not commit...and whose innocence is supported by irrefutable evidence. People who wind up incarceated for years and years who are, in fact, innocent. This episode is interesting for a number of reasons but around the 39 minute mark one of the subjects - a man who was incarcerated for 15 years for a crime he did not commit - speaks about his belief...no faith... in the justice system. It's so poignant...so honest...with such a lack of anger, bitterness or hostility (three emotions that I anticipated and felt were justified).
I may have more to say on the topic later, after class...but this is it for now.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Monday, October 01, 2007
Something old, something new
I love it when old music makes it's way back into my rotation and I discover new things about it.
I live alone now, but I had roommates through my undergraduate degree. One thing I miss about roommates is the quirky little things you learn about them: who they are, how they cope with life. And another thing I really miss about having roommates is coming home to the unexpected (occasionally this could be embarrassing...but usually just great). So to combine the two things -a really great roommate tell is music: what they listen to, when they listen to it, what sort of moods correspond with what sort of music. So many days I would come home, and slide the key into the lock, open the door...and what sort of music playing?? And that was my first indication of what to expect. And for the rest of my life I will associate PJ Harvey with a bad day for Eve. If I heard PJ Harvey when I walked in the door, Eve had a bad day...or was angry or irritated about something. You'd think it would be a negative association: PJ Harvey = bad. But no...it just reminds me of Eve. Just like a really great bagel (especially when all-dressed and topped with creamcheese, poor man's lox (aka tomatoes), kosher salt and pepper), the daily crossword puzzle in the newspaper, H2O face moisturizer, red nail polish (or the inability to ever find the "perfect" red nail polish), a certain style of streamlined/quasi-European/impossible to define but easy to spot shoe and stripes (all kinds of stripes) - the list could go on.
I was listening to a PJ Harvey song today, "This Mess We're In" from her album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. I must have heard this song 100 times, maybe more. I've known the album since it came out in 2000. And for the first time today I noticed that Thom Yorke sings lead vocals on that song, for the first time. It just became so much more multi-dimensional for me.
From the pages of the bizarre but true, a friend of mine told me a story about what happened to him at the end of the night on Saturday. He put me into a cab at about 1:30. Catching a cab is virtually impossible at bar close, so unless I feel like crashing at a friend's house, I generally try and sneak home before things get crazy. Apparently he went back into the bar and had another drink or so, and then around 2 went to get his jacket to go and...it was gone...stolen...along with his keys and his phone. So he and two of our drunk friends search the (now-empty) bar and come up empty handed so he gives the bar his phone number (at this point I interject that it was silly of him to give his phone number given the fact that he didn't have his phone, but I digress) and heads out into the freezing cold night in his short sleeves. At one point one of the friends suggests that maybe they call the phone and so they do. And a homeless guy answers...apparently he found the phone in a dumpster. And so they arrange a (by now) 4AM corner rendez-vous to pick up the phone. And my friend asks him if he saw the keys, which the homeless guy had not but he agrees to lead them to the dumpster in which he found the phone. The dumpster is empty but they attempt to search it by the light of my friend's watch (aka not very much light). And low and behold, if they don't find his keys...what are the odds, huh...the dumpster is completely empty except for his damn keys. Jacket still gone but keys and phone are found. So all's well that (sort of) ends well...albeit in a totally random and pretty much unbelievable way. Again...people suprise me.
I live alone now, but I had roommates through my undergraduate degree. One thing I miss about roommates is the quirky little things you learn about them: who they are, how they cope with life. And another thing I really miss about having roommates is coming home to the unexpected (occasionally this could be embarrassing...but usually just great). So to combine the two things -a really great roommate tell is music: what they listen to, when they listen to it, what sort of moods correspond with what sort of music. So many days I would come home, and slide the key into the lock, open the door...and what sort of music playing?? And that was my first indication of what to expect. And for the rest of my life I will associate PJ Harvey with a bad day for Eve. If I heard PJ Harvey when I walked in the door, Eve had a bad day...or was angry or irritated about something. You'd think it would be a negative association: PJ Harvey = bad. But no...it just reminds me of Eve. Just like a really great bagel (especially when all-dressed and topped with creamcheese, poor man's lox (aka tomatoes), kosher salt and pepper), the daily crossword puzzle in the newspaper, H2O face moisturizer, red nail polish (or the inability to ever find the "perfect" red nail polish), a certain style of streamlined/quasi-European/impossible to define but easy to spot shoe and stripes (all kinds of stripes) - the list could go on.
I was listening to a PJ Harvey song today, "This Mess We're In" from her album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. I must have heard this song 100 times, maybe more. I've known the album since it came out in 2000. And for the first time today I noticed that Thom Yorke sings lead vocals on that song, for the first time. It just became so much more multi-dimensional for me.
From the pages of the bizarre but true, a friend of mine told me a story about what happened to him at the end of the night on Saturday. He put me into a cab at about 1:30. Catching a cab is virtually impossible at bar close, so unless I feel like crashing at a friend's house, I generally try and sneak home before things get crazy. Apparently he went back into the bar and had another drink or so, and then around 2 went to get his jacket to go and...it was gone...stolen...along with his keys and his phone. So he and two of our drunk friends search the (now-empty) bar and come up empty handed so he gives the bar his phone number (at this point I interject that it was silly of him to give his phone number given the fact that he didn't have his phone, but I digress) and heads out into the freezing cold night in his short sleeves. At one point one of the friends suggests that maybe they call the phone and so they do. And a homeless guy answers...apparently he found the phone in a dumpster. And so they arrange a (by now) 4AM corner rendez-vous to pick up the phone. And my friend asks him if he saw the keys, which the homeless guy had not but he agrees to lead them to the dumpster in which he found the phone. The dumpster is empty but they attempt to search it by the light of my friend's watch (aka not very much light). And low and behold, if they don't find his keys...what are the odds, huh...the dumpster is completely empty except for his damn keys. Jacket still gone but keys and phone are found. So all's well that (sort of) ends well...albeit in a totally random and pretty much unbelievable way. Again...people suprise me.
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