Album Cover of the Week: Garth Brooks's No Fences

Oxymoron's recent comment reminded me of two things. One, the barbed wire fence post dovetailed (in ways not originally anticipated by the author) with solon's recent thoroughgoing treatments of privacy issues. And two, it has been more than two weeks since my last "album cover of the week." And so therefore this seems fitting:




I was always sort of "meh," when it came to Garth Brooks musically, with some songs being ones I really dug, but most being ones, again, to which I responded with a general "meh." Still, this album title, and the cover with all its invocation of the innocent, well-minded cowboy whose freedom must be preserved, oozes sociopolitical context, and therefore deserves to be taken seriously.

On the level of music? Well, I never much took Brooks seriously as a "Cowboy." I liked the class warfare implications of "Friends in Low Places" very much, however.

But you know what? I LOVE. I mean LOVE his epic song, "Two Piña Coladas," to the point that I elevate it into the top 50 stratosphere of pop song Utopia in my admittedly addled brain. But I mean really, check these shenanigans out:


Garth Brooks - Two piña coladas by taduckly_

The Rhetoric and Symbolism of the Barbed Wire Fence

A few days ago I encountered a quotation in some research that I am currently doing, and it has stuck with me to the extent that I feel compelled to share it with the vaunted Rhetoricians on this blog. Quoth Sara L. Spurgeon:

The barbed wire fence is a potent and deeply paradoxical symbol in the American West. On one hand, it is the triumphant emblem of Anglo-America's conquest of the land once referred to as the Great American Desert, of the sheer force of human will necessary to empty it of those animals like the buffalo that do not serve Anglo America's needs and to fill it instead with cattle--nature tamed and controlled by the sharp-edged product of Eastern facroties. It is also, for many Westerners, the sign of some final closure, usually expressed nostalgically as the loss of the wandering horseman's right to travel freely and without restriction across the landscape. That wandering horseman, the lone cowboy with his bedroll and his rifle, is the most commonly recognized modern American expression of the sacred hunter, the lone male in the wilderness, here digging the postholes that mark his own demise and performing the final fencing-in of th natural world.

Heh. Fascinating. I wonder if John McCain was struggling to make sense of this kind of mythopoesis, when he exorted the federal government to Build the Dang Fence.

State Legislators Hard at Work...

Image of the Day: Metaphors from the Health Care Debate

This seems to be an appropriate metaphor describing the Health Care debate. CNN has more about this person who brought his assault riffle and handgun to a location where President Obama spoke on health care.

Though the person in question is practicing his constitutional rights while protesting, it seems that the refutation for this position is prudence. Similarly to the free speech debate, of course you have the right but it is not always wise to exercise that right. It does not seem to be a prudent move to bring a gun to a forum where citizens can "debate" health care. Somehow this image does not seem to inspire a "good faith effort" necessary for political debate and it does not seem as the person in question is open to an ethical debate, a debate in which the person is open to changing his or her position on a subject.

If only hippies packed heat when Bush and Cheney held their social security or Iraq war rallies. If that occurred, it would have been interesting to listen to conservative commentators attack the hippies for threatening the safety of the President and the quality of the debate.

Oh well. The decline of the American Empire is not here just yet...

Image of the Day

While trying to find the text of a Palin speech, I stopped by a Palin PAC. It is not the official one, though the official PAC is not much better. Yet, like her political career, the site is not well maintained. However, the visuals are interesting.

And the war continues...

Sunday Musical Tribute

Smoother than a Beckett monologue, cooler than the Fonz.



And, absolutely 5 Stars for the album cover. The Visual Rhetoric of Family Values.

Saturday Musical Tribute, and a Brief Farewell from Harrogate

Off of Pink Floyd's much-maligned, but actually quite excellent, 1994 record The Division Bell. Here's the sublime album cover:




The song is "High Hopes," even without Waters it captures much of the beauty of Floyd. Enjoy the song, friends. Harrogate rejoins the TRS ranks in a week.

Wednesday Musical Tribute, and a Homage of Sorts, to Little Green Footballs

Major Tip of the Hat to Little Green Footballs for this priceless image. Readers not familiar with the website should know that its proprietor, Charles Johnson, and the site's commenters regularly refer to themselves as "Lizards." While Harrogate has several times offered strong disagreement with LGF's politics, the unabashed centrism Johsnon represents includes a very strong support for speech rights and religious liberty, has vociferously defended Science and called out the nascent creationism that infests our current political landscape, and has made every bit as much effort to be fair to Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress, as he made with respect to Bush and the GOP Congress. Similarly, Johnson's loathing of the theocratic oppression in much of the Middle East is a sensibility that Americans of all political stripes ought to appreciate.

Plus, isn't the above just an awesome picture?


As an added measure of homage, Harrogate installs a wonderful live performance of Phish's "The Lizards," as the Wednesday Musical Tribute.

Fashion as Rhetoric / Rhetoric as Fashion

"By the way I don't believe you're leaving
Cause me and Charles Manson like the same ice cream
I think it's that girl
And I think they're terrible collections of me you've never seen
Maybe she's just terrible collections of me you've never seen, well"
- (Not) Tori Amos


Rape, the 88th element of hip-hop. Also, coincidentally, the 88th element of the periodic table.

Political Cartoon of the Week

Thursday Muscial Tribute

"Parallel Universe," by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, from the album Californication. Turn it way up, only way to hear it.



And one hell of an album cover too.

Hippos for a Friday Night

File Under: WTF?

According to Andrew Sullivan, this was the logo for the 1973 Catholic Church's Archdiocesan Youth Commission. If anything were to reveal the unconscious, this may be it.

On the Impending Movie Version of The Road

Interesting Cast But They Had Better Not Mess This Up. It won't lend itself to film quite so smoothly as No Country For Old Men did. For one thing it's a better novel. Just sayin', y'all. Don't mess it up.

The book cover, though, it's got some Rhetorical Pop. Harrogate will give it that.

Ohhh, Viggo.

STARRING: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert DuVal, Guy Pearce
DIRECTOR: John Hillcoat
STUDIO: The Wesinstein Co.
RATING: R (For graphic subject matter, including cannibalism and infanticide)
THEATER COUNT (Opening Weekend): TBD
RUNNING TIME: TBD
TOTAL DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE: TBD
U.S. DVD RELEASE DATE: TBD

Fun With Vanity Fair: What Arguments Are Being Made in these Pics, and Which Do Ye Like Best?

Tip of the Hat to Supadiscomama, who moments ago drew Harrogate's attention to the existence of the following Rhetorical Siuation.

March 2006. Scarlett Johannson, Tom Ford, Kiera Knightley (annotated as FORD'S FOUNDATION):




March 2009. Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel and Jonah Hill (annotated as The Pretty Young Things):

Since Visual Rhetoric Recently Came Up In Another Thread

Presenting the Album cover for Led Zepplin's Houses of the Holy (1973).

Sorry I've been quiet.

I just don't follow the fascination on Scrubs. Not when this exists.

Bad Santa

Just in time for the holiday, a pair of writers from the Chicago Tribune have published a book featuring photos of terrified children sitting in Santa's lap. Truly heartwarming.

For the record, yes, I have laughed heartily at pictures like these (including one of my nephew), but I really don't understand why a parent would subject his or her child(ren) to this. We took Supa-T to see Santa at the mall (where else?). While he was happy to chat with St. Nick and even accepted a candy cane from him, when it was suggested that he sit in Santa's lap, Supa-T held on to me for dear life with his arms and legs. This kid could be one hell of a horseman.

P.S. If you do a Google image search with the key words "scared of santa," you will discover that lots of people are eager to share these sorts of images. You can find a slideshow here.

The Post with No Name

I'll look for video tomorrow, but MSNBC just focused a camera in on Jesse Jackson in a crowd of cheering Obama-supporters in Grant Park, slowly beginning to cry. And they just held it.

It may have been the most moving thing I've seen Jackson do.

Ooh. McCain's talking now...

Cynicism tomorrow

A Provocative Photo-Essay Response to a Possible Palin Presidency

A Palin Presidency would indeed be "A Frightening Prospect".