Re: GG - My Foolish Heart

[jcs@grove.ufl.edu]

Hello again!

	I apologize if I came across incorrectly. In saying that I think 
Gould was out to expose inconsistencies and hypocrisies, I didn't at all 
mean to suggest that there ARE such things. However, it strikes me that 
when he combines things (and forgive me, I'm in a lab, and I 
don't have the discs handy) the way he does, he's suggesting a certain 
amount of cynicism on his part. For instance, once he's introduced the 
Joplin material, there is a mennonite who says something like "we 
mennonites live in a different time, and we have new pressures which we 
didn't before face." Immediately after this, "Mercedes Benz" comes in, as 
if Gould is saying "This is not societal pressure, or increasing 
technology, but materialism."  Now, I'd be a fool if I didn't point out  
that each and every Mennonite in the program seemed to be well aware of 
these "double standards". They seem quite well prepared to admit that 
they are not unreproachable (the story about the friend and his yacht is 
a particularly fine example).  It just seems to me to be less about a 
herioc people struggling to maintain themselves in a relentlessly 
technological age than about the internal flaws of isolationist life. 
	Sorry to go on and on. I should say that I knew almost nothing 
about the Mennonites until I obtained this recording (and honestly am 
still mostly in the dark), and as such I feel an obligation to defer to 
your insight on the matter. Comments? 
                                                Jeremy