Thursday, April 17, 2008

Accordionation Defined



Your time to vote for your favorite political strategy is running out. Choices at top right of the blog are Revolution, Amelioration, Accommodation, or Accordionation. A friend said I should have included Capitulation as well. Maybe next time. Revolution and Accordionation have been running neck and neck for two weeks. Recently, Amelioration got a few votes. No avowed Accommodationists as of yet.

I asked my friend Bruce Triggs, the idiot who suggested this poll, to tell us what Accordionation is, since people seem to like it so much. In reply, he sent me a link to this video from Kimmo Pohjonen's website. Here Pohjonen plays with Kronos Quartet. It's subtle, epic, and gorgeous. Bruce does an accordion music radio show ("ruthlessly pursuing the belief that the accordion is just another instrument") in Vancouver, BC, and you can listen to shows at Accordion Noir. The PSAs are very funny. That's him doing the voice.

Bruce had a streetpaper fling about a decade ago when he ran the Tacoma distribution of Real Change from Hospitality House, the Catholic Worker center there. It didn't work out. That was back when homeless people in Tacoma owned the downtown because, other than the government workers, they were pretty much the only ones there. There wasn't anyone to buy the paper. After awhile, we gave up. Now, the downtown is thriving and they've kicked the homeless out. How times change.

Accordionation edged out revolution 17-14, but I refer to think that it's not either/or. That we can have revolution and accordions. Amelioration, understandably, got two votes. I'm hoping those people voted for revolution as well, since amelioration on its own isn't much of a long-term strategy. Accommodation, despite being a state that all of us live in to one degree or another, received no votes. Perhaps a little too close to home.

4 comments:

Bruce from Accordion Noir said...

I was tempted, but it would be election tampering if I posted this announcement to:

http://www.letspolka.com/

or my other favourite:

feed://squeezyboy.blogs.com/squeezytunes/atom.xml

Oh, what the hell...

"Uta" Urban said...

Accordionistas! Rise-up.

Awesome accordion clips. I play the fucking accordion. Held-back as long as I could. Wanna have a CD with accordions. Accordionation, ja.

"Uta" Urban said...

clarification: Wanna have CD action with accordions. JA!

Anitra Freeman said...

I'm one who voted for both Revolution and Amelioration. We do need both, at the same time.

Many revolutionists seem more willing to dramatize the suffering caused by the System than to relieve it, as if to feed a hungry child would only extend the life of Capitalism. Personally, I consider it evil to let other people suffer in order to prove that the system is corrupt.

It is also tragic to see people who are generous and courageous in helping suffering people, who won't say a peep of public criticism of the powerful for fear it will only worsen the situation.

The most successful approach, it seems to me, is to help people with immediate needs, in a way that undermines the system and creates alternative systems, while laughing and singing and dancing. Accordions optional.