More raving about Ben Folds

Ben Folds’s “The Luckiest” (on Rocking the Suburbs) has replaced “The Origin of Love” (from Hedwig and the Angry Inch) in my eyes as the most romantic love song in the world.

I’ve also become very fond of “Zak and Sara”, just because Folds spends half the first verse telling us how the characters’ names are spelled.

And did I mention that it took listening to “Gone” while depressed the other day to figure out that the narrator is lying?

Ethical Question

There’s a classic late-night dorm bull session-type question: If you had a time machine, would you go back and kill Hitler, thus preventing the Holocaust? There some assumptions buried in this question — Would killing Hitler actually prevent the Holocaust? Let’s assume that it would. Or rather, let’s assume that Hitler was somehow so intrinsic to how German politics went that if he was removed from it, the Holocaust (and maybe even World War 2) wouldn’t have happened. Let’s also ignore the various other things you’d probably do with a time machine — follow Jesus around with a camcorder; give your younger self stock tips; buy up lots of Action Comics #1, Uncanny X-Men #92; and alpha Black Lotuses and Mox gems; give Jefferson some tips on how to phrase the Bill of Rights.

So, is killing Hitler the right thing to do? Easy answer: Of course not. Why? Because killing Hitler isn’t the least harmful way of removing him from politics. It may be the easiest, just one quick gunshot and it’s over, but if you're willing to put in some time and effort, you could just follow him around making sure that he gets caught in enough embarrassing screwups that his political career never gets anywhere. Or you could use some of the fortune you’ve amassed with all your time travelling and become the young Hitler’s art patron. I suppose the question gets more interesting if the time machine only allows you one round trip. But even with just one trip you could probably prevent the Reichstag fire.

But for me, there’s a far more interesting question. See, my mother’s family comes from Germany and Hungary, and they didn’t get to the States till after the war. My dad’s family was in the US. Muck about too much with European history and my parents might never meet; I get edited right out of the timestream. So here’s the bull session question for the rest of you: Imagine yourselves with my family history; would you prevent the Holocaust if it meant you, yourself would never have existed?

Grapes

I think I need some grapes. Not to eat right now, I’m still more than sated from the Jamaican beef patty in coco bread I bought from the storefront that NY Press listed a few years back as selling the best Jamaican patties in Manhattan, even though it’s in Brooklyn. (For those in the nabe: Christie’s, at the intersection of Flatbush and Sterling. It’s the place that look like it’d fit comfortably into the toe of the Flatiron Building.)

But my mouth is giving my those some small, sweet, juicy fruit might be very welcome in a few hours signals, and in a few hours the supermarkets will be closed. So, out, for grapes. Or cherries. Maybe both. Yes, I think both. Mmmm.