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The song that is carrying me through St Paul logistics planning. You should totally click on that. About Summer Anthems – this is technically my last chance to post one, but I’m way too busy to do so. Look for me to get carried away with another theme, like melancholic season changing autumnal songs. Why are the 1970s SO AUTUMNAL?

A shout out to my latest facebook friend, Michael Posner, and congrats on being married. My news feed told me you were married, a point illustrated with a little pink heart that, well, warmed the cockles of my actual heart. I am trying to think of what to write on your wall. Here is a video illustrating the absurdity of this social networking site, without actually being for or against it. Ambivalence!

If I could watch the Olympics from a hammock slung

Summer Anthem: This strikes me as a fun choice for this crowd, since we too are painfully earnest at times, especially when we search for light in the darkness of insanity, and also when our spirits get so downhearted through troubled times. No, we don’t find anything funny about peace, love and understanding, but this tune sure is catchy.

Summer Anthem: Somewhat lighter (but still, don’t all these happy songs have a deliciously melancholy strain underlying them?) from power pop group Zumpano (New Pornographers’ fans will recognize the voice and song stylings of A.C. Newman) the Party Rages On. The 1990s look better and better in retrospect.

I’m just so into the Olympics lately. I have nothing original to say, but here are my stray observations: they’ve renamed the sport Phelpswimming but that was last week and I’m bored with him now, the Jamaicans are so good at running fast, and Shelly Ann Fraser is adorable! she has braces!, I really like synchronized diving because they are doing the exact same movements AT THE SAME TIME which doesn’t seem like an intuitive idea, beach volleyball is the boringest and they play so much of it, also boring? equestrian events whose boringness is tempered only by the crazy top-hats worn by the competitors. I’ve been tearing up at the following: all the (relatively) older women who’ve been so successful this year, the marathon, the video of the marathon swimmer from South Africa who is an amputee, all the hugging, that time that woman tripped over the hurdle, that time that the Americans fumbled the baton pass during relays twice, pretty much any tear-jerker human interest story they throw at me. I’m not upset about any of the stuff that people are always upset at every four years: the completely nationalist coverage of the events, the disproportionate focus on the glamour events or events where Americans might succeed, that gymnastics training is absurd and cruel and unhealthy. Mostly I just can’t get over how satisfying it is to watch arduous and intense – and often inspiring or unprecedented – athleticism from the comfort of a decidedly stationary position, sinking into the couch, maybe with a beer on hand, or at least some chips. Exertion is so delightful to watch from a vantage of complete relaxation. If I could watch the Olympics from a hammock slung between palm trees in the Caribbean, that’d be ideal. (These awes nytimes.com slideshows will have to do.)

Would-be entrepreneurs take note

Summer Anthem: Lately it feels so much like autumn that all it feels that Neil Young would be appropriate here. But, let’s save that for Autumn Songs, and just try harder for a summery tune. In the spirit of reading about New York City in 1977, let’s include this ditty from ur-Punk visionary Richard Hell (& the Voidoids), title track off their 1977 album: Blank Generation. Or more accurately, ___ Generation. Urban alienation? Yup. Emotional disconnect? In spades. Here’s an anthem for those things, pretty poppy, considering.

I’m going to see my grandparents tomorrow, and I’m probably going to show them my iPhone. They have been successively wowed/baffled by each electronic device I have brought into their Northeast Philly rowhouse, from a seventh grade discman, to a laptop, to a chunky early iPod (I tried to explain how many LPs fit inside this compact block, to little avail.) They still think online is somewhere you queue. And now my phone is from the future. The thing is, they too have been upgrading, technologically speaking. Last year my father and his brother gave them a flat LCD TV, which required them to get that fancy new cable all you people with cable have, with the guide interface and DVR and different aspect ratios for the screen depending on the aspect ratio of the programming, and all this other stuff that feels too complicated for me, and I always thought I was pretty bright. But, Poppop has mastered it, at least enough to watch the Phillies play. I’m just thinking, isn’t it about time for Apple to get into manufacturing geriatric aids? Apple provides the most simple, clean, pleasant interface for their devices, even as the devices do increasingly complicated things. Why haven’t they designed my grandparents’ cable box? Given the shifting demographic makeup of this country, I’m thinking this is a fertile market. And, geriatric aids are all already totally (immorally, really) overpriced. Doesn’t Apple love that? They should be putting out pill dispensers with the rolly-wheel interface, bingo cards with touch screens. I bet they would make a beautiful pen that my Bubba could write with, even when her hand shakes. Imagine how pretty and functional an iHearing aid would be, even with the requisite woeful battery life endemic to Apple products. Would-be entrepreneurs take note, this is a really good idea.

The Mayor Disappoints

Summer Anthem: It’s never a bad idea to link to something Brazilian here. Today’s song, by Jorge Ben, but performed here by Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66, is so summery and, er… tropical. I thought the video to accompany Pais Tropical would be inspiring montages of palm trees, skimpy bikinis at Ipanema, and that crazy color that the ocean is in beautiful places. Instead someone has videotaped her cat stretching in front of a sunny window. Dear the internet, I heart you.

Last night I went to a BBQ at Gracie Mansion, prepared to meet the mayor and be celebrated for my dedicated volunteerism. But then the mayor didn’t show up. And they made us use these outdoor toilets instead of letting us use mansion bathrooms. And I noticed a dearth of young hip people such as myself. Why is that, young hip people of HRF? Do you not love volunteerism? This crowd was full of lifers, volunteer-wise. On the projects I normally do, we do tend to attract a handful of those (you? us?) young people, disillusioned by the post-college work life, folks who show up at bingo, or to paint a mural, to imbue their daily lives with a trace of meaning beyond making copies or sending faxes or answering phones. This contingent was as unfortunately missing from last night’s party as the mayor himself. So lame, Mike. I was sure he would have been excited to meet me. (I am totally taller than him! He’s taller than Dmitry Medvedev, at least.) Anyway, volunteerism comes with all kinds of perks, like parties at Gracie Mansion, free summer bbq food, and the beer flows like wine. This is just how we roll.

Normality

Good point up there in the final bullet under Law and Security – I imagine Gabor and I are the only ones pedantic and awesome enough to know about Harding’s invention of the word “normalcy.” The noun form of normal you were all looking for, America, was “normality.” But, bygones. Just like just about every other cool nerdy thing I know and use to have four-star conversations with Gabor, this is a fact I picked up in high school. What a work ethic I had back then. And I was sort of as funny as I am now. I could tell you so much about the long term causes of WWI, or the Bessemer process of hardening steel. My glasses weren’t as stylish, and I was never this self-possessed, but I drove an old Honda Accord. You would have liked me.

Summer Anthem: The song I most want to link to is “All I Want” by Joni Mitchell, but I won’t both because I can’t find a good clip, and because Sharon says it’s too fulfilling of a stereotype for human rightsy types like me to listen to Joni Mitchell. She’s not wrong, but when I am in need of expressing the sentiment that I want to rip my stockings in some jukebox dive, this is my go-to. How about we top off that high school nostalgia with this song by Pavement? Shady Lane. I first heard this on an audio mix tape made for me by an inconsequential older boy. It’s not as summer anthemy as most of the songs I’ve posted here, but it has a quiet joy, the type of song I feel like listening to in lazy, strolling August. Somehow August isn’t as insistent as July, with the beginning touches of melancholy along with the feeling of things winding down. We’ve got plenty of summer left, mind you, but let’s take it gently, and indulge in some leisure.