Music--it needn't always CAUSE stress...

So I promised you an easy pitch this week. Between the upcoming Petrie Centennial festivities and the truckload of post-midterm assignments, I've been getting the sense that you're all rather stressed. Your stress level might even be beyond that which can normally be mitigated with marshmallows.

Now, we're all musicians here. And I have a hunch that you all have a few particular pieces, artists, or composers that you turn to when you need a pick-me-up. For your next blog, tell us about a few of them. You can tell us about individual songs or entire genres of music. And don't just list three songs and leave--tell us why that particular music helps you regain your equilibrium. As usual, your blog is due by 11:00 on Friday night. I think it's time for another round of comments, too, so let's get five comments from each of you by next Tuesday, November 2. Be sure to leave a comment on THIS BLOG entry to let me know whose blogs you've commented on. You may comment on either the Alcohol Age blogs or this one. Maybe some of your classmates will introduce you to some cool new tunes that's help you get through the rest of the semester. And I'll go first.

Believe it or not, I often forget that music can be a balm. After all, dealing with music from all sides has been my "job" for a long time now. About twice a year though, I'll mindlessly pull a CD out of our CD shelves at home and pop it into the CD player in the car and rediscover all over again that listening to certain types of music can make me happy. Sometimes I'll discover new stuff that brightens my whole world, but I also have a collection of music that's sort of acted as the soundtrack to my adult life. Here's what's been working for me this fall:

Probably my number one go-to music source for good vibes is the Indigo Girls. Amy and Emily have a way of helping me put my problems into perspective. Every one of their albums (and I think we must have at least eight of them) is a treasure trove for my soul. And their most uplifting song, without a doubt, is their breakout hit from 1989, "Closer to Fine." (They performed it on the David Letterman show as their TV premiere.) Here's a really cool live tape of them performing it many years ago with a bunch of their cohorts at Lillith Fair. I love this live version, mostly because the sheer joy displayed by both the audience and the performers, but also because I get to hear Jewel yodel.

Sometimes, though, I sort of want to wallow in my melancholy for awhile--oddly enough, that's what will make me feel better. (Think about it--you probably do that, too.) And sometimes the Indigo Girls help there, too. But I'm more likely to first turn to Lyle Lovett. (Actually, his stuff can also be of the uplifting, fun sort. Oh well.) In particular, his entire Road to Ensenada is wonderful. It serves the triple purpose of letting me reflect, letting me appreciate a really good song-writer and performer, and letting me feel nostalgic for West Texas. Too, Lyle's Large Band has probably the classiest pop-music-playin' cellist to ever walk this earth. ( We got to see Lyle and his Large Band live in NYC many years ago, and I was just in awe.)

Finally, I spent large swaths of September bopping endlessly to both of Vampire Weekend's CDs, Vampire Weekend and Contra. Contra's been more of a pick-me-up this fall, but here's a really, really cool video on the song "M79" from their first album. It's actually a video-wedding-invitation for some folks I've never heard of, but it makes me smile. :-)

Yes, I know there's no classical music of any sort here (though the violins towards the end of the Vampire Weekend song are pretty amazing.) I love and need all sorts of classical music, and if I could only listen to one piece of music for the rest of my life it would probably be Bach's Mass in B Minor, with Faure's Requiem coming a close second, but we'll save those for another day, ok? It's late, and I need to get to bed.

My thoughts on the legal drinking age

I'd said that I wasn't going to blog on my views of the drinking age until after you folks had put in your two cents. Well, most of you have weighed in, so here it is.

In my opinion, the biggest issue surrounding alcohol abuse is drunk driving. Yes, if a young adult drinks too much alcohol they can kill themselves, but they're probably not going to seriously hurt anyone else until they get behind the wheel of a car. (Sidenote: If a forty-year-old drinks too much alcohol, yes, they can do all sorts of things to hurt those around them--child abuse, domestic violence, etc.--but we're not even going to consider raising the drinking age, are we?)

To me, the legal drinking age and the legal driving age are intrinsically linked. Thus, my proposition: Yes, lower the drinking age. In fact, lower it to the age of sixteen. But, at the same time, raise the driving age to at least seventeen. And by "driving age" I mean "the age at which you're allowed to drive without a parent at any time of the day." This way, perhaps folks could get over those initial stages of alcohol experimentation before they obtained the license to drive a potential bullet. Lowering the drinking age would perhaps de-stigmatize drinking a bit, allowing us as a society to treat it as something that isn't necessarily evil, but something that can be pursued in moderation. Raising the driving age would reinforce the idea that driving a car really is a potentially deadly act. And keeping both in the high school years would mean that most experimentation would happen while the learners still lived at home, putting responsibility for the teaching into the hands of their parents, not college administrators.

I know, it's not a perfect solution, and the chances of such a system happening in the US within my lifetime is virtually nil. Far too many parents would rather keep their heads in the sand and just tell their children "Alcohol bad" than have actual discussions on the subject, and keeping the drinking age at 21 pretty much means that parents seldom have to come to terms with the amount of illegal drinking that their children do. Too, raising the driving age would mean an extra year of taxi-ing their kids around--unless, of course, we as a society grew up and started to invest in quality mass transit. That's another rant, though, I suppose.

Finally, I suppose I should indulge in some academic honesty (see previous blog topic) and let you in on my sources. My husband and I lived in Belgium for a year right after we finished our doctoral course work. (It's that small country between France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Three official languages, and it's about the size of South Carolina. Great cheese, chocolate, waffles, and, yes, beer.) They have a system very much like the one I've described, and it seems to work. Of course, Belgium is a country in which, for many centuries, the best beer has been brewed by monks. :-)

A Malibu and Coke for you, a G&T for Me...

Last week we talked about issues surrounding alcohol use and college-age students, and Jason showed you a bit of an article that talked about how many college presidents are beginning a discussion as to whether the drinking age should be lowered to 18.

What do you think? Should the drinking age be lowered to 18? Why or why not? Please give reasons to support your argument.

I've actually got very strong feelings on this argument, but I'll save my comments until after you've all chimed in so as not to feed you my thoughts.

Ready....Set....Go!