Back in 1997, my friend Edie told me that her favorite albums were Beggars Banquet by the Rolling Stones and Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos. I immediately bought both albums because that’s the sort of thing a 23 year old does when an incredibly hip 35-year-old woman from Brooklyn gives him insight into her music tastes.
Beggars Banquet remains my favorite Rolling Stone album, and I often think of Edie whenever I hear “Parachute Woman.” It sounds like it was written for her — even if she was only six at the time.
Edie was almost 30 and older than Amos herself when Little Earthquakes was released. It intrigued me that hte album had cross-generational appeal. The video for “Silent All These Years” was an unavoidable MTV “buzz clip” in spring of 1992. Tori didn’t register with me then, but I was hooked on her voice as soon as I listened to the album in full five years later. So, thanks, Edie.
My favorite Tori Amos song is actually not on Little Earthquakes, though. It’s a single she recorded with electronica artist BT called “Blue Skies.” It, along with “Parachute Woman,” has turned up on more than a few mix tapes/CDs I’ve made in the 15 years since that first conversation with Edie.
I lost touch with Edie a few years later (in those pre-Facebook days), but wherever she is, I’m sure she’s “laying a solid rhythm down.”
serhasacomplaint 
Thank the Lord…
I don’t watch The Daily Show because CNN and FOX specifically are so absurd any comedic take on their “news coverage” amounts to someone pointing at a man walking into a rake.
Here is a clip of CNN’s Wolf Blitzer — who conversed with a hologram on election night 2008 — asking an Oklahoma tornado survivor if she “thanks the Lord” for… well, I guess for randomly choosing not to kill her in the natural disaster that has killed two dozen people.
I’m impressed that this lady held her own and stood by her convictions. She’s an atheist, and she doesn’t “thank the Lord” for her decisions and actions. She maintains her own agency in the world. Well done.
I’ve always said that God has the best job ever — ultimate power and zero accountability. It’s like he’s CEO of Earth, LLC. If he’s truly omnipotent, then tornadoes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters that kill people indiscriminately are entirely within his power to control. If they’re not, then he’s not omnipotent. He’s more early 2000s Prince. I can probably get him some legal cover for school shootings and marathon bombings because of the whole “free will” conundrum, but tornadoes and hurricanes are as unjustifiable as The Rainbow Children.
Posted by Stephen Robinson on May 21, 2013 in Social Commentary
Tags: atheist, CNN, Oklahoma, tornado, Wolf Blitzer