Cupid’s Arrow
Feel the Love at The BurrenLonely Leesa finds her cowboys at The Burren on Friday, 26 January 2024.
Other Brother Darryl is betting that you’ve seen Newhart.
The calendar is nearing Valentine’s Day, which means The Burren has gone hearts, teddy bears, and cupids like Spaceballs go to Plaid.
Not quite Christmas levels of ornamental chao at Davis Square’s favorite Irish pub, but love is surely in the air.
What’s love got to do with it? (Thanks, Tina!)
Better yet: what kind of love?
Too often the modern understanding of love whittles the concept of love down to one of two poles: either sexual or Platonic.
Under the general heading of sexual love all your lovers get grouped and groped. You know, your lifetime of lucky scores, men, women, goats, and Dune-themed popcorn boxes.
The rest are chalked up as various forms of Platonic love: all the love traded between friends and family end up in this category.
Sure, sometimes you hear people talk more specifics. Like “a mother’s love means this” or “a father’s love means that.” But mostly it’s just one amorphous blob of good Platonic feelings expressed by people who aren’t trying to get off on, in, or around each other.
Speaking of Platonic love, Plato wrote an eminently readable (no, really!) dialogue called The Symposium in which a bunch of dudes sit around drinking wine telling different crazy stories about the meaning and origin of eros. Which is an ancient Greek word that means something like ‘desire.’
No, not necessarily sexual desire – all the types of attraction that you might think of that draw you hither and thither in this long life.
Old man Socrates is at the party, but not to tell his own story. He borrows an account from a witch named Diotima, who subdivides the categories of eros into an entire lifetime of longing, pining, yearning, etc.
Sounds kind of painful – this sense of constantly being in want of something, whether it’s a constant parade of sensual pleasures; the esteem of family, friends, and strangers; a stable partner who will always be there; or something else entirely.
The account suggests there’s something at the end of the tunnel for those who have the heart, courage, and intestinal fortitude to soldier on through the travails of love and loss. What is it…?
Wouldn’t you know it, it’s L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics!
I’ll be damned.
Other Brother Darryl
The six-piece rolled through The Burren on the wings of Neil Young, the wheels of the Grateful Dead, the tugboat of Crosby, Stills & Nash, and the book tour of Jeff Tweedy. It’s Other Brother Darryl! After a brief moment of silence for Saint David, the band fired up a few old hits, new hits, borrowed hits, and blue hits. Shout out to the organ. Extra points for the red apple hand percussion shaker thingamabob.
Lonely Leesa and the Lost Cowboys
Speaking of love, what kind of love holds court between a musician and producer? There has to be a simpatico relationship there, an understanding that’s not merely intellectual but rather hits down deep in the aesthetic viscera.
Sounds like someone from Other Brother Darryl produced a Lonely Leesa and the Lost Cowboys album? We’re guessing it’s Dan Nicklin.
Lonely Leesa brings the power vocals with 70s power ballad energy. The Lost Cowboys hold it down with some sweet vintage rock n roll hum, letting Lonely Leesa blastoff to outer space without worrying about a landing spot.
One memorable moment of the night: calling out the pending impact of the Supreme Court case United States v. Rahimi, which is ruling on gun control (or lack thereof) related to perpetrators of domestic violence. The lead vocalist spoke about the case and dedicated her single “Stayed 2017” to exploring its real life consequences.
America’s abiding and erotic passion for firearms? There’s one love we could do without.
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