Word: instrumentalized
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Taken together, the children's photos form a surprisingly sophisticated chronicle of their daily lives. In their hands, the camera becomes an instrument that allows the children to step outside their lives and peer back in at them. In turn, that allows them to contemplate alternatives to their hopelessness...
...particularly Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. That open letter to the British Crown gave us our most eloquent enunciation of our belief in individual liberties. But it remains at core a historical document with no legal standing. It is, by contrast, through the Constitution--the governing instrument that Montesquieu inspired and James Madison nominally fathered--that we organize and regulate our hectic American works and days. So why is there so much clinking of fine crystal for Jefferson while Montesquieu has gone missing...
...stronger of the new records is Wide Awake, which is mostly acoustic songs sung in Oberst's quivering man-child breaths. On his previous albums, Oberst reached impatiently for any instrument lying around the studio (one track opened with him asking, "Can I get a goddamn timpani roll?"). Here he picks his sounds carefully to offset the intensity of his voice and material. On the rousing opener, At the Bottom of Everything, a mandolin clips jauntily away while he crows, "We must blend into the choir, sing as static with the whole/ We must memorize nine numbers and deny...
...those twangy guitars are sometimes accompanied by hip-swinging bass or, on the excellent second track “The Luckiest Girl,” some cool Hammond Organ grooves, but the star of the show is always the leading lady’s voice. And a limited, small instrument it is; like Billie Holiday, Golightly’s singing respects its own limitations. But, also like the late Lady Day, Golightly’s strengths within that small vocal range shine unexpectedly brightly. The sound is sexy and sultry, weary and cigarette-burnt, and makes the gems on this...
Fact: Mollie just hates you. But she loves shoes too much to make them an instrument of her violent wrath...