Sights and Sounds

There is a high school across the street from my building, so during the afternoons I am often serenaded by the sounds of their marching band. I hadn't expected a marching band in the heart of the city to sound particularly awesome (I, a marching band geek in my youth, associate marching with wide open fields and big ol' football jocks--neither of which are particularly dominant in the grander DC culture, and I suppose ultimately less than important to music-making), but I have to say I am more in awe day by day. The band is out on their one field--impressive, given my memories of being booted to the auxiliary soccer fields more than once by the many teams fighting for practice space--almost every weekday afternoon, and then every Friday night for football games. I'm pretty sure they were at the junior varsity game the other day, as well. That's commitment.

The halftime show is an interesting mix of Rhianna and Justin Timberlake songs ("Four Minutes to Save the World", "Disturbia", "LoveStoned", and "Take a Bow" at my last count). Most schools outsource their halftime music for one-of-a-kind shows, but the content leads me to believe that the students had significant input, at least on content if not arrangement itself. There are a lot of musical prodigies out there, waiting to be unleashed on the world, and the exercise of teens deconstructing pop music is especially awesome if that's what is going on across the street. It would mean that DC is putting some of that money for the public schools to good use--DC is notorious for spending absurd amounts of money on schools and having it benefit everyone but the kids.