Young Libyan warriors depicted in The Atlantic inspired this Youtube playlist. (I'm also reminded that earlier this year James Parker wrote a great piece on how heavy metal is keeping us sane.)
For Shaka, a young college student who became a revolutionary this spring, music was part of the development of his own identity:
After asking me to sit on his left—firing RPGs had destroyed the hearing in his right ear—Shaka explained that his introduction to pop and rock, and to the English language, came via the Backstreet Boys. As he learned to play the guitar, and broadened his musical horizons through Internet downloads, his taste grew more refined. “Neil Young, Metallica, and Pink Floyd, especially Dark Side of the Moon,” he said. “Iron Maiden and Nirvana too,” Essraity added. “We were just young guys enjoying music, dreaming of freedom.”As I mentioned in my Harry Potter post, Harold Bloom questions whether students will ever advance from the lowest levels of popular material to "more difficult pleasures," but never tries to answer his own question. The answer, as I'm gradually learning, is, "Yes."
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