America

Don't know why Art Garfunkel never did any songwriting. He was always so lyrical just in his normal conversation. Stumbled across this old documentary from 1969 (with German subtitles, no less!), and felt compelled to share his comments on America, in celebration of the holiday we observe today:

"People from so many different countries came here and made this conglomeration. And we're like shy children, we have to look around and say, 'There's a Chinese kid in my class, there's a black boy.' Our group is so varied. And here we are together, and we have to warm up slowly, and look at each other, under our brows, sort of embarrassed.
And I think we all see the value of getting together. Here we are, we have this country. We can do great things. We have a spotlight on us. We have the power to do great things. And I think we all feel it's tremendously valuable for us to fuse. But it's very difficult.
All human beings have this wish to take their inner self and fuse it with the rest of humanity. And insofar as they're unable to do that, they're constantly reminded of this obstacle.
They defend it, they find reasons to keep their isolation as a necessary ingredient of their beliefs or whatever. But it's not true to what they feel."

Here's to independence, but also to fusion.