There are suggestions that our Olympic team has more guts than our politicians.McClatchy notes:
First came the decision by U.S. team captains to pick runner Lopez Lomong, who was a Sudanese war refugee, to lead the U.S. delegation into the Aug. 8 opening ceremony as the team’s flag bearer.
Many interpreted Lomong’s selection as a dig at the Chinese government’s support of Sudan, which has armed militias that have killed hundreds of thousands of people in the country’s Darfur region.
On Friday night, the U.S. team entered the political fray again by choosing archer Khatuna Lorig, who was born in what is now the country of Georgia, to be the U.S. flag bearer in Sunday’s closing ceremony.
Had to laugh upon reading at the weekend that Mikheil Saakashviliis credited with inventing the nickname “Lilliputin” for the Russian Prime Minister. It’s “an allusion to Mr Putin’s diminutive stature, in contrast to his own towering presence.”
Botox and Xerox. Robert Fulford reviewsThe Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head (Yale University Press) by Raymond Tallis.
Faces, as Tallis sees them, are like texts, crammed with information. A friend of mine used to quote an old literary cliche, “Her face was a study.” In recent times, however, faces have changed, making them harder to read. We are developing a face for our era. Botox is one reason.
Botox relaxes facial muscles and makes possible a smoothness where creases might otherwise appear, revealing the face’s age. In return, Botox exacts a harsh payment. The user becomes relatively dull-looking, more like a copy than an original. Will we eventually speak of pre-Botox faces as artifacts in a once-loved but now abandoned style, like the Victorian novel?
Death of Critics.Norman Lebrecht says newspapers are cutting back on their coverage of classical music.Critics may be an endangered species.Newspapers are undergoing a paradigm shift, and it’s not surprising that the arts are getting short shrift, but Lebrecht places the blame primarily on the orchestras.
As editor, try explaining to your chief executive why you are holding a full staff job to report on an art that never makes news, an art that plays the same old music, year after year, with the same parade of expressionless faces on the platform. An art whose audience is greying and unattractive to advertisers. An art whose music director is an absentee European and whose few glamour soloists will only agree to talk about their new record or hair makeover.
Charles Downey’s review at Ionarts of Jerry Springer: The Opera leaves me feeling just fine about missing it.Jerry Springer has famously hosted the worst of the trash talk television shows.Naturally, the opera found its share of critical acclaim.
“THERE’S NOTHING MORE ENTERTAINING TO BE SEEN ANYWHERE.” -The Mail on Sunday
“Nothing more entertaining” is certainly a sad commentary.For Downey, the combination of debased Springer and exalted opera is “a marriage made in hell.”
Springer’s second act, which casts God, Jesus, Mary, and Satan as guests on an infernal edition of The Jerry Springer Show, has drawn protests of outrage from conservative Christian groups, something that has dogged the show in all of its subsequent openings. No doubt about it, Jerry Springer is foul-mouthed, outrageous, and blasphemous. As satire of Christianity, Springer is ham-handed, a blunt hammer instead of a scalpel. If the best satire knows its target, Springer is wide of the mark. For example, Jesus says, “Talk to the stigmata” as he shows his hand, but the stigmata are mystical wounds that other people receive in imitation of Jesus’ wounds – Jesus did not receive the stigmata. For a show that exults in deflating piety, the pious ending reconciling God and Satan with the platitude “There are no absolutes of good and evil” rang hypocritical.
No doubt, but hypocrisy seems like a flimsy stick to beat this opera with.The message that good and evil are fictitious and result merely from a misunderstanding – indeed a cosmic spat between God and Satan that man might mediate – surely deserves more robust criticism.
It is hard to satirize a bad joke like Jerry Springer, who lacks sufficient substance and seriousness to fuel a good satire.Downey argues that people should lighten up their criticism of the opera because the religious satire is lame.But I fail to see why satirizing something incompetently gives you a pass.
And his reference to protests by “conservative Christian groups” leaves me wondering where non-conservative Christians stand.Are they indifferent or supportive – or merely silent?Downey doesn’t defend the opera’s inane take on religion and gives it rather low marks musically, but he still seems to recommend it.
In the second act, the chorus and all the characters return to assist in the judgment of Jerry in hell. It would be too weighty a conclusion for such a grotesquely silly piece, except that, as noted above, it only becomes more irreverent and less actually about anything theological, philosophical, or serious. In that spirit, Jerry Springer: The Opera offers an evening of hilarity and groan-inducing one-liners (”I can’t go to hell! I’m Jewish!”). It will also certainly exceed your expectations as to how much of the book could possibly be taken up with naughty words.
If the opera is a “grotesquely silly piece” that fails as satire, fails musically, and serves merely as a vehicle for foul language, one wonders on what basis it can be summed up as “an evening of hilarity.”
I have undergone brief periods in my life in which I played bass.I suffered a minor relapse just this year.But I have friends who are real bass players, and one of them sent me this:
Interviewer: Can you explain jazz bass?
Yogi: I can’t, but I will. 90% of all jazz is half improvisation, even on bass. The other half is the part bass players play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it’s wrong.
Interviewer: I don’t understand.
Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz bass knows that you can’t understand it. It’s too complicated. That’s what’s so simple about it.
Interviewer: Do you understand it?
Yogi: No. That’s why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn’t know anything about it.
Interviewer: Are there any great jazz bass players alive today?
Yogi: No. All the great jazz bass players alive today are dead. Except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.
Interviewer: What is syncopation?
Yogi: That’s when the note that you should hear now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don’t hear notes when they happen because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they’re the same as something different from those other kinds.
Interviewer: Now I really don’t understand.
Yogi: I haven’t taught you enough for you to not understand jazz bass that well.
(This item appears here with an acknowledgment that much was derived from unknown sources.)
Pull that Ad.Greyhound is canceling an ad campaign about how peaceful it is to ride the bus: “There’s a reason you’ve never heard of ‘bus rage.’”Bad timing.A passenger riding from Edmonton to Winnipeg is accused of beheading and cannibalizing a fellow passenger.Rage is everywhere, it seems.
MSM R.I.P.Tim Rutten of the LA Times says the old media have been dethroned.They allowed The National Enquirer and bloggers to do the real reporting on John Edwards, while they buried the story, applying a clear double standard that favors Democrats.Edwards then admitted the facts:
With that admission, the illusion that traditional print and broadcast news organizations can establish the limits of acceptable political journalism joined the passenger pigeon on the roster of extinct Americana.
Why Do These Words Sound So Nasty?Terry Teachout takes on the revival of Hair 40 years later:
So how does “Hair” look 40 years on? Pretty thin, alas, though the damn-the-torpedoes staging and choreography of Diane Paulus and Karole Armitage and the impassioned singing and dancing of the cast (Caren Lyn Manuel and Patina Renea Miller are especially good) succeed in making it seem marginally fresher than it really is. Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater’s artistic director, has written yet another of his eye-rollingly fatuous program notes, this one assuring us that “Hair” was “a contemporary play influenced by the sweep and scale of Shakespearean dramaturgy.” The truth is that “Hair” was and is a poorly crafted revue whose second act disintegrates before your eyes. James Rado and Gerome Ragni, who collaborated on the book and lyrics, didn’t know the first thing about how to write a musical, and their idea of scintillating wit was to rhyme “pederasty” with “Why do these words sound so nasty?”
Reviewing The Gulag Archipelago in 1974, George Steiner wrote in The New Yorker: “To infer that the Soviet terror is as hideous as Hitlerism is not only a brutal oversimplification but a moral indecency.” Like so many left-wing intellectuals (American and European), Steiner was in denial and could not bear to read the message that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote when he presented the “Worker’s Paradise” as it really was: a hideous lie. Solzhenitsyn robbed the anti-West of its most cherished illusions and he cruelly exposed the moral equivalency of the Eric Hobsbawms and lesser-know Stalinist sympathizers and fellow travellers. In The Gulag Archipelago, the USSR functionary was revealed as being every bit as evil as his Third Reich counterpart.
To the Spoilers Goes the Victory.The sack race and three-legged race have been banned from a school sports day because the children might fall over and hurt themselves.Simon Woolley, head of education at Beamish in Co Durham, said: “We looked at a three-legged race and a sack race but what we want to do is minimise the risk to the children. We thought we would be better to do hopping and running instead because there was less chance of them falling over.”
Trash Culture.“Not long before she died, Pauline Kael remarked to a friend, ‘When we championed trash culture we had no idea it would become the only culture.’”Robert Fulford elaborates:
Kael assumed she was safe to defend the choices of mass audiences because the old standards of taste would always be there. They were, after all, built into the culture. But those standards were swiftly eroding. [Paul] Schrader argued that she and her admirers won the battle but lost the war. Acceptable taste became mass-audience taste, box-office receipts the ultimate measure of a film’s worth, sometimes the only measure. Traditional, well-written movies without violence or special effects were pushed to the margins. “It was fun watching the applecart being upset,” Schrader said, “but now where do we go for apples?”
U.K. Moves Toward State-Sponsored Islam.“The BBC has announced that now the Government is to fund a ‘board of Islamic theologians,’ with Oxford and CambridgeUniversities hosting debates on ‘key issues such as women and loyalty to the UK.’ Communities Secretary Hazel Blears said it was government’s job ‘to support Muslim leaders on controversial issues.’”Via Cranmer.
Having spent most of the last century writing music few people were expected to understand, much less enjoy, the high priests of music were now portrayed as innocent victims of the public’s lack of imagination. . . .[C]oncert-goers have learned to stay awake and applaud politely at compositions by Christopher Rouse and Tan Dun. But they do this only because these works tend to be short and not terribly atonal; because they know this is the last time in their lives they’ll have to listen to them; and because the orchestra has signed a contract in blood guaranteeing that if everyone holds their nose and eats their vegetables, they’ll be rewarded with a great dollop of Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn.
Beer Is a Health Food.George Will says it, so it must be true.And he backs it up with scientific and historical evidence.“Suffice it to say that the good news is really good: Beer is a health food. And you do not need to buy it from those wan, unhealthy-looking people who, peering disapprovingly at you through rimless Trotsky-style spectacles, seem to run all the health food stores.”
I had the pleasure of interviewing my former student Major Jim Keene about his experiences as an Army Officer conducting the Army’s premier musical ensembles.
Major Jim Keene took his musical training and talents into the Army, becoming conductor of the premier Army musical ensembles and now commanding the U.S. Army School of Music in Little Creek, Virginia.Jim was a former graduate student of mine, and I spoke with him when he returned to Dallas to conduct the Dallas Wind Symphony’s Fourth of July concert.Major Keene talks about musical life in the military, performances at state events, and the role of musical ensembles in supporting the troops and representing the United States throughout the world.
If you can’t find it at Wal-Mart, you probably don’t need it.That’s what the locals here said when I moved from the city looking for greener pastures – or actually for pastures of any color (things don’t stay green here for long).Those trips back to the city that we made frequently at first are becoming more rare.Wal-Mart is the place to go for groceries, hoses, underwear, digital cameras and, yes, ammo.
Wal-Mart is also becoming a major player in the music business.The New York Times carried an article about the deals Wal-Mart is making directly with musicians.
The deals highlight the changing dynamics of the music industry as once-powerful labels decline because of the migration to digital downloads. To fill the gap, musicians are scrambling to connect with fans, and Wal-Mart is using these exclusive deals to assume a new role: hit maker.
Groups like the Eagles and Journey are selling CDs at $11.98 and pocketing about half of that amount.The consumer pays less and the musicians make more.Hmm.Maybe the Maryland legislature or the anti-Wal-Mart blogs could find some unfairness in that.
To those who cannot pronounce Wal-Mart without a sneer, this is the kind of thing that makes Wal-Mart a success.Traditional record retailers, a dying breed, are trying to play catch-up.
Yes, Wal-Mart opened its superstore on the edge of town, and there is some empty retail space on the main street, but many of those businesses were defunct before Wal-Mart arrived.And the retailers on Main Street as a rule never offered pay and benefits that could match Wal-Mart.
This is not to say that I don’t have occasional complaints about Wal-Mart, but the vitriol that Wal-Mart generates is irrational.Some people combat terrorism, or poverty, or ignorance, or injustice – and some have such frivolous priorities that devote their lives to combating a retail chain.
La Scala has commissioned the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli to produce an opera on “An Inconvenient Truth” for the 2011 season at the Milan opera house. The composer is currently artistic director of the Arena in Verona.
What will the plot line be? One review describes Al Gore’s drama this way:
[D]espite Gore’s dire predictions and the over-the-top trailer, which promises scenes of death and destruction, the film itself is a dull affair. Most of it consists of Gore giving lectures with infantile visual aids, including cartoons that seem designed for 2-year-olds. Now and then he throws in an inspiring quote, providing some touchy-feely, Dr. Phil-like moments.
I suppose operas have been made from grimmer stuff and some operas suffer from, shall we say, an incoherent plot, so history suggests that Battistelli may be able to overcome those disabilities.
Milan makes an interesting venue for the premiere. It has been designated the pollution capital of Europe, so it may be a major contributor to global warming. Since it lies 338 feet above the current sea level, however, it should remain high and dry as the rising seas swamp Covent Garden and the Met.
But will the 2011 season will be too late? Prince Charles says we face a series of natural disasters from global warming in only 18 months. Who needs a prophetic opera like “Inconvenient Truth” when they can watch the real disaster on TV news or at their front doorstep?
It might be interesting to see which ending Battistelli chooses: the tragedy where the British King says we are already doomed, or the comedy where the British judge declares Al Gore wrong. Then again, it might be just as interesting to contemplate an opera based on the Agriculture Department’s latest PowerPoint on soil erosion.
Besides, it’s already been done in an admirably short version.
Most readers will recognize John Ratzenburger as the actor who played Cliff Clavin on the TV series Cheers.Cliff had an opinion on everything and virtually no knowledge to back it up.Now, Ratzenburger is a spokesman for the Nuts Bolts and Thingamajigs Foundation, and we need to put aside any suspicions we may have that “Cliff” doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The premise is simple.Kids today spend far too much time playing with digital devices and living in a virtual world and not enough time fiddling with things.And fiddling with things, real things that have utility, is essential to developing certain critical skills.Here’s what Ratzenburger says:
We owe our collective greatness, in large measure, to the greatness of individuals whose curiosities and fascinations compelled them to imagine and then build what had never been imagined and built. And they were capable of that, thanks to the seeds planted by their own hands as young tinkers.
* * *
But the consequences of kids being unable to work with their hands are profound — and not in a good way. As a recent StanfordUniversity study reported, future engineers who are great in physics and calculus but can’t think in new ways about old objects are doomed to think in old ways about new objects. Their engineering skills will be lacking in the one essential without which a background in physics and calculus is all but irrelevant: practicality. How will they stand on the shoulders of giants to invent something that has never existed?
While we chatter on about the “creative class” and its impact on society, we run the risk of creating a very passive, non-creative class capable only of observing and transmitting data.Creativity requires a lot of doing, and Ratzenburger’s foundation is addressing a real problem.Let’s wish them success.
Since this site takes a particular interest in music, I can’t help but note a musical corollary to Ratzenburger’s argument.Far too few people are learning to play instruments – fiddling of a particular kind.Kids listen to music and share music, but they are not sufficiently involved in creating music.The hands-on approach to music is the only path to a real understanding and appreciation for music.
Forty years ago today, the musical Hair opened on Broadway.
It was a phenomenon, to say the least, and became an artistic icon of its very peculiar and self-obsessed generation (of which I am one).Whatever opinions you hold of that generation, and whatever memories or fantasies you have about those times, it was a generation with its own music, and Hair was a major element in its repertoire.
I made a comment recently in another context that seems applicable here:
We could teach the history of the 20th century through the pop music that gave voice, for better or worse, to every social whim and cultural upheaval. But young people today share music primarily in the technological sense. Music does not give them a common voice; they all have their individualized playlists.
Jim Rado maintains the official web site for Hair with lots of pictures, history, and some sound files.
HAIR was created as an original idea by Gerome Ragni (Jerry) and, myself, James Rado(Jim). We collaborated on the story, text, characters, dialogue and lyrics over the years 1965, 1966 and 1967. From the start, I envisioned that the score of HAIR would be something new for Broadway, a kind of pop rock/showtune hybrid. At first we had considerable difficulty, and we rejected several composers, until finally, in early 1967, we found the music for our lyrics. It was a case of love at first hearing. The composer was Galt MacDermot. It was more than a fulfillment of a dream. I would call it a clear illustration of a marriage made in heaven.
HAIR has played pretty much continuously ever since its opening at Broadway’s Biltmore Theatre on West 47th Street in 1968, and it was translated into many languages and produced around the world, from Japan and Australia to South & Central America, from Europe to Israel. Once the initial popularity waned, it seemed for a spell that HAIR was not an especially viable commodity; there was a major slump of interest in it from around the mid 1970s into the early 80s, to my recollection. But then, in the mid-80s, a new interest arose which took hold and grew.
Defending Western Culture and traditions through a rational discussion of the arts (emphasis on durable music) with unavoidable references to politics, religion, law, ranching, and the quest for a good martini.
I had the pleasure of interviewing my former student Major Jim Keene about his experiences as an Army Officer conducting the Army’s premier musical ensembles.
