Narnia: A Foray

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I finally did something I should have done several years ago.

My friend and I watched The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the latest in the series of movies based on C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia.

Dawn Treader, though, on the face of it, a typical British children's adventure, has a number of twists that give it a lot of charm, especially if you're an insider to the mythology that Lewis had set up in the sequence of books that led up to Dawn Treader.  I don't know enough of the history of the series to be able to comment on the whole business, but between C. S. Lewis and the director of the movie, they have put together a movie which is very appealing, not least because of the casting of the young protagonists.  Edmund and Lucy this time find, to their dismay, that an annoying cousin has been dragged along, and to my surprise, this fellow becomes one of the most important elements in the story.

A central problem Lewis has to confront in the entire series (and even in other series of his books) is how individuals committed to non-violence have to choose to act in the face of desperate violence.  This echoed the quandary of so many enlightened British during World War 2, which was the setting in which Lewis's writing took place.  Lewis tries to resolve this in a way that would be understandable to a teenager, but perhaps does not quite succeed.  Still, not many authors have taken on this problem seriously; J. K. Rowling and Tolkien, in their different ways, have done so.  Their solutions, at both the literary and philosophical levels, has been to objectify evil, and distill it into a symbolic entity that must be destroyed, though this entity evolves, over the course of time, co-opting different individuals, each of whom must be defeated.

George Lucas, in his Star Wars stories, very deliberately portrays the evolution of the hero into the villain, surely a representative and symbolic process, largely missed by most young people who might have enjoyed the movies.  It is not that heroes always become villains; rather, it is that many villains did not start out as villains.

The actress who portrays Lucy was so appealing that her portrayal of the character prevented me from dismissing the movie (Dawn Treader) and moving on.  Eventually, my friend and I decided that this last movie probably made more sense to those who had seen the earlier ones.  So we decided to watch The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I must say that that first movie was amazingly effective, and made it clear that the first book was a complete and, in many ways perfect, little gem of invention, and the remaining books, though jolly adventures in their own ways, and clever allegories, suffered in comparison.  To be honest, having seen only the first and last movie, I can only say that Dawn Treader did not have the logical transparency that Wardrobe did, but paradoxically, the latter had the harder task of setting out the context for all the movies.  Nor did the acting in the last movie come close to what seemed the utter conviction of that of the first movie.  Lucy, in particular, was played brilliantly, by a young lady (Georgie Henley) who could scarcely have been older than ten.

Another Look at Organized Education

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I was stunned---and pleased---to learn about the famous Ken Robinson (Sir Ken Robinson), a very clever and insightful educator from Britain.  This gentleman is famous for looking at education from the perspective of: is it out of date?

Is our system of education out of date?  Ken Robinson says it is.  He says a lot more.  He says:
* The present system of organized education came into being in the industrial age.  (I have to agree; look at this animation based on one of his talks.  I believe it sets out his thesis briefly and tellingly, and if you want to disagree with him, this is where you would start.
* The curriculum hierarchy and organization within academe (and most definitely in the high school curriculum) has been taken from the Renaissance.  (There are worse places it could have been taken from, but still, one gets the picture.)
* Mass education is based on the premise that all students learn at the same speed; in other words, the best way to classify them is by date of manufacture, clearly an idea borrowed from industry.  Ken Robinson strongly condemns this one-size-fits-all paradigm.  (I partially agree; see below.  Some things have to be taught in a regimented way, but it is a mistake to teach everything the way you teach math and English, for instance.)
* He says that there is far too much classifying of young children as ADHD---a synonym for "Easily bored in school."  He points out a number of factors why this should be so, and he is vehemently opposed to prescribing Ritalin (and other drugs) for the purpose of making children more adaptable to a class environment.  (Again, I partially agree; the diagnosis of ADHD is a little too easily arrived at.  There are most certainly environmental factors that can be adjusted to make young children perform better in classroom environments, and, at least in Elementary School, classroom environments must come to a compromise with the needs of modern, over-stimulated-by-the-media kids who are easily bored.)
* The Arts are greatly undervalued, while the Sciences and Mathematics, and the Languages and the Humanities are over-valued.  (This is true, but hard to avoid.  Since the community funds education, by and large, it can hardly be blamed for emphasizing utilitarian skills.  If a township is going to pay for the school with tax dollars, they're going to want the kids to learn spelling and figuring, so that the damn kids can at least work in the supermarket.  Parents, too, have a say in what subjects are taught in college.)

Ken Robinson's main interest is Arts Education.  He sees modern education as a vast machine to destroy creativity in young people.  He defines creativity as the ability to have ideas that have value.  In the absence of a better definition, one has to admit that this is a good one.  Finally, the biggest statement Robinson makes:

* Mass education at present is geared towards the skills of yesterday, while nobody knows what the future will bring.  (The industrial analogy is obvious.)  He feels that a curriculum that, instead of stifling creativity (with Ritalin, perhaps) actually encourages and develops it, is the best strategy for organized education.

Ken Robinson's ideas are far-reaching, and each person ---most of all, each parent--- must decide for him- or herself how far he or she can espouse Ken Robinson's principles.  Perhaps it is time for schooling to be split into two parts: a traditional regimented schooling for part of the day, in which traditional skills are imparted, and a highly individualized schooling for the rest of the day, based on the child's interests, the family's financial resources, and special opportunities available in each locality.  At least this second part should involve parents; they can join the student in the lessons, or be part of the instruction package.  Wouldn't it be interesting to see little Katie Jane's mother (or grandmother) showing the class how to make a gingerbread house for the holidays, or a videoclip for YouTube?

However we may deplore mass-production, in some ways it makes possible our standard of living.  Nobody would want to pay for a hand-crafted automobile, for instance.  But we buy mass-produced food very reluctantly, simply because we can't afford something home-grown, or we don't know how to make a cheesecake, for instance.  So a realistic approach to a better system of education has to be based on compromise.

The founding fathers, it seems, had anticipated that a one-size-fits-all education system will not succeed in a highly diverse new republic, with citizens with highly individualistic tendencies.  In the 18th century already, it must have been clear that the liberal education that the founding fathers (for the most part) must have enjoyed, could not be foisted mutatis mutandis on the people.  I have said that a liberal (college) education was intended for the landed gentry, who did not have to work for a living.  This class has dwindled, as a proportion of the population, but it still exists.  (Instead of working, though, they have to worry for a living.  They're condemned to forever look anxiously over the shoulders of their investment advisors.)

At any rate, Ken Robinson is a breath of fresh air in the heated education debate.

Archimedes

Our Very Own Recession / Depression

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Most of us are too young to remember the Great Depression of 1929; in fact, I am too young myself.  But my friends recall hearing stories about those times.  Sure, there was lots of suffering, but many of the stories are about people doing things for their neighbors.

One of my friends was the child of one of several brothers who ran a business that made fittings for homes.  Once the Depression spread to California, their factory had hardly any orders to fill; people were not building, so there was no need for doors and windows and what have you.

The plant employed a couple of dozen men at its height.  The owner called a meeting and told them that, seeing as how there was no income, salaries could not be paid.  Rather than lay them off, he kept them on as wageless workers.  They continued to make their product as long as they had the raw materials, and then looked for other products they could manufacture, though I don't quite know how they sold the stuff.

There was an active barter economy; people would grow food at home, and sell it or trade it for other items they could use.  People starved, but managed to remain alive, at least in some parts of the US.

Certainly, these were pioneers, and children of pioneers, and hardy folk.  The degree of hardship dismayed them--it certainly was no walk in the park, and all in a day's work (as it might have been for their ancestors); but one gets the impression that there was far less whining back then.

In the present recession or depression, though unemployment is high (around 10%) it is lower for people with a college education.  I would guess that people with general degrees, e.g. in the social sciences, the arts, or the sciences or mathematics are probably fairly employable.  In contrast, if you have a very specific training, say such as a degree in fashion design, you are probably a little harder to place.  The important things to be able to do are: quickly understand what your employer wants, and be able to cope with minor problems that can be solved with simple ingenuity and common sense.  A knowledge of common computer software, basic accounting principles, a spreadsheet, a word-processor are all useful.  The ability to write a grammatical letter to a customer or a client, to put together a report --on paper or PowerPoint-- to be able to design a poster, or an advertisement for a new receptionist!  Not everyone out there can do this sort of thing, especially kids whose major efforts at "writing" have to do with writing cryptic remarks to their friends with e-mail.  They'll probably have to wait around ten years until their prospective employers are comfortable with their writing style.

In other words, we will have to back away from insisting on a go-it-alone kind of lifestyle, and be prepared to give help and get help, and work at unfamiliar jobs.  A huge first step is to get the youngest members of our families comfortable with *any* sort of job.  Kids used to do paper routes all the time.  But that sort of after-school job is looked down upon, these days, by some of the snootier kids in our neighborhoods.

Things We Should All Do to Recycle More

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Oh man; since I've started taking my garbage / trash out to the "transfer station" myself, I have been more forcibly confronted with amount of trash I personally generate, to fill this little state with refuse.  In a world where we work so hard at absolutely refusing to allow things to make us feel bad, no matter how dastardly we have been, and how deservedly the bad-feeling-ation has fallen upon us, we must stop doing that, and allow the bad feelings to wash over us.  If we generate tons of garbage, we deserve to feel like garbage!

But seriously, I bet if we look at the statistics (which are no doubt very carefully hidden), we will find that, per person, this nation has generated more garbage in this decade than ever before.  Never, in the words of Winston J. Churchill, has so much garbage been generated so fast by so few.

1.  I must find a way of encouraging the school at which I work to recycle magazines.  They claim that they recycle magazines, but the probably just toss the magazine recycling bins in the regular trash.  Such are the evil ways of schools.  Never before in history have schools been more cavalier about waste recycling.

2.  I must find a way of encouraging the S.A.W.I.W to recycle batteries and fluorescent tubes and those little spiral tubes.  This stuff contains Mercury, and yes, we won't have to eat the Mercury, but along the road, our descendants will.  And they will be as mad as hatters.  Oh god, we are really scum.  Well, now that that's settled, it is cheering to note that chain stores such as Best Buy and Staples will accept such things as used Alkaline Batteries and sometimes printer cartridges at their locations.  Just a few minutes ago I learned that Radio Shack does, too.  And Verizon, for instance, sometimes accepts used cell phones, which they recondition and give to various charitable organizations for the use of women who live in abusive situations, for instance.  (Many cell phone companies will continue to support the 911 feature in cell phones whose service period has expired; this feature, I believe, is mandated by the government.)

3.  We must find a way of encouraging our localities to recycle plastics other than just type 1, 2 or 3.  [If you don't know what I'm talking about, ask your Fifth Grader.  They learn all about this stuff in school.  (Even though the schools themselves don't really recycle as much as they claim to be, they sure as hell teach the kids how to recycle...)  Look at the bottom of a bottle of milk or dishwashing detergent; you see a symbol such as shown here, with the recycling logo, and a number in the center.

(You can learn about what these acronyms stand for at The Daily Green, an organization that publishes recycing-related information about plastics.)  Presently, as the article at The Daily Green makes clear, most communities only accept types 1 and 2 above, for free curbside recycling (PETE and HDPE, both variants on PolyEthylene, aka polythene).  The decision as to which types to recycle seems to be based on how easily and profitably a plastic type can be recycled, rather than how toxic it will be if put in the landfill (or burnt, in communities that allow that).

4.  Last, but certainly not least, we have to find a way of reducing junk mail, or at least making the companies that generate the stuff feel it in their checkbooks.

Deathly Hallows: A review of the one-but-last Harry Potter Film

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The Harry Potter books are most certainly literary works; they are not screenplay wannabes.  As we move from one volume to the next, one notices no increasingly cinematic flavor; I attribute this to the fact that Ms Rowling really did outline all the books at the outset, and had them mostly written before even the third movie was made.

The movies based on the books are varied in their faithfulness to the books, whether their departures from the books improved them or made them worse; the atmosphere; the representations of magic; the representations of the non-magical world seen through the eyes of Harry Potter's fellow-wizards.  Underlying all this variation, too, are the enormous variations in the style of the books, though I must confess that Ms Rowling has been admirably consistent in many ways.

When I read the last volume, I began to wonder how it would make the transition to the screen.  The central character is Hermione Granger, while Harry Potter becomes so much the creature of his imperatives that one is thankful when he just barely makes the right decision on a number of different occasions.  Harry Potter is characterized by determination, bravery and courage ---and to some extent a willingness to protect the innocent--- while Hermione and Ron are motivated by the warmer characteristics of wisdom, patience, and concern.

The movie starts out firmly driven by the need to find and destroy a number of "horcruxes", which are artifacts in which Voldemort is known to have stored fragments of his soul.  When all of them are destroyed (and they don't take lightly to being destroyed, either), Voldemort will be finally dead.  But in the course of the movie, it turns out that there is another set of three things that Voldemort might be after: the three so-called Deathly Hallows, which when united in one man's ownership, grant immortality.  So the searches for the horcruxes and the hallows proceed simultaneously.

All the young actors do try their best, and though I personally felt that Emma Watson was a little out of her depth, other writers have said that she did an admirable job.  She did not let down the team, certainly, but in moments of stress, her dialect becomes impossible to follow.  That certainly makes for realism, I suppose; British youth is becoming increasingly careless in speech.  But it does contrast strangely with the beautiful diction of some of the adult wizards.

The light level of the entire movie is very low indeed, giving it a nightmare-like atmosphere.  This is rather a cheap device, in my opinion; it is hard to see what is going on.

Last of all, the magic is rather a pain!  Magical effects are most delightful when they're inessential things, such as the goings-on at dinner in the great hall, or Quidditch games.  But the magical fights and chases are just a little boring, but necessary, I suppose.  The movie is well worth seeing.  If you've read the book, though, you know that tragedy awaits in the second part.

Arch

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms (born 1833) is a strange case in the world of classical music; unlike most classical composers of his time, he did not start composing until well into middle-age (as far as I know; I'm at the age when my mind begins to invent 'facts' that I can then disseminate to unsuspecting innocents).  According to most accounts he had a hard childhood, since his mother worked as a seamstress (or something similarly menial) in what amounts to a whorehouse, where he learned to make a little extra money playing the piano, and gradually moved on to being a bar pianist.  The photo at right [Wikipedia] shows him in 1853.  As far as we know, Brahms never married.

Somehow he came to the attention of Robert Schumann, who was a powerful personality, and who had an impact on all musicians with whom he came into contact.  The Robert and Clara Schumann team were the center of a music-literature-poetry-theater group of friends, who gathered together regularly to discuss their common interests, and Brahms is known to have been a frequent visitor in the Schumann home.

Clara, Robert's wife, was a learned woman and a gifted pianist.  Legend has it that in the course of time, Brahms formed an attachment to her, at a time when Robert was in a mental hospital, and beleaguered Clara was managing all their household affairs by herself.  Robert Schumann was manic-depressive, and died while under treatment at a mental asylum, at which point Brahms is believed to have taken major responsibility for Clara and her children.  Clara Schumann was roughly 14 years Brahms's senior.

Brahms's music is extraordinarily rich and harmonious, almost invariably pleasing to the ear.  This is often seen as a negative, though it should be a positive.  I'm personally acquainted only with a small portion of his works, and you're welcome to the little I know.  Don't get me wrong; Brahms is probably one of my three most favorite composers.

As remarked in an earlier post, Brahms's first attempt at symphonic orchestration was the beautiful Variations on the St Anthony Chorale.  In the lovely opening movement, you hear the chorale theme played in the woodwinds, with the clearly audible lower strings (cellos and basses) playing pizzicato: plucked.  The second movement is dark and ominous; we really have to believe that composers of these times actually enjoyed writing these kinds of foreboding movements.  Luckily, it is a short movement.  The third movement is even more scary; is it Brahms trying to be Beethoven?  You must realize the Beethoven was everyone's hero at the time Brahms was composing.  Later movements are lovely and lyrical, including a lovely one in triple time.

Brahms wrote a gorgeous violin concerto for the brilliant violinist Joseph Joachim.  As I probably said earlier, this is (along with Beethoven's violin concerto, often described as "monumental") a symphonic concerto, that is, a concerto whose significance has more to do with the power of the musical ideas it contains and how they are developed, rather than for the virtuosity of the violin part.  The opening is a unison sentence played softly by the strings and woodwind, except for the last two chords.  The rest of the movement unfolds with great urgency and seriousness.  By this time he was, to my mind, already a brilliant composer and orchestrator, though musicologists and theorists have always found his orchestration "wrong".  But the final judge is the ear, and one feels that Brahms got precisely the sound he desired.  Close upon the end of the first movement, there is a cadenza in the traditional place.  The orchestra pauses at a so-called "cadential 6-4", i.e. a chord in the tonic with the fifth in the bass, and the solo violin is given to improvise a brief rhapsody, ending with a trill, at which point the orchestra enters to complete the cadence.  The most well-known and tasteful of these cadenzas over the years have been notated and saved, and the justly most popular is by Fritz Kreisler.  Jascha Heifetz wrote his own cadenza, a brilliant passage, containing most of the best ideas of the Kreisler, but adding many virtuoso features.  Here is Henryk Szeryng playing the first movement.  (Remarkable clip; YouTube seldom allows more than 10 minutes for a video.)  Here is Sarah Chang playing the same movement; she enters at around 2:40.

The second movement, in quadruple time is a gentle melody first introduced by the oboe, with a few quite agitated passages (which make it a little unsuitable for helping one to sleep).  The third movement is a jolly melody of gypsy (or Hungarian) inspiration, brilliant and rollicking, featuring double- and triple-stopping.

Very late in his life, Brahms composed a lovely double concerto, for violin and cello.  (Be patient with this recording: the lower notes of the cello need to be muted a bit.  There is a lot of solo mumbo-jumbo until about 2:12.)  I think this one is probably one of the most romantic concertos written (together with Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante, which is a double concerto for violin and viola).  Set in A minor, this work presents a conversation between the violin, the cello, and the orchestra; since this is music of the post Beethoven era, we may consider ourselves at liberty to imagine such fanciful things.  The music never gets too unbearably saccharine, nor too rambunctiously jolly; it always stays within that band of behaviour appropriate for mixed company, as the saying goes.  Still, the concerto is unforgettably lovely, and has strong opinions to express.  [On a side note: one of the themes has been discovered to spell out AGADHE.  This is not so remarkable, except that late in life Brahms is known to have been engaged to a young woman named Agathe, but to have subsequently broken off the engagement.]

Brahms was a capable pianist, and was recognized as one in his lifetime.  (There are even a few --quite terrible-- recordings of his playing on wax cylinders, etc.)  His earliest compositions were for piano.  In 1859 he wrote his first concerto, for piano in D minor ---he would have been around the age of 26.  Much later, he wrote his second piano concerto, in 1881, in B Flat major.

Both concertos are wonderful, but one would expect the later concerto to be a far more mature work.  Even within the entire opus of all composers writing piano concertos, Brahms's two concertos stand out.  The Wikipedia page for Brahms has links to many of his works, including two Intermezzos (Intermezzi) with which I am not familiar.  This is the second from Opus 118 played by Heinrich Neuhaus.

Brahms wrote four symphonies.  The First Symphony is already a powerful work, possibly the most powerful of all four.  It is often laughingly called "Beethoven's Tenth Symphony, simply because it is so clearly burdened by Beethoven's symphonic achievements.  Indeed, Beethoven could have done worse than write such a symphony.  Surprisingly, the other three symphonies are far less driven, and contain very melodic, sinuous themes more appropriate to serenades.  [The opening of his Symphony No. 2 seems to recall Stephen Foster -- incidentally thought to be his last composition.]  His melodic style is unique; the only external source one can identify is Hungarian and "Gypsy" folk music.  Indeed, Brahms wrote a set of Hungarian Dances, which are often the tunes that pop into one's head at the mention of Brahms.  Despite their strong identification with the composer, ironically he is said to have considered them simply transcriptions or adaptations, and did not include them in his opus.  This is a recording by an unnamed orchestra and conductor.  Here is Evgeny Kissin playing the Hungarian Dance No. 1 on the piano.

In 1856, Brahms began conducting a women's choral society in Hamburg, and he wrote a surprising number of choral works, both for women's voices and for mixed voices, given that he was an Agnostic long before agnosticism was fashionable.  (Dvorak, an admirer and close friend, is reported to have exclaimed incredulity that an agnostic such as Brahms could be and write the things he was and wrote.)

The most recognized choral-orchestral work by Brahms is the great Eine deutsches Requiem.  His intention was to write a non-denominational work to commemorate a death, and he chose passages from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures that did not point to any particular denomination.

Since my readership might be interested in the structure of the Deutsches Requiem (German Requiem) here is a description.  A Mass, essentially the communion service of the Catholic Church, is primarily a ceremony of worship, and secondarily one of thanksgiving (for our supposed salvation from sin through the sacrifice of Jesus).  A requiem mass, specifically, is a farewell to a person or persons recently deceased, and while it retains the elements of praise and thanksgiving, there are additional elements of prayers for the soul of the departed, recollections of the Day of Judgment, reflections on the brevity of earthly life in the face of immortality, and petitions for mercy.

Brahms focuses on comforting the bereaved, which is undeniably the main cultural value of a Requiem, especially for those who are not bound by the Catholic tradition, or any church tradition.

The opening words are Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  This first movement starts out with somber music, if not comforting, at least not jarring.  These words are followed up with a quotation from a psalm, depicting a person whose labour in the field has been completed, and returns with a light heart.

The second movement is the most somber of all, based on the idea that all flesh is as grass, and withers away.  Least comforting of all thoughts associated with a funeral, we are perhaps culturally unable to move beyond death without this recognition of mortality, and so Brahms contributes this somewhat bleak and obsessive movement.  It has the rhythm of a rather threatening waltz.  Suddenly, however, after this somber meditation, the chorus breaks into a joyful observation that The Word of the Lord endures forever, which in turn is followed by a hymn about marching into Zion with rejoicing.

The third movement, introduced by the Bass soloist, is once again a meditation about how brief life is man's portion, followed by prayers of hope in God's mercy.

The fifth movement sets out as a lovely pastorale to the words "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!"  Later in the movement it becomes more emphatic, but this movement's beauty is not marred by any harsher emotion than joy.

The fifth movement is startlingly unique: it has the soprano soloist singing "And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you," words attributed to Jesus himself.  Nevertheless, the movement is eerily satisfying; the female voice is remarkably appropriate for the expression of these words.  Why a female voice?  Is this a concession to Catholic friends, or those with whom the cult of Mary resonates?  Some writers have been of the opinion that the work was written on the death of Brahm's beloved mother, and the female soloist may have represented her in some abstract sense.  In any case, this movement is an essential part of the entire work for me, and I am never satisfied in listening to it in part, unless I listen through the fifth movement too.

Movement six is the most powerful for me.  The baritone soloist introduces the Day of Judgment, and the Last Trump (die letzen Posaune: the last trombone).  Unlike Mozart's Dies Irae, the Day of Judgment is a glorious one for Brahms, more a summing-up than a day of fear and tears.  If you have to listen to one movement from this work, and only one, this is it.  Satisfaction is guaranteed.

The seventh and last movement is based on the text: Blessed are those that die in the Lord.  Up until this moment, the focus is on the bereaved, in line with the apparent objective of comforting, but now Brahms turns our attention back on the deceased in a beautifully solemn final movement, arguably one of the most beautiful in this work of mostly painfully beautiful movements.  There is one moment in this movement where the unison voices drop a semitone, and the entire harmony goes with it.  It is a rare example of this effect ---most works go up a semitone.  The full strings (violins do not sound until late in the entire Requiem) have an ethereal effect, bringing to mind the beating of many wings.  It is a fitting ending to a work that is powerful in its effect on one sympathetic to its aims.  Here is a clip on YouTube, featuring evidently a much-loved East German conductor and his choir: Selig sind die Toten.

Finally, Brahms wrote in many of the smaller forms; the celebrated Brahms's Lullaby (Weigenlied) is known to all, as is his famous Waltz in A Flat.  They all display a harmonic sensibility that is quite subtly different from that of anyone else.  I have also commented on Brahms's string Sextets in an earlier post; well worth hearing.

On one hand, to one accustomed to Wagner and Bruckner, appreciation of Brahms's quieter and more mellow works does not come easily.  But Brahms, to my mind, is a good antidote to the bright colors of the more exuberantly romantic composers.  It is not that Brahms was less romantic than Wagner, for instance; indeed Brahms was every bit as romantic as anyone composing in the 19th century.  But his romance was more restrained, more introverted, more reserved, but still plain to see.  This is a paradox.

Arch

I Went!

Somehow, this time I really went down to DC, and attended this event, the Rally to Restore Sanity AND/OR Fear.

My friend and I went down two days earlier, because we had a long weekend; we stayed outside the beltway, and took the train in, and cased the joint on the day before.  My friend is a fan of the Library of Congress, so we spent most of our time there.  [This is a gorgeous building; there are literally scores of busts and murals, most of them with mottoes adorning them ---or possibly, the murals were intended to illuminate the mottoes--- some of them utterly corny.  But truly, the Library of Congress is a worthy effort on the part of the USA put forward to stand beside the great libraries of London, Paris, Rome and Berlin, for instance.]  We saw with relief and satisfaction the large array of Porta-A-Johns standing ready for the attendees, which meant that we did not need to take potties with us.

On the day of the Rally (Saturday) we arrived around 9:00 A.M., long before the event was scheduled to start (noon), and observed the uncompromising sanity of the crowd sanely trickling in.  We were surround by the lunatic fringe of the out-of-town Sanitarians, from as far away as Michigan and Georgia, accompanied by their calm-eyed, sane children.  The roads off the Mall were populated by people selling unlicensed merchandise, and some of them giving away Sanity merchandise (notably a souvenir Sanity towel, on which you could sit, on the grass)!

We took a walk out into downtown Washington, hoping to buy a spare battery for my phone, but failed to do so.  But we saw yet more Sanitarians, eagerly holding up their placards.  I just could not think of something both sane and funny, and so I didn't have a placard, to my utter shame.  (It did make it easier to get around, though . . .)

We got back, and got seated in front of a large so-called Jumbotron, which is a large digital screen that shows what's going on onstage.  Until the show started, there were clips from The Daily Show, and the Colbert show, bringing everyone up to date on the planning that led up to the event.

Finally, sharp at noon, the first act was introduced, the band The Roots, with guest star John Legend.  In addition to being the first act, they were the backup band for all the musical acts that followed.  (The Roots featured a bassist playing a 6-string electric bass, which impressed me.  He was great, accurate, and firmly on the beat.  There was also a huge Sousaphone, a sort of large tuba that is played by the player inserting him- or herself into the coils of the instrument.)

Just as I was beginning to despair that I would have to listen to an interminable string of hip-hop, or rap, or whatever, Jon Stewart came on, to cheers, and introduced Father Guido Sarducci, a character familiar from Saturday Night Live a couple of decades ago.

Fr Guido, having respectfully thanked God for everyone getting to the Mall safe and on time, proceeded to ask God for a sign to know which religion or denomination was the true one.  Unfortunately, there was no response, but I'm not surprised; all around me cellphones, for instance, were not getting through.

Then the Myth Busters team came on: a pair of funny guys whose main idea is to present demonstrations of principles of physics on TV. They choreographed a number of experiments suitable for a large gathering of the size of close to a couple of hundred thousand people, for instance creating a seismic wave by jumping up and down. (As Colbert remarked later, the willingness of the crowd to get to its feet and cooperate in this bit of idiocy showed the kind of crowd it was: earnest, fun-loving, and more filled with political frustration than viciousness. There's a bit of a leap there, from seismic sensors to mood sensor, admittedly :)

The business of the rally got started, with clashing of the apparent intellectual differences between the two hosts, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, the latter who claimed to be extremely unwilling to give up being scared.  Colbert put forward the unwillingness to be scared as positively unAmerican.

One of the musical highlights of the rally was Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, singing his 70's hit, Peace Train.  I have seen videos of Yusuf from around the turn of the century, singing Peace Train, looking very sober and unhappy, and I despaired of ever again seeing him with the vitality of the old Cat Stevens.  But on Saturday, his voice had the energy and the flexibility of Cat Stevens at his best, and it was delightful!  But Colbert interrupted with Ozzy Ozbourne singing about a train running off the track, in true Hegelian style, until the O'Jays came in to sing Love Train, which managed to get all the musicians singing together.  Also singing were Kid Rock, and Sheryl Crow.  (The rally ended with a musical item, led by Mavis Staples.)

The event also featured David Byrne, Spinal Tap, Green Day and Devo and several other bands in the video portion,  before the live portion started.

The crowning event, for me, was a thoughtful and funny monologue by Jon Stewart, called his Keynote speech, in which he articulated the principles he was trying to put forward, namely the demonization of each political side by the other, aptly explained by Arianna Huffington.




Linkins of the Huffington Post describes his Sanity Rally experience like this:

The Rally To Restore Sanity was a well attended, and [by my] vantage, a well organized event, that drew thousands of very friendly, somewhat liberal, but not at [all] limited to young, people to Washington, DC. The early [arrivals] were deep into the sanity theme. With signs that decried hysteria, endorsed conversation, and made great sport of the excesses that we are, all, used to by now ("There was only the one Hitler" read one), the most dedicated attendees showed up to support reasonableness. (It was only after the show was over that the "Fox News Sucks" signs seem to show up.) Everyone was very well behaved. It was one of the friendliest crowds I've ever been a part of. One attendee seemed to have it exactly right, carting a sign that read, "I'm pretty sure I'd like you if I got to know you."

That shows you how little this guy knows about me!

Respectfully submitted,

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A Story!

Once upon a time, a young girl stood on the shoulder of the Interstate, fearfully waiting to hitchhike to college several hundred miles east of her home.  She had won a full choir scholarship, but her father was in the throes of acute depression (for reasons not having anything to do with her, incidentally) and would not (or could not) help her with her college plans.  She was dressed all in pink, and carried a guitar on her back, and a pink back-pack was at her feet.  Fortunately for her, she was picked up by friendly travelers, and presently found herself not only safely registered for the Fall classes, but helping out with the recreation program at the little city park close to her new college, at the tail end of the Summer.

The young lady, whose nature was passionate, outgoing and generous, soon found herself involved with many special musical programs at her school, and many opportunities to earn money as well.  Two years later she found herself the proud recipient of a loan of a rare unconverted Baroque violin, and was well on her way to becoming a violinist of rare talent and sensibility.  But more importantly, she was discovered as a remarkable voice, and the demands on her to sing began to eclipse her importance as an instrumentalist.

Then disaster struck.  Fatigue and personal tragedy had a shattering impact on her, and she finally began to succumb to the stresses of a serious college education --she had refused to compromise in her first two years, and signed on for difficult courses in every field in which she was interested.   She had something that was suspiciously like a nervous breakdown.  She took a year off after her Sophomore year, and lived in the wilds of rural Canada with a friend.  But music called her back, and she returned to complete college.

Fifteen years later, she had completed a doctorate, and pulled back somewhat from her performance career to teach at a small college.  But she could not resist acceding to a request to sing Messiah at a Royal command performance in the UK.  She had sung much more musically important parts: Eva in Meistersinger, Susanna in Figaro, Eurydice in Orfeo, not to mention the Bach oratorios and passions.  But to sing in English, for music written to be sung in English was a special treat!

She was really two people rolled into one: an earnest Bach scholar and dedicated teacher and musicologist on one hand, and a secret sybarite* hedonist on the other.  Among her friends she counted members of the adult entertainment business, who recognized that their friendships had to remain secret, and did their best.  She had even made an amazing R-rated adult movie, well disguised and under a pseudonym.  The disguise was so perfect that even the movie producers were ignorant of the fact that their star was in fact a respectable music professor.  The movie was an exhilarating lesbian romp, featuring an adventurous band of girl fighters in an imaginary bronze age on an imaginary planet.

The movie was an instant hit, but of course, our heroine dared not reveal her part in it.  However, she decided to star in a new movie (under her own name), which was to be a light-hearted spoof of the earlier movie, the new movie containing no sex at all; just good clean fun, and rated PG13.  However, the romantic interest in the spoof was between two young women.

She reveled in the fame the second movie brought her, but soon after, the Christian Right and conservative critics turned against her, declaring that she had made "perversion acceptable to children."  Parents began removing their children from the college at which she taught.  Her invitations to perform sacred music evaporated.  By Christmas, she was no longer welcome to perform even with the little orchestra she had founded.  But she had gotten pregnant over the summer, and the pregnancy gave her a little strength to hold on.  She decided it was best to take a semester off, and look after her little family of four: three adopted girls, and her own little boy.

Tragedy struck on Christmas Day.  After a heavy early snowstorm, driving home by herself from a Christmas visit, she lost control of her vehicle, and plunged off a steep incline onto a solid rock, destroying the car and the child she was carrying.  Her face was badly cut, but it was repaired by careful surgery.

The love of the children, and that of a young woman with whom she had made friends that summer, pulled her through the several difficult months that followed, ending with the sad passing of the mother of her girlfriend, leaving the family of the latter practically destitute.  But that Spring she announced her retirement, at the young age of thirty-eight, and began dismantling her organization.

At first, the family was anxious, but she found other things to do, and was moderately healthy and cheerful, and they began to relax.  At Christmas, the music that came out of the radio constantly reminded her of that musical world from which she had been exiled.  The children had tried to be careful, but the occasional soprano aria slipped through their careful filter, and the former soprano gave up the battle to appear unconcerned.

The mood in the house was decidedly glum, but the kids rallied round to sing songs at the piano, bake cookies, and liven up the atmosphere, and our hero managed to put a smile on her face for the sake of her children, and a few friends who had come over.  But a call from Ohio, from one of her former teachers, said that PBS was doing something interesting: a Best of Messiah program at 8:00 p.m. that night, featuring a variety of choirs and orchestras, recorded around the world, smoothly edited into a single glorious performance by the miracle of modern technology.

At first, the children were thoroughly excited at the prospect of watching the show, but one look at their mother's ashen face reminded them of how painful it would be for her.  They decided not to watch.  But at eight, she snapped, and marching over to the TV, turned it on to the patchwork Best of Messiah program.

It was agony to watch for several minutes, especially when other soloists were featured at the very same performances in which she had sung soprano, but she herself was not.  One of her favorite arias: Rejoice, O daughter of Zion! was sung by a young woman she had never seen, and sung well, too.  Her heart heavy, she slipped out of the room, and went to sit on the front steps, so hurt that she could not even cry.  She was sure they would not feature her at all.

The program arrived at the remarkable double aria He shall feed his flock / Come unto Him, for soprano and alto, and she recognized the voice of a well-known contralto, someone she had never sung with.  That was almost the last number that involved a soprano soloist, and her defeat was complete . . . or so it appeared.

But, magically, they had faded her own soprano solo into the alto solo, despite the fact that they were from two entirely different performances!  She had sung this before Queen Elizabeth two years earlier; it had been a sort of personal triumph for her.  She had been asked to meet the grand old lady, who had said some gracious words of admiration to her.  She had been to the White House, and been fussed over by heads of state, but this performance had had a glow to it that she had treasured.  And it was being featured on this montage!  The children were going crazy with excitement, and they came out to haul her back inside.

She had looked a lot younger then, before the accident and the surgery.  She could hardly believe how she had dominated that audience with her personality, her charm and her beauty, as well as the beauty of her wonderful voice!  She watched herself singing, flushed with pleasure.

The music wound on, with the great choruses that make the Messiah so memorable, as well as the magnificent solos.  She sighed; she had no cause to be bitter, now; she consoled herself that it took greater skill to do justice to a double-aria than in the showpiece which had featured the younger soprano: one had to restrain oneself from overshadowing the contralto, a delicate feat of balance.

About to leave the room to quietly think by herself, she was stunned to see her own face on the screen once again: the camera had caught her getting to her feet and walking forward, while the orchestra played a familiar ritornello: it was the strange aria based on a letter of St Paul: I know that my Redeemer liveth.  They had featured her singing a second aria!

The song was all about physical resurrection, something she had never believed.  But that night, she had meant every word of it.  She had believed that she would face her maker exactly as she had been that night, accepting that it would not be some ethereal shadow of her being that would face the Judgment, but she herself in the body with which she sang.  She was her own instrument, and god would judge her in that instrument.  It was as though she declared that she was unafraid to be judged so.  It was the unique relationship between a singer and her body, much like that of an athlete: for a philosopher, perhaps, only the mind mattered.  But for a soprano, without her body she was nothing.

The notes soared sublimely, expressing faith in things that she had long ceased to believe in, but as she listened to herself, she believed them anew.  She saw the children watch and listen, spellbound.  The microphone had picked up every little detail of her singing, every syllable, every ‘t’ and every ‘p’.  And there was a beatific smile on her face as she sang, and her pleasure in performance was clearly visible.  When she finished, she remained standing, her eyes surveying the audience with a smile, and the camera had caught it all.

It went on flawlessly, ending with the awesome Amen.

She drew in her breath, trying to feel her chest expanding, ready to sing, but she could only sigh.  Understandably, she was filled with a myriad conflicting emotions ranging from acute embarrassment to ecstasy.  Afterwards, she only remembered that the children had talked to her for nearly an hour, to most of which she had not responded very intelligently.

But it had been clear that the pride of the children in her had been re-kindled, and she had not realized until that moment that it had waned so much.  At one level, she had known that the children had a great deal of trouble accepting her retirement from the concert stage, but this television event, which should have been a triumph, had only underscored one thing: she could never again sing like that.  Not ever!

[*"Sybarite" appears to be the wrong word...] 

[Note: though the principal character here is depicted as having Christian beliefs, the author himself does not!]

Episodes make the Finals!!

I have been following this group with great interest; you can hear their music on their MySpace website: Episodes.  Over the summer they decided to compete in the Southern Arizona Acoustic Battle of the Bands, and after two rounds, they have come up winning both!

Being in touch with the challenges that keep cropping up for them, it is amazing to me that despite their difficulties they manage to deliver on the music, even under a little pressure.  The final round will have them facing both runner-up bands from the semi-final round, and the winner of the other half of the draw.

This band started out around 2006 with Uma (who sings most of the vocals, and writes most of the songs), Jacob (who was their original drummer) and Brian (lead guitar).  Shortly afterwards they were joined by Troy (the original bassist), and Joe (violin and keyboards).  There were several changes of personnel; most importantly two drummers, Carlos and Brian, played with them for a time and departed, and Troy left the band over the summer, and Nick and Stefano joined as drummer and bassist respectively.

An interesting fact about the band is that none of the performers are primarily musicians; they're all amateurs, and have full-time occupations: Uma is a graphic designer, Brian, Joe and Stefano are all physics graduate students, and Nick is a medical student.  However, there has been a high level of musicianship all along, which enables them to ride with the inevitable waves caused by nerves and ---occasionally--- inadequate rehearsal.  Being as busy as they are, finding rehearsal time is always difficult, and I know they are all reluctant to be hardliners about practicing, since it is a miracle that they have stayed together as well as they have.  When the four students finish school, breakup of the band is almost unavoidable.  So it is a matter of making their mark while they're still together.

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Episodes Video Blog #1 for 9/19/2009

Episodes | Myspace Music Videos

Comedy Central

Of late, I simply have not been able to get my daily dose of news.  It's partly that I don't wake to the radio, as I used to, and partly that I'm just slowing down.  Most of what I get is ---you might not believe this, but--- from reports posted on FaceBook.  Obviously, this results in a rather uneven news selection that isn't particularly healthy.

I do get a lot f news from the infamous Daily Show, with Jon Stewart.  This is a comedy show that delights in making fun of the various idiotic statements made by the loonier elements of the GOP, as well as the contradictions or self-serving statements made by the more notable hypocrites there.  Many of the things we hear from the Right would make even conservatives angry, if it weren't for the fact that they are so furious with the Democrats that they allow any sort of idiotic utterance through with little comment.  After hearing such a statement my blood boils to discuss it with somebody, but being surrounded by conservatives out where I live and work, there simply is no opportunity.  So the Daily Show is desperately welcome.

Despite the fact that, broadly speaking, the Daily Show is by liberals, for liberals, the tone of the show, and the level of liberalism to be found there is moderate, and the implied criticism of the conservatives mostly friendly ridicule.  OK, sometimes it is not very friendly ridicule, but still, a lot less vicious ---not vicious at all, in fact, except for the vicious humor--- than I would personally be inclined to dish out.

On October 30th, Jon Stewart of the Daily Show has organized a big rally on The Mall, called the Rally to Restore Sanity.  I'm planning to attend, and so are many of my more like-minded friends from both sides of the political divide.  I keep wondering whether there will be some disruptive incident to spoil it, but I'm going to take the risk and go.  Evidently it will be mostly music and comedy, and I'm expecting some surprise appearances by celebrities.  At the worst, Jon may decide to declare his candidacy for the Presidency.

Many institutions we know and love have functioned for years based on what they were promised to be, at their inception: schools, the government, families, property ownership, the economy, employment.  These things are brought into being in an atmosphere of optimism, and so they function well on the momentum of their promise.  But soon, people begin to find ways of perverting them and exploiting them, and we discover that there are no defenses against these trends.

Just yesterday I think I found another instance.  I signed up for "mobile computing", where you buy a device that you connect to your USB port, and you get Internet access via what appears to be a cellphone network.  I chose the option to buy just a week's worth of access, limited to 300 megabytes.  (In other words, the total volume of material I upload and download is limited to 300 Mb.)  Unfortunately, the volume is metered by the service provider.  Now, with water use I let the water company assess my usage, no matter how reluctantly.  After all, how much can they fudge their estimate of how many gallons of water I use?  And there's a water meter, sitting right in my basement.  Similarly with the electric company.

Things become more complicated with the phone company.  But the worst is this Internet usage.  There really is nothing to prevent them from padding their metering of my Internet use with all sorts of costs.  If I download a piece of mail that is 3K on my hard disk, they could easily justify a claim that the actual cost of delivering that 3K is several megabytes, the cost of my computer requesting the file, their computer telling mine that it's too busy, and mine calling back, asking their computer to cut the crap and give over the damn file, and their computer saying What file? and so forth.  So I simply have no control over how much they charge me for the service.  On the other hand, they have a virtual monopoly over this type of Internet access, and so I'm a part of an essentially captive clientele.

Meanwhile, I have Internet access via DSL provided by the same provider.  Of late, I have not been able to get on the Internet; my connection to the router in my house is excellent; the router's connection to the Internet is awful.

Perhaps coincidentally, the service began to deteriorate moments after I asked to discontinue their home wiring insurance.  "Home Wiring Insurance" is an agreement where they will come in and fix any problem with the part of the phone circuit that lies inside my house.  What are the chances that my Internet access is jinxed because of something supposedly wrong inside my house?  Jesus is not going to be happy with them.  So something that was great at one time is now going down the tubes.

Congress is like this.  At first, congressmen were volunteers.  But somewhere along the line, they approved themselves a stipend, to offset the increasing costs of maintaining a residence in the Capital, until at this time each congressman makes close to $200,000 annually.  It is very difficult to slow down the rate of compensation of our representatives for obvious reasons.

In addition, every racket that a Congressman invents becomes something all Congressmen can exploit, making sure that they keep their activities under the radar.  There is Lying, Lobbyists, Pork, Influence peddling, and Shady deal-making.

I think the most recent invention is for conservatives to get elected as centrist liberals, but then switching parties for the next election.  This is further confused by individuals who are themselves confused: people with conservative inclinations, and a mix of conservative and liberal values; people with liberal inclinations, brought up to revere conservative values.  I thank fate a dozen times a day that my values are firmly liberal, even if I'm unwilling to give any liberal politician a blank check, because a few liberals have, over the years, often proved themselves to be rascals.  The stupid extreme of the Conservative block also contains rascals; the intelligent core of the conservatives is, generally speaking, honorable, even if wrong-headed.  What we are battling are a bunch of wrong-headed intellectuals, a few stupid rascals, and a few opportunistic crooks.  The crooks, not being ideological, are perfectly willing to switch parties at the first opportunity, in order to get whatever benefit they can, to make their personal fortunes and empires.

With all this smoke and fog, party politics becomes very difficult.  You can't depend on the Democrats for the clear-cut liberal values they have always stood for.  Some Democrats are confused about their values, while others are willing to compromise their values in order to satisfy their electorates.  (Possibly conservatives have similar problems, but while a Democrat administration is in power, they are unified in trying to get rid of it.)

I bet things would improve if we could buy Congressional Insurance.  You pay a certain amount every month, just to make sure that your liberal congressman remains a liberal.  However, there would be no way to control the rates going up and up.

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Autobiography

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I reported recently that I was in the process of writing my autobiography.

Over the last several weeks, I managed to sketch out about 15 years' worth of memories, and I printed them out, and mailed them off to a couple of elder relatives.  (I also allowed one of my buddies to read them, just to show off!)

It was interesting to find that both my buddy and my relatives are amazed at how much I can remember!  Of course one is never certain just how well one's own memory compares with those of others.  For whatever reason, I can remember events from more than fifty years ago, as well as my reactions to them, and what I perceived as the reactions of people I was with.  What does this mean?  Perhaps I was sensitive to emotional subtleties of those around me from when I was a kid; perhaps I mulled over these matters so often that I was able to resolve any confusion I might have had about the events to my satisfaction.

Most of all, I think, that the process of writing fiction hones one's perspective on the past.  A good writer of fiction, I'm convinced, simply has to draw on experience, and the experiences of an observant individual are going to be that much more useful to draw on.

This encourages me to keep writing.  Even if my own thoughts are wrong-headed, someday my children can draw on my memoirs, and have something concrete from which to base their theories about what happened before they were born.

I'm beginning to believe that my generation was particularly bad about simply and accurately reporting what they saw.  So much of what were current events when we were growing up was interpreted by the media that it is now hard to separate fact from fiction for everything other than what you witnessed yourself.  I must make sure that I make that clear: this I experienced first-hand, or got from an first-hand account; this I read in the papers, or heard on the radio.  This emerged much later, reported by people who should know, but I'm just conveying it.

Once again, I urge everyone, whenever you have the time, jot down your memories!!!!  The benefits are numerous:

1. If you are new to writing, this is good practice.  It isn't easy to describe a scene if you've never done it before.  And what could be easier than to describe a scene that you've witnessed?
2. If you're a writer of fiction, these scenes will form the bricks and mortar of what you write.
3. Your offspring and younger relatives may not be interested in history, but they will be interested in their history, which is what you're writing.
4. If your life has been difficult, describing it could be a means of making peace with it.  It is particularly important to those who care about you to know that this process has taken place, if it has, or even where you are relative to it.  We often look at painful episodes in our lives with fury or bitterness, until we're wise enough to lay that fury or bitterness aside.  There's nothing sadder than a child, or a nephew, who does not realize that the bitterness has, indeed, been set aside.
5. If a period of your life was particularly wonderful, recalling it should generate gratitude.  Gratitude is a major engine for driving generosity and benevolence.  Those who have felt ill-used by the universe are seldom willing to make a generous gesture; those with generous instincts have a miraculous ability to recognize even minute experiences of happiness, and respond with gratitude.
6. Finally, young people today live in a world in which cause and effect are greatly removed from each other.  They see the highways, and seldom connect them with the Great Depression, or World War 2; they see Anti-Discrimination law, and seldom pause to think about what brought them about.  The problem is not that they weren't taught these things, but that they were.  They're so accustomed to tuning out their school teachers, that all this material becomes simply academic.  This is where family can make a difference: we can make history personal to our younger relatives.

In case you weren't listening, writing your memoirs (or an autobiography) is a lot of fun; don't let these points above make you think of it like eating oatmeal.  It is pure joy, really.  Just go for it!

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A Liberal Manifesto

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A specter is haunting America.  It is the specter of a large majority of intelligent people, unwilling to adopt knee-jerk reactions, unwilling to be persuaded by the hyperbole of lobbyists and the media, by bible-thumping Religionists and flat-earthers, and capitalist wannabes, who set themselves up as the forces that want to create jobs for everyone, but in actual fact just want to keep spending their profits without contributing to the common good, the specter of such right-thinking people finding themselves without a political home.

In a not-so-distant past, the Democratic Party was the party of the common man, the party of workers, and those who valued the contributions of workers, and all those who actually worked for their living, intellectuals, and those who prided themselves on being called liberals.  It used to be that if you were a liberal, you stood for the following things:

All people were created equal.  This meant that everyone had a right to basic things, regardless of whether you were born into a family that was independently wealthy.  This meant that health, education, housing, employment, freedom from discrimination were all yours.  But over the years, this belief was gradually circumscribed, and now these expectations seem to be tainted.  Those who speak for health care for all are looked at with disgust.  Decades of distrust of "career unemployed" has led to reduction of unemployment benefits.  The bogey of "reverse discrimination" has gradually begun to erode the advances of equal rights.  And a number of cultural conditions have resulted in lower achievement in education in proportion to input---the same resources are beginning to yield poorer results---and the immediate suspects are teachers.  This plays into the hands of those who want to privatize education.


As a result, it is easier for conservatives to vilify anyone who stands up as a liberal.  Liberals still feel comfortable in analyzing the initiatives of the conservatives, and seeing the hidden agendas there.  But it is harder to formulate a position as to what you stand for, rather than what you stand against.

Bruce Ackerman and Todd Gitlin have proposed a manifesto for Liberals, which they vigorously defend in their post of 2006.  The pivotal paragraph of their post is as follows:

We reaffirm the great principle of liberalism: that every citizen is entitled by right to the elementary means to a good life.
We believe passionately that societies should afford their citizens equal treatment under the law -- regardless of accidents of birth, race, sex, property, religion, ethnic identification, or sexual disposition.
We want to redirect debate to the central questions of concern to ordinary Americans -- their rights to housing, affordable health care, equal opportunity for employment, and fair wages, as well as physical security and a sustainable environment for ourselves and future generations.

I felt, without any reservation, that these principles were eminently worthy of subscribing to.  Unfortunately, the arguments put forth by anti-liberals are resonating among those who feel threatened by these principles:
"Can we afford these things?"
"Are the common people worthy of these things?"
"Are the people who propose these things secretly working for some enemy, such as Socialism, or European-style welfare"?
"Is it possible to be A Christian and still adopt these principles?"
"Are the people proposing these things Christians, and if not, isn't that a good excuse for opting out of this sort of agenda?"
"Isn't Big Business what made this country great, and since to provide the elementary means of a good life one must raise taxes, and raising taxes hurts Big Business, shouldn't we give up on the whole thing?"

As many writers have pointed out, some of the poorest of the poor are in favor of lowering taxes, even if higher taxes will help fund social programs.  Someone has succeeded in persuading them that some day, they will be wealthy, and it is better to have taxes lowered now, so that when their ship comes in, they will have fewer taxes to pay.  The pathos of this must be clear to everybody.

Unfortunately, one of the roots of the popular distrust of progressive legislation ---even among inexperienced Congressmen and women!!!--- is the rampant immorality and corruption among the members of Congress.  Unfortunately, Republicans have succeeded in persuading everyone that Democrat Congressmen and women are more corrupt than Republican Congressmen and women, despite the fact that the known cases of corruption are just about evenly divided.  (Even during the Clinton era, when Republicans had to work long hours to discredit one of the most effective presidents in history, the personal peccadilloes of the Republicans in Congress more than balanced out those of the Democrats, even if they didn't have as exalted venues in which to carry out their indiscretions!)

I have digressed.  But we have, above, a nucleus of a liberal manifesto, if we're willing not to be distracted with anti-liberal smoke and fog.

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What's Going On? We need a Liberal Manifesto

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Well, it's been a long time since I posted!  What is happening in the political microcosm of the US?

First of all, the Tea Party has won many of the Republican Primaries.  In other words, the candidates who have identified with the Tea Party sub-brand within the Republican Party (aka GOP) have won most of the elections that they have contested.

Mano Singham explains the position of the Tea Party within the Republican Party well.  Here's a reduction of his post.
The Republican Party, consists of several groups broadly described as follows:
(1) "old-style conservatives": Smaller government (self-explanatory), less government spending, law and order, and a sane 'stay-at-home' foreign policy
(2) "rank-and-file [conservative] social values base": Guns, gays, abortion, stem-cell research, flag, the Bible, and immigration
(3) "The Christianist leadership": people ... who claim to speak for the social values base but [who are more interested in lower taxes, and fewer social programs for the poor]
(4) "The neoconservatives": Their interests lie less in domestic policies and more in creating a muscular foreign policy. They dream of America exercising hegemony over the world, using its might to destroy its enemies. They are firmly convinced that America is a force for good in the world and should not be shy about using its military, political, and economic muscle to dominate it.

The Tea Party, he argues, is a loose coalition of people in groups (2) and (3) in "an uneasy alliance", who are often quite critical of the mainstream Republican agenda --and who wouldn't be?  As is clear now, the invention of the Tea Party allows the rank-and-file of the GOP to distance itself from its discredited leadership, and stand behind the portions of the Republican platform toolkit, if you like, that most lazy-thinking Republican masses can understand and support: The Bible, Patriotism, Guns, Motherhood and Applie Pie, but no foreigners, no gays and lesbians, and no abortion.

So that part is clear; we know where the Tea Party comes from --it comes out of the Bush era political disappointments and lost credibility.  And it brings to power the stupid end of the GOP glamour leadership, to battle the more intellectual end of the Democrat leadership as personified by Barack Obama.

It is becoming clear that a combination of factors have conspired to make the country as a whole, or at least the unthinking masses, suspicious of the intellectual elite in both parties.  This isn't surprising: First of all, the intellectuals in the GOP managed to throw mud in Bill Clinton's eye, and most of the country felt, simultaneously, that the Smartypants Bill Clinton was a suspicious character, and that the Smartypants Kenneth Starr and Newt Gingrich and all that ilk were deceiving the people.  The fact was that Smartypants Clinton was on the side of the people, while Smartypants Gingrich was on his own side.  The outcome was that now various hidden Smartypants could make it look as though anyone with the intelligence to actually solve the problems of the country was likely to have a hidden Smartypants agenda.  It seemed that only idiots were to be trusted.  So now the GOP has some actual idiots, e.g. Sarah Palin, and some pretended idiots, e.g. Rush Limbaugh (or maybe he really is an idiot), all working together to keep as many citizens as possible from voting in their true interests [I mean, the true interests of the citizens].

The thinking of the Barack Obama administration is opaque to everyone.  The partial failure of the Health Care Reform initiative, and the efforts of the health care industry to defeat the benefits of the new law, and the efforts of the GOP to point out new ways in which the new law could be problematic, all seem to result in making the Democrat Congress everyone's pet hate du jour.  All we know is that the President has come out calling for improved morale.

Unfortunately, a significant proportion of the Democrats in Congress are very nervous ninnys, who look as if they might want to turn coats at the drop of a hat.  These new Democrats, many of them pro gun and anti-abortion, pro military intervention, anti-gay and lesbian, anti-tax, anti-health-care-reform, are really conservatives in disguise.  They constitute a sort of Trojan Horse, and the only way to strengthen the position of the Democrats is to field a slate of true liberals.

The huge conservative presence in the media is constantly working to make "Liberal" a bad word.  It is imperative that those of us who are liberal should define that quality in positive terms; at the moment, it simply means not conservative.  What is the meaning of the word "Liberal" that describes what we stand for in this context?  What is it about the particular mix of values to which we subscribe that makes them integral, something more than a random mix of attitudes?  I think a Liberal Manifesto is long overdue.

Arch

Apologies

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You might not know this, but my e-mail address was briefly shut down by the providers, because it had succumbed to a spam attack.  Since the security breach, I have a feeling that all my accounts are still vulnerable (I think there are ways --for the attackers-- to leave openings behind, but I don't know exactly how), so all my problems are not quite behind me.

Evidently a party in Mexico tried to gain access to my e-mail account by calling in.  It evidently did not work.

Archimedes

Sonatas for Two Instruments

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I was startled to see that some of my earliest posts on music were no longer very useful, because some of the links to performances on YouTube lead to clips that had been deleted.  Record companies are become ever more reluctant to give away anything for free, even a single cut from a CD, and they hound YouTube (Google) until they ask the person who puts up an identified track on YouTube to remove it.  [The music recording business was notoriously profitable at one time; the ease of ripping CDs and sharing the music is cutting into their profits very dramatically.  Unfortunately for most of us, getting "unfair" profits from things is not objectionable in this society, it is supposedly the very economic foundation of it.]

At one time, only keyboard instruments had sonatas written for them alone; sonatas for any other instruments had a keyboard instrument accompanying the other "soloist".  There were exceptions: Bach, for instance, wrote sonatas for solo violin and solo cello, and later these sonatas were adapted for flute and recorder as well.  (It is possible that Bach wrote original solo sonatas for flute and recorder; I'm not certain.)

It seems reasonable, though, to call a violin sonata with a piano accompaniment a sonata for violin and piano.  The wonderful Sonata in A major by Cesar Franck, certainly, deserves this description.  Here is the fourth movement:



The pianist is not identified on YouTube, but reading the comments we learn that it is (possibly) Pierre Barbizet.  (The arguments in the comments are precisely about the point we are making.)  Isn't it brilliant?  This last movement is exceptionally easy to 'get', because of the close imitation between the two instruments.

J. S. Bach wrote in most of the musical forms in which composers wrote at that time.  I was looking for a good example, and this is what I found: it is a modern transcription for violin and piano of a violin and piano sonata.  It is the last movement, and is in the form of a dance.  Arguably, the modern piano played judiciously is a better partner for the violin in these sonatas in which the two instruments are far more equal in Bach's music than they customarily might have been.  (The sheer joy in performance of the piece is clearly evident on the face of the pianist, though the violinist frowns with concentration most of the time!  One good reason for this is that to obtain a good tone takes a little more work on the violin than it does on a piano, so that the pianist is just a little more at liberty to appreciate the piece.)



In Baroque sonatas, independence of voices was a major value: at the height of its development, Baroque music was written so that every voice was important, and ideally, equally audible in the tapestry of the music.  This being the case, the keyboard part was usually written for two very independent voices--left hand and right hand-- or three partially independent voices: one in the left hand, and two in the right hand, where it is clear the the two voices could be kept moderately independent only with some loss in freedom.  So, ironically, the Baroque violin and piano duo sonatas are actually for three voices.  In the example above, you can clearly hear the main tune of the movement entering three times: the violin, the piano right hand, and the piano bass.

It seems rather a coincidence that both the examples should have this feature of the themes introduced imitatively, but in fact I suspect that it is a rather common device, especially in chamber music.

A brilliant duet for flute and piano is by Francis Poulenc, his flute sonata.  It is more a solo for flute, but the accompaniment is virtuoso grade.  This clip is essentially a sound clip:



Many baroque arias by Bach have an obbligato instrument.  The lovely aria "Qui sedes ad dextram patris" from the Mass in B minor features the voice and the oboe, accompanied by the so-called continuo.  The most important part of the continuo is the bass line, so in effect this is a trio.  The contralto vocalist is Hertha Töpper, whom I have never heard before.  I link to this in preference to the rendering by Kathleen Ferrier only because it is a true video:



[To be continued]

Tom Lehrer

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The songs of one of my heroes, Tom Lehrer, as sung on a little 1967 broadcast in Oslo, Norway, is now out on video.  The first song is about National Brotherhood Week.  The words are utterly non-PC, as the saying goes.  (The Politically Correct lobby has no humor at all; evidently the butts of all sixties jokes are deeply hurt by them.  So those of you who live among potential victims, wear headphones, please.)   The link above gives you a sequence of three or four video clips from the new DVD.

The funniest song of all, is Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.  Also see Pollution, and The Vatican Rag.

I was stunned to learn that he had sung lots of songs for Electric Company, the PBS program for older kids.  Here's him singing Silent E.

Probably one of the jolliest ones is the Chemical Elements Song, in which he lists all the elements know at that time --the middle sixties.  The tune was borrowed from Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan (well, Sullivan, anyway, since Gilbert's lyrics were substituted with Lehrer's words).  In this clip, the enterprising poster has indicated each element in its spot in the Periodic Table.  (The Periodic Table is a listing of the elements in order of number of electrons in the atom, beginning with Hydrogen --one electron.)

aIt strikes me that you might find it handy to have at your fingertips a Periodic Table, to follow along.  Bear in mind that some elements are represented by unexpected symbols; for instance Iodine is represented by I, which makes sense, and Phosphorus with P.  But Lead, to give an example, is represented by Pb, for the Latin word for lead: Plumbum.  Sodium is represented with Na (for Natrium) and Potassium with K (for Kalium).  The very first element in the song is Antimony, which is represented by Sb (evidently the Latin word for Antimony was Stibium.)


Arch  [Revised 2016-9-6]