Robert Schumann: Reporter, Critic, Cheerleader

.

I have written about Schumann’s composition, Träumerei, and mentioned in passing that he was also a critic and reporter on musical matters.  The journal he helped to get off the ground, and which he kept alive when his original collaborator or collaborators were unable to continue to help (in fact, I believe, one of the founders of the journal disappeared or died) is—as evidenced by the fact that I was able to provide a link to its website—still in existence today.  It is a journal in the sense that it reported the day-to-day musical events and achievements of the musical community of which Schumann was —a very important— part.

The critical role was somewhat different from that of a professional music critic for a major newspaper today.  Schumann was a very friendly critic.  In fact, as we will see below, his approach might be considered almost opposite from that of a professional critic; he was a fan, an enthusiast, an amateur in the best sense.

I went so far as to obtain a book of Schumann's writings for the express purpose of reporting here what it was like.  The title, available as a Dover reprint of a St Martin's Press publication from 1965, already had a lengthy publishing history.  Because Schumann died young, and because of the fact that he lived in such interesting times, musically, his writings were valuable a few decades after his death.  As soon as Schubert, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt,  Mendelssohn, Wagner and co. were recognized to be the geniuses they were, it was useful to read what Schumann might have written about them.  The book is Robert Schumann: Schumann on Music, A selection from the Writings, translated and edited by Henry Pleasants.

One of the most valuable books I was ever given (and one whose loss I still mourn) was a book entitled Letters of Composers, which I received as a school prize in my teens, and which had an amazing influence on me.  To this day I'm not certain which particular collection of letters of composers this lost book had been, but certain letters conveyed such a vivid impression of the composers that they’re indelibly etched in my mind, most notably Mozart, whose letters are the goofiest things you could ever read.  As soon as I saw the movie Amadeus, I told myself, gosh, they’ve outed old buddy Mozart!  I was under the fond impression that only I knew what a strange bird he was, or at least that only I was alive of anyone who might have known.

But the overall impression one gets of German writing of the 18^th and 19^th century is the almost maniacal use of figurative language.  Oh, my word.  It is as if anyone who expected to have any sort of audience at all wrote in such a flowery style that it almost got in the way of getting at the meaning.  Any negative statement had to be presented in a sly manner, as a sort of backhanded compliment.  Robert Schumann is no exception.  He goes off into flights of fancy whether he wants to praise a performance or a new work, or whether he wants to poke at its flaws.

Dr Eduard Hanslick

The pre-eminent music critic of the time, and a sworn enemy of some of the greatest composers of the period, was Eduard Hanslick.  Hanslick has come to represent the music Critic as the fearlessly opinionated reporter with a vicious pen.  (In actual fact, some authorities are of the opinion that his writing was generally balanced.)  I risk the wrath of the translator of the Schumann reader (Mr Pleasants) by providing the following excerpt from his introduction.

He must be ranked, nevertheless, among the great critics of European music.  He lacked Hanslick's easy mastery of the writer's craft.... He was, indeed, rather provincial. ... He knew little of the world outside Germany, and his prejudice against most things Italian and all things French, was pronounced and benighted.  And yet ... his articles are ... distinguished by a most uncommon decency.
...
He was an idealist, then, who was guided by the most exalted examples, both musical and literary, and who proved himself worthy of his models.  If he was, as a critic, not quite a Hanslick —well, Hanslick, in more ways than one, was no Schumann.

I think those words beautifully capture how Schumann is both a critic, in the sense of illuminating a performance or a composition from the point of view of one who was truly knowledgeable, and an enthusiastic supporter.  His criticism, as Mr Pleasants goes on to explain, is from the point of view of being let down.

An interesting device Schumann uses —and one which I have seen being used by other authors of the time, notably Louisa May Alcott, of all people— is to introduce fictitious personalities with certain fixed points of view (and personal characteristics to match) whom Schumann brings out to present the pros and cons of a particular item, and whom he makes argue back and forth, so that a review can be made to look like a conversation.  The members of Schumann's Punch and Judy show are Eusebius (“Moderate, sober, reflective and tolerant,” according to Pleasants,) and Florestan (“fiery, impatient, and idealistic”).

Appendix: More works by Schumann

I’m unlikely to write often on Schumann, since he figures rather low on my list of favorites, so I must give you some pieces that you should try.

His piano concerto is one of the most beautiful, with a lovely Spring-like feel that leaves you feeling uplifted, and gives you an idea of what sort of a pianist he might have been.  He also wrote some four symphonies (or am I thinking of Brahms?) which I remember to be wonderful.

Outside of his journal, and his friendship with Brahms, Schumann is remembered most for his Lieder.  Die Lotusblüme is particularly beautiful.  Here it is, sung by the inimitable Elly Ameling.  Schumann’s Lieder settings are more lyrical than those of Schubert.  Here is Elisabeth Schwarzkopf singing Der Nussbaum.

Robert Schumann: Träumerei

.

With composers and their pieces —and I suppose with most works of art— we sometimes want to understand the composer through the piece, especially if the composer intrigues us in some way; and other times, we try to understand the piece by learning more about the composer.

Robert Schumann is intriguing in many ways. Firstly, and most importantly, he was a literary man.  He lived at a time when the boundaries between art, music, literature and theatre were breaking down, and artists and laymen were beginning to appreciate the ways in which the various media and their traditions influenced, and inspired creativity in the others.  Germany and Austria were at the center of this awakening, and Robert Schumann was instrumental in providing opportunities for this cross-fertilization to take place.

The home of Robert and Clara Schumann was a regular gathering place for amateur and professional artists and intellectuals in Vienna, and Schumann's parlor was the location for frequent chamber concerts.  Clara Schumann was a brilliant musician, a pianist and performer in her own right, and the couple was loved by their entire circle of friends, and nurtured the talents of many young artists, most notably Johannes Brahms.

Best of all, however, is the fact that Robert Schumann was a literary man, and began publication of a journal, in which he discussed and praised the work of numerous budding artists, providing a forum for analyzing musical, literary and dramatic works from various points of view, from the new Romantic sensibility that was beginning to emerge.  So we not only have the music of Schumann with which he could be understood, we also have a large volume of musical criticism and analysis that we know was very influential in its time.

Romanticism, in its excesses, can easily degenerate into sentimentality, though the boundary between the two is by no means easy to decide, and must remain a matter of individual opinion.  One of the most difficult matters to decide is the view of childhood through the eyes of an adult.  Children —of necessity, as evolutionists assure us— are charming and delightful to adults.  In fact the young of any mammal species appear attractive and charming to all mammal species (except when we're very, very hungry, of course).

In addition to this confusing tendency of regarding kids as cute, we often remember our childhoods with affection simply because they were a carefree time, especially if we are struggling with adult existence, and if we recall our parents as being indulgent and protective.

Robert Schumann wrote a set of piano pieces called Scenes from Childhood, or Kinderscenen, which contain some of his most beloved compositions.  The best known movement is Träumerei, or Reverie.  The word "reverie" is a very adult word; when a child is having one, we call it a "daydream".  It is a state that was recognized more frequently in literature of the Romantic period than in earlier times: a state where one's thoughts are not constrained by necessity, but seem to be driven by one's subconscious, comfortable in its belief that it isn't being noticed.

Here, to get it out of the way, is a rendition of the piece transcribed for orchestra, played by the Vienna Philharmonic.  The Vienna Philharmonic has a reputation for wonderful renditions of romantic pieces:


Repeated listening to this piece leaves a strong impression of its symmetry and structure.  Almost trite in its simplicity, it is a model of structure for a short piece.  The structure, using a self-explanatory representation, is AABCA', where A is the opening idea, which is repeated, followed by variations B and C in related keys, and closing with a variant of A.

To my mind, this is by no means an artless little children's piece, when played by an orchestra.  The interweaving lines under the main melody are by no means self-effacing; they draw attention to themselves simply by trying to disappear.  In the original version for piano, the counterpoint (the technical word for the melodic aspects of the parts and how they interact) is less intrusive.  Unfortunately, I found it difficult to select a simple performance of the piano version on YouTube; every performer seemed intent on imposing an individual stamp on his or her performance.  That was very much the world that has come to stay after Robert Schumann passed away: the world of untrammeled individualism, where performers are somewhat more preoccupied with the uniqueness of their performance than the piece itself.

I thought I should look again, and this performance stood out as a good choice.  The pianist, who appears to be an Afghanistani, presents a straightforward reading, except for a little more pedal than I would like.  But pedal is unavoidable for a piece called "Reverie", where legato is essential, and a little blurring of lines is forgivable:



I have often tried to play this piece, and learned it to the point where I could play it mostly from memory (taking some liberties with the written notes, I suppose).  But I have been fascinated by the counterpoint, and I can only conjecture that others have felt the same fascination; it is almost as if it had been written for a string quartet.  Was it written at a time when Schumann was writing string quartets?  I wish I had the motivation to follow up on the subject ... perhaps I will, someday.

Most music-lovers are not tuned-in to the dimension of the interweaving melodic lines of the music; after all, we're listening for the tune carried by the topmost part, and are only aware of the other parts as harmony, and sometimes, texture.  The inner melodies are more noticeable when there is imitation: the echoing of a main melody by inner melodies.  In Träumerei, the imitation is easy to hear.  It might be easier to hear it once you have seen it.  Here is a bit of the score (the entire score is available here) :

where the imitative phrases have been colored.  The string quartet is an ensemble ideal for performing imitative, contrapuntal music.  Unfortunately, not many reputable string quartets are likely to waste their time with a piece written for the piano, and so popular.  Everybody has done it, they would say, so what's the point?  And really, from their point of view, playing Träumerei is hardly the road to immortality.

You be the judge.  Here are a few examples of the piece played by a string quartet.  This first one, actually, now that I listen to it once again, is not bad:


These fellows have transposed the piece up to BFlat (or possibly A):


Most of the others I remember from a few months ago seem to have evaporated; there is just one by a wind ensemble, though the video is too poor to really tell:



Fascinating, as Spock would say.

Finally, an arrangement for string quartet I made myself, played by the software:


Great liberties have been taken with the notes, especially a very vulgar seventh in the last section, but it seemed that the harmony needed it there, especially played on strings.  (It would have sounded terrible on a piano, I know.  Even more terrible, I suppose I should say.)

Arch

Avogadro's number

.

9 August 1776, – 9 July 1856

This might seem like an odd thing to post about, but I thought some readers might like to learn what the deal with this number was.

For years, people knew various chemicals fairly well; pure chemicals had been isolated already by the 18^th century, and by the middle of the 19^th century, most of the elements of smallest atomic number had been identified, and chemical formulas and compound names were being standardized.

For instance, potash was a substance that became well-known in medieval times, and was being used to make a precursor of soap as early as AD 500, according to Wikipedia.  It was made in two ways: first by refining wood ashes (dissolve the pure mineral from ash, filter, then evaporate the solution to produce crystals), or by mining (e.g. in Ethiopia).

Subsequently, it was discovered that the substance potash was a compound of a metal (as yet nameless), and Hydrogen, and Oxygen.  Oxygen had been identified as an element (not divisible into further elements itself), and the metal with which Hydrogen and Oxygen produced potash was called, understandably, Potassium.  (The metal was called Kalium in some languages, for which reason it is represented by the symbol K.)

The next, truly major, step in understanding Chemistry was the discovery of the Law of Constant Proportions.  People started looking into ways in which Potash and, say, vinegar (subsequently identified as pure acid) combined to completely use up both.  Don't take my word for this, but I suspect that almost exactly 60* grams of Distilled Vinegar and 100* grams of limestone would exactly combine to make a certain salt.  While the reaction was going on, as the acid was added, bubbles of CO2 would be given off.  At the precise moment when an extra drop of acid provokes no bubbling, you know that all the limestone is exactly used up.

If you doubled the amount of one reagent, say the acid, you would have to double the amount of the other reagent.  On the other hand, if you wanted to use Vinegar and Lye, for instance, you would have to use 60 grams of Vinegar, and 40* grams of Lye.

If you used 40 grams of Lye, you could exactly combine it with 36* grams of hydrochloric acid instead.  And if you wanted to use hydrochloric acid and limestone, surprise!  You have to use them in the proportion of 100 to 36.

A gentleman called Proust formulated a chemical law called the Law of Definite Proportions, which stated that a compound always consisted of the same proportion of elements.  I have used this principle by implication above.  Another law was also observed, namely that the proportions were always simple integer proportions.  This must have been astounding at the time, and not easy to spot.  Nowadays, with our more accurate scales, we might not have spotted the simple integer proportions, because of the presence of isotopes (see below).  But in the good old days, the fact that vinegar and lye always combined in the proportion of 3:2 would have been hard to ignore.

Next came the Law of Multiple Proportions.  This said that if two elements combined together in more than one way (e.g. Carbon Dioxide, and Carbon Monoxide), then the different weights of the second chemical that combined with the first chemical would be in simple integer proportion to each other.  This was put forward by John Dalton.  Dalton is recognized today as the discoverer of the atom.  Living in the present time, where the existence of atoms is no longer in doubt, it is almost impossible to put ourselves in the mindset of someone who had no idea what an atom was, and was stumbling towards the concept.  Initially, shortly after Dalton's Law was stated, it was thought that all matter consisted of Hydrogen, combined in different ways.  Nowadays we would state this principle as: All matter consists of Protons and Neutrons (and electrons, which weigh hardly anything, so who cares, anyway), which would be certainly true.  A Hydrogen atom, by weight, consists of almost 100% the Proton it contains, the electron, which it also contains, weighing practically nothing in comparison.  So, thinking of Hydrogen as just a big old Proton isn't too far wrong (at least, in terms of weight.  The charge lobby would not be amused).

These were the facts that pushed thinking towards the conclusion that there were the same number of molecules in 40 grams of Lye as there were in 100 grams of Limestone, and in 60 grams of Vinegar.  (You have to make allowance for the presence of water in the acids; the weight of the water must be adjusted for.)  It all boiled down to the following conclusion:

There are exactly the same number of molecules in 100 grams of limestone, as there are in 60 grams of Vinegar.

(Molecules, by the way, are the smallest pieces of a compound, such as hydrochloric acid.  You can split it up into Hydrogen and Chlorine, but then it would not be hydrochloric acid anymore.  Even the element Oxygen is usually found in pairs of atoms, O2, and an Oxygen atom all by itself is pretty unhappy, and soon gets into trouble.  So an Oxygen molecule can be divided up into atoms without its losing its identity, but compound molecules, once divided into their separate parts, stop being a compound, and become the constituent elements.)

Exactly how many molecules are there in 100 grams of limestone?  This is Avogadro's famous number: roughly 6.0221415 × 10²³ , which is a little more than .6 million million million millions.

Is this a universal constant?  No; it tells us more about how big a gram is than about the universe.  If the proverbial men from Mars were to talk to us about the subject, their "Avogadro's number" would depend on what units of mass they were using.

More interestingly, the question you should be asking is: why these particular numbers: 60 grams of Vinegar, 100 grams of Limestone, etc, etc?

Let's talk about Lye, which is Sodium Hydroxide: NaOH.  Physicists, using techniques that I'd find it difficult to explain, figured out exactly how many protons and neutrons were contained in an atom of Sodium.  You can look these up yourself; if you Google Sodium, you get the Wikipedia article on Sodium, which tells you that Sodium is element number 11, so it has 11 Protons in each atom.  That's what makes it Sodium; only Sodium has 11 Protons per atom, and all Sodium atoms have exactly 11 Protons.  In addition to Protons, each atom has, usually, 12 Neutrons.  (Why?  I don't know; there are usually an equal number of Protons and Neutrons, but atoms have some freedom in choosing how many neutrons they have.)  There are also 11 electrons, but they're so light that we're going to ignore them.  So the total number of Protons and Neutrons in a Sodium atom is 23**.  (A Periodic Table is a convenient display of all the elements; we're interested mostly in the top three rows.)

Oxygen is element number 8, and it therefore has 8 Protons, and usually 8 Neutrons.

Hydrogen is element number 1, and has one Proton, and no Neutrons, usually.

So if we add up all the Protons and Neutrons in an entire molecule of Lye, or Sodium Hydroxide, we get 23 + 16 + 1, which is 40.

A single molecule of Sodium Hydroxide would react with a single molecule of HCl (Hydrochloric Acid).  If each Proton and Neutron were to weigh a gram (which they certainly do not), then that would explain why matters stand as explained above.  But whatever they weigh, chemists reasoned that if you took the molecular weight in grams, the same thing would happen.  (If you took it in milligrams, the same thing would happen, too.)  Basically, you're reacting 6.022... x 10²³ molecules of one substance with an equal number of molecules of the other, and so logically, they use each other up almost exactly.  A few are sure to be left over, but the principle is the same.

Isotopes
You might have noticed a lot of hedging above: "A Sodium atom usually contains..." and so on.  A Sodium atom usually contains 12 neutrons.  A few renegade Sodium molecules, however, contain only 11 neutrons, so the overall average atomic weight of Sodium is 22.98976928... (protons or neutrons), which tells you that the vast majority of sodium atoms contain 12 neutrons.  (I can just imagine Chemists doing a phone survey of Sodium atoms: "Excuse me, but do you have a minute to answer a few questions? We're from the Chemistry Association, and we would like to know, how many neutrons do you have, sir?" Then, using standard polling techniques, they adjust for sample size ...)

A Hydrogen atom, as I said, usually has no neutrons at all.  (They probably get shaken off when the Hydrogen atom travels really fast!  Just kidding.)  But a few of them do have a proton, and a few even have two protons.  All three types of Hydrogen combine with Oxygen to make water in the usual way, and it is very hard to tell that they have extra protons.

Chlorine atoms are the most diverse.  According to Wikipedia, the most common occurrences are ³⁵Cl (75.77%), which has 17 protons 18 neutrons,  and ³⁷Cl (24.23%) which has 17 protons--of course, because the 17 protons are characteristic of Chlorine, otherwise it would be some other element--and 20 neutrons.  If you multiply 35 by 75.77% and 37 by 24.23% and add, you get the average "weight" of a Chlorine atom, namely 36.46 times the weight of a proton (or neutron).  The various different kinds of Chlorine atom are called isotopes of Chlorine, which means "in the same place".  All these atoms react like a Chlorine atom, but some of them are heavier, or denser, than others.  Similarly with Sodium and Hydrogen.

The interesting thing about Avogadro's number is that it tells us the weight of a single Proton (or Neutron).  According to Wikipedia, the weight of a Proton is 1.672621777×10⁻²⁷ kilograms.  (A Kilogram is one thousand grams.)  If you multiply the weight of one Proton by Avogadro's number, guess what you'll get?  One gram.

Arch

[*Actually, 60.1, 100.086, and 36.46 (ouch), respectively
**Actually, 22.98976928.]

The evolution of Batman symbols

There isn't any explanation; see here.

A new Tabet PC from Microsoft?

.

You can read the full story here.  Microsoft has apparently decided to produce a tablet PC that is light and slim, and has a full-sized keyboard.  It also has a large 10-plus-inch screen with, I understand, touch capability, and an operating system similar to Windows.  That seems to cover most of the objections to tablet PCs that exist.

The Ipads from Apple had little quirks that frustrated me, and probably most PC people.  They wouldn't play Flash video, for one thing, and their operating systems were very different from the PC interface I use most often.  Facebook, for instance, works very differently, so does gmail, and many other things I keep wanting to use on my wife's Ipad.  So at crunch time, I have to give up and go get my laptop.

Some of the oddness flows from the "gestures" that are a large part of touch-screen interfaces, including the interfaces of smart phones, for instance.  You slide this way and that, tap, tap and hold, and my daughter can do it, but my wife and I find it difficult.  (Newborns this year, I'm told, come with a new touch-screen gene that will help them with these interfaces.  It shows up in the ultrasounds.)

The newer Tablet PCs have fabulous resolution.  It is not (only) that they have a lot of pixels; it's more that the pixels are closer together, and give a fabulously smooth picture, just like HD tv monitors do.  Ours is a 720p, and we are blown away daily, as we watch these new Blu-Ray videos.  I can just imagine what an 1080p display would look like in our TV room.  (Actually, I can't; 720 is about as hi-resolution as I can distinguish.)

Finally, the full-sized keyboard means you can actually type your blog, for instance.  Reading mail was OK on the Ipad, but replying was a pain.  But now, the keyboard is built into the ultra-thin screen cover.  If you've seen the screen covers of the Ipad 2, you have an rough idea about how thin this thing is.  It's ironic that Apple did not introduce this feature first.  It is slick.

Mind you, I haven't held this thing in my hands; I'm only reporting what I read in the papers, to paraphrase Will Rogers.  I'm rooting for this thing.

A

The Golden Compass: Book & Movie

.

The Golden Compass (Philip Pullman), published around 1995, is the first book of a fantasy trilogy.  I read the books several years after they were published and enjoyed them thoroughly; I'm fairly certain I reviewed at least the first book in an earlier post.  The movie based on the first book was released in 2007, I read in Wikipedia, though I'm almost certain it was later!

I was surprised to read on the Web highly negative reviews of the movie.  This is often the case with a movie of a book that is greatly admired; reviewers examine the production history and every available bit of gossip about how it proceeded, and find objective excuses for their disappointment in whatever unreasonable hopes they had.  I myself have been disappointed (with the movie adaptations of favorite books), especially in instances where the movie departs from the book because the director either has not read the book, or cannot understand the book.  [A movie director friend of mine was of the opinion that movies that followed the book too closely earned lower marks with him; evidently that is the culture in Hollywood.]

"His Dark Materials," the Trilogy

The trilogy of books by Philip Pullman comprise a single continuous story, of proportions that warrant a trilogy, simply because it is so long.  (Fantasy novels are often this way, for the simple reason that the author is constructing an alternate universe in which the rules are different from ours, and must make the rules as consistent as possible, so that they're plausible.  That takes at least two books.)

[Added later (spoiler alert):

The plot of the trilogy is complex and resists summarizing. A large part of the story consists of the gradual exploration of the universe Pullman creates, in which our own is "weakly imbedded", as the topologists would say. In addition to human beings and their "souls" --and of course I, together with many of you readers, must make a valiant effort to keep reading with them haunting the pages-- there are these daemons, spirits in animal form that are paired with every human being in the World of the main character, Lyra Belaqua, a young girl of around 12, at the start of the story. The daemons of young people can change form at will, but at a certain age, they choose a particular animal form, and remain in that form throughout the life of the human. Daemons cannot move too far from their humans: a few yards at most, except in the case of Witches, whose daemons are birds (convenient for when the witch gets on her broomstick, or rather her pine branch).  When the human dies, the daemon essentially turns into vapor, and disappears.

Early in the story, a man whom Lyra thinks is her uncle (but turns out to be her father) visits Jordan College (which exists in Lyra's World's Oxford, but not in the Oxford that is familiar to us) and reveals the existence of what he calls dust, a material that is initially revealed only in photographs taken under very complicated conditions. Interestingly enough, the Magisterium (what is, in Lyra's World, the entity that would be The Church in our own world, or more exactly, the Catholic Church) violently disapproves of the interest in, and study of, dust, and even mention of the term is considered heretical.

The first book is concerned with an experiment by an organization within the Catholic Church to try to systematically sever the psychic link between children and their daemons. In the apparatus they develop, the child and the daemon are enclosed in two metal cages, with their link presumably invisibly stretched between them, and a special guillotine-like cleaver, energized by an enormous electric charge, slices between the two cages. The child is left a mindless wreck, and the daemon vanishes. (Ordinarily, if the daemon is mortally hurt, the child dies.)

The experimental group (the Oblation Board) is looking for test subjects, and employ thugs to abduct orphan kids and their daemons from everywhere, including the streets of Oxford, to transport to a facility within the Arctic Circle, at which the experimental procedure is to be performed. Unfortunately for them, they abduct a gypsy boy called Roger whom Lyra has befriended.

Lyra learns about dust and sees a photograph of a man surrounded by dust, prevents her "uncle" (her father) Lord Asriel from being poisoned by a cleric who wants to stop him from experimenting with dust, and meets the wonderful and charming Mrs Coulter, a friend and benefactor of the Magisterium, all at about the same time. At this time also, Lyra is quietly given a fabulous piece of equipment called The Golden Compass by one of the professors of Jordan College, shortly before Mrs Coulter persuades Lyra to spend a week in her home, and reveals that she is in fact Lyra's mother. It is soon clear that Mrs Coulter wants the Golden Compass.

The Golden Compass, also called an Alethiometer, is a mysterious device that answers any question truthfully. The user controls three fixed arms, like the arms of a clock, and frames the question by pointing them at any three of 36 different symbolic images on the dial. A fourth arm then begins to move in sequence to certain of those same images, and this sequence is the answer. Obviously, both framing the question in terms of the symbols, and interpreting the answer takes considerable skill, but Lyra miraculously discovers that she has an intuitive skill for it.

Returning to her room one night, she finds the Alethiometer gone, and immediately realizes that Mrs Coulter has stolen it. She steals it back, and she and her daemon escape from the house, and narrowly miss capture by the thugs of the Oblation Board (called Gobblers), with the help of Roger's gypsy family. The Alethiometer tells Lyra and the gypsies to travel to the far north, which they do, and attempt to rescue Roger.  In the process, Lyra encounters several of the most important protagonists in the entire trilogy:

Lee Scoresby, a "cowboy" from Texas, who is a balloonist, or Aeronaut.

Serafina Pekkala, the queen of a tribe of Witches.  Witches are long-lived women, with magic.

Iorek Byrnison, an armored bear.  This tribe of polar bears have learned how to work metal, and have the gift of speech.

In the second book, Lyra meets a young boy named Will, in "our" World, or the closest thing to our normal universe that exists in the universe of the trilogy.  Will and Lyra, initially suspicious of each other, eventually team up to find Will's father, whom he has never met, at the direction of the Alethiometer.  The latter also introduces them to Mary, a research physicist in Will's world who happens to be interested in a particular variety of Dark Matter called shadow particles, which Lyra and Mary agree must be a manifestation of Dust.  Mary can "see" dark matter by means of hooking a subject into a specially-programmed computer. Her dark matter particles are actually attracted to conscious subjects, and are completely uninterested in inanimate things, unless they have been worked on by people.  Lyra exclaims that dust behaves the same way. Lyra volunteers to be hooked up to the computer, and Mary is stunned by the fact that shadow particles completely cover Lyra from head to toe.

Lyra and Will are given a knife, called the Subtle Knife, which can open up windows from one World into another, and the second book is one of exploration, in which the young duo finally encounter Will's father, who turns out to be the same explorer whose photograph revealed Dust for the first time.  Mary is hounded out of Oxford, and takes refuge in another World, but Will's father and Lee Scoresby are killed in a fight with troops of the Magisterium. Finally, Mrs Coulter turns up in the world to which the duo retreats to hide, and abducts Lyra.

In the third book, a great showdown is building up between Lord Asriel on one side, and The Authority (i.e. god, but not in so many words) and his Angels on the other, with The Magisterium fighting mostly on the side of the Authority, but generally to its own advantage.  Mrs Coulter has returned to her own (and Lyra's) world, but high in the Himalayas. She keeps Lyra drugged and asleep, because, she says later, Lyra would otherwise have left her protection. 

Mary finds herself in a World populated by sentient beings, with speech, but who look quite unlike humans, with fore-and aft limbs to which they affix wheels, and by means of which they move about like bicycles. They take Mary in, teach her their language, and among them Mary discovers a certain material with which she builds herself something like a telescope, which actually makes dust visible to the naked eye. She studies the dust in the world around her, and finds it clustered around the elephant-people who have befriended her, and also in the wheels they wear, which are the seed-pods of enormous trees.

Will follows Lyra to her world, carrying the Alethiometer she has left behind. He had met his father just before the latter dies. Will also meets Iorek Byrnison, who has decided to help Lyra in the great war that is imminent, though, as he says, the wars of humans are not relevant to him. Together they are able to rescue Lyra from her mother.

Lyra, while she was drugged, has seen Roger in a dream. Roger is in the land of the Dead, having been killed in an accident. He asks Lyra to rescue him, and she promises that she will. Will, too, is frustrated at having been unable to ask his father certain questions. Together they decide to look for the World of the Dead, which is just another world into which Will can cut a window, and then cut a window out of, to escape. It turns out that entering the world of the dead is not so simple; among other things, Lyra has to be parted from her daemon, Pan, which is excruciatingly painful for her, and Will is also in pain, though he does not have a daemon. 

There are numerous adventures, some of them involving Angels on both sides of the war, and miraculous weapons, and stunning betrayals and counter-betrayals by Mrs Coulter, and great sacrifices by unexpected characters. Lyra and Will grow up, and their unshakable friendship turns into love, and Will discovers that he does indeed have a daemon.  There are spies and counterspies, and an assassin, provided with a sort of before-the-fact absolution. At last, the trilogy is brought to a close with a sort of epilogue that is both as satisfactory and as unsatisfactory as those of the Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter.]

One of the hypotheses of the story is the belief that The Authority (used synonymously with "God") did not create everything, but that the Church teaches that he did, possibly out of ignorance.  Angels appear in the story, and explain things at various stages to the human characters.  There are also witches, and talking bears.  The closest thing to "our" world is just one of innumerable parallel worlds, between which the main protagonists are able to move by means of rifts in the separating fabric between one world and another.  The main character, a young teenager called Lyra, meets up with a boy from ("our") world, Will, and together gain possession of a special knife that is able to cut an opening in the air, so that the young pair are able to look into another world, and climb through into it.

The so-called Magisterium, a barely disguised proxy for the Catholic Church, is depicted as evil and deceitful.  It is easy to see why --even if it is surprising-- there is such a large number of modern pieces of fiction that depict the Catholic church, or at least a proxy for it, as evil: the Church has resorted to actions that are evil simply for the purpose of controlling its members and for self-preservation.  But of course an organization cannot do that, and still pretend to be the moral authority, even if it is argued that the evil --or wrongdoing, if you prefer-- is done by particular individuals within the Church, without the endorsement of the Church itself.  Pullman, however, convinces the reader that the Magisterium is evil in intention, and not just by accident.

The three books are a thoroughly enjoyable read, even if one is startled by the turns in the story that seem to reveal a little more of Mr Pullman's system of beliefs than he must like to do-- certainly more than we see of J. K. Rowling's system of beliefs, for instance.  Or perhaps I'm being naive; my suspicions of where stories come from are probably laughably simple-minded.

One of the main characters is a woman who turns out to be Lyra's mother, referred to as Mrs Coulter for most of the three books.  (We learn her name, Marissa, somewhere in the middle.)  She is depicted as intense, deceitful, egotistical and manipulative, but she is portrayed by Nicole Kidman also as very self-conscious and urbane, and somehow grates on my sensibilities.  (This is a problem when a character makes such an enormous impression on a reader that no actor or actress can do it justice.)  In the book, Lyra is a feisty young girl who is a fluent liar, able to dominate the street urchins with whom she plays in the alternate "Oxford University" by her wits and quick tongue.  She is also painfully earnest (even if not in her speech), something that one does not see in the movie.  The young actress, newcomer Dakota Blue Richards, certainly manages the air of a confident liar very well, but I failed to see the earnest, intense passion that fills the Lyra of the book.  What we need is the intensity of Jody Foster with the slickness of young Dakota.

There are other problems.  In the world of Lyra's Oxford, every human has a daemon, an animal-shaped being who can change shape almost at will, who is linked to his or her human with a psychic 'cord', and with whom it can communicate mentally.  Lyra's daemon is Pantalaimon (Pan), and to some extent the daemon is a sort of alter ego, and the conversations between human and daemon illustrate, to some degree, the dividedness within anyone, which often comes through at a time of stress.  In almost every case, the daemon's character is a representation of an aspect of the human's character.  Lyra's daemon is loyal, fearful, curious, suspicious, except that it does not lie.  So we are led to feel that Lyra's lying is a matter of entertainment, or expediency, not true deceitfulness.

In contrast, to my puzzlement, Marissa Coulter's daemon is a monkey whose signature characteristic is casual cruelty, such as tearing off the wings of flying creatures: bats, insects, etc.  To represent Marissa Coulter as a creature of casual cruelty does not make much sense.  At any rate, an adult should (at least for the sake of consistency) have a degree of control over the behaviour of his or her daemon.  It does not seem reasonable that a character of such elegance as Mrs Coulter should have her daemon reveal her suppressed tendency for mindless cruelty.  But the cruel monkey continues to be consistently cruel throughout the three books, a vicious bully of a monkey, bullying generally the daemons of those whom Mrs Coulter has in her control, or wishes to control.  But my readers are of course welcome to read the books for themselves, and come to their own conclusions as to whether the monkey daemon makes dramatic sense, or whether Mr Pullman has stretched the plausibility of his character development in order to gain a useful tool for his plot.

The books, the Dark Materials Trilogy, is close to being a must-read.  I hesitate to endorse the movie The Dark Compass as a must-watch, though it is very entertaining indeed.  In spite of my reservations, Nicole Kidman turns in a fabulous performance, as does Dakota Blue Richards.  Ian McKellan lends his voice to the Armored Bear, Iorek Byrnison, and Sam Elliot makes a fabulous Lee Scoresby, a rather formulaic Cowboy.  (Sam Elliot can't avoid being a stereotype, because that's how the character has been written.  I rather suspect that Mr Pullman imagined Sam E. while writing the character in.)  Serafina Pekkala, the queen of the witches, is ably portrayed by Eva Green, even if my mental image was very different, and finally Daniel Craig creates the part of Lord Asriel, also just as much of a stereotype as the cowboy, really.  One gets the impression that Philip Pullman was overwhelmed by a number of personalities while at Oxford, and they have found their way into his work, and he views them mostly from the outside.  In contrast, the character of Mrs Coulter is written with genuine insight, which it would seem is hard for a man to do with a female character.  But Mrs Coulter is much less of a real character than either Serafina Pekkala, or Mary Malone, who comes along in the second book.

Arch

Ham and Avocado Sandwich!

.

OK, the next time I make myself some of these, I will take a picture and post it here.  For the moment you're going to have to use your imagination.  But I will help just a little.

By the way, this is not a fancy sandwich using French Bread and stuff like that, but you can make your own obvious variations; I'll make a few suggestions at the end.  This is the simplest, simplest --did I mention simplest?  Well, it is-- sandwich you could ever make.  Because we substitute avocado for cheese, I believe that it has fewer calories, and those few are healthy ones, than if you used cheese.  I strongly advise against using both cheese and avocado.  Here we go:

1 avocado, moderately ripe.  (Between $1 and $3, depending on where you live.)

3 slices of what we call carved ham over here;

they're irregular shaped slices of baked ham, with most of the fat carved out.

A teaspoonful (or less) of Dijon mustard.

Shake the bottle well before you take the mustard out.  We want it pasty, not runny.

2 slices of Oat bread.

Wegman's makes a vicious good oat bread; they might call it oatmeal bread in your part of the world.

A dash of cayenne, or white pepper.

Don't overdo the seasoning, or you'll cover up the taste of the ham and the avocado.

1.  Take out the pit of the avocado.  (Make a meridial cut all the way round the avocado, just deep enough so the knife just touches the pit.  Twist the two halves of the avocado in opposite directions and pull apart.  Remove the pit and discard.  You might have to use a spoon to pry it out, in which case the avocado isn't quite ripe enough; still, the sandwich will work, actually quite well.)

2.  Lay both halves of the avocado cut side down, and slice through them, skin and all, making thin slices; about a quarter of an inch thick, or maybe a bit thicker.  (Use a serrated knife, e.g. a bread knife.  Wash it afterwards; nobody will be any the wiser that you abused the bread knife.  Peel off the skin; any overripe discolored bits of avocado will stay with the skin, usually.  Keep just the good parts.)

3.  Toast the bread.  (This helps keep the sandwich from getting too soggy.)  Just until slightly scorched; don't burn it.

4.  Spread the mustard on one piece of toast, and lay the three slices of ham on it, and season very lightly.  Arrange the avocado slices to cover the other slice of toast; there should only be about a third of the avocado left.

5.  Put the sandwich together, slice diagonally, and eat.  This one is not for sharing; it's too delicious :)

Variations:

The obvious one is a slice of bacon, fried until just crisp, and cut in half.  This would make the sandwich unhealthy, and completely submerge the delicate tastes of avocado and ham.  Not recommended.

Watercress, to provide a little crunch.

A thin slice of tomato, not too juicy.  Too much juice will make the thing fall apart, and you'll be sorry.

If you absolutely must, a ring or two of hot peppers, with the oil or vinegar carefully drained off.

Enjoy!

Election 2012: Mitt Romney versus Barack Obama

.

It’s very difficult to say anything intelligent about the upcoming election: incumbent Obama versus Mitt Romney. Since the courts and Congress have, between them, decided that financial contributions by various sources should not be restricted —which really means that the two major parties have decided that they cannot operate without very large sums of money (which, incidentally, is the reason that lobbyists are still welcome in Washington)— it is difficult to predict anything.

Romney vs. Obama: Pros and Cons
If Obama were to win a second term —which is very possible, in my humble opinion, not based on anything but hunches— it is going to be difficult for everybody. If the Republicans retain a majority in the House, and the Democrats a slim majority in the Senate, no progressive legislation will be passed. The Republicans will put the brakes on any useful Presidential appointees, be it judges or heads of federal divisions of government.

This is partly the fault of the Democrat base.  It has been ineffective in the extreme at supporting the legislation that was passed, and in arguing why the various provisions in it are good for workers and the Middle Class in the long run.  This is especially true of Health Care legislation.

The President can use the veto, and try to persuade the people that various courses of action should be taken, but the conservative spin doctors can always twist things around to make it appear that the so-called Liberal Agenda is the source of all ills of the past several decades. (This is not an entirely vacuous accusation, because I suspect that Democrats as well as Republicans must be blamed for Wall Street Deregulation and the Real Estate crisis, which caused the economic depression of 2009. At least a few of the banks and investment houses that were to blame supported the Democratic Party.)

If, on the other hand, the Democrats win a large majority in one or both houses, if progressive legislation is passed, there will be an enormous hue and cry, followed by massive defeats in the next election (2014), and immediate repeals of the progressive legislation. I predict that President Obama will actually slow down any progressive legislation, to ensure that there is as much bipartisan support from the people, not merely from the representatives. But, as we have seen, the minority conservatives are adept at mobilizing to sway public opinion against the interests of the majority. Someone has said that as soon as people realize that they have the power to vote massive benefits for themselves, Democracy is doomed. But, honestly, are liberals trying to vote massive benefits for themselves? Are Republicans sincere in their accusation that this is what is going on? Most of them actually are. There are bumper stickers that read: “Work harder; there are unemployed people who need your money.” The idea is that Democrats, and liberals generally, are eager to take away the incentive to obtain employment. Why work, if you can get indefinite unemployment benefits?

Certainly, it makes sense for the rules to be tightened up, so that the destitute continue to receive unemployment benefits, while those who are not destitute do not. The idea is to provide a safety-net for the lowest rung of the economic ladder, and not necessarily to keep the middle-class in hard times in the style to which it is accustomed. But a quick look at the style to which the Investor Class is accustomed quickly suggests that these quibbles are academic. (By Investor Class I mean those whose principal income is through investments.) But they [the quibbles] are not academic. We cannot expect the people as a whole to sign on to the idea of a social safety-net if it is perceived to be abused by anyone. Both ends of the argument must be addressed: even members of the Investor Class must be taxed at the same rate as the rest of us: up to 30%, rather than the mere 15% at which they are taxed presently, and we must take seriously the drain on public funds represented by abuses of the welfare system.

But I digress. The point is that poverty cannot simply be legislated away. We can all get behind federal programs of the sort that benefit the most disadvantaged members of our society. We can all get behind federal programs that benefit everyone equally, if the government can accomplish those things more efficiently, even given the government’s —only partly deserved, I might add— reputation for being completely and totally inept at providing services of any sort. But the popular mood is against unrestrained growth of government, and has been since 1980. We certainly must guard against indiscriminate hacking away at programs that have been proven to be useful. But nobody wants unrestrained growth of government.

If Mitt Romney is to become President, it is difficult to see what will happen. I believe he will be hard put to satisfy everything that every Republican, Tea Partyer and Libertarian demands. We can anticipate that his first priority will be to push for changes in the laws that would benefit the businesses and corporations that funded his campaign, namely repeal some taxes and lower others; remove regulations that make it harder for businesses to hire and fire whom they want, e.g. equal opportunity laws. Remove funding from public schools in favor of private schools; drain money away from public housing projects, and do away with HUD, which is reputed to be a hotbed of corruption in the first place. More insidious possibilities are that the arms industry will be encouraged to gear up, and that foreign policy will become more conducive to interventionism. I personally don’t believe that Romney supports the Neo-Conservatives as much as the Bushes did, but Republican presidents, generally, have been sensitive to accusations of being soft on foreign policy.

Honestly, it is difficult to know what Romney will do; it is amusing to realize that the Republicans don’t know, either. If you think you’re puzzled by being unable to anticipate how Obama would act, it’s nothing like how impossible it is to predict Romney. This is not because he is a highly intelligent, cautious man, as President Obama is. It is because Romney is attentive to his advisers, who are all over the place, ideologically. Still, I don’t believe that major decisions that affect the larger population adversely are likely to be taken immediately; that would turn the rank-and-file Tea Partyers against him immediately. On the other hand, taxes might be cut all up and down the spectrum, a sop to the poorer sectors of the population, which would deplete the coffers of the government, and of course Obama would be blamed for handing over a terrible economy and an enormous deficit.

The Iraq War was fought in part by mercenaries: the private security forces that were responsible for some of the more violent violations of the codes of war. One can only imagine the practices that could emerge in future wars in which a Republican president might lead the country. But perhaps I worry about these things unfairly; wartime misconduct is probably equally shared between presidents of both major parties. Not all these things come to light.

How to fight the next election 
The Media (which benefits most from an election year) is eager to present the election of 2012 as being fought by massive fundraising, and the election committees of the two main candidates are powerless to combat this representation. Let’s not worry about what the Republicans are up against; the situation is mostly (but not entirely) their own fault. But as far as the Democrats and Obama are concerned, it simply means that the Republicans (and the enormous PACs that support them) are going to air horribly vicious advertisements vilifying all things Democrat and all things Liberal, especially President Obama.

I personally feel that it is mostly a waste of time to fight on-air viciousness with more viciousness. Certainly there must be sufficiently many on-air Democrat advertisements that calmly and seriously combat these ads without following them into offensive territory. This is important for the sake of those viewers and listeners who are isolated from the Democrat network, and who are easily put into a state of consternation if the accusations go unanswered. But it seems to me that the Democrats, and liberals of all sorts, must go on the assumption that a liberal (or moderate) majority exists, and simply needs to refuse to be intimidated, and needs to go to the polls in November. If the national Democrats organize a huge media blitz for the days leading up to the election, that’s their business, I suppose. But I think it is crazy to try to raise more money than the Republicans claim to have raised; this works wonderfully to intimidate the opposition, but is more conducive to providing Media with extra revenue far more than it is conducive to winning the election.

The time to worry about new laws about getting registered and providing acceptable identification is now, and not at poll time!  We must be ready far in advance of the need, and must not resort to whining about stringent identification procedures, since, after all, we must win the election with real voters, rather than fictitious ones.  Rather than aggressive phone calling programs, our time is better spent assisting poor Democrats (and even poor Republicans) and those without family resources to obtain legitimate and acceptable Identification.

Most importantly, a president must be elected whom the majority wants. If Obama is elected by the fact that a minority persuaded everyone else to unwillingly grant him a second term, both Obama and the Democrats who worked for his election will be responsible if his hard work is subverted by the Republicans over the next four years. Remember that conservatives have been far more effective in the recent past at portraying any gains made by the Obama administration in a horribly negative light than the Democrats have been able to show these gains as gains, in the first place. Either we’re completely inept at persuading anyone, or everyone other than ourselves are idiots, and incapable of listening to logic. This is not going to change in a hurry.

Congress 
The same is true for members of congress. The last thing we need is to elect a bunch of moderates who can barely subscribe to the Democrat platform. The first thing that will happen at the slightest hint of progressive legislation is that they will turn tail and run, leaving the House (and state houses) in turmoil. Despite the fact that ideologically the Democrat Party seems to have spread wide, attracting many moderate Republicans, it has managed to remain largely unified. Within the Democrat ranks there is nothing like the dissension there is within the “uneasy coalition” that Buckley forged for the GOP in the Eighties, of Right-To-Lifers, the Gun Lobby, and the Christian Right (and of course, let’s not forget, the neo-Nazis). Still, it seems prudent to put forward for election only Democrats who have the stomach to stand behind a progressive platform.

There is something to be said for intelligent amateurs as representatives. Political insiders are a frightening bunch, too comfortable with polls, lobbies, wheeling and dealing, and disinformation. Some of the people I trust the least are those who were Political Science majors in college. What is their angle? I could rarely tell.

So keep the faith, and refuse to be intimidated by lots of dollars. This is an election that I feel certain the less affluent can win, if they just don’t chicken out.

Arch

Another Movie: The Imaginarium

.

I entirely forgot to mention in my previous post The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, a 2009 movie directed by Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame.  We sent out for this having seen an advertisement somewhere.

Terry Gilliam has mastered the genre of film, and you can depend on being kept off balance throughout one of his efforts.  The Holy Grail was one of the easiest to follow and enjoy (and was mostly directed by a team consisting of Ian McNaughton and Terry Jones, I believe, though Gilliam's stamp seems to be everywhere in the film), and a close second was The Life of Brian, in whose production I'm sure Gilliam played a role.  But of his movies that I've seen, the most characteristically his are, in my opinion, The Time Bandits, and The Meaning of Life, and Baron Munchausen (the adventures of).

The montage at right consists of scenes from, respectively, The Imaginarium, The Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life, and Baron Munchausen.

The Imaginarium is an interesting movie.  We gradually learn that the ancient Doctor Parnassus was originally a monk from an Asian monastery, who makes a bet with the Devil, which he wins.  He gets immortal life, and then proceeds to make another series of bets, each of which is tagged onto the next, so that if he wins the last one, he wins them all.

Unfortunately, the last bet is placed on Parnassus's daughter, whom he dotes on, and it looks as though the Devil is about to win.

With the power of the Devil, the immortal Parnassus has a traveling magic show which, though on the face of it is simply juggling and sleight-of-hand, is the front to a truly magical experience.  A customer can choose to enter the Imaginarium through a flexible door made of reflective sheets, mounted in a frame on Parnassus's traveling stage.  But once the customer passes inside, he or she enters a space which is inside Parnassus's mind.  Most of what is experienced by the customer is generated by the customer's imagination, interacting with Parnassus's mind, powered, of course, by the Devil.  Parnassus's helpers sometimes find themselves inside the Imaginarium's magical space, either as protagonists, or as passive actors.  There are a lot of blanks to fill.  With so much chaos in the so-called conceits of the story, it is a miracle that enough logic survives for us to believe that there is any cause-and-effect.  The conclusion is satisfying.  The Devil (spoiler alert) turns out to be a good sport, which should stick in the craw of most devout Christians, ha ha.

The movie is worth watching even if just to experience the wonderful performances of Heath Ledger, Lily Cole (the famous model, who turns out to be a wonderful actress), Christopher Plummer, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and a number of other less well-known actors.

The story is based on the Faust myth, but has sufficiently many new wrinkles to make it a delightful new entry in the Faust myth genre.

Arch

A Few Movies we've been Watching

.

Firstly, we watched Despicable Me again.  (We were given a gift of a Blu-Ray TV by one of our daughters, and we've been sending out for Blu-Ray versions of movies from Netflix.  At the moment, I have to say, most of the movies released on Blu-Ray are in almost startlingly enhanced resolution.  They can't do as much with movies restored from film, like Sound of Music, though even those look better, from a moderate distance.)

This is a great movie, and I hope it survives to enchant folks for many years.  The animation is awesome, just like that of The Incredibles, as is the characterization.  Sometimes cartoons are mere pale echoes of common stereotypes, but these two movies have pushed the envelope; they are not so much stereotypes but cartoons of achetypes.  Or at least archetypes of personalities commonly found in the last several decades: neurotic, confused, bewildered, but stubborn.  Going back to the characters of Despicable Me, notice how true the three children are to life.  The two oldest have that suspicious glare that one finds so much in any suburban family.  They're not ground down by orphanage living, as they should have been, but still, realism isn't that important in a cartoon.  We can recognize the types, even if they're out of place.  The oldest girl remains suspicious the longest, but recognizes the nature of their caregiver the soonest.  She is the most bitter about their abandonment.  The youngest has the sunniest, most forgiving nature, as the youngest in most families tends to have.  The middle girl --Edith, I think is her name-- is the most cartoon-like, but is still a recognizable character, and I can't even begin to describe her.  I knew a number of kids who stubbornly clung to some article of clothing which they used to declare their distinctiveness.  A bold stroke for a loud personality, to hide a more subtle human being underneath the cartoon exterior.  The villains are, of course, a study, all three of them.  And the minions provide a lovely (very German, I thought) bubbly counterpoint to the rest of the personalities.

Quite by accident, we picked up the new Muppet movie: The Muppets 2011, starring Jason Segal and Amy Adams.  This was just the second movie I have seen with Amy Adams --the first one was Julie & Julia, a confusing combination of brilliant and disappointing-- and I was immediately captivated.  Simply put, this very successful production can be described as Pee Wee Herman meets The Blues Brothers, though the genius of the Muppets, and Jason Segal's sly humor elevates it above the typical entries in the "Let's restore the old theater" genre (of which one entry is Xanadu, starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly, of all people).  Incidentally, Blues Brothers 2000 was an awesome movie.

It was amusing to read that in certain quarters, the story of The Muppets is being viewed as a possible instance of liberal propaganda!  (Big bad Texas Oil Man attempts to steal the Muppets' theater.)  A decade ago, such a plot line would have been immediately accepted as formulaic in the extreme.  But, or course, Big Businessmen have been chafing under this stigma for years, and finally feel that they can protest at being labeled the villains in every movie.  What's happening?  Big Business wants to come out of the closet?  Well, they aspire to Personhood, so the next step is to have raping and pillaging accepted as legitimate pursuits by the common people, and then they can look at the possibility of marrying.  If gays can marry, why not Big Businesses?  Oops ... they already do, don't they!!

Oddly enough, we noticed a discounted copy of Juno, a movie I've wanted to see for a long time.  I absolutely loved it!  I was initially put off by the oddball folk-type music with the goofy lyrics, which were probably intended to give us an inkling of the complex mental state that Juno is in at various points in the movie.  God knows that the mental state of an intelligent, passionate teenager who gets pregnant must be sufficiently complex for the audience to need some guidance.

The interesting thing is that it is possible to make a movie without absolutely nailing Juno's mental state, and quite honestly, it might not be desirable to nail it.  A large number of movies in the last decade or two have kept a healthy vagueness about the mental states of the protagonists; American Beauty, and Napoleon Dynamite come to mind.  (Another example is the Indie movie The Last Word, directed by Geoffrey Haley.)  The important thing is to alert the audience to the turmoil taking place, and at least narrow it down to some degree.  To leave it completely in the air is a cheat, to my mind.  It was equally interesting that the mental state of Mark Loring (Jason Bateman) can only be studied through Juno's eyes, which are essentially oblivious to what's going on in Mark's head.  To the credit of the Mark Loring character, he quickly bounces back from Juno's rejection, and we're never quite sure whether he entertained any hopes of continuing a relationship with her.  Some men will find the idea laughable, while others will immediately assume that he had designs on her; they could all be right, but to settle the matter would have detracted from the real drama, which was about Juno.

My wife was incredulous about the implausibly snappy dialogue.  Do teenagers of today (or at least the nineties -- it seemed very much as though the story was set in the nineties, not that it matters ) talk like that?  I have to confess that I know at least a few teenagers that did.  It certainly is different to have dialogue that wild presented in a movie; it's almost axiomatic that a movie audience must never be made to feel inferior or outclassed.  In the present case, however much Juno reveals that she is the razor-sharp cynic, we're comforted by the fact that she's the one who got knocked up, and we would never find ourselves in her situation, ha ha.  She can talk the talk, but she has to waddle the walk.

One of my favorite characters was Leah, Juno's Job's-Comforter of a friend.  She gave the movie just that perfect touch.  It might have been Diablo Cody's snazzy writing, or it might have been Olivia Thirlby's beautifully understated acting, but it worked perfectly.  It almost hurts to have to wait a decade to (possibly) see what mischief Juno and Bleek would get up to as adults!  Ellen Page and her "parents" were fantastic, and I fully appreciated the way they were represented as completely accepting of Juno's pregnancy.  [Disclaimer: one of the most troublesome things about the liberal 'platform' as it exists now to me is the axiom that we endorse choice, sometimes taken to mean that we embrace free sex for adolescents.  No matter what solution is adopted when there is a teenage pregnancy, most parties are losers.  Making abortion freely available is not a solution, it is the least horrible alternative in some cases, but making it less freely available is even more horrible.  Perhaps some day, if we become a more ideal society, the pain that accompanies unwanted pregnancy will be a lot less.]

Finally (at least for this post), we watched Men in Black.  I had stayed away from it assuming that it would be just another smash-em-up thriller.  Actually, it was very funny, thanks in no small part to the wonderful comedic acting of Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, and, not least, Rip Torn.  A fabulous cameo appearance from Tony Shalhoub was hilarious; I nominate him for Comedy Heaven immediately.  Linda Fiorentino is a wonderful new comedic actress, and I'm going to stay tuned for her work with great interest.

Arch