I’m Against It
I apologize for importuning you lately with my odd musical tastes. This has been done to make trials here of materials for a Music Appreciation blog for the school where I teach. Knowing that politics trumps polyphony, and that several of you have been disturbed over the years by my seeming to be a wussy Northeast liberal, I thought I’d try my hand at something purely political.
As I say, people frequently take offense when they discover I am not strong in party-feeling or love of faction. I tell such persons, if they must know which side I adhere to, they ought consult Addison:
The Spectator.
No. 117. Saturday, July 14, 1711.… Ipsi sibi somnia fingunt.
—Virg.There are some Opinions in which a Man should stand Neuter, without engaging his Assent to one side or the other. Such a hovering Faith as this, which refuses to settle upon any Determination, is absolutely necessary to a Mind that is careful to avoid Errors and Prepossessions. When the Arguments press equally on both sides in Matters that are indifferent to us, the safest Method is to give up our selves to neither.
This principle lies close to the foundation of my opinions. Further, Marx gives stronger standards for the practical conduct of life in the modern world that I have adopted as my own:
Open Thread, 2013.02.11 Edition
In which one can discuss Chris Dorner, healthcare laws, football and all the other mental effluvia that people acquire.
Singing In A Blizzard
If you’re in New York, and want to hear some beautiful singing to cheer yourself despite the weather this weekend, you could do worse than go listen to the boys of St. Paul’s Choir School from Cambridge Mass. They will be riding out the blizzard in what we hope will be a less snowy Big Apple. Here is the schedule:
• Mass at St. Ignatius Loyola at 5:30 on Saturday 9th.
• Mass at 12:00 and concert at 1:30 at St. Catherine of Sienna on Sunday 10th.
• A (short) concert at 4:00 in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Monday 11th.
My son is a graduate of the School, and I teach recorder there. It’s the only boys’ Catholic choir school in the U.S., and will be celebrating its 50th anniversary next year. Having been around the School for seven years now, I’m still thrilled every day to hear these boys sing. They’re conducted by John Robinson, the young and very able new Music Director, who came to “our” Cambridge from Canterbury Cathedral in the U.K. three years ago.
And here is a sample of the Choir chanting the Introit, Si Iniquitates. They, of course, do a wide variety of other music. If you’re Catholic and appreciate this, please don’t be jealous when I tell you the Choir chants a Latin Introit for the 11:00 Mass at St. Paul’s every appropriate Sunday during the school year.
1672: Sonatae tam aris, quam aulis servientes.
As someone who is perpetually offended the current date doesn’t include the year, “16–,” I thought I’d share something from that grand siècle, albeit from the other side of the Rhine—all the way to Salzburg, Austria, in fact—from one of my favorite composers, Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. Pronounced the same as, but no relation to, Justin, they each in their own way sprout too much hair. Our Biber was Mozart’s predecessor by 100 years at the Archiepiscopal court of Salzburg.
The musical world changed a lot from the highly symbolic, rhetorical language of Biber, always ready to proclaim a metaphysical truth with wood and catgut and hand-beaten brass, to the smooth blandishments of Mozart’s Enlightenment, slightly embarrassed by devotion to the Rosary and tuning systems that spoke of Original Sin.
The performance here is on wood, catgut and beaten brass —on instruments of Biber’s day. No valves need apply to this trumpet-playing, only the notes Nature put into 8 feet of hand-rolled brass tube. No chin rests or metal-wound strings for the fiddles, either—woven, Catline strings and bows that curve out are the noisemakers. All this helps a musician feel God’s presence in the plain materials that sprang, with some human art, from their native soil of Europe. You needn’t devote yourself to the Vedas and move to the banks of the Ganges to become spiritual. Something like that has always been possible, even in unfashionable places where people in periwigs wrote music for the Archbishop’s trumpeters to play.
On the road to….
I just thought I’d put a post to thank you to all the people who’ve been supportive to me through a really, really rough time of my life, starting with our bloggeress. I’m going to try and keep connected as best I can until I get settled in a semi permanent way, where, like MacArthur, I will return.
Never forget how grateful and appreciative I am to you all, and some of you, even more intensely.
A Coming Anniversary
Several things, musical and otherwise, have lately reminded me of the city of Dresden. I know it’s early, but it is getting close enough to the 68th anniversary of the firebombing of that city on 13-15 February, 1945. So, I thought I’d cheer the blog a bit with these observations.
The bombing remains a hugely controversial event. I was reminded of that by mentioning it on the Althouse blog a few years ago, which got me into a flame war of my own. At the time, I commented it was a shame “lovely, Baroque Dresden” had been wrecked in The War (as us Boomers learned to refer to it: The War). I don’t know what led me to write something like that, except pure obliviousness. The words, “lovely, Baroque” set off a nutcase commenter, who, not having been anywhere near the military himself, never met a bomb he didn’t like. Things quickly turned ugly. What did I expect?
The world remains divided between those who think bombing Dresden was a War Crime, essentially because Anglo-Saxon Capitalists did it, and those who think it was totally justified, again, because brave, Anglo-Saxon Warriors did it, serving those awful Huns right for the Blitz. Mix Soviet Marxist-Lenninism and German nationalism in the caldron, and you have a witches’ brew that has poisoned any hint of dispassion on the subject since it happened. Some say 250,000 perished, others, a mere 25,000. For my own part, I am extremely sad the Silbermann organ in the Frauenkirche was destroyed (along with the rest of that edifice). I could go on and on about the burnt symbols of Christian Civilization, and what they mean, yada, yada. Others might be more upset about the poor circus horses, fresh off a performance with flaming costumes on their backs, running terrified through the exploding streets. Burn the damn place down in 45 minutes during a random evening in February, and it does make for gripping stories.
And then there are the more exotic appreciations of the event, such as that of the habitual Althouse commenter who, as an artist, seems to have viewed it with a Brutalist sensibility. The drone of the bombers, the burning Zwinger, the collapsing Frauenkirche, the scream of people trying to escape the flames in “lovely Baroque” fountains while boiling to death, the terrified horses and the exploding circus, why, all this was a Gesamtkunstwerk beyond imagining, and the greatest thing the Anglo-American Air Forces ever did. At least that’s the logical conclusion I drew from his remarks. We all know the internet is full of such people.
I also should mention Kurt Vonnegut, another artist, albeit a much better literary one. You ought to read him. He really put this event in front of Americans. But I wouldn’t dream of telling you what to think, as I am not selling any particular normative take on this (or hardly anything else), nor do I want to be a literary critic. Vonnegut did unhinge Dresden from time in the course of Slaughterhouse Five, but that was a device dreamt up after the fact for the story. It was a made-up, literary unhinging. The picture that’s the subject of this post is made-up as well, but it was made-up well before the event, and so qualifies as that rare and deeper thing than literature: genuine prophecy. Prophecy, by definition, disjoints time—strikingly, if it’s good enough. I think this is damn good.
So, here’s the painting, done in a kind of German Expressionist style by Hans Grundig, a Communist hack, who had a long career creating otherwise drab art appropriate to celebrate Stalin’s social handiwork. I believe every person with a creative spark, no matter how pedestrian otherwise, has the possibility of genius. This is Hans Grundig’s one inspired work. To give it its proper Socialist label, it’s really in a New Objectivist style, but who’s picking art-historical nits?
The picture shows the destruction of Dresden from simultaneous multiple perspectives. The bent cross atop the dome of the Frauenkirche and the cupola of the Zwinger Palace are visible among the flames and smashed buildings. Waves of bombers are overhead in the lurid night pierced by searchlights, while the population is literally “buried” in the wrecked city, some with gas masks as useless protection against what proved to be an effective mix of incendiary and high-explosive bombs.
Yes, a striking picture of the events of February, 1945.
Odd thing, it was painted in 1936
Go figure.
Hmmm.
Washing dishes tonight I started wondering about Batman/Bruce Wayne. Specifically, is Batman the only superhero whose real-life identity is better than his secret identity?
For example, you’ve got Peter Parker/Spiderman. Being Spiderman is just SO much better than being Peter Parker. It’s a wonder Peter doesn’t abandon his old identity to just be Spiderman.
Or think about Clark Kent/Superman. If you could choose to be mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent or Superman, which would you choose? I’m choosing Supes every single time! Note that we actually have three identities tugging at this guy: Clark Kent, midwestern farm boy; Superman, fighting for Truth, Justice and the American Way (and the chicks dig him); or Kal-El, last son of Krypton. But I’d rather be Superman than Kal-El. For one thing, Superman is Superman, and he can do all kinds of cool stuff. (Do I really need to mention that he can fly?) Kal-El is the last (sorta, kinda) member not just of his species, but of his entire bio-sphere – heavy, man! And if Krypton hadn’t met an unfortunate doom, then he’d just be another mopey Kryptonian teenager worried about pimples and who to ask to prom.
Plus, as Kal-El he would have another problem, namely that his dad is Marlon Brando. MARLON BRANDO IS HIS DAD! How could you ever live up to that? How could you ever live it down? Just imagine if that knowledge became public – he’d never hear the end of it! Every where he went people would be asking for his Dad’s autograph. Every time Supes tussled with Mister Mxyzptlk he’d have to watch the imp do the “I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody!” shtick. Brainiac would do the “Stella!” yell till we were all sick of it. Bruno Mannheim and Lex Luthor would start gang wars over who got to do the Vito Corleone stuff from “The Godfather”. I’m tellin’ ya, being Kal-El would be no picnic!
Would you rather be the tormented Bruce Banner, or The Incredible Hulk? Hulk smash! Noooo contest.
But think about Batman/Bruce Wayne. One is a superhero who has no superpowers, and has to rely on smarts, training, gadgets and luck to not get killed every time he leaves his cave. The other is a billionaire playboy, the most eligible bachelor in town. Now one can say that Wayne is a tortured soul, but he will be that in either incarnation. One can claim that as the Batman, Wayne can do good. But being a billionaire allows one to have all kinds of control over events. Frankly, if I’m Bruce Wayne, I never even think about going to the cave. What about the car? I’m a BILLIONAIRE, baby, with a capital “B” – I’ll just spend a few million and buy myself a cool hot rod!
Can anyone else think of any superhero types where the real identity trumps the secret identity? (Characters whose backgrounds are known to the public don’t count.)
Ah, but we used to be able to deal with it….
I had sent this to Amba earlier, but I was thinking that America didn’t always behave as badly as we do now. We knew how to persevere through hard times, make fun of our plight and ourselves, and not suffer pompous fools gladly. We need to make more fun (in a vicious way!) of our moribund, arrogant elites.
From a biography of Thornton Wilder:
As Wilder worked on (OUR TOWN), he went for a second time to see Fred Astaire
and Ginger Rogers in SWING TIME. He found inspiration in the movies to feed his
creative work — not only his choice of an American subject but his concerns
over what he saw as the impending decline of Europe. (…) He wrote to
(friend) Mabel (Dodge Luhan)… “Watch the audience. Spell-bound at something,
terribly uneuropean — all that technical effortless precision; all that radiant
youth bursting with sex but not sex-hunting, sex-collecting; and all that
allusion to money, but money as fun, the American love of conspicuous waste, not
money-to-sit-on, not money to frighten with. And finally when the pair really
leap into one of those radiant waltzes the Europeans know in their bones that
their day is over.”
Even in its seeming frivolity, Wilder suggested, this American film was a
cultural harbinger of a shift in world influence from Europe to the United
States.
Hoofers for Democracy! That’s Fred and Ginger, of course. They give us a Depression era song to get us going….still applicable!
And if there’s a song, you know there has to be dancing….
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again… Advice KngFish (and America?) should be taking to heart.
The problem with America today, concisely stated.
Too few Harlequins, too many Ticktockmen.
Related: I first broached the topic on Althouse, which led to this. Althouse quotes from Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, which quote starts the Ellison story that inspired my statement. Here’s the Thoreau:
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purposes as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.
What’s Wrong With This Picture?
There’s something wrong with this Internet life. I can’t put my finger on it. That’s the problem.
Living in fantasy instead of reality is our biggest problem already, why do we need to make it bigger? Now you can argue (and I’d be forced to agree with you) that there’s no such thing as reality. We each construct a subjective universe and the world is made up of these overlapping, but not interpenetrating, interpretations, perceptions . . . fantasies. So what am I talking about?
Matter is a corrective. Matter exerts a resistance, a counterforce, like wood to a carving knife or water to a ship’s keel or air under an airplane’s wings, that paradoxically enables us to get somewhere by making it more difficult. The Internet is a sensory deprivation tank. It somehow has the exact specific gravity of a human brain, so that it cancels out the heavy, reminding tug of our bodies. It deceives us that whatever we can imagine is not only possible, but already sufficiently existent without the salutary work and frustration that is matter’s accursed blessing. Our minds are crumbling like the bones of astronauts who have lived too long in weightlessness.
Many people have had, and many more will have, unpleasant awakenings from this dream.
Ambiance 