The other day, I did something that I thought I would never have to do in this nation of ours. I took a post-it, reached over to my computer screen, and stuck it over the camera lens. I did this because of reports I had been reading that the FBI can and does monitor the activities of computer users through their skype cameras. I had only recently begun using skype, and so it was chilling and disheartening to learn that the government was taking advantage of the technology to spy on people. Coming on the heels of the NSA surveillance revelations, and the zombie-like reaction of most of officialdom, from the president on down, it was yet another blow to my confidence that anything like privacy might still exist in our society. Then, at the urging of my children, I replaced my archaic cell phone with an iPhone, only to learn a few days later that the NSA uses them as a sort of reverse GPS to track the movements of their owners. Again, the revelation seems scarcely to have raised an eyebrow among the powers sworn to protect our Constitutional liberties. Richard Nixon would have been thrilled.
There is no privacy in America any more. We must simply acknowledge the fact since those in authority seem determined to protect this new status quo, rather than our liberties, and the bulk of the population does not seem to care. I asked my older, computer-genius son why this should be and he had a simple and disarming answer: Young people today, he said, have no expectation of privacy. He took out his smart phone and demonstrated that Google knew that he was at that moment in a sushi restaurant in Pasadena, and it glibly offered suggestions on other businesses and points of interest in the immediate area. The disregard for privacy, he was saying, was the result of generational training in the convenience of technology: Young people would rather know where the nearest cinema or gadget shop is than know that they are secure in their privacy.
Another disheartening realization: Privacy is now a quaint relic of an earlier age. Technology has suffocated it under a blanket of easy access to information. And just as the powers that be are content to take advantage of the woeful state of public education in this country because ignorance serves their purposes, so they are taking advantage of the surfeit of pointless information because it kills privacy. And privacy is a great impediment to government control of individuals. Remember the old dictum of British Common Law that your home is your castle, and not even the King of England has the right to enter without your permission? Monarchs never dreamed that they would one day be eagerly invited in to the most intimate parts of our lives, like our health care, for example, for the sake of knowing where "The Butler" is playing tonight.
And on that score, may I offer my opinion that "The Butler," like Obamacare, is a massive fraud being perpetrated on the American public? It is nothing but another Hollywood liberal screed on American evil that is so simplistic and so politically biased as to be comical, were it not being taken so very seriously. As I watched it, I was alternately amused and horrified. The Civil Rights Movement? I was there; the Black power movement? I was there; the anti-Vietnam War Movement? I was there. And they were nothing like so simple as the movie portrays them. For example, the Black Panther philosophy is tossed off in a few canned sentences in one scene, and beyond that the movement is portrayed as consisting of young people with big hair, big earrings, black leather and bad attitudes engaged in pseudo-political posturing and pouting. This does service neither to the complexities of the historical phenomenon nor to the need of young viewers to form an intelligent opinion of it.
This is ice skating through recent American history, using clichés and stereotypes to make a point that has more to do with the political cant of the filmmakers than it does with the truth about those events. It is Hollywood myth making at its most despicable: propaganda meant to serve a tendentious agenda rather than art meant to educate and edify. Yet, knowing Hollywood as I do, the film and everyone connected with it will doubtless be nominated for all the major awards, and will probably win many of them. For this is how mainstream Hollywood sees history: as cheap drama concocted from convenient clichés and stereotypes that can be served up neatly in two-hour packages over popcorn and slurpees.
Suffice it to say that, at its most clichéd and comical, the film ultimately reveals itself for what it truly is - a racist cavalcade conflated from liberal guilt and elitist daydreaming. In the final scenes, the two main characters, played by Forrest Whitaker and no less an icon of media hype than Oprah Winfrey, suddenly, after a generous time cut, turn into stereotypical aged Negroes. They are transformed into what they are in the white liberal imagination - Amos and Andrea. They slur, they fumble for language, they actually shuffle. This is what wealthy white liberals really think of blacks, and even on a thirty million dollar budget with the whole world watching, they cannot restrain themselves from saying so.
I was for decades a liberal and an activist. I marched for Civil Rights and Student Rights, I met with Dr. King, I camped in Resurrection City during the Poor People's campaign, and I know that for most hardened, guilt-ridden white liberals, raised in privilege and indoctrinated in progressivism, the Civil Rights Movement was nothing but a tool - a tool to assuage their guilt and make them feel better about themselves. They used blacks in very much the same spirit as the slave owners had - to do the dirty work, of their souls if not of their hands.
And now that we have had our first black president for five years, no one in the mainstream seems to notice that the condition of black people in this country is the worst it has been since the Civil Rights days; that black unemployment is over 15% (among young blacks, over 30%), that the murder rate in black communities has soared, that more black people (and Americans at large) live in poverty and subsist on food stamps than have since the mid-Sixties. Meanwhile, the president luxuriates in Paradise playing six-hour rounds of golf, the mainstream media continues to lionize him, cover for his incompetence and swallow his lies, and the rest of America shivers under a frozen blanket of deceived expectations and false hopes.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
Poetics
I said to my eleven year old recently: "Poetry is the most important thing in life." His response: "No it isn't." He is probably right, but poetry is certainly among the most important things in life; and the lives of those who lack it in their souls and in their education are the poorer for it. However, I think they are in some sense fortunate in that they do not know what they are missing.
Poetry, as I have said, is the highest form of literature because it is closest to music, which is the highest form of art. Only poetry - great poetry - can come close to great music in its ability to frame truth and reflect the spiritual essence which lies behind art. I cannot imagine living without poetry in my life; I read, recite, listen to or think about poetry every day. It seems to me very important to understand how poems work, and what separates bad poetry from good poetry, and good poetry from great poetry. Poetry is the music of the soul in words and rhythm and rhyme (though rhyme, which is normally thought to characterize poetry, is not indispensable to it, and often degrades it to the point of vulgarity).
I have said earlier that, to my mind, the essential qualities of poetry are rhythm, intensity, and meaning. The more highly these qualities are developed, the greater the poetry. All are inter-related, and none can be dispensed with if a poem is to rise above the ordinary and merely charming. Now, there is nothing wrong with poetry that is merely charming - much of Robert Frost's work possesses this quality to a very high degree. But, while pleasing, even delightful, such work does not attain to the level of great poetry, just as the program music of, say, Grieg or Mussorgsky, while very good, does not approach the pure music of Bach or Beethoven. And while rhythm, intensity, and meaning are the chief characteristics of all good poetry, the essential quality of great poetry is its proximity to truth. To the extent that it transports the reader to those realms in which truth resides, as Beethoven's late string quartets do, poetry may be identified as being great.
With all this said, I have been thinking lately about twentieth century poetry, in which there is a great deal of good work and rather less of great. And that, naturally, led me to wonder which are the greatest poems of the twentieth century. I have thought a good deal about this, and I have devised a list, which I offer for your comment.
To me, the greatest poems of the twentieth century, in roughly descending order, are:
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T.S. Eliot,
"Exposure," by Wilfred Owen,
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," by W.B. Yeats,
"Fern Hill," by Dylan Thomas, and
"As I Walked Out One Evening," by W.H. Auden.
I may be overlooking something blazingly obvious, and if I am, I hope someone will come to my aid. But these poems, to me at least, stand alone in their beauty, craft, and proximity to truth. I love them as I have loved few things in my life, and I keep them always in my mind.
And so, one of my new year's resolutions being to keep my blog postings as short as possible, I will leave it there for you to puzzle at if you are not inclined to poetry, and to mull over if you are.
Happy new year to you all.
Poetry, as I have said, is the highest form of literature because it is closest to music, which is the highest form of art. Only poetry - great poetry - can come close to great music in its ability to frame truth and reflect the spiritual essence which lies behind art. I cannot imagine living without poetry in my life; I read, recite, listen to or think about poetry every day. It seems to me very important to understand how poems work, and what separates bad poetry from good poetry, and good poetry from great poetry. Poetry is the music of the soul in words and rhythm and rhyme (though rhyme, which is normally thought to characterize poetry, is not indispensable to it, and often degrades it to the point of vulgarity).
I have said earlier that, to my mind, the essential qualities of poetry are rhythm, intensity, and meaning. The more highly these qualities are developed, the greater the poetry. All are inter-related, and none can be dispensed with if a poem is to rise above the ordinary and merely charming. Now, there is nothing wrong with poetry that is merely charming - much of Robert Frost's work possesses this quality to a very high degree. But, while pleasing, even delightful, such work does not attain to the level of great poetry, just as the program music of, say, Grieg or Mussorgsky, while very good, does not approach the pure music of Bach or Beethoven. And while rhythm, intensity, and meaning are the chief characteristics of all good poetry, the essential quality of great poetry is its proximity to truth. To the extent that it transports the reader to those realms in which truth resides, as Beethoven's late string quartets do, poetry may be identified as being great.
With all this said, I have been thinking lately about twentieth century poetry, in which there is a great deal of good work and rather less of great. And that, naturally, led me to wonder which are the greatest poems of the twentieth century. I have thought a good deal about this, and I have devised a list, which I offer for your comment.
To me, the greatest poems of the twentieth century, in roughly descending order, are:
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T.S. Eliot,
"Exposure," by Wilfred Owen,
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree," by W.B. Yeats,
"Fern Hill," by Dylan Thomas, and
"As I Walked Out One Evening," by W.H. Auden.
I may be overlooking something blazingly obvious, and if I am, I hope someone will come to my aid. But these poems, to me at least, stand alone in their beauty, craft, and proximity to truth. I love them as I have loved few things in my life, and I keep them always in my mind.
And so, one of my new year's resolutions being to keep my blog postings as short as possible, I will leave it there for you to puzzle at if you are not inclined to poetry, and to mull over if you are.
Happy new year to you all.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Everybody Else...
Some years ago I was doing research for a book about domestic CIA activities (significant since the CIA charter forbids the Agency from conducting operations inside the U.S.), and I had the opportunity to speak with a retired, but once very important, CIA contract officer. He told me that at one point in his career, he was approached by the Savak, the secret police under the Shah of Iran, whose ruthlessness is exceeded only by the current Iranian secret police.
The man with whom I spoke - let's call him Burt - was a well-known electronic surveillance expert, who had made his name by bugging the Ho Chi Mihn Trail during the Vietnam war. One of the ingenious ideas that Burt came up with was to disguise miniature microphones as insects and seed the Trail with them. Lyndon Johnson had said, with typical color, that he "wanted to hear the Vietcong pissing." Burt managed to accomplish this for him.
Burt met with a high-ranking Savak officer who told him that there were two groups within Iran the government wanted bugged. One, he said, was the Iranian Air Force officer corps, within which they believed there was a plot to overthrow the Shah. Since their leadership was localized on an air base near Teheran, Burt assured them that it would be no problem. He could tap all of the phone lines at the base, and record every call made from or to it. The Savak man was pleased.
"Who's the other group?" Burt then asked.
To which the Savak man replied, "Everybody else."
The Savak wanted the central phone exchange in Teheran bugged, so that they could monitor every phone conversation within the country. Burt told me that he was surprised by the request; but he assured the Savak officer that it could be done. And, according to Burt, it was done. Every phone call in Iran during the last years of the reign of the Shah was recorded, and the tapes turned over to the malicious, murderous secret police. Of course, the Shah was deposed despite (or perhaps because of ) this and forced into exile, and a new era of medieval darkness and brutality overwhelmed Iran. But that is another story.
Now, in the past few days, we have learned that the National Security Agency, tasked with protecting the security of the United States, has been secretly acquiring records of virtually every cell phone call made in the U.S., and perhaps every email sent as well. It is Burt's Savak commission on a much larger and more pervasive scale, and it is being done in this nation by our government, in the name of our own safety. The operation is, of course, stunning in the extent of its intrusiveness. It is, I think, the most egregious assault on American liberty, and certainly on American privacy, in the history of the nation.
Edward Snowden, the young man who alerted us to the massive clandestine violation of our privacy known as the Prism program, is now living in exile, and will shortly be prosecuted for his actions. This, too, we have seen before. I am old enough to remember Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers, which made it clear to one and all that America had been dragged into the morass in Vietnam under entirely fraudulent circumstances. That revelation was one of the triggers of my own opposition to the war.
Ellsberg was persecuted and prosecuted by the Nixon administration with characteristic venom. If Nixon imagined that he had enemies everywhere, in Ellsberg he could point a finger at a real, not an imaginary one. And so he and his thugs went after Ellsberg, even going so far as to stage a break-in at the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, in order to steal private medical records that could be used to denounce the leaker as a lunatic. That was a very dark time in our nation's history; part of the nightmare landscape of Watergate.
But the fact remains that both Ellsberg and Snowden were simply telling the American public something we needed to know, and that the government would not tell us. What has surprised and troubled me most about this incident, however, is not the surveillance itself, since I suppose we ought to have suspected it and seen it coming. As our government grows ever larger, more secretive and more imperious, what is to stop it from snooping on anyone (although the idea that it was snooping on everyone is a bit surprising). No, what troubles me now as the story unfolds is the reaction of both leading political figures and the public in general.
Many prominent politicians, including the president and members of Congress, are actually defending the NSA program. No less a figure than our own Senator Diane Feinstein, a liberal relic of another era of politics and hairstyle, has insisted that the program is both necessary and legitimate. And polls seem to indicate that the majority of the public do not seriously object to having their phone records and emails confiscated in secret by the federal government, as long as it is being done "to keep us safe."
The truth they seem to be missing is this: What is the point of securing the safety of a society by altering its fundamental principles? If we now submit to such pervasive government violation of our rights in response to the threats of the terrorists, then have we not admitted that the terrorists have won? To put it simply: If the terrorists can force us to stop behaving like Americans, then they have already beaten us.
Under any circumstances, and notwithstanding any argument about national security, the Prism program is an outrage against our rights and our privacy, and a chilling lesson about the dangers of a government grown out of control. Yet, much of the media remains subdued in its coverage and evaluation of it. Why should this be so? The answer, as it usually does, lies in the politics of the matter. Had this program been revealed under a Republican administration, there would have been a media meltdown such as we have not seen since Watergate. But the media by and large cheer-leads for the Obama administration, and, of course, he is the first black president, and so, despite the fact that this scandal touches the lives of every American, even beyond the reach of the IRS scandal, the media mutes itself, for fear that it might taint, or even threaten their favorite son.
However, in my view, this matter is so serious in its scope and its implications that it rises far above the quotidian concerns of mere politics. We are all being targeted now, my fellow citizens - not just conservative groups. The other day, a Hollywood celebrity announced that she was not bothered by the targeting of the Tea Party; in fact, she was pleased because she did not like the Tea Party. By a coincidence, this celebrity is Jewish, and I could not help but wonder, as I listened to her rattle on: When will she learn? There were those once who were not bothered when government targeted Jews, because they did not like Jews; nor were they bothered when it targeted homosexuals, because they were uncomfortable with homosexuals; and neither did they object when government targeted the retarded and mentally ill, and gypsies and foreigners. Only when the government targeted them did they awake to the danger, and by then it was too late.
Well, now Edward Snowden has revealed that the government has targeted all of us, and we had better wake up to the fact that we may be very close to it being too late already.
The man with whom I spoke - let's call him Burt - was a well-known electronic surveillance expert, who had made his name by bugging the Ho Chi Mihn Trail during the Vietnam war. One of the ingenious ideas that Burt came up with was to disguise miniature microphones as insects and seed the Trail with them. Lyndon Johnson had said, with typical color, that he "wanted to hear the Vietcong pissing." Burt managed to accomplish this for him.
Burt met with a high-ranking Savak officer who told him that there were two groups within Iran the government wanted bugged. One, he said, was the Iranian Air Force officer corps, within which they believed there was a plot to overthrow the Shah. Since their leadership was localized on an air base near Teheran, Burt assured them that it would be no problem. He could tap all of the phone lines at the base, and record every call made from or to it. The Savak man was pleased.
"Who's the other group?" Burt then asked.
To which the Savak man replied, "Everybody else."
The Savak wanted the central phone exchange in Teheran bugged, so that they could monitor every phone conversation within the country. Burt told me that he was surprised by the request; but he assured the Savak officer that it could be done. And, according to Burt, it was done. Every phone call in Iran during the last years of the reign of the Shah was recorded, and the tapes turned over to the malicious, murderous secret police. Of course, the Shah was deposed despite (or perhaps because of ) this and forced into exile, and a new era of medieval darkness and brutality overwhelmed Iran. But that is another story.
Now, in the past few days, we have learned that the National Security Agency, tasked with protecting the security of the United States, has been secretly acquiring records of virtually every cell phone call made in the U.S., and perhaps every email sent as well. It is Burt's Savak commission on a much larger and more pervasive scale, and it is being done in this nation by our government, in the name of our own safety. The operation is, of course, stunning in the extent of its intrusiveness. It is, I think, the most egregious assault on American liberty, and certainly on American privacy, in the history of the nation.
Edward Snowden, the young man who alerted us to the massive clandestine violation of our privacy known as the Prism program, is now living in exile, and will shortly be prosecuted for his actions. This, too, we have seen before. I am old enough to remember Daniel Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers, which made it clear to one and all that America had been dragged into the morass in Vietnam under entirely fraudulent circumstances. That revelation was one of the triggers of my own opposition to the war.
Ellsberg was persecuted and prosecuted by the Nixon administration with characteristic venom. If Nixon imagined that he had enemies everywhere, in Ellsberg he could point a finger at a real, not an imaginary one. And so he and his thugs went after Ellsberg, even going so far as to stage a break-in at the offices of Ellsberg's psychiatrist, in order to steal private medical records that could be used to denounce the leaker as a lunatic. That was a very dark time in our nation's history; part of the nightmare landscape of Watergate.
But the fact remains that both Ellsberg and Snowden were simply telling the American public something we needed to know, and that the government would not tell us. What has surprised and troubled me most about this incident, however, is not the surveillance itself, since I suppose we ought to have suspected it and seen it coming. As our government grows ever larger, more secretive and more imperious, what is to stop it from snooping on anyone (although the idea that it was snooping on everyone is a bit surprising). No, what troubles me now as the story unfolds is the reaction of both leading political figures and the public in general.
Many prominent politicians, including the president and members of Congress, are actually defending the NSA program. No less a figure than our own Senator Diane Feinstein, a liberal relic of another era of politics and hairstyle, has insisted that the program is both necessary and legitimate. And polls seem to indicate that the majority of the public do not seriously object to having their phone records and emails confiscated in secret by the federal government, as long as it is being done "to keep us safe."
The truth they seem to be missing is this: What is the point of securing the safety of a society by altering its fundamental principles? If we now submit to such pervasive government violation of our rights in response to the threats of the terrorists, then have we not admitted that the terrorists have won? To put it simply: If the terrorists can force us to stop behaving like Americans, then they have already beaten us.
Under any circumstances, and notwithstanding any argument about national security, the Prism program is an outrage against our rights and our privacy, and a chilling lesson about the dangers of a government grown out of control. Yet, much of the media remains subdued in its coverage and evaluation of it. Why should this be so? The answer, as it usually does, lies in the politics of the matter. Had this program been revealed under a Republican administration, there would have been a media meltdown such as we have not seen since Watergate. But the media by and large cheer-leads for the Obama administration, and, of course, he is the first black president, and so, despite the fact that this scandal touches the lives of every American, even beyond the reach of the IRS scandal, the media mutes itself, for fear that it might taint, or even threaten their favorite son.
However, in my view, this matter is so serious in its scope and its implications that it rises far above the quotidian concerns of mere politics. We are all being targeted now, my fellow citizens - not just conservative groups. The other day, a Hollywood celebrity announced that she was not bothered by the targeting of the Tea Party; in fact, she was pleased because she did not like the Tea Party. By a coincidence, this celebrity is Jewish, and I could not help but wonder, as I listened to her rattle on: When will she learn? There were those once who were not bothered when government targeted Jews, because they did not like Jews; nor were they bothered when it targeted homosexuals, because they were uncomfortable with homosexuals; and neither did they object when government targeted the retarded and mentally ill, and gypsies and foreigners. Only when the government targeted them did they awake to the danger, and by then it was too late.
Well, now Edward Snowden has revealed that the government has targeted all of us, and we had better wake up to the fact that we may be very close to it being too late already.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Poetry and power
I recently had the opportunity to hear the young Chinese pianist Yuja Wang perform at the Disney Concert Hall. I had never heard of her, and I went only because of the program, which included Debussy, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, and one of my favorite Ravel pieces, La Valse. I had no idea what I was getting into.
To say that this 26 year old is a major artistic talent is a vast understatement. She is one of the most brilliant, engaging and exciting musicians I have heard in recent years (the violinist Hillary Hahn being another). She played the opening Scriabin sonata (a last-minute substitute for the Debussy) charmingly and insightfully, but as she played, it very quickly became apparent that she is possessed of a truly extraordinary technique. Added to that is her charisma and onstage presence, which, for one so young, is nothing short of masterful. Whenever any young artist undertakes a program as ambitious as hers, one always experiences a kind of anxiety, an empathetic concern that he or she may have overreached, and may be in for a fall. Not so with Yuja Wang; she is completely in command of her instrument and her material, a fact that she makes clear from the very first phrases.
Her second Scriabin piece was every bit as mysterious and even mystical as one could hope, but it was in the Ravel that she simply took one's breath away. La Valse, Ravel's pitiless lament for what Ezra Pound called a botched civilization - 19th century Europe, annihilated by World War I - which is most often heard in orchestral form, is, in its original piano score, diabolically demanding and difficult. And so, as Yuja Wang began her presentation of it, the old empathetic anxiety returned. But only for a moment.
She was magnificent: powerful, technically dazzling, ideationally brilliant and, above all, poetic. And that is the thing about her playing that impressed me most deeply: She is, above all, a poet. Her monstrous technique, the like of which I do not think I have ever encountered before, is always in the service of poetry. How she manages this marriage of muscular technique and poetic delicacy I do not know. I do know, however, that I have never heard La Valse played with such sheer self-confident mastery on a technical level, nor with such breathtaking comprehension of ideas, implications and insights as she presented. She dominates the keyboard just as surely as she commands her audience; her talent is a stunning combination of poetry and power.
La Valse was merely the end of the first half of her program. She returned, smiling and radiant, to undertake a full cycle of Rachmaninoff which, by itself, would have daunted most other pianists. Yet once again she took control of both the score and the audience, and brought light, depth, potency and poetry to the pieces, with what seemed to me to be an intense, joy-filled ease. Rachmaninoff has never been one of my favorite composers - the best of his music sounds to me like very talented film score; the worst, like bombastic post-romantic self-indulgence, as if Tchaikovsky had lived in Culver City and composed for Columbia - but, in Yuja Wang's hands, I found myself really understanding and admiring his work, perhaps for the first time.
Not surprisingly, she was recalled, and played a total of five encores. The audience simply did not want to part with this stunningly gifted young musician. And among the encores, there was Chopin. Now, I had been hoping to hear her play Chopin, just as a reality check to my senses: Did she truly have the delicacy of touch and the poetic intricacy of execution which much of Chopin requires? The answer, from the first notes, was, Yes. Her Chopin, like everything else, was powerful, technically impeccable, and emotionally complex, lyrical and beautiful. It was simply hard to believe: This young woman brings the same mastery of execution and insight to everything she plays. Listening to her was, for me, a variegated revelation: that one young person could possess such power, such poetic insight, such personal charm and such a wide range of repertoire. And everything is done in a spirit of performance brilliance which I have very rarely encountered.
If you ever have the chance to see and hear Yuja Wang perform, take it. The experience will change your perception of the art of the piano in vast and subtle ways.
To say that this 26 year old is a major artistic talent is a vast understatement. She is one of the most brilliant, engaging and exciting musicians I have heard in recent years (the violinist Hillary Hahn being another). She played the opening Scriabin sonata (a last-minute substitute for the Debussy) charmingly and insightfully, but as she played, it very quickly became apparent that she is possessed of a truly extraordinary technique. Added to that is her charisma and onstage presence, which, for one so young, is nothing short of masterful. Whenever any young artist undertakes a program as ambitious as hers, one always experiences a kind of anxiety, an empathetic concern that he or she may have overreached, and may be in for a fall. Not so with Yuja Wang; she is completely in command of her instrument and her material, a fact that she makes clear from the very first phrases.
Her second Scriabin piece was every bit as mysterious and even mystical as one could hope, but it was in the Ravel that she simply took one's breath away. La Valse, Ravel's pitiless lament for what Ezra Pound called a botched civilization - 19th century Europe, annihilated by World War I - which is most often heard in orchestral form, is, in its original piano score, diabolically demanding and difficult. And so, as Yuja Wang began her presentation of it, the old empathetic anxiety returned. But only for a moment.
She was magnificent: powerful, technically dazzling, ideationally brilliant and, above all, poetic. And that is the thing about her playing that impressed me most deeply: She is, above all, a poet. Her monstrous technique, the like of which I do not think I have ever encountered before, is always in the service of poetry. How she manages this marriage of muscular technique and poetic delicacy I do not know. I do know, however, that I have never heard La Valse played with such sheer self-confident mastery on a technical level, nor with such breathtaking comprehension of ideas, implications and insights as she presented. She dominates the keyboard just as surely as she commands her audience; her talent is a stunning combination of poetry and power.
La Valse was merely the end of the first half of her program. She returned, smiling and radiant, to undertake a full cycle of Rachmaninoff which, by itself, would have daunted most other pianists. Yet once again she took control of both the score and the audience, and brought light, depth, potency and poetry to the pieces, with what seemed to me to be an intense, joy-filled ease. Rachmaninoff has never been one of my favorite composers - the best of his music sounds to me like very talented film score; the worst, like bombastic post-romantic self-indulgence, as if Tchaikovsky had lived in Culver City and composed for Columbia - but, in Yuja Wang's hands, I found myself really understanding and admiring his work, perhaps for the first time.
Not surprisingly, she was recalled, and played a total of five encores. The audience simply did not want to part with this stunningly gifted young musician. And among the encores, there was Chopin. Now, I had been hoping to hear her play Chopin, just as a reality check to my senses: Did she truly have the delicacy of touch and the poetic intricacy of execution which much of Chopin requires? The answer, from the first notes, was, Yes. Her Chopin, like everything else, was powerful, technically impeccable, and emotionally complex, lyrical and beautiful. It was simply hard to believe: This young woman brings the same mastery of execution and insight to everything she plays. Listening to her was, for me, a variegated revelation: that one young person could possess such power, such poetic insight, such personal charm and such a wide range of repertoire. And everything is done in a spirit of performance brilliance which I have very rarely encountered.
If you ever have the chance to see and hear Yuja Wang perform, take it. The experience will change your perception of the art of the piano in vast and subtle ways.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Droning on
President Obama's choice for CIA Director, John Brennan, was asked about his position on drone attacks on U.S. citizens abroad. He defended them, and elaborated that, under the administration's policy, drone attacks had no territorial restrictions. This was a horrifying statement. When he was asked, in writing and in person, whether that meant that the president could order lethal drone attacks within the United States, he declined to answer. When the president was asked the same question, his response was that he "had no intention" of doing so. This is an even more horrifying evasion.
Is it necessary to point out that, had any Republican president made such an assertion, he would have been skewered mercilessly in the mainstream media? Obama's policy on murderous drone attacks on American citizens goes far beyond George Bush's Patriot Act, which merely sanctioned the monitoring of communications for purposes of detecting terrorists (with a judge's order). When that was announced, the media had conniption fits. Yet, President Obama is implying that he has the authority to order the murder of American citizens anywhere in the world, including within the United States, if he has a finding that the targets represent a threat to American security. Not that they are actively involved in violence against the United States (the 16-year-old son of an alleged American terrorist who was killed in a drone attack had no record of terrorist activities), not even that they are in a combat zone, but only, in the judgment of unnamed Administration officials, that they pose a threat.
May I humbly submit that this is the most egregious breach of United States law by a sitting American president since Richard Nixon ordered the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, and is, in fact, far more serious.
And yet, Obama seems to be getting away with it. And why? Because the media is so biased in the favor of liberals that they will not blanch at a blatant violation of the most basic of American liberties - the right to due process of law when the government judges that one had committed a crime. That pillar of Constitutional rights is being regarded as extraneous, by both the president and by the media which slavishly supports him.
Is one not reminded at this juncture of Michael Moore's clinical analysis of the dozen-or-so minutes in which George Bush hesitated before responding to the news of 9-11? And yet we now know that during the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, in which four Americans were killed, President Obama was unaccounted for for eight hours. And that the White House steadfastly refuses to account for his whereabouts. Yet no one on the left is making a documentary about Benghazi, and demanding to know where the president was and with whom he talked while the consulate in Libya was under attack, and news of it was being relayed to Washington in real time. Instead, what we got from the administration was weeks of equivocation and lies about what had happened. Nor is anyone in the mainstream media conducting an in-depth investigation to get at the truth. Instead, so-called reporters on ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times, dutifully sustain the official story, and pillory, as David Gregory recently did, anyone who dares to challenge it.
Meanwhile, our nation remains 16 trillion dollars in debt, while administration apologists blandly assert that the deficit doesn't matter, and we face another imminent fiscal crisis in Washington with no presidential leadership. And where is the president? Playing 27 holes of golf - which took him eight full hours, exactly the amount of time during which he disappeared while the American ambassador in Libya was being murdered and his body dragged through the streets.
Is it necessary to point out that, had any Republican president made such an assertion, he would have been skewered mercilessly in the mainstream media? Obama's policy on murderous drone attacks on American citizens goes far beyond George Bush's Patriot Act, which merely sanctioned the monitoring of communications for purposes of detecting terrorists (with a judge's order). When that was announced, the media had conniption fits. Yet, President Obama is implying that he has the authority to order the murder of American citizens anywhere in the world, including within the United States, if he has a finding that the targets represent a threat to American security. Not that they are actively involved in violence against the United States (the 16-year-old son of an alleged American terrorist who was killed in a drone attack had no record of terrorist activities), not even that they are in a combat zone, but only, in the judgment of unnamed Administration officials, that they pose a threat.
May I humbly submit that this is the most egregious breach of United States law by a sitting American president since Richard Nixon ordered the break-in at Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office, and is, in fact, far more serious.
And yet, Obama seems to be getting away with it. And why? Because the media is so biased in the favor of liberals that they will not blanch at a blatant violation of the most basic of American liberties - the right to due process of law when the government judges that one had committed a crime. That pillar of Constitutional rights is being regarded as extraneous, by both the president and by the media which slavishly supports him.
Is one not reminded at this juncture of Michael Moore's clinical analysis of the dozen-or-so minutes in which George Bush hesitated before responding to the news of 9-11? And yet we now know that during the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, in which four Americans were killed, President Obama was unaccounted for for eight hours. And that the White House steadfastly refuses to account for his whereabouts. Yet no one on the left is making a documentary about Benghazi, and demanding to know where the president was and with whom he talked while the consulate in Libya was under attack, and news of it was being relayed to Washington in real time. Instead, what we got from the administration was weeks of equivocation and lies about what had happened. Nor is anyone in the mainstream media conducting an in-depth investigation to get at the truth. Instead, so-called reporters on ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times, dutifully sustain the official story, and pillory, as David Gregory recently did, anyone who dares to challenge it.
Meanwhile, our nation remains 16 trillion dollars in debt, while administration apologists blandly assert that the deficit doesn't matter, and we face another imminent fiscal crisis in Washington with no presidential leadership. And where is the president? Playing 27 holes of golf - which took him eight full hours, exactly the amount of time during which he disappeared while the American ambassador in Libya was being murdered and his body dragged through the streets.
Upper Crust
I had not been to Crustacean in Beverly Hills for about four years, but I had always kept in mind the fact that I had at that restaurant one of the best meals of my life. The lobster salad, for which they were famous, was wonderful, An's noodles with garlic was a justifiable favorite, and their seafood, among the freshest and best-prepared I have ever known. So impressed was I that I asked to meet the chef, since I know little about cuisine and admire anyone who masters that - to me - alien art form. She turned out to be a Vietnamese woman in her seventies, who, with her family, owned the restaurant. Far from being haughty or self-important, she was genial and had a ready smile. I congratulated her, and she invited me to come again.
I did, recently, on a special occasion, after my years-long absence. The place was as I remembered it, on a corner of South Santa Monica Boulevard not far from Rodeo Drive. They still had the sinuous aquarium under the floor, which gives you rather the feeling of walking on fish as the hostess leads you to your table. It is interesting to see how many people sidestep to avoid the enormous koi with which the sub-floor is stocked. As we were taken to a table on the mezzanine, I was looking forward to a repetition of my last memorable meal.
It was not to be.
The place has declined in quality, I am afraid. The lobster salad, which had been marvelous, was now, as my companion said, "interesting." It was true. The greens were slack, the dressing rather conventional, and the lobster meat somewhat haphazard and badly presented. An's garlic noodles were as I recalled them, zesty and plentiful, but the snapper I ordered was dry, flavorless, and, frankly not entirely fresh. Crustacean was crowded that night, but, nonetheless, I found the service slow, and at one point the waiter asked whether someone else had taken my order. Clearly, he had not.
Now, let me be clear: The meal was far above the average, and the ambiance is lively and tasteful, but this was not the Crustacean I had enjoyed four years before. Perhaps it is under new management - I didn't ask - or perhaps it is simply not possible to maintain so high a standard over so many years. However, whereas on my previous visit, I would have rated it in the high nineties (out of 100), it has in my estimation, slipped to the high eighties.
While I am on the subject of restaurants, I suppose I should mention some of my favorites in the LA-Pasadena area. Perhaps my favorite of all is Restaurant Shiro, in South Pasadena, which I have been patronizing since it opened twenty-five years ago. It has maintained a very high standard over that time, and if you are looking for truly wonderful seafood, I think you would do better to try Shiro than Crustacean. It is smaller, more intimate, the staff is friendly, the service is always expert and attentive, and the prices, while not meager, are still relatively affordable given the quality of the cuisine. I rate Shiro in the low nineties.
The Parkway Grille is, justifiably, rated Pasadena's best restaurant, year after year. The cuisine is eclectic but fairly conservative, and while it is a bit pricey, it is worth it, particularly for a special occasion. The atmosphere is open and delightful - it is located in a converted glass-blowing factory, which is decorated with brilliant floral designs by, I think, Jacob Maarse - and it boasts its own herb garden, and a lovely open-faced brick oven. There is also a piano bar with very comfortable seating for while you are waiting, or after the meal for conversation and a brandy. Parkway has always been reliable and makes for a relaxing and enjoyable evening, and for me it rates in the high eighties.
Our favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant has for many years been La Divina Cucina in Montrose (just north of Glendale). The food is always tasty and well-prepared, and the staff are very cordial; indeed. they have become family friends. Like Shiro, Divina does not advertise, yet the place is usually crowded with a faithful clientele. Mi Pace in Old Town Pasadena is also an Italian favorite; the food is uniformly and reliably delicious, and, though it is usually crowded and noisy, it has the benefit of remaining open till two-am on the weekends, which makes it one of the few quality places in Pasadena to dine after a concert or play. I have known the owner, Armand, for twenty years, and he is always genial, and generous with his time and attention.
I think the best sushi restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley is Yoshida on Huntington Drive in San Marino. The fish is the freshest of any I have found, and there is always a wide and surprising variety. The atmosphere is rather basic, but the place is entirely unpretentious and the prices are very reasonable. Closer to home is Kabuki, which, while not offering as fresh a menu as Yoshida, is nonetheless consistently good and very inexpensive. I also love the staff there.
I offer these observations in the hope that some may find them helpful, but please bear in mind that I am no expert, and that the techniques of fine cuisine remain to me as abstruse and impenetrable as Washington politics or the implications of quantum mechanics. If any of you have suggestions for other places I should try, please let me know.
I did, recently, on a special occasion, after my years-long absence. The place was as I remembered it, on a corner of South Santa Monica Boulevard not far from Rodeo Drive. They still had the sinuous aquarium under the floor, which gives you rather the feeling of walking on fish as the hostess leads you to your table. It is interesting to see how many people sidestep to avoid the enormous koi with which the sub-floor is stocked. As we were taken to a table on the mezzanine, I was looking forward to a repetition of my last memorable meal.
It was not to be.
The place has declined in quality, I am afraid. The lobster salad, which had been marvelous, was now, as my companion said, "interesting." It was true. The greens were slack, the dressing rather conventional, and the lobster meat somewhat haphazard and badly presented. An's garlic noodles were as I recalled them, zesty and plentiful, but the snapper I ordered was dry, flavorless, and, frankly not entirely fresh. Crustacean was crowded that night, but, nonetheless, I found the service slow, and at one point the waiter asked whether someone else had taken my order. Clearly, he had not.
Now, let me be clear: The meal was far above the average, and the ambiance is lively and tasteful, but this was not the Crustacean I had enjoyed four years before. Perhaps it is under new management - I didn't ask - or perhaps it is simply not possible to maintain so high a standard over so many years. However, whereas on my previous visit, I would have rated it in the high nineties (out of 100), it has in my estimation, slipped to the high eighties.
While I am on the subject of restaurants, I suppose I should mention some of my favorites in the LA-Pasadena area. Perhaps my favorite of all is Restaurant Shiro, in South Pasadena, which I have been patronizing since it opened twenty-five years ago. It has maintained a very high standard over that time, and if you are looking for truly wonderful seafood, I think you would do better to try Shiro than Crustacean. It is smaller, more intimate, the staff is friendly, the service is always expert and attentive, and the prices, while not meager, are still relatively affordable given the quality of the cuisine. I rate Shiro in the low nineties.
The Parkway Grille is, justifiably, rated Pasadena's best restaurant, year after year. The cuisine is eclectic but fairly conservative, and while it is a bit pricey, it is worth it, particularly for a special occasion. The atmosphere is open and delightful - it is located in a converted glass-blowing factory, which is decorated with brilliant floral designs by, I think, Jacob Maarse - and it boasts its own herb garden, and a lovely open-faced brick oven. There is also a piano bar with very comfortable seating for while you are waiting, or after the meal for conversation and a brandy. Parkway has always been reliable and makes for a relaxing and enjoyable evening, and for me it rates in the high eighties.
Our favorite neighborhood Italian restaurant has for many years been La Divina Cucina in Montrose (just north of Glendale). The food is always tasty and well-prepared, and the staff are very cordial; indeed. they have become family friends. Like Shiro, Divina does not advertise, yet the place is usually crowded with a faithful clientele. Mi Pace in Old Town Pasadena is also an Italian favorite; the food is uniformly and reliably delicious, and, though it is usually crowded and noisy, it has the benefit of remaining open till two-am on the weekends, which makes it one of the few quality places in Pasadena to dine after a concert or play. I have known the owner, Armand, for twenty years, and he is always genial, and generous with his time and attention.
I think the best sushi restaurant in the San Gabriel Valley is Yoshida on Huntington Drive in San Marino. The fish is the freshest of any I have found, and there is always a wide and surprising variety. The atmosphere is rather basic, but the place is entirely unpretentious and the prices are very reasonable. Closer to home is Kabuki, which, while not offering as fresh a menu as Yoshida, is nonetheless consistently good and very inexpensive. I also love the staff there.
I offer these observations in the hope that some may find them helpful, but please bear in mind that I am no expert, and that the techniques of fine cuisine remain to me as abstruse and impenetrable as Washington politics or the implications of quantum mechanics. If any of you have suggestions for other places I should try, please let me know.
Saturday, February 16, 2013
News...
My new novel, "Singer in the land of night," set in occupied Paris in 1941, is now available on Amazon.com., and will shortly be available in a Kindle version. I do hope that you will take a look at it, and let me know what you think.
A collection of my poems entitled "Desert Songs" may also be found on Amazon.com.
Thanks. I look forward to your comments.
A collection of my poems entitled "Desert Songs" may also be found on Amazon.com.
Thanks. I look forward to your comments.
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