I have a subscription to the dance series at the Music Center in Los Angeles. Last Friday I attended a performance by the Brazilian company, Grupo Corpo. It was rather extraordinary. They manage to combine classical ballet with modern and traditional forms of Brazilian dance, in a synthesis that, at moments, is breathtaking in its virtuosity. Some of the moves which characterize their style I had never seen before, a sort of bossa nova-tango-rumba gliding bow-bend articulation of the body which is typically rounded in its execution and spiked with lifts that appear to defy both muscularity and gravity. I found it all fascinating and revealing.
Prior to that I had seen Corella Ballet Castilla y León, a youthful Spanish company, and they were superb. Their vigor, inventiveness and almost gleeful energy was infectious, and the audience, including my eight-year-old son, cheered them heartily. In a program that spanned a very traditional tutu-ruffled choreography of Bruch's Violin Concerto (one of my many guilty pleasures) to an electrifying Flamenco pas de deux, to a post-modern evocation of the French high speed train, they displayed the kind of courage, creativity and exuberance that only a troupe of young dancers is capable of.
Before them the Hubbard Street Dance Theater of Chicago brought a truly wonderful program of modern and interpretive dance to the Ahmanson Theater. One number in particular, which opened with an apparently endless line of dancers simply stepping one foot at a time to their right as they crossed the stage reminded me of a Samuel Beckett play, spare, eloquent, almost silent in its simplicity. After this they did a comic rendering of Ravel's Bolero, in which a female tries to crash a party to which she has not been invited. I would not have thought there was any life left in the Bolero, which was originally written as a dance piece, but Hubbard Street, by not taking it seriously, revived it to the delight of the audience.
Next comes the Nederlands Dans Theater, and after them the Alvin Ailey. I have never seen the Nederlands, though I hear they are very good, but I make a point of seeing Alvin Ailey every time they are in town. They always offer something new, as one year, for example, they interpreted Charlie Parker's enforced stay in the state mental institution at Camarillo, and they usually close with their venerable Revelations, which, though performed for some twenty years, is invariably as welcome as the Spring.
My point in mentioning all this is twofold. First, it seems to me that some of the most interesting and exciting work being done in the performing arts today is taking place in dance. And second, I want to urge everyone to support the dance, which is in danger of strangling to death in this country on shoestrings of budget. Dance is as ancient and omnipresent as the human race itself, perhaps the oldest art form of all. Every culture, every society, has danced; indeed, I daresay, whether we do so in public or not, every human being who ever lived has danced at some point in his life. Movement to music, or simply to rhythm, is a natural part of the human experience -- it is in our blood and bones, and there are moments in life, of exaltation, awe, abstraction or despair, when we can do nothing other than move to the ebb and flow of emotion, ideas and expectation.
And so, I ask all of you who are kind enough to read this blog, to attend dance, support dance, and get up off your duffs and dance. Our nation and our souls will be better for it.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Pure Art
I have said that music is the highest form of art, and that poetry, being the closest to music, is the highest form of literature. This morning, as I was engaged in my quarterly chore of cleaning out the garage, I began to wonder why this should be so.
The answer, I think, must lie in that which music and poetry have in common. At first blush, this would seem to be rhythm. And while rhythm is at the heart of music, and may be said to be its essential quality, it is an aspect of poetry merely, though an important one. It may not be too much to say that this is why music is a higher art form than poetry: because, as it is essentially rhythm, music is purer than poetry, which is essentially language. But that language always and importantly embraces rhythm, and that, together with its intensity and the clarity and aptness of its images, is what raises poetry above the other forms of literature.
Now music, too, can contain images, and there are many wonderful examples of this, such as Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, Debussy's 'Images,' Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition,' Ravel's 'Le tombeau de Couperin,' and Vaughan Williams' Arctic Symphony. But when music sets out deliberately to paint a picture, it becomes program music, and to my mind, this form is inferior to what is often called pure music. It is for this reason that I consider Beethoven's Sixth to be the least important of his symphonies, since it is the most specific and concrete. In contrast, the organ music of Bach or the late Beethoven string quartets, especially the 0p. 131, are, to my mind, pure music; that is, unrelated to any material sense or experience. Because this is so, they are essentially spiritual in nature, and represent the highest realization of art.
It is when poetry approaches to a pure form -- that is, when the language is either so rarefied as to be almost detached from the images it seeks to convey to the mind, or when the language itself becomes almost one with those images -- that it finds its highest incarnation. This is seldom attempted, and even less often achieved.
I think G. M. Hopkins comes closest to achieving it in his spiritual sonnets, such as 'When kingfishers catch fire, when dragonflies draw flame,' and in 'God's grandeur.' In such works, the purity of language and the intensity with which words and images are interwoven renders the poetry pure in a musical sense. On one level the language is itself a kind of music, while on another, words and images become nearly the same thing. It is not that Hopkins' poetry is pure because it is spiritual; it is spiritual because it is pure.
And so, I suppose, as I was filling up the rented Dumpster in my driveway, I concluded that it is purity, spirituality and rhythm which the greatest music and the greatest poetry have in common. It is to these qualities that the best art attains, and this, in turn, raises the question: Why?
The answer is, I think, that the true nature and aspire of great art lies not in any sense experience or even in any idea, but, rather, in a reality that lies outside of those. What I am suggesting is that art is not born in the human heart or mind, but in the human soul, and represents a longing to embrace that soul's essential nature, and express the truth which the action of that nature in life implies. Art is truth in action, and in music and poetry, it is truth in rhythm. For life is made of rhythms: the rhythms of nature, the seasons, the revolution of the Earth, the beating of the heart, breathing and crying and laughing. It is the eternal cycle of coming into being, becoming being and going out of being -- life is rhythm. This is why music is such a natural and universal experience for man, since it echoes or replicates the inherent rhythm of living.
The best music -- and the best poetry -- reproduce this essential organic rhythm in its purest and most revealing form. For this reason, program music, being reflective of specific images or events, is inferior to pure music; since we sense in the purest music that native rhythm which in an undeniable way forms the foundation of our existence. This leads me to the assertion that the creation of art is not essentially a matter of expression but of inspiration; that is, the highest artistic impulses derive from outside man, and do not spring from inside him. They are, if you will, inhaled from a rarefied atmosphere which is the soul's natural domain. This, in turn, leads to the inescapable conclusion that there is a spiritual reality which transcends the material, and to the expression of which all art aspires.
Pure art lies closest to our souls. We recognize ourselves in its forms, and it reminds us, indeed, I think, proves, that we are essentially spiritual creatures, with a spiritual consciousness, and a spiritual destiny.
The answer, I think, must lie in that which music and poetry have in common. At first blush, this would seem to be rhythm. And while rhythm is at the heart of music, and may be said to be its essential quality, it is an aspect of poetry merely, though an important one. It may not be too much to say that this is why music is a higher art form than poetry: because, as it is essentially rhythm, music is purer than poetry, which is essentially language. But that language always and importantly embraces rhythm, and that, together with its intensity and the clarity and aptness of its images, is what raises poetry above the other forms of literature.
Now music, too, can contain images, and there are many wonderful examples of this, such as Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, Debussy's 'Images,' Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition,' Ravel's 'Le tombeau de Couperin,' and Vaughan Williams' Arctic Symphony. But when music sets out deliberately to paint a picture, it becomes program music, and to my mind, this form is inferior to what is often called pure music. It is for this reason that I consider Beethoven's Sixth to be the least important of his symphonies, since it is the most specific and concrete. In contrast, the organ music of Bach or the late Beethoven string quartets, especially the 0p. 131, are, to my mind, pure music; that is, unrelated to any material sense or experience. Because this is so, they are essentially spiritual in nature, and represent the highest realization of art.
It is when poetry approaches to a pure form -- that is, when the language is either so rarefied as to be almost detached from the images it seeks to convey to the mind, or when the language itself becomes almost one with those images -- that it finds its highest incarnation. This is seldom attempted, and even less often achieved.
I think G. M. Hopkins comes closest to achieving it in his spiritual sonnets, such as 'When kingfishers catch fire, when dragonflies draw flame,' and in 'God's grandeur.' In such works, the purity of language and the intensity with which words and images are interwoven renders the poetry pure in a musical sense. On one level the language is itself a kind of music, while on another, words and images become nearly the same thing. It is not that Hopkins' poetry is pure because it is spiritual; it is spiritual because it is pure.
And so, I suppose, as I was filling up the rented Dumpster in my driveway, I concluded that it is purity, spirituality and rhythm which the greatest music and the greatest poetry have in common. It is to these qualities that the best art attains, and this, in turn, raises the question: Why?
The answer is, I think, that the true nature and aspire of great art lies not in any sense experience or even in any idea, but, rather, in a reality that lies outside of those. What I am suggesting is that art is not born in the human heart or mind, but in the human soul, and represents a longing to embrace that soul's essential nature, and express the truth which the action of that nature in life implies. Art is truth in action, and in music and poetry, it is truth in rhythm. For life is made of rhythms: the rhythms of nature, the seasons, the revolution of the Earth, the beating of the heart, breathing and crying and laughing. It is the eternal cycle of coming into being, becoming being and going out of being -- life is rhythm. This is why music is such a natural and universal experience for man, since it echoes or replicates the inherent rhythm of living.
The best music -- and the best poetry -- reproduce this essential organic rhythm in its purest and most revealing form. For this reason, program music, being reflective of specific images or events, is inferior to pure music; since we sense in the purest music that native rhythm which in an undeniable way forms the foundation of our existence. This leads me to the assertion that the creation of art is not essentially a matter of expression but of inspiration; that is, the highest artistic impulses derive from outside man, and do not spring from inside him. They are, if you will, inhaled from a rarefied atmosphere which is the soul's natural domain. This, in turn, leads to the inescapable conclusion that there is a spiritual reality which transcends the material, and to the expression of which all art aspires.
Pure art lies closest to our souls. We recognize ourselves in its forms, and it reminds us, indeed, I think, proves, that we are essentially spiritual creatures, with a spiritual consciousness, and a spiritual destiny.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
From Gettysburg to Tucson
In the fall of 1863, Abraham Lincoln was asked to speak at a memorial for the soldiers who died at the battle of Gettysburg. On the train from Washington to the site of the event, he wrote out a brief speech on scraps of paper. The famous orator, Edward Everett, preceded him on the podium, and spoke for over two hours, his address punctuated by applause and followed by an ovation. Lincoln then rose to deliver his remarks, which lasted only a few minutes. There was no applause, and there was silence as the president returned to his seat. That silence lingered for some time.
Today no one can remember anything Everett said, while all of us (I hope) can quote from Lincoln's address. Every school child is required to read it, and, in private schools at least, to memorize it. The mainstream press of the time derided the Gettysburg Address, calling it silly, trivial, and disrespectful. They offered it as proof of Lincoln's unfitness for the office he held, and dismissed it out of hand. Yet it is now regarded as the greatest speech in American history.
The listeners at Gettysburg knew it if the self-appointed experts did not. Their silence throughout the speech, and especially after it, was not only a fitting response to Lincoln's words, which perfectly summarized the meaning of the event, but that silence was also a perfect tribute to the sacrifices and memory of those whom they had gathered to honor.
In Tucson yesterday, another president who, for reasons I cannot fathom, has been compared to Lincoln, spoke at a memorial for fallen Americans. The atmosphere, and his management of it, were quite different. There were cheers, hooting, shouts and whistles as he spoke; the event had more the character of a pep rally than a memorial service.
Now, of course, the behavior of the largely college-student audience was not the president's doing; but to my mind, as soon as the raucous reaction started during his speech, he had an obligation to quieten it, politely but firmly, as we do with misbehaved children. Instead, he chose to ride the wave of adolescent enthusiasm, and to encourage the entirely inappropriate aura of celebration in the wake of tragedy. He treated the memorial as though it were a campaign rally, which it quickly became, because, I suppose, that is the forum in which he feels most comfortable. And not only that: After the speech, he descended from the podium to shake hands, exactly as if it were a campaign whistle stop, and to pause for photo ops with members of the audience, smiling, hugging young women and backslapping supporters. To my mind, this went beyond disrespect; it was disgraceful.
Whatever you thought of the speech, whatever you think of the president, I ask you to try to imagine Lincoln having behaved in this way at Gettysburg. Can you conceive of that president whipping up the audience, eliciting and reveling in their cheers, and then moving down among the crowd to press the flesh and pause and grin while Brady or O'Sullivan flashed their magnesium? And what would history have recorded of the fact?
Presidential remarks at a memorial service for murdered Americans call for solemnity, grace, and the head of state's obligation to put current tragedy in the perspective of the nation's history not only in his words, but by his demeanor. That is what Lincoln did, and what Obama failed utterly to do. It is not what Obama said that I object to (though whereas Lincoln wrote his speech himself, Obama's was yet another oration by committee); it is the manner in which he comported himself and the shameful way in which he allowed this solemn occasion to become just another campaign stop that I found not merely disappointing, but disturbing.
In my view, Obama's speech was the equivalent of Edward Everett's, and Lincoln's, alas, was not heard, for there was no one to deliver it. I suppose that, just as every nation gets the politics it deserves, every generation of the electorate gets the president it deserves.
Today no one can remember anything Everett said, while all of us (I hope) can quote from Lincoln's address. Every school child is required to read it, and, in private schools at least, to memorize it. The mainstream press of the time derided the Gettysburg Address, calling it silly, trivial, and disrespectful. They offered it as proof of Lincoln's unfitness for the office he held, and dismissed it out of hand. Yet it is now regarded as the greatest speech in American history.
The listeners at Gettysburg knew it if the self-appointed experts did not. Their silence throughout the speech, and especially after it, was not only a fitting response to Lincoln's words, which perfectly summarized the meaning of the event, but that silence was also a perfect tribute to the sacrifices and memory of those whom they had gathered to honor.
In Tucson yesterday, another president who, for reasons I cannot fathom, has been compared to Lincoln, spoke at a memorial for fallen Americans. The atmosphere, and his management of it, were quite different. There were cheers, hooting, shouts and whistles as he spoke; the event had more the character of a pep rally than a memorial service.
Now, of course, the behavior of the largely college-student audience was not the president's doing; but to my mind, as soon as the raucous reaction started during his speech, he had an obligation to quieten it, politely but firmly, as we do with misbehaved children. Instead, he chose to ride the wave of adolescent enthusiasm, and to encourage the entirely inappropriate aura of celebration in the wake of tragedy. He treated the memorial as though it were a campaign rally, which it quickly became, because, I suppose, that is the forum in which he feels most comfortable. And not only that: After the speech, he descended from the podium to shake hands, exactly as if it were a campaign whistle stop, and to pause for photo ops with members of the audience, smiling, hugging young women and backslapping supporters. To my mind, this went beyond disrespect; it was disgraceful.
Whatever you thought of the speech, whatever you think of the president, I ask you to try to imagine Lincoln having behaved in this way at Gettysburg. Can you conceive of that president whipping up the audience, eliciting and reveling in their cheers, and then moving down among the crowd to press the flesh and pause and grin while Brady or O'Sullivan flashed their magnesium? And what would history have recorded of the fact?
Presidential remarks at a memorial service for murdered Americans call for solemnity, grace, and the head of state's obligation to put current tragedy in the perspective of the nation's history not only in his words, but by his demeanor. That is what Lincoln did, and what Obama failed utterly to do. It is not what Obama said that I object to (though whereas Lincoln wrote his speech himself, Obama's was yet another oration by committee); it is the manner in which he comported himself and the shameful way in which he allowed this solemn occasion to become just another campaign stop that I found not merely disappointing, but disturbing.
In my view, Obama's speech was the equivalent of Edward Everett's, and Lincoln's, alas, was not heard, for there was no one to deliver it. I suppose that, just as every nation gets the politics it deserves, every generation of the electorate gets the president it deserves.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Westboro and Speech
I have just read that the Arizona legislature has passed an emergency bill restricting the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to picket at the funeral of the nine-year-old girl murdered in the Tucson massacre. The bill was passed and sent to the governor for signature in a matter of minutes.
I have read much about this bizarre religious group and its hideous protests at the funerals of soldiers, and have listened to many debates about the free speech implications of their activities. I even watched a documentary film, made by British television, about the sect. I have my own views concerning them and their peculiar beliefs, but whatever I or anyone thinks about them, they raise an important constitutional issue regarding freedom of speech in this country.
Let us be frank: What these religious fanatics do is repulsive, inhuman, disgraceful. But is it constitutionally protected speech? That, as Hamlet would say, is the question. On the one hand, all decent human beings are revolted by the efforts of these people to defile the funerals of honorable Americans, and horrified by their violation of the sanctity and grief of the victims’ families in order to make an abstruse, even absurd, theological point. On the other, their protests are precisely the kind of repugnant speech which the first amendment was written to protect. Now they propose to desecrate the funeral of a nine-year-old girl to make their inane point. This child, this innocent, died as a result of a madman’s raving, translated into horrific action, and the members of the Westboro Church, in their perverted logic, see fit to use her funeral as a platform for parading their odious ideas. That much is clear. But the question remains: Is it protected speech?
On this score, I would invoke the words of Lincoln: The question is a difficult one, and good men do not agree. Some argue that the activities of the Westboro Church are so repugnant to basic human decency that they must be suppressed, at least in their public expressions. Others would say that this kind of hideous speech is, and must be, included in the first amendment protection of all speech no matter how divisive and distasteful it may be. As Voltaire said: I may not agree with what you say, but I will protect to the death your right to say it. If ever there was speech with which we disagree, it is that of the Westboro Baptist Church. And so the question becomes: Are we prepared to defend its members’ right to protest this little girl’s funeral?
The convenient and politically expedient response is No. What the church members propose to do violates everything we understand about the innocence of children and the right of parents to grieve for their loss. The point is so obvious that even lawmakers can grasp it: This must be prevented, at all costs. But what is the cost, ultimately? Is it the abridgment of free speech for the sake of personal grief or of a communal sense of decency? Surely, that is too high a price to pay. Under that standard, the Ku Klux Klan would have been exonerated by its local constituencies for cross burning, on the grounds that local standards of fairness would have been violated otherwise. We embark on abridgment of free speech at our peril. Precedents will always come back to haunt us.
And so, what of the threatened Westboro protest of the little girl’s funeral? It seemed to me, initially at least, that the question should be framed thus: Do we hate what the Westboro Church stands for more than we love freedom of speech? If that is the correct way of phrasing it, then the answer is clear: No. We love freedom of speech more; indeed, we value it above all other freedoms, since all other freedoms flow from it: freedom of the press, of religion, of assembly to redress grievances against the government. In these terms, the answer is equally clear: The Westboro Church must have the right to protest the little girl’s funeral. What is at stake ultimately is not the grief of the family or even common decency, but something much greater and more far-reaching – it is the right of every free man and woman in this country to express views that the majority may feel to be repulsive. Such is the nature of free speech; such was the intent of the Founders, who, themselves, expressed views that were considered treasonous at the time. Indeed, they were views for which they could have been, and expected to be, hanged.
But as I continued to reflect on this thorny question, a subsidiary issue occurred. To my way of thinking, the Westboro Baptist Church members are the victims of systematic and unremitting brainwashing. Only such brainwashing could produce the hatred and despite which they display at their protests of the funerals of soldiers. How else to explain the fervent need which they feel now to protest at the funeral of a little girl murdered by a lunatic as she waited to meet her congresswoman, with whom, as a recently elected member of student council, she must have identified? How could the human psyche become so distorted? How could people comport themselves with such callous disregard for even the aspirations and death of a child? How can people behave in such a bestial manner?
The answer, it seems to me, is that they are not legally sane. Their religious indoctrination has distorted their view of reality to such an extent that they can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. Indeed, so brainwashed have they become that they actually see wrong as being not only right, but sanctimonious. I am reminded of the behavior of the priest-molesters of the Roman Catholic Church, who convince themselves that child rape is a blessed prerogative reserved to themselves alone. And so they indulge their bestial appetites at the expense of the innocence of children, content in the belief, religiously inspired, that what they were doing was not only right, but holy.
To my way of thinking, the Westboro people are no different in this case than the molesting Catholic priests – their view of reality is so distorted by their own neuroses and religious indoctrination that they cannot but behave in a criminal manner. And so the issue becomes, not whether we love freedom of speech more than we hate their actions, but, rather: Is the speech of brainwashed lunatics protected by the Constitution? Put this way – which I believe is the correct way – the answer, emphatically, is No. By virtue of their indoctrination and lunacy, the Westboro Baptist Church members forfeit their right to protection of their speech in protesting the funerals not only of the little murdered girl, but those of fallen servicemen as well.
Is insane speech constitutionally protected? Do lunatic ravings fall under the umbrella of the first amendment? Is that what the Founders intended? Certainly not. Indeed, they would, themselves, have to have been mad to protect such speech. The ravings of self-deluding lunatics is no more a legitimate form of speech than is the right of the Tucson killer to express whatever demented views he held by killing innocent people. Looked at from this point of view, the Westboro Christian Church has no more right to its form of expression than did Jared Lee Loughner to his.
I have read much about this bizarre religious group and its hideous protests at the funerals of soldiers, and have listened to many debates about the free speech implications of their activities. I even watched a documentary film, made by British television, about the sect. I have my own views concerning them and their peculiar beliefs, but whatever I or anyone thinks about them, they raise an important constitutional issue regarding freedom of speech in this country.
Let us be frank: What these religious fanatics do is repulsive, inhuman, disgraceful. But is it constitutionally protected speech? That, as Hamlet would say, is the question. On the one hand, all decent human beings are revolted by the efforts of these people to defile the funerals of honorable Americans, and horrified by their violation of the sanctity and grief of the victims’ families in order to make an abstruse, even absurd, theological point. On the other, their protests are precisely the kind of repugnant speech which the first amendment was written to protect. Now they propose to desecrate the funeral of a nine-year-old girl to make their inane point. This child, this innocent, died as a result of a madman’s raving, translated into horrific action, and the members of the Westboro Church, in their perverted logic, see fit to use her funeral as a platform for parading their odious ideas. That much is clear. But the question remains: Is it protected speech?
On this score, I would invoke the words of Lincoln: The question is a difficult one, and good men do not agree. Some argue that the activities of the Westboro Church are so repugnant to basic human decency that they must be suppressed, at least in their public expressions. Others would say that this kind of hideous speech is, and must be, included in the first amendment protection of all speech no matter how divisive and distasteful it may be. As Voltaire said: I may not agree with what you say, but I will protect to the death your right to say it. If ever there was speech with which we disagree, it is that of the Westboro Baptist Church. And so the question becomes: Are we prepared to defend its members’ right to protest this little girl’s funeral?
The convenient and politically expedient response is No. What the church members propose to do violates everything we understand about the innocence of children and the right of parents to grieve for their loss. The point is so obvious that even lawmakers can grasp it: This must be prevented, at all costs. But what is the cost, ultimately? Is it the abridgment of free speech for the sake of personal grief or of a communal sense of decency? Surely, that is too high a price to pay. Under that standard, the Ku Klux Klan would have been exonerated by its local constituencies for cross burning, on the grounds that local standards of fairness would have been violated otherwise. We embark on abridgment of free speech at our peril. Precedents will always come back to haunt us.
And so, what of the threatened Westboro protest of the little girl’s funeral? It seemed to me, initially at least, that the question should be framed thus: Do we hate what the Westboro Church stands for more than we love freedom of speech? If that is the correct way of phrasing it, then the answer is clear: No. We love freedom of speech more; indeed, we value it above all other freedoms, since all other freedoms flow from it: freedom of the press, of religion, of assembly to redress grievances against the government. In these terms, the answer is equally clear: The Westboro Church must have the right to protest the little girl’s funeral. What is at stake ultimately is not the grief of the family or even common decency, but something much greater and more far-reaching – it is the right of every free man and woman in this country to express views that the majority may feel to be repulsive. Such is the nature of free speech; such was the intent of the Founders, who, themselves, expressed views that were considered treasonous at the time. Indeed, they were views for which they could have been, and expected to be, hanged.
But as I continued to reflect on this thorny question, a subsidiary issue occurred. To my way of thinking, the Westboro Baptist Church members are the victims of systematic and unremitting brainwashing. Only such brainwashing could produce the hatred and despite which they display at their protests of the funerals of soldiers. How else to explain the fervent need which they feel now to protest at the funeral of a little girl murdered by a lunatic as she waited to meet her congresswoman, with whom, as a recently elected member of student council, she must have identified? How could the human psyche become so distorted? How could people comport themselves with such callous disregard for even the aspirations and death of a child? How can people behave in such a bestial manner?
The answer, it seems to me, is that they are not legally sane. Their religious indoctrination has distorted their view of reality to such an extent that they can no longer distinguish between right and wrong. Indeed, so brainwashed have they become that they actually see wrong as being not only right, but sanctimonious. I am reminded of the behavior of the priest-molesters of the Roman Catholic Church, who convince themselves that child rape is a blessed prerogative reserved to themselves alone. And so they indulge their bestial appetites at the expense of the innocence of children, content in the belief, religiously inspired, that what they were doing was not only right, but holy.
To my way of thinking, the Westboro people are no different in this case than the molesting Catholic priests – their view of reality is so distorted by their own neuroses and religious indoctrination that they cannot but behave in a criminal manner. And so the issue becomes, not whether we love freedom of speech more than we hate their actions, but, rather: Is the speech of brainwashed lunatics protected by the Constitution? Put this way – which I believe is the correct way – the answer, emphatically, is No. By virtue of their indoctrination and lunacy, the Westboro Baptist Church members forfeit their right to protection of their speech in protesting the funerals not only of the little murdered girl, but those of fallen servicemen as well.
Is insane speech constitutionally protected? Do lunatic ravings fall under the umbrella of the first amendment? Is that what the Founders intended? Certainly not. Indeed, they would, themselves, have to have been mad to protect such speech. The ravings of self-deluding lunatics is no more a legitimate form of speech than is the right of the Tucson killer to express whatever demented views he held by killing innocent people. Looked at from this point of view, the Westboro Christian Church has no more right to its form of expression than did Jared Lee Loughner to his.
To be or not to be clueless
"Hamlet" is my favorite play; indeed, it may be my favorite piece of literature. I have been fortunate to have seen many great productions, including John Gielgud's, Richard Burton's, Christopher Plummer's, Lawrence Olivier's and, my personal favorite, Derek Jacobi's. I own several dvd versions of the play (among them the not-so-great Mel Gibson and Ethan Hawke, and the rather disappointing Kenneth Branagh). I have memorized much of the text, and rarely does a day go by that I do not find occasion to quote from it. Thus, every time I have the opportunity to see a production on stage, I make a point of going, because "Hamlet" like every truly great work of art, reveals new insights and secrets with each experience of it.
When I learned recently that UCLA's graduate theater department was doing "Hamlet" in downtown Los Angeles, I was, frankly, excited. My favorite play performed by the best young actors from one of our finest universities... I imagined that, no matter how uneven the performance, no matter how odd the staging, the sheer energy, talent and youth of the actors would make it worth seeing.
Now, I have put all of my children through "Hamlet" school, watching with each of them several versions of the play; and the youngest one, the eight-year-old, is no exception. He has seen Olivier's "Hamlet" twice with me, and is able to tell you how every member of the cast of characters dies. But he had not yet seen the play on stage, and suddenly I had a chance to expose him to my favorite work of art, interpreted by actors only twelve or fifteen years older than himself. What an opportunity! So I got tickets.
To quote Polonius: I will be brief. As the audience, a handful of friends and relatives of the actors, was filing out after the performance, my son asked me what I thought. I answered that, while I had seen many versions of "Hamlet," this was the first time I had seen a clueless version.
No one connected with this production had the slightest idea what to do with the play. There was no insight, no innovation, no vision, no revelation. The UCLA graduate theater department nearly managed to do what four hundred years of history have not: kill an immortal work of art.
The acting ranged from adequate to miserable. To call the staging minimal would be a bad joke: apart from a few battered chairs and a table, there was none. Now this might be alright, as the Burton "Hamlet" proved, if the acting is brilliant and compelling. At UCLA this was not the case. The girl who played Opehlia was the best of a sorry bunch, and her mad scene was well done. This should have been the bar above which the rest of the performance soared but, alas, it was the high point of the production. The only other spark of life was the gravedigger, played by a young man who affected a Brooklyn accent. And while this was entertaining, it was entirely out of step with the rest of the performances.
Hamlet, himself, was utterly clueless. The young actor who played him was a muscular black fellow with a shaved head and goatee, and when I first saw him I thought: This is going to be interesting -- Tupac Shakur as Hamlet. Far from it, he seemed more intent on getting the lines right than doing anything with them. He brought nothing of himself to the part and got nothing from it in return. There was no depth, no style, no nuance or intensity, and he committed virtually every mistake against which Hamlet warns the players in his admonitions to them. This was, of course, not entirely his fault. To paraphrase Laertes: The director... the director's to blame. Whether he was a professor or a student I do not know; but whoever he is, he ought to turn in his card.
I could go on... The lighting was amateurish, the sound effects silly, and the costumes were a sorry admission that either the program could not afford period ones, or that the director hadn't a clue how to set the play in any other era. The whole thing gave new meaning to the idea that "Hamlet" is a tragedy.
I will say this: If this is the best that the UCLA graduate theater department can do, then they should shut the program down and use the money for something useful -- like landscaping or more parking spaces. Shakespeare would be better served.
When I learned recently that UCLA's graduate theater department was doing "Hamlet" in downtown Los Angeles, I was, frankly, excited. My favorite play performed by the best young actors from one of our finest universities... I imagined that, no matter how uneven the performance, no matter how odd the staging, the sheer energy, talent and youth of the actors would make it worth seeing.
Now, I have put all of my children through "Hamlet" school, watching with each of them several versions of the play; and the youngest one, the eight-year-old, is no exception. He has seen Olivier's "Hamlet" twice with me, and is able to tell you how every member of the cast of characters dies. But he had not yet seen the play on stage, and suddenly I had a chance to expose him to my favorite work of art, interpreted by actors only twelve or fifteen years older than himself. What an opportunity! So I got tickets.
To quote Polonius: I will be brief. As the audience, a handful of friends and relatives of the actors, was filing out after the performance, my son asked me what I thought. I answered that, while I had seen many versions of "Hamlet," this was the first time I had seen a clueless version.
No one connected with this production had the slightest idea what to do with the play. There was no insight, no innovation, no vision, no revelation. The UCLA graduate theater department nearly managed to do what four hundred years of history have not: kill an immortal work of art.
The acting ranged from adequate to miserable. To call the staging minimal would be a bad joke: apart from a few battered chairs and a table, there was none. Now this might be alright, as the Burton "Hamlet" proved, if the acting is brilliant and compelling. At UCLA this was not the case. The girl who played Opehlia was the best of a sorry bunch, and her mad scene was well done. This should have been the bar above which the rest of the performance soared but, alas, it was the high point of the production. The only other spark of life was the gravedigger, played by a young man who affected a Brooklyn accent. And while this was entertaining, it was entirely out of step with the rest of the performances.
Hamlet, himself, was utterly clueless. The young actor who played him was a muscular black fellow with a shaved head and goatee, and when I first saw him I thought: This is going to be interesting -- Tupac Shakur as Hamlet. Far from it, he seemed more intent on getting the lines right than doing anything with them. He brought nothing of himself to the part and got nothing from it in return. There was no depth, no style, no nuance or intensity, and he committed virtually every mistake against which Hamlet warns the players in his admonitions to them. This was, of course, not entirely his fault. To paraphrase Laertes: The director... the director's to blame. Whether he was a professor or a student I do not know; but whoever he is, he ought to turn in his card.
I could go on... The lighting was amateurish, the sound effects silly, and the costumes were a sorry admission that either the program could not afford period ones, or that the director hadn't a clue how to set the play in any other era. The whole thing gave new meaning to the idea that "Hamlet" is a tragedy.
I will say this: If this is the best that the UCLA graduate theater department can do, then they should shut the program down and use the money for something useful -- like landscaping or more parking spaces. Shakespeare would be better served.
Hate Speech
I had intended to say nothing about the tragedy in Tucson. It was madness, and in the sorry way of mad acts, it does not lend itself to the discovery of meaning. To try to find enlightenment in such travesties reminds me of the efforts of religious zealots to ascribe some discernible meaning to earthquakes and solar eclipses. We all scoffed and were repulsed when fundamentalist Christians read the will of God into the attacks on 9/11, and when fundamentalist Muslims did so after the tsunami in Southeast Asia.
Now we see observers on the left of the political spectrum attempting to interpret the shootings through the distorting prism of their ideology. Before we even knew the name of the killer or anything else about him, two prominent columnists, one at the New York Times and the other at Newsweek, declared that the shootings were animated by the political rhetoric of the right. This goes beyond irresponsible journalism -- it is itself a form of madness. And now this morning I find a colleague of mine, an active campaigner for liberal causes, posting on Facebook her conviction that "Sarah Palin bears a special responsibility for the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords." I submit that such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric is precisely the kind of hate speech which she apparently seeks to condemn. This sort of hysterical, ideologically-driven nonsense must stop if the political discourse in this nation, which has become dangerous on both the left and right, is to be defused.
The hysteria goes beyond irresponsible speech, however; the next step is always irresponsible legislation. Yesterday I heard of a Pennsylvania congressman who is proposing a ban on the kind of extended ammunition clips which the killer is reported to have used. I have learned to expect such puerile behavior from members of Congress. It is as if the congressman is saying: "We can't stop the lunatics from shooting innocent people, but we can make it difficult for them to shoot more than seven or eight at a time." This nonsense, like the hysterical rhetoric, also has to stop.
The sad fact is true that, as Harry Truman said, any nut who can afford to buy a suit can kill a president. On the very eve of his assassination, Jack Kennedy observed that if somebody with a rifle wanted to kill him, there was no way to stop it. What is needed now, in the wake of this monstrous, irrational act, is mature, rational response. None of us, of any political persuasion, dampens the flames by fanning them.
Now we see observers on the left of the political spectrum attempting to interpret the shootings through the distorting prism of their ideology. Before we even knew the name of the killer or anything else about him, two prominent columnists, one at the New York Times and the other at Newsweek, declared that the shootings were animated by the political rhetoric of the right. This goes beyond irresponsible journalism -- it is itself a form of madness. And now this morning I find a colleague of mine, an active campaigner for liberal causes, posting on Facebook her conviction that "Sarah Palin bears a special responsibility for the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords." I submit that such irresponsible and inflammatory rhetoric is precisely the kind of hate speech which she apparently seeks to condemn. This sort of hysterical, ideologically-driven nonsense must stop if the political discourse in this nation, which has become dangerous on both the left and right, is to be defused.
The hysteria goes beyond irresponsible speech, however; the next step is always irresponsible legislation. Yesterday I heard of a Pennsylvania congressman who is proposing a ban on the kind of extended ammunition clips which the killer is reported to have used. I have learned to expect such puerile behavior from members of Congress. It is as if the congressman is saying: "We can't stop the lunatics from shooting innocent people, but we can make it difficult for them to shoot more than seven or eight at a time." This nonsense, like the hysterical rhetoric, also has to stop.
The sad fact is true that, as Harry Truman said, any nut who can afford to buy a suit can kill a president. On the very eve of his assassination, Jack Kennedy observed that if somebody with a rifle wanted to kill him, there was no way to stop it. What is needed now, in the wake of this monstrous, irrational act, is mature, rational response. None of us, of any political persuasion, dampens the flames by fanning them.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Insanity Pleas
Increasingly, watching the news is like seeing a road company production of Marat/Sade. I hear politicians mouthing the same stale platitudes and offering the same pointless proposals that I have listened to my entire life. May I make one point clear? We are going bankrupt.
That fact, unmistakable and urgent, should be dominating our political discourse. Instead, the hacks in Washington and Sacramento are behaving as if business as usual will get us out of this mess. California is broke - desperately so - and Washington is very nearly broke, and persisting in the same rhetoric and the same tactics is not going to fix it. We will be the first generation in American history to leave our children impoverished, having saddled them with a debt they cannot hope to pay. And in the face of this, the so-called leaders of our state and nation continue to argue for increased spending, more government regulation and higher taxes as if the bus of our economy were not already dangling over the cliff.
The same inane arguments between liberals and conservatives continue regardless. The simple fact is that there is a vacuum of leadership at every level of government which is becoming more acute and lethal as generation after generation of politicians refuse to speak the truth to the public, and implement the painful policies of austerity and sacrifice that will be necessary to save our prosperity from extinction. On one level the solution is simple: Government has grown far too big and intrusive and it spends far too much money on programs that were never imagined or intended by the Founders. The size of government is the problem, and so the solution begins with reducing it radically. This will not only be salvation for the economy, but for personal liberty as well.
It is in the details that the devil devours everyone who comes near. All right, let me begin with this: Reduce the size of government by ten percent across the board and impose a freeze on any new government spending. Since fraud and waste are endemic in government programs, simply eliminate as many as possible. Personally, I would start at the federal level by eliminating the Departments of Labor, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services and Commerce, and by privatizing the post office. Beyond that, I would dump the current tax code and replace it with a universal flat tax on individuals and corporations of no more than fifteen percent, and enact balanced budget legislation requiring federal and state governments to live within the means provided by the tax. Needless to say, Obama Care must be repealed and the new corporate regulations rolled back as well.
We must free the economy to do what it does best -- create jobs, opportunity and wealth. Give every disincentive possible to the growth of government and offer every incentive possible to private enterprise. Reward risk, innovation and excellence. Return to our faith in the power of the free market, personal liberty and individual initiative, and cleanse our society of the debilitating lie that government is not the problem but the solution.
That fact, unmistakable and urgent, should be dominating our political discourse. Instead, the hacks in Washington and Sacramento are behaving as if business as usual will get us out of this mess. California is broke - desperately so - and Washington is very nearly broke, and persisting in the same rhetoric and the same tactics is not going to fix it. We will be the first generation in American history to leave our children impoverished, having saddled them with a debt they cannot hope to pay. And in the face of this, the so-called leaders of our state and nation continue to argue for increased spending, more government regulation and higher taxes as if the bus of our economy were not already dangling over the cliff.
The same inane arguments between liberals and conservatives continue regardless. The simple fact is that there is a vacuum of leadership at every level of government which is becoming more acute and lethal as generation after generation of politicians refuse to speak the truth to the public, and implement the painful policies of austerity and sacrifice that will be necessary to save our prosperity from extinction. On one level the solution is simple: Government has grown far too big and intrusive and it spends far too much money on programs that were never imagined or intended by the Founders. The size of government is the problem, and so the solution begins with reducing it radically. This will not only be salvation for the economy, but for personal liberty as well.
It is in the details that the devil devours everyone who comes near. All right, let me begin with this: Reduce the size of government by ten percent across the board and impose a freeze on any new government spending. Since fraud and waste are endemic in government programs, simply eliminate as many as possible. Personally, I would start at the federal level by eliminating the Departments of Labor, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services and Commerce, and by privatizing the post office. Beyond that, I would dump the current tax code and replace it with a universal flat tax on individuals and corporations of no more than fifteen percent, and enact balanced budget legislation requiring federal and state governments to live within the means provided by the tax. Needless to say, Obama Care must be repealed and the new corporate regulations rolled back as well.
We must free the economy to do what it does best -- create jobs, opportunity and wealth. Give every disincentive possible to the growth of government and offer every incentive possible to private enterprise. Reward risk, innovation and excellence. Return to our faith in the power of the free market, personal liberty and individual initiative, and cleanse our society of the debilitating lie that government is not the problem but the solution.
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