Friday, September 11, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Translation: Manuel Bandeira
Earlier this summer I completed a revised translation of Brazilian writer Jean Wyllys's collection of short stories, Aflitos (The Afflicted) (Editora Globo, 2009), and one of the last parts of the book that I translated was a poem that Wyllys uses as one of his epigrams to the book, "Desencanto," or "Disenchantment," by Manuel Bandeira (1886-1968), one of Brazil's most important 20th century poets.DESENCANTO
Eu faço versos como quem chora
de desalento... de desencanto
Fecha o meu livro, se por agora
Não tens motivo nenhum de pranto.
Meu verso é sangue. Volúpia ardente...
Tristeza esparsa... remorso vão...
Dói-me nas veias. Amargo e quente
Cai, gota e gota, do coração.
E nestas versos de angústia rouca
Assim dos lábios a vida corre,
Deixando um acre sabor na boca.
--Eu faço versos como quem morre.
Copyright © Manuel Bandeira. All rights reserved.
Here's my translation:
I write these lines like one who cries,
In discouragement...in disenchantment...
Shut my book if, for the moment,
You have no cause for tear-filled eyes.
My poetry is blood. Burning ecstasy...
Scattered sadness... vain regret...
My veins ache from it, bitter, hot,
Drop by drop it falls from my heart.
And in these verses, anguished, raw
So runs life from between my lips.
Leaving a bitter taste in my jaws.
--I write these lines as one who dies.
Manuel Bandeira, Disenchantment
Copyright © John Keene, 2009. All rights reserved.
The Gonzales Cantata @ The Rotunda, Philadelphia
Happy Labor Day.
Millions of people all over the US face very tough times right now; the unemployment ranges from the official 9.7% to the morely likely 16.4% or higher, and runs as high as 40% or more in parts of some states, like California, and in some metropolitan areas, particularly among certain groups like African American men and young people. The Obama administration and Federal Reserve chief are touting a recovery that began in August, but so far the country continues to shed jobs, though at a slower rate than before. From what I can tell, there appears to be little indication, despite the helpful suggestions and arguments of labor advocates and workers themselves, employed and unemployed, economists, and others, that those in charge are taking the longer-term issues of labor in this country to heart, except in an abstract sense. The financial industry and multinational corporations appear to be the chief concern of the nation's economic leaders, and our mainstream corporate media. We heard a lot of airy rhetoric about "Main Street," as tiresome a cliche as there is, during the campaign season and again early in the year, but Wall Street continues to hog all the air--and money--in the room, and the neoliberal agenda among the Democrats, and a corporatist right-wing agenda among the GOP, continues unabated. Perhaps one thing to do today is think about the present state of working people, especially working-class and poor people, in this country and globally, and consider ways that you can help to refocus the discussion to ensure that this country and its industries creating viable and sustainable jobs here, but also helping to create conditions for viable and sustainable jobs elsewhere.
Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940)
[Panels for National Child Labor Committee Exhibit], after 1904. Gelatin silver print; 3 1/2 x 5 15/16 in. (8.9 x 15 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1993 (1993.43.289)
***
Yesterday we dipped down to the City of Brotherly Love to see Melissa Dunphy's The Gonzales Cantata. As longtime fans of J's Theater know, I'm fond of operas and orchestral music, particularly anything written from the late 19th Century forward, and I'm also a political junkie, so I was very happy when C suggested we check out this piece, which we first learned about from the invaluable Rachel Maddow Show. The Gonzales Cantata, part of the Philly Fringe and Live Arts Festivals, ran for three shows at The Rotunda, a crumbling but beautiful former Christian Science church (meeting house?) and now contemporary performance space designed by the famous early 20th century Beaux Arts architects Hastings and Carrère (architects of my beloved New York Public Library Research Branch, at Bryant Park), on (the edge of) the University of Pennsylvania's campus. I hadn't been to Philadelphia since I gave a reading a few years ago, and hadn't been on Penn's campus since a friend lived right near it a lifetime ago, so I really relished the quick trip from Jersey City.
According to the press materials, Australian native Dunphy quite inventively conceived of the cantata after watching the exasperating (my word) US attorneys firing scandal hearings on TV. How often have you watched our crazy political dramas and thought to yourself, I'm basically watching a (soap) opera? Dunphy did, and then pulled it off. (Hint: someone ought to consider the Blago story as grist for a musical drama of some sort.) She used truncated versions of the hearings transcripts and Gonzales's resignation speech to create her libretto, and then set the words to music that incorporate baroque, classical, Romantic and modernist, but overall tonal, traditions. While the piece did lack narrative drama and drive, its ending already known and its "story" an extended ellipsis whose true backstory remains greatly unknown to us even 2 years later, Dunphy more than made up for it through her confident, charged composition and orchestration, her pragmatic inventiveness in the cantata's construction, and the work's frequent wittiness and use of irony. Since most of the Senators grilling Gonzales were men, Dunphy reversed the performers' genders, so all of the individual male roles, and most of those in the chorus, were sung by women and vice versa. In addition, to highlight the preening quality of the politicians, all of them appeared as sashed pageant contestants, the male Senators in gowns and elegant dresses, crowned with tiaras, the female one (Feinstein), in quasi-white tie. None of the Senators were singled out, at least by Dunphy, for ridicule, their words being enough of an indictment, but the character of Gonzales was structured so as to emphasize the combination of absurdity, idiocy and criminality he embodied during his Attorney General tenure.
One of the highlights of the piece was Dunphy's playful incorporation Gonzales's repetition, 72 times during the original hearings, of "I can't recall" to the Senators' questions about the attorney firings. She also juxtaposed his repeated contradictions of his having been in control and not in control of the firings, and she managed to rekindle real outrage when the chorus recited only a portion of the Bush administration's crimes, including the widespread use of torture and illegal spying on Americans, in which Gonzales played a central role. I personally began asking about halfway through the hour-long piece why Gonzales was not in jail, which provoked a bigger question I think we can never ask enough: why aren't numerous members of the previous administration at the very least on trial, either here in the US, or at the International Criminal Courts, in the Hague.
My abilities to assess voice quality are minimal, but I found most of the individual singers, as well as the chorus, vocally gifted and assured. The young women singing the Gonzales and Senator Pat Leahy parts, and the young man who sang as Feinstein, had pipes. Dunphy conducted a small orchestra of strings and harpsichord, a clever, baroque touch, very deftly, managing to wring an immersive, often dramatic and thrilling soundscape from a tiny ensemble. One of my favorite moments was just before the Senatorial chorus lodges its complaints against Gonzales, and Dunphy switched from a Bachian mood, which in a few spots perhaps didn't work to the best advantage of the piece, beautiful as the music was, to something evoking a Bernard Herrmann score (think Psycho). An addition treat was her orchestration of three "patriotic" songs, including the treacly, jingoistic "Let the Eagle Soar," which were sung often in near falsetto by a very talented tenor and accompanied by the harpsichord and flutes. As you might imagine, the Republican anthem was appropriately syrupy, sentimental, and yet, in its performance, astonishing at the same time.
Some photos:
The line to enter the Rotunda
The perfomance of the patriotic songs
Composer Melissa Dunphy, during her pre-performance talk
Dunphy, conducting the chorus (The singer of the Gonzales part is at the front of the lectern)
The Gonzales Cantata program and postcard
The cantata underway; Leahy stands at the lectern, opening the piece; the supertitles are visible at left; the orchestra, led by Dunphy, is in the chancel area up front
The Rotunda's original main chandelier, now a floor sculpture
Alexander Liberman's "Covenant," on Locust Walk, University of Pennsylvania campus
Millions of people all over the US face very tough times right now; the unemployment ranges from the official 9.7% to the morely likely 16.4% or higher, and runs as high as 40% or more in parts of some states, like California, and in some metropolitan areas, particularly among certain groups like African American men and young people. The Obama administration and Federal Reserve chief are touting a recovery that began in August, but so far the country continues to shed jobs, though at a slower rate than before. From what I can tell, there appears to be little indication, despite the helpful suggestions and arguments of labor advocates and workers themselves, employed and unemployed, economists, and others, that those in charge are taking the longer-term issues of labor in this country to heart, except in an abstract sense. The financial industry and multinational corporations appear to be the chief concern of the nation's economic leaders, and our mainstream corporate media. We heard a lot of airy rhetoric about "Main Street," as tiresome a cliche as there is, during the campaign season and again early in the year, but Wall Street continues to hog all the air--and money--in the room, and the neoliberal agenda among the Democrats, and a corporatist right-wing agenda among the GOP, continues unabated. Perhaps one thing to do today is think about the present state of working people, especially working-class and poor people, in this country and globally, and consider ways that you can help to refocus the discussion to ensure that this country and its industries creating viable and sustainable jobs here, but also helping to create conditions for viable and sustainable jobs elsewhere.
Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940)[Panels for National Child Labor Committee Exhibit], after 1904. Gelatin silver print; 3 1/2 x 5 15/16 in. (8.9 x 15 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1993 (1993.43.289)
***
Yesterday we dipped down to the City of Brotherly Love to see Melissa Dunphy's The Gonzales Cantata. As longtime fans of J's Theater know, I'm fond of operas and orchestral music, particularly anything written from the late 19th Century forward, and I'm also a political junkie, so I was very happy when C suggested we check out this piece, which we first learned about from the invaluable Rachel Maddow Show. The Gonzales Cantata, part of the Philly Fringe and Live Arts Festivals, ran for three shows at The Rotunda, a crumbling but beautiful former Christian Science church (meeting house?) and now contemporary performance space designed by the famous early 20th century Beaux Arts architects Hastings and Carrère (architects of my beloved New York Public Library Research Branch, at Bryant Park), on (the edge of) the University of Pennsylvania's campus. I hadn't been to Philadelphia since I gave a reading a few years ago, and hadn't been on Penn's campus since a friend lived right near it a lifetime ago, so I really relished the quick trip from Jersey City.
According to the press materials, Australian native Dunphy quite inventively conceived of the cantata after watching the exasperating (my word) US attorneys firing scandal hearings on TV. How often have you watched our crazy political dramas and thought to yourself, I'm basically watching a (soap) opera? Dunphy did, and then pulled it off. (Hint: someone ought to consider the Blago story as grist for a musical drama of some sort.) She used truncated versions of the hearings transcripts and Gonzales's resignation speech to create her libretto, and then set the words to music that incorporate baroque, classical, Romantic and modernist, but overall tonal, traditions. While the piece did lack narrative drama and drive, its ending already known and its "story" an extended ellipsis whose true backstory remains greatly unknown to us even 2 years later, Dunphy more than made up for it through her confident, charged composition and orchestration, her pragmatic inventiveness in the cantata's construction, and the work's frequent wittiness and use of irony. Since most of the Senators grilling Gonzales were men, Dunphy reversed the performers' genders, so all of the individual male roles, and most of those in the chorus, were sung by women and vice versa. In addition, to highlight the preening quality of the politicians, all of them appeared as sashed pageant contestants, the male Senators in gowns and elegant dresses, crowned with tiaras, the female one (Feinstein), in quasi-white tie. None of the Senators were singled out, at least by Dunphy, for ridicule, their words being enough of an indictment, but the character of Gonzales was structured so as to emphasize the combination of absurdity, idiocy and criminality he embodied during his Attorney General tenure.
One of the highlights of the piece was Dunphy's playful incorporation Gonzales's repetition, 72 times during the original hearings, of "I can't recall" to the Senators' questions about the attorney firings. She also juxtaposed his repeated contradictions of his having been in control and not in control of the firings, and she managed to rekindle real outrage when the chorus recited only a portion of the Bush administration's crimes, including the widespread use of torture and illegal spying on Americans, in which Gonzales played a central role. I personally began asking about halfway through the hour-long piece why Gonzales was not in jail, which provoked a bigger question I think we can never ask enough: why aren't numerous members of the previous administration at the very least on trial, either here in the US, or at the International Criminal Courts, in the Hague.
My abilities to assess voice quality are minimal, but I found most of the individual singers, as well as the chorus, vocally gifted and assured. The young women singing the Gonzales and Senator Pat Leahy parts, and the young man who sang as Feinstein, had pipes. Dunphy conducted a small orchestra of strings and harpsichord, a clever, baroque touch, very deftly, managing to wring an immersive, often dramatic and thrilling soundscape from a tiny ensemble. One of my favorite moments was just before the Senatorial chorus lodges its complaints against Gonzales, and Dunphy switched from a Bachian mood, which in a few spots perhaps didn't work to the best advantage of the piece, beautiful as the music was, to something evoking a Bernard Herrmann score (think Psycho). An addition treat was her orchestration of three "patriotic" songs, including the treacly, jingoistic "Let the Eagle Soar," which were sung often in near falsetto by a very talented tenor and accompanied by the harpsichord and flutes. As you might imagine, the Republican anthem was appropriately syrupy, sentimental, and yet, in its performance, astonishing at the same time.
Some photos:
The line to enter the Rotunda
The perfomance of the patriotic songs
Composer Melissa Dunphy, during her pre-performance talk
Dunphy, conducting the chorus (The singer of the Gonzales part is at the front of the lectern)
The Gonzales Cantata program and postcard
The cantata underway; Leahy stands at the lectern, opening the piece; the supertitles are visible at left; the orchestra, led by Dunphy, is in the chancel area up front
The Rotunda's original main chandelier, now a floor sculpture
Alexander Liberman's "Covenant," on Locust Walk, University of Pennsylvania campus
Saturday, September 5, 2009
US Open at Flushing Meadows
It's hardly news that I'm a sports fan, but though I've posted on pro baseball, football, rugby, and other sports, I seldom mention professional tennis on here or elsewhere. From childhood through perhaps my mid 30s, I not only followed professional tennis avidly, but took lessons, played the game in my free time, and watched it whenever I could. This timespan, coincidentally, mirrored tennis's rise as one of America's more popular spectator sports, and included some of the sports' unforgettable heroes, characters and rivalries, such as Jimmy Connors vs. Bjorn Borg, the outrageous John McEnroe vs. Ivan Lendl, the final years of Arthur Ashe's and Billie Jean King's pioneering careers, Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova, hearththrob Yannick Noah's improbable French Open victory in 1980, and later the new generation of champions that included Pete Sampras, Monica Seles, Steffi Graf, André Agassi, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, and so on, culminating in the late 1990s debut of the US's sole remaining international tennis stars, Venus and Serena Williams. In the last few years my tennis enthusiasms have waned tremendously, though I do still catch a televised Venus or Serena match if I can, and I do keep up a little with some of the current top players, like the efficient superstar Roger Federer, whose sole consistent rival appears to be Rafael Nadal. I had high hopes for model-handsome James Blake, who seems to be following in MaliVai Washington's footsteps by not being able to cash a championship paycheck despite formidable skills, and Amélie Mauresmo, the first of the younger generation players to proudly come out, but both have been consistent disappointments, though Mauresmo did win one major.
Engraved in my consciousness are the words "Forest Hills," the leafy, suburban-like neighborhood in Queens, which is where the United States Open tennis championships took place for many years, before moving a bit further out, to Flushing Meadows, where the Billie Jean King International Tennis Center and complex now sits. It is a short ride from Manhattan (and thus northern New Jersey) via the 7 train, yet despite having been to New York Mets games and periodically spending time in Queens, I somehow had never managed to visit the USTA center and catch the US Open until Friday, when C and I got free tickets to catch the Friday morning matches. This was an opportunity neither of us was going to turn down. After a short detour in a Sunnyside supermarket whose basement would make the denizens of Dante's Inferno feel at home, we reached the tennis center
It was far larger than I imagined and far more luxuriously appointed, catering mostly as far as I could tell to people who even in this Great Recession have an excess of money to spare. In addition to the high end mall presence of luxury goods retailers and corporations (Amex, Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, etc.) everything for purchase was costly, from the food and refreshments to the numerous tchotchkes. Yes, tennis began as as an aristocratic sport and has always carried an air of hauteur, yet this complex, which is often touted as being available to all New Yorkers and is the premier national tennis venue, still felt more than a bit exclusive. But counterbalancing this was I grasped to be the real reason to consider paying the general admissions fee, which was the ability to see live practice sessions and matches, especially on the outer courts and in the smaller stadiums on the grounds, as well as watch people and take in the general atmosphere. The Recession may have accounted for the most of the matches we caught, save the Tsonga-Nieminen contest in the Grandstand stadium, being far less mobbed that I'd imagined. There were lost of empty seats during the 1 pm match in the Ashe stadium, even though a holiday weekend was beginning and a bona fide was playing.
We were very lucky to have tickets for seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the main and largest venue, but did check out as many matches as we could throughout the complex. As a result, on the outer courts we got to see Josselin Ouanna and a number of other players taking pre-match practice shots and working on their serves and volleys; a doubles match in which Max Mirnyi and Andy Ram defeated Dusan Vemic and Mischa Zverev, and another in which Alexa Glatch and Carly Gullickson were winning against Su-Wei Hsieh and Shuai Peng; and Julien Benneteau was battling Victor Troicki. (Benneteau eventually won.) After waiting in line for a bit to sit in vacated seats in the Grandstand Stadium, we also got to see the end of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's victorious match against Jarko Nieminen, and in Ashe Stadium, in the pre-headline match, we caught a little of Vania King's match against Daniela Hantuchova.
We were especially pleased, though, to learn that the main morning match included none other than Serena Williams, who was facing the 43rd-ranked María-José Martínez Sánchez. We made our way back by the start of the match, and, in our nosebleed seats, joyfully baked in that immense, open kiln as Serena at times forcefully, at other times distractedly, rolled over Martínez Sánchez, who didn't lose without putting on a show of her own at times. By the time the match was over I felt as I'd spent a day at Rockaway Beach or Sandy Hook, and so we passed on the Andy Murray-Paul Capdeville pairing, but I definitely hope we can come back next year if we can wing it.
And now, the photos!
Welcome gates, US Open at the Billie Jean King International Tennis Center
US Open greeter
Serena Williams
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga serving
Tsonga serving
Glatch and Gullickson during their match
Josselin Ouanna, practicing
Mirnyi (left) and Ram (right) conferring during their match
A Ralph Lauren store worker, taking his break
King tennis center grounds, with 1964-65 World's Fair Unisphere (globe) in the background
Ralph Lauren store
Complex grounds, with Grandstand and Louis Armstrong Stadium on the left
Engraved in my consciousness are the words "Forest Hills," the leafy, suburban-like neighborhood in Queens, which is where the United States Open tennis championships took place for many years, before moving a bit further out, to Flushing Meadows, where the Billie Jean King International Tennis Center and complex now sits. It is a short ride from Manhattan (and thus northern New Jersey) via the 7 train, yet despite having been to New York Mets games and periodically spending time in Queens, I somehow had never managed to visit the USTA center and catch the US Open until Friday, when C and I got free tickets to catch the Friday morning matches. This was an opportunity neither of us was going to turn down. After a short detour in a Sunnyside supermarket whose basement would make the denizens of Dante's Inferno feel at home, we reached the tennis center
It was far larger than I imagined and far more luxuriously appointed, catering mostly as far as I could tell to people who even in this Great Recession have an excess of money to spare. In addition to the high end mall presence of luxury goods retailers and corporations (Amex, Ralph Lauren, Lacoste, etc.) everything for purchase was costly, from the food and refreshments to the numerous tchotchkes. Yes, tennis began as as an aristocratic sport and has always carried an air of hauteur, yet this complex, which is often touted as being available to all New Yorkers and is the premier national tennis venue, still felt more than a bit exclusive. But counterbalancing this was I grasped to be the real reason to consider paying the general admissions fee, which was the ability to see live practice sessions and matches, especially on the outer courts and in the smaller stadiums on the grounds, as well as watch people and take in the general atmosphere. The Recession may have accounted for the most of the matches we caught, save the Tsonga-Nieminen contest in the Grandstand stadium, being far less mobbed that I'd imagined. There were lost of empty seats during the 1 pm match in the Ashe stadium, even though a holiday weekend was beginning and a bona fide was playing.
We were very lucky to have tickets for seats in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the main and largest venue, but did check out as many matches as we could throughout the complex. As a result, on the outer courts we got to see Josselin Ouanna and a number of other players taking pre-match practice shots and working on their serves and volleys; a doubles match in which Max Mirnyi and Andy Ram defeated Dusan Vemic and Mischa Zverev, and another in which Alexa Glatch and Carly Gullickson were winning against Su-Wei Hsieh and Shuai Peng; and Julien Benneteau was battling Victor Troicki. (Benneteau eventually won.) After waiting in line for a bit to sit in vacated seats in the Grandstand Stadium, we also got to see the end of Jo-Wilfried Tsonga's victorious match against Jarko Nieminen, and in Ashe Stadium, in the pre-headline match, we caught a little of Vania King's match against Daniela Hantuchova.
We were especially pleased, though, to learn that the main morning match included none other than Serena Williams, who was facing the 43rd-ranked María-José Martínez Sánchez. We made our way back by the start of the match, and, in our nosebleed seats, joyfully baked in that immense, open kiln as Serena at times forcefully, at other times distractedly, rolled over Martínez Sánchez, who didn't lose without putting on a show of her own at times. By the time the match was over I felt as I'd spent a day at Rockaway Beach or Sandy Hook, and so we passed on the Andy Murray-Paul Capdeville pairing, but I definitely hope we can come back next year if we can wing it.
And now, the photos!
Welcome gates, US Open at the Billie Jean King International Tennis Center
US Open greeter
Serena Williams
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga serving
Tsonga serving
Glatch and Gullickson during their match
Josselin Ouanna, practicing
Mirnyi (left) and Ram (right) conferring during their match
A Ralph Lauren store worker, taking his break
King tennis center grounds, with 1964-65 World's Fair Unisphere (globe) in the background
Ralph Lauren store
Complex grounds, with Grandstand and Louis Armstrong Stadium on the left
Friday, September 4, 2009
MoveOn.Org Rally for Health Care Reform
Last night I participated in a small rally in Jersey City's Journal Square that MoveOn.org organized on behalf of health care reform, one of hundreds of such efforts across the country. The rally and accompanying candlelight vigil's aim was to sure that whatever bills President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress cobble together, the final version, which will be signed into law, include a robust public health insurance option. To that end we attendees, initially numbering about 40 or so and finally rising to about double that number, heard from a New York physician, a handful of people who'd experienced nightmares with the health care system, other healthcare advocates, and local MoveOn.org representatives who excerpts of Teddy Kennedy's speeches.
The gathering was heartening, especially by evening's end when people passing by decided to hang around, listen to the speakers, and sign up for future MoveOn.org activities, but I still am very worried about what the White House and the Congress are up to and what will come from their efforts. We've gotten all sorts of doubletalk from the White House, waffling in one direction or the other, after they'd already taken single-payer universal health insurance, which would surely drive down costs and provide health care for everyone, off the table before they even began.
The President, like a weathervane, has allowed the hot and toxic air emanating from the right and enabled by the mainstream corporate media, increasingly to set the terms of the discussion. Instead of laying out clear principles and selling them nonstop, with Democratic support, he has gone silent for long stretches, failed to actively and enthusiastically challenge the lies and misstatements about the bill, and refused to publicize and humanize the issue. One minute he is for the public option, the next he and his surrogates suggest he isn't (or--Rahm Emanuel--might not be). One minute he is admitting that he (Rahm Emanuel) cut a deal with Big Pharma, laying out the odious terms, the next minute he says he didn't do so.
Health care in the US is in crisis; doing nothing about it is not an option. But throwing together a crappy bill that does nothing to transform the current situation, just to have something to sign also isn't and cannot be an option.
The same has been true of the Congress, whose leaders, especially in the Senate, continue to be too pusillanimous despite now having close to an absolute majority to pass legislation. The three House bills include forms of public health insurance, as does Kennedy's HELP panel's bill, but the key Senate Finance bill, from Max Baucus (written by him and sextet of moderate and conservative Democrats and Republicans), is unclear. Baucus's original guidelines for a bill, from last year, sounded pretty progressive, but his just released sketch of a bill sounds like a disaster, with reduced subsidies for poor and working-class people and no public option.
Are Baucus's newest set of guidelines a sop for his health care industry funders, a ploy to placate the GOP and Democratic fiscal whiners who were silent when George W. Bush dynamited the deficit open with tax cuts and war spending, a skeleton to be fleshed out with the House's more liberal plans in conference, or something else?
None of this came up at the rally. In fact the faith that people there appeared to have that the President and the Congress would do the right thing was strong, by my observation. I hate to be more cynical, but as in 1992, on the big issues this administration has represented one disappointment after another. I am hoping--and will do my part to ensure that--this extremely important effort will not turn out to be yet one more to be added to the list.
Participants in the MoveOn.org health care reform rally and vigil
Participants at the rally and vigil
Participants at the rally and vigil
A participant with a flyer
Our local newsperson, Mike Gilliam of Channel 9 News; he aired a very sympathetic and thoughtful piece on the rally
The gathering was heartening, especially by evening's end when people passing by decided to hang around, listen to the speakers, and sign up for future MoveOn.org activities, but I still am very worried about what the White House and the Congress are up to and what will come from their efforts. We've gotten all sorts of doubletalk from the White House, waffling in one direction or the other, after they'd already taken single-payer universal health insurance, which would surely drive down costs and provide health care for everyone, off the table before they even began.
The President, like a weathervane, has allowed the hot and toxic air emanating from the right and enabled by the mainstream corporate media, increasingly to set the terms of the discussion. Instead of laying out clear principles and selling them nonstop, with Democratic support, he has gone silent for long stretches, failed to actively and enthusiastically challenge the lies and misstatements about the bill, and refused to publicize and humanize the issue. One minute he is for the public option, the next he and his surrogates suggest he isn't (or--Rahm Emanuel--might not be). One minute he is admitting that he (Rahm Emanuel) cut a deal with Big Pharma, laying out the odious terms, the next minute he says he didn't do so.
Health care in the US is in crisis; doing nothing about it is not an option. But throwing together a crappy bill that does nothing to transform the current situation, just to have something to sign also isn't and cannot be an option.
The same has been true of the Congress, whose leaders, especially in the Senate, continue to be too pusillanimous despite now having close to an absolute majority to pass legislation. The three House bills include forms of public health insurance, as does Kennedy's HELP panel's bill, but the key Senate Finance bill, from Max Baucus (written by him and sextet of moderate and conservative Democrats and Republicans), is unclear. Baucus's original guidelines for a bill, from last year, sounded pretty progressive, but his just released sketch of a bill sounds like a disaster, with reduced subsidies for poor and working-class people and no public option.
Are Baucus's newest set of guidelines a sop for his health care industry funders, a ploy to placate the GOP and Democratic fiscal whiners who were silent when George W. Bush dynamited the deficit open with tax cuts and war spending, a skeleton to be fleshed out with the House's more liberal plans in conference, or something else?
None of this came up at the rally. In fact the faith that people there appeared to have that the President and the Congress would do the right thing was strong, by my observation. I hate to be more cynical, but as in 1992, on the big issues this administration has represented one disappointment after another. I am hoping--and will do my part to ensure that--this extremely important effort will not turn out to be yet one more to be added to the list.
Participants in the MoveOn.org health care reform rally and vigil
Participants at the rally and vigil
Participants at the rally and vigil
A participant with a flyer
Our local newsperson, Mike Gilliam of Channel 9 News; he aired a very sympathetic and thoughtful piece on the rally
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Visiting the Met
A friend, D, and I had made plans a few weeks back to go to the Museum of Modern Art to catch the James Ensor and conceptual art shows now on exhibit, but we had to keep rescheduling, and finally we settled on yesterday to head up to MoMa, only to learn that unlike most of the other local major museums, it's closed on Tuesdays rather than Mondays. Instead, we agreed upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that infinite-seeming cabinet of marvels, and decided to see the Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul show, running through September 20 (2009), in the Cantor Exhibition space on the museum's second floor.
I've rhapsodized about the Met before on here, so I'll spare readers that bit, but I will say that if you are visiting New York and are at all disposed to art and you have some spare time and you don't have a particular show in mind, the Met is the museum to visit. (I would place the Brooklyn Museum second in this regard, plus you get the added option of taking the subway train to Brooklyn.) Whatever your area of aesthetic interest, the Met probably has something to sate it, or at the very least, whet it. Optimally you would have several weeks to explore the museum section by section, savoring its troves, but that's rarely possible, so I suggest picking an area--the arts of Japan, say, or the Temple of Dendur--and then just devote a few hours to it, viewing what the Met has to offer. It's never time wasted. (Just remember that the "suggested" fee is now $20. Keeping up with the MoMas, you know.)
But back to the Afghanistan exhibit, I found it a great choice. Most of the pieces had been unearthed or preserved up until the period of the Russian invasion, in 1979, which led to untold horrors, not the least the US's arming of the mujihadeen, including someone named Osama bin Laden, almost continuous instability in many parts of the country, and the Taliban regime, whom the US is still ostensibly engaged in a war against. Another effect of this chain of events was widescale destruction of Afghanistan's artistic and cultural patrimony. Perhaps one of the most notorious moments occurred in March 2001, when the Taliban, in an attempt to prevent idolatry, blew up the giant 6th century, sandstone Buddhas of Bamyan, in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan.
To prevent looting and the complete destruction of the country's ancient treasures, members of the Kabul Museum's staff secreted them away in vaults in the Central Bank area of the presidential palace. It wasn't until 2004 that many of these artifacts, dating from 2200 BCE to the 2nd Century AD, when regions of northern Afghanistan, such as the area around Mazar-i-Sharif, and known as Bactria among ancient writers, represented a central crossroads along the centuries-long Silk Road trade, were exhumed and again available for viewing not only by Afghans, but by the wider world.
As the catalogue and exhibit literature suggests, the art shows contact with of a variety of traditions, including Greece, Persia, Mesopotamia, India, China, and the Eurasian steppes. Some of the pieces seemed redolent of certain traditions more so than others; in the case of carved ivory panels that would have been part of a throne or chair for a dignitary, the imagery, stylizations, and iconography reminded me strongly of eastern Indian art. Other works, such as figurines, looked like similar work on display in the Greek and Roman galleries. There were even some signet rings, found in nomadic tombs in Tillya Tepe, on the Eurasian steppes, which could easily have been fashioned during the most psychadelic periods of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, the art on display came from four sites, according to the Met's literature:
Their functionality and centrality to various daily experiences, rituals, spiritual and cultural practices, to the life of the communities in which they were created, to particular and quite distant political and social economies that in some ways still reflect our own, became apparent as I walked through the show and viewed and read. The heroism, which to put it another way might be the determination, of the museum staff, to preserve these vital links to Afghanistan's--and our human--past, also impressed me deeply, and made me think for a bit about what we value in this society, what we have valued, what we leave for those to come, whether we call it art or have no name for it at all, who has access to it and what its roles and functions are.
I bore this with me as we left this particular exhibit and viewed a few other things in the museum, including the Roxy Paine sculpture, Maelstrom, a gigantic (130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide) stainless steel "dendrite," in the Cantor Roof Garden; the new American Wing of the Museum, since May 19 comprising the bright, airy Engelhard Court and several floors of period rooms; some works in the Oceanic art collection; and a smallish exhibit (or room) I can't find online, featuring some landmarks of 20th century design. We spent a good amount of time in the Engelhard Court, the centerpiece of the new American Wing, which First Lady Michelle Obama helped to inaugurate back in May; an exhibit of sculptures by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, whom I always associate with Boston and the Common, and with Robert Lowell (because of his famous poem "For the Union Dead"), graced that space. It felt a bit haphazard, scattered, though some of the pieces, such as the "Diana" which had once stood atop the old Madison Square Garden before its leveling, matched the vastness and grandeur of the room. I did not visit more than a few of the period rooms, something I must return there to do soon, and am looking forward to the completion of the painting galleries, which will not open, if I read the note correctly, for several more years. Still, the Engelhard Court would probably be a great place to pause and reflect, perhaps even have a cup of coffee, and reflect upon what you've seen, before heading to another part of the museum.
And as always, photos:
People looking at some of the sculptures, Hidden Treasures of Aghanistan exhibit
Statuettes and figurines, Afghan art exhibit
Busts and vases, Afghan art exhibit
Salvador Dalí's "Crucifixion," 1954
David Hockney screen, in the design show
Charles Demuth's "The Figure Five in Gold," 1928
Photographers in the Engelhard Court
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Statue of Diana, Engelhard Court
South Sea Islander Fishing Chart, Arts of Oceania collection
Roxy Paine's Maelstrom
Maelstrom
Photographers in the Engelhard Court
The Engelhard Court's south end, featuring the installed façade of Martin E. Thompson's Branch Bank of the United States (1822-24), originally located at 15 1/2 Wall Street in New York City
I've rhapsodized about the Met before on here, so I'll spare readers that bit, but I will say that if you are visiting New York and are at all disposed to art and you have some spare time and you don't have a particular show in mind, the Met is the museum to visit. (I would place the Brooklyn Museum second in this regard, plus you get the added option of taking the subway train to Brooklyn.) Whatever your area of aesthetic interest, the Met probably has something to sate it, or at the very least, whet it. Optimally you would have several weeks to explore the museum section by section, savoring its troves, but that's rarely possible, so I suggest picking an area--the arts of Japan, say, or the Temple of Dendur--and then just devote a few hours to it, viewing what the Met has to offer. It's never time wasted. (Just remember that the "suggested" fee is now $20. Keeping up with the MoMas, you know.)
But back to the Afghanistan exhibit, I found it a great choice. Most of the pieces had been unearthed or preserved up until the period of the Russian invasion, in 1979, which led to untold horrors, not the least the US's arming of the mujihadeen, including someone named Osama bin Laden, almost continuous instability in many parts of the country, and the Taliban regime, whom the US is still ostensibly engaged in a war against. Another effect of this chain of events was widescale destruction of Afghanistan's artistic and cultural patrimony. Perhaps one of the most notorious moments occurred in March 2001, when the Taliban, in an attempt to prevent idolatry, blew up the giant 6th century, sandstone Buddhas of Bamyan, in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan.
To prevent looting and the complete destruction of the country's ancient treasures, members of the Kabul Museum's staff secreted them away in vaults in the Central Bank area of the presidential palace. It wasn't until 2004 that many of these artifacts, dating from 2200 BCE to the 2nd Century AD, when regions of northern Afghanistan, such as the area around Mazar-i-Sharif, and known as Bactria among ancient writers, represented a central crossroads along the centuries-long Silk Road trade, were exhumed and again available for viewing not only by Afghans, but by the wider world.
As the catalogue and exhibit literature suggests, the art shows contact with of a variety of traditions, including Greece, Persia, Mesopotamia, India, China, and the Eurasian steppes. Some of the pieces seemed redolent of certain traditions more so than others; in the case of carved ivory panels that would have been part of a throne or chair for a dignitary, the imagery, stylizations, and iconography reminded me strongly of eastern Indian art. Other works, such as figurines, looked like similar work on display in the Greek and Roman galleries. There were even some signet rings, found in nomadic tombs in Tillya Tepe, on the Eurasian steppes, which could easily have been fashioned during the most psychadelic periods of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, the art on display came from four sites, according to the Met's literature:
The intricacy of detail and extraordinary craftspersonship of the pieces on display impressed me, and though it was cursory at best, I felt like I gained some insight, through these artifacts and the elaborate contexts that museum attempted to delineate through the various wall plaques and related literature, into the lifeworlds of the people who originally made and made use of them.
the Bronze Age site of Tepe Fullol; the Greco-Bactrian city of Aï Khanum, founded by the successors of Alexander the Great, who conquered the region in the fourth century B.C.; the major trading settlement of Begram, which flourished at the heart of the Silk Road in the first and second centuries A.D.; and the roughly contemporary necropolis of Tillya Tepe, where a nomadic chieftain and members of his household were buried with thousands of stunning gold objects and ornaments, many inlaid with turquoise and other semiprecious stones.
Their functionality and centrality to various daily experiences, rituals, spiritual and cultural practices, to the life of the communities in which they were created, to particular and quite distant political and social economies that in some ways still reflect our own, became apparent as I walked through the show and viewed and read. The heroism, which to put it another way might be the determination, of the museum staff, to preserve these vital links to Afghanistan's--and our human--past, also impressed me deeply, and made me think for a bit about what we value in this society, what we have valued, what we leave for those to come, whether we call it art or have no name for it at all, who has access to it and what its roles and functions are.
I bore this with me as we left this particular exhibit and viewed a few other things in the museum, including the Roxy Paine sculpture, Maelstrom, a gigantic (130-foot-long by 45-foot-wide) stainless steel "dendrite," in the Cantor Roof Garden; the new American Wing of the Museum, since May 19 comprising the bright, airy Engelhard Court and several floors of period rooms; some works in the Oceanic art collection; and a smallish exhibit (or room) I can't find online, featuring some landmarks of 20th century design. We spent a good amount of time in the Engelhard Court, the centerpiece of the new American Wing, which First Lady Michelle Obama helped to inaugurate back in May; an exhibit of sculptures by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, whom I always associate with Boston and the Common, and with Robert Lowell (because of his famous poem "For the Union Dead"), graced that space. It felt a bit haphazard, scattered, though some of the pieces, such as the "Diana" which had once stood atop the old Madison Square Garden before its leveling, matched the vastness and grandeur of the room. I did not visit more than a few of the period rooms, something I must return there to do soon, and am looking forward to the completion of the painting galleries, which will not open, if I read the note correctly, for several more years. Still, the Engelhard Court would probably be a great place to pause and reflect, perhaps even have a cup of coffee, and reflect upon what you've seen, before heading to another part of the museum.
And as always, photos:
People looking at some of the sculptures, Hidden Treasures of Aghanistan exhibit
Statuettes and figurines, Afghan art exhibit
Busts and vases, Afghan art exhibit
Salvador Dalí's "Crucifixion," 1954
David Hockney screen, in the design show
Charles Demuth's "The Figure Five in Gold," 1928
Photographers in the Engelhard Court
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Statue of Diana, Engelhard Court
South Sea Islander Fishing Chart, Arts of Oceania collection
Roxy Paine's Maelstrom
Maelstrom
Photographers in the Engelhard Court
The Engelhard Court's south end, featuring the installed façade of Martin E. Thompson's Branch Bank of the United States (1822-24), originally located at 15 1/2 Wall Street in New York City
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
JC LGBT Pride
This past Saturday was Jersey City's 9th LGBT Pride Celebration, organized by Jersey City Lesbian and Gay Outreach. Despite living here for a decade and a half, I'd never made it to one. New York's Pride celebrations, yes. New York's various Black Prides, including the era of dual and dueling ones, yes. Brooklyn Pride, yes. Pride celebrations in Boston, DC and Atlanta, yes. I'd even participated in readings, sat on panels and hosted workshops at some of these. But never here. So this year I made sure to pen in the date and not miss it.There were a series of events leading up to Saturday, including a flag raising, various parties and a youth ball, including a get-together hosted by ChillFest, which runs year-round film series. Saturday's festivities began at noon, along a 3-4 block strip of Montgomery Street, all the way down to Exchange Place on the waterfront. Like many small city prides, Jersey City's is an affirmative, informal affair, with local business and not-for-profit organizations of all sorts setting up informational booths, a mainstage featuring performances, and lots of food. The morning began under heavy, gray clouds, and it was fairly cool and rained intermittently, but from what I could tell, the rain wasn't keeping that many people away. The performances were strong, and I personally didn't come across a single person who was unfriendly or full of attitude. One thing I especially enjoyed was seeing the diversity of people who were present: folks of every gender, race and ethnicity, economic background, age, family type, and so on, were out and about, a reflection of the city and of the region. Next year if I'm home and not traveling, I'll not only be here, but I'll volunteer.
A few photos of the events:
A member of the bowling league
Singer Dy'ari performing
The crowd at Exchange Place
Booths, looking towards Exchange Place
The St. Matthew's Lutheran Church booth
More bowlers
Another one of the booths
The founders of Benitza Arts, an eco-friendly clothing and arts company
Metrobears booth
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