Tyrone's Harp

I'm going to do this before eating the Bookforum piece (thanks to TBogg and Rox for pointing the way) on Pynchon, to keep it as personal as possible.

"Pynchon from A to V" is the title, but I started with "V." A pattern was established; I'd read to a sticking point - in V it was the SW African horror - stop, stunned, pause for a few days or weeks, then start over from the beginning and sail through. Somehow this made the architecture of the books clearer, chewing them over without actively thinking about them. I am pretty sure there are many readers who come to Pynchon the same way they might Lamont Cranston - he Clouds Their Minds. I really loved the way he screwed with mine, so I kept coming back.

My favorite anecdote about reading him isn't even my own. I had set our LA reading group on Gravity's Rainbow, and my friend Peter took it with him on a business trip to the Netherlands. He was arranging a franchise for gym wear distribution (or something like that) and found himself out in the Dutch countryside with a bunch of male and female bodybuilders, whose only subject of conversation was their diets, their supplementation (licit and not) and their stats. In that cottage, Pynchon made perfect sense and seemed eminently sane.

Pynchon provides antidotes to some of our darkest influences. Ayn Rand? There's Mafia Winsom. There's the Disgusting English Candy Drill. Any recipe with "Surprise" in it's name. There's the Postal Conspiracy in Lot 49. There's Slothrop's lost harmonica, singing by itself in a German brook, and probably dreaming of Rilke. Makes me want to cry, it's all so funny, dreadful, beautiful.

He also writes great liner notes for Spike Jones.

[Update: See Neddie Jingo's Comment - and follow his URLs - like Kilroy, he got there first. He is now blogrolled.]

Golden Boy 

K/O & Arf!

Kid Oakland is now Blogrolled - about time, too.
And Jane, at firedoglake, as well.
And Bitch PhD - long overdue.

Smash Slytherin!!! 

Partnership & Trust

I burst out laughing, with delight, to see an HP6 thread at The Washington Monthly - lots of brains and heart in there - and Michael Bérubé has a fine one going, too (to which I have contributed, which is not saying a whole lot). But all of a sudden it strikes me that, whatever tricks J.K. Rowling has up her sleeve, we readers have confidence in her playing fair with us, and that is something, in this moment of Rove/Plame/Bolton/&c., that is all too rare in our world. There is real good, and real evil, in the parallel Wizarding world, but "moral clarity" is at a premium (as it is in our own); triumphalism, arrogance, misplaced loyalties, flawed wisdom, denial, fear leading to oppression - these are everyday aspects of the HP universe. Rowling may have the great arc of her story laid out to the end from years ago, but she is alert to (and tactful about) the anxieties of the here and now, in her readers' lives.
At the turn of the 20th century, James and Conrad wrote, respectively, The Princess Casamassima and The Secret Agent. Both featured anarchist plots, terrorist cells, and I long wondered why and how, because I grew up in an atmosphere and received memory of state responsibility for everything bad. Now we all know that isn't necessarily the case. Rowling is much more plain-spoken (and whimsical and funny) than those lapidary masters, but I think she is just as serious, in her own way, about where we are now as they were about where they were then. If you want a counter-argument for the hi-falutin idea that these books just aren't good enough, don't have the lift of exalted fantasy, well, tough shit - try Tom Clancy. I'm sure he has the answers, and they're working, they're working....
.

Soupe du jour.... 

No Bidness - American Style

Not a fresh story - just 2 years old and developing - and profoundly shameful to anyone who wants to be proud of US know-how, US values (as if those mean anything in action any longer). Anyway, it's from Digby, and he's disgusted, too. All those no-bid Halliburton contracts, outrageous overcharges transporting fuel from Kuwait, under-equipped soldiers, rotten food, collapsed infratructure with no repair in sight....JFC! This goes so far beyond the procurement abuses of the mid-3-figure toilet seats; this is making despair, and manufacturing enemies, day by negligent day.

Not only do all of us pay for this, billions by the day/week/month, but it really does seem unlikely that there will ever be an accounting - Myst of War and all that. Once we throw these fuckers out, it will still take a decade to ferret out their crimes, if they haven't destroyed the evidence Decades longer to regain any honor for our country. Bastards.

Nin & June 

Miller & Nin 

Fred Ward's Back

What made me think of this? Maybe it was bluegirl's posting of a couple of paintings Friday, the work of her husband (go look). I love this movie, Henry & June, for a number of reasons, but one of them is certainly the beauty of Fred Ward, playing Henry Miller, in bed with Anaïs Nin (Maria de Medeiros), his back in particular. I used to see him with a trainer at Gold's in Venice, and all I can say is that the work paid off (per Short Cuts, a couple of years later, the front shaped up, too). Ah, gym!

But there's much more to this fantasia on Nin and Miller than beautiful people fucking. It's about why they fuck, and sex as an exploration into unknown territory, and throwing away your provisions on the trek - it's almost a primer on Lawrence's notion of pursuing sex in the head, but it's not from repression. It's more like a grasping for sensation, and through sensation, for power, for knowledge. June, Henry's wife (Uma Thurman in a role that proved unequivocally to me that she had awesome resources) is steamrolled by her husband and Nin; she's just not in their hunger league - she hasn't their ruthlessness. And while she's the most spectacular and touching of their victims, she's not alone.

It's funny, but I dragged my psycho semi-ex to a screening in LA, and in spite of his enormous sexual street cred, he was - ahem - rather offended. Prudery from the oddest places. It's a very sexy movie, and because it engages the emotional costs of sex - especially to the bystanders in relationships - it may be too much for some people. Yet it has a lightness (there are jugglers and illusionists performing in the backgrounds and the edges of the frame) that promises some kind of survival, even for the disappointed. You don't get dipped all the way into the marvelous scuzz of Tropic of Cancer, for example, but watching Fred lop off the top of a perfect soufflé, plop it on his plate, and pass the rest on is - fuck! - delicious.

One thing I do find intriguing. On the IMDb site that gives ratings, women give this movie higher ratings than men. I'd be interested in feedback on that from readers. I'm not going to link to it, but John Simon in The National Review gave it one of his most deeply misogynist spits.

I already have a VCR of this one, but, savoring (and not having a tape player), I am pretty sure I want the DVD. Part of me can never let go of la vie bohémienne, just for sanity.

The Hanged Man 

In Suspense

After two months of screwing around, dodging bugs from my security software (Fie, McAfee!), the latest update seems to have civilized them, so I trust posting will be more frequent and smoother than it has been lately. Knuckle-dragging brutes locking up your apps right and left, for mysterious reasons, has been an incredible pain, especially as I do not have the time to sit still messaging a tech, checking knowledge bases, or baby-sitting extensive diagnostics. All that can be fun, but not with an old lady, who has to pee, ringing a bell at you.

I was grateful this last weekend for HP6 - a comforting, fast read, and one you knew you were sharing with kids, their parents, and escapists everywhere. For me, a very brief vacation on-the-job. I have also been very glad to see the Rove/Plame/??? story stay robust. SCOTUS/Roberts will be interesting, but his relative blandness is not going to give much traction (or distraction); this is the price of loss last November.

Michael Bérubé's Theory Tuesday this week was also cool. The "grisha" I go by here comes from roomies and friends in Slav Lang at school, and one of them was writing her dissertation on Shklovsky, so his prominence was a nice vindication of her choices. Glad to see the Russian Formalists in the mainstream. Sometimes I miss all of that so much!

More soon!

Chez Dick... 

Deep

As much as I look forward to Karl Rove being popped like a crab between thumbnails (see illustration, below), that would only be a nice gift if Fitzgerald's grand jury is led elsewhere - down into that bunker built for Cheney, for example. Justin Raimondo seems to think that could be the case (and thanks to Steve Clemons for the link), and he's got Bolton in the mix, too (no great surprise).

Update: Whoa! Check out the TWN post this morning (7/16) -

"But we can never again accept or tolerate a Vice President of Dick Cheney's ilk."

Clemons has been dogging the Bolton nomination like nobody else, but not from a reflexive ideology. The guy seems appalled - both for himself and for those professionals in the government who are being trashed by the neocons - at the slash and burn tactics coming out of the Vice-President's circle. The threads continue to lead, as in a labyrinth, back to Cheney's particular people. Will they form a web that will snare them, finally? They've been at this game for 30 years, at least - Teams B, Iran-Contra, PNACs, etc. - and they have been consistently wrong, and with every failure more insistent that they are right. Achievements and facts seem to mean nothing to these guys - failure and reality seem to make them more vicious, and like cornered and wounded animals, more dangerous. Boot 'em. We shall all be safer.

Not tonight, George... 

The Irresponsibility Society

Ding-dong! Speak, Memory! Remember last summer, coincidentally with the Democratic Convention, when the Homeland Security alert level was kicked up, just after the Pakistanis, "recovered the laptop of a captured Al Qaeda leader, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, on July 13, 2004."? It seems that Khan, after his arrest, was continuing to supply information about his network to British Intelligence, and that by making a great to-do about the incident, the US Administration blew his brand-new cover. Americablog has the full rundown (and thanks to Crooks & Liars for the link).

Furthermore, it now appears that remnants of Khan's network - the guys the Brits couldn't catch in the resulting high-speed diaspora out of Luton - were the people behind last week's London bombings.

My god, blowing an asset like Khan, when we already have such difficulty penetrating terrorist groups, seemed like incompetence at the time; now it seems nearly criminal, given the long-term consequences. Chalk up a few more casualties to the Bushies' determination to pay any price for the rule of the Republican Party, for what other reason was there for this botch than to distract and detract from their political opposition? Every time this government starts yelling about National Security, I feel less safe - they're playing us. It's Plamegate, it's the Downing Street Memos - all of a piece. And they are actively endangering us in the process of maintaining their grip on power. They really do take us for fools, for sheep, and we have (collectively, at any rate) given them cause to persist in that belief. Hey, let's withhold for a while, like the heroines of Lysistrata, and see what happens!

Woof! Woof! Arf! Arf!

Republic of Dogs has been added to the Blogroll - go read res publica for yourself - he's great (and now has cool t-shirts!). My thanks to Lance Mannion and blue girl for pointing me in his direction. I must do a thorough overhaul of the listings soon - I am reading a lot of new (to me) people since I set it up, and some of my old faves are on hiatus for one reason or another (a simple remark will be added, in hopes they will return soon...). Very organic, this garden of blogs.

-------------

Once again, days are passing between bursts of posts - just been too exhausted from the job. Apologies, and a promise that it won't last.

A Louse Named Karl...now, where's that RID?

So a Child Could Understand....

Special thanks to Digby's friend who requested that he construct a simple recap of the Rove/Plame story and it's ramifications. For some real insider detail on the Niger mission, especially, see Sidney Blumenthal at Salon this evening.
As I'm writing this, Andrea Mitchell (aka, Mrs. Greenspan), just told Chris Matthews on Hardball that this whole Rove story was of interest only within the DC Beltway, and that no one else was paying attention. Whoa! Is she gonna be surprised! She must have been reading The Note a bit too confidently....
Listen, I get The Note sent to me by e-mail every morning - it was fun during the election cycle last year, but now that the courtiers can be courtiers again, it's full of pure preening and disdain. Makes one want to trash the place.

Simple, Robust - let's go get a Pint!

Hey for our Town!

London, to thee I do present the merry month of May;
Let each true subject be content to hear me what I say;
With gilded staff and crossèd scarf the Maylord here I stand.
Rejoice! O English hearts rejoice! O lovers dear!
Rejoice, O City, town and country! Rejoice, eke every shire!
For now the fragrant flowers do spring and sprout in seemly sort,
The little birds do sit and sing, the lambs do make fine sport;
And now the birchen-tree doth bud, that makes the schoolboy cry;
The morris rings, while hobby-horse doth foot it feateously;
The lords and ladies now abroad, for their disport and play,
Do kiss sometimes upon the grass, and sometimes in the hay;
Now butter with a leaf of sage is good to purge the blood;
Fly Venus and phlebotomy, for they are neither good;
Now little fish on tender stone begin to cast their bellies,
And sluggish snails, that erst were mewed, do creep out of their shellies;
The rumbling rivers now do warm, for little boys to paddle
The sturdy steed now goes to grass, and up they hang his saddle;
The heavy hart, the bellowing buck, the rascal, and the pricket,
Are now among the yoeman's peas, and leave the fearful thicket;
And be like them, O you, I say, of this same noble town,
And lift aloft your velvet heads, and slipping off your gown,
With bells on legs, with napkins clean unto your shoulders tied,
With scarfs and garters as you please, and 'Hey for our town!', cried,
March out, and show your willing minds, by twenty and by twenty,
To Hogsdon or to Newington, where ales and cakes are plenty;
And let it ne'er be said for shame, that we the youths of London
Lay thrumming of our caps at home, and left our custom undone;
Up, then, I say, both young and old, both man and maid a' maying
With drums, and guns that bounce along, and merry tabor playing!
Which to prolong, God save our King, and send his country peace,
And root out treason from the land! and so, my friends, I cease.

[Beaumont & Fletcher, c. 1610]
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Crooked Timber cites Noel Coward on London Pride - and I post a picture of the hardy flower above. The anthem to London was set by Benjamin Britten (rounded with an even older tune); there's a "Fuck you" in there to anyone who wants to limit the joy of rich communal society - moralists, puritans, tyrants, scolds. Rich and honored words, those with four letters!

[And honor to Liam, Claire, Pauly....mates of my heart!]

For London 

Malignant Missionaries

Another Madrid, says the Guardian this morning.

"Michael Clarke, director of the Centre for Defence Studies at King's College London, said six bombs would mean at least 24 people involved in planting them in a targeted operation. The fact that London had been hit when the resources of the security forces were focused on the G8 summit at Gleneagles indicated some clever thinking by terrorists.
"It will have been quite a big plot and months in the planning," said Prof Clarke, who declined to speculate who was behind the attacks at this stage."

I am waiting, with bated breath, for our splendid spokesmen at State and Defense and the White House to now explain to us how they were always on top of this hot plot, and to see which of their fucking fingers they will point at what state sponsor or - failing that - the insufficiently muscular Brits, and - naturally failing that - the aid and comfort and encouragement given to the terrorists by Liberal (but genetically traitorous) Americans for questioning our Dear Leader on his tipsy bike rides through G8 summits. Watch and learn.

It's croc tears for Perfidious Albion - if any of the perps is traced to Galloway's new constituency - "months in planning" or not - there will be hysteria here for the UK to get tough and to make things worse than they already are. Fools. Utter fucking fools.

It was always impure, but I think it was, at heart, benign, for American missionaries to venture forth to foreign lands and give the best of themselves - they had many predecessors, and they learned as much as they taught, humility first, perhaps. The sons and daughters of PNAC know no humility - they come to conquer, and we should cut them off at the knees, now.

This must stop.

Update: From a reader over at TPM, it looks like Fox was licking their lips like Bloody Ghouls - I'd forgotten about that potential response. Just didn't fucking occur to me.... Was in brief touch with friends in UK (and they are fine, thank heaven); they report the agitation as general - more on the mood as I hear.

Update II: Digby on The Roaring Boys - yup, let's blow up some shit....that'll fix 'em. And Amanda chronicles early finger-pointing - and Jesse responds, sensibly, to some flak.

Alice Meets Duchess Judy and Baby Chalabi... and yeah, I know it's the Other Book

Tool/looT or hguorht eht gnikool ssalG

I am really, really getting annoyed at the number of column inches in recent weeks devoted to professional and personal devotion to what bricks Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper are, bricks in the Press Bulwark of Democracy and Truth. It looks more, to me, as if they are Human Shields for figures in the White House who, in the summer of 2003, were busy, busy, busy with the process of "fixing the intelligence," per the Downing Street Memo, and accompanying documents, and in the ramping up of an invasion of Iraq. [See Daniel Solove at Balkinization on the privilege angles.] This is not a conspiracy theory - US Iraq policy was all out in the open, or so thinly veiled that irrefutable confirmation of official manipulation of intelligence to support an invasion surprises no one who was paying attention; big Ho-Hum from editorialists and reporters who were supposed to be on the case [refs on request - I can post 'em in Comments to save space here].
Except it was a lie, top to bottom, and the Wilson/Plame case wasn't some side issue, it was part and parcel of the whole schmeer - it was crucial that Wilson's report on the non-existent supply to Iraq of WMD materials be quashed at whatever cost to our real security. And this keeps pointing - to my simple mind - again to the question, "If not our national security, then whose security is being protected - for what reasons and to what ends?"
Come on, smarties, fill me in.

An American Scene - Knoxville, Summer of 1915

…It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds’ hung havens, hangars.

People go by; things go by. A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt; a loud auto; a quiet auto; people in pairs, not in a hurry, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually, the taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk, the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.

A streetcar raising its iron moan, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past, the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it, like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks; the iron whine rises on rising speed; still risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell; rises again, still fainter, fainting, lifting, lifts, faints forgone: forgotten.

Now is the night one blue dew.
Now is the night one blue dew,my father has drained, he has coiled the hose.
Low on the length of lawns, a frailing of fire who breathes…
Parents on porches: rock and rock. From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.
The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.

On the rough wet grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there… They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine,… with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds.

One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night. May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.

- James Agee, set by Samuel Barber to glorious music.

Happy 4th!  

Thin Edge of the Wedge

At least I certainly hope so. Per Digby. And read down, there are multiple posts on this cluster of stories. It's like a great glacier, calving.

The Gaze, Echoing 

The Dare

I know it was rude to provoke this (I mean, you really have to be needy to ask to make a fool of yourself), but I'm a slut.

The Embarrassment/Psycho-Surgery Meme:

Question number 1: What are three of the stupidest things you've done in your life.

a) High School Health Class, my junior year. It was held in a theater, not a regular classroom, and on this occasion was being taught by the football coach, who could have doubled as a slim sumo wrestler - for him, not an oxymoron. For some reason he called me out and asked if I liked contact sports, and if I would be interested in football. Much mirth among my classmates. No one had ever asked me such a question before, directly, but looking back I believe it was a sincere and honest offer. I was pissed off from not knowing how to answer (and from years of never having been offered), so I said, "No," even as I knew I did so out of pique. Would have done me a lot of good to take him up on it, and to this day I thank him for his generosity. As a good friend said, many years later, "When the cookies are passed, take one; they may never be passed again."

I would add that even if I had gone with the experiment, and it had not turned out well - if I had made an ass of myself - it would still have flushed out any number of other insecurities and doubts that I continued to bear (and bore myself with) for a few years thereafter.

b) Taking to heart what a cabdriver said to me. Big mistake.

c) Falling for a glamour/Psycho - this was while I was coming out, and this gorgeous guy took me for a ride. Huge black Benz, clear demo of criminal behavior, therapeutic manner - marked for Danger head to toe, and manifestly unstable, but absolutely fascinating. Everyone I had ever known before was just normally fucked-up, not insane. It did not end well (tho it galloped on very quickly), and I lost a great deal, but I also wised up. Fucking closet - get out of it! You learn nothing in there.

Question number 2: At the current moment, who has the most influence on your life?

Me.

Question number 3: If you were given a time machine that functioned, and you were allowed to only pick up to five people to dine with, who would you pick?

Dinner Party! - Socrates (a good listener), Ovid; Ben Jonson (allowing Will to take a nap for a change); Jane Austen (good manners, good eye and ear); Anthony Powell. This is not to pick brains, it's to have good company! And I don't think any of them had food allergies, or eschewed drink. There should be seven, so I could add two more women (I think Jane and Anthony might hit it off). Socrates can have his way with me. Pauline Kael would be great, I think.....

Question number 4: If you had three wishes that were not supernatural, what would they be?

a) Peace to my relatives
b) Health and long life to my friends
c) Regime change in the U.S.

Question number 5: Someone is visiting your hometown/place where you live at the moment. Name two things you regret your city not having, and two things people should avoid.

Regret Not Having:
a) A bigger, older, deeper, richer art museum - what is here is fine, just none of those things.
b) Less complacency

To Avoid:
a) Clackamas Town Center - mall where Tonya Harding used to train - and environs.
b) Downtown Beaverton (if you can find it)

Question number 6: Name one event that has changed your life.

My friend Jeff walking into my office, looking for an apartment I had advertised.

Question number 7: Is not a question. It's a command. Tag five other people.

Command, eh? Who the hell are you? We'll think about this.....

I Want That....... 

Delight, Allure, Entice

Dilettante came up in a recent correspondence with a friend of this site, and I seemed to remember that it was not, at root, such a bad label. Go to the Dictionary.com link, above, and see. When we can have no confidence in even traditional professions - let alone scarce common jobs that provide little hope of the basic security our parents took as their due (not for granted - their due), then Doing It for Love doesn't look so bad. It may even redeem you.
Where the hell are the opportunities any longer to climb the apprentice-journeyman-master ladder? You make them yourself, if you are nimble, or else you cave, and settle for comfort, perhaps a hobby, at worst a taste for revenge. Nothing so corrupting as bringing down a boss whose job you don't really want - I've seen it in action, and it is ugly.
Jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none is, now, it seems to me, an old formula. Expertise is essential, or at least the capacity to acquire it (no one wants an amateur craftsman tinkering with their house, permanently). We are living through a time of governance by wish and whim, and it is not going well. There is no apparent love of country, justice, or law in it. These are dilettantes in the most shallow and worst sense - triflers, and they are playing with loaded guns, and waving thieir contempt - their big dicks - in our faces.

Black-robed Narcissus

Leon Wieseltier has a terrific piece up at TNR (open to all, I think), on the recent Decalogue opinions. I especially loved this:

"Scalia's cordiality to Judaism and Islam is owed to their resemblance to Christianity. This is not tolerance. This is narcissism"

But there is much more, and bracingly written. Go.

I Regret Nothing.... 

They Can't Take That Away from Me

Before it disappears into PPV, check out Charles Taylor's review of Corinne Maier's Bonjour Laziness in the Newark Star-Ledger of June 19. To excerpt, Taylor says the book:

"...[O]perates from basic, sound assumptions, the truth of which will be obvious to anyone who has spent time in the corporate world and not been body-snatched. Briefly, these truths are: 1. The corporate world prizes obedience over intelligence. 2. While corporations play lip service to ethics, their behavior (Enron, Parmalat, et al) reveals they have no use for or belief in them. 3. Belief in the free market is blind faith with no basis in science. Thus, Communists (with their dedication to dialectical materialism) and capitalists are linked by their faith in systems that are little more than voodoo, just as they are linked by ... their contempt for language."

And this, which I found over the weekend because I trawl for Charley's stuff since he left the fading Salon (before all the bodies are snatched, so perhaps fortunately), provided some armor against FatBoy Rove last week, and Rumsfeld's Alfred E. Newman imitations this weekend. Rove gets a bang out of being feral. Rumsfeld I can't figure, because for such a hands-on, visionary guy, a hard-head who's going to shake up the military and retool it for a New Age of American Glory (or some such bullshit), he's remarkably out of the loop, on his own word; I don't even have to bother to make a list of the evasions and lies - they are transcripted from here to the moon. But, damn, he sure as hell talks the tough manager talk, has the grooming down flat. A man my Dad can trust - a straight-shooter.

Except that my Dad (and I suspect many self-described Independents like him) know that they've been burned yet again, and pride is about the only thing that keeps them from saying it. The Bushies go far beyond spin - they shit on meaning. That's not an insight; anyone who's been paying attention has known this for years, but the continuing audacity of it has yet to be accepted by - fuck - what lefty bloggers call the Kool Kidz in the DC Press Corps - or the Gang of 500 per The Note - and by all those who ride their coattails, looking for solace and a return to the Old Ways.

Dad and I had a date last Friday, and we talked about 50 years of transformation in maritime labor (that's what he did, as an LR professional, before he retired). In his apprentice days, if the Port was full and busy, and there weren't enough union members to fill the gang allocation, they'd sweep the fucking streets for casuals. Labor and management reps and staff drank huge amounts of booze (probably to dull the discontinuities Taylor describes above). When I was a kid, I still remember the crisis of "containerization" - prepackaged cargo that would demand fewer longshoremen to empty a ship. I am oversimplifying for sure, but I'd say my Dad oversaw a transformation of longshoring from scruffy bluecollar to virtual whitecollar in a single generation, salaries and benefits keeping pace. Now, we have a tiny fraction of the workers we used to have at ports (and, on the Pacific Coast, 10 times the freight - outships the East and Gulf Coasts), and, quite certainly, no casuals.

It's very funny. When I was in LA and learning the "Life of the Courtier" intricacies of the movie industry guilds, I'd occasionally call Dad; "In violation of all labor statutes!", he'd tell me, but it didn't help (and, remember, he repped the employers). A sense of humor is a wonderful thing.

That incomprehension of just how Bad It Can Be has yet to sink in for guys like him. He's old now, and I hope he doesn't have to see the collapse of everything he spent his working life create, but I am thinking that it's the casuals - Cheney sending copies of Ken Burns's Civil War series to generals in the field, for example - who are now running the show. Bottom of the barrel, and dragging us all down.

Sweeten My Imagination

Patient duties have been monstrous the last few days, and exhausting, so no posts. It's been Lear-like, actually, except the family is so much nicer. And I'm playing the Fool (I should say, not for the first time). More later this evening.

Roy's Quotes-o-Rama

Alicublog (aka, Roy Edroso) is having a Truest Quotes festival - not to be passed on as a meme, just add your own to the thread. I posted mine over there already, but here it is for this record:

And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say, "This is the worst."
Edgar, King Lear, IV, i.

I take great hope from this, for some reason.

Go take a look at the rest, though - Hi-Lo, and very cool.

Good Evening, Mr. Dearlove.... 

Daggers, Lies & Cloaking Devices

From Froomkin (read down) I got directed to a terrific post by Tom Engelhardt from yesterday, wrapping up DSM coverage to date (smartly) and including an exchange between Mark Danner and John Walcott of Knight Ridder papers that will be in the NYRB 6/20 issue. Go!!
Then, this evening (here in PDT), Hardball spent its second 30 minutes on the DSM, under not-bad sub-hosting by David Gregory, with Michael Smith of The Times (London), who broke the story, followed by David Kay and James Woolsey. Kay and Woolsey tried to shore up the fuckup - Woolsey tried to parse "fix" again - but sieving for small fry when they clearly knew the big fish had escaped. The entire UN gambit was a feint - on the UK side to provide legal justifications to what seemed inevitable US aggression, on the US side an accommodation to insure British participation (and staging areas) - with no hope that, despite dubious intelligence, Saddam (feinting in his own megalomaniac way) would be found to lack the pretext for invasion - no WMDs.

The Great Game, folks - watch it play out!

Belated Dad Post

For the Record - I missed the multi-Dad celebration at my sister's house Sunday (Old Lady Patient job duties), but there were lots of fathers there whom I admire, not least my own, and he also has my love. So temperamentally different - and I know I still perplex and confuse him - but there are few people I'd rather spend time with. The man never reads fiction, but I sat at his feet while he read dictionaries and recorded words he liked in steno pads, and I caught the language bug. He didn't go to college, but he loved Whitehead's transcribed dialogues, and Russell, and Mill...too bad he flipped a bit conservative, but that was the 60's in action, I guess. Change of rules he wasn't ready for.
His own childhood and youth is a relative mystery to me - there are clues that it wasn't happy, without much documentation. I wanted to be like him, and I think he wasn't well-prepared for that - and we are built so differently that it was a doomed ambition, but not entirely. He was in the middle of redesigning himself when I was a kid, and he planted in me the most exciting parts of that work, because he shared them with me, the child at his feet, treated as an equal. Thanks, Dad!

Saturday Recipe Blogging

I don't have any cat or dog recipes, so this will have to suffice. Feedback (heh!) is welcome.

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Green Chicken Enchiladas

These are rich but light. Heat will depend on your choice of canned sauce and how much pepper jack cheese you include - it gives a nice bite, but front-end - the other ingredients are quite mellow.
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1 large roasting chicken (at least 5 lbs)
1 large yellow onion
1 medium carrot
4-5 sprigs flat-leaf parsley, stems trimmed, tied with string
8 whole peppercorns
1 bay leaf
2 whole cloves garlic
Water to cover
Salt
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1 large can green enchilada sauce
Flour tortillas - 8 inch size
1 lb. (or so) quesa fresca (Mexican cheese somewhat like feta in texture, but milder)
Sliced pepper jack cheese
2 poblano chiles (the very dark green big ones) - roasted over a gas flame and peeled
1/3 - 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 - 2 tsp. roasted cumin seeds, ground
Salt and pepper to taste
Sour cream and guacamole as garnish
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Poach the chicken in a big pot with the onion (very coarsely sliced), the carrot (peeled and chunked), the parsley, peppercorns, bay leaf and garlic. Wash the chicken thoroughly, then salt in the cavity and the skin. If the pot is deep, it can go in as is - if not, smash the chicken with your fist or a mallet so it can be covered by the water. Include the neck and giblets (but not the liver) if you have them. Put everything in the pot, add water to cover the chicken (just), and heat to the simmer. It should NOT boil hard - just check the heat from time to time. Do not cover.
I turned the bird a few times to ensure even poaching, and when it started to get tender, split it with tongs so it would stay down (they stiffen up and don't want to stay submerged otherwise). Once the water is simmering, allow about 20 minutes per pound. When done, the chicken should be very tender - off the bone tender; turn off the heat and let it cool in the stock until you can handle it comfortably.
Lift out the chicken (it will now have disjointed itself!), and carefully remove all the meat from the bones, discarding skin and bones and cartilage. Unless you are making a couple of platters, there will be plenty left for a lovely chicken salad or anything else you want to do with it, but it's important to have a big bird for the flavor.
Strain the stock, pressing out the juices from the vegetables and herbs. Return the strained stock to the pot, and allow to cool further - either refrigerate when it has reached room temp, or let it sit overnight (if your kitchen is cool). The fat will rise and congeal, after which you can skim it off easily. Reduce the de-fatted stock gently until it has good flavor and body - I got 2 quarts from about 7 quarts of original water. Use for anything!!! :-))
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For the poblanos - roast over a gas burner, naked, turning with tongs so they get black and blistered all over. Put in a paper bag and let them sit for a while until cool enough to handle. Take off the skin, cut them open and remove the seeds and the stems. Cut into strips or dice and reserve for the filling.
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The Filling!
Shred the poached chicken into a big bowl. Half the meat will make 6-7 enchiladas. Crumble the quesa fresca and add that. Add the sliced/diced poblanos. Chop some fresh cilantro fine and add that (this is sort of to taste, but it needs to be in there).
For the cumin, put a tbs whole seeds in a cast iron pan, heat until they start to darken and release their aroma, then grind in a spice grinder. Add to filling mixture.
Season with salt and pepper to taste - it should have a light texture and complex but gentle flavor.
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Assembly -
Need a sizable baking dish for this. Spread a thin layer of the canned green sauce on the bottom of the dish. For each tortilla, put a couple of generous spoonfuls (big spoon!) down the center. Slice the pepper jack cheese and lay the pieces over the line of filling - roll up the tortilla around the filling and put seam-side down in the dish. Quite OK to put the jack cheese down first and then the filling - experiment! Fill the dish closely with the rolled and filled tortillas, then pour over the remaining enchilada sauce.
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Bake in a 375 deg oven (preheated), for 30 mins, or until bubbly and just begining to color around the edges - the filling is all precooked, so you are after the melt and marrying of flavors. Remove from oven and let rest for at least 20 mins - they need to pull themselves together.
Serve with sour cream and your favorite quacamole. Or salsa, green or red - or all of them!

Variations and Additions:
The jalapeno bits in the jack cheese are the principal source of heat here, but if you like more, I'd recommend a couple of very finely chopped serranos - bright, hot in a different way, and a good fresh green flavor that will go will with the rest. I made a garlicky quacamole to accompany, and the garlic was very harmonious with the rest. Remember, this had to please the Old Lady Palate (and did), so if you don't have one of those around, let 'er rip. I should also note that most of the enchilada recipes I looked at for reference and comparison included corn - not sure how I'd add that, but I'd cut it off the cob and prep it a bit so as not to extend the baking time too much. Be nice cooked up with the serranos, I think - dash of cream in there???
And, of course, for the hardcore, your very own enchilada sauce would be great!
Enjoy!

Giant Zit

About to pop...
I don't know exactly why I'm feeling (and it's only a feeling) that one or another of the national infections is going to need lancing soon, but I do. I have a naive confidence in facts eventually devouring lies - a silly faith, contradicted daily, but, fuck, I hold out hope.
It's not just falling poll numbers - it's the nervous rats - Martinez on Gitmo, for example. Or the incipient panic of Sensenbrenner in last week's PATRIOT Act hearings - do the confident commonly go into such snits? The Conyers hearing, pushed out of quarters but sufficiently well-attended to go into overtime - I thought Milbank had better judgment.
More later this weekend.

3 for 5

I guess I missed out on Detroit....

American Cities That Best Fit You:

70% Boston

70% Los Angeles

70% San Francisco

65% Chicago

65% New York City

Pretty neck in neck - Chicago and LA are the ones I've lived in the longest, and I loved my year in Boston, but it was a tad small, and didn't have the energy I seem to need. Which is, of course, why I am in Beaverton now.....!

I got this from Lance, and there's a nice thread over there - very passionate about the places we love!

[Update: As it happens, Neal Pollack has a few things to say about Chicago. He should know.]

War On Stuff....

Great Digby post, linking to The Medium Lobster, as well. O, what a beautiful morning....!
Truly, I am not sure that even the architects of this mess really know why they did it - the rationales seem to shift under their feet every time they are pressed to explain. There are clues in the PNAC agenda I posted below (Shorter: "We must have the world's Biggest Balls!"), but the enterprise has been spectacularly counterproductive. It's interesting to me that "moral clarity" was a PNAC rhetorical trope (see the very last paragraph) all the way back in 1997, quite a long time before the 9/11 attack made that phrase a tin drum. History - that thing that Dear Leader thinks we will all be dead before it speaks - is going to pee on them.

Shelter from the storm 

Mr. Badger

A bit out of season for the weather, but there is no off-season for hospitality, generosity, tolerance and charity. Or so we should hope.

THEY waited patiently for what seemed a very long time, stamping in the snow to keep their feet warm. At last they heard the sound of slow shuflling footsteps approaching the door from the inside. It seemed, as the Mole remarked to the Rat, like some one walking in carpet slippers that were too large for him and down at heel; which was intelligent of Mole, because that was exactly what it was.
There was the noise of a bolt shot back, and the door opened a few inches, enough to show a long snout and a pair of sleepy blinking eyes.

`Now, the very next time this happens,' said a gruff and suspicious voice, `I shall be exceedingly angry. Who is it this time, disturbing people on such a night? Speak up!'

`Oh, Badger,' cried the Rat, `let us in, please. It's me, Rat, and my friend Mole, and we've lost our way in the snow.'

`What, Ratty, my dear little man!' exclaimed the Badger, in quite a different voice. `Come along in, both of you, at once. Why, you must be perished. Well I never! Lost in the snow! And in the Wild Wood, too, and at this time of night! But come in with you.'

The two animals tumbled over each other in their eagerness to get inside, and heard the door shut behind them with great joy and relief.

The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were indeed very down at heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had probably been on his way to bed when their summons sounded. He looked kindly down on them and patted both their heads. `This is not the sort of night for small animals to be out,' he said paternally. `I'm afraid you've been up to some of your pranks again, Ratty. But come along; come into the kitchen. There's a first-rate fire there, and supper and everything.'

He shuffled on in front of them, carrying the light, and they followed him, nudging each other in an anticipating sort of way, down a long, gloomy, and, to tell the truth, decidedly shabby passage, into a sort of a central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like passages branching, passages mysterious and without apparent end. But there were doors in the hall as well -- stout oaken comfortable-looking doors. One of these the Badger flung open, and at once they found themselves in all the glow and warmth of a large fire-lit kitchen.

The floor was well-worn red brick, and on the wide hearth burnt a fire of logs, between two attractive chimney-corners tucked away in the wall, well out of any suspicion of draught. A couple of high-backed settles, facing each other on either side of the fire, gave further sitting accommodations for the sociably disposed. In the middle of the room stood a long table of plain boards placed on trestles, with benches down each side. At one end of it, where an arm-chair stood pushed back, were spread the remains of the Badger's plain but ample supper. Rows of spotless plates winked from the shelves of the dresser at the far end of the room, and from the rafters overhead hung hams, bundles of dried herbs, nets of onions, and baskets of eggs. It seemed a place where heroes could fitly feast after victory, where weary harvesters could line up in scores along the table and keep their Harvest Home with mirth and song, or where two or three friends of simple tastes could sit about as they pleased and eat and smoke and talk in comfort and contentment. The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over everything without distinction.

The kindly Badger thrust them down on a settle to toast themselves at the fire, and bade them remove their wet coats and boots. Then he fetched them dressing-gowns and slippers, and himself bathed the Mole's shin with warm water and mended the cut with sticking-plaster till the whole thing was just as good as new, if not better. In the embracing light and warmth, warm and dry at last, with weary legs propped up in front of them, and a suggestive clink of plates being arranged on the table behind, it seemed to the storm-driven animals, now in safe anchorage, that the cold and trackless Wild Wood just left outside was miles and miles away, and all that they had suffered in it a half-forgotten dream.

When at last they were thoroughly toasted, the Badger summoned them to the table, where he had been busy laying a repast. They had felt pretty hungry before, but when they actually saw at last the supper that was spread for them, really it seemed only a question of what they should attack first where all was so attractive, and whether the other things would obligingly wait for them till they had time to give them attention. Conversation was impossible for a long time; and when it was slowly resumed, it was that regrettable sort of conversation that results from talking with your mouth full. The Badger did not mind that sort of thing at all, nor did he take any notice of elbows on the table, or everybody speaking at once. As he did not go into Society himself, he had got an idea that these things belonged to the things that didn't really matter. (We know of course that he was wrong, and took too narrow a view; because they do matter very much, though it would take too long to explain why.) He sat in his arm-chair at the head of the table, and nodded gravely at intervals as the animals told their story; and he did not seem surprised or shocked at anything, and he never said, `I told you so,' or, `Just what I always said,' or remarked that they ought to have done so-and-so, or ought not to have done something else. The Mole began to feel very friendly towards him.
...................
`Well, it's time we were all in bed,' said the Badger, getting up and fetching flat candlesticks. `Come along, you two, and I'll show you your quarters. And take your time tomorrow morning -- breakfast at any hour you please!'

He conducted the two animals to a long room that seemed half bedchamber and half loft. The Badger's winter stores, which indeed were visible everywhere, took up half the room -- piles of apples, turnips, and potatoes, baskets full of nuts, and jars of honey; but the two little white beds on the remainder of the floor looked soft and inviting, and the linen on them, though coarse, was clean and smelt beautifully of lavender; and the Mole and the Water Rat, shaking off their garments in some thirty seconds, tumbled in between the sheets in great joy and contentment.

In accordance with the kindly Badger's injunctions, the two tired animals came down to breakfast very late next morning, and found a bright fire burning in the kitchen, and two young hedgehogs sitting on a bench at the table, eating oatmeal porridge out of wooden bowls. The hedgehogs dropped their spoons, rose to their feet, and ducked their heads respectfully as the two entered.
`There, sit down, sit down,' said the Rat pleasantly, `and go on with your porridge. Where have you youngsters come from? Lost your way in the snow, I suppose?'

`Yes, please, sir,' said the elder of the two hedgehogs respectfully. `Me and little Billy here, we was trying to find our way to school -- mother would have us go, was the weather ever so -- and of course we lost ourselves, sir, and Billy he got frightened and took and cried, being young and faint-hearted. And at last we happened up against Mr. Badger's back door, and made so bold as to knock, sir, for Mr. Badger he's a kind-hearted gentleman, as everyone knows -- -- '

`I understand,' said the Rat, cutting himself some rashers from a side of bacon, while the Mole dropped some eggs into a saucepan. `And what's the weather like outside? You needn't "sir" me quite so much?' he added.

`O, terrible bad, sir, terrible deep the snow is,' said the hedgehog. `No getting out for the likes of you gentlemen to-day.'

`Where's Mr. Badger?' inquired the Mole, as he warmed the coffee-pot before the fire.

`The master's gone into his study, sir,' replied the hedgehog, `and he said as how he was going to be particular busy this morning, and on no account was he to be disturbed.'

This explanation, of course, was thoroughly understood by every one present. The fact is, as already set forth, when you live a life of intense activity for six months in the year, and of comparative or actual somnolence for the other six, during the latter period you cannot be continually pleading sleepiness when there are people about or things to be done. The excuse gets monotonous. The animals well knew that Badger, having eaten a hearty breakfast, had retired to his study and settled himself in an arm-chair with his legs up on another and a red cotton handkerchief over his face, and was being `busy' in the usual way at this time of the year.
................

[Too long to go into here, but please note that Mr. Badger's hospitable lair is built in, on and of the ruin of a great human city, an empire that failed - from what the animals don't know and don't much care. N.B., for those who care about these details.]

Hijacking Catastrophe

Thanks to Shakespeare's Sis for this link.
Even the intro will give you the chills....fucking liars.

PNAC Brunch 

Why Are We In Iraq?

Is there any better explanation - and Digby asked, than the following, with its list of signatories?

PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY - PNAC
STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

June 3, 1997
American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century.
We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.
As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?
We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.
Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.
Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;
• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;
• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;
• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes
Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle
Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz
Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz

Shouldn't we hold them to account for their success?

CT Returns!

It's labeled as monthly (and that's not enough), but it looks like Charles Taylor has a new column in the Newark Star-Ledger - High & Low - check it out. Wow, a new Carroll Ballard movie with minimal distribution - maybe some noise will help that situation....
He also gives the lie to David "The Cabbage" Brooks's contention that there are no offshore movies worth talking about. Go.

"Frozen Assets" was the original title.... 

The Beloved Country

Obsidian Wings has a post by hilzoy that so thoroughly voices my own feelings over the past couple of years that I have nothing to add to it. (And thanks to Barbara for pointing me to it this morning.)
O - except for Lance's takedown of the hotheads who seem to combine fight and flight in one messy package - superior and invincible, as long as they are under the bed or inside the cardboard fort, from which shelter they can sneer at cooler heads. All pumped up and totally useless.
There are some very real things to fear, of course, and some of them are laid out in Elizabeth Drew's NRYB piece on corruption in Republican Washington. Grover wants to make sure even K Street secretaries are GOP stooges. Fawn Hall clones, I suppose; wasn't she lovely?

Time for a Nipper Treat! 

The Nipper Legacy

There's a wonderful Alex Ross piece on the effects of recording on music performance (and sometimes vice versa) in the 6/6 New Yorker (but go look at it via Ross's blog, which is excellent in itself). Just after quoting Mark Morris below, it seemed fortuitious - like these guys, I love my CDs and DVDs and MP3s (the few hundred of the last that I have, anyway), but they exist in parallel with my experience of live performance. Ross, in reviewing a few books on the subject, brings his own critic's experience to the job, and I think he's right on target.

He notes, for example, on the Early Music front:

In at least one area, though, performance style has undergone a sea change. Early music has long had the reputation of being the most pedantically “correct” subculture in classical music; .... But the more dynamic Renaissance and Baroque specialists—Jordi Savall, Andrew Manze, the Venice Baroque Orchestra, Il Giardino Armonico, William Christie’s Les Arts Florissants—are exercising all the freedoms that Philip [one of the authors under review, ed.] misses in modern performance: they execute some notes cleanly and others roughly, they weave around the beat instead of staying right on top of it, they slide from note to note when they are so moved. As a result, the music feels liberated, and audiences tend to respond in kind, with yelps of joy.

To which I would add that it's precisely because this repertory is relatively new to audiences - live or in recordings - that its performance practice hasn't been set in stone; our ears are open because we aren't sure what it should sound like. Be nice if we weren't so sure about more familiar stuff, too.

In Chicago and LA I had opera series tickets - even very good seats in Chicago - and I'd do my prep with recordings so I'd know what was going on without having to read supertitles too much. It was all wonderful, though a few seasons will teach you how miraculous a really good night can be, when everything - design, staging, conducting, singing - comes together and you are swept away. Critical experience (and disappointment) make you value those moments all the more. Still, you worry about drifting into the Voice Camp - those operagoers who've seen all the shows before (they think) and just go to hear new or favorite singers and fill out the scorecard. (This is not confined to opera, btw.).

So, a reminder. My roomies and I had a series at the LA Opera, and they were doing La Cenerentola with Frederica von Stade - a matinee, too. Not a staging I liked - tricked up with a framing conceit that didn't help the story (it's Cinderella - ought to be simple enough) and that didn't mesh with the end - but von Stade was in superb woodwind-voice - touching and brilliant by turns. In an intermission, we went out to the Music Center plaza for a break.

Patti, it seems, had never been to a live opera before:

"What I can't figure out is where they are wearing the microphones."

I looked at Pete (she's his gf, after all), and tried not to laugh.

"Patti, they don't wear microphones. Those are their real voices."

Patti's jaw dropped - really! - I don't think it had crossed her mind that that sound was possible without help.

I wished I was Patti at that moment, a veil lifted from my eyes (and ears). I'm quite sure it didn't make her an opera fan, but it expanded her idea of what humans can do, and it had all happened in her presence. So cool.

Nipper, above, is, after all, attending to a Voice he knew from a living Master - now in the Limbo of lacquer and a horn. Poor doggie.

from New Jersey's fabled Pine Barrens.... 

"It's Powered by a Foresaken Child!"

Which would be, of course, the Joy Box -
in whose depths appears a missive from the real Team Venture. Yeah, I know I should be doing BBA right now, but it's been a long night putting the Patient to peaceful beddy-bye, and I was juiced to hear some good news from Jackson Publick about the next season. Can't be all french painting and tapestries and that shit here, you know. And bassoons - don't forget about bassoons.

My Movie of the Moment - The Lethal Sleeve 

The Great, Rapt, Unwashed

Roy nails another one -
this time the Libertarian fear of rubbing shoulders with jerks like me who just go to the movies to have a - yech - communal experience. I don't really like to go to the movies alone - I will if I must - but it's not because I get creeped by all those other bodies, their sweat, their popcorn, their twitches, their perceived need to clump together. I want a friend I can hash the movie out with afterward, someone to share the (potentially) ovewhelming experience that a movie - still the cheapest form of grand entertainment - can give us.
At least movies can be recorded and be sampled in a technically acceptable way, even by libertarian shut-ins. Mark Morris, the choreographer, has urged all of us to get off our asses and give recorded music and whatever else we use as learning tools a well-deserved rest, because it is live performance that is the essence of the audience experience - One Time Only, Never to be Repeated!!! This is especially true of dance performance (go see more than one performance of the same thing in a company season and you'll see what I mean), but it holds as well for symphonies, chamber groups, theater, opera, recitalists, rockers (without synching). You do not look or listen the same way, knowing that what you sense in that space, that time, will never be repeated. Don't kid yourself that it can ever be the same again - those artists are flesh and blood, just like you, and you try to be perfect, inspired, twice in a row. Good can be wonderful, and some nights may just change your life.

I'm going to copy Morris's remarks here - they are from the Midwest Arts Conference in Cleveland in 1998, and I saved them:

Flash Flashback, 8-25: I Love You, I Love You, I Love You
Fact and Mystery
By Mark Morris
Copyright 1998 Mark Morris

(Editor's Note: The following remarks, originally delivered to the Midwest Arts Conference in Cleveland in September 1998, were first and exclusively published by the Dance Insider, with permission from the Mark Morris Dance Group, in December 1998.)

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today. This isn't something I usually do. It may actually be the first time I've spoken with prepared remarks since high school. Usually in public, I communicate in a more ambiguous, open-ended and, I hope, musical fashion. But I wanted to talk to you today about the fragile and important thing that we do, all of us in this room. That important, difficult, primitive, dangerous, and non-profit thing.

I'm speaking of the fact and the mystery of live performance.

Fact and mystery are the twin aspects of live performance which have fascinated and consumed me since I was little, standing amazed on the street as the bass drum of a parade passed by. The startling physical fact of the whomp of the drum hitting me in my stomach, in my head, was a surprise, a revelation. It was loud. But more than just loud, it was present, next to me.

And it felt like I was being told something important, something essential, which I didn't quite understand.

It was the same thing that Janet Baker was telling me as she sang one night many years later at Carnegie Hall. Standing in recital, singing song after song in ravishing voice, in languages I didn't understand, I knew her only essential message could be translated as: I love you, I love you, I love you.

The fact and mystery of live performance.

As a child I would go on Sundays to compline, the last evening service before bed, at St. Mark's Episcopal in Seattle, the "music church." This was the first time I heard counter-tenors, the first time I heard plain chant, the first time I sat in the dark alone listening to music. Sitting in the dark alone -- with others. That was the crucial thing: with others; crowded, jammed up beside one another, and yet utterly private. Alone with my own thoughts and feelings, and the music we all shared in the air.

And I recognized an inherent contradiction in that live performance: others felt alone, too. There was a commonality in feeling alone; Bach felt alone. But we were all alone together. And I became more myself, and I felt less alone.

It's a lot of work to put on a show. Everyone here knows that. And it's a lot of work to go to a show: plans, baby-sitters, driving, parking. Sometimes it rains. And, of course, it costs money.

It's taking more and more work to go to a show. Because it's easier and easier to stay at home.

The electronic pull which keeps us isolated in our apartments and houses becomes greater almost every day. Why work only to get stuck in a show you may not like when there are 82 channels at home? Why chance a messy run-in with a friend or colleague who you could easily and discreetly e-mail? Why see a performer who you know couldn't possibly measure up to the agreed-upon-by-experts, best-ever, historical recordings you've amassed in your CD collection?

Because we need to. Because of biology. Because we are beings who crave touch. Because we are human animals who need that specific danger inherent in the fact and the mystery of live performance: the danger of truth.

Video is a lie. The compact disc is a lie. The Internet is a lie. Television is a lie. I love them all. All are the past masquerading as the present. All are dead, electronically feigning life. They fool us into thinking that they are contemporaneous with our lives, that they are entertaining us and connecting us, right now, all together.

But they're not. Electronic media separate us, isolate us, make us live in the past. Strip the electronic gloss from your Trinitron and you realize you're staring at the equivalent of crumbling parchment.

Live performance is uncomfortable. Whether sitting on a hard bench or the plushest, velvet-covered cushion, being in the presence of a performing human is somewhat uncomfortable.

It is focused confrontation, not easy co-existence. You can't talk, have a snack, go to the bathroom, or perform any of the myriad acts which make television such a soothing, regressive experience. Immobilized, trapped in the darkness, oppressed by the messiness of possibility, there is unease created by the implicit realization that anything can happen. And it takes work.

But that work pays off. The effort of engagement admits you to worlds of experience which are unique, corporeal and true. Difficult but essential, in corporeality is truth. Music live is radically different from music recorded.

And the difference is this: Live music is music. A recording is a simulacrum, an aide memoire, maybe a guide or learning tool. But music is in the flesh and in the moment, and it joins together those who hear it in a way that's both ancient and inexplicable.

Individuals listening together and feeling less alone. All art aspires to the condition of music. And all art is the same, or at least all great art. I get the same thrill from a Handel oratorio or a dance by Merce Cunningham. Both show me the world, or, more precisely, the manifold worlds within me and in which I live. Both of these artists are, as Allen Ginsberg once said, "angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night."

I work in live theater. I try to do that, too. I was in the fifth or sixth grade in Seattle when I saw the Koleda Folk Ensemble. It was the first time I had seen people singing and dancing at the same time, and I wanted to be part of it. It was welcoming, everybody was invited, and I actually felt like I could do it.

Later, I joined the group and it changed my life. It set me on the path which has brought me here, speaking to you.

And I'm here because I want to tell you how important it is what you do, what we do. It's hard. Conditions are worsening. Live performance is being pushed farther and farther to the fringes of our national culture. At least I get applause; running a theater these days is a pretty thankless job.

But it's necessary, and it's vital that you know how necessary.

Each night that you open your theaters is a miracle. Each night that the lights are turned on, the tickets sold, the programs printed, is a miracle. It is a miracle each night that your community is invited to gather in your buildings and hear music or see theater or dance. And I am deeply thankful for the miracle that I and other artists are given the opportunity to perform and attempt to say what Janet Baker told me that night long ago at Carnegie Hall: I love you, I love you, I love you. Thank you.

And so I thank you, too.

RUDE ALERT

Heads Up from Sadly, No!
The Rude One is going to perform - in public! Go pony up!
I treasure this guy for saying things I think, but am too fucking nice to publish - and I really do try. He's just better than I'll ever be.

Addendum: Some Blogroll changes, too. Hmmm - TPM Cafe is added, Big Media Matt has been moved over there, Amanda's presence at Pandagon is acknowledged, the Huffington Pot-au-feu is now on. No cuts, yet, but we can think about it.....