Saturday, December 31, 2016
More Loo Water From Simps
They just knighted Ray Davies. Get back to me when Sondheim has written something as sublimely beautiful as "Waterloo Sunset". And btw, yes, "Send in the Clowns" is a totally lame metaphor. If a rock songwriter had come up with it people would have laughed at its rank trite sentimentality.
To which, I quote
Waterloo Sunset. "Sublimely beautiful." Simps, I know it's hard to tell in someone as stupid as you are but I think the ol' dementia is progressing to a serious state. You're doing your part to drag down the average over at Baby Blue, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Update: No, Stupy, you illiterate. I was calling your assertion loo water. Pretty much everything you come up with could qualify as that.
Tlaz has got to be the dopiest dolly at Duncan's dementia ward.
Update: No, Stupy, you illiterate. I was calling your assertion loo water. Pretty much everything you come up with could qualify as that.
Tlaz has got to be the dopiest dolly at Duncan's dementia ward.
Simps Never Met A Formidable Thought He Wouldn't Mock Stupidly
In response to Steve Simels' rather stupid remark "as bad as Nickleback is, they never wrote a song with as lame a metaphor as "Send in the Clowns," someone who would like not to be named gave me this quote from Stephen Sondheim, proving "send in the clowns" isn't a metaphor.
"I get a lot of letters over the years asking what the title means and what the song's about; I never thought it would be in any way esoteric. I wanted to use theatrical imagery in the song, because she's an actress, but it's not supposed to be a circus,,,, It's a theater reference meaning "if the show isn't going well, let's send in the clowns"; in other words, "let's do the jokes." I always want to know, when I'm writing a song, what the end is going to be, so "Send in the Clowns" didn't settle in until I got the notion, "Don't bother, they're here", which means that "We are the fools."
Of course you have to know the story the song is set in, what the aging actress Desirée is singing about to her old lover who just dashed her hopes of finally being with him, even though he said he was in love with her, passing that up for his ridiculous celibate marriage to a teenage girl (who is eloping with his son). I don't think the song works to its full potential except in the context of the story. The same is true for just about every great opera aria ever written. You can take a piece out of the whole but it won't have the same value as it does in context. It certainly doesn't mean the same thing when Frank Sinatra sang it. Or the young Judy Collins, when she had a hit with it.
If you're as ignorant as that as the remark would appear to indicate, of course you're going to mistake it as a lame metaphor. It's kind of funny that someone who likes to brag about his degree in and alleged expertise in things theatrical wouldn't know that.
Thinking about the plot of the original movie it's based on, Smiles of a Summer Evening and of the musical, t's all tied in the beginning when Desirée's mother, Madame Armfeldt tells her young granddaughter Fredrika that the summer night smiles three times, on the young, on the foolish and on the old and her granddaughter says she wants to see it. Desirée, in her song identifies herself and her old lover as the fools, the clowns, independent of that. I think Simp's problem is it's too complex, too intricate, too deep, too beautiful and too inspired for silly, superficial people whose attention span might extend to an extended play pop song but not to mature musical theater. Of course it's not realistic but hardly any theater is, it has to tell you something real in way too short a time. That is if it aspires to something more than just mindless diversion.
The same commentator reminds me that the song was first written - masterfully written - for the vocal abilities of Glynis Jones, who originated the role in the musical.
The form of the song is probably too complex for people with attention issues, as well.
Update: I'm shown a link at which Simps is trying to pass off Stephen Sondheim's quote as my words over at Duncan's Geritol Bar. While bragging about his obviously worthless degree in theater arts. The "Brain Trust" being what it is I'll bet they've fallen for it.
Now, if I were to use that in the Simpian manner I'd say that he's saying he knows more about theater than Stephen Sondheim whose honors and awards include:
Honors
Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition (1950)
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1983)
Kennedy Center Honors, Lifetime Achievement (1993)
Algur H. Meadows Award from Southern Methodist University (1994)
Special Laurence Olivier Award (2011) "in recognition of his contribution to London theatre"
Critics' Circle Theatre Award (March 2012): According to drama section chair Mark Shenton, "what is effectively a lifetime achievement award"
Member of the American Theater Hall of Fame (2014)
Awards
Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Sunday in the Park with George (1985)
Academy Award for Best Song: "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" from Dick Tracy (1990)
Grammy Awards
Company (Best Score from an Original Cast Album, 1970)
A Little Night Music (Best Score from an Original Cast Album, 1973)
"Send in the Clowns" (Song of the Year, 1975)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Best Cast Show Album, 1979)
Sunday in the Park With George (Best Cast Show Album, 1984)
Into the Woods (Best Musical Cast Show Album, 1988)
Passion (Best Musical Cast Show Album, 1994)
West Side Story (Best Musical Cast Show Album, 2010)
Tony Awards
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Best Musical, 1963)
Company (Best Musical, Score, and Lyrics, 1971)
Follies (Best Score, 1972)
A Little Night Music (Best Musical and Score, 1973)
Sweeney Todd (Best Musical and Score, 1979)
Into The Woods (Best Score, 1988)
Passion (Best Musical and Score, 1994)
Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre (2008)
Drama Desk Awards
Company (Best Musical, Outstanding Music, and Lyrics, 1969–70)
Follies (Outstanding Music and Lyrics, 1970–71)
A Little Night Music (Outstanding Music and Lyrics, 1972–73)
Sweeney Todd (Outstanding Musical, Music, and Lyrics, 1978–79)
Merrily We Roll Along (Outstanding Lyrics, 1981–82)
Sunday in the Park with George (Outstanding Musical and Lyrics, 1983–84)
Into the Woods (Outstanding Musical and Lyrics, 1987–88)
Passion (Outstanding Musical, Music, and Lyrics, 1993–94)
OBIE Awards
Road Show (Music and Lyrics, 2009)
Laurence Olivier Awards
Sweeney Todd (Best New Musical, 1980)
Follies (Best New Musical, 1987)
Candide (Best New Musical, 1988)
Sunday in the Park with George (Best New Musical, 1991)
Merrily We Roll Along (Best New Musical, 2001)
Up against which is Simp's theater degree from C. W. Post college. Obviously he was a beneficiary of grade inflation even back then.
"I get a lot of letters over the years asking what the title means and what the song's about; I never thought it would be in any way esoteric. I wanted to use theatrical imagery in the song, because she's an actress, but it's not supposed to be a circus,,,, It's a theater reference meaning "if the show isn't going well, let's send in the clowns"; in other words, "let's do the jokes." I always want to know, when I'm writing a song, what the end is going to be, so "Send in the Clowns" didn't settle in until I got the notion, "Don't bother, they're here", which means that "We are the fools."
Of course you have to know the story the song is set in, what the aging actress Desirée is singing about to her old lover who just dashed her hopes of finally being with him, even though he said he was in love with her, passing that up for his ridiculous celibate marriage to a teenage girl (who is eloping with his son). I don't think the song works to its full potential except in the context of the story. The same is true for just about every great opera aria ever written. You can take a piece out of the whole but it won't have the same value as it does in context. It certainly doesn't mean the same thing when Frank Sinatra sang it. Or the young Judy Collins, when she had a hit with it.
If you're as ignorant as that as the remark would appear to indicate, of course you're going to mistake it as a lame metaphor. It's kind of funny that someone who likes to brag about his degree in and alleged expertise in things theatrical wouldn't know that.
Thinking about the plot of the original movie it's based on, Smiles of a Summer Evening and of the musical, t's all tied in the beginning when Desirée's mother, Madame Armfeldt tells her young granddaughter Fredrika that the summer night smiles three times, on the young, on the foolish and on the old and her granddaughter says she wants to see it. Desirée, in her song identifies herself and her old lover as the fools, the clowns, independent of that. I think Simp's problem is it's too complex, too intricate, too deep, too beautiful and too inspired for silly, superficial people whose attention span might extend to an extended play pop song but not to mature musical theater. Of course it's not realistic but hardly any theater is, it has to tell you something real in way too short a time. That is if it aspires to something more than just mindless diversion.
The same commentator reminds me that the song was first written - masterfully written - for the vocal abilities of Glynis Jones, who originated the role in the musical.
The form of the song is probably too complex for people with attention issues, as well.
Update: I'm shown a link at which Simps is trying to pass off Stephen Sondheim's quote as my words over at Duncan's Geritol Bar. While bragging about his obviously worthless degree in theater arts. The "Brain Trust" being what it is I'll bet they've fallen for it.
Now, if I were to use that in the Simpian manner I'd say that he's saying he knows more about theater than Stephen Sondheim whose honors and awards include:
Honors
Hutchinson Prize for Music Composition (1950)
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1983)
Kennedy Center Honors, Lifetime Achievement (1993)
Algur H. Meadows Award from Southern Methodist University (1994)
Special Laurence Olivier Award (2011) "in recognition of his contribution to London theatre"
Critics' Circle Theatre Award (March 2012): According to drama section chair Mark Shenton, "what is effectively a lifetime achievement award"
Member of the American Theater Hall of Fame (2014)
Awards
Pulitzer Prize in Drama for Sunday in the Park with George (1985)
Academy Award for Best Song: "Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man)" from Dick Tracy (1990)
Grammy Awards
Company (Best Score from an Original Cast Album, 1970)
A Little Night Music (Best Score from an Original Cast Album, 1973)
"Send in the Clowns" (Song of the Year, 1975)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Best Cast Show Album, 1979)
Sunday in the Park With George (Best Cast Show Album, 1984)
Into the Woods (Best Musical Cast Show Album, 1988)
Passion (Best Musical Cast Show Album, 1994)
West Side Story (Best Musical Cast Show Album, 2010)
Tony Awards
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (Best Musical, 1963)
Company (Best Musical, Score, and Lyrics, 1971)
Follies (Best Score, 1972)
A Little Night Music (Best Musical and Score, 1973)
Sweeney Todd (Best Musical and Score, 1979)
Into The Woods (Best Score, 1988)
Passion (Best Musical and Score, 1994)
Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre (2008)
Drama Desk Awards
Company (Best Musical, Outstanding Music, and Lyrics, 1969–70)
Follies (Outstanding Music and Lyrics, 1970–71)
A Little Night Music (Outstanding Music and Lyrics, 1972–73)
Sweeney Todd (Outstanding Musical, Music, and Lyrics, 1978–79)
Merrily We Roll Along (Outstanding Lyrics, 1981–82)
Sunday in the Park with George (Outstanding Musical and Lyrics, 1983–84)
Into the Woods (Outstanding Musical and Lyrics, 1987–88)
Passion (Outstanding Musical, Music, and Lyrics, 1993–94)
OBIE Awards
Road Show (Music and Lyrics, 2009)
Laurence Olivier Awards
Sweeney Todd (Best New Musical, 1980)
Follies (Best New Musical, 1987)
Candide (Best New Musical, 1988)
Sunday in the Park with George (Best New Musical, 1991)
Merrily We Roll Along (Best New Musical, 2001)
Up against which is Simp's theater degree from C. W. Post college. Obviously he was a beneficiary of grade inflation even back then.
Hate Mail - No, I'm Not Going To Stop Pointing Out The Consequences Resulting From Not Believing It's A Sin To Lie
Perhaps considering how many decades I bought and accepted so many of the myths, legends and other lies of Brit-American atheism*, sometimes asserting them as truths due to my lazy lack of testing them against even a fairly modest level of research, my relatively recent calling atheists on their lies is making up for my past stupidity. Considering how much of allegedly informed babble among would-be lefties (and a not inconsiderable number of right-wing atheists) still consists of the repetition of that folk-lie my perhaps less than polite calling it what it really is could be considered palliative. Or maybe it's penitential considering I told some of those lies, myself.
As good an example of that as could be had was in my recent go-round at the mis-named "Religion Dispatches" with an atheist who claimed
Like the medieval church that forbade monks to practice medicine and required them to offer prayers for miracles instead, fostering a belief in miracles is unethical and hence immoral because it encourages people to be passive and wait for someone/something else to act. Can you imagine anyone suggesting that parents not take their sick child to seek medical care and to just pray instead? Or to take the child to a church to get the demon in them exorcised? This is what urging people to "believe in miracles" leads to. I have seen this in my own family: someone in their church is ill with only a 40% chance of getting well, they pray he/she gets better, he/she does and the faithful consider it a miracle. This is clearly a reinforcement of the belief in miracles and confirmation bias as well. Why they don't focus on the work of the doctors and nurses who are trying to raise that 40% number to 50% and then higher is beyond me.
The inculcated passivity benefits the church and associated political powers in it gets people to accept their lot in life (typically a poor one) expecting their reward in the next life, which is yet another immoral extension of church teaching.
Which is a massive lie as it was exactly in monasteries and convents and the hospices that many of them maintained that most of the medical care that happened in Europe in the late classical, Medieval and up till the modern era happened. And in most cases the medical care was delivered free, as charity. Of course over that long period the quality of care varied and, as even today, much of that care is probably worse than doing nothing but that was the case with all medicine and in many cases still is (I'm in the process of writing a post on that).
You could go and see the various ways in which the atheist tried to wriggle out of the lie - most of those who comment there would seem to be atheist trolls who are there to bash religion instead of discussing it honestly. Especially Christianity. One of the typical atheist lines was given that any effective medical care wasn't "Christian" because, allegedly like Christmas and Easter, as it was stolen from "pagans" no advance in medical knowledge or care having happened since the death of Galen
The ascendancy of the Christian Church dates from around the time of the death of Galen. Having progressed so far, rational medicine was now abandoned. Medicine in the Bible is entirely supernatural. The Church developed the view that real practical medicine savoured of black magic. In any case it was wrong to try to subvert God's holy will by interfering with the natural course of events. It was God who caused illness. He was responsible for cures just as he was responsible for death. Even church law mentioned, in passing, that diseases were attributable to God, for example.
Which is, of course, a massive lie. Among other things it discounts the advances made by Muslims and others in the medieval period. I specifically brought up the 13th century figure Theodoric Borgognoni;
Ah, yes, the old atheist claim that everything Christians did that was creditable was due to "pagans". Well, the medieval period was a very long one and the idea that new discoveries and ideas didn't occur to people all that time due to their being Christians is pure ignorance. For example, the Dominican Bishop Theodoric Borgognoni was a major figure in the progress of medicine. One of his greatest discoveries was that, as opposed to what Galen said, it was a bad idea to allow a pus filled wound to fester but that it was best to clean it and to sew it up to promote healing. His major work Cyrurgia contains a lot which is important, perhaps none so much as his emphasis on learning from careful observation instead of merely relying on the authority of ancient writers like Galen. He was also notable for his advances in the use of pain killers.
In the course of the argument I also mentioned Hildegard von Bingen**, the medieval polymath who, among her many writings, wrote on medicine.
Also during the discussion the atheist told several of the often encountered really massive lies told by atheists:
Monks were often forbidden from attending colleges to learn more about medicine as, apparently then as now, a quick route to losing one's faith was to attend college (rubbing elbows too frequently with people who do their own thinking). (The primary one is to read the Bible, which is why the Church opposed the translation of the Bible into any living, vulgar language to the point of burning translators at the stake.)
Monks were dissuaded from using too much pagan medicine and encouraged to recommend fasting, prayer, confession, and exorcism, instead. (The Biblical theory of disease involved demon possession in most cases.)
All of which is a complete and total lie IN SO MUCH AS MONASTERIES WERE THE SOURCE OF EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES, MONKS, PRIESTS, BISHOPS, ETC. INVENTED THE UNIVERSITY. Monks kept learning and scholarship alive in Europe during the medieval period, the advances in logic, mathematics, in the natural philosophy that would eventually develop into modern science was just about all done by monks and nuns in the medieval period.
The massive lies of atheists are the common intellectual currency among an enormous percentage of the English speaking would-be educated class. I'm not going to apologize for calling it what it is, a massive effort by atheists to misrepresent history and virtually everything else to discredit religion, especially Christianity and particularly Catholicism.
I pointed out that it would be possible to come up with a very long list of hospitals in Europe and North America (as well as around the world) which were begun by religious communities and denominations and religious order. I challenged him to come up with a list of hospitals begun by atheist organizations. I've made that challenge before and have yet to have someone come up with one.
Religion Dispatches was a site I used to go to quite often but, as it has been overtaken by atheist trolls, I don't much bother with it anymore. The people who maintain the site don't seem to be bothered much by becoming a venue for the repetition and transmission of lies. I don't know the reason for that but, as I said to the atheist I've come to become aware that atheists tendency to lie is a consequence to be expected of people who fail to believe in sin and that, therefore, it isn't a sin to tell a lie. I've come to believe that once people stop believing that that there is little to keep them from becoming habitual liars or to not care an awful lot whether not a lie congenial to their preference is a misrepresentation of reality. It is one of the things about Trump that demonstrates his profession of religion is a lie, itself. I am coming to see that the damage that the normalization of lying in our society that what I'm talking about is part of has the most serious consequences.
* I should probably include lies told in French perhaps as well as other languages, though other than the lies flowing from the French Revolution and its political consequences, I haven't done that level of fact-checking on much of it. Though all of us are guilty of lying the level of lying by atheists does seem to me to be remarkable. That doesn't excuse lies told by professed Christians and others who generally add hypocrisy to their lying. Atheism escapes that only because atheism rejects the category of sin.
** A lot of the false beliefs about women's bodies and their health were inherited from the pagans such as Aristotle. He also was responsible for some of the beliefs in biological and mental differences between the elite and the poor. As I've pointed out recently, that was certainly contrary to the egalitarianism of the Hebrew-Christian scriptures. As I pointed out in the argument medieval Christian nuns were probably the most educated women in up to that point history, much of the health care given for free to people who couldn't afford it was given by nuns who certainly learned from their experience providing care. I read somewhere that centuries before it became part of official Western medical knowledge Hildegard advocated boiling water to make it less likely to spread disease, though that's something I haven't fact-checked, myself.
Friday, December 30, 2016
Stephen Sondheim - Send In The Clowns - Judi Dench
While I was looking for this I came across a series of Sondheim teaching some of his songs to students at the Guildhall School. I've listened to several of them. Listening to his explanations of his own work is like a masterclass in writing songs, especially in the context of a dramatic piece. This one of him teaching "My Friends" from Sweeny Todd gives a good idea of why he's such a really great writer of musical theater.
I wish this one of him teaching "Send In The Clowns" didn't cut out because what he says is so interesting and the singer is quite good.
Almost as good as the explanations is his reaction to the students. I can't help but think he must be one of the best people in the business to work with if he's always like this. Generous in spirit as well as in his advice.
It also occurs to me that outside of the context of the characters it's probably just about impossible to give the full meaning of the song. Which accounts for why so many of the singers' versions of it fall a little flat. It's a rare pop song writer who can make something as full of meaning, making it sound so simple while it isn't. Sondheim is certainly far more of a composer than just a song writer.
Update: No, Simps, I'm bored with you.
A Late Post May Be Forthcoming Depending on If I Survive Shoveling
We had a major snow storm last night, the power was out most of the night so I had to get up stoking the fire so the pipes wouldn't freeze. Then it's been clean up of wet, heavy, heart attack snow - so I'm going really slowly. This was a lot easier to do when I was sixty.
I hope to post something later.
I hope to post something later.
Resolutions Should Be Broken When It's Useful To Break Them - Two Comments
-
"I'll bet Nickleback has more people familiar with their stuff than Sondheim. "ReplyDelete
That's certainly true, but on the other hand, as bad as Nickleback is, they never wrote a song with as lame a metaphor as "Send in the Clowns."
-
First, when I wrote this you were definitely NOT the Eschatot who I thought knew something about music.
If I were to use your comment in the Simpian manner, I'd claim that you said Nickleback were better composers than Sondheim and I'd elaborate and repeat that distortion for years and years. But that would be boring so I'll just point it out this once and publish it as a separate post. - Update: And Bert Bacharach isn't a composer in the sense that Stephen Sondheim is. He's a songwriter. I would say he's a good songwriter, though some of the lyrics he set, which take the Mad Men era view of women as a given are grotesquely dated now. The ideas he put in the mouths of the women who sang some of his songs are disgustingly misogynistic. The view of women he promotes is as victims whose main role of life is to be there for men who can be expected to betray them. Some of his songs that don't have that messaging are pretty good.
Sondheim is both a better composer than Bacharach and a better lyricist than Hal David. Which is probably why he's not as popular in the tissue paper music business. He writes stuff for thinking about and learning from, not a mere confirmation of attitudes learned from the worst part of American male-centered pop culture. I'm unaware of Bacharach ever attempting long-form composition. What did he write that stands up against Sweeny Todd? Sunday In The Park With George? -
Thursday, December 29, 2016
How Are We Supposed To Feel When A Right Wing Promoter Of Gun Irresponsibility Gets Shot By His Own Gun?
I have read and loathed M. D. Harmon for years, though I only read him when someone told me I should look at his awful column in the Portland Press Herald. He was a right wing jerk and general blight on my state. He was also a gun nut of the kind that are all too plentiful in Maine.
So, I can't claim that I'm exactly broken up to read this story about how he died:
Police say the 71-year-old Harmon died at his home on Brunell Avenue after a handgun he was showing a teenage boy went off. The 16-year-old boy was handling the gun at the time. Harmon, a steadfast defender of gun rights and champion of conservative viewpoints, was a longtime Maine Sunday Telegram and Press Herald editor and columnist. He worked for the newspapers for 41 years before retiring in 2011, although he continued writing a weekly column.
The teenage boy and his father, both from North Berwick, were visiting Harmon’s home at the time of the shooting, police said. Detectives said they have been cooperating with the investigation and will be undergoing more questioning on Thursday.
Harmon’s wife, Margaret Harmon, declined Thursday to discuss details of the shooting, calling it an “accidental tragedy.”
Police have not described the type of handgun that was being handled or the circumstances of the shooting. They also have not disclosed the relationship of the teen and his father to Harmon.
I live in one of those towns, won't say which one and it's possible I know the family. I suppose I'll find out who it was when the gossip overtakes the reticence about identifying a minor, a reticence which I approve of.
The story in his paper also says:
Harmon was known as a conservative thinker and a staunch defender of gun rights in his newspaper columns, including some that argued against the recent failed referendum to require background checks for private gun purchases.
I have said before that I figure if someone is going to die from the abhorently irresponsible gun laws we have that I would rather it be the advocates of those irresponsible gun laws - and lack of laws, than people who are entirely innocent. I have a sense of ambiguity about that but I'll admit it's how I feel. Last year Maine had 144 gun deaths, 23 of those listed as homicides. Some years that figure is higher, some a bit lower. M. D. Harmon is just one of those for 2016, his death is already listed on some webites that keep track of gun deaths in the United States. Unlike just about everyone else who was killed, he might have been a voice for lowering those numbers, but he spoke up for the gun industry and gun lobby over people who get killed. Many of them far younger than the boy in the incident that killed him. Some the same age.
M. D. Harmon dying the way he did isn't exactly ironic. It is something. What it isn't is in some way unfair. And I'm not ashamed to say it.
Update: Here is more on the carnage in Maine.
Gun violence in Maine
The death rate due to gun use is higher in Maine than in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey, and six other states (2005 CDC data).
[ In 2005 the death rate for Maine as listed by the CDC was considerably lower than it is today.]
The suicide rate in Maine is 30% above the national average for people age 20 to 24 according to the most recent data from the Maine CDC.
Firearms account for more than 50% of suicide deaths. Suicide attempts with guns are fatal 85% of the time, but of those who survive an initial attempt, only 10% later commit suicide.
Maine ranks 9th in the nation in the rate of women killed by men (2105). A loophole in current state law allows domestic abusers and felons to purchase guns without a background check.
The unrestricted sale of guns in Maine significantly increases the risk of domestic violence deaths, suicides, hate crimes, and homicides.
So, I can't claim that I'm exactly broken up to read this story about how he died:
Police say the 71-year-old Harmon died at his home on Brunell Avenue after a handgun he was showing a teenage boy went off. The 16-year-old boy was handling the gun at the time. Harmon, a steadfast defender of gun rights and champion of conservative viewpoints, was a longtime Maine Sunday Telegram and Press Herald editor and columnist. He worked for the newspapers for 41 years before retiring in 2011, although he continued writing a weekly column.
The teenage boy and his father, both from North Berwick, were visiting Harmon’s home at the time of the shooting, police said. Detectives said they have been cooperating with the investigation and will be undergoing more questioning on Thursday.
Harmon’s wife, Margaret Harmon, declined Thursday to discuss details of the shooting, calling it an “accidental tragedy.”
Police have not described the type of handgun that was being handled or the circumstances of the shooting. They also have not disclosed the relationship of the teen and his father to Harmon.
I live in one of those towns, won't say which one and it's possible I know the family. I suppose I'll find out who it was when the gossip overtakes the reticence about identifying a minor, a reticence which I approve of.
The story in his paper also says:
Harmon was known as a conservative thinker and a staunch defender of gun rights in his newspaper columns, including some that argued against the recent failed referendum to require background checks for private gun purchases.
I have said before that I figure if someone is going to die from the abhorently irresponsible gun laws we have that I would rather it be the advocates of those irresponsible gun laws - and lack of laws, than people who are entirely innocent. I have a sense of ambiguity about that but I'll admit it's how I feel. Last year Maine had 144 gun deaths, 23 of those listed as homicides. Some years that figure is higher, some a bit lower. M. D. Harmon is just one of those for 2016, his death is already listed on some webites that keep track of gun deaths in the United States. Unlike just about everyone else who was killed, he might have been a voice for lowering those numbers, but he spoke up for the gun industry and gun lobby over people who get killed. Many of them far younger than the boy in the incident that killed him. Some the same age.
M. D. Harmon dying the way he did isn't exactly ironic. It is something. What it isn't is in some way unfair. And I'm not ashamed to say it.
Update: Here is more on the carnage in Maine.
Gun violence in Maine
The death rate due to gun use is higher in Maine than in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey, and six other states (2005 CDC data).
[ In 2005 the death rate for Maine as listed by the CDC was considerably lower than it is today.]
The suicide rate in Maine is 30% above the national average for people age 20 to 24 according to the most recent data from the Maine CDC.
Firearms account for more than 50% of suicide deaths. Suicide attempts with guns are fatal 85% of the time, but of those who survive an initial attempt, only 10% later commit suicide.
Maine ranks 9th in the nation in the rate of women killed by men (2105). A loophole in current state law allows domestic abusers and felons to purchase guns without a background check.
The unrestricted sale of guns in Maine significantly increases the risk of domestic violence deaths, suicides, hate crimes, and homicides.
Is Donald Drugged? Is The Media Covering It Up?
During the three "debates" between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump I thought Trumps behavior, his ranting responses and his appearance all gave more than a little reason to suspect he either takes or is administered drugs that seriously impair his ability to deal with reality. His closest thing to a press conference in more than half a year, a press opportunity for him to pose at his Florida golf resort with the convicted killer, Don King*, gave even more reason to think we are about to be governed by a man who is not only monumentally ignorant, rather stupid, naturally and out of touch with real life but is regularly under the influence of drugs. Whatever the reason for it, his answers given by a sitting president would be reason to suspect that the various provisions adopted to deal with the problem of a dangerously incapacitated president should be called into effect. Here is what he said on the question of Lindsay Graham's call for putting sanctions on Vladimir Putin over his meddling in the American election.
Asked about Senator Graham's suggestion that Putin should be personally sanctioned. PEOTUS responded "I don't know what he's doing. I haven't spoken to Senator Graham... as you know he ran against me."
Asked more generally about sanctions against Russia, he responded: "I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. And we have speed and a lot of things and I'm not kind the security that you need. But I have not spoken with the senators and I will certainly will be over a period of time. "
Here is what he said when asked about John Kerry's speech on a two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli issue
Asked if he thinks there should be any limit on Israeli settlement building, he responded by saying: "I'm very very strong on Israel. I think that Israel has been treated very very unfairly by a lot of different people. If you look at resolutions in the United Nation... they are up for 20 reprimands and other nations that are horrible places, horrible places that treat people horribly haven't even been reprimanded. So there is something going on and I think it is very unfair to Israel. Thank you very much. Thank you.
He then turned and went back inside and the pool left Mar-a-Lago.
We are about to be governed by a man who knows nothing about even the most important issues, doesn't want to know about them, refuses to be briefed on issues.... Donald Trump will begin his regime already in a state of the most serious malfeasance in the modern history of the office. When offered the opportunity to be told the truth, he refuses, obviously rather looking out for his deal with NBC and other business opportunities and rubbing elbows with the likes of Don King.
This is something which, if left uncorrected, is going to quickly degenerate into total chaos or worse. I doubt that the crew of pirates, criminals, liars, boobs and his fellow nut cases are going to be able to pretend things are going normally, not like the Cheney regency did with George W. Bush or the similar arrangement did with the seriously senile Reagan. When you look at the Republican presidents in the past half century you have the seriously mentally ill and truly evil Richard Nixon, the Senile Ronald Reagan, the callow and over-his head George W. Bush and now Trump in all his pathological glitter. The other two, Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush were hardly bright lights but at least neither of them were seriously stupid or insane. With Trump the result of the coverup by the media to enable Republicans is going to reach its crisis state very fast. If they don't depose him and impose the almost as bad Mike Pence or get rid of both of them which would result in the pathological Paul Ryan becoming president, that catastrophe will come fast and hard. I don't think we're going to get out of it without some kind of totally unprecedented violence or attempt to suppress rights. The reaction to Trump by the majority who oppose him when the crisis comes will probably be met with actual violence by his cult followers and the fascists and neo-Nazis who see him as their Fuhrer.
If the title hadn't been used for a book about the grotesque irresponibiliby of the Reagan administration's malfeasence in the AIDS epidemic, And The Band Played On would probably be apt for the Trump phenomenon. The media shows little to no sign of performing their supposed responsibility as a check on the worst that can happen when democracy goes wrong. It is responsible for creating Trump and it will try its best to cover up for him. They did with Nixon, Reagan, George. W. Bush... if you want to look closely, it was the two least demented of the recent Republicans who got the harshest treatment from the media, the worst who got the best press. Even Nixon, right up to the time they couldn't cover up for him anymore.
* In his career before he was a boxing promoter, King, as a loan shark and purveyor of illegal gambling pistol whipped and kicked Sam Garret to death over a small gambling debt. That he can be what he is today while the Trump inner circle pushes pizzagate delusions to their crackpot followers is a fitting commentary on the death spiral that American morality is in. I believe I read that politicians in Ohio named the street where he killed Garret after King. We live in a sick country.
Asked about Senator Graham's suggestion that Putin should be personally sanctioned. PEOTUS responded "I don't know what he's doing. I haven't spoken to Senator Graham... as you know he ran against me."
Asked more generally about sanctions against Russia, he responded: "I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows exactly what is going on. And we have speed and a lot of things and I'm not kind the security that you need. But I have not spoken with the senators and I will certainly will be over a period of time. "
Here is what he said when asked about John Kerry's speech on a two-state solution for the Palestinian-Israeli issue
Asked if he thinks there should be any limit on Israeli settlement building, he responded by saying: "I'm very very strong on Israel. I think that Israel has been treated very very unfairly by a lot of different people. If you look at resolutions in the United Nation... they are up for 20 reprimands and other nations that are horrible places, horrible places that treat people horribly haven't even been reprimanded. So there is something going on and I think it is very unfair to Israel. Thank you very much. Thank you.
He then turned and went back inside and the pool left Mar-a-Lago.
We are about to be governed by a man who knows nothing about even the most important issues, doesn't want to know about them, refuses to be briefed on issues.... Donald Trump will begin his regime already in a state of the most serious malfeasance in the modern history of the office. When offered the opportunity to be told the truth, he refuses, obviously rather looking out for his deal with NBC and other business opportunities and rubbing elbows with the likes of Don King.
This is something which, if left uncorrected, is going to quickly degenerate into total chaos or worse. I doubt that the crew of pirates, criminals, liars, boobs and his fellow nut cases are going to be able to pretend things are going normally, not like the Cheney regency did with George W. Bush or the similar arrangement did with the seriously senile Reagan. When you look at the Republican presidents in the past half century you have the seriously mentally ill and truly evil Richard Nixon, the Senile Ronald Reagan, the callow and over-his head George W. Bush and now Trump in all his pathological glitter. The other two, Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush were hardly bright lights but at least neither of them were seriously stupid or insane. With Trump the result of the coverup by the media to enable Republicans is going to reach its crisis state very fast. If they don't depose him and impose the almost as bad Mike Pence or get rid of both of them which would result in the pathological Paul Ryan becoming president, that catastrophe will come fast and hard. I don't think we're going to get out of it without some kind of totally unprecedented violence or attempt to suppress rights. The reaction to Trump by the majority who oppose him when the crisis comes will probably be met with actual violence by his cult followers and the fascists and neo-Nazis who see him as their Fuhrer.
If the title hadn't been used for a book about the grotesque irresponibiliby of the Reagan administration's malfeasence in the AIDS epidemic, And The Band Played On would probably be apt for the Trump phenomenon. The media shows little to no sign of performing their supposed responsibility as a check on the worst that can happen when democracy goes wrong. It is responsible for creating Trump and it will try its best to cover up for him. They did with Nixon, Reagan, George. W. Bush... if you want to look closely, it was the two least demented of the recent Republicans who got the harshest treatment from the media, the worst who got the best press. Even Nixon, right up to the time they couldn't cover up for him anymore.
* In his career before he was a boxing promoter, King, as a loan shark and purveyor of illegal gambling pistol whipped and kicked Sam Garret to death over a small gambling debt. That he can be what he is today while the Trump inner circle pushes pizzagate delusions to their crackpot followers is a fitting commentary on the death spiral that American morality is in. I believe I read that politicians in Ohio named the street where he killed Garret after King. We live in a sick country.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Hate Mail
The current culture of atheism. Perhaps we could call it "academic atheism" only I have more respect for academics than that. Anyway, the current culture of atheism is decadent in the extreme, not only lacking internal consistency or even coherence but not being able to have internal coherence.
I dealt with only one aspect of that yesterday, the atheists' every which way assertions about the mind.- depending on the merely temporary advantage in argument gained among those who don't think deeply. Or, more accurately, their various dogmas concerning human minds.
Some atheists will, when dealing with cosmology, assert that human observation and human actions have everything from an effect on subatomic particles (pretty well demonstrated) to being able to make new universes pop into existence quite unintentionally in the course of their functioning. In short, they will insist on the mind being able to, apart from known physical causation, have an effect at a distance, not only on photons of light but having the, literally, God-like ability to create universes. Since that last claim is that those universes are not accessible from our universe, that has to stand as the ultimate claim of an effect at a distance (of more than the greatest distance if such a thing makes sense) and a far greater effect than any researcher into psychokinesis ever demonstrated in a published experiment. Yet one can never have a rigorous enough demonstration, resulting in staggeringly large probabilistic results satisfying the most widely accepted of scientific standards to be admitted and the other - published with no experimental data at all - will get you serious consideration in science of the highest repute. And even total belief in mid-brow atheist culture.
But, when it suits different atheist arguments, the very same atheists will deny that the mind is more than the result of the physics and chemistry of the brain in which said mind is merely imagined to be thinking. In the really hard cases they will insist that the mind is an illusion that doesn't really exist and can't so much as make a choice free of the physical components of their brain sloshing around and recombining in heads. So, there we have it, human minds are everything from the agents of the creation of universes, even unintentionally,, to human minds not being anything at all worth considering, of mere epiphenomena of mere physical causation unable to make up even so much as their own minds.
Those two ideas quite often exist in the same atheist mind at the same time, to be pulled out as required to assert the reality of atheism. They have certainly existed side by side in the incoherence of current atheist culture.
Considering that all of that facile manipulation of words in service to ideology is done nowhere but in human minds, for them to debunk those minds is the absolute ultimate of human ideological decadence. The "brain only" hard cases should stand, for all time, as the ultimate icons of intellectual decadence because such they are. Yet most of those you hear about by name have drawn or do draw a nice salary from a university or college to spout such idiocy.
Everywhere I've looked, closely, at the claims of ideological atheists, I've seen total and obvious hypocrisy, the most obvious insistence on people believing mutually exclusive claims, outright lying about what their opponents have said and done and more. That is certainly the case of many of those who work in science and, even more so the social-sciences and the parascientific junk of such innovations as "neurophilosophy"*. Until bothering to fact check their claims and thinking critically of their claims, I never believed that level of dishonesty was a result of atheism And that dishonesty extends from those individual claims to ideological atheism as a whole. The ideology rests on those same foundations of dishonesty.
I have mentioned before that I can tell you exactly where that debunking started, for me, by reading atheists, online, who claimed that science had disproved the idea of free-thought and free-will. I believe that was in 2005. Originally my look into that was because the results of that belief for democracy were catastrophic and I believe that belief has, actually, had an effect in both damaging American liberalism and weakening the foundations of democracy. My look into other claims of atheists followed on that and led me to look seriously at the sources of that discrediting of human minds, which led to me looking into Darwinism and finding that the current cultural assertions about him and his theory among atheists is full of blatant lies which his own words refute. Much of the discrediting of minds is founded in an ideological assertion of and an attributing of quasi-magical powers of explanation to natural selection. And, especially in the English speaking world, the beliefs in that parascientific assertion of natural selection - much of it from the social, so-called sciences - is the common faith among atheists and even some who aren't atheists.
Everywhere I've looked into the assertions of atheists, in science, in history, especially at the assertions made in popular media, the whole thing is a huge and decadent lie. Current atheism depends on the ignorance of its converts and rank and file and a lack of internal criticsm as much as Trumpian-fascism does. I see no hope for the revival of a real and durable liberalism from people who buy into that stuff. It is far more likely to produce the mock-liberalism that sometimes goes with that, but which is really the libertarianism of contented white-collar folk. Without that revival of a real liberalism which begins in a belief that people have a right to be seen AND TREATED as something higher than an object, even such objecs as lumbering robots or computers made with meat having the same status as inanimate objects.
My study of atheism as both an abstract ideology and as applied in human history has led me to believe, strongly, that egalitarian democracy requires a majority of people with the power to determine the nature of government who believe in both an absolute moral law and that people have a status given by God that requires they be treated as far more than objects. I don't trust the otiose contentment of tenured university faculty to be enough to have that effect in the wider human population. And lots of tenured university faculty are fascists or lean in that direction. Materialism inevitably leads that way.
* I think the right word could almost be "stagnations" if you can use the word as a plural. There needs to be a better word for this kind of junk that attains some fashion in the social and behavioral alleged sciences but which has no internal integrity and which will, sooner or later, fall into that enormous boneyard of discontinued scientific and academic ideas. I'd propose Paul and Patrica Churchland as the poster couple for that kind of thing, only there are so many candidates for that position it's hard to choose who are the most deserving of the,..... um.... "honor".
Update: Um... Well, to start with I know you and you can't remember your one lie to the next so you not being able to remember eleven years ago isn't a shock. I'm not even sure you were there. It wasn't as facile as your typical jabber so it wouldn't have benefited by your participation. I could tell you exactly who said it, it wouldn't mean the slightest thing since that era of comment threads is long lost in the fall of Haloscan. Even when I'm able to point out exactly where something was said it doesn't make any difference to atheists, nothing that doesn't fit in with their pre-conceived ideological assertions is ever recognized by them. They're ever so much more like religious fundamentalists than they'd ever want anyone to notice. Only I have.
I really am grateful for that aspect of neo-atheism. If they hadn't been such clearly counterproductive assholes I doubt I'd ever have gone to the bother of fact checking them and learned that it was a load of crap. I might have gone to my grave not realizing how shoddy and sleazy it is.
I dealt with only one aspect of that yesterday, the atheists' every which way assertions about the mind.- depending on the merely temporary advantage in argument gained among those who don't think deeply. Or, more accurately, their various dogmas concerning human minds.
Some atheists will, when dealing with cosmology, assert that human observation and human actions have everything from an effect on subatomic particles (pretty well demonstrated) to being able to make new universes pop into existence quite unintentionally in the course of their functioning. In short, they will insist on the mind being able to, apart from known physical causation, have an effect at a distance, not only on photons of light but having the, literally, God-like ability to create universes. Since that last claim is that those universes are not accessible from our universe, that has to stand as the ultimate claim of an effect at a distance (of more than the greatest distance if such a thing makes sense) and a far greater effect than any researcher into psychokinesis ever demonstrated in a published experiment. Yet one can never have a rigorous enough demonstration, resulting in staggeringly large probabilistic results satisfying the most widely accepted of scientific standards to be admitted and the other - published with no experimental data at all - will get you serious consideration in science of the highest repute. And even total belief in mid-brow atheist culture.
But, when it suits different atheist arguments, the very same atheists will deny that the mind is more than the result of the physics and chemistry of the brain in which said mind is merely imagined to be thinking. In the really hard cases they will insist that the mind is an illusion that doesn't really exist and can't so much as make a choice free of the physical components of their brain sloshing around and recombining in heads. So, there we have it, human minds are everything from the agents of the creation of universes, even unintentionally,, to human minds not being anything at all worth considering, of mere epiphenomena of mere physical causation unable to make up even so much as their own minds.
Those two ideas quite often exist in the same atheist mind at the same time, to be pulled out as required to assert the reality of atheism. They have certainly existed side by side in the incoherence of current atheist culture.
Considering that all of that facile manipulation of words in service to ideology is done nowhere but in human minds, for them to debunk those minds is the absolute ultimate of human ideological decadence. The "brain only" hard cases should stand, for all time, as the ultimate icons of intellectual decadence because such they are. Yet most of those you hear about by name have drawn or do draw a nice salary from a university or college to spout such idiocy.
Everywhere I've looked, closely, at the claims of ideological atheists, I've seen total and obvious hypocrisy, the most obvious insistence on people believing mutually exclusive claims, outright lying about what their opponents have said and done and more. That is certainly the case of many of those who work in science and, even more so the social-sciences and the parascientific junk of such innovations as "neurophilosophy"*. Until bothering to fact check their claims and thinking critically of their claims, I never believed that level of dishonesty was a result of atheism And that dishonesty extends from those individual claims to ideological atheism as a whole. The ideology rests on those same foundations of dishonesty.
I have mentioned before that I can tell you exactly where that debunking started, for me, by reading atheists, online, who claimed that science had disproved the idea of free-thought and free-will. I believe that was in 2005. Originally my look into that was because the results of that belief for democracy were catastrophic and I believe that belief has, actually, had an effect in both damaging American liberalism and weakening the foundations of democracy. My look into other claims of atheists followed on that and led me to look seriously at the sources of that discrediting of human minds, which led to me looking into Darwinism and finding that the current cultural assertions about him and his theory among atheists is full of blatant lies which his own words refute. Much of the discrediting of minds is founded in an ideological assertion of and an attributing of quasi-magical powers of explanation to natural selection. And, especially in the English speaking world, the beliefs in that parascientific assertion of natural selection - much of it from the social, so-called sciences - is the common faith among atheists and even some who aren't atheists.
Everywhere I've looked into the assertions of atheists, in science, in history, especially at the assertions made in popular media, the whole thing is a huge and decadent lie. Current atheism depends on the ignorance of its converts and rank and file and a lack of internal criticsm as much as Trumpian-fascism does. I see no hope for the revival of a real and durable liberalism from people who buy into that stuff. It is far more likely to produce the mock-liberalism that sometimes goes with that, but which is really the libertarianism of contented white-collar folk. Without that revival of a real liberalism which begins in a belief that people have a right to be seen AND TREATED as something higher than an object, even such objecs as lumbering robots or computers made with meat having the same status as inanimate objects.
My study of atheism as both an abstract ideology and as applied in human history has led me to believe, strongly, that egalitarian democracy requires a majority of people with the power to determine the nature of government who believe in both an absolute moral law and that people have a status given by God that requires they be treated as far more than objects. I don't trust the otiose contentment of tenured university faculty to be enough to have that effect in the wider human population. And lots of tenured university faculty are fascists or lean in that direction. Materialism inevitably leads that way.
* I think the right word could almost be "stagnations" if you can use the word as a plural. There needs to be a better word for this kind of junk that attains some fashion in the social and behavioral alleged sciences but which has no internal integrity and which will, sooner or later, fall into that enormous boneyard of discontinued scientific and academic ideas. I'd propose Paul and Patrica Churchland as the poster couple for that kind of thing, only there are so many candidates for that position it's hard to choose who are the most deserving of the,..... um.... "honor".
Update: Um... Well, to start with I know you and you can't remember your one lie to the next so you not being able to remember eleven years ago isn't a shock. I'm not even sure you were there. It wasn't as facile as your typical jabber so it wouldn't have benefited by your participation. I could tell you exactly who said it, it wouldn't mean the slightest thing since that era of comment threads is long lost in the fall of Haloscan. Even when I'm able to point out exactly where something was said it doesn't make any difference to atheists, nothing that doesn't fit in with their pre-conceived ideological assertions is ever recognized by them. They're ever so much more like religious fundamentalists than they'd ever want anyone to notice. Only I have.
I really am grateful for that aspect of neo-atheism. If they hadn't been such clearly counterproductive assholes I doubt I'd ever have gone to the bother of fact checking them and learned that it was a load of crap. I might have gone to my grave not realizing how shoddy and sleazy it is.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Beethoven - Sonata in E op. 109
Artur Schnabel, piano
Here's my argument.
Score
It's the Schenker edition, not officially an urtext edition but I doubt there was ever a more meticulous editor than Heinrich Schenker. I give it because it's my experience that his fingerings are enormously valuable. There are other editions at IMSLP. I'll certainly never play the late sonatas in public, that's something for only the really great or ambitious students to do but I can listen.
Here's Rudoph Serkin
I Thought You Were The Eschatot Who Knew Something About Music
Stupid people use terms they read in the typical venues of mid-brow, would-be high brow instruction in pretending you really know what you're talking about when you haven't gone through the work of really knowing. When it's music, Aaron Copland's rule that when a literary man writes two words about music one of them will be wrong is often surpassed by all of them being wrong. Such is the absurd assertion, accusation, really, that Luigi Dallapiccola wrote “academic serialism”. Anyone who knows anything about Dallapiccola and his position in music would know that, far from the style of someone like Milton Babbitt or the others who typify the music given that designation, Dallapiccola's 12-tone music displays the continuity with tonal sonorities and gestures and even themes, it is a far less rigorous imposition of serialization than even some of Alban Berg's music.
The accusation, “academic serialist,” is, in fact, meaningless. It was an invention of people who resented some of the American composers who held important academic posts (Dallapiccola wasn't one of them) and who were influential on juries and boards handing out grants and giving them to their buddies. That's something that always happens when you give people like that the authority to distribute money. If you look at the performance schedules of orchestras and other performing organizations, even at the alleged height of their dictatorship, the large majority of even the few “modern” pieces performed were not serial, not even the lyrical 12-tone writing of Dallapiccola. Probably the most often played of the 12-tone music was the late music of Igor Stravinsky and no one with ears on their head or a brain in it ever called him an “academic serialist”.
The idea that even Milton Babbitt, the quintessential “academic serialist” fit the stereotype is stupid. Stupy probably doesn't know it but Babbitt's most famous student was Stephen Sondheim. This description by Anthony Tomassini of Sondheim's study with Babbitt dispels the nonsense.
… During the 50's and 60's Mr. Babbitt and his colleagues on the Princeton-Columbia axis won many disciples. If simpler, tonal and quasi-tonal music was not actively banned at universities, student awards and tenure appointments made clear that Serialism was the way to intellectual acceptance.
[ I will insert here that I would bet you a hundred dollars that if you reviewed all of the college faculty hired to teach theory and composition in those years, across the United States even the more “traditional” serialists would be few as compared to those who composed tonally centered music. The Ivys aren't the entire universe, much as they're presented as being such.]
Yet in the early 50's, just as the dissension was breaking out, Mr. Sondheim, of all people, arrived at Mr. Babbitt's studio fresh from Williams College, eager for private lessons and oblivious to musical politics.
“ I just wanted to study composition, theory and harmony without the attendant musicology that comes in graduate school,” Mr. Sondheim said, recently.
[Again, such a musicological approach would study, mostly, tonal music and earlier, modal music. Arnold Schoenberg wrote four musical textbooks, that I'm aware of, all deal with tonal music, even his latest textbook which, I believe, is the Counterpoint book, finished after his death. Schoenberg was certainly not an "academic serialist" composer.]
“But I knew I wanted to write for the theater, so I wanted someone who did not disdain theater musc. Milton, who was a frustrated show composer, was a perfect combination.”'
Mr. Sondheim, who knew little about atonal music, asked Mr. Babbitt to teach him 12-tone technique, Mr. Babbit refused. “It would have made no sense for Steve,” he said. “Instead, we did analyzes of Mozart symphonies, Beethoven quartets; we did species counterpoint.”
The most important thing Mr. Sondheim learned from his teacher was the principle of “long-lined composition,” he said, “How do you organize materials to last for 3 minutes, 15, minutes, 33 minutes? This turned out to be very useful when I started writing long songs and scenes, like “Someone in a Tree” and the opening of Act II in “Sweeney Todd”
But they also studied show songs. When Mr. Sondheim taught a course at Oxford a few years ago, he presented an analysis of Jerome Kern's “All the Things You Are” that he learned from Mr. Babbitt. “I am his maverick, his one student who went into the popular arts armed with all his serious artillery,” Mr. Sondheim said. “Of course, now I pay for it.”
For all Mr Babbitt's devotion to great popular music, he sees a clear demarcation between it and the music he dubs, only half-kiddingly, “nonpopular music.” That term, he suggests, is more accurate than others that have been used; classical, serious, concert or contemporary classical music. But he finds the division important and debunks the idea that rock audiences can be lured into the concert hall by crossover music.
“In my day we understood these different categories,” he said, “To say that music is music is a very vacuous tautology.”
So Mr. Babbitt continues to write music that is unrepentantly complex and adamantly nonpopular. He does care if you listen, though he's not counting on it.
I think Babbitt's music is complex in the playing and listening but the idea that it's more "complex" than late Beethoven or Bach or, really, Mozart is a silly idea. It's certainly no more "complex" than the music of Bartok. It is, though, unpopular, if by that you discount its continuing interest to performers and conductors of the highest ability who continue to play it, despite the declarations of the lower-mid-brow repeaters of such terms as "academic serialism". I think what they really mean is that it's both hard for them to follow and to ignore the way the pop music they favor is. There is music that is made to be listened to and music that is made to be bought, become familiar with and to not really hear after it's been assimilated. Like other consumer junk, its facile consumption is the key to its high volume of sales. I'll bet Nickleback has more people familiar with their stuff than Sondheim.
The accusation, “academic serialist,” is, in fact, meaningless. It was an invention of people who resented some of the American composers who held important academic posts (Dallapiccola wasn't one of them) and who were influential on juries and boards handing out grants and giving them to their buddies. That's something that always happens when you give people like that the authority to distribute money. If you look at the performance schedules of orchestras and other performing organizations, even at the alleged height of their dictatorship, the large majority of even the few “modern” pieces performed were not serial, not even the lyrical 12-tone writing of Dallapiccola. Probably the most often played of the 12-tone music was the late music of Igor Stravinsky and no one with ears on their head or a brain in it ever called him an “academic serialist”.
The idea that even Milton Babbitt, the quintessential “academic serialist” fit the stereotype is stupid. Stupy probably doesn't know it but Babbitt's most famous student was Stephen Sondheim. This description by Anthony Tomassini of Sondheim's study with Babbitt dispels the nonsense.
… During the 50's and 60's Mr. Babbitt and his colleagues on the Princeton-Columbia axis won many disciples. If simpler, tonal and quasi-tonal music was not actively banned at universities, student awards and tenure appointments made clear that Serialism was the way to intellectual acceptance.
[ I will insert here that I would bet you a hundred dollars that if you reviewed all of the college faculty hired to teach theory and composition in those years, across the United States even the more “traditional” serialists would be few as compared to those who composed tonally centered music. The Ivys aren't the entire universe, much as they're presented as being such.]
Yet in the early 50's, just as the dissension was breaking out, Mr. Sondheim, of all people, arrived at Mr. Babbitt's studio fresh from Williams College, eager for private lessons and oblivious to musical politics.
“ I just wanted to study composition, theory and harmony without the attendant musicology that comes in graduate school,” Mr. Sondheim said, recently.
[Again, such a musicological approach would study, mostly, tonal music and earlier, modal music. Arnold Schoenberg wrote four musical textbooks, that I'm aware of, all deal with tonal music, even his latest textbook which, I believe, is the Counterpoint book, finished after his death. Schoenberg was certainly not an "academic serialist" composer.]
“But I knew I wanted to write for the theater, so I wanted someone who did not disdain theater musc. Milton, who was a frustrated show composer, was a perfect combination.”'
Mr. Sondheim, who knew little about atonal music, asked Mr. Babbitt to teach him 12-tone technique, Mr. Babbit refused. “It would have made no sense for Steve,” he said. “Instead, we did analyzes of Mozart symphonies, Beethoven quartets; we did species counterpoint.”
The most important thing Mr. Sondheim learned from his teacher was the principle of “long-lined composition,” he said, “How do you organize materials to last for 3 minutes, 15, minutes, 33 minutes? This turned out to be very useful when I started writing long songs and scenes, like “Someone in a Tree” and the opening of Act II in “Sweeney Todd”
But they also studied show songs. When Mr. Sondheim taught a course at Oxford a few years ago, he presented an analysis of Jerome Kern's “All the Things You Are” that he learned from Mr. Babbitt. “I am his maverick, his one student who went into the popular arts armed with all his serious artillery,” Mr. Sondheim said. “Of course, now I pay for it.”
For all Mr Babbitt's devotion to great popular music, he sees a clear demarcation between it and the music he dubs, only half-kiddingly, “nonpopular music.” That term, he suggests, is more accurate than others that have been used; classical, serious, concert or contemporary classical music. But he finds the division important and debunks the idea that rock audiences can be lured into the concert hall by crossover music.
“In my day we understood these different categories,” he said, “To say that music is music is a very vacuous tautology.”
So Mr. Babbitt continues to write music that is unrepentantly complex and adamantly nonpopular. He does care if you listen, though he's not counting on it.
I think Babbitt's music is complex in the playing and listening but the idea that it's more "complex" than late Beethoven or Bach or, really, Mozart is a silly idea. It's certainly no more "complex" than the music of Bartok. It is, though, unpopular, if by that you discount its continuing interest to performers and conductors of the highest ability who continue to play it, despite the declarations of the lower-mid-brow repeaters of such terms as "academic serialism". I think what they really mean is that it's both hard for them to follow and to ignore the way the pop music they favor is. There is music that is made to be listened to and music that is made to be bought, become familiar with and to not really hear after it's been assimilated. Like other consumer junk, its facile consumption is the key to its high volume of sales. I'll bet Nickleback has more people familiar with their stuff than Sondheim.
The Discrediting of The Mind Renders The Entire Effort Self-Contradicting, Nonsensical Mush
What I said the other day about the Virgin Birth having more internal consistency as a narrative than some of the junk that is seriously discussed in cosmology, biology and just about all of the social sciences is nothing I'm going to walk back, never mind take back. Many of the many many-worlds schemes of mulitiverse theory violate everything that the traditional critics of divine creation of our one universe use against it and add to that hypocrisy blatant self-contradiction and fantastic, unexplained powers of entirely banal and human minds, if not others.
But, especially in regard to their objections to divine creation of the universe, they make it even more absurd in that the generation of new universes happens all the time, even by our intentional acts having no intention of creating a universe. I am not aware of whether or not bacteria or one-celled organisms generate universes every time they adjust the direction their flagella are flipping in their schemes though I'd have to ask why they wouldn't.
Many atheists who reject the idea that in the beginning God created the universe we're pretty sure we live in, nevertheless believe their own actions and ours generate jillions of universes all the time. Universes that can't be observed or demonstrated to exist but which some of them actually believe in. Considering the fact that the monotheistic religions describe God as being a heck of a lot more powerful than people, even physicists and cosmologists, that alone gives their entire scheme less internal consistency than one that asserts that the God who made all of the universe and the creatures in it could intervene once in the history of human beings to cause the birth of Jesus to a virgin. As compared to my having just caused a universe to pop into existence as I stretched my painful great toe in such atheist belief, for God to have caused the Virgin Birth in the universe and among the people created by God is far more internally consistent.
Yet those schemes and others, invented at what would seem to be no more than the convenience of the cosmologist are supposed to be serious science, though as those like George Ellis have pointed out, since they are safe from being tested against observation, they really can't be science. I'd say the are far more like some of the less grounded claims of second-rate theologians than like science, only that would be selling theology short. I do think it shows that atheism, contrary to its claimed intellectual superiority, is actually far more productive of decadence than of a view of reality. Hughes Everett, the inventor of the idea was certainly that, decadent. I strongly suspect that if we have a future, if we survive the results of science and technology in the hands of and in service to amoral people, that this period will be seen as one in which atheism was tested and found far worse than religion in just about every result. Its body count per year is vastly higher than any realistic body count attributed to religion. Its impeaching of human minds is the absolute ultimate in intellectual decadence, considering the power that the "many-worlds" people gives to our every observation, squaring that with the discrediting of, in the worst cases, even the existence of the mind renders the entire effort to be a self-contradictory mush of nonsense.
But, especially in regard to their objections to divine creation of the universe, they make it even more absurd in that the generation of new universes happens all the time, even by our intentional acts having no intention of creating a universe. I am not aware of whether or not bacteria or one-celled organisms generate universes every time they adjust the direction their flagella are flipping in their schemes though I'd have to ask why they wouldn't.
Many atheists who reject the idea that in the beginning God created the universe we're pretty sure we live in, nevertheless believe their own actions and ours generate jillions of universes all the time. Universes that can't be observed or demonstrated to exist but which some of them actually believe in. Considering the fact that the monotheistic religions describe God as being a heck of a lot more powerful than people, even physicists and cosmologists, that alone gives their entire scheme less internal consistency than one that asserts that the God who made all of the universe and the creatures in it could intervene once in the history of human beings to cause the birth of Jesus to a virgin. As compared to my having just caused a universe to pop into existence as I stretched my painful great toe in such atheist belief, for God to have caused the Virgin Birth in the universe and among the people created by God is far more internally consistent.
Yet those schemes and others, invented at what would seem to be no more than the convenience of the cosmologist are supposed to be serious science, though as those like George Ellis have pointed out, since they are safe from being tested against observation, they really can't be science. I'd say the are far more like some of the less grounded claims of second-rate theologians than like science, only that would be selling theology short. I do think it shows that atheism, contrary to its claimed intellectual superiority, is actually far more productive of decadence than of a view of reality. Hughes Everett, the inventor of the idea was certainly that, decadent. I strongly suspect that if we have a future, if we survive the results of science and technology in the hands of and in service to amoral people, that this period will be seen as one in which atheism was tested and found far worse than religion in just about every result. Its body count per year is vastly higher than any realistic body count attributed to religion. Its impeaching of human minds is the absolute ultimate in intellectual decadence, considering the power that the "many-worlds" people gives to our every observation, squaring that with the discrediting of, in the worst cases, even the existence of the mind renders the entire effort to be a self-contradictory mush of nonsense.
Monday, December 26, 2016
Objection Answered
The Christmas story told in Matthew and, especially, Luke, certainly meant a lot more and was more transparent to people who lived in a rural, pre-industrial world than it does to someone who doesn't have a daily interaction with farm animals or even urban horses kept for transportation. Someone who grew up on a farm, with farm animals, knowing just how unsanitary and smelly even a well-kept barn is, even with an abundant supply of new bedding and someone who changes it regularly, probably doesn't really get it very often, either. Though the meaning of God being born in human form in a barn probably has more access to the meaning of the story than someone who doesn't. Especially if they're the one who does the cleaning in one. I pointed out one year that at the time of Jesus there would almost certainly not have been abundant bedding material for the animals in the stable he was reportedly born in. And such a stable might have been in a cave instead of a drafty shed and likely in warmer weather when flies would be everywhere. I don't know if they've got horseflies there but that's what I think about when I'm trying to understand what it meant.
To the people who would have first heard the story it must have been far more shocking and scandalous than it did to people who came to believe in Jesus and who, through the decades and centuries of repetition of the story, became accustomed to a romantic, unrealistic view of what was being said. The cleanliness of the clothes of Mary, Joseph and the baby are entirely unrealistic, even the clothes of the shepherds, the first witnesses to the birth, are closer to the costume departments of Hollywood westerns than they are to reality. I would guess that the unwashed clothes of some of the most impoverished of today's herdsmen would be closer to what it was. Mary, Joseph, the shepherds didn't use a deodorant stick. Water for washing was not exactly easy to come by either. Maybe that's one of the sources of Jesus discounting the spiritual value of ritual baths.
I would like to see, for once, a manger scene with shit in it, with flies, with filth, with Mary in the rags she would have worn as her only clothes, Joseph too, and the shepherds looking as in need of clean clothes and a bath as they certainly would have been. Those were the people in the story. Those kings in Matthew were the outsiders.
The claim of Jewish peasants of no status, especially to the Greeks and Romans, that God was incarnated to a poor couple, married in shot-gun style, in a stable not even their own must have been considered quite hilarious. I can imagine the wise-guys and smart asses among them made quite the commentary on it. Probably not much different from what a latter day George Carlin would say about it. If it weren't for the absolutely radical rejection of putting a valuation on people contained in the Gospel, the narrative would be incomprehensible to us, today. And it's only sensible even among Christians today if they take that radical leveling of people seriously and as a commandment.
I got some comment over my posting of Luigi Dallapiccola's setting of texts from the 13th century follower of Francis, Jocopone da Todi that Ottorino Respighi also set, in his far more popular, neo-classical style. I listened to Respighi's work, thinking I might post it, as well, but, good as music as it was, I couldn't do it because it seemed so false to me. Dallapiccola's 12-tone work - which at least one person interpreted as irreligious - seems to me to be more honest. The text of the Lauda gives this as the Angel's announcement:
As a sign of this,
in a humble stable the
poor baby was born,
and he does not mind
lying between the ox
and the ass.
His mother, very poorly clad,
has laid him
in the manger.
Of hay is all his coverlet,
The Shepherds are given these lines
Shepherd
Lord, you have descended
from heaven to earth,
as the Angel says,
and our hearts burn
to find you in such
a lowly cattle-shed;
guide us to the place,
so that we may see you clothed
in human flesh.
The Shepherds at the Manger
Lo, here is the little stable,
and we see in it the poor baby.
The blessed Virgin
has neither food nor clothes
in which to swaddle him,
Joseph cannot help her,
for he is old and feeble.
He accustoms himself to poverty,
he who, though Lord,
seems to have nothing.
How can you set that in a neo-classical style and tell the truth of what it says? Go look at a horrible place where the animal rescue people find horses or donkeys or other animals who were criminally neglected, I have a feeling that's more like what the stable would have been like. That's what it really means. The Holy Family were the kind of people who had to stay there instead of getting even a Motel 6 room or beds in a homeless shelter. They'd never have even seen the inside of one of Trump's joints.
That said, the tradition that Joseph was an old man is medieval invention, it doesn't say that in the story. He was probably a scared kid, more like an unwed father who had a sense of decency but unable to take care of a wife and baby. They'd have been street people. Try setting their story neo-classically and see what the results would be like. Not realistic, I'm betting. Not even listenable.
Update: Could't care less what Duncan's cash-cow coral of compulsive clickers comment. They don't even read what he says so why should I? Only crazy people take it seriously, anymore.
Update 2; Anyone who thinks Dallapiccola wrote "academic serialism" either doesn't know what the term means or has any familiarity with his music. Or maybe both. I knew Stupy doesn't know either but I thought that other jackass was supposed to know something about music.
To the people who would have first heard the story it must have been far more shocking and scandalous than it did to people who came to believe in Jesus and who, through the decades and centuries of repetition of the story, became accustomed to a romantic, unrealistic view of what was being said. The cleanliness of the clothes of Mary, Joseph and the baby are entirely unrealistic, even the clothes of the shepherds, the first witnesses to the birth, are closer to the costume departments of Hollywood westerns than they are to reality. I would guess that the unwashed clothes of some of the most impoverished of today's herdsmen would be closer to what it was. Mary, Joseph, the shepherds didn't use a deodorant stick. Water for washing was not exactly easy to come by either. Maybe that's one of the sources of Jesus discounting the spiritual value of ritual baths.
I would like to see, for once, a manger scene with shit in it, with flies, with filth, with Mary in the rags she would have worn as her only clothes, Joseph too, and the shepherds looking as in need of clean clothes and a bath as they certainly would have been. Those were the people in the story. Those kings in Matthew were the outsiders.
The claim of Jewish peasants of no status, especially to the Greeks and Romans, that God was incarnated to a poor couple, married in shot-gun style, in a stable not even their own must have been considered quite hilarious. I can imagine the wise-guys and smart asses among them made quite the commentary on it. Probably not much different from what a latter day George Carlin would say about it. If it weren't for the absolutely radical rejection of putting a valuation on people contained in the Gospel, the narrative would be incomprehensible to us, today. And it's only sensible even among Christians today if they take that radical leveling of people seriously and as a commandment.
I got some comment over my posting of Luigi Dallapiccola's setting of texts from the 13th century follower of Francis, Jocopone da Todi that Ottorino Respighi also set, in his far more popular, neo-classical style. I listened to Respighi's work, thinking I might post it, as well, but, good as music as it was, I couldn't do it because it seemed so false to me. Dallapiccola's 12-tone work - which at least one person interpreted as irreligious - seems to me to be more honest. The text of the Lauda gives this as the Angel's announcement:
As a sign of this,
in a humble stable the
poor baby was born,
and he does not mind
lying between the ox
and the ass.
His mother, very poorly clad,
has laid him
in the manger.
Of hay is all his coverlet,
The Shepherds are given these lines
Shepherd
Lord, you have descended
from heaven to earth,
as the Angel says,
and our hearts burn
to find you in such
a lowly cattle-shed;
guide us to the place,
so that we may see you clothed
in human flesh.
The Shepherds at the Manger
Lo, here is the little stable,
and we see in it the poor baby.
The blessed Virgin
has neither food nor clothes
in which to swaddle him,
Joseph cannot help her,
for he is old and feeble.
He accustoms himself to poverty,
he who, though Lord,
seems to have nothing.
How can you set that in a neo-classical style and tell the truth of what it says? Go look at a horrible place where the animal rescue people find horses or donkeys or other animals who were criminally neglected, I have a feeling that's more like what the stable would have been like. That's what it really means. The Holy Family were the kind of people who had to stay there instead of getting even a Motel 6 room or beds in a homeless shelter. They'd never have even seen the inside of one of Trump's joints.
That said, the tradition that Joseph was an old man is medieval invention, it doesn't say that in the story. He was probably a scared kid, more like an unwed father who had a sense of decency but unable to take care of a wife and baby. They'd have been street people. Try setting their story neo-classically and see what the results would be like. Not realistic, I'm betting. Not even listenable.
Update: Could't care less what Duncan's cash-cow coral of compulsive clickers comment. They don't even read what he says so why should I? Only crazy people take it seriously, anymore.
Update 2; Anyone who thinks Dallapiccola wrote "academic serialism" either doesn't know what the term means or has any familiarity with his music. Or maybe both. I knew Stupy doesn't know either but I thought that other jackass was supposed to know something about music.
Christians Who Do The Work of the Anti-Christ Must Be Called Out
I have been thinking a lot about the vote for Donald Trump by a large percentage of those who consider themselves to be real Christians, especially thinking about that blog post by Yolanda Pierce that I mentioned a while back.
First, to dispose of the atheist snarking, that a lot of people who claim to be following the Gospels but who don't doesn't discredit the Gospels, such a thing was foreseen by Jesus and he gave a way to know the authentic followers from the hypocrites by looking at their acts and the results of their acts. People who claim to be followers of Jesus but who do what he said not to do and, as important, don't do what he said to do discredit themselves, not the truth of the Gospels. That he both predicted what came and a means of testing it shows remarkable foresight and understanding of reality.
I think we've been entirely too unwilling to call out the hypocrisy of maybe even a large majority of Christians who are in continual violation of even the most basic teachings of Jesus. The ground floor teachings of doing to other people what we would have them do to us, for one. There is no way that someone could favor Donald Trump having political and legal power if they took that seriously. If he followed a commandment it would be "screw everyone you can if you can get something out of them, to hell with anyone you can't use". He's hardly kept that a secret, it's what his entire public career is based on, it is his message. It's what made his TV show popular with the fans of strong-man fascism.
That which you do to the least among you, you do unto me, is not the practice of any Christian who voted for Republicans in 2016. Their stated intention is to grind the poor into further destitution and an early and convenient death. That has always been the real program of conservatives, especially in the Anglo-American tradition. The real commandment such Christians live by is "kick down, kiss up". The cowardice of people with little to no power who adopt their messaging is to attack the weakest who can't fight back instead of those who really cause their oppression*.
The relationship of such Christians with the truth is not ambiguous, they fully grasp even the most obvious of lies and promote them and base their actions on them. Faced with the candidacy of Donald Trump, a man who lied so much that his lies contradicted themselves, sometimes within hours if not minutes and continually over the course of the election campaign, they voted for the most blatant liar we've ever had as a candidate for a major party. Even Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan had some sense of making their lies consistent, with Trump the very concept of truth has gone out the window. Since the Gospel says that if you know the truth the truth will make you free, such Christians as voted for Trump voted for lies which will enslave us.
This listing of the disparity between the actions of those who thump the Bible the hardest and their profession of faith, when tested against the Gospels, could be encyclopedic. In every way such Christians not only fall short, they don't even begin to match their actions to their professions of belief. The election of Donald Trump exposes, not only the total decadence of American democracy in the Age of Lies, it exposes a far more serious crisis in Christianity than even the new-atheism did. That crisis, in fact, is what has given the enemies of Christianity some of their most potent ammunition. Such "Christians" as who voted for Trump and a line of those whose policy is directly and entirely opposed to the teachings of Jesus and the entire Hebrew prophetic tradition are doing the work of the anti-Christ for him. Donald Trump is a far better candidate for that role and if not him, his owner, Vladimir Putin. Even that fact, that Donald Trump is the candidate of the dictator of Russia, was not enough to lead such "Christians" to vote against the prince of liars who Donald Trump is.
I think it is a moral duty of Christians to examine their own lives and see where they fall short and to correct that, it's a continual duty because the temptation is always there. But it is as important to call out the disparity in public life. Jesus wasn't addressing a world which lived under electoral democracy, democracy means that, far from being the subjects of power, The People must, collectively, address their power to do things in the world. In a democracy that self-examination becomes a public matter and the blatant and serious immorality that we try to correct in ourselves takes on a group and public character. I think it's necessary to point out these things, the beam in our eye, under democracy, becomes the beam in all of our eyes, the power of the United States, its ability to do evil in all of our names makes that necessary. It is a moral responsibility of Christians in a democracy to do that. We don't do it nearly often enough in these terms. We aren't used to articulating the language to do it, that takes a Diane Nash, a Martin Luther King jr. or a Ceasar Chavez, a Yolanda Pierce. We have to learn how to reject the false prophets and to condemn their hijacking of Christianity to do the work of the anti-Christ.
P. S.
The Book of Revelations, what my Catholic upbringing calls "The Apocalypse" is something I've never been very comfortable with. I have said it was one of the most unfortunate inclusions in the canon for the use which some of the worst and most violent fanatics have made of it. That it is so popular with so many of those pseud-Christians of the kind who voted for Trump is certainly reason to be skeptical of it. It was certainly not written about today but was a book about the time of persecution of Christianity under the Roman Imperial dicatorship. Only it's the story of all dictators in all of history. Everything from the injustice and oppression to the despoilation of the natural environment which is checked only in so far as the ability of the dictator and his legions to do it. Today, Putin, Trump, etc. have the power which science and technology and record keeping and online hacking have given them. Watching the work of the anti-Christ all around us, I am thinking maybe there's more value to that book than I used to think. Not in the terms that the psychotic delusion of the fanatical fundamentalists give it, but informed by reality instead of their sectarian traditions. Donald Trump, in his love of gaudy show has probably generated some suggestive symbolism, if not him then Putin and his vulgar acquisition.
* The author of the Epistle of James, Chapter 2, understood that mentality, perfectly, almost two thousand years ago.
My brothers, show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
For if a man with gold rings on his fingers and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here, please,” while you say to the poor one, “Stand there,” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs? Listen, my beloved brothers. Did not God choose those who are poor* in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? But you dishonored the poor person. Are not the rich oppressing you? And do they themselves not haul you off to court? Is it not they who blaspheme the noble name that was invoked over you? However, if you fulfill the royal* law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by The Law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law, but falls short in one particular, has become guilty in respect to all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not kill.” Even if you do not commit adultery but kill, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. For the judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
I don't know of anything in social science that explains it better than that. I put "the law" in capitals to distinguish the Mosaic Law as opposed to civil law, which certainly doesn't convict you for partiality for the rich over the poor but rewards it. Secular law, in so far as it favors the rich, and it does, in just about every way, will always be a danger to democracy on that count.
First, to dispose of the atheist snarking, that a lot of people who claim to be following the Gospels but who don't doesn't discredit the Gospels, such a thing was foreseen by Jesus and he gave a way to know the authentic followers from the hypocrites by looking at their acts and the results of their acts. People who claim to be followers of Jesus but who do what he said not to do and, as important, don't do what he said to do discredit themselves, not the truth of the Gospels. That he both predicted what came and a means of testing it shows remarkable foresight and understanding of reality.
I think we've been entirely too unwilling to call out the hypocrisy of maybe even a large majority of Christians who are in continual violation of even the most basic teachings of Jesus. The ground floor teachings of doing to other people what we would have them do to us, for one. There is no way that someone could favor Donald Trump having political and legal power if they took that seriously. If he followed a commandment it would be "screw everyone you can if you can get something out of them, to hell with anyone you can't use". He's hardly kept that a secret, it's what his entire public career is based on, it is his message. It's what made his TV show popular with the fans of strong-man fascism.
That which you do to the least among you, you do unto me, is not the practice of any Christian who voted for Republicans in 2016. Their stated intention is to grind the poor into further destitution and an early and convenient death. That has always been the real program of conservatives, especially in the Anglo-American tradition. The real commandment such Christians live by is "kick down, kiss up". The cowardice of people with little to no power who adopt their messaging is to attack the weakest who can't fight back instead of those who really cause their oppression*.
The relationship of such Christians with the truth is not ambiguous, they fully grasp even the most obvious of lies and promote them and base their actions on them. Faced with the candidacy of Donald Trump, a man who lied so much that his lies contradicted themselves, sometimes within hours if not minutes and continually over the course of the election campaign, they voted for the most blatant liar we've ever had as a candidate for a major party. Even Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan had some sense of making their lies consistent, with Trump the very concept of truth has gone out the window. Since the Gospel says that if you know the truth the truth will make you free, such Christians as voted for Trump voted for lies which will enslave us.
This listing of the disparity between the actions of those who thump the Bible the hardest and their profession of faith, when tested against the Gospels, could be encyclopedic. In every way such Christians not only fall short, they don't even begin to match their actions to their professions of belief. The election of Donald Trump exposes, not only the total decadence of American democracy in the Age of Lies, it exposes a far more serious crisis in Christianity than even the new-atheism did. That crisis, in fact, is what has given the enemies of Christianity some of their most potent ammunition. Such "Christians" as who voted for Trump and a line of those whose policy is directly and entirely opposed to the teachings of Jesus and the entire Hebrew prophetic tradition are doing the work of the anti-Christ for him. Donald Trump is a far better candidate for that role and if not him, his owner, Vladimir Putin. Even that fact, that Donald Trump is the candidate of the dictator of Russia, was not enough to lead such "Christians" to vote against the prince of liars who Donald Trump is.
I think it is a moral duty of Christians to examine their own lives and see where they fall short and to correct that, it's a continual duty because the temptation is always there. But it is as important to call out the disparity in public life. Jesus wasn't addressing a world which lived under electoral democracy, democracy means that, far from being the subjects of power, The People must, collectively, address their power to do things in the world. In a democracy that self-examination becomes a public matter and the blatant and serious immorality that we try to correct in ourselves takes on a group and public character. I think it's necessary to point out these things, the beam in our eye, under democracy, becomes the beam in all of our eyes, the power of the United States, its ability to do evil in all of our names makes that necessary. It is a moral responsibility of Christians in a democracy to do that. We don't do it nearly often enough in these terms. We aren't used to articulating the language to do it, that takes a Diane Nash, a Martin Luther King jr. or a Ceasar Chavez, a Yolanda Pierce. We have to learn how to reject the false prophets and to condemn their hijacking of Christianity to do the work of the anti-Christ.
P. S.
The Book of Revelations, what my Catholic upbringing calls "The Apocalypse" is something I've never been very comfortable with. I have said it was one of the most unfortunate inclusions in the canon for the use which some of the worst and most violent fanatics have made of it. That it is so popular with so many of those pseud-Christians of the kind who voted for Trump is certainly reason to be skeptical of it. It was certainly not written about today but was a book about the time of persecution of Christianity under the Roman Imperial dicatorship. Only it's the story of all dictators in all of history. Everything from the injustice and oppression to the despoilation of the natural environment which is checked only in so far as the ability of the dictator and his legions to do it. Today, Putin, Trump, etc. have the power which science and technology and record keeping and online hacking have given them. Watching the work of the anti-Christ all around us, I am thinking maybe there's more value to that book than I used to think. Not in the terms that the psychotic delusion of the fanatical fundamentalists give it, but informed by reality instead of their sectarian traditions. Donald Trump, in his love of gaudy show has probably generated some suggestive symbolism, if not him then Putin and his vulgar acquisition.
* The author of the Epistle of James, Chapter 2, understood that mentality, perfectly, almost two thousand years ago.
My brothers, show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.
For if a man with gold rings on his fingers and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person in shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here, please,” while you say to the poor one, “Stand there,” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs? Listen, my beloved brothers. Did not God choose those who are poor* in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him? But you dishonored the poor person. Are not the rich oppressing you? And do they themselves not haul you off to court? Is it not they who blaspheme the noble name that was invoked over you? However, if you fulfill the royal* law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by The Law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law, but falls short in one particular, has become guilty in respect to all of it. For he who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not kill.” Even if you do not commit adultery but kill, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as people who will be judged by the law of freedom. For the judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.
I don't know of anything in social science that explains it better than that. I put "the law" in capitals to distinguish the Mosaic Law as opposed to civil law, which certainly doesn't convict you for partiality for the rich over the poor but rewards it. Secular law, in so far as it favors the rich, and it does, in just about every way, will always be a danger to democracy on that count.
Sunday, December 25, 2016
Luigi Dallapiccola: Concerto Per La Notte Di Natale Dell'anno 1956
Concerto for Christmas Night 1956
Frederick Prausnitz, conductor
I. Prologo
II. Primo Inno
III. Intermezzo
IV. Secondo Inno
V. Epilogo
I've searched high and low for a translation of the texts, from Jacobone da Todi's poems and haven't been able to find them.
A Solis Ortus Cardine
From the hinge of the rising sun
To the farthest edge of the earth
Let us sing to Christ our lord
Born of the virgin Mary.
Blessed creator of the world
Assuming the body of a slave,
Freeing our flesh with his own flesh
That what he made might not be lost.
A close-barred maiden's inner parts
Were breached by the grace of heaven;
Burdened was the maiden's womb
With secrets that she did not know.
Quickly the home of her chaste breast
Became the temple of the Lord;
Untouched without knowledge of men,
By the word she conceived a son.
She laboured and then brought forth
The One foretold by Gabriel;
John, still in his mother's womb,
Sensed it, as he leapt with joy.
He bore with lying in the hay,
He did not scorn the manger,
And on a little milk He fed,
Who let no bird in want of food.
The heavenly choir was glad
And angels of God's coming sang,
To the shepherds they did unfold
The Shepherd and Maker of all things.
O Herod, you impious foe,
Why fear the coming of Christ?
Earthly realms he does not seize,
The kingdom of heaven he gives.
The wise men journeyed towards the star
Which led them on their coming.
Seeking one Light with another,
Their gifts proclaimed him God.
A multitude of mothers cried out,
Weeping at their children's deaths;
Slain by the tyrrant in thousands,
Sacrificial victims for Christ.
Into the streams of pure water
Entered the heavenly Lamb;
Taking on Himself the sins of the world,
With his cleansing we were absolved.
By miracles did he give proof
That he had God as father;
Healing those sick in body,
Bringing back the dead to life.
Yet new kinds of powers!
The water in the ewers turned red,
And, when ordered to pour with wine,
The source of the flow was changed.
On bended knee a centurion
Begged for his servant's health;
The burning ardour of his faith
Put out the fever's flames.
Peter walked forward through the waves,
Held fast by Christ's right hand.
Where nature denied there was a way
His faith a footpath made.
On his fourth malodorous day,
Lazarus recovered his life,
And, once freed from the shackles of death,
Became heir unto himself.
Streams of flowing gore were stopped,
With one touch to His robes;
The running tears of the suppliant
Dried up the torrents of blood.
Lifeless in all his body,
But suddenly commanded to rise,
A sick man could on his own again
Carry away his bed.
Then that hangman Judas,
Having dared betray his master,
Peace did offer with a kiss,
Which came not from his heart.
The truthful was betrayed to liars
The pious was scourged by the godless,
The untainted was nailed to the cross,
Sharing his lot with thieves.
As Sabbath passed, anointing myrrh
Was brought by women of His fellowship
To whom an angel said: He lives,
He lies no longer in the tomb.
Come let us with dulcet hymns
Join to sing of the overthrow
Of Tartarus by the triumph of Christ
Who, though sold, redeemed us all.
The zeal of the envious serpent,
The jaws of the fearsome lion,
God's only son did trample down
Then rise back into the heavens.
The original hymn, attributed to Coelius Sedulius, a poet of the early 5th century. As sung in the office for Christmas day they stop with the eighth verse (or there about, not all of the sources agree on the text). In the Latin original each verse begins with a subsequent letter of the alphabet and a summary of the life of Jesus is given. I included the entire hymn as translated in the modern period.
The hymn has been set a number of times. You can search through the youtubes to find performances of those by Binchois and Palestrina and others. Here's a recent setting by Alan Charleton,
The William Byrd Singers and The Meridian Singers
Alan Charleton, conductor
John Harbison - O Magnum Mysterium
BBC Singers
Stephen Cleobury, director
O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
jacentem in praesepio!
Beata Virgo, cujus viscera
meruerunt portare
Dominum Christum.
Alleluia.
O great mystery,
and wonderousl sacrament,
that animals should see God born,
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
Christ the Lord.
Alleluia!
J. S. Bach - Christmas Oratorio Parts 1-3
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Concentus Musicus Wien
Peter Schreier - Tenor
Robert Holl - Bass
Soloists of the Tolzer Knabenchor
Chorusmaster: Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden
I haven't listened to the entire performance as posted on Youtube. I remember hearing it on television a long, long time ago and remember it was a fine performance in the contemporary authentic performance practice of the time. The soloists, including the boys are very good, as are the instrumentalists.
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