Tony Scott Two Tastes For A New Year

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phUykaBNM3Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWvATT8YOpE

Best Wishes For 2013

Pharoah Sanders' Kazuko (Peace Child)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOpmtFoZWjA

Christmas in a Cold Climate

Richard Robinson in his fine book, An Atheist’s Values,OUP1964, writes:

We often hear talk of ‘Christian values’. Those who use this phrase are confident that everybody knows what Christian values are. But I do not know what they are. For example, I am puzzled whether thrift is a Christian value in view of the fact that, whereas thrift is often praised by people calling themselves Christian, it is rejected by Jesus in the gospels. [4] 

I too am often puzzled by a lot of things that I have heard people calling themselves Christian say. But I am often even more puzzled by the actions of so-called Christians. What I have to say about Christians applies to other upholders of other religious doctrines also. But in the spirit of Christmas, and based on my childhood experiences with self-professed Christians - family members and others, I’ll stick with the thoughts, sayings, and actions of Christian brothers and sisters.

My atheism isn’t militant in any way. Years ago part of my job as a commercial loan officer involved my supervising loans that my bank had made to churches. In order to supervise these loans I had to go to church services. Some of the services were very moving in that the parishioners seemed to be quite moved emotionally and the music, as provided by the choir, soloists, and instrumentalists, was also very moving and pleasing. The sermons were usually unobjectionable and to some point or other. None of these proceedings bothered me in the least.

Now if I’m asked to partake in religious practices, if I’m asked to pray, for example; I won’t do it. I wouldn’t ask a Christian believer to engage in my non-militant atheist practices - I can’t imagine what said practices would be or what they would consist in; but for the sake of argument, let’s imagine that I participated in atheist practices.

In connection with my banking supervisory practices I was called upon to attend church functions - dinners &c. Often the question was put to me What religion are you, Mr. White? Being quite precise, I couldn’t say, I’m an atheist (note here, that’s “atheist” with a small “a”) - in my view my non-militant atheism isn’t a capital-letter religion at all. I just don’t believe that there are any gods (small “g”) at all. There were plenty of gods back in the day - Greek gods, for example; but we got rid of them. 

Rather than being totally misunderstood by my interlocutor regarding his or her What religion are you? question; I would answer something also the lines of I was raised in the Congregationalist church and I have been working my way back to it, etc. And this reply seemed to do the job.

It’s quite amazing that people I have known who called themselves Christian seem to know quite a lot about atheism, and, especially, what God (capital “G”) has in store for an atheist such as me - burning in God’s Hell, for example. There are quite substantial engineering problems involved in transporting a soul to Heaven or Hell - especially re-identifying the soul once it arrives in either non-spatial place. But surely the Christian’s God has a plan, so I won’t worry about the soul-technology. And of course people calling themselves Christian have a privileged and special relationship with their God, a relationship that doesn't obtain for the rest of us.

I'll grant that the existence of the universe, as we presume to know it, is strange and quite mysterious; but whatever problems we have in understanding its origin, persistence, and term prospects are not explained by postulating a Christian (or any other) God or gods.  

As a non-militant atheist, liberal, and philosophical anarchist I am particularly worried about cultural and political intolerance as practiced by people I know and have known who call themselves Christian - Christians who profess and practice racism, segregation, misogyny, class warfare, ethnic and religious hatred, Country Club Christians (CCC). Not only was I called upon to attend church services as a bank commercial loan officer, I was called upon to attend country club services - CCC services; so I know what I’m talking about. The segue from CCC services to Church services continues to be too easy. Again, I emphasize that intolerance such as I have noted is certainly to be found in other religious, social, and cultural groups and nations; but I am talking about what I know first hand - the under-reported news.

There’s wisdom to be found in Professor Robinson’s An Atheist’s Values. It’s available at no charge at the site linked below.

http://borici.ca/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Atheist-Values.pdf

Merry Christmas to one and all.   

Charles Rosen (R.I.P.)

"Understanding music means feeling comfortable with it – taking pleasure in music is the most obvious sign of comprehension." Charles Rosen

Charles Rosen  - pianist and music, literary and fine arts scholar - died on 9 December 2012 at the age of 85. Since reading his The Classical Style in the summer of 1972, I have returned often to Mr Rosen's writings and recorded piano performances - his recordings of Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Carter and Boulez. I won't mention his other wonderful books, except to note that his last volume, Freedom and the Arts: Essays on Music and Literature, 2012, is providing me with expected knowledge and pleasure. 

  I think Michel de Montaigne - the original blogger - was one of Charles Rosen's favorite authors. And Mr Rosen's writing displays many of Montaigne's fine qualities. I particularly admire the feeling that I get when reading Rosen that I [the reader] am a colleague of Rosen's, involved with him in his search.

I've hesitated to blog on about the things that I love and the people I admire in light of the unspeakable Newtown Ct. tragedy. It makes me very sad to think that twenty young children and six caring and heroic adults were murdered by a young person bearing his parent's assault weapon and automatic pistols. Music and books  - feeling, interpretation, learning and understanding, the search thereof - human and humane pursuits seem to be beyond our reach. It was our hope that children armed with love, understanding, and knowledge as provided by caring adults and schools would be sufficient for their flourishing and well-being. It's not happening.      

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/dec/10/charles-rosen

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/arts/music/charles-rosen-pianist-polymath-and-author-dies-at-85.html?pagewanted=all

http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/the-gate-is-open.html

Guitar Notions Revisited

Since the Mary Halvorson Quintet's performance last Sunday [see my previous post], I've been thinking about the music that I heard on that occasion, about my negative reaction to Halvorson's music, and my guitar-aversion (what back in the days would have been called a guitar hangup).
  So, I decided to spend most of my day listening to guitarists of the moment - Derek Bailey(2000), with Jamaaladeen Tacuma and Calvin Weston; Anthony Braxton and Fred Frith (2005); Joe Morris (1999), with Karen Borca, Rob Brown, and Andrea Parkins; James Blood Ulmer (1991), with David Murray, Amin Ali, and Cornell W. Rochester; Kevin O'Neil, with Anthony Braxton's "Standards" Group.
  Halvorson's music was not avant-guarde in any way. At best it was retrograde music. Call it New York New Music-Scene or whatever; but it was not avant-anything, nor was it modern. Gil Mellé's 1956 music with Joe Cinderella on guitar is modern. Ornette Coleman's 1975 Body Meta with Tacuma, Ellerbee and Nix on guitars is avant-guarde. Herbie Mann and Sam Most with Joe Puma on guitar is modern. Roy Eldridge with Ronnie Ball on piano is modern. Etc. Music labels are for marketing products and mis-leading consumers. If the music is well-played, it may be worthy of one's attention. Tip-toeing around one's instrument, playing uninteresting scales, fidgeting with technical gadgets doesn't result in creative music or an interesting performance.
  I heard Ornette's Body Meta group in Ann Arbor - exciting, propulsive, extremely well-played music. These good-making characteristics are also evident the guitar-featured music that I listened to today, especially Blood Ulmer's recording - "As Serious as Your Life", as Val Wilmer's title goes. Pat Metheny and Ornette burned together too. By the way Jamaaladeen Tacuma is an outstanding bass guitarist and composer. Fred Frith (noted above) I heard in solo performance at the Guelph Jazz Festival this year. His Cagean messing about was uninteresting to me. Joe Morris's Many Rings CD is very interesting because of the instrumentation - accordion, bassoon, alto & flute - and musicianship; it is very well-played chamber music.
  As I noted in my earlier Halvorson posting, the Quintet's performance took place at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio. The next three Jazz ensembles booked by the Wexner Center incorporate guitars. My music interests require neither a piano nor guitar - unless they're happening, no tip-toeing, scales or tricks. Except for guitar-economics and portability the guitar preference perplexes me from an aesthetic point of view. Is it because there are so many guitars around? because everyone plays 'air-guitar'? because late-night TV shows feature bands with guitars? because audiences think that they understand guitar-based music? Whenever I see three guitars without Ornette Coleman I shudder.
  It must be my guitar hangup. Oh well, I can hang with Blood Ulmer and Murray: three guitars and Ornette: Morris & company; Mann, Most & Puma; Mellé & Cinderella . . . .  

Dave Brubeck (R.I.P.)

Dave Brubeck has passed away at the age of 91 years. His music was very important to me during my formative years. One of my early vinyl purchases was a 10 inch red Fantasy recording of the Brubeck Octet. I return often to his creative music - Jazz Goes to College, Jazz at Oberlin and College of the Pacific. "Balcony Rock", "These Foolish Things", and "All the Things You Are" still knock me out. Brubeck was both a creative music innovator and a decent human being. Mingus admired his music. Miles made disparaging remarks about his music, but managed to record Brubeck's "The Duke".
  Guardian obituary:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/dec/05/dave-brubeck

Taylor Ho Bynum New Yorker tribute:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2012/12/the-brilliance-of-dave-brubeck.html 

Pepper Adams - Detroit Years: 1930 - 1958

The late baritone saxophone master Pepper Adams' website contains a fascinating description of, among other things, the creative music scene in Detroit (and Highland Park). It shows who was gigging with whom and where the music action was happening. Take an envious look:

http://www.pepperadams.com/Chronology/EarlyYears.html

Mary Halvorson Quintet - Guitar Notion

I first heard Mary Halvorson in 2007 with Anthony Braxton’s Diamond Wall Trio at the Guelph Jazz Festival. This wonderful trio included the fabulous Taylor Ho Bynum on trumpet. 

  On Sunday, 1 December 2012 my wife, a friend and I heard Halvorson’s quintet at the Wexner Center on The Ohio State University campus. The quintet consisted of Halvorson, guitar; Jonathan Finlayson, trumpet; Jon Irabagon, alto saxophone, John Hébert, bass; and Ches Smith, drums. The bassist and drummer, we are told, form the nucleus of Halvorson’s groups. Of the quintet that I heard on Sunday, only the acoustic bass of Hébert invited appreciation and admiration. I suspect the other musicians are quite competent. But I found Halvorson’s guitar in the way of the music most of the time. A drummer can often provide the rhythmic glue to even the most disparate musical elements and desperate aspirations of the musicians and their audience. But Ches Smith’s percussion aspirations weren’t up to the task. The trumpet and alto saxophone never had a proper chance to make music.

  Mary Halvoson is reported to be a conscientious composer. Her charts were much on display on stage. Indeed, it appeared to me, at least, that what the audience was subjected to was a futile sight-reading exercise or music exorcism.

 There’s no need to pursue this line any further. I thought the music was awful. Halvorson’s ‘compostions‘ were full of off-putting gimmicks and visual tricks. I quite dislike guitar-notions such as Halvorson’s. I prefer not being a citizen of any guitar nation.

          

Mozart , Haydn & Beethoven - Piano Trios

In the summer of 1973, Charles Rosen introduced me to the world of of Joseph Haydn's piano trios. Rosen in his classic 1971 work, The Classical Style, devotes a chapter to the piano trio. His Arnold Schoenberg, 1975 and the very large The Romantic Generation, 1995 along with Critical Entertainments, 2000 and Piano Notes: The World of the Pianist, 2002 are kept at my side and  consulted often. The Schoenberg book along with Allen Shawn's Arnold Schoenberg's Journey, 2002 are the best places for an amateur (in the non-sport, French meaning of the term) to get next to Schoenberg's wonderful music.
  My introduction, musically, was through the Beaux Arts Trio - Menahem Pressler, Isidore Cohen and Bernard Greenhouse (Pressler was D. D. Jackson's piano teacher at Indiana University). Rosen writes that the Haydn trios are primarily compositions for the solo fortepiano, solo violin and accompanying cello. On page 352 of The Classical Style, Rosen writes:

The fact that these trios are essentially solo works makes possible their greatest quality, a feeling of improvisation almost unique in Haydn's work, and, indeed, rarely found in any of the three great classic composers. Haydn was a composer who needed the piano to write music; these trios seem to give us Haydn at work. They have a spontaneous quality that the composer rarely sought elsewhere; there inspiration seems relaxed and unforced, at times almost disorganized, when compared with the quartets and symphonies.

We have complete sets of the trios by the Beaux Arts Trio, Van Swieten Trio, Haydn Trio Eisenstadt. The Van Swieten employs fortepiano and violin and cello of Haydn's time, and includes three trios with flute instead of violin. The Beaux Arts and Eisenstadt trios employ modern instruments.
  I never admired Mozart as much as Haydn and Beethoven. In my later years I have come to admire Mozart. For chamber music there are none greater than these three - Bach's pulling at my coat, as I write this. It's exciting, and enlightening, to listen to the piano trios of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven in chronological order - Mozart says, "Here they are, wrapped tight for you"; Haydn says, "Dig this, we're jammin'"; Beethoven says, "Damn that, here's how they shall and must go!"
  I'm thinking of Eddie Jefferson and James Moody and their "Birdland Story" piece here. Nothing else for me to say.

 

Music Discoveries - Jacintha & Beethoven's Oboe Trios

Today I discovered the vocalist Jacintha (Jacintha Abisheganaden) and Beethoven’s Trios for Two Oboes and Cor Anglais. 

  Jacintha treats standards. I ran into her beautiful vocal stylings of once popular songs while searching for Ben Webster hits on the internet. Miss Abisheganden hails from Singapore and studied Creative Writing at Harvard. She recorded a CD in appreciation of Ben Webster. Her voice and interpretations of popular songs are certainly up to the Frog’s standards. Try her “Round Midnight” and “Moon River” - the piano solo on the latter touches on Cecil Taylor! Many of her tunes are available on You Tube. She pays close attention to a song’s lyrics and tends to take things quite slowly. Teddy Edwards’s saxophone is featured on a number of the the recordings. 

  Take a listen on You Tube. If you like The Music performed with care and devotion, Jacintha Abisheganaden should knock you out.

  After dealing with Beethoven’s Op. 131 String Quartet in the wonderful film, A Last Quartet, discovering the above mentioned ‘Lighter Works’ suited me perfectly. I’m usually down with almost anything featuring clarinet or oboe; but two oboes and English Horn: heavenly-stuff, whether light, heavy, or what-not.

  Soul-music! Couldn't resist, try this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0OfmO1hiIU

A Late Quartet - Life in C ♯ minor

Robert Paul Wolff directed my attention to A Late Quartet, a fine film that treats music, musicians, love, and personal loss - see the link below. This afternoon my wife and I went to see the film. I was quite moved by it, I was ready to weep from the start of the film; and I remained weepy throughout the film.
  There are very few films which treat music and music-making intelligently. A Late Quartet conveys what it's like to be a serious musician and what being a member of a chamber-music ensemble requires. There were no Ken Russell light-my-fire tricks employed here. The hard work involved in the performance of art music is very well displayed in the film.
  The performances by the principle actors are compelling, especially those of Christoper Walken and Seymour Hoffman which are outstanding.
  The Brentano String Quartet performs the film's music, Beethoven's Op. 13 in C ♯ minor; the film's other principal character.

http://robertpaulwotartlff.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-night-at-movies.html

http://www.michigandaily.com/arts/11late-quartet-review26

Teddy Wilson - Jam Session Aesthetic

WKCR, Columbia University’s wonderful FM and Internet radio station, devoted a whole day this Sunday to the music of Teddy Wilson (1912 - 1986). This magical pianist is best known for his work with Benny Goodman,  the small groups with B.G., Lionel Hampton, and Gene Krupa. Teddy Wilson is a superb pianist and consummate piano  stylist - I rely here on Art Blakey’s distinction between a stylist and instrumentalist, which he illustrated by his saying that Miles Davis is a trumpet stylist, while Clifford Brown is a trumpet player. Teddy Wilson is both. I invoke the present tense when discussing musical genus, the is of recorded music.

  When I think of Teddy Wilson, I think of Teddy Wilson’s small groups - the groups that featured Billie Holiday and a host of other geniuses: for example, Roy Eldridge, Benny Carter, Benny Goodman, Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Chu Berry, Ben Webster, Buster Bailey, Vido Musso, Harry Carney, Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Big Sid Catlett, Charlie Ventura, Misses Fitzgerald, Ward, Carpenter, Sullivan, and The Divine One.

  As has been emphasized by Gunther Schuller and Phil Schaap, in Wilson’s small groups the lady singers were an integral part of the jam session aesthetic that Mr Wilson was about - instrumentalists and singers improvised. And Billie Holiday incorporated the Wilson jam session aesthetic in her small group recordings, both her Columbia and Verve recordings.

   Mr Wilson is of the glide and stride college of pianists - seminars offered by Jelly Roll Morton and Earl Hines; post-graduate work with Art Tatum (just a taste); and the European classical piano tradition. The recording that Wilson made with Lester Young on Verve of “I didn’t know what time it was” is fine example of Mr Wilson’s piano technique and styling. This recording also features Roy Eldridge, Vic Dickerson, and Jo Jones. Prez and Mr Wilson both glide on top of the music, a perfect meringue for a perfect jam session.


P.S. Ethan Iverson on Teddy Wilson:
http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/2012/11/bits-and-bytes.html

PPS I'm quite enjoying the 10 CD Teddy Wilson Jumpin' For Joy set from

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0014WSX34/ref=sr_1_5_np_1_main_olp?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1354729624&sr=1-5&condition=new

It cost less than $20US, including shipping from Europe.

Andrew Cyrille - Special People

I remember meeting Andrew Cyrille for the first time - was it 1997? I picked him up at the Port Columbus, Ohio airport. he was performing with David Murray, Oliver Lake (one-half of The World Saxophone Quartet), and Santi Debriano at Ohio Dominican College (now a university). Mr. Cyrille is a muscular, compact man. When I tried to lift his cymbals, he said to me, "You'd better let me handle them - I'm used to lifting them". They were very heavy. Percussionists travel with their cymbals and drum-sticks, while assembling the remainder of the drum kit from local sources.
  Andrew Cyrille is a master musician, a master percussionist, and teacher. He played with Coleman Hawkins, Cecil Taylor, and, more recently as co-leader, with Oliver Lake and Reggie Workman in the group TrioThree. I won't try to describe Cyrille's percussion magic, except by way of a hearing example - a sound experiment.
  There's a Jimmy Smith CD, Cool Blues, that has Smith's regular drummer, Donald Bailey on tracks 4-8. On tracks 1-3 Art Blakey is the drummer. David Bailey is a fine drummer - very subtle musician. But when Art Blakey occupies the drum chair, there pulse-magic - Blakey fills the musical space with pop. When Blakey doesn't fill the space, when, as it seems to me, he's creating rhythmic suspense; he surprises us with a rhythmic constellation consisting of the high-hat and sock cymbals with simple quiet rim shots on the snare drum. It's beats of 1, 2 & 3 then no 4. The listener adds the 4th beat that Blakey withholds. This way Blakey and the listener collaborate in creating a rhythmic pulse. I'm listening to Jimmy Smith's recording of the The Sermon.
  Compare the Billy Hart interview with Ethan Iverson http://dothemath.typepad.com/dtm/interview-with-billy-hart.html. Donald Bailey and Jimmy Cobb are time keepers par excellence. Art Blakey, Billy Hart, and Andrew Cyrille seem, to my amateur’s ears, play in and out of time. Read what Whitney Balliett has to say in his piece, “Roach, Blakey & P. J. Jones”. Balliett was obsessed with drummers. Among his favorite swing-masters were Jimmy Crawford and “Big” Sid Catlett,  Jo Jones, and Elvin Jones. Balliett didn’t care for Max Roach’s “typewritter style” of playing; while Roy Haynes’s playing tended to be too loud.
  Andrew Cyrille is a pulse-master in the Blakey-sense. The recordings of Andrew Cyrille with Jeanne Lee and Jimmy Lyons, with Ted Daniel and David Ware (R.I.P), with Jimmy Lyons, and Trio Three are worth attending to. Like Art Blakey, Andrew Cyrille creates his own groove; he propels the musicians and the music both inside the pocket and out.
  Pete La Roca, another master percussionist, died on Monday, at the age of 74. See Ethan Iverson's tribute. http://dothemath.typepad.com/
  Andy Hamilton's appreciation of Pete La Roca:
http://www.andyhamilton.org.uk/andy_pdfs/Swings_The_Thing.pdf

Relaxin' with Lee [Bird's tune] and J.S. Bach

I've been trying to get over having to attend to Republican racism, lies, and stupidity; to the hateful rants of the G.O.P.'s avatars of culture, Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, Donald Trump, and others. Regrettably I had become a political junkie. So I'm hoping Charles Parker and J. S. Bach will help me break the spell that has entranced me over the past month.
  I do worry about Mr. Obama's willingness to compromise with the Republicans. The notion of a "fiscal-cliff" is the same one-note Republican chant---We Republicans have nothing to offer but fear itself.
  Go on! with your Nugent-Rock-Trump suckers for millionaires. 

Intelligent & Knowledgable People

Robert Paul Wolff on his very, very . . . . blog, The Philosopher's Stone, writes:

Johnathan suggested I check out election.princeton.edu, which I did, discovering that this technically sophisticated blogsite, run by a Princeton Biophysicist, Sam Wang, has even rosier projections for Obama than Nate Silver or Votamatic.  Now, I have already had my say about my shameless searching out of experts who confidently predict that what I want to happen will happen [which, as I pointed out, is almost the functional definition of a religion.]  But I took a few moments to read some of the scores of comments and comments on comments that had been posted on Sam Wang's site, and once again I was powerfully struck by the wealth of intelligent, knowledgeable people out there capable of speaking more thoughtfully, with more detail, and in a more balanced and reflective manner than any of the well-known paid opinion-mongers who clog the airwaves and the Op Ed pages of the major newspapers.  This seems to be true no matter what subject you choose to Google, regardless of whether it is an arcane specialty or a matter of common interest. 

I certainly hope Wang, Silver, and/or Votamatic are right in their predictions. As I mentioned to my wife this morning: If Obama loses, there'll be no Christmas this year.

Professor Wolff's comments are always insightful. In addition to being a philosopher and blogger, he's a viola player! Take a peek:
http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/
election.princeton.edu
votamatic.org

Bootstraps? Not in Willard's and Paul-Ayn's Hole

Bobby Hutcherson's Components and Dialogue this Sunday afternoon. Peeked at Bertrand Russell Society members' back-and-forth's on the Presidential Election. Some members can't vote for Obama because they feel betrayed by him. That's not a good reason to vote for Willard Romney, is it?
  I think not.
  I believe it's more important to vote against Willard than not to vote for Obama; even if the latter has been "Wall Street's puppet", according to Prof. West; aren't we all "puppets" in many ways?
  No reason to let Willard and Paul-Ayn finish us off.
  Why?
  It makes one feel like a man, like a rational person, instead of feeling like an Ayn in Willard's hole without a bootstrap, by George. Like an Paul-Ayn-hole.
  I'll be glad when this political puppet/dumb show is over. Then Congress can get back to its obstructionist business of not taking care of our Nation's business.

  It's ...[trifles]... all the way down. 

How does the United States rank… « Ranking America

How does the United States rank… « Ranking America:

'via Blog this'

Presidential Debate? Too Bad It Won't Be Rained Out

Andrew Levine's insightful item in Counterpunch is worthy of one's attention. Here's a taste:

And so the fate of the world hinges on body language, “attitude” (combative or passive), and gaffes.  Could the absurdity be greater?  And could there be a more bizarre way to select the Commander-in-Chief of an overblown military empire in decline?

There is nothing to do but avert one’s gaze and cry out in despair: only in America.

It looks like game seven of the St Louis-San Francisco National League baseball contest [a real contest, unlike our Presidential Election] will be rained out.

What to do? Listen to The Devine Sarah, I guess - Sarah Lois Vaughn.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/10/19/selection-by-debate/

Profile of a Sociopath

http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

Does the the Profile of a Sociopath outlined at the above designated internet link remind you of anyone? Willard and "Rex" are after us . . . .

Depressing Thought - Obama Either Way

The thought that President Barak Obama will lose in the November Presidential Election to Willard Romney and his reactionary band of pricks depresses me.

The thought the President Obama might be re-elected also depresses me.

The thought that the same Congressional band of hands-full-of-gimme and mouths full of thank-you-much will be returned to their posts as Corporate-Punks further depresses me.

The film Detropia and Don Delilio's novel Cosmopolis offer darkly-brilliant pictures of our future, which - paraphrasing Oscar Wilde - is behind us.

Take in lots and lots of soul-music: Bach, Beethoven, Mahler, Schönberg, Coltrane, Ellington, Monk et al.

Go Tigers!

John Coltrane - September 23, 1926

John Coltrane at the Village Gate - Personal Reflections (a reissue of a previous blog-post).

17 August 1961. John Coltrane at the Village Gate. In the summer of 1961, recently out of high school, I was living on the second floor in an industrial loft at 326 Bowery with two artist friends, Mike M. and Joel. The three of us worked at the Stouffer Restaurant, The Top of The Sixes, located at 666 Fifth Avenue, near MOMA. At the time another friend, Jerry M. from Michigan was visiting. I had known Mike and Jerry in high school in Highland Park, a suburb of Detroit; Joel was the New Yorker. Our loft was located near the famous Five Spot.

   On the night of 17 August 1961, Jerry and I went to the Village Gate located at 158 Bleecker Street at Thompson in the Village to hear the John Coltrane sextet which featured Eric Dolphy (reeds), McCoy Tyner (piano), Art Davis and Reggie Workman (basses), Elvin Jones (drums), and special guest Roland Kirk (reeds).

Lewis Porter in his John Coltrane: His Life and Music, The University of Michigan Press (1999) reports on page 365 that ”According to Bob Rusch, Roland Kirk sat in with Coltrane on August 17 [1961].” Since I had never seen mention of the Coltrane-Kirk event, I called Lewis Porter and informed him of my presence in the Coltrane-Kirk event. Porter said that he would give me a footnote (someday) in the Coltrane encyclopedia he was putting together. Instead of waiting for the footnote, I’ll try and convey what the Coltrane-Dolphy-Kirk event was like nearly 50 years ago.

   I had met Roland Kirk at the Half Note in 1959. High School friends and I had spent that Christmas in NYC. Roland Kirk (later Rahsaan Roland Kirk) is one of three Columbus, Ohio music luminaries —Nancy Wilson (“Sweet Nancy” in Sid McCoy’s lexicon) and Harry “Sweets” Edison. I had the thrill of meeting ”Sweets” Edison in Detroit at Bakers’ Keyboard Lounge where he was performing with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis. “Sweets” Edison performed with Count Basie, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Ben Webster, and Frank Sinatra. I never met “Sweet” Nancy; but I feel like I know her, since Sid McCoy, the famous Chicago jazz disc jockey always played something by Nancy Wilson. He opened his show with Jimmy Smith’s recording of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” — unfortunately a tune with a poignant message for us today.

   Sweet Memory, Fifty Years On. The Village Gate was located in the basement (or ground floor?) of a large building. The room itself was large with long tables at which one sat. I don’t recall having been served drinks, New York waiters had a keen awareness of the spenders verses ‘music lovers’, so our waiter or waitress most likely avoided us. The former Village Gate is now (Le) Poisson Rouge.

   Jerry M. and I were expectantly sitting at our table waiting for the music to begin. My expectation was the result of having heard John Coltrane in person once before at Ford Auditorium in Detroit, Michigan in the winter of 1959. He was a member of the famous Miles Davis sextet that featured “Cannonball” Adderly, Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb. Ford Auditorium has/had a platform in front of the main stage that could be lowered and raised. Miles’s sextet rose up from a lower level blasting Thelonius Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser”—a thrilling moment for my date and me.

   I think the long tables were set out at angles to the bandstand. There were microphones all over the bandstand, each of the contra-basses was miked; Art Davis was on the left and Reggie Workman was on the right. Elvin Jones and his drum set were behind Workman. McCoy Tyner at the piano was behind Art Davis. John Coltrane, tenor and soprano saxophones was in the middle of these musicians. Eric Dolphy, alto saxophone and flute walked past out table. He was charged with leading Roland Kirk to the bandstand. Mr Kirk was blind.

   To say that Roland Kirk was a multi-instrumentalist could be misleading. He performed on the tenor saxophone, flute, and these antique single-reed instruments manzello, stritch, and nose-flute. But Kirk was unique in that he had perfected a technique of playing the tenor, manzello, and stritch simultaneously.

   Now Eric Dolphy was leading Roland Kirk and all of his instruments to the bandstand! Around his neck were hung three saxophones and nose-flute. In his hand he held a regular flute. So after their trek to the bandstand, through an even more expectant and buzzing audience, there stood at the center of the elevated bandstand three giants of creative music: John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, and Roland Kirk. What I felt at that moment has stayed with me for nearly fifty years — I have had a vision outside myself of myself. That’s one of the ways that art — even the prospect of ART — can affect one; it takes one outside of one’s self, if one let’s the music take one. You have to give yourself to it. You have to be on “creative alert” in Geoff Dyer’s phrase. That evening at the Village Gate I was on creative alert.

   There are certain tunes that become an improving artist’s signature tune. “My Favorite Things” was John Coltrane’s signature tune in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with a “Hit Parade” competition or an “American Idol” shot. It’s more in the sense of an Anthem that I have in mind. It’s in the sense of an Anthem of Excellence or Striving for Artistic Perfection. I think of Charlie Parker’s “Koko” or Monk’s “Criss Cross”, nearly every tenor-man’s “Body and Soul” (after Coleman Hawkins, that is). John Coltrane didn’t take requests, but he most often played “My Favorite Things”. He first recorded it on 21 October 1960. It was released in March 1961. (I don’t know whether I heard this recording prior to the Village Gate performance.

The Music. Reggie Workman (bass) played pizzicato phrases while Art Davis (bass) employed an arco technique. The Village Gate introduction was in a way like that of Coltrane’s recording of “Dahomey’s Dance”. But it also was, or it had the feeling of, Jimmy Garrison’s solo introduction to the 57 minute Live in Japan 1966 recording of “My Favorite Things”, in which Jimmy Garrison uses both pizzicato and arco techniques. But the Village Gate arrangement followed the initial Atlantic recording except for the basses’ introduction and the additional instruments: a second bass, Eric Dolphy’s flute, and Roland Kirk’s three saxophones, nose whistle, and other stuff.

   Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk are on the bandstand. Reggie Workman (bass) and Art Davis (bass) have provided a lengthy introduction. McCoy Tyner (piano) plays an ostinato figure on the piano. John Coltrane plays the melody then solos. McCoy Tyner keeps the ostinato two-handed block chords coming. Roland Kirk is entranced, his movements were those of a prize fighter—a fighter with three saxophones hanging from his neck. Dolphy is looking up at the ceiling. Coltrane is back for another solo. Tyner keeps the block chords coming, pushing Coltrane’s soprano saxophone further out. Coltrane restates the theme after his intense solo. Next it’s Eric Dolphy’s solo on flute.

   The photographic image that I’ve had all of these years has been one that’s dark around its edges with a halo-like lighting in the center—the saxophone trinity of Coltrane, Dolphy, and Kirk in the center framed by the 6/8 rhythm machine con- sisting of the drummer Elvin Jones, the bassists Reggie Workman and Art Davis, and the pianist McCoy Tyner. Ostinato all around; ostinato all the way down.

   Throughout the introductions of Workman, Davis, and Tyner, and throughout the solos of Tyner, Coltrane, and Dolphy; Roland Kirk is bobbing and weaving with his army of saxophones, whistle, and other stuff, ready to engage “My Favorite Things”. I’m sure that the Village Gate “My Favorite Things” was more than an hour in duration (the Live in Japan recorded performance is 57 minutes).

   After being "on creative alert" for forty minutes or so, the one man saxophone ensemble that was Roland Kirk was beyond ready to play. I certainly can't describe to the reader how he played; except to say that he played his three saxophones all at once and punctuated an incredible solo with a whistle from his nose flute — Kirk’s incredible solo followed the incredible solos of Messrs. Davis, Workman, Coltrane, Tyner, Coltrane and Dolphy. Incredible solos? Solos characterized by forceful tones, harmonics, doubling the 6/8 rhythmic pulse, creating a rhythmic pulse on top of Elvin Jones’ polyrhythmic pulses---indescribable; I tried!

   There has been fixed in my memory and imaginings of that evening of stupendous music making and invention an image of the audience’s reaction to the sight of Eric Dolphy leading Roland Kirk, a blind man with his tangle of instruments, to the band stand. This image of mine, which has been constant, is one of me as a member of the audience witnessing the sight of Eric Dolphy and Roland Kirk, witnessing this very reflexive seeing of a sight of . . . . This, hopefully non-vicious, visual regress appears to be in stereo—one mind’s eye on me qua audience member and one mind’s eye on the audience, including me. I also suppose that there could be a regress of mind’s eyes, too.

   My current explanatory hypothesis resides in the fact that I had met Roland Kirk a year before at the Half Note and I knew as a consequence of that meeting what to expect from him musically. The rest of Village Gate audience didn’t know what to expect from this blind man with his tangle of saxophones and other weird instruments, his assortment of found objects. Anyway that’s my thinking.

   After the music started I was totally transfixed. And my ‘memories’ of that fabulous night have been a fixed point for me over the past 50 years—me as a spectator amongst the other spectators, 17 August 1961. Memory and imagination hang together for me.

   As I noted above, for many years I couldn’t figure out exactly who the second bass player was; I knew that Art Davis was one of the bassists. I conjected that Reggie Workman might have been the other bassist, but I couldn’t be sure. A few years ago I asked Oliver Lake, who performs with Reggie Workman and Andrew Cyrille in the group Trio Three, if he would ask Workman if he was the other bassist that night in August, 1961. Reggie Workman thought that I might have been trying to peddle a bootleg recording of the music of that evening (I wish someone had a recording of that night!), and he refused to say whether he was on that gig or not. But some time later, Trio Three appeared at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and I asked Reggie Workman directly. He replied, ”Yes. It was magical wasn’t it.”

   It was indeed, magical.

Willard According to The Philosopher's Stone

Robert Paul Wolff, today in his blog The Philosopher's Stone, had this to say about Willard Romney's latest recorded blunders:

Some truths are so important that they bear repeating.  One such truth is that for as long as the Republic has existed, the key to an understanding of American politics has been race.  This truth was once again borne in upon me by the extraordinary video that has surfaced of Mitt Romney's impromptu talk to a closed meeting of fat cat Republican donors.  [A second, subordinate, truth of contemporary American public life is that everything, without exception, has been captured on a handheld device by somebody or other and can be counted on to surface when least convenient.]

Romney's surreptitiously recorded speech is widely viewed, on the right as well as on the left, as having put paid to any lingering dreams the Republicans might have had of winning the election.  As Tallyrand is reputed to have said about Napoleon's murder of the duc d'Enghien, it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder.  What can Romney have been thinking when he casually dismissed 47% of Americans as free-loading moochers incapable of caring for themselves and slavishly beholden to Democrats throwing them slops?  Never mind that Romney had his facts completely wrong.  I think we have become accustomed to that.  But in the midst of an election that he is currently losing, what can have possessed him to speak condescendingly and contemptuously of a tad less than half of the American electorate?

The answer, as always, is race.  Let me repeat what I have written here before.  Both before and after the Civil War, poor whites in the South and also in the North, bemired in a socially and economically disadvantaged position in American society, consoled themselves with the thought that however poor they were, however much they were disrespected by their wealthier and socially more prominent betters, at least they were not Black!  In both the North and the South, here was a permanent underclass toward whom they could show disdain, whom they could discriminate against, and on occasion whom they could lynch with impunity.  That structural fact of American life was written into the Black Codes -- laws that reinstituted de facto servitude  after the end of formal, legal slavery; it was written into Jim Crow, into the exclusionary racial covenants that kept Black families trapped in ghettoes, into the racial quotas at Northern colleges, and into the devil's compact between employers and White labor unions that kept former slaves from any chance of securing good industrial jobs.

The success of the Civil Rights Movement in ending Jim Crow, in breaking down the barriers to employment, and in winning the vote for Black citizens deprived poor Whites of their only consolation for their disadvantaged condition, and they reacted with anger, bitterness, and a deep sense of betrayal.  It is the bitter residue of this ressentiment that explains the tenacity with which poor and lower middle class Whites vote against their economic interest by supporting Republican candidates whose policies sink them ever deeper into economic despair.

Mitt Romney knew what he was saying when he described 47% of Americans as takers, moochers, free-loaders.  He was talking about Black and Brown Americans, and he was talking to White America.  The numbers do not matter, nor do the facts.  What mattered was a desperate attempt to tap into that deep well of bitterness and try to transform it into a winning coalition of White voters. 

Happily, he will fail.  But he is not a fool, and what he did was not in fact a blunder.  It was one last resurrection of Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy.

Now a couple of weeks ago I attempted to persuade a friend of mine that:

Anyone who voted for Willard Romney was either stupid, a racist, or both.

It has appeared for some time now that Gov. Willard Romney is both stupid and a racist. I trust that he'll know which lever to pull on election day, and vote for himself. This election will also show the world something. Should Willard Romney be voted into office in November, his acceptance address will in fact be a resignation speech; showing a Republican party resigned to greed, obstructionism, bigotry - a party bereft of ideas.

One image remains with me and causes me to smile: Willard Romney acting a fool (in Langston Hughes' sense of 'acting a fool') in front of his his White Billionaires behind closed doors on candid camera, as it were. Ain't that somethin'!  

http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/

Susto - Cosmopolis & Bad Timing - DeLillo & Roeg

“Sing a song of sad young men....”

Don DeLillo's novel, Cosmopolis, was published in 2003. Nicolas Roeg's film Bad Timing was completed in 1980, but (barely) released twelve years later. Cosmopolis has been made into a movie by David Cronenberg, and subjected to very limited release (in Columbus, Ohio in any case).

  Cosmopolis, because of DeLillo's poetical writing, reminded me of Mike Leigh’s film Naked. Cosmopolis and Naked, each in its own way, invokes poetical language to give us the bad news, to let us in on what it’s like to lose one’s soul - death of the soul or susto. 

  Rorg’s Bad Timing brings to mind the Vienna of Schnitzler, Freud, and Klimt. Indeed, the film’s male lead, played by Art Garfunkel, is a professor of psychoanalysis. And Gustav Klimt’s paintings are a prominent part of the film’s decor. But it is also the Vienna of John Le Carre and Len Deighton - a city full of spies and voyeurs. 

  Love Crime (Crime d‘ Amour) by the late Alain Corneau is also a recent film about post-modern love. Let’s say Bad Timing is about modern, obsessive, over the top love, while Cosmopolis is about post-modern auto-erotic love, the thrill of money, speculation, and power (among other similar things).

Music. 

  Vienna has been a music town, at least since papa Haydn. Paris, France (where Love Crime is set) is a music city, also. I listened to bits of Cronenberg’s sound track for his film of Cosmopolis. The music was composed by Howard Shore and performed by Metric and K’Naan. It might be microtonal, minimalist, indie.

  The music for Bad Timing consisted of recorded music by Tom Waits, The Who, Billie Holiday,  Keith Jarrett, and Harry Partch - Partch’s music could certainly be viewed as having influenced both techno and indie composers and sound-specialists.

  I was totally enthralled by Love Crime (Crime d’Amour); I viewed it four times. It is a murder-suspense commentary on capitalism and its multinational corporate manifestations. It has these similarities with the other three films also - it might not be on the surface of Leigh’s Naked, but it’s viciously displayed in the character of the landlord. Music in Naked often consists of duets between a contrabass and harp. Love Crime has no music until the very end. The music is by Pharoah Sanders and consists of a duet between koto and Sander’s tenor saxophone. Contrasts of high and low instruments in both cases.

  In a large way each of these films is about love, manipulation, and power. Love as treated in Bad Timing has been called, among other things, by reviewers ‘erotic’, ‘obsessive’, ‘sordid’, ‘perverse’. “Love is sometimes sad, sometimes sad; but beautiful”, as the song goes. Billie Holiday in an interview said the same things about the blues.
  Based on the limited distribution in the United States of America that the films mentioned herein have received, it seems that bad news doesn't play well in its movie houses. Creativity in film also seems to be an undesirable attribute of film, too. One can read about these films and Don Delillo's novel in the usual internet places.
  Susto is explored lyrically and seriously in these films and novel by Messrs. Leigh, Roeg, Cronenberg, and DeLillo. Stop, Look, and Listen.

         

Guelph Jazz Festival 2012

I returned to Columbus, Ohio late Sunday evening from the five-day Guelph, Ontario, Canada Jazz Festival. My friend and I attended our fourth Guelph Jazz Festival. Rather than attempt a performance-by-performance account of what we heard and witnessed, I'll treat the wonderful 2012 Festival in a general way. It was the Festival's nineteenth year - quite an accomplishment. We remember Ann Arbor's Once Festival; so-named because as reckoned by Robert Ashley and others it was believed that they could only get away with advanced, serious music Once at most. Professor Ajay Heble, Guelph's Artistic Director and the Guelph Festival stalwarts have gotten away with presenting great music and great musicians for nineteen years! The co-operative effort on behalf of The Government of Canada, The Province of Ontario, The City of Guelph, and others over such a protracted period is something that Canadians can be extremely proud of. And something of which Americans  should be envious.

  It may have been the great musician, critic, educator, and human being Sir Donald Francis Tovey who remarked that in order to criticize something one must understand why people like what you criticize - I'm talking about "criticize" in the senses of I'm not sure that X is worthy of my consideration or the short-form version, I don't like or understand X. I learned something of value at this year's Guelph Festival. There were numerous performances that incorporated electronics in significant ways - laptops, drone-machines, re-recorded sounds &c. Most of these performances were to my ears, mind, and aesthetic sensibilities rather over-done, and in certain instances hokey - remnants of Karlheinz Stockhausen via Miles Davis or the other way round.  

  After Fred Frith's solo electric-guitar performance, which was not to my liking, I was asked by a woman how I liked Frith's music. I replied that I didn't like it. My reasons were as follows: (i) I didn't like the guitar very much (Freddie Green was enough guitar for me), (ii) I didn't care for all of Frith's Cage-like assaults on his guitar (messing with the guitar by using foreign objects, etc.), (iii) the result of all of Frith's assaults were to my ears without rhythmic or harmonic flow. 

  I asked my inquisitor why she liked Frith's music. Her reply was very revealing. It made me understand something that I didn't understand before. She replied that she liked Frith's music because she liked his creativity. I asked her what she meant by creativity. She replied that she liked seeing him doing all that stuff with his guitar (what I call assaulting his guitar). I replied that when I listen to music, I prefer to listen with the lights off - in the dark. All of Frith's Cage-like moves detracts from my enjoyment of the music. For my interlocutor all of Frith's physical moves plus the resultant sounds were the music. I then realized that visual items were an important part of music enjoyment and understanding for people who prefer their music lit-up, not in the dark. I then understood why music like Fred Frith's was admired. I finally got it. Flamenco music without the visuals, without the dance is not exactly appealing; it isn't as good in the dark. Of course, everyone knew this already.

  For me, one of the highlights of the Guelph Jazz Festival was the ROVA saxophone quartet's Coltrane Re-imagined - The Electric Ascension. This was performed by ROVA plus eight with the subtle use of computer electronics. The fabulous Chicago percussionist, Hamid Drake took care of the time and rhythm. 

  The other highlight was Peter Brötzmann (saxophones and clarinets) and Jason Adasievicz (vibes). They performed at least four pieces, one for each of Brötzmann's wind instruments. These un-amplified performances were spellbinding. There exists one recording of this fabulous duo. Sunday morning's 1AM performance was recorded. I noticed after I got home that Brötzmann and Adasievicz were performing that Sunday evening at Ohio Wesleyan University. Had I known about this, I would have certainly stopped to hear these great musicians on my way home.
  I'm looking forward to the EdgeFest in Ann Arbor, Michigan in October.  http://www.kerrytownconcerthouse.com/index.php/events/edgefest/   

     

Willard's 911 call - Dirty Harry's on the Case

There was a Clint Eastwood movie marathon on the tube a few years back. I decided to see what Clint Eastwood was about; I had never seen any of his films - I don't seek out violence in films. But I felt I owed the revered Clint Eastwood and the character in Dirty Harry series of films a viewing. If I recall certain details accurately, Eastwood's Dirty Harry whacks (blows away, kills) a gang of black guys who are robing a bank. These multiple killings take place on police Inspector "Dirty" Harry Callahan's way to work, in the opening scene. Years later a friend persuaded me to watch actor-director Clint Eastwood's Detroit (automobile) film, Gran Torino. I watched a little bit of it. I found it to involve another Eastwood character waving a gun or rifle at people, and certainly not worth my time. After his Motor City debut, Clint Eastwood got a fat bit from Chrysler to do a Superbowl ad.
  Clint Eastwood rarely has much to say in his films - it's gun-waving, mumble-city. Why the Republican National Committee thought it could get a coherent sentence or paragraph out of Eastwood interrogating a chair confounds me.
  It's always been about guns, gunboat 'diplomacy', and killing. The GOP and Dirty Harry (aka Clint Eastwood) were having a grand old time last evening. Here's what Robert Mitchum had to say about such matters (see Wikipedia "Dirty Harry" entry):

There are movies I won't do for any amount. I turned down Patton and I turned down Dirty Harry. Movies that piss on the world. If I've got $5 in my pocket, I don't need to make money that fucking way, daddy.

   But when it comes to America's greedy, tax-evading, pompous, insiders; making money by any means available is all right - it's reckoned as civic achievement. No doubt there's something utterly absurd about this.
   Here's the YouTube link to the babbling Mr. Eastwood's interview with the chair - did the RNC and Eastwood really wish to invoke Samuel Beckett?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiHNVYRTKP8 

  

Pannonica de Koenigswarter - Jazz Baroness

A friend directed my attention to a wonderful DVD - The Jazz Baroness (2009) - written and directed by Hannah Rothschild, the great niece of Baroness Pannonica ("Nica") de Koenigswarter. The Baroness was a great friend of Thelonious Monk and his wife Nellie. She also befriended many other jazz musicians. Hannah Rothschild has also written a biography of her aunt, Nica de Koenigswarter.

  The DVD is informative and very touching. It is an essay on the meaning of friendship. Its additional features include interesting interviews with T. S. Monk, Jr., Sonny Rollins, Benny Golson, and quite a few other jazz greats. The interviews with Monk, Jr., Rollins, and Golson are special.
   The Guardian newspaper has reviews of Hannah Rothschild's film and biography. The Guardian links are below. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/apr/22/hannah-rothschild-nica-jazz-thelonious-monk-interview?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/dec/22/jazz

Fooling People - Double Unconsciousness

A member of the Bertrand Russell Society brought my attention to a very interesting and important article from The Atlantic Monthly. "What's it about?" Dig into it and find out what some of us already knew.

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/09/fear-of-a-black-president/309064/ 

I know people planning to vote for Willard!

Oh snap! I get FaceBook messages from people with whom I was in school - circa 1959. I hadn't keep up with these folks - escapees from Highland Park, Michigan - over the years. But FaceBook and such-like brings desperate characters together, in a manner of speaking. When I look at my email in the afternoon each day, I see Facebook or email messages propagated by FaceBook proclaiming rightwing allegiances.

  The other day I read a piece about voting habits - I don't recall its cyber-location. Anyway, it was proclaimed therein that a person's right- or left-wingness is usually fixed quite early in life. Rightwing parents yield rightwing offspring.

  In my own case, since my parents didn't set a political agenda for me, I didn't have one of my own. Except in this sense. I was always against the prevailing dogma of the moment. For example, when I was in high school (during the period of "Red Scare", "I led Three Lives" and bomb shelters), I thought that our country's fear of communism looked a lot like communism. Over the years I came to realize that Americans (given the state of our collective 'wisdom') invariably believed themselves to be faced with the following exclusive 'choice': Think or Guns. Note: this isn't even a choice between Guns or Butter!, as we were taught in Econ. 101. Ever since Korea we have 'chosen' guns. Today as a consequence of this gun-boat policy we've run out of butter.

  In addition to the "Red Scare" we've been treated to the Black Scare, the Vietnam Scare, the Arab Scare, the WMD Scare, the Abortion Scare, the Medicare Scare, the Social Security Scare, . . . . Do you follow me here? So I've been against Scar(e)ism, of which Racism is huge part. Because of Scar(e)ism, we're scared - perhaps we've always been scared (it seems like it). We ought to be scared of the Reverse Robin-hood Effect. Statistically I'm quite sure it can be shown that our 'public servants' in Washington, D. C. and elsewhere have been so bent by 'fair-market' interests to be beyond any curative orthopaedic procedures (i.e., backbone correctives). We all know this. This we know better than anything else that we know having to do with politics. The promises are always the same - end big government, lower taxes, create jobs, a pig in a poke, something in every pot, dummies, suckers. 

  Getting back to people I know who plan to vote for Willard and St. Paul. Gov. Romney and Rep. Ryan strike me as chaps who have been given things - stuff that daddy left behind and Social Security Survivor Benefits, in their respective cases -  and thereafter 'survived' by means of insider contacts and insider information. There are those who bend and those who bend those who shall be bent. Take your pick among the bent and the benders - it doesn't matter. So maybe voting for Willard and St. Paul is just an heredity thing. But then my stance against everything Willard and St. Paul ostensively stand for is just an heredity thing too - based on my heritage let's say? 

  I don't think so.  Oh rats!

  

  

President's and Bird's Days - August 27 - 29, 2012

Wake up from your "dogmatic slumbers" and from the creepy, greedy, seedy presidential race and celebrate the birthdays of The President, Lester Willis Young (b. August 27, 1909 and Bird, Charles Parker, Jr. (b. August 29, 1920). Tune in to WKCR via the internet:

http://www.studentaffairs.columbia.edu/wkcr/

Creepy & Creepy - Willards

Most of us remember slogans such as Creeping Socialism, The Red (Communist) Menace, &c. Ancient Rome was governed by propaganda - lies, more lies. half truths, slander, bigotry, hatred, selfishness. . . . Rome had its roads though. Our 'Willard' (movie character) lookalike Rep. Paul Ryan it appears has had only one job in his adult life. His job has been solely this: getting reelected to the United States Congress. Rep. Ryan's family business is, and has been for many years, road construction - in short, government contracts. Rep. Ryan's slogans are akin to Karl Kraus's quip about doctors - "Your money and your life." Rep. Ryan's deadly slogan is a bit more complicated; it's creepy but not creeping. Rep. Ryan's New Greedy Deal is this: 

Privatize everything [Medicare and Social Security] except defense and roads!

[But defense and roads are already privatized!] 

Privatize everything, then! 

[What about jobs?] 

Jobs? Oh, that's Willard's, I mean Gov. Mitt Romney's department. He's going to be the president. And he's had experience in the job-creation department - "He only hired the best and the brightest when he headed up Bain Capital."

[Now we know what Gov. Willard Mitt Romney did at Bain Capital - personnel stuff.] 

[What happened with the rest, the less than the best and brightest?] 

That's a long (unfinished) story. 

[We've all heard the jobs propaganda: tax-cuts first, privatize next, (thereby) further enrichment of the rich, (thereby) creating jobs.] 

[When will these jobs be created?]   

Oh? They (jobs) will be created when wages come back into line. 

[Into line with what? Rather, in line with where?] 

In the mean time Vouchers For All. 

[All except Congress that is; it has, and makes, its own plans.]

Bullshit gets a very bad name at the hands of our swash-budgeting Rep. Paul Ryan and his businessman associate and frontman, Gov. Willard Mitt Romney.

[Oh rats!] 

See Tobias Barrington Wolff: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tobias-barrington-wolff/the-virtue-of-selfishness_b_1774931.html

   

Leader of the Pack

I just finished watching a bit of the movie Willard on TV. The the actor in this film who portrays the principal character looks a bit like Rep. Paul Ryan, Gov. Willard Mitt Romney's prospective VP choice. See my previous blog-post. After watching Willard (not Mitt) and his trained rats on TV, I turned to Robert Paul Wolff's blog The Philosopher's Stone http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/ and his post entitled "Randy Ryan". I include below the last paragraph of Prof. Wolff's 14 August piece:

Paul Ryan is a Roman Catholic whose family made a good deal of money over half a century off of government contracts for building the interstate highway system.  To this day it feeds at the federal trough, getting defense-related dollars.  In every way conceivable, Ryan the man is totally in violation of the Objectivist ethical theories pushed by Rand.  It has become a central tenet of the consensus gentium in recent decades that American conservatives are deep thinkers who, in their think tanks, come up with new ideas to replace the tired habits of liberal pols.  Paul Ryan, we are told, is the intellectual leader of the Republican Party.  I think we should pause just a bit before embracing our very own Smerdyakov.

Prof. Wolff's piece is very instructive about Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan.

Ayn Rand All Over Again - Dummies

Relaxing at my uncle's Westport, Conn. 'crib' in the summer of 1961, I read Ayn Rand's Fountainhead. I was 20 years old. I can't say that I was impressed in any way with Rand's book from either a stylistic or 'philosophical' point view or by its message. Rand's atheism was congenial to me, however. Messrs. Alan Greenspan - clueless former Federal Reserve chairman and Paul Ryan - clueless Republican House member fron Wisconsin are Ayn Rand enthusiasts - rugged individualists and entitled anti-entitlement puppets of the wickedly rich. Creepy Gov. Mitt Romney recently chose Mr. Ryan to be his presidential running mate.* Rep. Ryan is reckoned to be an intellectual by some of the GOP faithful. Newt Gingrich is so reckoned too. Standards for candidates and intellectuals seem to be quite low. Where would our Mitt fit in here? Let's term him an intellectual, since the standards are what they appear to be - quite low.

  Way back in the day, the less than bright males of the aristocracy were slated to become members of the clergy, so as not to mess with the family fortune. Later in the day, these less than bright males, who were not bright enough to become clergymen, became bankers. 

  I can't understand how anyone with a brain could find our two Randians or our former governor to be distinguished in any admiration-provoking ways - being free, white and twenty-one doesn't count a good-making characteristic here. Greenspan didn't see the economic depression coming. He also held the same budget-crunching solutions to the country's economic problems as Mr. Ryan - dismantle Medicare and Social Security, whilst enriching the military-industrial complex (among other complexes). What about Gov. Romney?

  Creepy Willard Mitt Romney reminds me of Rex Ryan, the coach of the New York Jets football team. Rex, we are told, is the son of a very good football coach - Buddy Ryan. Rex puts his foot (among other feet) in his mouth quite often. And he's not exactly a winning football coach. But he looks like a football coach, talks like  one, etc. It's rather like the title of coach has been given to him. He strikes me as someone who functions best after business hours and out of sight.

   Willard Mitt Romney is the son of a well known business and political figure, former Michigan Governor and American Motors chairman, George Romney. Willard suffers from foot-in-mouth mishaps. He ran a venture capital firm, Bain Capital (that's "Bain" not bane, but it may come to that). But I'm not exactly in the know about what he did there - except leaving the firm (whilst continuing to be paid) to save ("save" in some sense or other) a Winter Olympics from financial troubles, i.e., hustling tax-shelter opportunities for the silent minority, in other words the rich. Willard's tax returns would be fun to examine - tax-shelter-city, yea. Perhaps Willard hasn't been tithing to his church as he should have done, buying his way into the upper reaches of the heavenly hierarchy on the cheap - lower taxes and lower tithes, yea.
   I'm thinking now of Mabel Mercer's version of "Isn't He Adorable"; "Send In The Clowns" will do as well I reckon. "Here he comes. Woe is me...." Willard Mitt Romney in his jeans; getting down with the people in front of an aircraft carrier .... "Here we go again!" as TV's Earl might say to his brother Randy. Dummies! Oh snap!

*I got the creepy bit from Robert Paul Wolff.  http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/     

Fab Two, Fabulous '60s - Detroit, 10 August 1965

Gore Vidal - R.I.P.

Gore Vidal died the other day. He was 86 years old when he passed away. He was, along with I. F. Stone, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Chris Hedges, one of our most Socratic figures. During the fabulous 1960s, Izzy Stone and Gore Vidal were my television personalities. Noam Chomsky's 1968 essay, The Responsibility of Intellectuals affected me greatly when I read it in the Wayne State University library. It was also around this time that I read, and was affected in other ways by Chomsky's ground-breaking work in generative grammar, his Syntactic Structures.

  I came to know of Gore Vidal through his appearances on Dick Cavet's reality television show and through his essays in the New York Review of Books. I admired his style and his politics. Vidal's interviews were always instructive, and thereby interesting.
  In the February 2010 issue of Vanity [Un]Fair, the journalist Christopher Hitchens spit out a trashy bit of non-reportage and non-sense on Gore Vidal. I took offense at Hitchens' trashy bits. And I sent Hitchens a few thoughts of my own - quoting myself (a delightful feeling) we have:

It appears to this reader that your Vanity Fair article establishes that Mr. Vidal and his views have become strange (outrageous). But "strange" in what sense? I direct your attention to Gregory Vlastos' Socrates, page 1 where, regarding Socrates' "strangeness", Vlastos cites Alcibiates' speech about Socrates in the Symposium:

"Such is his strangeness that you will search and search among those living now and among men of the past, and never come close to what he is himself and to the things he says." (221D)

Mr. Hitchens, you have not come close to revealing . . . Mr. Vidal's 'strangeness'. When you attempt to see Mr. Vidal and to understand his strangeness and his irony, you see someone else. Who could it be? [Obviously, Hitchens only saw himself.]

There are too few Socratic ironists among us these days - Noam Chomsky and Chris Hedges remain. When we think about the Summer Olympics and the presidential race between President Obama and Governor Romney, some of us will be listening to Gore Vidal's running commentary. He's still with us, but just barely.

  

     

"Smack Dab in the Middle"*

I've been forced by recent utterly tragic murders and quite ugly events - the Aurora, Colorado shootings and the Penn State University child molestation cover-up - to process dreadful and deadly images of the ruined lives of the Aurora and PSU victims - lives ruined by men masquerading, on the one hand, as a deadly movie character, and an 'educator' on the other hand.  When it comes to assessing the reasons and causes of human behavior, I am a quietist on the head-shaking side of the behavioral science divide. On the other side of this divide would be, I imagine, most moral philosophers, run-of-the-mill psychologists, psychiatrists, and CNN and ESPN worthies. But, in addition to my quietist, head-shaking stance, I am inclined to suppose that the studies of history and economics are of far greater use in understanding the events noted above.
  Education and the lack of economic opportunity. The cost of a decent education at state colleges and universities has become out of reach for many Americans. The exorbitant cost of an undergraduate education at a state college or university is determined to a large extent by legislative fiat (budget appropriations) - legislative acts have become part of the weeding- out and debt enslaving process. If a young person is reckless enough to fall into a student-loan trap, then she is bound for a life of servitude. (I may be mistaken but didn't President Obama payoff his student loan just before taking office - correct me if I'm wrong about this.) Remember the good jobs are handed out to the Ivy League and Stanford grads. So the state school, student-loan, grads will be working for the rich to payoff their student loans. In many cases our student-loan grads will be repeatedly kicked to the curb by their betters.
  The threads connecting paragraphs one and two above are those of impoverished life prospects and poverty - especially as pertaining to the young men victimized because of their impoverished circumstances.
  I sat down to blog-on today about beauty as demonstratively revealed in the Pacifica String Quartet's recording of Elliott Carter's first string quartet. I heard this marvelous work performed by the Concord Quartet in Detroit, Mi. in the fabulous '60s. Carter's quartet is to my ears, among other wonderful and mysterious things, a discussion among violins, viola, and 'cello that erupts often into intense rhythmic happenings - sorry about my amateur thoughts here.
  I hadn't planned on treating the subjects noted in paragraphs one and two above. But Noam Chomsky's Guardian article on the Magna Carta interrupted my swooning away on beauty and Elliot Carter's quartet. Chomsky's illuminating and profoundly disturbing article turned me in the direction of first two paragraphs that appear above. In the mean time, links to Parts 1 and 2 are below.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/24/magna-carta-minor-carta-noam-chomsky
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/25/magna-carta-minor-carta-noam-chomsky/print
__________________
* http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/ry-cooder-lyrics/smack-dab-in-the-middle-lyrics.html

'Bowling for Dollars' - Guns . . . .

I watched Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine this morning - I felt it my duty to watch it. Having watched and read about the tragic assault that took place at the movie theater in suburban Denver, Colorado - 17 miles from Columbine High School; I was particularly sensitive to the ads that ran on the cable channels reporting on the Aurora siege and its attendant loss of life and physical injury. An ad for an insurance company featured an actor smashing melons, resulting in bystanders being awash in melon juice - a 'bloody' scene nevertheless.
  Arms dealers and arms and ammunition manufacturers provide massive financial opportunities for men, women, and corporations around the world; sales to governments, insurgent groups, and individuals. Wars on terror, governments, drugs, and the poor are big business. Chris Hedges opens his recent Boston Review article, "War Is Betrayal", with words that express important connections to the dangerous traps that we as Americans have set for ourselves:

We condition the poor and the working class to go to war. We promise them honor, status, glory, and adventure. We promise boys they will become men. We hold these promises up against the dead-end jobs of small-town life, the financial dislocations, credit card debt, bad marriages, lack of health insurance, and dread of unemployment. The military is the call of the Sirens, the enticement that has for generations seduced young Americans working in fast food restaurants or behind the counters of Walmarts to fight and die for war profiteers and elites.

 http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.4/chris_hedges_war_soldiers_army_military_suicides_ptsd.php 


Connect. Think for yourself. Beware of 'free-market' traps. 


I spoke with an unemployed, middle-aged man at a party about the bulge that I noticed under his shirt. I asked, "What is that?" He replied, "It's my pistol." "What do you need to carry that for?", I asked. He said, "To protect my family." Protect his family from what, from whom?, - from poverty, lack of health insurance, credit card debt, mortgage debt, I thought.
  "Protect your family!" NRA's and its puppet Charlton Heston's slogan. Until I had watched Michael Moore's Columbine, I hadn't realized that the notion of protecting one's family was not a sincere response to my question by my interlocutor, but really an advertising slogan. Plutonium processing facilities and disposal sites might be reckoned by some to be part of a family protection scheme, also.
  Guns. Perpetual war. Assaults by "war profiteers and elites" on the poor and the middle-class - with the full advise and consent of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the oval office - should be old news.
  We certainly have a duty to think these matters through. War is, and has been, a booming business for the few. I guess we've been too stupid to feel this. Perhaps we see it; but don't feel it or understand it. How does that wonderful tune, "Some other time" go? "Oh well. We'll catch up some other time." Bird said, "Now's the time".

     

"Think for yourself!" Or else!

This morning I read of Alexander Claud Cockburn's death at the age of 71. His obituary appears in today's New York Times. I used to read his pieces in The Village Voice and The Nation - back in the days when I was a subscriber, before internet-editions.
  I have resisted the urge to blog-on about political matters. But reading of Alexander Cockburn's death - another left-wing ally has left us - has caused me to be in a state lowered resistance to my anti-political urges. Another 'virus' has attacked my anti-political sensibility in the form of FaceBook propaganda from people that I know who pronounce their voting preferences with utterances like, "I don't like [Governor ]Romney, but I'm voting for him; I can't take four more years of [President] Obama."
  Not that it matters who these propagandists vote for - our next president will be as bent by the same 'free-market' forces as our present president. The FaceBook propagandists whose postings I promise to myself never to read again(yet I alway do read) are not, as far as I know, wealthy. If they were wealthy, their propaganda would not be of the FaceBook kind; instead, they'd silently put their money into Romney's campaign.
  Karl Kraus, the Austrian writer and satirist of fin de sièle Vienna remarked, "When faced with the lesser of two evils [Romney or Obama], choose neither.".
  It's too bad that Christopher Hitchens isn't with us for our upcoming presidential election. It brings a massive smile to my soul to imagine Hitchens hooking himself up to the Romney bandwagon - after all that's where the money is.
  I am more comfortable, as is were, with President Obama's birth certificate (non)issue, than I am with Governor Romney's inter-planetary certificates, tax returns, &c. President Obama seems to be of planet earth, while Governor Romney seems to be of another (yet to be discovered) planet.
  It's not the case that President Obama didn't treat Wall Street, the banks, and insurance companies very well indeed, it's just that there are more suckers (voters) to be had; and a president from another planet can do an even better job of Reverse Robin Hood economics - squeezing the poor and poorer. Neither Romney nor Obama are about creating jobs; both are about creating wealth for their homeboys on their respective planets.
  I am sad that Alexander Claud Cockburn (R.I.P.) is no longer with us.
  Robert Paul Wolff argues that Romney will not win the election.
  http://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2012/07/romney-will-not-win-election-and-obama.html