Recognition

 

I remember the first time I saw this picture, I didn't know who its subjects were. Already the image really struck me: the great difference in the age of the two subjects, the strong energy between the two, the suggestion of an intimacy and a distance at the same time, as though they didn't know each other well, but were somehow connected. Then I saw the caption, and I finally recognized Duke as the young girl, and the thing sort of exploded in my mind because I hadn't known that Keller was still alive when The Miracle Worker first appeared on stage. They are not just holding hands, if my memory serves, this image also captures, without being able to truly show it, a moment of silent, private connection, despite its being recorded on film, as they communicate--through a method invented by Annie Sullivan that only a very few people on the planet know how to use--a word that held the most powerful, foundational place in Keller's lexicon, in her very understanding and experience of the world, as Patty Duke finger-signs T-E-A-C-H-E-R into Helen Keller's hand.

Conversations with my niece

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus our Saviour did come for to die,
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and shepherds and farmers and all
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing,
Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing,
He surely could have had it, 'cause he was the King.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus our Saviour did come for to die,
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.





I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus our saviour did come for to die,
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall,
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all,
But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall,
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
A star in the sky or a bird on the wing,
Or all of God's angels in heaven to sing,
He surely could have had it, 'cause he was the King.

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus our saviour did come for to die,
For poor on'ry people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.





Blow the wind southerly,
Southerly, southerly,
Blow the wind south o'er
The bonnie blue sea.
Blow the wind southerly,
Southerly, southerly,
Blow bonnie breeze
My lover to me.

They told me last night
There were ships in the offing,
And I hurried down
To the deep rolling sea;
But my eye could not see it,
Wherever might be it,
The bark that is bearing
My lover to me.

Blow the wind southerly,
Southerly, southerly,
Blow bonnie breeze o'er
The bonnie blue sea.
Blow the wind southerly,
Southerly, southerly,
Blow bonnie breeze
And bring him to me.

Is it not sweet
To hear the breeze singing
As lively it comes
O'er the deep rolling sea?
But sweeter and dearer
By far 'tis when bringing
The bark of my true love
In safety to me.





Ombra mai fu
Di vegetabile,
Cara ed amabile,
Soave più. [x2]
Cara ed amabile
Ombra mai fu
Di vegetabile
Cara ed amabile
Soave più, soave piú

Oooooo
De vegetabile
Cara ed amabile
Soave più, soave più.





Hay and a clean stall
and ivy on a garden wall
and a sign saying sold
and no coat for the bad cold.

I believe in you.
Do you believe in me?
What do you want to do?
Are we leaving the city?

On the black road,
through the gold fields
while the fields are plowed
towards what we are allowed.

The bridle bends in idle hands
and slows your canter to a trot.
We mean to stop in increments,
but can’t commit. We post and sit in impotence.

The harder the hit, the deeper the dent.
We seek our name, we seek our fame
in our credentials, paved in glass,
trying to master incidentals.

Bleach a collar, leech a dollar
from our cents.
The longer you live, the higher the rent
beneath a pale sky,
beside the red barn,
below the white cloud
is all we are allowed.

Here, the light will seep,
and the scythe will reap,
and spirit will bend
in counting to the end.

In December of that year,
the word came down that she was here.
The days were shorter,
I was sure if she came round,
I’d hold my ground.

I can do what they alluded to,
a change that came to pass. And
Spring did range, weeping grass
and sleepless broke
itself upon my winter glass.

And I could barely breathe for seeing
all the splintered light that leaked.
A fish is fleeing, launched in flight
but starched in light,
bright and bleeding, bleach the night
with dawn deleting in that high sun,
after our good run,
when the spirit bends
beneath knowing it must end.

And that is all I want here,
to draw my gaunt spirit to bow
beneath what I am allowed,
beneath what I am allowed.

On Johann Sebastian Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello

Title page of Anna Magdalena Bach's manuscript of the Six Suites for Violoncello Solo without Bass. Dated before 1750, the author (Anna Magdalena Bach) is dead more than 70 years ago. So it is in the public domain.

tl:dr

Approximately thirty-three years ago I took my first--and, as it turns out, last--college-level music appreciation class with, my friend, Kristen. The class was taught, unusually, by a professor-musician in the music department, a cellist, who presented the course in a rather free-wheeling, very personal manner, which was casual, almost facetious on the subject of coursework, homework, and testing student knowledge, but had an easy intimacy, a pleasant spontaneity, and an honest but usually frustrated curiosity about the opinions, feedback, and real-time reactions of the class to statements and comparisons he made or to the work of composers or performers he played for us on recording. I loved it. And Kristen and I found a way to not only be attentive to much of the material but crack each other up constantly. It was probably the other way around, in all honesty, and being equally honest, it was hardly the most respectful mode one could apply to a pedagogic setting, and our guide through the course material would shoot us an amused or unamused look of exasperation from time to time. What we liked about the course--the absence of any substantive demands--is what allowed us to play off each other, sometimes to the point of obnoxiousness, but it was also the dimension that allowed the course to, at its best, truly be about the appreciation of music, through knowledge of its history and evolution, theory and application, changing roster of instruments and styles, generic and musical categories, performance traditions, cultural impacts and influences, gossip and legends, and the work of its various contributors, which we were frequently invited to listen to, consider, and appreciate. Rather than take notes or study for an exam, he really wanted us to listen, not just hear; not just think but experience.

One day, he brought along his cello, and proceeded to speak about and to play for us, right there, on his instrument sections from J. S. Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Violoncello.

First, it must be said, the experience of being in the same room with a cello as it is being played was an immediately exciting, even physical, experience, as you could actually feel the vibrations from the strings passing through your chest and torso, through your head, through your heart, through your body, as though it were a medium--because, it is--and you could feel the vibrations of these strings in your hair and on the surface of your skin and in the hairs on the surface of your skin.

When our instructor first described what we were to hear--six suites, which are Baroque dances, for solo cello, played on a cello and just that one cello with nothing else--my heart sank, having cut my teeth and ears on the enormous, layered sound and drama of the Mozart Requiem and Beethoven's second symphony. This was also the first time we'd heard music that wasn't on a recording. This was *live*. It was alive, and you could not escape the fact that a person was playing this for you, in the room with you, nearby. A breathing, real person, with a pumping heart, and a body, who, before he drew his bow across the silent, waiting, taut, straining strings of his cello with an incredible delicacy, yet with a precision, a placement, and the infinitesimal specificity of muscle, of power, he took a deep breath, as though he were about to speak, or sing. Because, as I learned years later from my friend, Chase, a dancer, who would always do the same thing before she danced a phrase, that is exactly, of course, what one is doing. Of course.

Everything about his playing was physical and real, breathing, and moving, and sweating, and there. And you were there.The slightest tap of the bow sent ridges or jitters or colors of sound through the room and the people in it. And one had the impression that the strings, before they were played, were already vibrating, already straining to release something out of them, into the air, into the world, through you and out into the world, because the slightest touch of the bow or finger was immediate, experiential, and thrilling. This there-ness of it all, you, and he, the cello, the sound, the feeling of the sound, the dark, varnished, warm, sonorousness of wood, both enclosing you as a reflection, as a comfort, and holding you at a certain arms length, as art can do, was indistinguishable from deep intimacy, and connection. It was like being in love and profoundly alone at the same time.

Bach wrote six suites for the solo cello, each with six movements, each in the Italian style of the Baroque dance suite, except for the two movements, in the gorgeous and melancholy fifth suite, composed in the French style. Our teacher played the prelude to the first suite. It is likely you have heard that prelude in different commercials or as the underscoring in various films, and so it is likely the best known of the thirty-six movements Bach composed. I can't help feeling it to be the signature of the work, because it was my entry point to it, and because its omnipresence functions as the sign for the whole. Ask anyone if they know Bach's cello suites for solo cello and she or he will sing you the familiar, DAH-bah-dah-bah-dah-bah-dah-dee-dah, of its opening, not any of the equally or surpassingly beautiful passages from any of the rest of it. And that is okay. By rights, the sixth should count as the signature, of the composer, and the end of the sixth, especially, since the suites become more expressive, more complex, nuanced, and demanding on several of several levels, for the cellist, as they go. For the listener, it is a different story. Unencumbered by the enormous interpretive, performative, and technical demands of playing them, we are allowed the opportunity--if we choose to take it, and you must choose to take it, for, while some passages of some of the movements of some of the suites will grab you and demand your attention, others, most of them, will only reveal themselves to you if you give yourself to them--of floating and plunging or soaring through a series of sounds that are a line of sound coming from two people through one specific instrument at one specific time. There are three people actually involved, however. The first is always Johann Sebastian Bach, the composer, the second is the cellist, always, and the third, the third always is you.

Let us hear Pablo Casals, the sine qua non of our current understanding of the suites, play the prelude to the first suite:

The prelude to the first suite ends at 2:26. You may of course listen to the entire suite, as you prefer.

The suites were more or less forgotten to time and hearing, when, in the early twentieth century the great Catalan cellist, Pablo Casals, as a thirteen-year-old boy, discovered them in a thrift shop, and studied them carefully for many years until he felt he was ready to record them between 1936 and 1939. Before this time, they had always been considered studies or etudes--lessons--unsuitable for public performance. There was the added "problem" that the suites do not exist in an autograph score (in the hand of the composer), but only in the hand of his second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach, who, after Bach's death faced financial hardship, little to no help from his children of his first marriage, or her own, except for her stepson, C.P.E. Bach, and who is understood to have died penniless, homeless, on the street, buried in an unmarked, pauper's grave at Leipzig's Johanniskirche. which was destroyed by Allied bombing during World War II. Without the hand of this discarded woman, we would know nothing of a work considered to be one of the sublime expressions of humanity. Think about that for a while. Not even her unmarked grave exists.

Casals recognized the quality of the Suites, and because of the quality of his name and reputation, other cellists recognized it as well, and recorded it as well. It is only in the twentieth century that these six pieces were finally given their due, six pieces for unaccompanied cello, which in 1980 the British music critic, Wilifrid Mellers, called, in a very memorable phrase, "Monophonic music wherein a man has created a dance of God." Cellists since the time of Casals have recorded them, some of them more than once, because their understanding of them has evolved over time. They are not notated in a way that gives very much direction to the performer, so fast or slow, Romantic or not, sensual, austere, dance-like or not, it is given to the interpreter to make these choices.

So. When I learned that Yo Yo Ma would be playing all six suites at Blossom--the outdoor, summer, amphitheater home of the Cleveland Orchestra--I suggested to my parents, who always get a collection of tickets to Blossom, that we should go, and more or less forgot about it. Flash forward to last Sunday, when my parents; my sister, her husband, and their family; and I all went to hear these remarkable pieces played by one of the great cellists of the day, outside, as the evening turned into night, and the light turned into dark.

I am not a fan of Ma's account of the suites. I do not find them perfunctory, but in the word of someone else, I do find them "bland." He has recorded them three times, and I only know his first recording, which he did when he was quite young. Mstislav Rostropovich, the great Russian cellist--understood by some to be THE cellist of the twentieth century--only waited until he was quite old to attempt them. And people don't like that recording, either, calling it "too reverential." With the suites, you cannot win.

I have been to Blossom many times to hear the Cleveland. I heard them play an account of Beethoven's fifth symphony, under Dohnányi, that blew my mind, because it was like hearing it for the first time, and because I wasn't looking forward to hearing *that* overplayed work again. Normally, at Blossom, there are people trying to find each other on the hill leading down to the covered amphitheater--where most people sit, where we usually sit--with children playing, dancing, and calling to each other. It is not what I would call a "riot of activity," but it is a very active space, a very social space. People are largely respectful of what is going on, but they're also not crazy about being respectful. Last Sunday, I have never, ever, been more impressed by an audience's silence and focus during a performance.

Ma played six solo cello suites, each with six movements--in his account, a ninety-minute evening--to my astonishment, and my everlasting respect, without intermission. And almost no one made a sound. In fact, it was so quiet on that hill, that when someone did make a sound, you knew exactly where it was coming from, and they never did it again, with the exception of the child, further up from where we were, who visited a small section or roughly half of the suites with an indeterminate wailing, that bothered me not at all. Was it the same child? At the end of the day, all wailing children suffering through a concert they don't understand are the same child. So, yes.

I sat, perched on that hill, perched, in almost utter silence, in a sea of people, and listened to these incredible pieces, played for ninety minutes, almost without interruption, and was rapt by all of it. Things accumulated a stillness in this space. A horsefly, or a very large dragonfly, hummed its way over my right shoulder and straight down the hill, several times, over the course of the evening, almost rhythmically, once during every other suite. The clouds were static after a day of rain, and every time I glanced up at them, they had formed only a slightly different position. The light crept away from us, softly, and without incident, and informed the music, as it played, in a single line, from one instrument, by two people, to one person, who was each of us. I. I sat. Perched on that hill of time. A hill that became more steep and less so over the course of ninety minutes. As a horsefly, or a very large dragonfly, kept its time to the music. And a child cried in the distance to a rhythm of Bach, copied out for us by the hand of a wife, buried in a destroyed, unmarked pauper's grave, whose children and step-children, except for one, thought better than to help her after their common father died.

I cannot tell you how profound it was for me to share this extraordinary experience with my family. Imagine what it might be like to know something profound--something so beautiful, that you have difficulty speaking about it. Something that, on a very specific level and in a very specific way is core, is central, to who you are and who you have become. Something that is such a sine qua non, you can no longer remember a time when it was not a part of you, because it has backwards formed itself into the time before you knew it. Something you have sat with, and thought about, and listened to, and derived sustenance from, and studied. For thirty-three years.

Now, I know. I know my family didn't have the same experience that I did, and how could they? In my mind, to play even one movement from one of the suites would be an accomplishment. To have them hear all of them at once, to have them be confronted by this monumental, marathon work, in one night, without intermission, without ever having heard them before? Unspeakable. And the amazing thing is, though I did not know I had expectations, they did not let me down. Which is really tough to do! I wasn't able to talk to my sister and brother-in-law, but they enjoyed it, and they said so, and I believe them--it's a hard, demanding thing to do, all six suites, without intermission. Even I registered fatigue at certain points.

It was my parents--with whom I had traveled to Blossom that night--who spoke volubly, with interest, and with specificity about what they had heard. Is there any better example of why one should be happy that one had the parents one had? Some people have the tools to understand the world without what was given to them. I am not that person. I can only understand the extraordinary world before us with the tools I was given by the people who made me. And while those tools take me places they don't understand, there is always a place that they do. So, I guess, thanks, Mom and Dad.

The Baroque suite was  considered an old-fashioned form in Bach's time, but the cello was an undiscovered country. Bach, whose patron at the time was a Calvinist who had little use for religious music--Bach's prime form, as a devout Lutheran (a Lutheran who composed Masses, mind you)--put Bach in the odd position of getting paid to do almost whatever he wanted, and so he composed secular music: the suites, the pieces for unaccompanied violin, and others. It is up to the listener to decide if she or he feels these works are truly secular. I hear nothing of the secular about them, and I say this as a proud atheist. Moreover, they partake of a simultaneously old-fashioned sound as well as a thrillingly austere modernism--even, if you like, a postmodernism, in their repetitions and juxtapositions--and yet that austerity gives way to passion and an expressive, deep emotionality. You will be hard-pressed to find a more paradoxical, elusive, moving, or exciting series of pieces called one work. If you are new to the suites, good luck on your new adventure, should you choose to embark on it. If you know the suites well, welcome home.

Now, for some examples:

I begin with Yo Yo Ma. What do we find in the prelude to the third suite? A minimal figure that turns at 1:42 into a wonderful floating line that plays until 2:08. It works through the figure, and the recurrent theme of, believe it or not, scales, and a series of false endings, before actually ending at 3:27. That is the third prelude.

I call the phrase that begins at 1:42 the money shot. And the suites are full of them. It is the place where I, or you, get grabbed, and a place from which backwards, and/or forwards, you start listening differently. It is the kernel around which the movement seems to be formed, and by which your curiosity draws you into the rest of that movement. It is the piece of sand that around which the pearl is formed. Find it, or them, in each movement, and you will spend the rest of your life listening to the Suites, as I have.

 

Now, we have Mischa Maisky playing the third prelude. Maisky is my Master when it comes to the Cello Suites. I bought his recording while still attending the class I mentioned at the beginning of this post, and he has never let me down.

His third prelude is a much more muscular and playful version, to be sure. At 2:04 the money shot begins, considerably later than Ma's version, and can your hear, between the big notes, a song that makes itself known in even bigger notes? A static figure of repetition in a song? Wonderful. And listen to how he turns those false endings into a dramatic series that resolve themselves into an ending. The Prelude ends at 4:16. You may, of course, listen to the rest of the entire suite, as you prefer.






Heinrich Schiff plays it at a remarkable clip.



And then there is the incredible and elegant, the indispensable, Pierre Fournier.

What is Jazz? This is Jazz. Happy Birthday, Ella Fitzgerald.

Jazz Appreciation Month 2017, Day 25

Today marks the actual Fitzgerald centenary. Happy Birthday, Ella Fitzgerald.

What is Jazz? This is Jazz.

I heard this song on the radio on the way home from work this afternoon and was kinda knocked out--a young Fitzgerald, singing, "Don't Worry 'bout Me," doing some fairly Billie Holliday scooping and singing in fine, 1938 period form. Just smashing.

When I saw Fitzgerald live in 1989 in Cincinnati, we were all seated, respectfully, like adults, and between songs, during a quiet pause, after our applause, a woman yelled out as though she couldn't contain herself another second, " I LOVE YOU, ELLA!!" 

Fitzgerald gave a beat and replied, very simply, in that one-of-a-kind, immersively warm voice of hers, into the microphone, and her voice came from everywhere and nowhere, like God, "I love you too, sweetheart."

I love you, Ella.

Forget 'bout Me

Don't worry 'bout me,

I'll get along.

Forget about me,

Be happy, my love,

Let's say that our little show is over,

And so the story ends,

Why not call it a day the sensible way

And still be friends?

We'll be friends.

Look out for yourself

Should be the rule,

Give your heart and your love

To whomever you love,

Don't be a fool.

Darling, why do we cling to this old faded thing

That used to be?

If you can forget,

Don't worry 'bout me.

[dance break]

Yes, just look out for yourself

Should be the rule,

Give your heart and your love

To whomever you love,

Don't don't be a fool.

Darling, why should we cling to some old faded thing

That used to be?

Yes, if you can forget,

Don't worry 'bout me.

If you see somebody new

Someone who looks good to you,

You please don't worry 'bout me

Rube Bloom, music; Ted Koehler, lyrics; Ella Fitzgerald, vocal; "Don't Worry 'bout me," Ella Fitzgerald and her Savoy Eight, 1938.

What is Jazz? This is Jazz. Toxic.

What is Jazz? This is Jazz.

I am late to the appreciation of Jazz Appreciation Month, again, the spur, as always, being, my friend, the essential, Rose, who was raised, as I was--a hopeful, white, American child--in a house of Jazz.

I always seek the liminal, the undefinable, the indecipherable, the edge-places, and in-between places. All of the true, American art forms belong to this space of uncertain certainty: they all come from and are beholden to earlier expressions and traditions, yet pose a problem-solution so special that we decide, upon some thoughtful, knowledgeable, respectful analysis that it presents a unique position. 

Not even Athena sprang Athena-like from the forehead of Zeus. Her mother, Metis, the Titan of Wisdom, whose progeny would be greater than the father, were that prophecy allowed to take place properly, had been swallowed as the fly into which she'd transformed herself to escape Zeus' amour. There are two great prophecies, that I know of, in Greek mythology, calling out the offspring of the mother as greater than the father, the other being a sea goddess, Thetis. Both prophecies encounter Zeus, who--wily as Odin and the other Skyfathers--sidesteps the prophetic outcome made in the lap of a woman, which is to say, a womb. Who says the Fates can't be denied?

Metis. Thetis.

In the case of Thetis, Zeus, who "loved" her but, given her prophetic baggage, was unwilling to chance his throne on his lust, through an incredible public relations coup, relegated her offspring, through a mortal father, King Peleus, to the mortal dimension, as Achilles, mightiest of doomed mortals. Similarly, Athena--as a woman, not a man, as a goddess of wisdom and war, out-does her father in every way; she is her father's favorite--poses no threat to the line of succession and the base of power, since only male offspring pose that issue of issue. And thus, the rape of her mother, and the prophecy about her, was constrained, contained, diffused, and defused into the most fascinating of deities, as a female, always-virgin god.

All the post-indigenous-people, indigenous, American forms are based on a kind of love, appropriation, and violence: the Blues, Jazz, the Broadway Musical, and Rock and Roll--all of which, constantly, bleed into each other. Miscegenation is our American past and our American future. It is our heritage, our dowry, our inheritance, our legacy, and our estate. Just ask Thomas Jefferson.

Welcome to Jazz Appreciation Month.

Toxic

Baby, can't you see,

I'm calling.

A guy like you

Should wear a warning.

It's dangerous.

I'm falling.

There is no escape;

I can't wait;

I need a hit;

Baby, give me it;

You're dangerous;

I'm loving it.

Too high,

Can't come down;

It's in the air

And it's all around.

Can you feel me, now?

With a taste of your lips,

I'm on a ride:

You're toxic,

I'm slipping under.

A taste of your poison paradise,

I'm addicted to you,

Don't you know that you're 

toc-sick,

And I love what you do,

Don't you know that you're 

toxic?

It's getting late

To give you up;

I took a sip

From my devil's cup;

Slowly,

It's taking over me:

Too high,

Can't come down;

It's in the air,

And it's all around.

Can you feel me now?

With a taste 

of your lips,

I'm on a ride.

You're toxic,

I'm slipping 

under;

Taste of a poison paradise,

I'm addicted to you;

Don't you know that you're toxic?

And I love what you do,

Don't you know 

that you're toxic?

Intoxicate me, now,

With your lovin', now,

Think I'm ready, now,

Think I'm ready, now.

Toxicate me, now,

With your lovin', now,

Think I'm ready, now,

Think I'm ready, now.

Toxicate me, now,

With your lovin', now,

I think I'm ready, now,

I think I'm ready, now.

I think I'm ready, now.

I think I'm ready, now.

Toxicate me, now,

With your lovin', now,

I think I'm ready, now,

Think I'm ready, now.

Now.

Now.

Now

Now.

Now-ow.

Now.

Now

Now.

Now.

Now

Now. Now. Now. Now. Now. Now Now. Now. Now. Now.

I think I'm ready, now,

With a taste of lips,

I think I'm ready, now.

I think I'm ready, now.

Intoxicate me, now,

With your lovin', now,

I think I'm ready, now,

I think I'm ready, now.

Intoxicate me, now,

With your lovin', now,

I think I'm ready, now,

I think I'm ready, now.

Yael Naïm, "Toxic." 

"Toxic" is a song recorded by American singer Britney Spears for her fourth studio album In the Zone (2003). It was written and produced by Christian Karlsson and Pontus Winnberg (known collectively as Bloodshy & Avant), with additional writing from Cathy Dennis and Henrik Jonback. 

Fourteen Points about You, Me, and Everybody Else

I, actually, don't look anything like this.

So, I've been meditating on the last few days for the past three months.

And I have a couple things to say about it:

1.
If you wanted "CHANGE," Honey, you are about to get some REAL CHANGE, for real. 

I hope it's to your liking.

2.
I never thought the day after an in-inauguration would move me more than the day itself. The day after became a new kind of the-day-itself, and I thank each and every one of you for making that happen.

3.
The Law is something we subscribe to--and when it is often wrong--we resist it. The United Republican Democratic States of the continent of north America only exists because of resistance, dissent, and revolution. 

Never forget that while we agree to disagree, we disagree in order to agree. We build consensus out of dissent. But you have to know shit in order to disagree and then change your mind. 

Know shit. Be educated, nuanced, sophisticated, smart, and compassionate. 

Listen. Know more later than you know right now.

4.
We are all immigrants to this land..

No human life took hold in the western hemisphere, until immigrants, who crossed the Bering Strait/Sea, long ago, in our prehistory, settled it.

After that, the settlers were all people from across either of the oceans that nestle us in "the West," some of them, even in the earliest days before the Republic for which the American flag stands, brought here forcibly to labor without pay and to make more people, their children, who would also be forced to labor without pay, and to foster grandchildren, great, great-great, and great-great-great, great-great-great-great grandchildren, to be ensnared until the present day, and after, in American law and the "Justice" system, to be imprisoned, paid lower wages, to be denied the franchise, and to, on the average, die at a younger age, unless they were made to join the lowest ranks of the armed forces as cannon fodder or, often unarmed, shot dead by the police.

We are all immigrants to this land. This land, which is your land, this land, which is my land, from California to the New York Island(s), from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters. This land, which, in point of actual fact, was not made for you and me, but which is a land upon which we are all living, so, we certainly had better start figuring out how to get along better, because none of us is going anywhere. Except for the very old, who tend to vote Republican.

We are all immigrants to this land.

5.
Respect people who came here because they had the temerity to believe in The American Dream. A Dream that still exists in those foolish enough to believe in it. Do not let them down! Respect immigrants. We are only a land only of immigrants.

6.
Jews are actually people.

Muslims are actually people.

Women are actually people.

Women's rights are human rights.

And black lives actually do matter, too.

Why is this so hard to get through your skull? Black lives mattering is not about all lives not mattering, it's about the fact that, heretofore, it didn't seem to matter to much of anyone not black that lives lived by black people matter, too. Not just your bullshit. This isn't that hard. Stop resisting it. It's called normalization, motherfucker. It's called Brown vs Board of Education, motherfucker. It's called Loving vs Virginia, motherfucker.

Could we, please, put a stake into that insidious vampire, in my lifetime? Please? It just makes you look like an ignorant asshole. And you're probably not that ignorant or that much of an asshole to completely disregard reason.

The point isn't that black lives matter more than all other lives when they're black, it is that lives actually matter when they're not white.

Honestly, this is so American basic. It's something even a racist could understand. In America, all men are created equal, even when they are black, even when they are women. And yet black men are disproportionately killed by the police and women are disproportionately underpaid, even when they are white, and even in Hollywood. The evidence is epidemic; the evidence is moribund.

Black lives matter, too.

I guess there's only one way to find out.

7.
Corporations are not people. People are people.

Any questions?

8.
Money is not free speech. 

If you have more money that does NOT give you more speech.

And THAT is the American way, okay?

Any questions?

9.
I'm sorry you grew up in coal country--or oil country. I'm sorry your fathers and mothers killed themselves to give you life, clothe you, feed you, and do everything they could to make your lives better than theirs. They were good people doing good things in this life. But the fossil fuels are fossils. 

We have to move on from fossil fuels. If your local, state, and national governments haven't done all they can--and I am certain most of them have done very little--to help your communities with jobs, most especially in the renewable energy sector, then blame THEM and vote them out of office. 

The canary in the coal mine isn't that big business found lower-wage workers to do the job you used to, the canary in the coal mine is that no one gives a fuck about funding a proper public education for you or your children, or figuring out a way to help you find a job.

You're not lazy. PS Black and brown people aren't lazy, either, Cracker. But we pay taxes to the government to make our lives better, not worse. I will happily pay all the tax dollars you let me to get your kids an education, get you healthcare, get you off drugs without incarcerating you, get you a job you like that will make you solvent enough to feed yourself and your kids, pay your rent, buy your home--if you want to--and live life for sunsets, dancing, laughter, friendship, love, music, reading, philosophy, pleasure, family, joy, education, civic duty, goodness, and NOT doing unto others as you have them NOT do unto you. 

We are our sisters' keeper. And our brothers', too.

10.
Rich people do not know more than we do and do not, as a function of their wealth, make your life, my life, their lives, or anyone's life better. Wealth only takes away some of the harm that life deals out to you, personally. Wealth doesn't make you happy or smart.

If anything, wealth just makes you better at taking advantage of other people.

And is that who you really want to be?

11.
The canary in the coal mine isn't a canary, it's the whole fucking environment telling you to stop burning fossil fuels. When the planet is dying from the fumes--instead of a tiny bird--I'm pretty sure it's time to pay attention.

12.
Educate yourself--because the Republican-led government doesn't care about your mind or body, male or female, white or black or brown. Speak truth to power. Volunteer; not just for religious groups--the world actually includes things beyond religion--and in this country, we're supposed to have a separation of church and state, which is a good thing. And here's why: it may not be your church. Are you really willing to take that chance? Stop trying to get your government to enforce your religious details and get them to embody the compassion that Allah, Adonai, Jesus, God, and the Buddha have been telling you to embody for the past ten centuries.

Vote. Run for office, locally. For Christ's sake, believe in something that doesn't only include you.

13.
I lived in the same city as Donald Trump for twenty-two years. If you voted for him, I feel sorry for you. But you probably didn't live in the same city with him for twenty-two years.

Because, if you had....

14.
The perfect is always the enemy of the good. 

Strive to be good. Strive to be happy. I bet no one told you it was very important to strive to be happy. Strive not to be angry. Strive not to be anxious. Strive to be compassionate. Do some yoga. Strive to be happy.

That's it. So, anyway.
Please, have a great day.

"Then you didn't make an apple pie, Viola": Davis and Streep, Scanning

She is an observer and a thief. 

Her artistry reminds us of the impact of what it means to be an artist, which is to make us feel less alone.

If you didn't see Meryl Streep's speech at the Golden Globes this year, or Viola Davis' introduction, the whole thing is interesting.

I actually enjoyed Davis' intro more—not for lack of worth with respect to what Streep had to say, which was very important—but for the respect of artistry: artist to artist, talking.

Streep nods as Davis talks, but she knows the camera is on her, so... is she acting, or agreeing? Or both? Or neither? I don't worry about these things too much, because I am certain all the answers are correct. Even "neither, " as that non-singular answer.

As a writer—as a person who writes things down—I am fascinated by the conversation of professional actors about their art, because I am always searching for others' insight into character. 

And the best of actors are circumspect—I'm talking to you Colleen Dewhurst—and even though they are always "lying," they are always telling the truth. They are always, the best of them, telling the truth, but someone else's truth. As Lacan said, in the context of the unconscious, "I always tell the truth, I just can't tell all of it"—one of the things he was saying was that even when we are lying—because we are hiding the truth under the lie—we are always telling the truth. As Streep said to James Lipton, she believes her job is "to make a soul" come into being—I didn't believe her then, but now I think she probably does try to do that. Listen to Davis' speech. The best of actors are circumspect, but when you catch them, they can teach you shit. A lot.

She stares. That's the first thing you notice about her. She tilts her head back with that sly, suspicious smile and she stares for a long time. And you think, "Do I have something in my teeth, or does she want to kick my ass?" Which is not going to happen. 

And then she'll ask questions.

"What did you do last night, Viola?" 

Oh, I cooked an apple pie. 

"Did you use Pippin apples?" 

No, I didn't use Pippin apples. What the hell are Pippin apples? I used Granny Smith apples!

"Ohh. Did you make your own crust?" 

No, I used store bought crust, that's what I did. 

"Then you didn't make an apple pie, Viola." 

Well, that's because I spent all my time making my collard greens. I make the best collard greens. I use smoked turkey, chicken broth, and my special barbecue sauce. Silence. I shut her down. 

"Well. They don't taste right, unless you use ham hocks. If you don't use ham hocks. it doesn't taste the same. So! How's the family?"

And as she continues to stare, you realize that she sees you. And that, like a high-powered scanning machine, she is recording you. She is an observer and a thief. She reveals what she has stolen, on that sacred place, which is the screen. She makes the most heroic characters vulnerable, the most known familiar, the most despised relatable. Dame Streep.

Her artistry reminds us of the impact of what it means to be an artist, which is to make us feel less alone. I can only imagine where you go, Meryl, when you disappear into a character. 

I imagine that you are in them, patiently waiting. Using yourself as a conduit. Encouraging them. Coaxing them. To release all their mess. Confess. Expose. To live. You are a Muse. Your impact encouraged me to stay in the line, Dame Streep. I see you. I see you.

And you know, all those rainy days we spent on the set of Doubt, every day my husband would call me at night and say, "Did you tell her how much she means to you?" and I would say, Nah, I can't say anything, Julius. I'm just nervous, All I do is stare at her, all the time. And he said "Well you need to say something, you been waiting all your life to work with this woman, say something." I said Julius, I'll do it tomorrow. "OK, well you better do it tomorrow because when I get there, I'm gonna say something." 

Never said anything. But I'mma say it, now. 

You make me proud to be an artist. You make me feel. That what I have in me: My body. My face. My age. Is enough. 

You encapsulate that great, Emile Zola quote that, if you ask me, as an artist, what I came into this world to do, I, as an artist, would say: "I came to live out loud."

And now for the video.

I don't know why you're listening to me...

The subtlety of my argument is guaranteed to irritate you. My argument is not subtle for that reason, and it irritates me that subtlety is the problem that stands between us and an understanding. But I will not cede that ground to you.

Small things are large, and it's not my problem that you can't see that.

It has always been, and it always will be, your problem. Even when, and as, I always lose.

My Problem

Hi. I wanted to explore some of my problems. This won't take up much of your time, but that is my problem.


My Problem


My problem isn't you, my problem is me.


I want you to listen for more then thirty seconds or 250 characters. That's MY problem.


My problem is that I want you to not get bored when it's not about you.


My problem is that I want you to enjoy nuance, difference, difficulty, and long sentences, inclusive of commas and semicolons.


My problem is that you fear the unfamiliar.


MY problem is that you neither know what you want nor have ever explored why you want it.


I don't care why you're overwhelmed by your job, my problem is that you are overwhelmed by the fact that you're overwhelmed by your job, don't have the tools to talk about it, and pretend that you are not and that you do.


My problem is that you are so afraid of the truth about your life that you cling to demonstrably absurd "truths" about your life that hurt and destroy others, daily, rather than consider any alternative.


These are my problems.


What are your problems?

I Post Song Lyrics Sometimes: When Doves Cry

When Doves Cry


Dig if you will
the picture,
Of you and I engaged
in a kiss,
The sweat of your body
covers me,
Can you, my darling,
Can you picture this?

Dream if you can
a courtyard,
An ocean of violets
in bloom,
Animals strike
curious poses,
They feel the heat,
The heat between me and you.

How can you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that's so cold?
   So cold
Maybe I'm just too demanding,
Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold,

Maybe you're just like my mother,
She's never satisfied,
   She's never satisfied
Why do we scream at each other?
This is what it sounds like,
When doves cry.

Touch if you will
my stomach,
Feel how it trembles inside;
You've got the butterflies
all tied up,
Don't make me chase you,
Even doves have pride.

How can you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world so cold?
   World so cold
Maybe I'm just too demanding,
Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold;

Maybe you're just like my mother,
She's never satisfied,
   She's never satisfied
Why do we scream at each other?
This is what it sounds like,
When doves cry.

How can you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that's so cold?
   A world that's so cold?
Maybe I'm just too demanding?
   Maybe, maybe I'm like my father?
Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold?
   Ya know he's too bold?

Maybe you're just like my mother?
   Maybe you're just like my mother?
She's never satisfied,
   She's never, never satisfied.
Why do we scream at each other?
   Why do we scream, why?
This is what it sounds like

When doves cry.
   When doves cry.
When doves cry.
   When doves cry.
When doves cry.

   When doves cry.
Don't cry.


Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016)
Prince & the Revolution
When Doves Cry
Purple Rain

Andy Moozeek

Moore's German diction is just dreadful. And the set! The set is the most rotten, kitsch, awfulness. Schwarzkopf may not have noticed it, but she was so demanding--most especially of herself--and had such good taste, it's hard to imagine her even being there.

Andy Moozeek

Du holde Kunst,
Ich danke dir,
You watch her mouth, say.
Then, you look at her eyes
at the end. And you could fall
forever into that terrifying abyss.
Not because she is dead but
because she is so alive,
so much more alive
than you have ever been.
I believe it is two shots.
I love her hair.
I hope she wins.


L. Steve Schmersal, Andy Moozeek, Dez 2015.

"Don't freak out, bitch. Just be Steve, Gay Anthropologist!"

I, too, am a notebook guy at the freak show, or, as I say of myself at circuit parties: "Don't freak out, bitch. Just be Steve, Gay Anthropologist!"

This is what I do now in the world that has become a circuit party. I don't go to circuit parties, I don't need to. The world is a circuit party I haven't been invited to.

Mostly, I just want to apologize to the other species stuck on this planet with us while we circle the fucking drain. DOLPHINS, CRUSTACEANS, BEES, BATS, BUTTERFLIES, and BIRDS! I'M SORRY WE'RE TAKING YOU DOWN WITH US! I'M REALLY SORRY!

Try to feel as I do, that the planet will heal after we're gone. We can't kill the planet. We can't kill the planet. After the various other species have achieved ascendance and recreated-rediscovered poetry over and over again and done a better job than we ever did, after that, when this planet is a burnt-out cinder circling a sun about to nova, we won't even be a memory.

Remember that, Donald Trump--and the rest of you fucktard idiots--not even the insects will trouble themselves to ever even remember, or know, you ever even fucking existed, you vile excrement.

And that's all we have time for! HAVE A GREAT DAY! :o)

Now. Watch this shit:

That Time, That Time, in Six

That Time, That Time, in Six
by Calvé Shelmstress


It was that time. That time
When nothing made sense, when
Time was not time, that time
When time was no time. He
Brought a boyfriend upstate
To stay with an ex-boy-

Friend. It was that time just
After he'd found a job,
That time when he'd thought that
He, perhaps, had lost his
Mind. Brilliantly, he
Had not. "Who is he?" his

Ex had asked. "I don't know,"
He had replied. It was
That time, when walking down
The street, he would just cry,
For church bells ringing. Church
Bells. "Who is he?" his ex

Had asked. It didn't matter.
He had just needed some
One to hold at night, some
One warm and real enough.
He cried real tears when he
Wrote this. He cried real tears.


Calvé Shelmstress, That Time, That Time, in Six, 1979.

I Post Song Lyrics from Time to Time: Zip

I was twenty, I looked forty. I got the job. 

-- Elaine Stritch

Oh, Elaine, will ya for Chrissake go to New Haven and sing the fuckin’ song? 

-- Ethel Merman

Zip

I’ve
Interviewed Pablo Picasso
And a countess, named di Frasso.
I’ve interviewed the great Stravinsky.

But 

My greatest achievement
Is the interview I had
With the star who worked for Minsky.

I met her at the Yankee Clipper,
And she didn’t unzip one zipper.
I said, “Miss Lee, you are such an artist,
Tell me why you never miss.

"Whadda you think of
While you work?”
And she said, “While I work,
My thoughts go something like this:

"Zip! Walter Lippmann wasn’t brilliant today.
Zip! Will Saroyan ever write a great play?

"Zip! I was reading Schopenhauer last night.
Zip! And I think that Schopenhauer was right.

"I don’t wanna see Zorina.
I don’t wanna meet Cobina.
Zip!
I’m an intellect-ual.

"I don’t like a deep contralto,
Or a man whose voice is alto.
Zip!
I’m a het'roseck-sual.

"Zip! It took intellect to master my art.
Zip! Who the Hell is Margie Hart?

"Zip! I consider Dali’s paintings passé.
Zip! Will they make the Metropolitan pay?

"Zip! English people don’t say 'clerk,' they say 'clark.'
Zip! Anybody who says 'clark' is a 'jark.'

"I adore the great Confucius,
And the lines of luscious Lucius.
Zip!
I am so ecletic.

"I don’t care for either Mickey,
Mouse or Rooney makes me sicky.
Zip!
I’m a little hectic.

"Zip! My artistic taste is classic and dear.
Zip! Who the Hell’s Lili St. Cyr?"


Zip
Music by Richard Rodgers
Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Written for “Pal Joey”
"Zip" was introduced by Jean Casto.
For the highly successful revival of "Pal Joey" in 1952, the song was sung by a certain Elaine Stritch.

Here's a funny poem <--> this is the title

Here's a funny poem <--> this is the title


Hey. Here's a funny poem
I found in the 17th
Century. It doesn't matter,
So, you can stop reading now,

Because your experience
And the past have zero
Connection, whatsoever.
You're so cool; it's too cool: Anyways,

The poem goes like this: You
Are stuck in a poem: Not of your
Own devising: And that: Is the
Power of Poetry: Surprise!

Ha! And. Fuck you! Ha, ha!
You asshole, are you still
Reading this? You are.
You're mad. I can always

Tell. I can always tell that
You are an incredible
Asshole. Thank you for
Reading. I love you.

L. Steve Schmersal, Here's a funny poem <--> this is the title, September 2015.

Sound Image: Bernard Herrmann: Fahrenheit 451

So, I belong to the Bernard Herrmann Society page on Facebook--as you should--and Dirk Wickenden, of Kent, published this beautiful appreciation of Herrmann's work on François Roland Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451.

It is a thing we can't talk about, exactly: this intersection among image, music, and idea. Sound-image. Saussure spoke--as we know from his students' notes--of the sound-image, but we never seem to speak of the incredible accomplishment of the great score-writers and their attempt--sometimes well-intentioned and failing, sometimes better than the image being supported--to further the diegesis, the image, the audience, the now-place; the flavor, the texture, the smell--yes, I said the smell--and the possibility of film through sound. The image, somehow, as sound. Sound-image.

Herrmann may have been the sublime possibility, suggestion, and ending of all these intractable ideas. 

This clip is incandescently gorgeous. It sounds very much like Bernard Herrmann. It is a repetition without being a canon. It is as though every time the theme comes back again, the composer can't let it go. It is the most searchingly wonderful passage. I love it.

Please, listen to this. I wrote to Dirk Wickenden, today, just to ask to quote him, so you could read him. Just so you could listen.

Dirk Wickenden writes:

Fahrenheit 451: In this one cue, supporting a closing montage, Herrmann manages to comment on the characters' feelings of love for books and knowledge, the possible emerging love of the two main characters and the melancholy feelings of a group of people who are trying to keep the essence of an author's words alive. It is beautiful but sad at the same time.

The Shelmstress Poems III: Suicide Ditty

Classic Shelmstress! This one is very hard to find, but I was lucky enough that an old friend was looking out for it as well. I first read it in grad school at OSU and have been trying to find it again ever since--its Rodgers and Hart echoes, which occur throughout Shelmstress' work, keep nagging at me till I find them again.

Thank you, Armando, for sending this on.

Suicide Ditty

Hi. It's me again,
Hi, it's not me. Hell-
O, or hi. Hey. Ho.
Nobody writes his
Song for me, heigh-ho:

Who cares? Thirty-odd
Years demonstrating
Explanations and
Exhortations, some
Defense-formations;

Trying, showing, and
Trying to show what
Ever: things: any
Thing; in this place where
I don't think or know

Or want anything
For myself, in this
Place of my great un-
Knowingness, where I
Drop, with a ripple--

Or not--across your
Great knowledge, where you
Know everything, where
My me-ness is as
A nothingness, where

I sink beneath your
Wisdom like a stone.
You locked me in some
Safety deposit
Box, in the basement

Of a bank, on a
Shelf in your closet,

In some universe,
Where I don't exist.

Calvé Shelmstress, Suicide Ditty, 1977