It's Been A Long, Long Time

My latest 8tracks mix:

The Days Of Wine And Roses...And You

Feeling wistful about the end of summer? My latest 8tracks mix:

Excerpt

I'm not alone:

"But no front-runner in a presidential field has ever, we imagine, had as weak a showing as Rick Perry. It was close to a disqualifying two hours for him. And Mitt Romney remains, when all is said and done, a technocratic management consultant whose one term as governor produced Romneycare. He could rise to the occasion as president. Or not."

- Bill Kristol, in today's Weekly Standard editorial

Mitt, not Rick

Based on his dreadful debate performances, Rick Perry seems to have given little thought to the important public policy issues of the day. When Perry first announced his candidacy for the GOP nomination I was glad to have him in the field, and even a tentative supporter. I heard he was a "real" conservative, not a "compassionate" conservative (a term and a governing philosophy I've always abhored) like Bush. He was also confident, appealling, and good-looking, i.e. a lot of the thing one needs to be elected these days. Unfortunately, a lot of what we've learned about him since, combined with his debate performances, have given me pause. Right now (it is my belief) the only way for Obama to be re-elected next year is for the Republicans to blow it, and Rick Perry could blow it. Rather than get stronger as the campaign has progressed, he has gotten weaker, and seems smaller. He is unsure of himself and unable to defend his positions when challenged, even when his positions are easily defensible. Obama was not-ready-for-prime-time when he ran four years ago but the mainstream media camouflaged that fact. They are unlikely to give Perry the same protection.  Quite the opposite - the media will pounce on his every hesitation or misstep. Furthermore, I now have doubts about his conservative bona fides. He seems much more a crony-capitalist than a free marketer.  Is crony-capitalism what we want at a time when crony-capitalism is one of the big reasons we are failing as a nation? Washington D.C. needs to be purged, and the way the federal government operates needs to be dismantled, not reinforced. I doubt Perry has the ability, let alone the desire, to do this. His inability to articulate conservative positions tell me he has spent little time thinking about these things. It seems more likely to me that Perry has done what it takes to seem conservative because that is what is needed to get elected and to succesfully govern in Texas.

So here is a sentence I thought would never cross my lips (or type in a blog post): I am pulling for Mitt Romney to win the GOP presidential nomination. Now, for a lifelong conservative like myself, one who is hoping for a revolutionary reversal back to the principles of limited government, Mitt Romney is totally inadequate. He is a wishy-washy, flip-flopping, often liberal-leaning conservative-manqué, someone whose only true conviction is that he should be president. But since the only other person currently in the field with a ghost of a chance to win is Rick Perry, I'm throwing in with Mitt. Mitt is smoothness personified, he can think on his feet, rarely makes a gaffe, and is palatable to the independents that are currently so dissatisfied with Obama, much more palatable than Perry. Now, Mitt Romney is never going to lead a revolution (though one could possibly be forced on him from below.) But that is not the primary issue at hand. The main issue at hand, in my opinion, is to defeat the incompetent putz who curretly sits in the Oval Office. In every head-to-head poll against Obama, Romney outperforms Perry. Since Mitt Romney is more likely than Perry to defeat Obama, Romney is my man, at least for the time being.

God help us all.

The Way You Look Tonight

My latest mix from 8tracks, a set of jazz piano instrumentals, using their new Wordpress shortcode plugin. Listen to it below or listen to it at the 8tracks site here.

The Way You Look Tonight from dcalobrisi on 8tracks.

Stoner

I wrote about John Williams' masterpiece Stoner just a month or so after I began this blog. I had this to say about it:

I read Stoner this summer and was immediately convinced that it’s one of the great American novels of the twentieth century. Williams’ quiet, spare prose about the life of an unremarkable man who teaches English at a university does not seem to be the stuff of great novels. I tried explaining the storyline to a friend of mine, who scoffed at my description – not for him, thanks. The problem is that a mere outline of the story is utterly insufficient as a description of the book. All I can say is, read it. The cumulative effect of Williams’ storytelling is powerfully moving and, in the end, heartbreaking. It is a tragedy but one with ameliorative effects. One gets the sense that Williams’ point is that we all live tragic lives, or at least lives that will be visited by tragedy. It’s how we handle those tragedies, how we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, that matters. In the end, we’ll find a way of understanding the disappointments, we’ll throw bitterness and self-pity off, and we’ll find a sense of, perhaps not peace, or even contentment, but acceptance.

In a post at Commentary Magazine literary blog today, D. G. Myers has a much longer (and better) discussion of the book. His take on it is similar to my own:

Stoner takes an outwardly nondescript life, the sort of life that many of us want to escape into fiction, and demonstrates that the real drama of human experience is in the daily refusal to escape, the uninterrupted renunciation of extreme situations, the muted decision to stay and do some good. It’s hard to make such a book sound very exciting. That Stoner is exciting — unexpectedly so, and incredibly moving — is the true measure of Williams’s achievement.

Stoner is a deeply moving book (as is Williams' follow-up to it, Augustus, which I discuss in greater detail in the post linked above) and Myers' discussion of it gets very close to the heart of why. He sums up by saying, "[Stoner] will remind you why you first started reading novels: to get inside the mystery of other people’s lives. And perhaps that is the final cause of all good fiction." Read the entire discussion, and if you like great fiction, read Stoner. It was one of the most illuminating literary experiences of my reading life.

Excerpt

"If 9/11 had really changed us, there’d be a 150-story building on the site of the World Trade Center today. It would have a classical memorial in the plaza with allegorical figures representing Sorrow and Resolve, and a fountain watched over by stern stone eagles. Instead there’s a pit, and arguments over the usual muted dolorous abstraction approved by the National Association of Grief Counselors. The Empire State Building took 18 months to build. During the Depression. We could do that again, but we don’t. And we don’t seem interested in asking why."

- James Lileks, five years ago today, at National Review Online

Ten Years and Counting

I just heard Mark Steyn, subbing for Rush, call the hole in the ground at Ground Zero in New York City a national disgrace, and he's right. I've been of that opinion for years, most recently at the barber shop two days ago. My barber had no idea that The Empire State Building was put up in eighteen months and he found the fact truly astonishing. We were once a country that, when we put our mind to it, could get things done, quickly and effectively. Ten years later at Ground Zero, nothing. This weekend we will endure a lot of weepy, whiny, PC-style memorializing (along with, I'm sure, some well-done and truly moving moments) but as long as Ground Zero remains unbuilt, I find it hard to believe that, as a nation, we truly understand the event or are serious about remembering it.

Excerpt

"What [the Westerner] defends, at bottom, is the purity of his own image - in fact his honor. That is what makes him invulnerable. When the gangster is killed, his whole life is shown to be a mistake, but the image the Westerner seeks to maintain can be presented as clearly in defeat as in victory: he fights not for advantage, and not for the right, but to state what he is, and he must live in a world which permits that statement. The Westerner is the last gentleman, and the movies which over and over again tell his story are probably the last art form in which the concept of honor retains its strength."

- Robert Warshow, from his 1954 essay, "Movie Chronicle: The Westerner"

Lonesome Dove

I scheduled this week off some time ago hoping to play golf and spend as much time outdoors as possible but the weather hasn't cooperated. It's been pouring rain all over the east coast this week and it's still raining now as I look out my window. Earlier this week I stumbled across this radio interview with Robert Duvall, whom I consider the finest actor in American films over the past fifty years (hell, he might be the finest ever) in which he mentions that his role in the 1989 mini-series Lonesome Dove was his favorite ever. I'd never seen "Lonesome Dove" so I took the opportunity this week, watching all four 90-minute long episodes over the past three days, streaming from Netflix. Perhaps it is the inevitable melancholia that builds up in one during long stretches of dreary, rainy days, but right now I think "Lonesome Dove" has had as powerful an emotional effect on me as just about any television I've ever seen. A wonderful story, and Duvall's portayal of Augustus McCrae is a triumph. The story is about two retired Texas Rangers (Duvall's McCrae and Woodrow Call, played by Tommy Lee Jones, who is also excellent) who leave their two-bit Texas town of Lonesome Dove to drive cattle up north to begin the first cattle ranch on the Montana frontier. I won't go into more plot detail but suffice to say it is vastly entertaining and visually brilliant, with breathtaking shots of the frontier - you understand the attachment those men had with the country. At bottom "Lonesome Dove" has what all the best stories of the West contain: love of the land, love of adventure, a sense of duty and honor, the choice between staying and going, between what will be lost and what can be gained, and an acceptance of the burdens that come with such a life. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Here is a little taste, but watch the entire six hours. You won't regret it:

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Excerpt

"A half-century experiment in draping steam­ship anchors around the necks of the productive class and expecting them to run a four-minute mile has ended in failure. The confiscation of rights and property, the moral impoverishment of generations caused by the state’s usurpation of parental obligations, the elevation of a credentialed elite that believes academia’s fashions are a worthy substitute for knowledge of history and human nature, and above all the faith in a weightless cipher whose oratorical panache now consists of looking from one teleprompter screen to the other with the enthusiasm of a man watching someone else’s kids play tennis–it’s over, whether you believe in it or not. It cannot be sustained without reducing everyone to penurious equality, crippling the power of the United States, and subsuming the economy to a no-growth future that rations energy."

- James Lileks, from this week's print National Review (article not yet available online)

Interlude

Raining cats and dogs here in the D.C. area - and it has been for days. I've been off work and while I've kept busy I'm starting to think the time would have been better spent building an ark.Will it ever end?

Two Dylan songs appropriate for the week:

[audio:Buckets-Of-Rain.mp3]

[audio:DownInTheFlood.mp3]

GREATEST FLASH MOB EVER

Hat tip Bookworm, hat tip Powerline, this flash mod at Copenhagen Central Station of the Copenhagen Philharmonic playing Ravel's Bolero is just terrific. Watch it full screen with the sound up:

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Oklahoma, OK!

I don't know how Arena Stage's production of Oklahoma! could be much better. It is superb. Full of life, bursting with energy and joy, it is much better than the 2002 Broadway production we saw. Imaginatively staged and perfectly paced by director Molly Smith, the singing, the acting, and the dancing are all first-rate. and the cumulative effect is exhilarating. Three of the performers are pretty near perfect: Nicholas Rodriguez as Curly, June Schreiner as Ado Annie, and Cody Williams as Will Parker. Within a few bars of "Oh, What A Beautiful Morning" Mr. Rodriguez had won me over - what a voice. He can act and dance too but his voice is his ticket to musical stardom. June Schreiner, who almost unbelievably is just starting her senior year in high school, is dazzling as Ado Annie, the girl who "cain't say no." My wife and I came home and viewed many versions of this scene on YouTube, hoping to relive a bit of what we just saw, but none of the Ado Annie performances come close to what the darling Ms. Schreiner did on stage today. As for Mr. Williams, his exuberance and innocent charm adds to a spectacular dancing ability. The "Kansas City" scene is the finest in the show, mostly due to Mr. Williams. All three of these performers have what it takes to make it big, not simply big talent but charisma to burn. You can't your eyes off them. Watching them do such grand justice to one of Broadway's great musicals, I experienced that feeling one only gets at a spectacular musical performance: giddy delight.

A taste of what we saw today:

[youtube]MZlQdN84JO0[/youtube]

 

Interlude

Artie Shaw & His Orchestra play "It Had To Be You":

[audio:ItHadToBeYou.mp3]

Excerpt

"It’s not the vulgarity or the crassness or even the grunting moronic ugliness, but something more basic: the absence of tenderness. A song such as “It Had To Be You” or “The Way You Look Tonight” pre-supposes certain courtship rituals. If a society no longer has those, it’s not surprising that it can no longer produce songs to embody them: After all, a great love ballad is, to a certain extent, aspirational; you hope to have a love worthy of such a song."

- Mark Steyn, on contemporary music, from his column this week.

Music And The Movies

I believe I mentioned Spotify a few weels ago in passing but I'm getting so much enjoyment from the site another mention is in order. Popular in Europe for some time, it recently hopped across the pond and is now available in the U.S. I have discovered and rediscovered much wonderful music via Spotify - and the basic service is free. Besides some classical, some jazz, and some rock and roll, I've also been discovering old Broadway musical cast albums (including "Oklahoma!" which we are attending tomorrow at Arena Stage), and old movie soundtracks, including those by Max Steiner and Bernard Herrmann. That's what I've been concentrating on but, whatever your musical tastes, Spotify will satisfy them. Check it out.

Bernard Herrmann was phenomenal - virtually everything he did was terrific and can stand alone easily outside the movies. He did 11 films with Hitchcock (before they had a terrible falling out) and if you listen closely to the music while watching any of those films you will understand how much the Herrmann's music contributed to the Hitchcockian atmosphere, whether it be terror, or joy, or love, or plain old silliness. The most famous example of this is "Psycho," which, the stories goes, Hitch was thinking about abandoning until he heard Herrmann's score. And the rest is history. My favorite from Herrmann, perhaps most people's, is the love theme from Vertigo ("Scene d'Amour). I tweeted earlier this week about listening to the love theme from "Vertigo" every day for a week - it's lovely music. Is it a coincidence that Hitchcock began his decline immediately after the split with Herrmann? Scene d'Amour:

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My favorite movie theme? I fell in love with this music thirty years ago when I saw "Blow Out," Brian DePalma's best movie. Wonderful, and badly underrated, one of those movies I can watch over and over again - great story, great script, terrific acting, especially Travolta, and, oh, the theme. Written by the great Pino Donaggio, who worked on many of DePalma's movies, it's beautiful and tormented and romantic and despairing all at once, which it needs to be to fulfill the movie's emotional demands. The scene near the end when Jack cradles Sally's dead body in his arms while the fireworks explode above them and the music floods in around them, well, the music must be all of those things because all of those things are what Jack, and the audience, are feeling. It's a masterful moment, one of the great scenes in movie history.

Here's the music. You can find the scene on youtube but better to see the movie in its entirety - it's great from start to finish and the emotional wallop from the scene will be all the more intense.

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