"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)
Thursday, September 8, 2011
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]
Two Dylan songs appropriate for the week:
[audio:Buckets-Of-Rain.mp3]
[audio:DownInTheFlood.mp3]
Monday, September 5, 2011
GREATEST FLASH MOB EVER
Sunday, September 4, 2011
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]
A taste of what we saw today:
[youtube]MZlQdN84JO0[/youtube]
Saturday, September 3, 2011
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.
- 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:
[youtube]ytC5jUBpMls[/youtube]
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.
[youtube]O6MIb5QR8R0[/youtube]
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:
[youtube]ytC5jUBpMls[/youtube]
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.
[youtube]O6MIb5QR8R0[/youtube]
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