Those do sound like two incongruous motion pictures. But each is a worthy effort, each in its own way. "On the Matter of Sex" is the second pic this year about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg so for me, the bar was high. But this one comes through--it avoids repeating the first one, which was truly a documentary--and benefits from good writing and acting.
Best choice made in putting it together was to focus on one case, possibly her first, on applying the tax law unequally but in this case, a man was deprived of benefits afforded women. It provided a chance to show how her husband, tax lawyer Marty Ginsburg, supported her across the board, both in strategizing the legal path and managing the home life with two children to care for.
The Harvard Law aspect was of interest to those of us who also are graduates. Sam Waterston, though aged, looks far better than long-time Dean Erwin Griswold ever did. The Griz had toned down his infamous welcoming speech for first-year students by the time I heard it, as it turned out for the last time since he left after 20 years near the end of my first year when he was named Solicitor General. His sexism of 1959 vintage was par for the course in those days.
Ernie Brown, whom I had as a prof for tax, was terrible as a teacher by then and he too left at the end of the next year to become the grand old man of the Justice Department's Tax Division, from which he retired at 93 a few years ago. Paul Freund was doubtless looking more in 1960 like the youthful player who filled his role in the picture as compared to when I studied constitutional law with him almost a decade later--you got an idea of his urbanity but he didn't seem different enough here from the standard preening law school prof.
The picture's strength was in sticking close to the facts. For example, the three Tenth Circuit judges were the real names and one is credited and given thanks in the crawl for presumably recalling Justice Ginsburg's early argument there. One critic has taken the picture to task for showing her hesitating for a length of time that only could have existed in a film as she rose to argue--apparently this is the only thing that Justice RBG didn't agree with in the film, and she was right. It was a case of the director adding in what the critic called a cliche found in such biopics.
The film also made me rethink my reaction years ago when at a D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference chaired by then-Judge Ginsburg. At the main dinner, she profusely thanked her husband (she called him her "life partner") and I discounted this praise as one of the ritual thank-yous, usually directed at and for wives. But the picture, and Armie Hammer's magnificent portrayal of Martin Ginsburg, made me appreciate finally that RBG had it right back then. Felicity Jones also did a fine job as RBG.
So too did Emily Blunt as Mary Poppins, returning the character to the screen after oh so many years. I read the four P.L. Travers books featuring Mary P., and Blunt played her the way Travers wrote her: a very tart, sure of herself character with no "Spoonful of Sugar" stuff which did take away from Julie Andrews's great performance in the original picture, especially her singing.
Lin-Manuel Miranda was an excellent Jack, nephew of Dick Van Dyke's Bert the chalk artist in the first picture. The Hamilton creator even had one song which was essentially rap, which he had used to such advantage in Hamilton. The songs, alas, are not quite up to the memorable, if somewhat saccharine, ones in the first picture. But the performances, including a villainous Colin Firth, are. It's the kind of picture where you enjoy their bringing in Angela Lansbury and Van Dyke for cameo "special appearances" near the end, and Meryl Streep providing an amazing turn both singing and dancing as well as acting in creating a novel character. Fun all around.
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Saturday, December 15, 2018
A Great Play
There's a terrific, powerful play and it's actually playing on Broadway. What, you ask? Have we returned to the days when Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller, and others, graced the New York Theater District?
The Ferryman is a full three-acter that premiered last year in London and is the product of playwright Jez Butterworth, who's English but with strong roots in Ulster, where the play is set. It tackles what was happening in Northern Ireland to a farm family in Armagh in the time of the Troubles. A man disappeared in 1971, his body turned up ten years later, and his large family with what it means, as well as some IRA men.
The plot thickens and develops with superb performances by a large cast, many of whom were in the original production and draw on Irish backgrounds. Butterworth, joined by renowned director Sam Mendes, who ran London's Donmar Warehouse, manages the many actors on the stage together well and as one critic concluded, in a rave notice, brings it all to an explosive finale.
He compared it to Jacobean tragedy, such as those by Thomas Middleton. If you've ever seen Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling, you'll realize that things never get as gruesome as in that drama, but the ending is truly powerful, but the steady buildup to what happens then is well conceived.
A few years ago, I happened to see Butterworth's play, Jerusalem, when passing through London. It was a well-drawn picture of British counterculture which worked largely due to the casting of Mark Rylance in the leading role. Rylance is likely the finest actor working today and he's always worth seeing. I didn't think the play would make it in the States, even in New York, because it was very British, but it did come to Broadway and got good notices. However, it did not attract strong audiences and played only a limited run.
Later in the day, we stuck around and enjoyed a musical comedy, The Prom, which also received some good reviews. It's light but the writing is often clever, the songs are pleasant, and the players enjoyable, especially Beth Leaval as a leading lady of the theatre trying to save her reputation after getting disastrous notices by "doing good deeds" as the Wizard of Oz put it.
It's Broadway musical comedy wrestling with social issues--here it's gay high school students coming out in the Midwest--and the blend works better than does the injection of social concerns in the somewhat dated British postwar mystery, An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestley, which we saw in D.C. recently. This musical is good spirited and enjoyable, even getting me to ignore the current Broadway reliance on excessive amplification for once.
The Ferryman is a full three-acter that premiered last year in London and is the product of playwright Jez Butterworth, who's English but with strong roots in Ulster, where the play is set. It tackles what was happening in Northern Ireland to a farm family in Armagh in the time of the Troubles. A man disappeared in 1971, his body turned up ten years later, and his large family with what it means, as well as some IRA men.
The plot thickens and develops with superb performances by a large cast, many of whom were in the original production and draw on Irish backgrounds. Butterworth, joined by renowned director Sam Mendes, who ran London's Donmar Warehouse, manages the many actors on the stage together well and as one critic concluded, in a rave notice, brings it all to an explosive finale.
He compared it to Jacobean tragedy, such as those by Thomas Middleton. If you've ever seen Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling, you'll realize that things never get as gruesome as in that drama, but the ending is truly powerful, but the steady buildup to what happens then is well conceived.
A few years ago, I happened to see Butterworth's play, Jerusalem, when passing through London. It was a well-drawn picture of British counterculture which worked largely due to the casting of Mark Rylance in the leading role. Rylance is likely the finest actor working today and he's always worth seeing. I didn't think the play would make it in the States, even in New York, because it was very British, but it did come to Broadway and got good notices. However, it did not attract strong audiences and played only a limited run.
Later in the day, we stuck around and enjoyed a musical comedy, The Prom, which also received some good reviews. It's light but the writing is often clever, the songs are pleasant, and the players enjoyable, especially Beth Leaval as a leading lady of the theatre trying to save her reputation after getting disastrous notices by "doing good deeds" as the Wizard of Oz put it.
It's Broadway musical comedy wrestling with social issues--here it's gay high school students coming out in the Midwest--and the blend works better than does the injection of social concerns in the somewhat dated British postwar mystery, An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestley, which we saw in D.C. recently. This musical is good spirited and enjoyable, even getting me to ignore the current Broadway reliance on excessive amplification for once.
Monday, December 3, 2018
'Green Book'
Have only good things to say about Green Book, the movie I saw last night. One rarity was that everyone whom I know who has seen it has exulted about how good it is. This time they were all correct. It is a gem.
The two leads--Viggo Mortenson and Mahershali Ali--are not exactly household names. Mortensen was making some good pictures a few years back but has been less prominent of late. This superb rendering of an oft-presented character--the prototypical Italian-American from the Bronx--should get him award attention, as should also be the case for Mahershali Ali, who's appeared in Moonlight and the final Hunger Games film, neither of which I happened to see.
Mortenson has been in a bunch of pics I also have not seen, except for a small supporting role in Witness, some years back. I didn't recognize most of the rest of the cast, but all performed well.
The key to the success of this movie, however, as is almost always true, is the writing. Director Peter Farrelly is one of the three writers, along with Nick Vallelonga and Brian Currie. They all deserve huge credit for providing a top-notch script. I did want to see this picture but was also worried that its subject would be sentimentalized or simplified or exaggerated or any one of numerous ways it could have been messed up.
Instead, this tale of a brilliant black musician who's been everywhere and knows multiple languages and a parochial white driver clicks astoundingly well as they move along on a road tour that winds its way toward the Deep South. Each stop brings forth a different aspect of the racism prevailing there in 1962, in case we forget how recently this was the way things were when you travelled not very far past the Mason-Dixon line.
The incidents are presented effectively, without needless exaggeration because what happens is bad enough when played straight. And the picture is not preachy, but filled with plenty of humor, and avoids what I would regard as obvious and demeaning joking between the black and white pair. Done this way, a movie can provide terrific entertainment and carry a valuable message that is more likely to prove effective.
The two leads--Viggo Mortenson and Mahershali Ali--are not exactly household names. Mortensen was making some good pictures a few years back but has been less prominent of late. This superb rendering of an oft-presented character--the prototypical Italian-American from the Bronx--should get him award attention, as should also be the case for Mahershali Ali, who's appeared in Moonlight and the final Hunger Games film, neither of which I happened to see.
Mortenson has been in a bunch of pics I also have not seen, except for a small supporting role in Witness, some years back. I didn't recognize most of the rest of the cast, but all performed well.
The key to the success of this movie, however, as is almost always true, is the writing. Director Peter Farrelly is one of the three writers, along with Nick Vallelonga and Brian Currie. They all deserve huge credit for providing a top-notch script. I did want to see this picture but was also worried that its subject would be sentimentalized or simplified or exaggerated or any one of numerous ways it could have been messed up.
Instead, this tale of a brilliant black musician who's been everywhere and knows multiple languages and a parochial white driver clicks astoundingly well as they move along on a road tour that winds its way toward the Deep South. Each stop brings forth a different aspect of the racism prevailing there in 1962, in case we forget how recently this was the way things were when you travelled not very far past the Mason-Dixon line.
The incidents are presented effectively, without needless exaggeration because what happens is bad enough when played straight. And the picture is not preachy, but filled with plenty of humor, and avoids what I would regard as obvious and demeaning joking between the black and white pair. Done this way, a movie can provide terrific entertainment and carry a valuable message that is more likely to prove effective.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
Lincoln and the Jews
Attended a lecture tonight sponsored by the Foundation for Jewish Studies by Prof. Jonathan D. Sarna of Brandeis University on "Lincoln and the Jews," which turned out to be a highly entertaining as well as informative experience. Prof. Sarna is a top-notch lecturer and I was already familiar with his subject from having seen an exhibit at the New-York Historical Society on the subject, which in turn was based on his book that bears the same title as his lecture.
My general interest in the Civil War and Lincoln, in particular, has grown over the years, sparked to some degree by my giving more attention to my grandfather's extensive writing on Lincoln. He was both an historian and a collector--in fact, he seems to have spent much of his fortune earned from successful law practice on collecting Lincolniana.
One of his books was a compilation of eulogies delivered by rabbis in the U.S. following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, entitled Abraham Lincoln: The Tribute of the Synagogue. At the question time after the lecture, I asked Prof. Sarna what he might be able to say about contacts between Lincoln and Jewish leaders, rabbis in particular.
Prof. Sarna's reply was comprehensive in his noting that Lincoln definitely had met several prominent Jewish clergymen, including Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati, who was the principal founding spirit of the Reform movement in the U.S. And he also referred to the massive gathering of rabbis who travelled to Washington to protest General Grant's notorious order expelling Jews from a war zone in Kentucky.
He has written an entire book about this incident, and did observe that Lincoln had revoked Grant's order before the rabbis even managed to descend on Lincoln at the White House--this was a time when visitors were able to get to see the chief executive much more easily by just going to the White House.
There was much of interest in Prof. Sarna's talk, including accounts of individual Jewish friends and colleagues of Lincoln. He also referred to Lincoln's extraordinary familiarity with the Bible and his inclusion of Biblical references in many of his speeches and writings. He also noted that Lincoln cleared the way for the first Jewish chaplain to be appointed in the U.S. Army and would have named the first female chaplain had he not felt constrained by existing law.
One of Lincoln's most effective uses of Biblical sources was in the Second Inaugural. Perhaps Prof. Sarna might have mentioned it had he more time because many are unfamiliar with the major part of the address that precedes the famed "With malice toward none..." concluding paragraph:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
My general interest in the Civil War and Lincoln, in particular, has grown over the years, sparked to some degree by my giving more attention to my grandfather's extensive writing on Lincoln. He was both an historian and a collector--in fact, he seems to have spent much of his fortune earned from successful law practice on collecting Lincolniana.
One of his books was a compilation of eulogies delivered by rabbis in the U.S. following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, entitled Abraham Lincoln: The Tribute of the Synagogue. At the question time after the lecture, I asked Prof. Sarna what he might be able to say about contacts between Lincoln and Jewish leaders, rabbis in particular.
Prof. Sarna's reply was comprehensive in his noting that Lincoln definitely had met several prominent Jewish clergymen, including Isaac Mayer Wise of Cincinnati, who was the principal founding spirit of the Reform movement in the U.S. And he also referred to the massive gathering of rabbis who travelled to Washington to protest General Grant's notorious order expelling Jews from a war zone in Kentucky.
He has written an entire book about this incident, and did observe that Lincoln had revoked Grant's order before the rabbis even managed to descend on Lincoln at the White House--this was a time when visitors were able to get to see the chief executive much more easily by just going to the White House.
There was much of interest in Prof. Sarna's talk, including accounts of individual Jewish friends and colleagues of Lincoln. He also referred to Lincoln's extraordinary familiarity with the Bible and his inclusion of Biblical references in many of his speeches and writings. He also noted that Lincoln cleared the way for the first Jewish chaplain to be appointed in the U.S. Army and would have named the first female chaplain had he not felt constrained by existing law.
One of Lincoln's most effective uses of Biblical sources was in the Second Inaugural. Perhaps Prof. Sarna might have mentioned it had he more time because many are unfamiliar with the major part of the address that precedes the famed "With malice toward none..." concluding paragraph:
"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Saturday, November 10, 2018
The Fourth 'A Star in Born' Movie
The newest A Star is Born movie is surprisingly good. The story is obviously a good vehicle that can be adapted to suit the different times when each film was made. I have never seen the first one--starring Frederic March and Janet Gaynor--but the early 1950's production with Judy Garland and James Mason was definitely a classic, both for the acting and Garland's peerless singing. The Barbra Streisand--Kris Kristofferson 1976 version, which I also did not see, sounds like it was all right as a vehicle for both leads, who of course emphasized the singing.
The biggest surprise of the current film is the discovery that Bradley Cooper can sing, and sing well. Lady Gaga's ability to act probably deserves equal billing here, too. Sam Elliott was excellent in a major supporting role, one that Gary Busey portrayed in the Streisand production.
It was delightful to watch Cooper and Lady G perform as singers and musicians, which lent the picture extra verisimilitude. After all, this is something of a threadbare plot that in lesser hands, should have been laid to rest. I'm not a great believer in remakes but the fact that there have been so many of this vehicle and that the latest is really good is the exception that proves the rule.
It was amazing that both leads here held my attention fully. In the most classic Garland-Mason film, one recalls Garland's singing and Mason's acting, both superb. That picture also had the "inside Hollywood" flavor which worked well for it that fortunately was not something the current movie even aimed to duplicate. Instead, it was geared to today's show business milieu.
The biggest surprise of the current film is the discovery that Bradley Cooper can sing, and sing well. Lady Gaga's ability to act probably deserves equal billing here, too. Sam Elliott was excellent in a major supporting role, one that Gary Busey portrayed in the Streisand production.
It was delightful to watch Cooper and Lady G perform as singers and musicians, which lent the picture extra verisimilitude. After all, this is something of a threadbare plot that in lesser hands, should have been laid to rest. I'm not a great believer in remakes but the fact that there have been so many of this vehicle and that the latest is really good is the exception that proves the rule.
It was amazing that both leads here held my attention fully. In the most classic Garland-Mason film, one recalls Garland's singing and Mason's acting, both superb. That picture also had the "inside Hollywood" flavor which worked well for it that fortunately was not something the current movie even aimed to duplicate. Instead, it was geared to today's show business milieu.
The Democrats' Win
A commentator observed the other day that while a "blue wave" may not have characterized the election results, the election was a big win for the Democrats. He's right. The media, as usual, have failed to provide real analysis and instead decided to focus on a few elections -- Florida, Georgia, and Texas -- that fail to present the full national picture.
The Democrats gained seven governorships and at least 31 House seats, making the House gain one of the largest in history. They had the worst break in many decades in terms of how many of their Senate seats were up this time as compared with the Republicans so their modest loss there is less significant in depicting the tenor of the entire national result.
The Dems also gained hundreds of state legislative seats and started to make a comeback at that level that will help them in the redistricting and reapportionment following the 2020 census. The current party leadership deserves credit for this as they took a more active role than Obama's administration did, which is when many of the losses occurred despite the victories at the presidential election level.
Florida and Georgia got attention because the media is fascinated with the possibility of "first African American" officeholders in those jurisdictions. More attention should have been given to the apparent efforts by GOP incumbents to suppress voting, intentional failure by Republican governors of both states to make voting more difficult, and Kemp's refusal until the election was over to surrender his position in charge of administering the election. Note that former President Carter registered his complaint this obvious conflict of interest, which got minimal attention from the media.
Texas was a loss because O'Rourke ran a stronger campaign and did better than any Democrat had done state-wide for many decades. He did not win so it certainly was not a victory. However, he may have established himself as a potential player at both the state and national level anyway.
Joe Manchin managed to win in West Virginia despite the massive Republican victory there in 2016. He did well because he understood his constituents and may have correctly decided to vote for Kavanagh because his vote was not critical. Heitkamp and McCaskill deserve a lot of credit for sticking their necks out to vote against Kavanagh. It is likely that in their states they were destined to lose anyway so it is unlikely that that one vote made a major difference.
So you might be influenced by the warped media coverage to regard the day as a draw, since the two houses are divided, or even as a GOP win, which appears to merit being regarded as an outright falsehood.
The Democrats gained seven governorships and at least 31 House seats, making the House gain one of the largest in history. They had the worst break in many decades in terms of how many of their Senate seats were up this time as compared with the Republicans so their modest loss there is less significant in depicting the tenor of the entire national result.
The Dems also gained hundreds of state legislative seats and started to make a comeback at that level that will help them in the redistricting and reapportionment following the 2020 census. The current party leadership deserves credit for this as they took a more active role than Obama's administration did, which is when many of the losses occurred despite the victories at the presidential election level.
Florida and Georgia got attention because the media is fascinated with the possibility of "first African American" officeholders in those jurisdictions. More attention should have been given to the apparent efforts by GOP incumbents to suppress voting, intentional failure by Republican governors of both states to make voting more difficult, and Kemp's refusal until the election was over to surrender his position in charge of administering the election. Note that former President Carter registered his complaint this obvious conflict of interest, which got minimal attention from the media.
Texas was a loss because O'Rourke ran a stronger campaign and did better than any Democrat had done state-wide for many decades. He did not win so it certainly was not a victory. However, he may have established himself as a potential player at both the state and national level anyway.
Joe Manchin managed to win in West Virginia despite the massive Republican victory there in 2016. He did well because he understood his constituents and may have correctly decided to vote for Kavanagh because his vote was not critical. Heitkamp and McCaskill deserve a lot of credit for sticking their necks out to vote against Kavanagh. It is likely that in their states they were destined to lose anyway so it is unlikely that that one vote made a major difference.
So you might be influenced by the warped media coverage to regard the day as a draw, since the two houses are divided, or even as a GOP win, which appears to merit being regarded as an outright falsehood.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Puccini's 'Horse Opera'
Opera aficionados hear about Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, "The Girl of the Golden West," perhaps the only opera he composed during his most productive years that has not received the critical praise nor the huge popularity of the operas he wrote then: La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Manon Lescaut. The three one-act operas he wrote that are often performed together as Il Trittico vary among themselves in their relative success as separate items: Il Tabarro is performed now and then, Suor Angelica less often, and Gianni Schicchi frequently, benefitting from being his only comic opera.
Despite Fanciulla's status as an oddball among his oeuvre, I'd been planning to see it for ages but somehow never got to the theatre until last Saturday when we saw it in a movie theatre as part of the Metropolitan Opera's live broadcasts in HD. True, its problem, as usually argued, remains that it lacks the many wonderful arias and duets of the popular Puccini perennials. This opera does have one major aria--a tenor one near the end--which was added by the composer at the "suggestion" of the original performing tenor at the premiere, one Enrico Caruso. Not surprisingly, it is a fine piece.
What was most surprising, however, is that the opera itself was delightful. It did gain, of course, from an excellent new Met production as well as a top-drawer cast headed by Jonas Kaufmann, probably the reigning active tenor today, and Eva-Maria Westbroek, whom I had previously seen in Wagner, notably as Sieglinde in Die Walkuire. The villain of the piece is the baritone, the sheriff, Jack Rance, played by Željko Lučić, who is a fine singer, too, whom I recall from playing the title role in the Met's "Las Vegas"-set production of Rigoletto.
The dialogue, as translated in subtitles in the theatre, was not at all embarrassing in the way operatic language often can be. The plot of this operatic western was pretty decent, too, especially in the world of opera stories, which admittedly do not set a very high standard for verisimilitude. Not only that, but the title-role soprano, Minnie, played by Miss Westbroek, did pull off the poker game scene, in which she wins by cheating, with plenty of aplomb.
There are several major supporting role and the overall chorus of miners performed well and convincingly. Kaufmann's performance was no less than superb--he possesses and knows well how to use his beautiful vocal instrument. I thought that Westbroek and Lučić also sang well and portrayed their characters well. The attractive Miss Westbroek also has the signature golden hair suggested in the English translation of the title.
So this turned out to be a satisfying operatic experience. I will confess that one cannot take the story any more seriously than Puccini's other plots and in that vein, I'm somewhat pleased that the opera actually--and rarely for opera--has a happy ending. Walking out of the theatre was definitely a pleasure because of the enjoyment engendered by the show.
Despite Fanciulla's status as an oddball among his oeuvre, I'd been planning to see it for ages but somehow never got to the theatre until last Saturday when we saw it in a movie theatre as part of the Metropolitan Opera's live broadcasts in HD. True, its problem, as usually argued, remains that it lacks the many wonderful arias and duets of the popular Puccini perennials. This opera does have one major aria--a tenor one near the end--which was added by the composer at the "suggestion" of the original performing tenor at the premiere, one Enrico Caruso. Not surprisingly, it is a fine piece.
What was most surprising, however, is that the opera itself was delightful. It did gain, of course, from an excellent new Met production as well as a top-drawer cast headed by Jonas Kaufmann, probably the reigning active tenor today, and Eva-Maria Westbroek, whom I had previously seen in Wagner, notably as Sieglinde in Die Walkuire. The villain of the piece is the baritone, the sheriff, Jack Rance, played by Željko Lučić, who is a fine singer, too, whom I recall from playing the title role in the Met's "Las Vegas"-set production of Rigoletto.
The dialogue, as translated in subtitles in the theatre, was not at all embarrassing in the way operatic language often can be. The plot of this operatic western was pretty decent, too, especially in the world of opera stories, which admittedly do not set a very high standard for verisimilitude. Not only that, but the title-role soprano, Minnie, played by Miss Westbroek, did pull off the poker game scene, in which she wins by cheating, with plenty of aplomb.
There are several major supporting role and the overall chorus of miners performed well and convincingly. Kaufmann's performance was no less than superb--he possesses and knows well how to use his beautiful vocal instrument. I thought that Westbroek and Lučić also sang well and portrayed their characters well. The attractive Miss Westbroek also has the signature golden hair suggested in the English translation of the title.
So this turned out to be a satisfying operatic experience. I will confess that one cannot take the story any more seriously than Puccini's other plots and in that vein, I'm somewhat pleased that the opera actually--and rarely for opera--has a happy ending. Walking out of the theatre was definitely a pleasure because of the enjoyment engendered by the show.
Monday, October 22, 2018
The Great Danbury Railway Fair
When I was growing up, one major attraction not too far away that almost everyone I knew wanted to visit was the "Great Danbury Fair." Danbury was not that far away in Western Connecticut and the fair, held in the autumn, was described in glowing terms that later were rekindled in me when I first read James Joyce's story, Araby, in which a boy longs to make it to a highly-touted fair and ends up being completely disappointed when he finally gets there.
In this case, I never managed to join up with some friends to go, and my father made it clear that he regarded this fair as a total tourist trap, which, who knows, it may well have been. I never even passed through Danbury until last weekend when we were staying there over a weekend when we were attending a nice family wedding out in the country about 20 miles north of Danbury near Candlewood Lake.
Having some free time on Saturday, I paid a visit to the Danbury Railway Museum, located in the heart of town where there is a large loop of tracks alongside a great old New Haven station. The old station, well-preserved, is now the museum and includes a large railyard in the middle of the loop where the museum maintains in various states of renovation a fleet of about 20 engines and other rolling stock.
Along the loop also stands a modern rail station that serves as the terminus of a Metro North branch line inherited from the New Haven, excuse me, the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, which maintained two stations in Mt. Vernon, where I grew up. This Danbury branch, which breaks off from the main Shore Line at Norwalk, once extended as far as Pittsfield, Mass. It is mentioned in a very good John P. Marquand novel, B.F.'s Daughter, in which a character boards a train on the now-abandoned stretch for Grand Central.
The museum in the old station has a good range of mainly New Haven memorabilia, especially good old maps. There are several layouts and dioramas of model trains and a gift shop featuring a wealth of old railroad books for sale at very reasonable prices. And on the platform where they were running brief three-car trips around the railyard ferrying passengers, mostly kids, to a pumpkin patch, a charming hot dog vendor was selling decent dogs with your choice of yellow or brown mustard and several other condiments. It's the first place I've found in years where he puts the mustard on and then the sauerkraut. It's those simple things that no one seems to know how to do any more.
In this case, I never managed to join up with some friends to go, and my father made it clear that he regarded this fair as a total tourist trap, which, who knows, it may well have been. I never even passed through Danbury until last weekend when we were staying there over a weekend when we were attending a nice family wedding out in the country about 20 miles north of Danbury near Candlewood Lake.
Having some free time on Saturday, I paid a visit to the Danbury Railway Museum, located in the heart of town where there is a large loop of tracks alongside a great old New Haven station. The old station, well-preserved, is now the museum and includes a large railyard in the middle of the loop where the museum maintains in various states of renovation a fleet of about 20 engines and other rolling stock.
Along the loop also stands a modern rail station that serves as the terminus of a Metro North branch line inherited from the New Haven, excuse me, the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, which maintained two stations in Mt. Vernon, where I grew up. This Danbury branch, which breaks off from the main Shore Line at Norwalk, once extended as far as Pittsfield, Mass. It is mentioned in a very good John P. Marquand novel, B.F.'s Daughter, in which a character boards a train on the now-abandoned stretch for Grand Central.
The museum in the old station has a good range of mainly New Haven memorabilia, especially good old maps. There are several layouts and dioramas of model trains and a gift shop featuring a wealth of old railroad books for sale at very reasonable prices. And on the platform where they were running brief three-car trips around the railyard ferrying passengers, mostly kids, to a pumpkin patch, a charming hot dog vendor was selling decent dogs with your choice of yellow or brown mustard and several other condiments. It's the first place I've found in years where he puts the mustard on and then the sauerkraut. It's those simple things that no one seems to know how to do any more.
Saturday, October 6, 2018
Listening to Lepore
Jill Lepore's essays in The New Yorker have been an adornment there for some time. She is of course a prominent historian, holding a chair at Harvard as well as a staff writer position on the magazine. Perhaps this demonstrates how her writing style is wonderfully enticing, but is accompanied by a piercing capacity to look at history from a different direction and provide enlightenment in areas previously undisturbed for eons.
She spoke at Politics and Prose bookstore in DC recently and accompanied her lecture with slides that illustrated how much of what we assume is totally new in American life, especially politics, has occurred before, or as she said, our history offers multiple precedents. I've started reading her lengthy new history of the U.S., These Truths, which expands on her essays but essentially focuses on the parts of American history she deems important and often previously ignored.
The overarching theme of the first section, for example, is the conflict between liberty and slavery that dominated the entire "discovery" and colonization of the New World. Examining the events of those centuries through this viewpoint gives new meaning to what were previously mere statements of what happened.
I've found her essays always stimulating. In several pages, she covers an amazing amount of ground, usually penetrating to the core of her subject. I've read several biographies of Clarence Darrow, including his own, but her short summary of his life, career, and significance did a better job of explicating the story of America's greatest lawyer than any of the longer works.
She wrote not long ago about the crime victims' movement in the U.S., something with which I've been involved now for several years. It struck me that she was the first analyst I've encountered who wrestled with the continuing tension between the rights of defendants and victims. This has not been easy to resolve nor should it be. Lepore forces us to confront these competing interests and strive to find ways to reconcile them.
She spoke at Politics and Prose bookstore in DC recently and accompanied her lecture with slides that illustrated how much of what we assume is totally new in American life, especially politics, has occurred before, or as she said, our history offers multiple precedents. I've started reading her lengthy new history of the U.S., These Truths, which expands on her essays but essentially focuses on the parts of American history she deems important and often previously ignored.
The overarching theme of the first section, for example, is the conflict between liberty and slavery that dominated the entire "discovery" and colonization of the New World. Examining the events of those centuries through this viewpoint gives new meaning to what were previously mere statements of what happened.
I've found her essays always stimulating. In several pages, she covers an amazing amount of ground, usually penetrating to the core of her subject. I've read several biographies of Clarence Darrow, including his own, but her short summary of his life, career, and significance did a better job of explicating the story of America's greatest lawyer than any of the longer works.
She wrote not long ago about the crime victims' movement in the U.S., something with which I've been involved now for several years. It struck me that she was the first analyst I've encountered who wrestled with the continuing tension between the rights of defendants and victims. This has not been easy to resolve nor should it be. Lepore forces us to confront these competing interests and strive to find ways to reconcile them.
Beckett and Lepore
Putting Beckett in the title of my last posting here turned out to be particularly Beckettian as by the time I finished going on about opera, I had totally forgotten to discuss Beckett. Each month, the Capital James Joyce Group meets at Politics and Prose bookstore in DC: after reading Joyce's novels and stories aloud, we decided to tackle three short Samuel Beckett novels.
Beckett's relationship to Joyce comes from their common origins in Ireland although the Protestant Beckett (1906-1989) went to Trinity College, Dublin, and Joyce (1882-1941), a Catholic, to University College. Both left Ireland to create their work and reside in exile. In Beckett's case, he was mostly in Paris, where when Joyce spent some years there, Beckett served as his secretary. Both, of course, charted totally new courses for the novel.
Beckett lived long enough to win the Nobel Prize in 1969. Beckett's prose is usually not as dense with allusion and other semi-hidden content as Joyce's; this does not make it any easier to read as his characters rant or reflect seemingly endlessly as they confront what generally looms in his work as the meaninglessness of existence. You can conclude that it does not matter where you pick up a Beckett novel because starting in at any point does not make much difference.
The pearls in Joyce are actually more obvious, excepting, as always, Finnegans Wake, which remains sui generis and probably resulted from his effort over the last two decades of his wife to virtually create a new language which incorporates the many others in which he was fluent. But in Ulysses, there is a generous view of life in 1904 Dublin, complete with humor as well as pathos.
Joyce's musicality makes reading his prose aloud lends a great deal to enjoying his work. Beckett also gains from hearing his writing aloud because his sometimes endless sentences and paragraphs can otherwise make it difficult to digest or even grasp what he's saying. If his characters didn't focus so much on the quotidian and the practical obstacles of life, which often results in humor, his stories would lean toward depression. His overall theme has been stated as despair followed by the will to live.
Beckett himself once addressed how he differed from Joyce: "I realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one’s material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realized that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding."
One critic once noted in describing Waiting for Godot that Beckett succeeded in writing a play in which nothing happens and then repeated in the second act what he had written in the first and so succeeded in writing a play where nothing happens twice. Godot, however has become much more accepted in the theatrical canon (which might disturb Beckett) because every time you see it (as with Joyce, his work plays more effectively than it reads), you discern more.
Beckett's relationship to Joyce comes from their common origins in Ireland although the Protestant Beckett (1906-1989) went to Trinity College, Dublin, and Joyce (1882-1941), a Catholic, to University College. Both left Ireland to create their work and reside in exile. In Beckett's case, he was mostly in Paris, where when Joyce spent some years there, Beckett served as his secretary. Both, of course, charted totally new courses for the novel.
Beckett lived long enough to win the Nobel Prize in 1969. Beckett's prose is usually not as dense with allusion and other semi-hidden content as Joyce's; this does not make it any easier to read as his characters rant or reflect seemingly endlessly as they confront what generally looms in his work as the meaninglessness of existence. You can conclude that it does not matter where you pick up a Beckett novel because starting in at any point does not make much difference.
The pearls in Joyce are actually more obvious, excepting, as always, Finnegans Wake, which remains sui generis and probably resulted from his effort over the last two decades of his wife to virtually create a new language which incorporates the many others in which he was fluent. But in Ulysses, there is a generous view of life in 1904 Dublin, complete with humor as well as pathos.
Joyce's musicality makes reading his prose aloud lends a great deal to enjoying his work. Beckett also gains from hearing his writing aloud because his sometimes endless sentences and paragraphs can otherwise make it difficult to digest or even grasp what he's saying. If his characters didn't focus so much on the quotidian and the practical obstacles of life, which often results in humor, his stories would lean toward depression. His overall theme has been stated as despair followed by the will to live.
Beckett himself once addressed how he differed from Joyce: "I realized that Joyce had gone as far as one could in the direction of knowing more, [being] in control of one’s material. He was always adding to it; you only have to look at his proofs to see that. I realized that my own way was in impoverishment, in lack of knowledge and in taking away, in subtracting rather than in adding."
One critic once noted in describing Waiting for Godot that Beckett succeeded in writing a play in which nothing happens and then repeated in the second act what he had written in the first and so succeeded in writing a play where nothing happens twice. Godot, however has become much more accepted in the theatrical canon (which might disturb Beckett) because every time you see it (as with Joyce, his work plays more effectively than it reads), you discern more.
Friday, October 5, 2018
An Operatic Interlude, then Beckett
Wednesday found me at the dress rehearsal for La Traviata at the Washington National Opera, as the local company is now styled. To my mind, this extremely popular Verdi mid-period opera may be the most delightful of operas when it comes to pure musicality and the singing opportunities it offers. The cast were all making their debuts at this company, which tells one little about their background: Venera Gimadieva as Violetta, Joshua Guerrero as Alfredo, and Lucas Meacham as his father, Giorgio.
Aside from leading the famous Brindisi, the drinking song, at the start of the first act, Alfredo has no major singing (he does join Violetta again in a brief duet) until the second act. Violetta is the star of the opening act with the two major arias that end the act: È strano! ... Ah, fors'è lui , in which she contemplates whether he is the one to take her away from her self-destructive partying life as a courtesan (to use the classic euphemism that is always used in describing her), and then Sempre libere (always free) which expresses her seeming choice to live her seemingly joyous life until her already likely early death from consumption.
These, together with the preceding party scene with the brindisi and love duet and general singing, make this act one of the glories of opera: just steady delightful song from orchestra and singers. Act Two introduces the not-so-nasty villain of the piece, Alfredo's father, Giorgio Germont, who urges Violetta to abandon Alfredo so that Alfredo's sister may marry successfully, which has been threatened by Alfredo's relationship with Violetta. She does follow his request and Alfredo storms after her.
The baritone here is far from the villainous Count de Luna of Il Trovatore or Don Carlo in La Forza del Destino. Those are Verdi baritone roles of unremitting evil. Giorgio is given a wonderful aria to make his position sympathetic, even in our very different time. Alfredo previously has had some good singing and to me, this first scene continues the uninterrupted delight of the first act.
Francesca Zambello, Washington Opera's artistic director (and also in charge of the Glimmerglass Opera) is directing this production, which does have excellent sets and costumes. She has chosen to place the intermission between the two scenes of Act Two, which is far from traditional, but which works well. Scene Two is Flora's party, There's some gypsy and Spanish "entertainment" featuring dancing girls and then Alfredo's denunciation of Violetta and encounter with her regular consort, the Baron, Giorgio appears to chide him.
After a scene change, Act Three takes place in Violetta's bedroom where she is dying. There is a carnival outside in Paris and this production makes the bedroom seem like a hospital word, a motif used in the opening pre-party Prelude before Act One. Alfredo and Giorgio appear to make amends before the well-played (in this production) death scene.
This is a frequently-performed opera; I've probably seen four or five different productions and heard more on the radio. All in all, this was a delightful operatic evening, with good singing and excellent conducting by Renato Palumbo.
Aside from leading the famous Brindisi, the drinking song, at the start of the first act, Alfredo has no major singing (he does join Violetta again in a brief duet) until the second act. Violetta is the star of the opening act with the two major arias that end the act: È strano! ... Ah, fors'è lui , in which she contemplates whether he is the one to take her away from her self-destructive partying life as a courtesan (to use the classic euphemism that is always used in describing her), and then Sempre libere (always free) which expresses her seeming choice to live her seemingly joyous life until her already likely early death from consumption.
These, together with the preceding party scene with the brindisi and love duet and general singing, make this act one of the glories of opera: just steady delightful song from orchestra and singers. Act Two introduces the not-so-nasty villain of the piece, Alfredo's father, Giorgio Germont, who urges Violetta to abandon Alfredo so that Alfredo's sister may marry successfully, which has been threatened by Alfredo's relationship with Violetta. She does follow his request and Alfredo storms after her.
The baritone here is far from the villainous Count de Luna of Il Trovatore or Don Carlo in La Forza del Destino. Those are Verdi baritone roles of unremitting evil. Giorgio is given a wonderful aria to make his position sympathetic, even in our very different time. Alfredo previously has had some good singing and to me, this first scene continues the uninterrupted delight of the first act.
Francesca Zambello, Washington Opera's artistic director (and also in charge of the Glimmerglass Opera) is directing this production, which does have excellent sets and costumes. She has chosen to place the intermission between the two scenes of Act Two, which is far from traditional, but which works well. Scene Two is Flora's party, There's some gypsy and Spanish "entertainment" featuring dancing girls and then Alfredo's denunciation of Violetta and encounter with her regular consort, the Baron, Giorgio appears to chide him.
After a scene change, Act Three takes place in Violetta's bedroom where she is dying. There is a carnival outside in Paris and this production makes the bedroom seem like a hospital word, a motif used in the opening pre-party Prelude before Act One. Alfredo and Giorgio appear to make amends before the well-played (in this production) death scene.
This is a frequently-performed opera; I've probably seen four or five different productions and heard more on the radio. All in all, this was a delightful operatic evening, with good singing and excellent conducting by Renato Palumbo.
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Refreshing My Legal Skills
I'm set to go back to work part-time. It's where I worked a few years ago--the Maryland Crime Victims' Resource Center. This time, I'm going to represent crime victims in administrative hearings and appeals to the courts. I was given the chance to attend a three-day training course offered to new Legal Aid attorneys by Maryland Legal Aid in Marriottsville, Maryland.
I opted in and attended, mainly because I've not been in a courtroom as a practitioner in a long time. It was both useful and fun--I got to hear some good, practical lecturers, mostly on evidence, and to make opening and closing statements, get documents admitted and an expert qualified, and conduct both direct and cross. The critiques--mostly by senior Legal Aid lawyers--were helpful and knowledgeable.
I likely was the oldest "new attorney" in attendance but that did not either bother me or make any difference. I was there to learn skills just like any other lawyer who hasn't been in the courts to try cases--in a long time, for me. One case was landlord-tenant and the other was child custody. They had been using the first for years and just made up the second.
To me, the best lecturer was a long-time practitioner who now runs a bar review. He might have been the only person there--and that includes all the other lecturers and senior staff who were the judges--older than me. He was highly pragmatic and urged us to just keep using the techniques he described because then they would become second nature.
Some have asked why I'm going back to work--even part-time. I'm not at all bored with what I'm doing now. I won't be getting enough money for it to make a major difference. So I don't have a good answer: it's probably because it seems like it could be both satisfying and useful--and also fun.
I opted in and attended, mainly because I've not been in a courtroom as a practitioner in a long time. It was both useful and fun--I got to hear some good, practical lecturers, mostly on evidence, and to make opening and closing statements, get documents admitted and an expert qualified, and conduct both direct and cross. The critiques--mostly by senior Legal Aid lawyers--were helpful and knowledgeable.
I likely was the oldest "new attorney" in attendance but that did not either bother me or make any difference. I was there to learn skills just like any other lawyer who hasn't been in the courts to try cases--in a long time, for me. One case was landlord-tenant and the other was child custody. They had been using the first for years and just made up the second.
To me, the best lecturer was a long-time practitioner who now runs a bar review. He might have been the only person there--and that includes all the other lecturers and senior staff who were the judges--older than me. He was highly pragmatic and urged us to just keep using the techniques he described because then they would become second nature.
Some have asked why I'm going back to work--even part-time. I'm not at all bored with what I'm doing now. I won't be getting enough money for it to make a major difference. So I don't have a good answer: it's probably because it seems like it could be both satisfying and useful--and also fun.
Sunday, September 9, 2018
'The Wife' and 'Crazy Rich Asians'
Two new movies: The Wife is based on one of Meg Wolitzer's early novels--her penultimate one, The Interestings, was very good. She writes wonderfully and in Glenn Close, her leading character was played perfectly.
Jonathan Pryce is also excellent as the supremely egotistical husband: I did not see him in the original Miss Saigon but I do recall his initial appearance on Broadway in Trevor Griffiths's play, Comedians, in which he plays a young British comedian with a totally different style. The promoter auditioning the comics discerns how good the young comic will be even though he realizes that his shtick is unlikely to succeed at first and in the provinces.
Close does deserve awards here and should get them even though I am skeptical of so-called sympathy votes. She should win this time on the merits. Her role requires her maintaining a closed exterior and as some reviews have noted, the movie does not include her witty lines in the novel as narrator.
Crazy Rich Asians is a fun picture, not to be taken too seriously but enjoyed. It's yet another example in our times of identity culture of a story that makes fun of its ethnic group but is seen as acceptable because the producers, cast, and crew are all member of the group. This does not take away from the picture's being well-made and clever.
Jonathan Pryce is also excellent as the supremely egotistical husband: I did not see him in the original Miss Saigon but I do recall his initial appearance on Broadway in Trevor Griffiths's play, Comedians, in which he plays a young British comedian with a totally different style. The promoter auditioning the comics discerns how good the young comic will be even though he realizes that his shtick is unlikely to succeed at first and in the provinces.
Close does deserve awards here and should get them even though I am skeptical of so-called sympathy votes. She should win this time on the merits. Her role requires her maintaining a closed exterior and as some reviews have noted, the movie does not include her witty lines in the novel as narrator.
Crazy Rich Asians is a fun picture, not to be taken too seriously but enjoyed. It's yet another example in our times of identity culture of a story that makes fun of its ethnic group but is seen as acceptable because the producers, cast, and crew are all member of the group. This does not take away from the picture's being well-made and clever.
Saturday, August 25, 2018
Retracing the Broadway Limited--Part II
So the link that demanded some scrutiny was between Cleveland and Pittsburgh. The Broadway Limited continued after Pittsburgh on the Pennsy Main Line and around Alliance, Ohio, which happens to be the only stop now between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, it headed west through Lima, Ohio, and on to Chicago. The train (Capitol Limited) now joins this Main Line eastward bound near Alliance, apparently on a Pennsy line that went to Cleveland and ended there. This whole segment was transited in the middle of the night so it was impossible to discern stations along the way that might have helped resolve the matter (I also was asleep a good deal of the time once we left Cleveland).
The first part of the trip resembled all train journeys from Chicago: leave Union Station to the south--the exceptions are northward-bound trains like the Empire Builder, headed for Minneapolis on the way to Portland and Seattle--and pass through the South Side, including a sweep past Guaranteed Rate Stadium, formerly White Sox Park, which replaced ancient Comiskey Park. I had been part of the 15,000 or so who watched the Sox rally to top the Twins--both mediocre American League clubs--the previous day.
Then we passed Lake Michigan on the left as the train sailed through Indiana, stopping at South Bend and then Elkhart before reaching Waterloo, which is now the station serving Ft. Wayne. Ft. Wayne was a station on the original Broadway Limited line, although the train did not stop there. Having enjoyed the prepackaged short ribs, I slept past Toledo and woke up as we edged into Cleveland, or a station that looked to be both new and nowhere near downtown. I can sleep on trains but this train slowed often, sometimes to let freights pass.
Arriving in Pittsburgh before daybreak, I had a two-hour layover before boarding the Pennsylvanian, the only other train that serves Pittsburgh. The platforms look ancient but the station is one of those newer Amtrak facilities designed for places with few trains. As we filed down the platform to the station, I passed a train on the facing track which, much to my surprise, the station agent--a gregarious, pleasant woman--told me was indeed the Pennsylvanian.
Two hours later we were on our way again, quite a few passengers having sat out the two-hour spell with me. Western Pennsylvania is rocky and mountainous, providing plenty of charming scenery. Greensburg is the first stop, about 40 minutes out, and has a wonderful old Pennsy station complete with clock tower. For a small town, it had a large building a block or so from the tracks that looked like a major hotel.
Next stop was Johnstown and you can see the mountains on both sides, where high up on one was the infamous dam built by the one-percenters of those days for their recreation. When it burst, that was the Johnstown Flood. Then on to Altoona, where the Pennsylvania Railroad had its major shops. Just before you come down into the foothills of the Alleghenies, we traversed the famous Horseshoe Curve, an engineering marvel built in 1854 and at its centre is a park where several visitors armed with cameras captured our eastbound train, one of two to pass by there daily. The Broadway did stop in Altoona (Harrisburg was its only other stop between Philly and Pittsburgh), probably to pick up another added engine going westbound up the Appalachian slopes.
We moved slowly into Harrisburg, coming down from Lewiston, then and now the closest stop to Penn State (not all that close). The line reaches the Susquehanna some miles above the state capital, then crosses the wide, island-filled, non-navigable river on a low bridge just before Harrisburg. In the old days the train must have used the now-abandoned multi-arched bridge right at Harrisburg. :Leaving Harrisburg--we lost some time getting through a work area before that stop--we continued downriver, almost to Three Mile Island, and could see its now-familiar three smokestacks.
The train moved smoothly now through neat Pennsylvania Dutch farmland to Lancaster. Eventually we reached what still is called the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia, beginning at Paoli, where we stopped. Then we passed multiple suburban stops until passing the last one, Overbrook, its high school perhaps Philly's most famous incubator of basketball players. 30th Street Station is actually the newest of the grand old stations with hundred-foot high plastered ceilings. The men's room was the scene of a tense encounter in the film Witness and you can get a decent cheesesteak and other good comestibles in the station, where I had another two-hour layover.
Had I remained on the Capitol Limited, I'd have arrived in Washington around 1 P.M. Now Amtrak was demanding a king's ransom to switch me onto one of the earlier trains I could've taken, so I enjoyed the always hard-hitting sports columnists of the Philadelphia Daily News, who couldn't decide whether they were more unhappy about the defending Super Bowl champ Eagles losing a preseason game to the Browns, possibly the NFL's worst team, or the Phillies for losing another. Since they remained six games ahead of the Nats, I figured they had little to complain about, but that's Philly sportswriters for you.
At last I boarded the train to Washington, which was amazingly on time and efficient, while also mostly empty since this was late on a summer Friday afternoon. It did improve my disposition by actually arriving in Union Station ten minutes early. The trip lived up to my expectations, especially, as anticipated, the classic section of the Broadway Limited route, now traversed from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia by the Pennsylvanian. The victuals served by its cafe car were well above average.
The first part of the trip resembled all train journeys from Chicago: leave Union Station to the south--the exceptions are northward-bound trains like the Empire Builder, headed for Minneapolis on the way to Portland and Seattle--and pass through the South Side, including a sweep past Guaranteed Rate Stadium, formerly White Sox Park, which replaced ancient Comiskey Park. I had been part of the 15,000 or so who watched the Sox rally to top the Twins--both mediocre American League clubs--the previous day.
Then we passed Lake Michigan on the left as the train sailed through Indiana, stopping at South Bend and then Elkhart before reaching Waterloo, which is now the station serving Ft. Wayne. Ft. Wayne was a station on the original Broadway Limited line, although the train did not stop there. Having enjoyed the prepackaged short ribs, I slept past Toledo and woke up as we edged into Cleveland, or a station that looked to be both new and nowhere near downtown. I can sleep on trains but this train slowed often, sometimes to let freights pass.
Arriving in Pittsburgh before daybreak, I had a two-hour layover before boarding the Pennsylvanian, the only other train that serves Pittsburgh. The platforms look ancient but the station is one of those newer Amtrak facilities designed for places with few trains. As we filed down the platform to the station, I passed a train on the facing track which, much to my surprise, the station agent--a gregarious, pleasant woman--told me was indeed the Pennsylvanian.
Two hours later we were on our way again, quite a few passengers having sat out the two-hour spell with me. Western Pennsylvania is rocky and mountainous, providing plenty of charming scenery. Greensburg is the first stop, about 40 minutes out, and has a wonderful old Pennsy station complete with clock tower. For a small town, it had a large building a block or so from the tracks that looked like a major hotel.
Next stop was Johnstown and you can see the mountains on both sides, where high up on one was the infamous dam built by the one-percenters of those days for their recreation. When it burst, that was the Johnstown Flood. Then on to Altoona, where the Pennsylvania Railroad had its major shops. Just before you come down into the foothills of the Alleghenies, we traversed the famous Horseshoe Curve, an engineering marvel built in 1854 and at its centre is a park where several visitors armed with cameras captured our eastbound train, one of two to pass by there daily. The Broadway did stop in Altoona (Harrisburg was its only other stop between Philly and Pittsburgh), probably to pick up another added engine going westbound up the Appalachian slopes.
We moved slowly into Harrisburg, coming down from Lewiston, then and now the closest stop to Penn State (not all that close). The line reaches the Susquehanna some miles above the state capital, then crosses the wide, island-filled, non-navigable river on a low bridge just before Harrisburg. In the old days the train must have used the now-abandoned multi-arched bridge right at Harrisburg. :Leaving Harrisburg--we lost some time getting through a work area before that stop--we continued downriver, almost to Three Mile Island, and could see its now-familiar three smokestacks.
The train moved smoothly now through neat Pennsylvania Dutch farmland to Lancaster. Eventually we reached what still is called the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia, beginning at Paoli, where we stopped. Then we passed multiple suburban stops until passing the last one, Overbrook, its high school perhaps Philly's most famous incubator of basketball players. 30th Street Station is actually the newest of the grand old stations with hundred-foot high plastered ceilings. The men's room was the scene of a tense encounter in the film Witness and you can get a decent cheesesteak and other good comestibles in the station, where I had another two-hour layover.
Had I remained on the Capitol Limited, I'd have arrived in Washington around 1 P.M. Now Amtrak was demanding a king's ransom to switch me onto one of the earlier trains I could've taken, so I enjoyed the always hard-hitting sports columnists of the Philadelphia Daily News, who couldn't decide whether they were more unhappy about the defending Super Bowl champ Eagles losing a preseason game to the Browns, possibly the NFL's worst team, or the Phillies for losing another. Since they remained six games ahead of the Nats, I figured they had little to complain about, but that's Philly sportswriters for you.
At last I boarded the train to Washington, which was amazingly on time and efficient, while also mostly empty since this was late on a summer Friday afternoon. It did improve my disposition by actually arriving in Union Station ten minutes early. The trip lived up to my expectations, especially, as anticipated, the classic section of the Broadway Limited route, now traversed from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia by the Pennsylvanian. The victuals served by its cafe car were well above average.
Retracing the Broadway Limited--Part I
Coming back from attending a conference in Chicago with Eileen, I opted to make the trip by train. She took the plane and arrived, of course, within hours. Not only did I arrange to travel on Amtrak but I included some connections to make the trip more interesting, although longer. (Eileen is willing to join me on rail for journeys no longer than one day and one night; this trip did meet that standard, if barely, since I departed Union Station, Chicago, at 6:40 P.M. and arrived at Union Station, D.C., at 7:40 P.M. the next day. There was precedent for her flying: when we were in the U.K. for almost a year, I traveled from London to Edinburgh on the famed Flying Scotsman, then a crack day train--Newcastle was the only intermediate stop--run by British Rail. She chose instead to go on the Flying Scotsman that flew.)
I started out on the Capitol Limited, Amtrak's fastest train between Chicago and Washington. There are two slower ways: the Lake Shore Limited, via the old New York Central "Water-Level" Route through Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, down the Hudson to New York, and then down the Northeast Corridor to Washington; and the Cardinal, through Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Charleston, White Sulphur Springs and Clifton Forge (for the Greenbrier and Homestead, respectively), Charlottesville, and Washington.
Having already ridden the Cardinal, which offers wonderful scenery in West Virginia especially, which would not be otherwise viewable except by hiking, but which is now one of Amtrak's smaller trains, with a tiny hard-pressed staff serving a sleeping car and combined diner-lounge. It now looks more attractive, because Amtrak is experimenting on the Capitol and Lake Shore Limiteds with prepackaged meals--the dinner was surprisingly good but I was at my first transfer point before it was time for what looked on the menu to be a rather uninspiring breakfast.
Instead, I was aiming to retrace the route of the Pennsylvania Railroad's one-time crack express between New York and Chicago--the Broadway Limited, the Pennsy's competitor to the New York Central's 20th Century Limited. Amtrak has chosen not to run the Broadway but does operate a day train between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia called the Pennsylvanian. My plan was to start on the Capitol Limited, change to the Pennsylvanian at Pittsburgh, and then board a Northeast Regional train at Philadelphia.
Both the Broadway and 20th Century Limiteds were exclusive, sleepers-only trains, with no coaches and no checked baggage. The Capitol Limited, which was one of the Baltimore & Ohio's top trains, was in that class, too, running from Baltimore to Washington, and thence west to Pittsburgh and Chicago. The Broadway listed its consist as a lounge car, at least ten sleepers, an observation car, and a diner.
Since the Broadway Limited route no longer functions in its entirety, I had to improvise as noted. But the first part of the Capitol Limited route actually uses the old 20th Century Limited (N.Y. Central) route from Chicago to Cleveland. From Pittsburgh, of course, the old Broadway route across Pennsylvania is the same as it was in the glory days. Coming into Philly, the train does head for 30th St. Station, while the Broadway turned north at the junction with what is now the Northeast Corridor (N.Y. to D.C.) route and headed to New York (Penn Station, naturally) only stopping at North Philadelphia in the Quaker City. (This is likely why Amtrak conductors for years would announce stops at 30th St. with the add-on "This is the only station stop in Philadelphia" because some trains turned west before reaching 30th St. but did stop at North Philadelphia, which comes before the turn-off.)
I started out on the Capitol Limited, Amtrak's fastest train between Chicago and Washington. There are two slower ways: the Lake Shore Limited, via the old New York Central "Water-Level" Route through Toledo, Cleveland, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, down the Hudson to New York, and then down the Northeast Corridor to Washington; and the Cardinal, through Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Charleston, White Sulphur Springs and Clifton Forge (for the Greenbrier and Homestead, respectively), Charlottesville, and Washington.
Having already ridden the Cardinal, which offers wonderful scenery in West Virginia especially, which would not be otherwise viewable except by hiking, but which is now one of Amtrak's smaller trains, with a tiny hard-pressed staff serving a sleeping car and combined diner-lounge. It now looks more attractive, because Amtrak is experimenting on the Capitol and Lake Shore Limiteds with prepackaged meals--the dinner was surprisingly good but I was at my first transfer point before it was time for what looked on the menu to be a rather uninspiring breakfast.
Instead, I was aiming to retrace the route of the Pennsylvania Railroad's one-time crack express between New York and Chicago--the Broadway Limited, the Pennsy's competitor to the New York Central's 20th Century Limited. Amtrak has chosen not to run the Broadway but does operate a day train between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia called the Pennsylvanian. My plan was to start on the Capitol Limited, change to the Pennsylvanian at Pittsburgh, and then board a Northeast Regional train at Philadelphia.
Both the Broadway and 20th Century Limiteds were exclusive, sleepers-only trains, with no coaches and no checked baggage. The Capitol Limited, which was one of the Baltimore & Ohio's top trains, was in that class, too, running from Baltimore to Washington, and thence west to Pittsburgh and Chicago. The Broadway listed its consist as a lounge car, at least ten sleepers, an observation car, and a diner.
Since the Broadway Limited route no longer functions in its entirety, I had to improvise as noted. But the first part of the Capitol Limited route actually uses the old 20th Century Limited (N.Y. Central) route from Chicago to Cleveland. From Pittsburgh, of course, the old Broadway route across Pennsylvania is the same as it was in the glory days. Coming into Philly, the train does head for 30th St. Station, while the Broadway turned north at the junction with what is now the Northeast Corridor (N.Y. to D.C.) route and headed to New York (Penn Station, naturally) only stopping at North Philadelphia in the Quaker City. (This is likely why Amtrak conductors for years would announce stops at 30th St. with the add-on "This is the only station stop in Philadelphia" because some trains turned west before reaching 30th St. but did stop at North Philadelphia, which comes before the turn-off.)
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Hockey Repeats NFL Disgrace
Ken Dryden laid it all out in an op-ed last week in the Washington Post. He listed the "enforcers" in the National Hockey League--the tough guys, usually defensemen--who died premature deaths owing to what was diagnosed after their passing as CTE, a neurological degenerative disease. The league, led by its commissioner, Gary Bettman, denies any connection between the slamming of players into the boards and hard falls, much less the fights that sometimes make you think this is where boxing has regenerated, and this brain disease that has been identified in the NFL as causing early deaths.
Dryden has been a Canadian cabinet minister, member of parliament, and Hockey Hall of Fame member, after his storied career as a multi-year Stanley Cup winner as the star goalie of the Montreal Canadiens. Before that, I saw him play as Cornell's goalie on the 1967 NCAA championship team. Known at the Big Red as "the Big Kid," his height and size helped make one of the all-time great stars tending goal.
His calling out the disgraceful denial by the hockey league stands in contrast to another Cornell alumnus, indeed a graduate of the same N.Y. State School of Industrial and Labor Relations there from which I graduated, the aforementioned commissioner of the NHL, one Gary Bettman. This mouthpiece for the hockey owners previously attracted attention for utilizing his knowledge of labor relations to engineer a lockout at the NHL a few years ago.
The owners cynically abandoned that season to beat down the players' efforts to win the compensation they deserve. Whenever I hear someone argue that the players, who are the ones who perform on the field and without whom there would be no game, much less a league, receive too much money, apparently in comparison with the owners, who glom a whole lot more, I recall one marvelous summation of the situation: "Who ever paid for an admission ticket to see an owner?"
The players are the ones who have shortened careers in their sports, especially because of the physical injury suffered so often by those in hockey and football, as well as shortened lives. The NFL is being dragged kicking and screaming into doing something about the frequency of players dying owing to CTE. The process of bringing both leagues into some sort of recognition and compensation for this tragedy will not be pretty but it is critical that it proceed--in the NHL through a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.
Those who bemoan the likelihood that the games will have to change should consider the advice to his nephew from the Count, the title character in Giuseppe de Lampedusa's classic, The Leopard: "For things to stay the same, things will have to change."
Dryden has been a Canadian cabinet minister, member of parliament, and Hockey Hall of Fame member, after his storied career as a multi-year Stanley Cup winner as the star goalie of the Montreal Canadiens. Before that, I saw him play as Cornell's goalie on the 1967 NCAA championship team. Known at the Big Red as "the Big Kid," his height and size helped make one of the all-time great stars tending goal.
His calling out the disgraceful denial by the hockey league stands in contrast to another Cornell alumnus, indeed a graduate of the same N.Y. State School of Industrial and Labor Relations there from which I graduated, the aforementioned commissioner of the NHL, one Gary Bettman. This mouthpiece for the hockey owners previously attracted attention for utilizing his knowledge of labor relations to engineer a lockout at the NHL a few years ago.
The owners cynically abandoned that season to beat down the players' efforts to win the compensation they deserve. Whenever I hear someone argue that the players, who are the ones who perform on the field and without whom there would be no game, much less a league, receive too much money, apparently in comparison with the owners, who glom a whole lot more, I recall one marvelous summation of the situation: "Who ever paid for an admission ticket to see an owner?"
The players are the ones who have shortened careers in their sports, especially because of the physical injury suffered so often by those in hockey and football, as well as shortened lives. The NFL is being dragged kicking and screaming into doing something about the frequency of players dying owing to CTE. The process of bringing both leagues into some sort of recognition and compensation for this tragedy will not be pretty but it is critical that it proceed--in the NHL through a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Minnesota.
Those who bemoan the likelihood that the games will have to change should consider the advice to his nephew from the Count, the title character in Giuseppe de Lampedusa's classic, The Leopard: "For things to stay the same, things will have to change."
Thursday, June 28, 2018
The Republican Kennedy
We may get a worse Supreme Court justice than Anthony Kennedy was. He wasn't a zealot and he seemed to have acquired a healthy attitude toward gay marriage, possibly from his clerks, and resisted the efforts to get rid of Roe v. Wade. That's about it for the positives. He was responsible for Citizens United and all the wretched reactionary decisions we have seen come down in the past week.
Kennedy was a privileged man from old-time northern California so he never had a need for a union and as a result, distrusted and probably despised them. He signed on to John Roberts's disgraceful conclusion that the Southern states and others which had discriminated against African Americans had changed their ways so we didn't need voting rights clearance of their repressive steps to disenfranchise minority citizens.
Kennedy's Supreme Court, on which he was the only remaining occasional swing vote, also has been perfectly happy to let the Republicans do everything they can to make it harder for people to vote. As a conservative, he's a bit like Potter Stewart, who was also quite conservative, but not a brilliant nut case like Scalia or a sleazebag like Thomas.
It's taken all these years and the #metoo movement to demonstrate that Anita Hill was telling the truth and that the defenders of Thomas, including himself and his outrageous wife who demands apologies from those who insisted on not forgetting his fraud, and that includes the holier-than-thou former minister, Sen. John Danforth of Missouri. Some of us still hold Joe Biden responsible because he let the Republicans run rings around him. I tend to let him off because he's done a lot of good since then.
The Supreme Court is not exactly a great aggregation of legal stars. Most revert to their political backgrounds, as O'Connor and now Kennedy have done, making sure a Republican president gets to replace them. Alito made it through confirmation with the help of some misguided colleagues on the Third Circuit who broke judicial impartiality by testifying for him, led by a nasty little man named Ed Becker. Of course, Gorsuch has been forced on us by the hypocrite Mitch McConnell and is just a down-the-line right winger like his mother, who stood out as an extremist in Reagan's day.
I can't say we have a lot of greatness on the other side either. Most of them are far from being true liberals. They seem progressive only in comparison with the five reactionaries. It seems like we have Van Devanter, Butler, Sutherland, and McReynolds there insofar as the right-wingers are concerned. But we lack the truly progressive and impressive minds of Douglas, Rutledge, Stone, Brandeis, and yes, Earl Warren, who showed you could be a Republican and care about this country, pace Lincoln, and who himself grew as his career moved forward, or Robert H. Jackson, the lawyers' lawyer and justice, who was a conservative Democrat.
Kennedy was a privileged man from old-time northern California so he never had a need for a union and as a result, distrusted and probably despised them. He signed on to John Roberts's disgraceful conclusion that the Southern states and others which had discriminated against African Americans had changed their ways so we didn't need voting rights clearance of their repressive steps to disenfranchise minority citizens.
Kennedy's Supreme Court, on which he was the only remaining occasional swing vote, also has been perfectly happy to let the Republicans do everything they can to make it harder for people to vote. As a conservative, he's a bit like Potter Stewart, who was also quite conservative, but not a brilliant nut case like Scalia or a sleazebag like Thomas.
It's taken all these years and the #metoo movement to demonstrate that Anita Hill was telling the truth and that the defenders of Thomas, including himself and his outrageous wife who demands apologies from those who insisted on not forgetting his fraud, and that includes the holier-than-thou former minister, Sen. John Danforth of Missouri. Some of us still hold Joe Biden responsible because he let the Republicans run rings around him. I tend to let him off because he's done a lot of good since then.
The Supreme Court is not exactly a great aggregation of legal stars. Most revert to their political backgrounds, as O'Connor and now Kennedy have done, making sure a Republican president gets to replace them. Alito made it through confirmation with the help of some misguided colleagues on the Third Circuit who broke judicial impartiality by testifying for him, led by a nasty little man named Ed Becker. Of course, Gorsuch has been forced on us by the hypocrite Mitch McConnell and is just a down-the-line right winger like his mother, who stood out as an extremist in Reagan's day.
I can't say we have a lot of greatness on the other side either. Most of them are far from being true liberals. They seem progressive only in comparison with the five reactionaries. It seems like we have Van Devanter, Butler, Sutherland, and McReynolds there insofar as the right-wingers are concerned. But we lack the truly progressive and impressive minds of Douglas, Rutledge, Stone, Brandeis, and yes, Earl Warren, who showed you could be a Republican and care about this country, pace Lincoln, and who himself grew as his career moved forward, or Robert H. Jackson, the lawyers' lawyer and justice, who was a conservative Democrat.
Friday, June 8, 2018
'Book Club' and 'R.B.G.'
Two movies we happened to catch lately provided good entertainment and RBG was a very worthwhile experience. Book Club features four actresses d'une certaine age, viz., Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Diane Keaton, and Mary Steenbergen, and the male component isn't bad either: Craig T. Nelson, Ed Begley Jr., Richard Dreyfuss, among them. Not a very great plot and not very well written, but the women are delightful to watch, and I didn't find myself checking my watch.
R.B.G. presents the life story, more or less, of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It's definitely well done. We see her from her Brooklyn origins, her school days at Cornell and Harvard Law, two places I have some familiarity with, and then her legal career and her ultimate appointment to the high court by Bill Clinton. Next time you're tempted to accept some derogatory remark about Bill, remember his Supreme Court appoiitnments compared with what we got from Bush II and the present incumbent.
The filmmakers gathered material from a lot of sources and they assembled it skillfully. This kind of documentary can drag but this one doesn't. I'm not sure the Justice is that fascinating in her own right but the picture presents her in a highly attractive and enjoyable manner. It also focuses on the major cases--both those she argued as a women's rights advocate and those she decided as a justice.
It cleverly presents Supreme Court arguments, which is a challenge, since they are not videotaped or otherwise recorded visually. This is the first film or TV show I've seen that actually shows you the Supreme Court courtroom as it really is, and then runs the soundtrack over those shots. The picture leaves you not only a fan of RBG's if you weren't already, but offers a fine picture of her entire career to support the highly positive image it provides.
One note on the always-mentioned surprising friendship between Justices Ginsburg and Scalia: I heard them both speak at a D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference some years ago. Both had served as judges on the circuit. Scalia was already on the Supreme Court. Both followed the standard practice of both justices and judges until quite recently: neither talk contained any content that related to pending cases, or any matter of current or past public interest. Scalia focused on one of his favorite topics: language. Ginsburg had been the chair of the conference and she spent most of her talk thanking her husband and "life partner," Martin, for his support.
Rather than feeling totally disappointed by the lack of content in these remarks, as I was then, I now appreciate that it was a really good idea for judges to stay out of involvement in current issues and controversies. It's better for them to bore you than to sacrifice at least their appearance of disinterestedness.
R.B.G. presents the life story, more or less, of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It's definitely well done. We see her from her Brooklyn origins, her school days at Cornell and Harvard Law, two places I have some familiarity with, and then her legal career and her ultimate appointment to the high court by Bill Clinton. Next time you're tempted to accept some derogatory remark about Bill, remember his Supreme Court appoiitnments compared with what we got from Bush II and the present incumbent.
The filmmakers gathered material from a lot of sources and they assembled it skillfully. This kind of documentary can drag but this one doesn't. I'm not sure the Justice is that fascinating in her own right but the picture presents her in a highly attractive and enjoyable manner. It also focuses on the major cases--both those she argued as a women's rights advocate and those she decided as a justice.
It cleverly presents Supreme Court arguments, which is a challenge, since they are not videotaped or otherwise recorded visually. This is the first film or TV show I've seen that actually shows you the Supreme Court courtroom as it really is, and then runs the soundtrack over those shots. The picture leaves you not only a fan of RBG's if you weren't already, but offers a fine picture of her entire career to support the highly positive image it provides.
One note on the always-mentioned surprising friendship between Justices Ginsburg and Scalia: I heard them both speak at a D.C. Circuit Judicial Conference some years ago. Both had served as judges on the circuit. Scalia was already on the Supreme Court. Both followed the standard practice of both justices and judges until quite recently: neither talk contained any content that related to pending cases, or any matter of current or past public interest. Scalia focused on one of his favorite topics: language. Ginsburg had been the chair of the conference and she spent most of her talk thanking her husband and "life partner," Martin, for his support.
Rather than feeling totally disappointed by the lack of content in these remarks, as I was then, I now appreciate that it was a really good idea for judges to stay out of involvement in current issues and controversies. It's better for them to bore you than to sacrifice at least their appearance of disinterestedness.
Friday, May 25, 2018
Waiting for Godot and Saint Joan
These were two marvelous evenings in the theater because both are wonderful plays. This was the third or fourth time I've seen Godot and each time, I feel I get more out of it. I catch more of what the characters are trying to say or trying to convey. This production was by the Druid company, of Galway, in Ireland. We almost saw them there last year as they were doing O'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, a classic that holds its value, too.
The actor playing Vladimir or Didi had a beautiful West-of-Ireland accent, and as all four of the principals spoke, I felt more and more of what Beckett was doing came across. Existentialism and l'absurde as well, but it's not as cold and analytical as this play is sometimes thought to be. You do get to see people acting on their impulses rather than thinking anything out, even as they have all the time in the world to do that, but they do not choose to.
Saint Joan, which Shaw wrote in 1923, only three years after the Catholic Church got around to canonizing Jeanne d'Arc, is one of his best-written plays. There is the usual Shavian talk but it is more to the point here and he devotes much of it to making you understand all of the different motivations that made it in almost everyone's interest to burn the future saint at the stake for heresy. Political necessity was regarded highly then by both the English and the French.
This was presented at the Folger by the Bedlam company out of New York. Four players covered all the 27 parts, and the actress playing Joan only played her. They were magnificent. The play came across in all its power--its "six scenes and an epilogue" which played for about 3 1/4 hours. I always love the epilogue where Joan gets to appear in Charles VII's dream, along with the other major characters. How they all flee or run for cover when she suggests, now taking account of her status as a saint, that she should return to earth as a living being.
"When will this beautiful green earth be ready to receive its saints? How long, O Lord, how long?" is her closing line. Saint Joan was the second play I ever saw, in the '50s on Broadway with Siobhan McKenna. My first play had been Julie Harris in The Lark, by Jean Anouilh, translated by Lillian Hellman, with Boris Karloff as the Archbishop, also a play about Joan of Arc. I might have been pardoned then for assuming that all dramas featured Joan of Arc.
The actor playing Vladimir or Didi had a beautiful West-of-Ireland accent, and as all four of the principals spoke, I felt more and more of what Beckett was doing came across. Existentialism and l'absurde as well, but it's not as cold and analytical as this play is sometimes thought to be. You do get to see people acting on their impulses rather than thinking anything out, even as they have all the time in the world to do that, but they do not choose to.
Saint Joan, which Shaw wrote in 1923, only three years after the Catholic Church got around to canonizing Jeanne d'Arc, is one of his best-written plays. There is the usual Shavian talk but it is more to the point here and he devotes much of it to making you understand all of the different motivations that made it in almost everyone's interest to burn the future saint at the stake for heresy. Political necessity was regarded highly then by both the English and the French.
This was presented at the Folger by the Bedlam company out of New York. Four players covered all the 27 parts, and the actress playing Joan only played her. They were magnificent. The play came across in all its power--its "six scenes and an epilogue" which played for about 3 1/4 hours. I always love the epilogue where Joan gets to appear in Charles VII's dream, along with the other major characters. How they all flee or run for cover when she suggests, now taking account of her status as a saint, that she should return to earth as a living being.
"When will this beautiful green earth be ready to receive its saints? How long, O Lord, how long?" is her closing line. Saint Joan was the second play I ever saw, in the '50s on Broadway with Siobhan McKenna. My first play had been Julie Harris in The Lark, by Jean Anouilh, translated by Lillian Hellman, with Boris Karloff as the Archbishop, also a play about Joan of Arc. I might have been pardoned then for assuming that all dramas featured Joan of Arc.
Monday, May 7, 2018
The 23rd Psalm
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Psalm 23.
A Psalm of David.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
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He restoreth my soul;
He guideth
me in paths of righteousness for His name's sake.
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Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.
Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me. |
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Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over. |
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Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow me all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
That is the 23rd Psalm as it appeared the copy of the Holy Scriptures, i.e., the Old Testament, when I was growing up. It is translated from the Masoretic text, and is very similar to the King James Version. It is absolutely beautiful and yet, you rarely get to hear it read aloud in this version. You will hear one or another so-called modern translations that might indeed be more accurate but are leaden and, frankly, awful.
As Dwight MacDonald said in his review of the Revised Standard Version in The New Yorker (and later, the New English Bible) many years ago, they have taken the poetry out of it. He noted that the King James was produced at a time when English was a language in which some of the greatest poetry was written--viz., Shakespeare and Milton, just to name two. Moreover, think of how many titles of all kinds of books--novels and plays especially--have been taken from these words, and not from the currently published revisions.
So every time I hear this great psalm read aloud or written, usually at funerals, unveilings, or memorial services, I cringe. The poetry is gone and no one seems to care. The officiants--be they Christian or Jewish--do not question the sorry text they are intoning. They do not notice that many in the congregation did grow up with the version based on the King James, and I suspect many find the new renditions as ugly as I do.
When you get a chance, tell your pastor about this and tell him or her that it matters. Some in the Jewish world might take umbrage at adhering to something labelled the King James Version. However, the editions handed out at every bar or bat mitzvah reflected use of the translation based on the Masoretic text--the only recognized or extant version of the Old Testament--and that text was translated then in a form--around the turn of the 20th Century, I believe--that was almost entirely the same as the King James. 'Tis a glorious thing, indeed.
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Friday, March 23, 2018
Three in the Air
On my thirteen-hour flight I managed to watch The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Mo., and The Party in a marathon movie extravaganza. Best first. Three Billboards was a much more powerful picture than I had expected. Frances McDormand is the real deal, a strong actress who commands the screen. Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell gave fine performances, too. I liked how the film showed the attitudes of the townspeople and the indomitable nature of McDormand's character, even when she is off on a crazed pursuit. As a drama, it was gripping, with one big scene after another. A true movie movie. I would've nominated Sandy Martin for Best Supporting Actress--she turns in a bravura turn as Rockwell's mom.
Shape of Water is no more than a fancier rendition of a traditional monster picture. Sally Hawkins plays an interesting version of the girl who falls for the monster and Octavia Spencer gets into her role as the friend at work who watches out for the girl. But: monster warms to girl, monster escapes, monster shows a few human touches, monster is pursued by Russian spies, chase is the last climactic segment, all predictable. Since the monster doesn't speak, Boris Karloff still is the standout in this kind of role. Best picture? They had to be kidding. Some clever lines and photography and nice use of 1950s settings.
The Party is a Brit black-and-whiter with lots of talk. Kristin Scott Thomas and Cherry Jones are always worth watching--since they remain two of our finest actresses. Jones usually is a stage standout so it's good to get a chance to see her on screen. Last time I had seen her was as a powerful Amanda in a Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie. It was fun seeing Bruno Ganz as an older guy--I remember him as the lead in Wim Wenders's The American Friend, drawn from one of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels. Timothy Spall just seems to stare at the camera. Patricia Clarkson is fun in a way as a real bitchy friend. But it all is a blur and adds up to a whole lot of nothing. These people have the problems all coteries have and their's are not all that enthralling.
Usually I like to relax on long flights with some classics. This time it was the Fred Astaire-Audrey Hepburn Funny Face. It is a classic Hollywood musical, set in Paris, with a collection of Gershwin songs and directed by Stanley Donen. Yes, it's fun but it is so 1950s that I started to have trouble sticking it out. Tried to decide whether Audrey Hepburn was doing her own singing or dancing. If she was, it was very good. Astaire always holds the attention and it is deservedly so. But the silly thin plotting here gets grueling. I kept thinking of the wonderfully titled (and delightfully written) John O'Hara story, Your Fah Neefah NeeFace, in which the characters remember a couple who would do wonderful imitations of Fred and Adele.
Shape of Water is no more than a fancier rendition of a traditional monster picture. Sally Hawkins plays an interesting version of the girl who falls for the monster and Octavia Spencer gets into her role as the friend at work who watches out for the girl. But: monster warms to girl, monster escapes, monster shows a few human touches, monster is pursued by Russian spies, chase is the last climactic segment, all predictable. Since the monster doesn't speak, Boris Karloff still is the standout in this kind of role. Best picture? They had to be kidding. Some clever lines and photography and nice use of 1950s settings.
The Party is a Brit black-and-whiter with lots of talk. Kristin Scott Thomas and Cherry Jones are always worth watching--since they remain two of our finest actresses. Jones usually is a stage standout so it's good to get a chance to see her on screen. Last time I had seen her was as a powerful Amanda in a Broadway revival of The Glass Menagerie. It was fun seeing Bruno Ganz as an older guy--I remember him as the lead in Wim Wenders's The American Friend, drawn from one of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels. Timothy Spall just seems to stare at the camera. Patricia Clarkson is fun in a way as a real bitchy friend. But it all is a blur and adds up to a whole lot of nothing. These people have the problems all coteries have and their's are not all that enthralling.
Usually I like to relax on long flights with some classics. This time it was the Fred Astaire-Audrey Hepburn Funny Face. It is a classic Hollywood musical, set in Paris, with a collection of Gershwin songs and directed by Stanley Donen. Yes, it's fun but it is so 1950s that I started to have trouble sticking it out. Tried to decide whether Audrey Hepburn was doing her own singing or dancing. If she was, it was very good. Astaire always holds the attention and it is deservedly so. But the silly thin plotting here gets grueling. I kept thinking of the wonderfully titled (and delightfully written) John O'Hara story, Your Fah Neefah NeeFace, in which the characters remember a couple who would do wonderful imitations of Fred and Adele.
Sunday, March 4, 2018
Three on Broadway
Had a nice long weekend in New York and saw three shows--Admissions, Come From Away, and Farinelli and the King. All were worth seeing.
Admissions is at the Mitzi Newhouse under the Vivian Beaumont in Lincoln Center. Drama by Joshua Harmon, who wrote the excellent and very funny Bad Jews which we saw here in DC a couple of years ago. This one has a director of admissions, the wife, at an elite New England private school where the head is her husband. She's big on diversity but then she is hit with it seeming to work against her son's applying to elite institutions.
This play raises good issues of hypocrisy and values. They are well presented by the players, although the burden here to me always rests on the playwright to make it work. I think it does, although I wasn't always sure we had been given enough about each character to make us accept everything that follows.
Come From Away is a musical--the current style which is steady music all through but which sounds basically the same. I liked it as a show--it moved, the cast was energetic, and they made the concept of the mob of air travellers who were stuck in Gander, Newfoundland, after September 11 work. The theme is the encounters between the air passengers and the locals. Lots of laughs and enjoyable, although, as noted, the music did not strike me as especially interesting.
Farinelli and the King was a more complicated affair altogether. A famed castrato singing Handel's opera in London is recruited to come to Spain to raise the spirits and cure the ailments of the reigning king, Philippe V. The play, her first, was written by Claire van Kampen, who is married to Mark Rylance, who plays the king, and, incidentally, is probably the finest working actor in the world today. There's some good dramatic tension because Rylance and the two performers who play the singer--one delivers the lines as an actor and another, a countertenor, sings the singing parts, which are arias from Handel's operas. Two countertenors share this part, apparently each singing every other performance.
There's been some commentary saying that the play is no big deal but Rylance is always worth seeing. I thought the play was fine and that the two title characters (Rylance (the King) and the singer) play off each other well. Rylance has the biggest part and is always a delight to behold. Supporting characters are good--the institutional figures pressuring each of the lead: in the case of the King, his chief minister, and in the case of Farinelli, his producer/manager in London who wants him back there. There's also another good character, the Queen, who comes from a fine Italian family and understands all.
Admissions is at the Mitzi Newhouse under the Vivian Beaumont in Lincoln Center. Drama by Joshua Harmon, who wrote the excellent and very funny Bad Jews which we saw here in DC a couple of years ago. This one has a director of admissions, the wife, at an elite New England private school where the head is her husband. She's big on diversity but then she is hit with it seeming to work against her son's applying to elite institutions.
This play raises good issues of hypocrisy and values. They are well presented by the players, although the burden here to me always rests on the playwright to make it work. I think it does, although I wasn't always sure we had been given enough about each character to make us accept everything that follows.
Come From Away is a musical--the current style which is steady music all through but which sounds basically the same. I liked it as a show--it moved, the cast was energetic, and they made the concept of the mob of air travellers who were stuck in Gander, Newfoundland, after September 11 work. The theme is the encounters between the air passengers and the locals. Lots of laughs and enjoyable, although, as noted, the music did not strike me as especially interesting.
Farinelli and the King was a more complicated affair altogether. A famed castrato singing Handel's opera in London is recruited to come to Spain to raise the spirits and cure the ailments of the reigning king, Philippe V. The play, her first, was written by Claire van Kampen, who is married to Mark Rylance, who plays the king, and, incidentally, is probably the finest working actor in the world today. There's some good dramatic tension because Rylance and the two performers who play the singer--one delivers the lines as an actor and another, a countertenor, sings the singing parts, which are arias from Handel's operas. Two countertenors share this part, apparently each singing every other performance.
There's been some commentary saying that the play is no big deal but Rylance is always worth seeing. I thought the play was fine and that the two title characters (Rylance (the King) and the singer) play off each other well. Rylance has the biggest part and is always a delight to behold. Supporting characters are good--the institutional figures pressuring each of the lead: in the case of the King, his chief minister, and in the case of Farinelli, his producer/manager in London who wants him back there. There's also another good character, the Queen, who comes from a fine Italian family and understands all.
Monday, February 26, 2018
Unions: You Had to Be There
There are two reasons why unions are on the run in the U.S. One, of course, is the largely successful campaign by corporate America to weaken and destroy them. This has grown in intensity even as the power of unions has diminished. It has succeeded because of the huge funds expended on it and because people who preach against inequality don't really believe in having a strong voice for the working people in this country.
This is written as it looks like the Supreme Court, probably by a 5-4 vote, will end the fair-share rules that enable unions to collect from workers in unionized workplaces who want to be free riders. Too many people--rarely those who have ever worked in a union environment--think this is a free-speech issue. It isn't. It is part of a steady campaign by Republicans on behalf of their donors to wipe out unions.
The people who aren't working class--middle managers, academics, intellectuals--all kinds of people who think they are superior to working people, they talk about doing something about inequality but they won't defend the one institution that did the most to make this country less unequal. And it's because they, most of the Democratic Party, all of them from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders, didn't find time to support unions and still haven't come forward now that the Supreme Court majority of reactionaries is about to do them in, that we are in this situation.
You haven't seen any newspaper editorials because media barons hate unions. There used to be powerful ones in the newspaper business and the barons have eventually kicked them out or weakened them. The Washington Post had a bad pressmen's strike years ago and has been anti-union ever since. The New York Times has never had a good word to say about unions nor have their "liberal" columnists.
Yes, I grew up in a family imbued with unions. I almost think you had to in order to recognize what they have done for middle America. No wonder the union members often turned to Trump: he meant none of his promises but he was the only candidate who bothered to at least affect an interest in working people. Hillary's managers figured they didn't need the unions. Great call that was. Bernie's people regarded unions as antediluvian. That's one reason why he couldn't have won.
So don't look to see great arguments for unions. The people who belonged and built them and still work for a living in this country--a small percentage still are represented by unions. The rest are mostly ignorant or suspicious. It's a shame that they are the ones who will suffer.
UPDATE (Feb. 27): Today the Times and the W. Post did publish editorials that favored the union position in the case argued yesterday at the Supreme Court. The Post's editorial supported a weaker position than the unions and their allies advanced in defense of a 40-year-old precedent.
This is written as it looks like the Supreme Court, probably by a 5-4 vote, will end the fair-share rules that enable unions to collect from workers in unionized workplaces who want to be free riders. Too many people--rarely those who have ever worked in a union environment--think this is a free-speech issue. It isn't. It is part of a steady campaign by Republicans on behalf of their donors to wipe out unions.
The people who aren't working class--middle managers, academics, intellectuals--all kinds of people who think they are superior to working people, they talk about doing something about inequality but they won't defend the one institution that did the most to make this country less unequal. And it's because they, most of the Democratic Party, all of them from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders, didn't find time to support unions and still haven't come forward now that the Supreme Court majority of reactionaries is about to do them in, that we are in this situation.
You haven't seen any newspaper editorials because media barons hate unions. There used to be powerful ones in the newspaper business and the barons have eventually kicked them out or weakened them. The Washington Post had a bad pressmen's strike years ago and has been anti-union ever since. The New York Times has never had a good word to say about unions nor have their "liberal" columnists.
Yes, I grew up in a family imbued with unions. I almost think you had to in order to recognize what they have done for middle America. No wonder the union members often turned to Trump: he meant none of his promises but he was the only candidate who bothered to at least affect an interest in working people. Hillary's managers figured they didn't need the unions. Great call that was. Bernie's people regarded unions as antediluvian. That's one reason why he couldn't have won.
So don't look to see great arguments for unions. The people who belonged and built them and still work for a living in this country--a small percentage still are represented by unions. The rest are mostly ignorant or suspicious. It's a shame that they are the ones who will suffer.
UPDATE (Feb. 27): Today the Times and the W. Post did publish editorials that favored the union position in the case argued yesterday at the Supreme Court. The Post's editorial supported a weaker position than the unions and their allies advanced in defense of a 40-year-old precedent.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
The Great Society
The second in this series of plays about LBJ which began with All the Way is now playing in D.C. at the arena and is titled The Great Society. Saw the first play in New York with Bryan Cranston starring. This production has Jack Willis in the lead, and he played the leading role when Arena did All the Way.
The theme of this play is more downbeat. LBJ starts enacting his domestic program but is consumed by Vietnam. Willis is good--he played the bartender in Lynn Nottage's Sweat, in which he excelled. The play, though, does not excite me the way the first one did and it wasn't just Cranston, who is a superb actor.
These plays do convey political history and there are good parts for Martin Luther King and J. Edgar Hoover, especially. But to me, the major shortcoming, and not totally fatal because it was an entertaining evening, arises from the usual rule that sequels don't match originals. The playwright's method is the same, many of the players are the same even if I didn't see the Arena production of the first play.
What of course was fascinating was to see this play in Washington. The audience was older so many likely recalled Lyndon Johnson. I wonder how many younger people have much idea of what he was about. They are unlikely to have plowed through the four volumes (a fifth is forthcoming, we hope) by Robert Caro, now in his late 70s.
Johnson made the Senate work. Until he let himself be undone by Vietnam, he also managed to get an amazing run of progressive legislation through Congress, at a time when he had to deal with reactionary Southern Democrats still controlling the committees in both houses. In the first play you were shown how he mastered the process. No one since has come close. It is worth remembering him and remembering what he did and what no one else could do, then or now.
The theme of this play is more downbeat. LBJ starts enacting his domestic program but is consumed by Vietnam. Willis is good--he played the bartender in Lynn Nottage's Sweat, in which he excelled. The play, though, does not excite me the way the first one did and it wasn't just Cranston, who is a superb actor.
These plays do convey political history and there are good parts for Martin Luther King and J. Edgar Hoover, especially. But to me, the major shortcoming, and not totally fatal because it was an entertaining evening, arises from the usual rule that sequels don't match originals. The playwright's method is the same, many of the players are the same even if I didn't see the Arena production of the first play.
What of course was fascinating was to see this play in Washington. The audience was older so many likely recalled Lyndon Johnson. I wonder how many younger people have much idea of what he was about. They are unlikely to have plowed through the four volumes (a fifth is forthcoming, we hope) by Robert Caro, now in his late 70s.
Johnson made the Senate work. Until he let himself be undone by Vietnam, he also managed to get an amazing run of progressive legislation through Congress, at a time when he had to deal with reactionary Southern Democrats still controlling the committees in both houses. In the first play you were shown how he mastered the process. No one since has come close. It is worth remembering him and remembering what he did and what no one else could do, then or now.
Monday, January 29, 2018
Songs All Weekend
It was a grand night for singing. We had figured out how to get free tickets for a performance at the Kogod Cradle theater in the Arena Stage complex of Leonard Bernstein's Theatre Songs, which was...just wonderful. The show was put on by about 15 students in Catholic University's Music Theatre program. They could sing--tough stuff like "Glitter and Be Gay" from Candide, and dance--the male chorus doing "Gee, Officer Krupke" from West Side Story.
The show moved from number to number without any wasted time spent on a book and was smoothly executed as if it had been staged by George Abbott. The kids were more than all right. They also had lots of charm and were constantly in motion, or so it seemed. Many songs were not that familiar--from On the Town and Wonderful Town.
All in all, a wonderful night out. Then on Sunday we enjoyed the cabaret put on by The IN Series at the Atlas. It was a marathon of Jerome Kern songs, only it also moved with some costuming and occasional dance steps. The performers were a few years older and used their get-ups to get into some of the songs.
The high point was the six straight numbers near the end of the second act from Showboat. Jarrod Lee even produced a very respectable and moving rendition of Ol' Man River. Short of Paul Robeson magically materializing onstage, it couldn't have been better. Suzanne Lane provided a nice presentation of Bill, the one song in the show that Kern threw in from his trunk, it having been written some years before with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse.
Once again, the show moved well and they packed a whole lot of songs in. Kern was a half-generation older than the great generation of songwriters--the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, for starters. So soon after the turn of the century, he was doing "How'd You Like to Spoon With Me" and lots of marvelous tunes like "They Didn't Believe Me" and then clever stuff like "She Didn't Say Yes" from The Cat and the Fiddle.
The show moved from number to number without any wasted time spent on a book and was smoothly executed as if it had been staged by George Abbott. The kids were more than all right. They also had lots of charm and were constantly in motion, or so it seemed. Many songs were not that familiar--from On the Town and Wonderful Town.
All in all, a wonderful night out. Then on Sunday we enjoyed the cabaret put on by The IN Series at the Atlas. It was a marathon of Jerome Kern songs, only it also moved with some costuming and occasional dance steps. The performers were a few years older and used their get-ups to get into some of the songs.
The high point was the six straight numbers near the end of the second act from Showboat. Jarrod Lee even produced a very respectable and moving rendition of Ol' Man River. Short of Paul Robeson magically materializing onstage, it couldn't have been better. Suzanne Lane provided a nice presentation of Bill, the one song in the show that Kern threw in from his trunk, it having been written some years before with lyrics by P. G. Wodehouse.
Once again, the show moved well and they packed a whole lot of songs in. Kern was a half-generation older than the great generation of songwriters--the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, for starters. So soon after the turn of the century, he was doing "How'd You Like to Spoon With Me" and lots of marvelous tunes like "They Didn't Believe Me" and then clever stuff like "She Didn't Say Yes" from The Cat and the Fiddle.
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