Of course, the election remains Topic A, at least until November 6, and in Washington, needless to say, indefinitely. This has been a particularly frustrating election, based on the following observations:
1. Media pack behavior. Never before have the media behaved so totally within a pack mentality. The conventional wisdom is somehow fashioned amid the sturm und drang of the campaign and hardly anyone dares to offer observations that challenge it. Now instead of merely elevating the uninformed views of people randomly interviewed on the street to high commentary, we are offered "tweets" and attempts at "zingers" emanating from "spin rooms"--it's all totally bogus. Steve Allen really had it right as to the significance of the opinions of the "man in the street"--they usually were idiotic.
2. Built-in bias. The media still is susceptible to slick operators, and Romney certainly is one of those. So Obama is decried as condescending, out-to-lunch, and off his rocker when he appears to be laid back in the first debate; Romney adopts a moderate, less contentious tone in the last and is praised as statesmanlike. Romney also blatantly discards his previous positions and rarely is called on it.
3. Campaign oratory. Wendell Willkie once admitted that "in moments of campaign oratory, we all expand a little." This time Romney has shown he will say anything and change any position to meet the immediate campaign need.Obama rarely exaggerates but the media are much more willing to turn on him and it isn't his incumbency because Bush II got the same "liberal media bending over backwards to be nice to him" treatment.
4. Obama's arrogance. The President has not received good advice or support from his top-level staff. He obviously doesn't enjoy these kinds of debates--since they aren't really debates in any normal meaning of the term, who of substance would?--but having agreed to them, he needed a much better strategy. His unwillingness to get down and work closely with pols of his own party also is hurting him. He seems to have few surrogates--few out there speaking for him. Bill Clinton has done far more than anyone might reasonable expected. Only at the convention did other Democrats show up, perhaps because Obama had not been there for them.
5. The ads. Yes, they're lying and awful. Apparently, as we have learned over decades, negative ads work. Some people clearly are influenced by them. It does make you recall that "no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public"--I can't remember whether that was Barnum or Mencken speaking.
We do get the leaders we deserve. Clarence Darrow said it best: "When I was a boy I was told anyone could grow up to become President. [He was speaking btw of CalvinCoolidge.] Now I'm beginning to believe it."
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Friday, October 12, 2012
Baseball's Back
Yes, the euphoria brought on by baseball could quickly dissipate if tonight's deciding game in the division series against St. Louis goes the wrong way. And in D.C., that's bad because the sleazeballs who run baseball already don't like Washington--having abandoned the nation's capital for years. But for the moment, it's a wonderful time. Even the always-pompous Thomas Boswell, self-described as America's preeminent baseball scribe, suggested today that last night's Nats walk-off win that evened the series was the first real baseball occasion here. And in a way, he got it right.
This team can drive you crazy--as can most teams for which I end up cheering. They lose big--12-4 and 8-0, the latter when I went to the first post-season game in 79 years played here. And being Washington, everything is open to argument. After all, the Homestead Grays, who played half their home games here in old Griffith Stadium, played in Negro National League championship in 1948, and still playing stars like Buck Leonard then--Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, and Larry Doby having departed the NNL for the white majors, with Satch and Doby playing that fall for Cleveland in the World Series--I suspect they could have beaten more than half the major league teams then.
But then someone who got a big contract and a lot of abuse when he didn't produce--Jayson Werth, goes and hits the walk-off homer after a textbook at-bat where he waited and fouled off for the right pitch. I even remember Werth when he was being touted as an Oriole of the future playing for the Bowie BaySox ten-plus years ago. And as tall as he is, he was then a catcher, not an outfielder. All catchers aren't squat--remember Carlton Fisk and Jason Varitek.
It's wonderful to see how this turns the town on. Even last night's VP debate--usually Washington is the number-one audience for anything political--took second place, although the Nats had just won but the long-time local favorite, the Orioles, were just getting going up at Yankee Stadium. The O's also managed to pull out a Game 4 get-even special, with teenage phenom Manny Machado setting up a ninth-inning score.
A new game every day, including today, when I get to go yet again. Two days ago, disaster for both Nats and O's; yesterday, resplendent triumph. Now, of course, I so want to see the locals take out the Cards--always, like the Reds, the ever-dangerous "other team" so we can go up against my childhood favorites, the San Francisco, nee New York, Giants.
This team can drive you crazy--as can most teams for which I end up cheering. They lose big--12-4 and 8-0, the latter when I went to the first post-season game in 79 years played here. And being Washington, everything is open to argument. After all, the Homestead Grays, who played half their home games here in old Griffith Stadium, played in Negro National League championship in 1948, and still playing stars like Buck Leonard then--Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, and Larry Doby having departed the NNL for the white majors, with Satch and Doby playing that fall for Cleveland in the World Series--I suspect they could have beaten more than half the major league teams then.
But then someone who got a big contract and a lot of abuse when he didn't produce--Jayson Werth, goes and hits the walk-off homer after a textbook at-bat where he waited and fouled off for the right pitch. I even remember Werth when he was being touted as an Oriole of the future playing for the Bowie BaySox ten-plus years ago. And as tall as he is, he was then a catcher, not an outfielder. All catchers aren't squat--remember Carlton Fisk and Jason Varitek.
It's wonderful to see how this turns the town on. Even last night's VP debate--usually Washington is the number-one audience for anything political--took second place, although the Nats had just won but the long-time local favorite, the Orioles, were just getting going up at Yankee Stadium. The O's also managed to pull out a Game 4 get-even special, with teenage phenom Manny Machado setting up a ninth-inning score.
A new game every day, including today, when I get to go yet again. Two days ago, disaster for both Nats and O's; yesterday, resplendent triumph. Now, of course, I so want to see the locals take out the Cards--always, like the Reds, the ever-dangerous "other team" so we can go up against my childhood favorites, the San Francisco, nee New York, Giants.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Theatre & Baseball
Last week I attended performances at Washington's two top theatres--the Shakespeare Theater Company and the Arena Stage--the one put on by the Shakespeare was really a production it was hosting for the National Theatre of Scotland, called Black Watch, and at the Arena, I saw Kathleen Turner appearing as Molly Ivins, the wonderfully funny and iconoclastic journalist who died much too early.
Another attraction last week that I enjoyed was the last game of the regular baseball season here, the Nats v. the Phillies, on Wednesday. Although the Nats had clinched first place in their division, this win gave them home-field advantage throughout the post-season as they ended up tied with the Reds for that distinction but prevail based on their superior season record against Cincinnati.
Black Watch is the account of how the storied regiment found being sent to Iraq as frustrating as every other elite military unit found that country. The U.K. has been way ahead of the U.S. in recognizing that their leadership blindly and foolishly followed Bush II into two needless wars, as Blair became what the British press described as "Bush's poodle". The play features about ten enlisted men who cannot comprehend why they are where they are, much less see their comrades killed or wounded in a country that doesn't want them there.
There were endless warnings issued about the gunfire, explosions, and strobe that would occur during the show, and you were told toseek an usher to help you out of the hall if you needed to leave and sternly reminded that no one would be readmitted during the performance. So yes, there were mortar-simulating sounds and all the rest but I don't quite understand the need for all the precautions that we now are treated to everywhere. This wasn't even a performance where actors run up and down the aisles--which is when I could understand having warnings not to step out into the aisle without taking great care.
I found the play unsatisfying because while it traces the glorious history of the regiment, then about to be amalgamated with other Scottish units, the message to me was lost in a lot of the extensive physical action onstage, which featured much choreographed somersaulting and other motion. Also, I'm embarrassed to note that despite the many months Eileen and I spent in the U.K. some years ago, including some time in Scotland, I did miss a lot of the dialogue and punch lines owing to my inability to catch both the exact phrasing and probably some slang as well. To anyone who has spent time in the service, of course, the constant use of four-letter words is totally appropriate and accurate.
Turner got the Texas accent down well, I thought, and in general, I liked her performance as the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, totally irreverent Ivins. I first read Ivins in a Houston alternative paper in the early 70s when I went to Houston to do some legal work. She struck me as a comer likely to move right up and out from that limited platform--and so she did, on to the Houston Chronicle and then the New York Times--which under Abe Rosenthal, was not yet ready to allow her unfiltered prose into its strictly-edited columns--and thence on to national TV and syndication.
Again, however, as has been the case with too many one-actor bio shows--especially about subjects with whom I'm in sympathy--the play came up short. It created a portrait of Ivins but it lacked that extra punch she always had in her writing and personal appearances. Turner did everything she could, I felt, but she needed better material. Perhaps they might have included even more of Ivins's own stuff.
The ballgame turned out to be the best entertainment of the week,partly because the Nats managed to hold on to a lead and also because Teddy Roosevelt, perennial loser (526 times) in every fourth-inning Presidents Race--the four on Mt Rushmore are the competitors, won for the first time. There have been plenty of Let Teddy Win banners at the park and during the last week, Teddy was the main promotional subject--the day I was there, they gave out Teddy pins.
Some suggested that this was challenging a jinx--baseball adores superstition. Others said they should have kept it going and referred to Charles Schulz's assuring all Peanuts readers that Charlie Brown never was going to be allowed to kick the football. I suggest that it was appropriate for the last game of the regular season, since there's too much other sturm und drang when the post-season gets started. Maybe Teddy will go on another losing streak for a few months, days, or decades.
It reminded me of another great losing record--that of the Red Klotz-led white teams who were the perennial victims of the Harlem Globetrotters. They were usually, as it happened, dubbed the Washington Generals--and our current Wizards have but a slightly better record--or the Boston Shamrocks or Hawaiian Pineapples: as you can see, cliches were them. Their overall record against the Globies was something like 8-3,500. When a writer asked Klotz what it was like on one of those rare occasions when they beat the once- fabulously talented and still-beloved Globies, he answered: "It was as if they shot Santa Claus."
Another attraction last week that I enjoyed was the last game of the regular baseball season here, the Nats v. the Phillies, on Wednesday. Although the Nats had clinched first place in their division, this win gave them home-field advantage throughout the post-season as they ended up tied with the Reds for that distinction but prevail based on their superior season record against Cincinnati.
Black Watch is the account of how the storied regiment found being sent to Iraq as frustrating as every other elite military unit found that country. The U.K. has been way ahead of the U.S. in recognizing that their leadership blindly and foolishly followed Bush II into two needless wars, as Blair became what the British press described as "Bush's poodle". The play features about ten enlisted men who cannot comprehend why they are where they are, much less see their comrades killed or wounded in a country that doesn't want them there.
There were endless warnings issued about the gunfire, explosions, and strobe that would occur during the show, and you were told toseek an usher to help you out of the hall if you needed to leave and sternly reminded that no one would be readmitted during the performance. So yes, there were mortar-simulating sounds and all the rest but I don't quite understand the need for all the precautions that we now are treated to everywhere. This wasn't even a performance where actors run up and down the aisles--which is when I could understand having warnings not to step out into the aisle without taking great care.
I found the play unsatisfying because while it traces the glorious history of the regiment, then about to be amalgamated with other Scottish units, the message to me was lost in a lot of the extensive physical action onstage, which featured much choreographed somersaulting and other motion. Also, I'm embarrassed to note that despite the many months Eileen and I spent in the U.K. some years ago, including some time in Scotland, I did miss a lot of the dialogue and punch lines owing to my inability to catch both the exact phrasing and probably some slang as well. To anyone who has spent time in the service, of course, the constant use of four-letter words is totally appropriate and accurate.
Turner got the Texas accent down well, I thought, and in general, I liked her performance as the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, totally irreverent Ivins. I first read Ivins in a Houston alternative paper in the early 70s when I went to Houston to do some legal work. She struck me as a comer likely to move right up and out from that limited platform--and so she did, on to the Houston Chronicle and then the New York Times--which under Abe Rosenthal, was not yet ready to allow her unfiltered prose into its strictly-edited columns--and thence on to national TV and syndication.
Again, however, as has been the case with too many one-actor bio shows--especially about subjects with whom I'm in sympathy--the play came up short. It created a portrait of Ivins but it lacked that extra punch she always had in her writing and personal appearances. Turner did everything she could, I felt, but she needed better material. Perhaps they might have included even more of Ivins's own stuff.
The ballgame turned out to be the best entertainment of the week,partly because the Nats managed to hold on to a lead and also because Teddy Roosevelt, perennial loser (526 times) in every fourth-inning Presidents Race--the four on Mt Rushmore are the competitors, won for the first time. There have been plenty of Let Teddy Win banners at the park and during the last week, Teddy was the main promotional subject--the day I was there, they gave out Teddy pins.
Some suggested that this was challenging a jinx--baseball adores superstition. Others said they should have kept it going and referred to Charles Schulz's assuring all Peanuts readers that Charlie Brown never was going to be allowed to kick the football. I suggest that it was appropriate for the last game of the regular season, since there's too much other sturm und drang when the post-season gets started. Maybe Teddy will go on another losing streak for a few months, days, or decades.
It reminded me of another great losing record--that of the Red Klotz-led white teams who were the perennial victims of the Harlem Globetrotters. They were usually, as it happened, dubbed the Washington Generals--and our current Wizards have but a slightly better record--or the Boston Shamrocks or Hawaiian Pineapples: as you can see, cliches were them. Their overall record against the Globies was something like 8-3,500. When a writer asked Klotz what it was like on one of those rare occasions when they beat the once- fabulously talented and still-beloved Globies, he answered: "It was as if they shot Santa Claus."
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Class Actions--The Basic Problem
While I've tended to support the concept of class actions in the federal courts (and in any state courts where they exist), largely because they are one of the few means of countering total domination of our legal system by the large corporations as well as to secure recompense for flagrant disregard of public safety and even life by these corporate malefactors, it's become harder and harder to continue to justify that support. And the principal offenders are the lawyers who make huge profits from these cases -- the corporations do well too, because they expend a few million to make what could be much larger claims disappear.
But the lawyers get huge payoffs while the members of the class, presumably the people who have been victimized and whom the whole process should be designed to make whole, get ridiculously little from the inevitable settlements. The courts have been complicit in this process by approving the settlements, although restrictive appellate rulings have left the trial courts little leeway in this regard.
Increasingly, the trial lawyers who specialize in these matters appear to be just as greedy and mercenary as the corporate defendants. I probably get a few notices a year telling me that if I bother to go to a huge amount of effort assembling documentation for transactions that usually occurred years ago, I may receive a paltry amount by way of my settlement payout. So neither the victims get much of anything nor do the corporations who perpetrated the offensive behavior-- and make no mistake, it usually is egregious -- pay much compared to what they might face if any of these actions ever went to trial. Of course, they might beat the rap entirely but either way, they suffer little.
Here's an example of the payment section of a notice I received today which indicates how ridiculous and insulting the treatment is that claimants receive:
"A cash payment of Twelve U.S. Dollars and Fifty Cents (U.S. $12.50) to each Settlement Class Member who submits a valid Claim Form in accordance with the procedure set forth below. In addition, the Settling Defendants have agreed to pay Class Counsel’s attorneys’ fees and costs not to exceed U.S. $1,200,000.00, Incentive Awards to the Class Representatives collectively totaling $3,000.00, and the administrative cost of the Settlement."
So the mightily profiting lawyers and corporate defendants give even the tiny number of named claimants a quick three grand and are off and running to enjoy their very ill-gotten gains. One despairs of any real reform of this system because corporate lobbyists will merely use the disproportionate reward of plaintiffs' counsel to restrict use of class actions further. In this respect, Ralph Nader -- who has lost my support mostly for his helping Bush steal the 1980 election by running as a third-party candidate -- has been right to support the use of class actions. But I do think that plaintiffs' counsel could show a bit of good faith to the best traditions of the bar by acting to increase the share that goes to claimants coming from the lawyers' huge payout and yes, from getting the corporate defendants to pay up more for the good deal they are getting, despite their cries of oppression. They should only know what oppression really is.
But the lawyers get huge payoffs while the members of the class, presumably the people who have been victimized and whom the whole process should be designed to make whole, get ridiculously little from the inevitable settlements. The courts have been complicit in this process by approving the settlements, although restrictive appellate rulings have left the trial courts little leeway in this regard.
Increasingly, the trial lawyers who specialize in these matters appear to be just as greedy and mercenary as the corporate defendants. I probably get a few notices a year telling me that if I bother to go to a huge amount of effort assembling documentation for transactions that usually occurred years ago, I may receive a paltry amount by way of my settlement payout. So neither the victims get much of anything nor do the corporations who perpetrated the offensive behavior-- and make no mistake, it usually is egregious -- pay much compared to what they might face if any of these actions ever went to trial. Of course, they might beat the rap entirely but either way, they suffer little.
Here's an example of the payment section of a notice I received today which indicates how ridiculous and insulting the treatment is that claimants receive:
"A cash payment of Twelve U.S. Dollars and Fifty Cents (U.S. $12.50) to each Settlement Class Member who submits a valid Claim Form in accordance with the procedure set forth below. In addition, the Settling Defendants have agreed to pay Class Counsel’s attorneys’ fees and costs not to exceed U.S. $1,200,000.00, Incentive Awards to the Class Representatives collectively totaling $3,000.00, and the administrative cost of the Settlement."
So the mightily profiting lawyers and corporate defendants give even the tiny number of named claimants a quick three grand and are off and running to enjoy their very ill-gotten gains. One despairs of any real reform of this system because corporate lobbyists will merely use the disproportionate reward of plaintiffs' counsel to restrict use of class actions further. In this respect, Ralph Nader -- who has lost my support mostly for his helping Bush steal the 1980 election by running as a third-party candidate -- has been right to support the use of class actions. But I do think that plaintiffs' counsel could show a bit of good faith to the best traditions of the bar by acting to increase the share that goes to claimants coming from the lawyers' huge payout and yes, from getting the corporate defendants to pay up more for the good deal they are getting, despite their cries of oppression. They should only know what oppression really is.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Ibsen and Inge at the Shaw Fest
It turned out that the plays we wanted to see on the day we had to go to the Shaw Festival were Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and William Inge's Come Back, Little Sheba; both productions were terrific, although the weight of the combined drama for the day did make us consider whether we might have lightened the atmosphere by seeing an adaptation of the Howard Hawks movie, His Girl Friday, which itself was an adaptation of the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur classic play, The Front Page.
This year's Shaw, which was playing the next day, seemed less world-shaking: The Millionairess and Misalliance. Normally, had they been on the day we were available, I might have opted for at least one, having seen neither previously. But, of what we could choose from, we felt very pleased with the quality of the acting and the continued shine of the two works.
Even in our age of instant obsolescence, Ibsen remains. to use the cliche, relevant. I felt Hedda was the flip side of Nora in A Doll's House, in that she is a spoiled, arrogant, and yes, somewhat evil, version of the bored Madame Bovary. Yet she never loses our interest because she seems so much more clever than the members of the rather unimpressive society we meet in the town where she is stuck. Only Judge Brack, whose role anticipates Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, is on to her, and yet he too would enjoy the chance for a fling, even at his comparatively advanced age.
Doc and Lola in Sheba are closer to us in time--around 1950 in some Midwestern city. Inge was the voice of the disaffected in the Midwest, just as his contemporaries Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller dealt with the South and the Northeast, respectively. People seethe beneath the veneer of politeness and their pretense of caring for one another. Old grievances fester and emerge with application of stimulants such as alcohol. Sex also rears its head--the complications are intensified by our knowledge that Inge was gay and in the closet and that his depression, also brought on heavily by his repeated failures to replicate the wild success on Broadway of his four best plays, of which this was the first, led to his suicide.
This was our first trip to this festival, situated in the incredibly twee little town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, which is just up the road a piece from the Canadian side of the Falls. The main drag reeks of gran turismo but after a day or so, it becomes pleasant. The floral displays are marvelous and some of the restaurants are excellent. The Canadian chain, Tim Horton's, is far superior to its closest U.S. equivalent, Dunkin Donuts. They had wonderful hot apple cider, for example. This is also a wine region, with wineries lining most of the main routes between the border crossings and the town.
I'm not entirely clear as to how they came to hold an annual celebration of G.B.S. but as a Shavian--in that I've enjoyed seeing his plays over the years, I'm glad they decided to do it. After all, what they call "the other festival" has no more connection with its honoree than the name of his birthplace. Driving through central and western, heck, all of upstate New York in the summer is always delightful, anyway. We passed through Geneseo for the first time on the way back, where the now highly-regarded state university is heralded as one of the nation's best smaller campuses.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Deerslayers Lost in the Stars
Cooperstown is no longer just about baseball. Now, a walk down Main Street might persuade you that baseball in this burg isn't everything, it's the only thing. Lots of souvenir shops beckon, but try as I might, I failed to find one where I could buy a Vic Raschi jersey--and none online so far either. But the Baseball Museum is terrific--exhibits much improved, lots of controversial issues are included, although the party line can still rankle, e.g., the theme that baseball expansion beginning in the early 50s was a good thing. And don't get me started on the designated hitter.
Anyway, it's lots of fun. They still show "Who's on First" over and over, and it's still better than their big new baseball celluloid extravaganza. But you can also listen to Mel Allen or Bob Prince or Red Barber call some innings--and clearly no one has yet figured out what to do about the steroids issue. The Hall of Fame itself--all those plaques--is frankly of little interest; the only importance of course is whether someone's in or out of it. It perfectly reflects the underlying chicanery and corruption that permeates the history of the game, so that's why Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver and Pete Rose should be there. Heck, they finally let Leo Durocher in, but only after he was dead long enough so they didn't have to see him standing up on the podium.
Eight miles or so up Otsego Lake--the Glimmerglass of the Fenimore Cooper novels--the Glimmerglass Opera Festival resides in a delightfully-sized theater. The highlight of our visit was the production of Kurt Weill's last musical work, Lost in the Stars, drawn from Alan Paton's novel of the immediate pre-apartheid times in South Africa, Cry, the Beloved Country. It's a magnificent piece of musical theater--denominated "musical tragedy" by Weill. The summer's artist-in-residence, baritone Eric Owens, played the lead and brought the whole show to the emotional heights it clearly could attain. He has both a fantastic voice and magnificent presence, both celebrated in the past few years as he has made his mark at the Met playing Alberich in two of Wagner's Ring operas--Das Rheingold and Goetterdaemerung.
The same night he was Amonasro in the "chamber opera" production of what usually is regarded as the last truly grand opera in the standard repertoire, Aida. While he was also wonderful in this traditional baritone role, he just blew the audience away as Stephen Kumalo in Lost in the Stars. The Aida production took up on the war theme, which is usually kept offstage in the opera. So there are uniformed soldiers all over the place and a unit set serves well to focus attention on the violence underlying the love triangle between tenor, soprano, and mezzo.
All the voices were fine, as was the conducting by the director of the Cairo Opera. We had earlier heard the Weill conductor, John DeMain, discuss how the production had restored some of Weill's original songs and added a reprise of the title song. Weill remains a fascinating 20th century composer--both for his work in Germany, such as The Threepenny Opera, written with Brecht's lyrics, and then after he fled to the States, his several Broadway shows, plus movie scores and other work. He was a major player in the movement of the 40s and 50s that brought operatic voices into Broadway musicals and created musicals than verged on the operatic. Gershwin really began this effort with Porgy and Bess, and Richard Rodgers built on that, especially with Carousel, as did Weill; the latter two produced great work despite the vast stylistic differences.
Books and lyrics were always the big problem, in my view, and George Gershwin, aided by his superb lyricist, his brother Ira, might have been the luckiest. I find that Oscar Hammerstein's words still seem heavy-handed and I expected little better from Maxwell Anderson's work here for Weill. Anderson was a major American playwright who is just about forgotten today, and surprisingly, he did a nice job with Paton's classic. Weill was well-served on an earlier musical, Lady in the Dark, by securing the services of Ira Gershwin for the first time since George's death.
As out-of-towners hitting two performances on the last day of the festival, we were invited to a picnic with the artistic director and some heavy hitters, that was moved indoors by a sudden shower but which was enjoyable anyway. We sat with a delightful lady who hosts the all-night classical music program on WQXR in New York and had delivered a lecture on Aida's relevance to the current Egyptian political currents.
By the by, should you find yourself in Cooperstown any time soon, and need to dine in what may be the most thriving metropolis in upstate New York, I'd recommend the New York Pizzeria, which is a short ride from the center of town. On the way north, we passed through Richfield Springs on U.S. 20, the old east-west route across New York State. Not only is the breakfast great at the Tally Ho, but there's even a branch of the New York Pizzeria down the street.
Anyway, it's lots of fun. They still show "Who's on First" over and over, and it's still better than their big new baseball celluloid extravaganza. But you can also listen to Mel Allen or Bob Prince or Red Barber call some innings--and clearly no one has yet figured out what to do about the steroids issue. The Hall of Fame itself--all those plaques--is frankly of little interest; the only importance of course is whether someone's in or out of it. It perfectly reflects the underlying chicanery and corruption that permeates the history of the game, so that's why Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver and Pete Rose should be there. Heck, they finally let Leo Durocher in, but only after he was dead long enough so they didn't have to see him standing up on the podium.
Eight miles or so up Otsego Lake--the Glimmerglass of the Fenimore Cooper novels--the Glimmerglass Opera Festival resides in a delightfully-sized theater. The highlight of our visit was the production of Kurt Weill's last musical work, Lost in the Stars, drawn from Alan Paton's novel of the immediate pre-apartheid times in South Africa, Cry, the Beloved Country. It's a magnificent piece of musical theater--denominated "musical tragedy" by Weill. The summer's artist-in-residence, baritone Eric Owens, played the lead and brought the whole show to the emotional heights it clearly could attain. He has both a fantastic voice and magnificent presence, both celebrated in the past few years as he has made his mark at the Met playing Alberich in two of Wagner's Ring operas--Das Rheingold and Goetterdaemerung.
The same night he was Amonasro in the "chamber opera" production of what usually is regarded as the last truly grand opera in the standard repertoire, Aida. While he was also wonderful in this traditional baritone role, he just blew the audience away as Stephen Kumalo in Lost in the Stars. The Aida production took up on the war theme, which is usually kept offstage in the opera. So there are uniformed soldiers all over the place and a unit set serves well to focus attention on the violence underlying the love triangle between tenor, soprano, and mezzo.
All the voices were fine, as was the conducting by the director of the Cairo Opera. We had earlier heard the Weill conductor, John DeMain, discuss how the production had restored some of Weill's original songs and added a reprise of the title song. Weill remains a fascinating 20th century composer--both for his work in Germany, such as The Threepenny Opera, written with Brecht's lyrics, and then after he fled to the States, his several Broadway shows, plus movie scores and other work. He was a major player in the movement of the 40s and 50s that brought operatic voices into Broadway musicals and created musicals than verged on the operatic. Gershwin really began this effort with Porgy and Bess, and Richard Rodgers built on that, especially with Carousel, as did Weill; the latter two produced great work despite the vast stylistic differences.
Books and lyrics were always the big problem, in my view, and George Gershwin, aided by his superb lyricist, his brother Ira, might have been the luckiest. I find that Oscar Hammerstein's words still seem heavy-handed and I expected little better from Maxwell Anderson's work here for Weill. Anderson was a major American playwright who is just about forgotten today, and surprisingly, he did a nice job with Paton's classic. Weill was well-served on an earlier musical, Lady in the Dark, by securing the services of Ira Gershwin for the first time since George's death.
As out-of-towners hitting two performances on the last day of the festival, we were invited to a picnic with the artistic director and some heavy hitters, that was moved indoors by a sudden shower but which was enjoyable anyway. We sat with a delightful lady who hosts the all-night classical music program on WQXR in New York and had delivered a lecture on Aida's relevance to the current Egyptian political currents.
By the by, should you find yourself in Cooperstown any time soon, and need to dine in what may be the most thriving metropolis in upstate New York, I'd recommend the New York Pizzeria, which is a short ride from the center of town. On the way north, we passed through Richfield Springs on U.S. 20, the old east-west route across New York State. Not only is the breakfast great at the Tally Ho, but there's even a branch of the New York Pizzeria down the street.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
The Phoney War
You can't turn on your TV these days without being deluged by the Super PAC ads and the DNC and RNC ones too. Most are awful but the big money is as always with the GOP as it always has been, since the media was mostly print and it supported the Republicans just as the corporate titans do now. What's in it for them? More of the don't-let-anything-trickle-down stuff we had with Bush Junior.
Our pundits act like Ryan has "new ideas"--none but Paul Krugman will say that they are terrible ideas, that all they will do is transfer even more to those that already have the most, not for their work but for their influence. As the late Jimmy Cannon would put it, it's a game only for suckers. People who believe they will win the lottery so they want to get rid of one of the few tools to even things up--the estate tax. We already give Medicare to the millionaires, who of course don't need it but take every red cent they can put their hands on.
Obama brought some of this on himself by trying to work with people who only want to destroy him and ignoring those who wanted to help him achieve his promise and his promises. But now he's the only game in town--sit it out and you get the worst of the worst. You can see it already in Rove's ads and the Supreme Court majority and Mitch McConnell trying to keep the political arena big bucks spenders from having to disclose what they're shelling out their millions for.
Of course the paid media are far more effective now than Hearst or the Chandlers or Col. McCormick were at their worst. We fall victim to news on the net that focuses of fashion victims rather than real ones. And the big money feeds lies that there's not enough opposition to fight when the "news" shows treat every issue as having two legitimate sides.
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