Thanksgiving (11 cents)

In a modern day replication of an ancient biblical tradition, each year a scapegoat (in this case a scapeturkey) is selected by the President of the United States, and pardoned from its otherwise anticipated sacrifice and allowed to live, presumably in some subliminal way to atone for our national sins (and we right now have many). This year, the 36 pound turkey is named Flyer and is pictured on the front page of the Style section of the Washington Post with President Bush and a number of children, under the caption "President Bush and a flock of kids make up this year's White House turkey tableau".

An editorial comment, or just the sad truth?

I read "Honky"

It's a book by an NYU sociology professor, who grew up white in a low income project south of the lower east side, where everyone else was black or Hispanic. I picked it up yesterday, and it looked like an easy read (it is under 200 pages) on a short night.

It's not a bad book, but don't bother looking for it (as if you would). In case you couldn't figure it out for yourself, if you are white and poor, you have many more chances to break from that economic situation than if you are black and poor, or Hispanic and poor. Particularly, if your grandparents are not so poor, and don't live in "the projects", and if your intellectual/artist parents know how to wangle you into Stuyvesant High School.

Enough said.

Bam, Clang, Ting, Brrrrmmmm

What fun!! "Constellations for Organ and Percussion" by Dan Locklair, performed this afternoon at The Church of the Epiphany by Leon Khoja-Eynatyan and Scott Hanoian. The percussion instruments were the marimba, two timpani, brake drum, suspended cymbol, three tom-toms, vibraphone, traingle, glockenspiel, xylophone, orchestral chimes and snare drum. Where did Khoja-Eynatyan learn to play this music? Studying at an institution in Moscow with the unlikely name of the Maimonides State Conservatory.

I am not sure where you can hear this piece, but you certainly should try.

Khoja-Eynatyan played a solo marimba piece called Tune for Mary O, by Rich O'Meara, written in honor and memory of his sister. A beautiful and sad and Irish elegy. Very nice.

Hanoian played Bach's Prelude and Fugue in B Minor, and he played it very well, but the stars of the show were the contemporary pieces.

Starbucks

So, I go into Starbucks. There are some customers sitting at tables, but I am the only one at the counter. There are two young women working there, a cashier and a barista. I order a small cup of black coffee. The cashier tells me it will be $1.60 and I pay her. She then says: what is your name?

I am trying to figure out what difference my name makes, and I ask her: "Do you need to know my name in order to give me a cup of coffee?" "Yes", she says, "what is your name?"

I tell her (naturally) "Arthur". She says "thank you".

In the meantime, the barista, who is standing about 20 inches to the cashier's left, has already poured the coffee. There is still no one else at the counter. The barista looks vaguely at me, as if there is a crowd around me and says, in a voice somewhat to loud: "Arthur?".

I say softly, "That's me".

She hands me the drink.

On to Serious Business

I just got back from Politics and Prose, where I heard retired Columbia U. German history professor Fritz Stern talk about his new book of memoirs, "Five Germanys I Have Known" (namely, Weimar, Nazi, Bundesrepublik, DDR and the new reunited Germany). And I quote from the Introduction:

"Decades of study and experience have persuaded me that the German roads to perdition, including National Socialism, were neither accidental nor inevitable. National Socialism had deep roots, and yet its growth could have been arrested. I was born into a world on the cusp of avoidable disaster. And I came to realize that no country is immune to the temptations of pseudo-religious movements of represssion such as those to which Germany succumbed. The fragility of freedom is the simplest and deepest lesson of my life and work...."

Of course, National Socialism had, as one of its most core positions, anti-semitism. It has always made me wonder whether Nazi philosophy without anti-semitism would have been a possibility and, if it had been implemented in that manner, what would have been the course of history in the twentieth century. (After all, Mussolini's fascism for years had no anti-Semitic facets, and there were many Jewish Italian fascists.)

But perhaps without anti-Semitism, National Socialism would not have been accepted by the German people; that is a question I cannot answer.

That brings me to another book that I read while we were going to, in and coming back from Hawaii. "Constantine's Sword" by James Carroll. This is the history of the relationship between the Catholic church and the Jews. I am not quoting Carroll here, but a loose paraphrase of his main thesis could be:

"Decades of study and experience have persuaded me that the Catholic roads to anti-Semitism were neither accidental nor inevitable. Catholic anti-Semitism had deep roots, yet its growth could have been arrested. And I came to realize that no church is immune to movements of repression such as those to which Catholicism has succumbed. The fragility of religious tolerance is the simplement and deepest lesson of my life and work...."

Which then leads me to a very thoughtful question asked by a young woman at the Stern presentation. Again to paraphrase, she said:

"Can there be any positive movement of national [or religious ?] identity that does not need to demonize others?"

Of course, here in the United States of America, we have a constitution that guarantees religious liberty, and a history that more or less supports that constitutional guaranty. But on Saturday, I was speaking to a friend, who believes that Islam is not (no longer) a religion, but is an international movement for world conquest that needs to be fought with all the strength that we can muster. He would amend the constitution to eliminate protection of Islam by the first amendment, he would drive out of the country all Muslims (maybe not members of the Black Muslim movement), he would have Congress declare war on Islam, and he would fire bomb them like Dresden and nuke them like Hiroshima.

And surely we know non-Jews, who believe that Judaism is not a religion, but a movement of international control and conquest.

To quote Vonnegut, "and so it goes".

So could it happen here? (I have never read Sinclair Lewis's book; should I?) Probably not, but I did pick up a book (that no one has picked up in 75 years, and very few before that) by former Georgia Congressman William D. Upshaw, published in 1923. The book contained various speeches that Upshaw had made, including one entitled "Justice to the Hebrew Soldiers", presented to Congress in 1920, and which was basically a plea for Jewish chaplains in the armed forces. What sounded like a right thinking position, being pressed for all the right reasons, ended like this:

"and I say this as my last word, that personally, as a Christian man myself, I would that every honest Hebrew would see in the Hebrew Christ the Messiah who has already come and who has meant so much to me in my own heart and life, but until he does, as long as the Hebrew soldier wishes his own rabbi as his teacher, then......I saw let the voice of the Hebrew soul be heard.

"and so it goes".

Where Have I Been? (6 cents)

This is a good question. But it has an easy answer. We were in Hawaii for two weeks. And now we are back.

There is a lot to write about about Hawaii (is there a prohibition against double prepositions?), but this is not the time or place. It would take too long.

Let's talk about what I saw upon my return to Washington.

First and foremost, I have a question for Police Chief (exiting) Ramsey, or for Police Chief (entering) Lanier: why were there seven (7) individuals directing traffic at the corner of Connecticut and K Street today?? Don't you think that six could have done just as good a job?

(That is not to say that the 7 were doing a good job. Tomorrow, let's try 8)

Giant Food's Training Program (36 cents)

Giant Food's Training Program leaves something to be desired.

I don't usually shop at Giant, but I made a quick stop last night to buy some peanut butter.

At the checkout stand, the young woman told me that it was $3.99. I gave her $4 and told her to keep the change. She seemed appreciative.

So far, so good.

Then, as I was leaving, what did she say? She said "see you again". "See you again?"

She obviously does not know the proper way to end a conversation with a supermarket customer. She should have said, of course, "paper or plastic".

I did not let her phase me. Not getting thrown off by her mistake, I looked her in the eye and said: "Paper or plastic to you, as well."

National Portrait Gallery and All that Jazz

The recently reopened National Portrait Gallery and Museum of American Art is an absolute treat. We spent a few hours there on Saturday, looking at the portraits of famous Americans, as well as the best of the portrait contest entries. More visits to come, with much more to say.

Saturday night we went to the Baird Auditorium to hear eight members of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra present a concert devoted to Billy Strayhorn music. Strayhorn wrote for the Ellington Band until his death at the age of 52, and although he stayed in the background, a significant number of the tunes and arrangements of Ellington's signature pieces were in fact by Strayhorn, or orchestrated by him.

Something to Live For, Multicolor Blue, Strange Feeling, Clementine, It Don't Mean a Thing if it Ain't Got That Swing, A Flower is a Lovesome Thing, Things Ain't What They Used to Be, Sitting and a-Rockin', All of a Sudden My Heart Sings, I'm Checking Out-Goombye, Satin Doll, Triple Play, What Else Can You Do with a Dream, UMMG, Tulip & Turnip, Daydreams, I Got it Bad and That Ain't Good, Take the A-Train.

Led by Loren Schoenberg, whose narration was informative and entertaining, with excellent vocals by Delores King Williams.

The audience was primarily white (strange for a jazz concert), and primarily old. Where is the younger generation? This was a program that anyone would have enjoyed.

Volcano (2 cents)

As we get ready to go to Hawaii (yes, you may not have known that), I read "Volcano", a beautifully written book by University of Oregon creative writing professor Garrett Hongo. Volcano is not Mauna Loa, but rather the town of Volcano, located near the timber line in the southeastern section of the Big Island.

Hongo's ancestry is not Hawaiian, but Japanese. In fact, Hawaiian natives are not to be found in this book. And Hongo, ethnic Japanese, who was raised in Los Angeles, discovers that his roots are in the town of Volcano, at the Hongo Store, founded by his grandfather, who like many Japanese came to Hawaii years ago to work in the sugar cane fields. Their lives were hard, the store was no supermarket, they had typical family issues, they were sent into detention camps during World War II, and they came to the mainland to try to get a fresh start.

But, like the Jews after the Holocaust, they were quiet about their experiences during the war, and it has only been recently that so many books about the Japanese experience have been written. But adolesence in Los Angeles was difficult. There was prejudice and, just as bad, lack of known history.

An adult writer, Hongo, his wife and young son, went to Hawaii for a sabbatical, and decided rent a house in the forest on the side of a mountain near Volcano. And here, Hongo finds his roots.

You get island history, you get a lot of family history, and you get an incredible amount about Hawaiian flora and fauna, and geology. And because Hongo is primarily a poet, you get all of this served up beautifully. Worth while even if you don't go to Hawaii.

books ($2.10)

Two recent books read.

"Chanel" by Axel Madsen. Not surprisingly, I knew little about fashion designer Coco Chanel, but in reading recent books I saw references to her ambiguous (at best) stance during World War II when she stayed in Paris, and befriended a German spy. And that intrigued me.

The Madsen biography was written fifteen years ago, and I did not know if it would whitewash her, but it didn't. It portrayed her as a very talented and interesting person, who life was fascinating.

Basically, she was orphaned early and grew up in a Catholic orphanage, a fact she tried to hide all her life. She learned to sew and got jobs at shops of various sorts in the rural area where she was born. She tried singing and dancing, and met her first nobleman and millionaire and that started a series of relationships that continued throughout her life.

She was attractive, if not beautiful. She was always quite thin. She was bright without being intellectual. Her interests were wide, including interests in hobnobbing with the wealthy.

One of her male friends funded her first business, but she proved very successful very quickly, both as an entrepeneur and as a designer. Catering to the individual tastes of her wealthy clientele, bucking fashion trends, creating casual clothes in a fancy era (in part as a result of shortages during World War I and the need for women to get jobs), creating recognizable trademark designs and encouraging them to be copied by others, developing pearls as a jewelry of choice, and of course Chanel No. 5 perfume.

She had Jewish friends. She was clearly a French patriot. She hated war. She did not seem to object to the anti-Jewish practices of Nazi Germany, and seemed to feel that occupation would be better than war. she thought that she could end the war, as an emissary to her old friend Churchill, going with German support. It didn't happen this way of course.

After the war, she fell out of fashion. She had lost control over most of her business.

She had no children. She never married. she was quite interesting.

Another Cheney Matter

Apparently, Congressman Rangel made it clear that President Bush has nothing to worry about if there is a Democratic Congress elected. Basically, he assured the president that impeachment was an impossibility as long as Cheney was vice president.

Vice President Cheney (8 cents)

Vice President Cheney says that he was being misunderstood. That he did not say that he approved of "waterboarding" (a type of torture, apparently) and that approving it was a no-brainer.

He says he does not believe that accepting waterboarding as being appropriate was a no-brainer.

What was he talking about then?

Perhaps, he was speaking of himself.

Finally a Good Radio Ad (12 cents)

After all my complaining, three cheers for Don Beyers Volvo. If only they weren't in far-out Virginia, and if only I wanted another Volvo.

Viva Laldjerie (11 cents)

We have subscribed to a short series of Sunday afternoon films at the Smithsonian's Ripley Center. The first was a 2004 film, Viva Laldjerie, set in Algiers, and made by a French-born Algerian-by-ancestry filmmaker. The film has received mixed reviews, but we found it very interesting and worthwhile.

Basically, it centers around three women: a former cabaret dancer/singer, her 27 year old daughter, and a prostitute. They live in a down and out residential hotel in Algiers. The daughter is the main character; she has had a 3 year relationship with a married physician, she picks up men here and there for one night stands, she works in a photo shop, she goes to clubs, but she dresses modestly on the street. Her mother's world was shattered when her husband died "of disgust" and Islamic fundamentalists took control (social, one assumes) of the town in which they lived. The prostitute is also a mentor to our heroine (not in prostitution but in accommodating to the world around them).

Algiers comes across as a city without personality. On purpose, one assumes. Is it a western, modern city? Maybe. Is it controlled by Islamic forces? Perhaps.

In fact, neither description would appear accurate. The city, without a personality, without a clear identity, does not appear to know how to describe itself. There are western commercial forces (viz., the traffic and the camera shop), and there Islamic forces (viz., the female dress).

Go back to the women. They are caught in the middle. If Algiers was a truly Islamicist city, they could not lead the double lives (public and private) that they lead; society would not allow it. If Algiers were a truly western city, they would not lead the double lives that they lead; there would be no necessity. But Algiers is neither one, nor the other.

And while you get the feeling that this state of non-identity cannot be permanent, you also get the feeling that, whatever happens to Algeria, it will not be for the better.

The film has been shown in Algeria, which is also interesting. Although the more explicit sexual scenes and scenes of female nudity were cut out, not surprisingly.

Why I will never be an expert in African art (11 cents)

Fon, Kota Baman, Kissi, Kongo, Nafana, Bembe, Boki, Yoruba, Tsogo, Attie, Lumbo, Senufo, Bullum, Edo, Idoma, Dogon.

Those are the groups resposible for the 23 works of art in the preview exhibit of the 525 item Disney Tishman collection at the Museum of African Art.

To understand the art in just this preview exhibit, you would need to understand something about the Fon, Kota, Baman, Kissi, Kongo, Nafana, Bembe, Boki, Yoruba, Tsogo, Attie, Lumbo, Senufo, Bullum, Edo and Idoma, not to mention the Dogon.

This says it all

The Washington Post reports that a few partially destroyed the United States Army Counterintelligence Facility at Ft. Meade. The sub-headline made it clear that American security was not adversely affected.

Three Disappointments in One Week (one cent)

A bit much, I'd say.

1. There is a major exhibit of Mexican paintings at the Ripley Center. It is the third Latin American exhibit that I have seen in the last year or so. The first was at the National Geographic and consisted of Peruvian works; the second also at the Ripley concentrated on 20th century Latin artists. Both were wonderful, and I assumed I would enjoy the all-Mexican exhibit to the same extent. There are about 100 works on display; they include works be the well known Diego Rivera, Tomayo, Sequieros and others. It is said that most have not been seen outside of Mexico. I didn't like any of them. It did not appear to me (but what do I know?) that any of the pieces, even those by first rate artists, were first rate pieces.

2. Then there was Saturday night supper at Nirvana, the Indian restaurant at 19th and K. It is a very busy place at lunch time, but at 6:30 on a Saturday night was virtually empty. It is a vegetarian restaurant, so I knew the menu would be no problem. Except that there was no menu, because it was Diwali, and there was a special all you can eat thali menu, with about 7 or 8 different dishes, served in those little tin dishes that is used for thalis. Diwali is a sweet holiday, and the dishes seemed all to be party starch and partly sugar. Big disappointment, especially at $20 a head.

3. Finally, as part of the Washington Performing Arts Society "edge" series, Israeli born cellis Maya Beiser performed last night at the Kennedy Center. Her show had been written up pre-performance both in the Post and the Jewish week. I knew it was a "performance artist" show, that there would be mixed media, and that the pieces were all very, very contemporary.

There is no question but that Beiser can play the cello. No question. but, with few exceptions, the pieces left me completely cold. The best (and my wife agreed) was a Cambodian piece called Khse Buon, written by Chinary Ung, who is not only a composer, but a scribe who has preserved much of Cambodian folk tradition. And a shorter piece called Feige/Antiphonal Song by Tan Dun matched the cello with a young Chinese woman singing a folk song of her particular ethnic tradition on a screen. We enjoyed that as well. But the highlight of the show, so they said, was a 40 minute song by Armenian composer (I guess, composer) Eve Beglarian, where there were seven tv screens of various sizes (all showing the same black and white video), the cello, and Beiser's speaking voice. It is called "I am writing to you from a far off country". It should have been called: "Sonata for solo cello, television and platitudes". Absolutely worthless, I thought, as must have some of the people that left in the middle.

But again, there is no question but that Beiser can play that cello.

The Influence of Ibsen on Hitler and the Chinese Fortune Cookie Industry (4 cents)

Last night, we saw Henrik Ibsen's "Enemy of the People" performed at the Washington Shakespeare Theatre. And it was a very good production of the 19th century drama about the doctor who discovers that the water in the town's baths is polluted and, rather than being the hero that he believes himself to be, turns into an 'enemy of the people' because of the potential effects on the town's economics and on the potential effects on the influence and reputation of the town's leadership.

What is the right thing to do? If your position is correct but will cause consequential damage, what should you do? How is public opinion formed? Should public opinion be what counts? When should deference be given to established leadership, and when to revolution? All this and more forms the core of the play.

U.S. Holocaust Museum scholar Steven Sage (see earlier post) has written a book which claims that Hitler was influenced by Ibsen, and acted out his conception of some of Ibsen's characters. "Enemy of the People" is one of the plays mentioned by Sage, who is quick to add that Ibsen was blameless, and that Hitler was the problem. But, I must say it was hard to see the connection watching the play. On the other hand, maybe with the play fresh in mind, it is time to look at the book.

But Ibsen's influence was not limited to Germany.

About ten years ago, I opened a fortune cookie at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant and received the odd 'fortune': "never wear your best pants when you are fighting for freedom". How random, I thought, where could that have come from.

Now, I know. When Dr. Stockmann's pants show a rip, he says to his wife: "you should never wear your best pants when you are fighting for freedom".

So, who writes fortune cookie fortunes? Down in the luck Ibsen scholars?

The night at the theater was odd in another way. The entire plebe class of the Naval Academy was in attendance, bedecked in their dress blues. Hardly anyone else. I felt I needed to apologize to the usher for forgetting my uniform at home.

Did the plebes like the play? I guess so. They clearly liked the young actress who played Stockman's daughter (and who was the only young woman in the production). She won by far on the applause meter. And turned a little red.

Toho Koto

The foreign minister of Japan, Yoriku Kawaguchi, gave an award in 2003 to the Washington Toho Koto Society for spreading the knowledge of Japanese music across the United States. Did they deserve it? Did they spread this knowledge to you?

Today, two society members, Kyoko Okamoto and Sachiko Smith (suspicious last name, Smith) played the koto and the shamisen at the Church of the Epiphany. When they started with a 16th century piece which seemed like discordant plings to me and nothing more, I said to myself: this may be two weeks in a row that I cannot sit through the entire hour, but.....

When they moved into the 20th century, things improved. Listening to this music is like looking at a Japanese print, or perhaps like reading a poem. It is not music like melody and harmony and rhythm. It is music like: let's set the mood, and luxuriate in it. Hana Ikeda (also known as flower petals) just brings up the delicate flowers floating down the stream or across the lake. Other offerings showed children at play at the ned of day, and showed autumn closing in.

So much sounds like raindrops, like the fountains in a Japanese garden.

Do Japanese whistle? If so, they don't whistle these songs, but they come out of the concerts as if they were in a transcendental meditation session.

By the way, does anyone know how Japanese music is written? Can't be with clefs, staffs and notes, can it? That would really be coincidenta.

Change the station, please

So everyone will know: I will change the station whenever I hear a Head-on or Activ-on commercial, a Geico commercial (except for ones with the gecko), a Melwood commercial, or a McDaniel College commercial. Broadcast stations, beware. Taking their money is not worth it.