At the concert

One of the singers was a man with the general build of a Tolkien dwarf and a bald crown. Another was a pale thin hollow-cheeked woman who seemed to tremble a bit. A third was a grumpy young black man who kept tilting his head to the side as though he had a toothache or was trying to listen to a ball game on his radio.

This was the high school choir concert. There were various choirs, with the freshmen going first. One choir ditched their robes to do a pop number. Their robes made them look more dignified and mature. In their street clothes (well, one of the dancers had a skirt slit almost all the way up--not quite street clothes) they looked much younger. (and the male soloists needed some power in their voices)

The pop medley was lively, and the Gloriana competently done. The choir director's child was a senior that year, and she picked the Gloriana Masque partly as a salute to her husband--they'd had it in their wedding.

Route 66 and "What shall we do with a drunken sailor" and "Three little maids from school" and "Somewhere" (by Jasmine Christian, one of the students) reflect a little of the variety. The traditional salute to seniors ("May the road rise to greet you") was nicely done.

A good time was had by all: possibly because they made up an exclusion list beforehand. I saw the "do not admit" flier for the ticket seller, but didn't get the names. Some kids had apparently brought stink bombs before, but some preemptive action saved the day.

Conjugations

Irregular verbs are the bane of language students, but the textbooks ignore some other important conjugations completely. Herewith some simple examples:

First person	Second person	Third person
I am frugal	You are a penny pincher	He is a miser
I am adventurous in bed	You are kinky	He is perverted
I am witty	You are funny	He is a joker
I am just	You are strict	He is harsh
I am empathetic	You are emotional	He is gushy
I am apprehensive	You are fearful	He is a coward
I am eloquent	You are wordy	He is bombastic
I enjoy life	You overindulge	He is dissipated
I am flexible	You are fickle	He is unreliable
I am colorful	You are salty	He is coarse
I am unconvinced	You are doubting	He is cynical
I am stable	You are prosaic	He is boring
I am virtuous	You are ethical	He is strait-laced
I am generous	You are lavish	He is extravagant
I am noble	You are dignified	He is a snob
I am playful	You are a trifler	He is not serious
I am pert	You are flippant	He is insolent
I am courageous	You are a daredevil	He is reckless
I am authentic	You are transgressive	He is hateful

I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Youngest daughter was assigned this in school, so I read it. It is classed as a Young Adult book.

Ed is a taxi driver with no prospects and no ambition, with a mother who dislikes him, friends without ambition, some of whom are on the dole, and a platonic love for a woman who is afraid of love and so substitutes sex. The book opens with him face down on the floor during a bank robbery by an incompetent bank robber, whom he soon finds himself capturing. In the flurry of publicity, he receives in the mail an ace of diamonds with the lines 45 Edgar Street, midnight; 13 Harrison Avenue, 6 pm; and 6 Macedoni Street, 5:30 am.

He investigates and finds that, Amelie-like, he is to intervene in the lives of others. When he finally finishes, another message arrives.

The plot is pleasantly surreal, the language (first person) is grungy, and how he eventually figures out what to do on each occasion is left mysterious. An almost supernatural insight points him to his targets, and he (after watching and figuring) seems almost supernaturally guided into the right thing to do. I missed a detail or two, and thought for a long time that the story was set in Britain (actually Australia). The story arc is the maturing of the hero.

The story has some flaws. The priest he is supposed to help seems a bit uninterested in the supernatural, but perhaps that's the kind they get in Australia. Keith and Daryl seem to represent some kind of karmic balancing, but they don't mesh in the story well at all. The biggest howler is the penultimate chapter in which the author makes an appearance, wrapping up the mystery by saying that he managed everything. Perhaps Zusak is trying to make some point about God and omnipotence here (author=God), but more likely he is being self-indulgent.

You could do worse. I don't plan to buy it.

Divided by Faith

by Michael O Emerson and Christian Smith, Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America

I put off assessing this book for quite a while. I saw it referred to in Christianity Today, with the anecdote that it was given to pastors in a megachurch, one of whom was in tears after reading it. It sounded important.

The book is a history, with lots of survey information, of the modern racial reconciliation movement and how it ran aground; as told through the stories of some key figures. A key passage in the analysis is a description of two letters to Christianity Today:

But there are some perhaps subtle differences in her expression of reconciliation as compared with the black writer's letter. First, the letter from the black writer uses the vehicle of a personal letter to communicate from one race to another; the white writer, though, quickly individualizes the letter, claiming that she cannot speak for other whites. She also asks to be seen as an individual, not a member of a race, and says her goal is to treat individuals as individuals, regardless of color. This seems perfectly reasonable, but it has an important effect. The need to work for social justice and social equality between races is minimized, even dropped. If we are to focus on individuals only, then justice does not mean working against structures of inequality, but treating individuals as equals, regardless of the actual economic and political facts. Equality is spiritually and individually based, not temporally and socially based.

And in another place:

As Wellman noted, most white Americans honestly desire a color-blind society, and often oppose the color-conscious for that reason.

What is more, because most white evangelicals perceive racism as individual-level prejudice and discrimination, and do not view themselves as prejudiced people, they wonder why they must be challenged with problems they did not and do not cause. As they communicated to us over and over, they do not have much interracial contact, but when they do, they are friendly toward people they meet from other races, and some even claim healthy interracial friendships.

The idea is that the individualistic approach to salvation and sin and punishment makes whites unable to “see their advantage” while the corporate approach leads to a “social justice” based (and therefore inevitably political) religion.

The authors make the correlations clear, and their preferences come across clearly too. An inadvertent side effect of evangelical theology reinforces perspectives on race that are incompatible with “black” social justice theory, and which make communication much harder.

The work is limited in scope, of course, and there remain questions the authors did not deal with.

1. Is focusing on individual behavior the right thing to do? The authors, not being even amateur theologians, are not competent to address this question; and don't try.
2. What are the sources of advantage and of disadvantage? Only the most superficial analysis would say that these are due to current racism. There is a vicious feedback at work. The fruits of ghetto culture are crime and loss; the fruits of crime and loss are extra surveillance and distrust; and the extra surveillance and distrust feeds the ghetto culture. Don't bother trying to call me racist—history has seen this pattern many times: go look up NINA.
3. Once you have found the sources of advantage and disadvantage, what just means are usable to deal with them? “Affirmative action” is the tool everyone seems to talk about in the book, but a full theory and review of experience isn't possible in the scope of the book.
4. Is equality of opportunity or equality of result demanded? There isn't agreement on this in the political arena, and the answer informs all planning.

Fundamental political differences are sometimes outgrowths of theological differences. The traditional Muslim concept of the nature of law and the role of religion is not reconcilable with Western democracy. One can tweak it—magnifying the principle that “the ummah is never wrong” and that fallible men are required to interpret holy law—to create a concept that might be compatible; but that isn't what's being preached by the most influential groups.

I'm told Greek Orthodoxy also has issues with Western concepts of liberty—rulers are supposed to mandate, not just encourage, right behavior—but I need to study them more, and I may have this wrong. Certainly theological claims about the divine right of kings to rule as God's regents are part of Western history—and not compatible with democracy.

So one question is: To what extent ought we allow these theological/political differences to separate us?

Some differences make it impossible to worship together—the nature of the Lord's Supper/Holy Communion being one. We have to accept such divisions for the sake of peace. To the extent that a church is involved in attempting social change, it is hard to see how a single body can speak with two voices. Political involvement seems to require division.

One fundamental political division is between those for whom the basic rights are negative—the right to be protected from abuse by others; and those for whom rights include positive ones—the right to demand food or other basic services. It is easy to argue a duty exists to meet other's needs as a religious obligation, but rather a leap to assert that having these needs filled is a right enforceable against the non-religious, and chutzpah to claim that there is only one possible method of filling said needs. Enforcing the “positive rights” is necessarily more contentious, and must result in church divisions insofar as churches get involved in pushing for them.

You'd think that the “negative rights” would be less contentious, but this turns out not to be so. The right not to be killed (anti-abortion) is demanded by some denominations and given no better than lip service, if not downright opposition, by others. I've read some who said that abortion is evil but bans are unenforceable (though bans on sexism somehow are enforceable), and another who said that it was evil but – apparently he didn't like the company he'd be keeping if he supported a ban.

Read the book and think about the questions it asks. And the questions it doesn't.

The Clash of Civilizations and the New World Order

by Samuel Huntington

I suppose I'm the last person to have gotten around to reading this.

I can see why he's controversial. Telling the truth usually is.

Before I review the work, I should go over an aspect that's implicit in the book but never quite spelled out.

A nation is not durable if people are not willing to sacrifice for it. A man is willing to sacrifice for his wife and children, for his extended family, for his tribe—for those he feels a bond with. He will spend money on them, spend time on them, spend effort on them—if necessary risk his life for them. A nation lives by the same bonding. The citizens must be willing to pay taxes to aid other citizens they don't know, and be willing to risk life to defend other citizens.

Some governments rule largely by fear—pay or be beaten, join the army or die—but such conscripts tend to melt away or clutter the battlefield while the professionals fight. Or they can be bribed by the prospect of loot and slaves, but that's hard to maintain in a defensive war.

Of course not everybody has to feel such a bond, but enough have to be willing to fight for the country for it to be able to beat off enemies.

The commonality behind that bond varies. Friendship is a strong but very local bond—we have very few real friends, and not all that many acquaintances. Family bonds are farther reaching, and tribal ones reach still farther. Some nations are giant tribes—a single related people—like Japan (tiny minorities excepted). Some (like the USA) are both ideological and tribal. Some are religious and tribal—like Israel. Some nations are cultural/linguistic and tribal—like France, which is nominally (but not entirely) willing to welcome anyone convinced of the superiority of French culture and language.

If there is no common bond I doubt that the result is stable. Many empires through history simply disintegrated when the imperial force diminished. Think of Charlemagne's empire, or Alexander's. Even within a nation, if regions or groups stop thinking of themselves as part of the whole, the nation risks civil war and disintegration—think of China.

Where a commonality exists, whether of tribe or language or religion or ideology; it is possible to find some center for the people to rally round. Of course it doesn't have to be the central country—Pakistan is a good example here. The country was founded as a Muslim state, and is held together by religious adversity to its neighbors and inertia. The various tribes hate each other, but if they perceive an infidel threat they can unite—sometimes in extra-governmental ways.

When that commonality subsides, the nation starts to disintegrate. Somalia is a tribal nation, and you'd think that a single tribe with a single language and a single religion would be stable—but the sub-tribes vie for dominance, and it isn't. Ideologically-founded states (and to a lesser extent religiously based ones) face a similar threat. If the population loses enthusiasm for the ideology, it seems likely to split into tribes. The USSR was an ideologically based nation, and so is the USA. (Religions change more slowly than ideologies, since they are more all-encompassing descriptions of reality.)

With that preface understood, Huntington's book is a largely accurate description of the big international picture as driven by conflicts between major cultural groups. One might quibble with his divisions, but I don't plan to. I don't know enough of the interaction of Orthodox Christianity with the government to understand why “Russia” is supposed to be radically enough different as to be irreconcilable with the Catholic/Protestant West.

Huntington sees a rough division of the world into 8 civilizations: Sinic (China and its traditional client states), Japanese (sufficiently large and different enough from China to be distinguished), Western, Hindu, Islamic, Orthodox, African, and South American. “African” is sort of a geographic/racial catch-all, and South America leans strongly Western; but the rest have fairly distinguishable characteristics. A civilization often has a central state (like China or Russia), and partners/clients at several levels removed. These partners are sometimes enemies, of course—think of Vietnam and China. Vietnam's culture derives from China's, and their histories are intertwined—and Vietnam isn't always happy about that. He points out from recent history that the Orthodox states, despite apparent similarities to Western ones, have tended to band together rather than with their Catholic neighbors. Western civilization does not have a single core country, but instead 3 or 4.

Cultural influence is linked with military power which is inextricably linked with economic power, and the rise of non-Western economic power has allowed non-Western civilizations to wield influence they haven't seen in hundreds of years. The result is a multi-polar and substantially more volatile international scene. Every civilization can point to a time in its history when it was king of the hill, and regards that time as normative forever. Huntington doesn't give a lot of weight to ideological influence, or to the possibility of having central tenets of a culture change. They can change, as history shows. Christianity replaced paganism, and Islam destroyed the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations (as well as a lot of Eastern Christendom). It just took time (and some force).

Islam has a central location among the civilizations, and perhaps some of its “bloody borders” can be attributed to its being “in the middle,” but it seems clear enough that quite a bit of the conflict is intrinsic to Islam. At the moment the Islamic civilization has no core state, though several are vying for that position (Iran, Saudi-controlled Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey being the main contenders). It is unusual among the battling civilizations that it has virtually no economic productivity—oil is pretty much the only thing it has going for it.

The writing has some little gems: If Muslims allege that the West wars on Islam and if Westerners allege that Islamic groups war on the West, it seems reasonable to conclude that something very like a war is underway. This was pre-9/11, of course.

If the West is in relative decline, who will be the next big winner? Huntington thinks China, and marshals some reasonable arguments for that. He implicitly assumes that the Chinese economy won't collapse under the weight of political/personal-deal bad loans, and he may well be right. The penchant for Chinese to Chinese deals rather than transparent contracts increases the relative clout of Chinese in other societies, and the traditional approach of Chinese culture societies (weak states strive for position by allying with strong ones, rather than trying to maintain independence) also feeds into increasing Chinese dominance.

In any event, around the world we are learning that what we Westerners thought were universal values and rights aren't even close. Rule of law? Abolition of slavery? Individual autonomy? These seem to be as Western as Esperanto.

Perhaps. History shows us that cultures don't like to change, and can resist it violently. And it shows us that cultures sometimes change. Kemal's changes may not have taken root. But they still might, if something displaces the Islamist parties in Turkey. In a few generations. . .

If you haven't read the book yet, do so.

Fury by Henry Kuttner

A little light reading for a change. This is set in the same Venus as "Clash by Night," where the refugees from a destroyed earth live in undersea domes because the land is too hostile. An Immortal (long lived mutant families) baby is modified and raised as an ordinary man--with an overwhelming urge to power.

Kuttner was a very creative and thoughtful writer, and he took a hard look at what kind of man a Barbarossa or an Arthur might be. Sam's early years aren't adequate to explain his nature, and Kuttner would have been better off just describing him and saying that some people are like that. When he leaves Sam's early history behind and goes on to tell what happens when Sam's ambition meets the last hope of the fading Keeps, the story works well.

Of course his Venus is all wrong, and the technology sometimes a little off, but these are trifling matters compared to the telling of a good story. And it is a good story, with some wonderful little asides, such as the Logician's explanation of why prophecies have to be obscure.

Using radioactivity to grow

No, not giant ants. There's a hint that radiation can make melanin structures process some chemicals faster. The study report discusses fairly obscure metabolic processes, and has it is possible thats in it, but the results (suggested by the presence of lively growths of fungi in the Chernobyl reactor!) are things like

Melanized Wangiella dermatitidis and Cryptococcus neoformans cells exposed to ionizing radiation approximately 500 times higher than background grew significantly faster as indicated by higher CFUs, more dry weight biomass and 3-fold greater incorporation of 14C-acetate than non-irradiated melanized cells or irradiated albino mutants. In addition, radiation enhanced the growth of melanized Cladosporium sphaerospermum cells under limited nutrients conditions.

Why?

Exposure of melanin to ionizing radiation, and possibly other forms of electromagnetic radiation, changes its electronic properties. Melanized fungal cells manifested increased growth relative to non-melanized cells after exposure to ionizing radiation, raising intriguing questions about a potential role for melanin in energy capture and utilization.

Well, why not? We have extremophiles that reduce iron, others that oxidize it, oxidize sulfer--why not some that finesse ionizing radiation?

Macbeth: Shakespeare Made Easy

by Alan Durband.

Edited and rendered into modern English

Of course Shakespeare wrote in Modern English, but we can't let little facts get in the way of the advertisement, can we?

Shall we compare? Look at a central scene, and a random passage.

Shakespeare	Durband
Is this a dagger which I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I have thee not, and yet I see thee still	Is this a dagger I see before me? With its handle toward my hand? [Speaking to it] Come—let me hold you! [He snatches at the empty air] Nothing there. Yet I can still see you
I go, and it is done: the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven, or to hell	Now I'll go, and it's as good as done. The bell is my invitation. Do not hear it, Duncan! It's a bell that summons you to heaven—or to hell!
We have willing dames enough; there cannot be that vulture in you, to devour so many as will to greatness dedicate themselves, finding it so inclined.	there are plenty of willing wenches. The supply of obliging maidens must far exceed even your appetite

In the first passage Shakespeare has Macbeth use the word “clutch” when reaching for the dagger. I'm not sure about his era, but in ours to clutch carries the meanings of both greed and insecurity. There's a touch of uncertainty in Macbeth yet—not quite sure if he's going to carry out the murder. This vanishes in Durband's rendition. It would have been easy to keep it.

Durband's word choice in the second passage is astonishing. A “knell” is a death-bell—and the word is still well-known. Why not use it, and keep the connection between ringing and heaven/hell?

In the third passage Shakespeare's “devour” image, while in keeping with Malcolm's self-indictment, is likely to seem a bit over the top to modern ears, and Durband flattens the phrasing accordingly. But he turns “as will to greatness dedicate themselves” into “obliging.” Shakespeare's phrase describes the motives of women who cluster near the powerful—they actively seek association with greatness. Durband's women are more passive—they oblige.

Why read (or better yet, watch) Shakespeare at all?

• Because he told good stories.
• Because he had good insight into human nature.
• Because his writing often had wonderful language.

Durband's version

• Is the same story: check
• Includes more scene direction than the original (useful)
• Sometimes loses the insight (as in the third passage above) (½ check)
• His language is pretty pedestrian

---

So why did I even bother to look at this rubbish? Because Sun Prairie High School assigned it to their Sophomore class. The only good feature of the book is that it is in parallel: Shakespeare's text on the left, Durband's on the right.

To be fair, the Introduction says that Shakespeare is untranslatable, and that the work is meant to give the “dramatic aspect.”

WCRP

Some proverbs we use to help us get through hard times; like "It's always darkest just before the dawn." These are coping saws.

Tasteless

I was at Borders this afternoon, and while waiting for Middle Daughter to finish finding a birthday gift for her friend I perused the science fiction collection. Things have changed.

Vast swaths of shelving hold Star Trek franchise books, and Star Wars franchise books (The Making of Star Wars is classed as SF!), and copies of Tolkien's unfinished works. It seems as though they don't allow anything on the shelf thinner than ¾ inch thick, and most books are volume M of N. Covers include lots of horses, dragons, swords, and implausibly clad Amazons.

When I was a teenager the fashion was to use psychedelic covers with no noticeable meaning, or wild combinations of motifs and characters from the book. Most books were relatively thin, and most of the contents had something or other to do with space travel or aliens. Not all—the psychological SF novel was also fashionable, and we had DeCamp et al for fantasy, and quite a few authors were experimenting with alternative social/moral/religious worlds.

I can't say the quality of writing was better years ago—I've no good way to tell, since I generally remember only the books I finished, and I relied on advice. Some was very good then, and some (Pratchett, for instance) are enjoyable today. But I'm suspicious. Someone once said that within every novel is a short story trying to get out, and I suspect that the 5 volume paperweights are not very well edited.

I was urged to read The Phantom Menace. I plowed through about 10 pages and decided that it was even worse than the movie. The His Dark Materials series is inconsistent, sloppy, and surprisingly malicious—and it won awards and a stage deal. I read a review of Wicked (including a few quotes): and concluded “same old, same old.” When the first Star Trek collections (short stories from the TV show) came out I saw that authors trying to work with other people's characters generally wrote paper dolls and unconvincing stories; and spot checking the vast shelves of franchise novels hasn't modified my conclusion much. To be fair, Zahn's Star Wars books were good. But the Dune prequels don't even make good compost.

You might point out that this is genre fiction, and suggest that perhaps my tastes matured—perhaps I should look at mainstream fiction and the “modern classics.” I regret to report that these are no better, and often quite a bit worse—genre fiction is required to at least tell a coherent story. Most modern literature I've struck doesn't pass Twain's test: I dislike the good characters, am indifferent to the bad ones, and wish they'd all fall down a well together. Why the hunger to describe life as though nothing were real but stupidity and suffering?

It feels strange to look over a section that used to interest me and see nothing that I'd care to spend ten minutes on, much less ten dollars.

It is even stranger to find myself talking with someone who has so immersed himself in SF and fantasy that he seems to actually believe that we'll one day invent a warp drive, and that societies can be run on principles and mores from SF novels.

WCRP

A horse-whisperer who doesn't use reins but instead guides his horse with polite suggestions is a requestrian.

WCRP

I notice that when I use a pun it can introduce a slight LOL in the conversation.

Blood diseases

Middle daughter came back from Liberia with some kind of blood parasite which acts a lot like malaria. Were I the doc I'd load her up with all the anti-malarials I could find while trying to figure out what caused it, on the assumption that she's got a malarone-resistant malaria anyhow--but they want a diagnosis first.

At least I think that's what they're doing. Maybe they're trying phlebotomy: so far 10 vials of blood drawn.

Rules of the Road in Liberia

Drivers in Liberia must know certain important rules.

• If you have a breakdown, tear up large chunks of grass and associated clods and plant them in the road upstream of your vehicle, to serve as “flares” warning other drivers of your mishap. It is not necessary to pull off the road.
• Blink your headlights if you want to tell other drivers to go ahead.
• To cross or turn onto a street, inch out until you block traffic going one way, and then wait until someone slows down and blinks at you so you can finish crossing.
• Cabs are supposed to wave you around them when they stop for passengers, but weave around whether they do or not.
• Honk to warn pedestrians in the road.
• Honk to warn children or dogs or inattentive pedestrians beside the road.
• Honk to salute friends.
• Be aware of the road conditions so you can tell why the other guy is honking.
• Pedestrians will help guide you when you need to back up or make a blind turn.
• Possession is 10/10 of the right of way.
• Try to stay more or less on the right-hand side of the road.
• Try to avoid potholes.
• Don’t hit pedestrians.
• Don’t be timid.
• Pray that when a bigwig comes by and you have to get off the road, that you will be able to get back on again.
• If there is a policeman present, follow his signals. (Does not apply to cabs)
• Follow the signals at the checkpoints, if you can read them.
• You can always squeeze in another lane of traffic if you are careful.
• Know exactly how wide your car is.
• After you’ve weaved and intimidated your way to the front of the pack, slow down and blink somebody in or a pedestrian across.

You laugh, but try to maneuver through a crowded concourse hall at O’Hare airport.

Utter Insanity

Hide your children from these people. They are teachers, indoctrinated so thoroughly that they are no longer capable of recognizing play. Their ideology takes precedence over all childhood to and fro. Savonarola lives. (Why We Banned Legos)

Tchaikowsky in the abstract

I recommend the European Union Opera production of Tchaikowsky’s opera Eugene Onegin (1998, featuring Vladimir Glushchak in the title role). If the DVD is in your local library, check it out.

Eugene (Russian Yevgeny) Onegin is a self-absorbed young jerk who thinks that having good looks, intelligence, and wealth means that the rest of the world is supposed to entertain him. At age 22, he is bored with his neighbors, lesser mortals that they are; he is bored with his estate, and itching for some excitement.

The first act describes how an innocent neighbor, Tatyana, becomes infatuated with Onegin and, like the heroines in her favorite romantic novels, she writes him a very passionate letter. Her room is full of romantic novels; they cover the windowsill, the floor, and the table.

Real life doesn’t work like a novel.

Lucky for her, Onegin either doesn’t think seducing her would be enough of a challenge; or else he has just enough honor not to take advantage of her. The scene in which he responds to her letter opens with the romantic books sunken into the floor, still visible; but now Tatyana comes out of the vault of books with a feeling of dread at how Onegin might respond to her letter. He gives her a long speech, saying he’s not the marrying kind, she’s not sophisticated, they’d get bored with each other after a while, and says she’ll fall in love with somebody else sooner or later. He warns her not to be so candid in letters; somebody else might take advantage of her inexperience.

A short time later, Tatyana’s mother hosts a ball in honor of Tatyana’s 18th birthday. Onegin’s friend Lensky, engaged to Tatyana’s sister Olga, drags Onegin along to the party. Onegin decides it’s Lensky’s fault that he’s bored, so he flirts outrageously with Olga. Lensky’s had a little too much to drink, and gets angry. Olga doesn’t know why he’s so upset, and Onegin doesn’t have the good sense to see that his little adventure is getting out of hand. He’s too stiff-necked to back down—other people’s reactions to him are their fault, right? Lensky repudiates Olga and challenges Onegin to a duel, and Onegin kills Lensky, his only friend.

Act III, four years later: Onegin has been running away from his guilt, all over Europe. He has no career, no family, no real purpose. He comes to a reception at the elderly Prince Gremin’s house, and discovers Tatyana is now Princess Gremina. Prince Gremin, sings a truly beautiful aria, telling of his love for Tatyana. He loves her for all the reasons Onegin rejected her: she’s unaffected and innocent, not like the phonies and sycophants he finds himself surrounded by in Society. She has grown into the role of Princess, she is good to Gremin, and she has given him his youth back.

Onegin decides that now that he’s ready to love Tatyana, she should discard her aged husband and come to live with him. She acknowledges her love for Onegin but tells him that she has been a faithful wife to Gremin and isn’t about to go back on her vows. Her duty to Gremin outweighs her love for Onegin, and she leaves him in an agony of emotional torment. Which he richly deserves

The staging is rather abstract but it works. The “furniture” in Tatyana’s house is very simple, covered with white cotton. A garden party is represented by red and yellow kites floating above the bare stage, which slants downward to reveal her romantic books below stage, almost as though Tatyana’s library has become a crypt. The birthday party scene is plain white furniture draped with white cotton, with a few romantic novels strewn among the birthday presents. A white screen shows the dancing behind the refreshment area, where the action takes place. The only color is the red in Tatyana’s gown, the yellow in Olga’s, the blue in her mother’s gown, hints of color in the guests’ clothing, and a huge bunch of hydrangeas on the table.

Monsieur Triquet, French guest of one of Tatyana’s neighbors, gets a delightful little aria. His impossibly round bald head wreathed with grey ringlets that look pasted on, his Louis XIV brocade jacket flapping like butterfly wings, he sings verses written in French in honor of Tatyana’s birthday. He is comically vain and dramatic, bur he is earnest and everybody loves him.

Prince Gremin’s reception hall is a series of black, wavy columns with a red carpet down the middle. The guests, representative of High Society, wear black; and have heavily painted faces and bizarre, intricate coifs, emphasizing the artificiality that Gremin has come to hate. Tatyana is the only woman on stage who looks entirely human, and Prince Gremin wears a silvery grey suit. This production’s Gremin looks a healthy forty years old.

The scene in which Onegin professes love to Tatyana brings back the crypt of books in front of a plain black curtain. He has awoken Tatyana’s old romantic feelings. Onegin’s black overcoat makes a great stage prop in this scene. Tatyana keeps handing it to him telling him to leave. When he declares that she should leave her husband, that he (Onegin) was made to love and protect her, he drapes his overcoat around her shoulders. When she tells him farewell, she throws the overcoat off. When she rejects him, she runs off upstage, and when he tries to follow her, two mirrors appear and block his path.

Sidney J. Harris describes a jerk as “someone who cannot see himself as others do….He is incapable of looking in a mirror of his soul and shuddering at what he sees there.” Does Onegin shudder at his reflection and realize his own folly? The opera doesn’t answer that question.

The production is moving, and beautifully sung. Enjoy!

Mrs James

Waki Waki

Juli Endee-Tarpeh, Liberia's Cultural Ambassador, gave a special seminar yesterday on "Waki! Waki! Peace Activism, Crusaders for Peace, and the Children's Village of Liberia." So I went.

Her style was pure Liberian: Layers of related statements punctuated with slogans, all pointing towards some rhetorical goal. She did not answer a question in less than 7 minutes, and usually it was more like 10.

She began with a brief history of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee for Liberia. (15 minutes) Then she opened the floor for questions. The only really interesting part of it was the description of the women who had arrived at the peace talks. Not allowed to enter, they in turn barred reporters from entering, until Rawlings agreed to let them in. Then, once in, they interjected all sorts of proposals that the reporters lapped up (the reporters didn't realize the women weren't formal members of the team at first).

She got into a (needless to say) long argument with one woman in the audience who took exception to a blanket statement that women before Ellen Johnson Sirleaf were never able to take positions of authority. I can summarize 20 minutes of her talk with "They don't count, they only got their positions because they had connections."

She stared uncomplainingly into the video projector for most of the hour, until the technician realized that the DVD was never going to work and turned it off.

With 5 minutes to go, she gave us a few cuts from one of her CD's, which were of traditional-style music whose lyrics were appeals for peace and the TRC: some in English and some in Kpelle.

Afterwards I asked her what there was to make "Liberia" for the Liberians--what common culture or aspirations were left. I don't think she understood me. Or maybe she did, and didn't want to answer.

She owns the Children's Village, but it was never made clear what exactly that was. Maybe the DVD would have helped. She also owns a cultural troope that made some of the music, and has traveled a lot.

It was nice to meet a few Liberians in the audience.

Dynamic is sexy

Is anybody really surprised? The movie poster/Playboy/"Photograph my good side" women may be detail-perfect and airbrushed, but they're static--frozen. What catches the eye is motion; motion that accents the differences between men and women. A few more details at BBC

Can't they borrow an anteater from the zoo?

Ang Hock Si vs the fire ants. Could it be "the will of the universe" that an anteater follow its nature?

WCRP

”Try it Billy. I spent all afternoon making it.”

”Oooohkay.” Microscopic fragment conveyed to lips “Yuck, gack!” Cough choke and sputter, run to sink for water…

”Ungrateful retch.”