Amen

Reading Digby today, I was reminded of the words of Robert Kennedy, spoken at a time of great national shock and sorrow.  Looking at those words again, I find it hard to imagine that he could speak so eloquently and with such kindness and hope, when speaking more or less extemporaneously. 

These last few days have reminded me of being a child, when political violence happened regularly.  A few years ago, a colleague of mine, who is the same age as me, tried to explain to the “young people” at our office what it was like to be a child in the 60’s like we were.  What it was like to assume that anyone who rose in public office was liable to be assassinated.   How we simply took it for granted.  And how, looking back at that attitude, how crazy it seems today.  Hopefully it will not come to that again.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy
Indianapolis, Indiana
April 4, 1968

This is the text from news release version.

I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

 

What’s the Plural of Prius?

Yeah, that’s a new Toyota ad campaign.  I’m going with Prii (pre aye).

I got myself a Prius last summer and so far I’m loving it.  And it doesn’t drive any worse in the snow than my Corolla did.  I get great gas mileage (although not as great in the winter as when it was warm).  It’s comfortable.  I didn’t get all the bells and whistles, just a basic model.  The only extra I sometimes wish I’d gotten was the leather heated seats.   But I only wish that on really cold days.    

There are a few things I would change that all are design flaws but wouldn’t make me not buy the car again.  I find it hard to back up straight.  I don’t know why (I had a hatchback long ago as my first car and had no problem) but I’m thinking it has to do with the location of the back windshield wiper.  It creates a false center for the back window.  I’d fix that if it were up to me.

I can’t see the front of the car so I never know if I’m going to run into the wall in the parking garage when I’m parking.  I stop right before I’m sure I’m going to run into it.  Then find I’m a good foot and a half away.  It’s also hard to judge the back of the car, but not as bad as the front. 

There’s no place to store change.  Truly I find this the most annoying design flaw since my Corolla had at least 3 places to store change, two of which were designed for change.  What gives Toyota?   

But on the whole I like it.

Now.  Sing along … what do you call one when it turns into more …

The Floating Palace: A Duet Performed by The Saint Louis Symphony and Circus Flora

 

The Floating Palace was a circus showboat that played up and down the Mississippi River just before the Civil War.  It was an extremely elegant barge, pulled by two paddle wheelers with a full circus ring inside. 

So it said in the program that I received when I walked into Powell Hall last night.  You can’t really go wrong attending The Saint Louis Symphony on a Saturday night and it was a program full of my favorites:  parts of Copland’s Rodeo; Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King; a series of pieces from Bizet’s Carmen; and Falla’s Fire Dance among others.  

But as we headed down the aisle to find “Orchestra Center, Row F”, we knew it wasn’t going to be the usual “what a great night at the Symphony” kind of night.  It was going to be something we had never experienced before.

For one thing, Row F is, as you might imagine, the 6th row at Powell Hall.  But not last night.  Last night they had removed rows A, B, and C and didn’t sell any seats in rows D and E. So we were, in effect, in the front row.  And we were almost directly under the high wire where the Flying Wallendas were going to perform later in the show.  That’s right, the Flying Wallendas were going to perform with the Symphony right over our heads.  I looked at the woman next to me and she said, “Oh yeah, I’m VERY nervous.”  I looked at my sister and she said, “If they drop those pole things, they’ll probably kill us.”  I said, “At last we’ll break their fall.” 

St. Louis has it’s own local circus company, Circus Flora, that performs each year in a one ring circus tent set up on the parking lot of Powell Hall in June after the Symphony season is over.  It’s a lot of fun to go see, a traditional one ring circus where you can almost reach out and touch the performers.  The clowns circulate among the audience and you probably could hear the breaths of the performers if the Circus band weren’t playing so loud.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Circus Flora got itself a bigger band.  It teamed up with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra to do a circus right there on the stage of Powell Hall.  We weren’t sure what to expect.  Where was the orchestra (which usually takes up the entire stage) going to sit and where would the Circus performers perform if there was no ring?   Well, the Symphony was on raised platforms on the back three quarters of the stage and the Circus used the front quarter of the stage and the space above it and above the first few rows of the audience. 

It was a great night, one of the best things I’ve ever seen.  First, the Symphony was, as usual, wonderful.  I have no idea how guest conductor Alistair Willis got this gig.  I searched his bio for any sign that he’d been in a Circus Band in a previous life but, if he had, it was scrubbed from his official history.  He seemed to have a good rapport with the Orchestra and they sounded sharp.  

The choice of music for each act was usually spot on.  Of course, the Symphony is committed to playing the entire piece and, unlike the Circus Band, can’t suddenly end a piece to make the music and the performer end together.  But the Circus had made provision for that and had “other” things to go on after the performer ended their spot.

Circus Flora usually puts together a loose narrative that ties together all the acts and last night was no different.  The circus performers were on The Floating Palace, performing up and down the Mississippi.  One of the performers was pining for a girl he had met in St. Louis.  There were three stowaways that made appearances now and then.  And of course everyone lived happily ever after.  But mostly it was all about the performances.

Where to begin.  There was, of course, juggling – performed to Stravinsky’s Circus Polka.  There was a duet of two female performers hanging from a big ring usually only by their toes (it seemed) – performed to Copland’s Corral Nocturne from Rodeo. Aerialist Una Mimnagh did a ballet like performance holding onto a rope high above the stage – performed to selections from Falla’s Three Cornered Hat. 

There were no horses at this circus, unlike the summer version, but the dog act was back and they are one of my favorites.  Johnny Peers & the Muttville Comix performed to selections from Kabelevsky’s The Comedians.   Each dog in the large menagerie has been rescued from a pet shelter and none of them match any of the others.  But if you’d love to see a Bassett Hound riding a skateboard, this is the act for you. 

Another favorite of mine are the St. Louis Arches, who are a young troop of local acrobats.  I feel that I’ve seen these kids grow up and every year they get better and better.  Last night was the best I’ve ever seen them. 

Aleysa Gulevich wowed the audience with hula hoops – performing to music from Bizet’s Carmen.  She started with one hula hoop and by the end of her sultry performance she was covered in hula hoops. 

Duo Voltart was new to St. Louis, performing here for the first time and they were a wow.  Their act, performed to Falla’s Fire Dance, was a combination of dance moves and breathtaking acrobatic lifts.  Sitting so close, we could see every muscle in Damien Boudreau’s arms quiver as he held Genevieve Cliché in unbelievably difficult poses and lifts.

That wow was matched by arielists Andrew Adams and Erika Gilffether who performed equally difficult poses and holds high above the stage using ariel straps.  Their music was the beautiful ballade form Sibelius’ Karelia Suite. 

And there were, of course, a clown and also a rope spinning artist.  But the hilight of the evening was, as always, the Flying Wallendas/Great Wallendas who did their high wire act right above our heads using bicycles no less.   They did not attempt a large pyramid, but they did have two members on bikes with a chair on a pole between them holding another member of the act.    Without the “use of nets or safety devices of any kind”.   I held my breath the entire time. 

All in all it was one of the best nights I’ve ever had at any venue and I hope they repeat this every year. 

Resolved …

Actually I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions, I always seem to make resolutions in September. The start of the school year. Even though I haven’t been in school for years.

But I liked this slide show. (Which does not seem to want to embed but just gives a link. Oh well.)

Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change

Happy New Year 2011!

Happy New Year to all of you.  2010 is a year I’m not sorry to see go.  And it went out with a bang around here, with strange weather this week that saw us go from the 30’s up to the 60’s and then get hit with a cold front – with predictable results for the Midwest:  Tornados. 

Predictable, except at the end of December.  Oh, we’ve had tornados touch down in St. Louis before.  In the spring and summer.  There is a furniture store that has been hit a couple of times during my life by a tornado, it almost has become a joke with them since no one has ever been injured.  But this was an out of season tornado and it hit a suburb  called Sunset Hills about 10 miles from me and took out about 20 houses.  Sunset Hills is about 10 miles from where I live and I’m out there all the time for shopping.  Fortunately no one was killed, although other people in Missouri did die in the storms.  It was a sad end to 2010.

So good riddance 2010 with your bad economy and all your crazy people populating the television and radio and your bad weather.  Welcome 2011. 

Please be better. 

Over the Tavern

I went to see the Rep’s production of Over the Tavern on December 23, last Thursday.  We always end up with tickets the week of Christmas which is a little stressful in the days leading up to it but relaxing once we get there and realize that we’re just going to relax for an evening. 

We’ve seen Over the Tavern before at the Rep.  I remembered it as a rollicking funny story about a Catholic family who lived … over the tavern,of course.  The tavern is a family affair run by the father.  Supposedly the mother also tends bar but mostly she just seems to be a mom.  What I remembered about the show was that the father was loud and  bad tempered but he was redeemed in the end (I didn’t remember how) and I remembered that the one kid (Rudy) who gives the old nun a heart attack (literally) because he didn’t want to be confirmed was a sweet kid who just couldn’t keep himself from speaking the truth to power.  With the predictable consequences.

I remember liking that production.  This production I didn’t like as much.  The kids were so terrified of the father in this production that it was impossible to believe that he wasn’t more physically abusive than his character was written and I found it impossible to believe in the redemption at the end because of that.  I don’t think that was the fault of Kevin Cutts, who played him.  I think it was the fault of the way the kid characters reacted to him.  If they had blown him off a little more and taken him a little less seriously, it would have worked.  I have friends who had “Loud” dads who scared me but who didn’t seem to scare my friends.  They knew to ignore him most of the time.  And they knew when to steer clear of him.  That’s what these kids needed.  They needed to be tired of his moods and wary of him but not terrified of him.  These kids just seemed terrified. 

And Rudy was played with no sweetness in him whatsoever.  He was really kind of a dislikeable know-it-all. That was a problem.

On the other hand, Celeste Ciulla’s Ellen (the mother) and Eric Nelson’s Eddie (the older brother) were both delightful and when they were on stage the other flaws faded.  And I sat up straighter every time Sister Clarissa came on stage. (But did they really need two nun-shows in a row?)  The set design was also one of the best I’ve seen at the Rep.

So it wasn’t a bad production, it just wasn’t one of my favorites. I think having a terrified family as the Christmas show just didn’t work for me.   I hope they go back to having a musical next year. 

The last production of Over the Tavern was on December 26 so it is too late for you to catch it if you missed it.

And on Earth, Peace …

A thought I endorse heartily.

To those who celebrate, have a Very Merry Christmas!

This one is almost as fun to sing as the Hallelujah Chorus:

And while I’m feeling musical (maybe it’s the snow for Christmas), back in the day when I sang Midnight Mass with the Choir my favorite moment was when we sang Adeste Fidelis (O Come All Ye Faithful).  In the Catholic Church you don’t sing any Christmas Carols until it is actually Christmas.  The weeks before Christmas are called Advent and they are the preparation time.  Then (finally!) there are 12 days of Christmas beginning with Christmas and ending with Epiphany.  There is no pressure to feel “Christmasy” until it is actually Christmas. 

Secular Christmas has pretty much ruined that, what with Christmas music starting in September. 

O Come All Ye Faithful for me still means Christmas is starting.  This is the procession at the National Cathedral, which is Episcopal I think.  But same concept.   Lots of verses, lots of processors,  last verse is the best:

Is it time for presents yet?