Raindrops

Chopin's Prelude No. 15 is one of my all time favorite pieces of music.  Currently it's being used as background to a TV ad for Halo 3, and every time I hear it, it stirs my soul.  For the complete piece, visit here.  I also wrote a short story in which the music plays a strong part:

Raindrop

 

The Wehrmacht entered Krakow on September 6, 1939, when I was 17 years old.  My father, who had trained me from childhood on the instrument of my life, beat time contrapuntally to the tread of Panzers as they jingled through Rynek Glowny toward Wawel Castle, snapping the bricks with their weight.  We had known for five days they were coming.   The army of Poland had met the blitzkrieg mounted upon chargers, armed with sabres, discarding their lives like stalks of wheat falling before the mow.

 

That morning I had worked for three hours steadfastly on the first movement of Pathetique, which I still found difficult.  The score fell, rustling, as father rose and moved to the window to look down at the street. 

 

“Keep working,” he said when I paused.  My attention returned to the opalescent console of the Blüthner, product of Leipzig, the home of Bach and Goethe, Wagner’s birthplace.  Father opened the window to the early autumn air, and the tractor-like rumbling grew louder.  A whiff of smoke came in at the casement.  I continued with the opening of the sonata, but my heart would not inform my hands.  Yet, fatherdid not seem to notice my mistakes—or if he did—he did not comment. 

 

He returned rubbing his glasses with his kerchief.  “Halina,” he said, and laid his warm hand over mine.  “Let us put aside the Viennese composer.”

 

From the shelf he took our beloved slender volume of Chopin’s preludes.  “On this day let us hear the music of our countryman.  Turn to page 19.   Prelude 15 in D-flat major.”

 

He spoke as I played.  “Yes, daughter—you have his music in your soul.  It begins like a gentle spring rain—a soft downpour on flat green leaves, sustaining, revivifying.  Hear now, in the middle section, how the storm increases, now growing in malevolence, yet not merely a storm—but also a test—what may we men and women abide?  Yes, even in the midst of the tempest there is triumph, hear it!  Feel it!  And now the grief and loss—as, the storm subsides and the gentle rain falls again to nourish the ground.”

 

When I finished, he wiped the tears from my eyes with his kerchief.  “Halina—the pain will pass away and the darkness will lift, and the world will be well again.  Politics and war flame brightly but, in the end, they always burn themselves out.  Only art endures.”

Ten years later, while studying in Paris before the Fourth International Chopin Competition, I visited the maestro’s grave in Père-Lachaise.  His mausoleum, bestrewn with garlands and wreaths, bouquets of gladiolus and mums and votive candles that guttered in the light rain, invoked despondency as though he had been laid to rest only the previous day, rather than a century before.  On that drizzly April day in 1949, I remembered my father’s words.   For the hell had indeed passed—but not soon.  Laying a spray of lilies upon Chopin’s tomb, I mourned for my poor country.  I did not grieve for myself.  For I had suffered nothing—except insomniac nights in Krakow; sleepless, clutching my pillow, my stomach a pit of fear and dread and anguish, hearing, far away, shrieking train whistles fade away west.

It's been a Month!

It's been an entire month since my last entry.  My apologies to my regular readers if there are any left...

I just signed a contract to write for Hidden City Games, the company that develops and publishes Bella Sara.  Please visit the site.  Notice that it's aimed at girls between the ages of 6 and 12.  I'm excited by the opportunity, and I've learned more about horses in a week than I had in my whole life up til now.

I'll be writing for them for several months as a freelancer.  Hopefully I will be able to keep some association when I move to Iowa. 

I'm excited to see my friend Steve and his wife Sherry and daughter Leah when they come to Seattle two weeks from now.  Very excited.  Steve has been here before but it will be Sherry and Leah's first trip.  I love showing off my city, even though it won't be my city for very much longer.

Hmm, lotsa gayness

Jerry Lewis called one of his production team an "illiterate fag" during the telethon.  Apparently, as soon as Jerry found out today that GLAAD was skipping mad (as opposed to hopping mad), he apologized profusely and contritely.  Come on GLAAD, Isaiah Washington, self-important actor bully, was one thing, but Lewis is a comedian.  His joking insult was in the tradition of "the Roast."  Watch a celebrity roast sometime, see how many times the "f" word gets dropped.  Lighten up already.

Howard K. Stern and Larry Birkhead are being outed as lovers in a new book.  Apparently, one of the interviewees claims that a video exists of the two engaged in oral sex.  Birkhead denies the heady reports, saying that the witnesses and the author are "losers."  Still, it makes a smarmy, crazy kind of sense....  Oh, and the book also alleges that Stern and Birkhead conspired to keep ANS anesthetized with a steady supply of narcotics, pills and booze before she died of an overdose of narcotics, pills and booze. 

I wonder if the same thing's happening to Trouble--Leona Helmsley's pet Maltise--if at some undesignated location, the poor puppy is being kept prisoner on a steady diet of beef fat and doggie downers. 

What happens when a dog dies intestate?  Certainly Trouble can't will his fortune to anyone else--you have to be a human being in order to sign such a document.  Or would it go to Trouble's next of kin?  I'll ask one of our estate attorneys.

Senator Larry Craig

I suppose it's time to weigh in on the Larry Craig situation.  Craig, a senator from Idaho, was recently exposed as having plead no-contest or guilty to a crime stemming from lewd behavior in a Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport men's lavatory.  Apparently, Craig sent out signals, such as toe-tapping, foot pressing, and finger wiping, that amounted to, in the opinion of his stall neighbor, a solicitation to a sexual tryst.  The neighbor in question happened to be a police officer engaged in a sting operation.

This makes the third GOP sex scandal in about as many months.  Florida congressman Allen, Senator Vitter, and now Senator Craig.

Idaho is not a state which is fond of gay people.  When I lived there, back in the mid-90's doing the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, it still had a statewide sodomy law.  I regret to say I broke that law.  I apologize to the good people of Idaho, but I don't feel I owe any debt to society.  In any event, it's not the place to be faced with a sex scandal and then come out of the closet as a proud gay man, as Barney Frank and Gary Studds were able to do as democrats from Massachusetts.

The republicans, who have for the past 20 years held forth as the party of moral and family values, takes a particularly difficult hit when confronted with sex scandals.  Just one, that of congressman Mark Foley, caused congress to shift to control of the democrats.  What can three highly publicized scandals do?  Clearly the republicans, because of the image that they seek to sell, are much more vulnerable to sex scandals than democrats.  Everyone expects it of morally relativist demoncrats.  (Sorry, Freudian typo).

A little bit of history.  Sex in men's restrooms is as old as Western Civilization.  In fact, in the 20th Century, these came to be known in the lavender patois as "tea rooms."  Airports, bus stations, libraries, almost every one of these has a tea room.  From time to time, law enforcement runs a sting, like the one that caught Larry Craig, and the tea room shifts to another spot, but before long, the action is back.

The concept of the tea room is time-honored, and reflects an era of oppression, when simply gathering together could cause gay people to be rounded up and put in stir.  Back in those days raids on gay bars were common and a person could be arrested for just having a limp wrist or wearing a red tie.

In our more enlightened age, the crime is not in being a degenerate, but demonstrating it in public.  Sex in restrooms, public parks, etc., can get you pinched. 

All that leads me to -- what?  Craig says he isn't gay.  That's quite correct, even if he is a homo.  Being gay means being in some way public to a greater or lesser extent about one's sexuality.  Craig may be, in the Roy Cohn tradition, a straight man who just happens to have sex with other men.  Because divorcing one's wife and taking up with a younger man, as Ariana Huffington's husband did, means being in some way honest about one's sexuality.

The motivating factor to not be honest?  Shame.  Being gay--open and somewhat honest--means that you have in some small way faced the shame and dealt with it.

Because Craig is incapable of being honest about this, he will go down in flames. 

All that said, I'm not sure that what Craig did was a crime in my view.  All he did was solicit--using ambiguous "signals" in the opinion of the arresting officer.  If, for example, someone did that to me, I would say, "I'm not interested," and the behavior would doubtless stop at once.  Personally I believe that solicitation should be protected under the first amendment, and that in order to be arrested for lewd behavior, one should have to have one's lips around someone's Tom, Dick or Harry.

Deception, deception, deception . . .

What, precisely, is MySpace selling?  Or more appropriately, giving away?  For the most part, MySpace is free for users.  One puts up a MySpace page, which acts as an internet billboard.  On the page, one can list one's interests, put up pictures, write a blog, etc., in essence a personal website.  One can also ...

(My coworker just made a funny: "...driving under the influence of what?  Of denial?")

Anyway, back to MySpace.  Does MySpace have a duty to insure true and accurate information on user sites?  Consumer Protection Acts prohibit unfair and deceptive business practices.  Essentially what MySpace is doing is similar to "personal ads" in newspaper classifieds.  Are newspapers liable for deceptions placed in personal ads in their paper?  Yet, MySpace goes beyond what classified personal ads offer, in that they provide a set of tools for interacting online.  So, is the telephone company responsible for deceptions or misrepresentations made during fraudulent phone calls?

I think the parents of the abused teens are going to have a difficult time proving liability on the part of MySpace. 

*    *    *

Once again I'm reminded of how pragmatic and centrist I am.  I was reading Susan Estrich's blog over at Fox News.  Estrich is a liberal democrat who was Michael Dukakis' campaign manager.  In this piece she bemoans the quality of public discourse over the Internet.  She's getting flamed by liberals to the left of her.  This is what I can't stand about far left liberals any more than the far-right wing: polarization.  What ever happened to digging in and finding common ground?  I have lived long enough to form an opinion as to who is responsible for this sorry state of affairs.  I believe it began with Lee Atwater and continued with his homonculus, Karl Rove.  They pushed liberal hot-buttons into critical overload.  Liberals are just as truculent and intractable as neocons.  Essentially what her readers were doing to Susan Estrich was faulting her for being politically incorrect, simply for receiving a paycheck from Fox News. 

Personally I like Susan Estrich's opinions no matter where they're posted.  I enjoy hearing her point of view--just as I enjoy hearing the point of view of Bill O'Reilly from time to time, Keith Obermann, Jon Stewart and in very small doses, Pat Buchanan.  I find Ann Coulter too intellectually defective that I cannot bear to read much of her.  That said, I have read a few of her columns, along with those of Maggie Gallagher, William Buckley, George Will and others.  And though I will never vote for any Republican for the rest of my life due to the evil that they have wrought with this particular administration, I am not a true believer in any political philosophy.  What we need to do in this contentious, polarized society is find common ground. 

This is what Hilary Clinton has tried to do in her years in the Senate.  To fault her for trying to work with and achieve common goals with Repuglicans (sorry, that's a Freudian typo) is to engage in the most self-defeating politics.  For liberals to stand on the narrowest of principles is to engage in the same posturing that Operation Rescue's Randall Terry did over the Terri Schaivo debacle, when he demanded that Jeb Bush stand on principle, sacrifice his political career, place himself above the law and prevent the feeding tubes from being removed.

Goodbye Gonzo

I must apologize to Octavia Butler, who apparently wrote a manifesto on her creative writing process entitled "Furor Scribendi."  When time and creativity intersect at some point in the future, I may retitle my blog.  But in the meantime, I'll just go ahead and use this Latin phrase that I picked up on a list of Latin phrases somewhere.  I can't remember.  I can't recall. 

I do recall meeting Octavia Butler, though.  At the Foolscap writing conference in Tukwila.  Must have been oh, 10 years ago now.  She was gracious, elegant, poised--a wonderful conversationalist.  I and my writers' group had the great good fortune to be present at the kickoff party, which was not very well attended, with GOH Butler.  She spoke about her time at the Clarion Workshop.  She then went on to be a linebacker of science-fiction, winning every prize under the sun (and a McArthur Fellowship).  I asked her advice on whether I should attend Clarion, and she said she would only recommend attending for someone very new.  If you've been writing for a long time, or have had a lot of classes, it might be too difficult to give yourself over completely to the ego-busting and refining that goes on.  Thank you Octavia.  She died in a fall a couple of years ago.  I saw her one other time at the Post Office at 3rd and Union--the downtown branch.  She was busy with business and seemed distracted.  I almost tapped her on the shoulder and said hello.  I wish now that I had.

Alberto Gonzales has resigned.  I watched his resignation speech.  Sorry, my liberal friends, but I feel sorry for the guy.  Not because I feel he got a raw deal.  But because, like his boss, he had risen to the level of his incompentence.  I think he meant well.  He clearly was a quality individual.  But it's sort of like using your family attorney to negotiate a book contract.  Gonzo was GWB's attorney.  He kept being GWB's attorney at the DOJ.  He needed to be strong, independent and wise.  John Ashcroft, for all his faults, was a prince by comparison.  But it just goes to show you that trivial, banal evil can happen, even when one has a pure heart with the finest motives.  All it takes is having unfettered power and unquestioning loyalty.

Ashcroft wasn't going along with the philosophy of the Unitary Executive, if he had ever even heard of it.  With Gonzales, the Bushites found their stooge, their team player, their man.  If you read the description of the Unitary Executive Theory at the Wiki, linked to above, it will curl your hair and give it split ends.  The Bush Administration and its allies have tried to create a 4-8 year dictatorship in the United States (or for however long they choose to claim we're at war).  Gonzales was not the architect of this edifice--that was the neocons, and their brain trust, one of whom is John Yoo.

I don't know about you--but I don't want to live in a dictatorship, even if/when we're at war.  It will be interesting to see who Bush picks for the next AG.  If it's Professor Yoo--run for the hills.

Television II

Yesterday I stumbled upon an idea that has stuck with me.  In what ways has technology influenced the substance and form of television?  I have never given this idea much thought.  In fact, when I have thought about the evolution of storytelling on TV I have usually linked it to societal changes, politics, the economy, current events and film. 

But I'm starting to think that technology has played a larger role than I have given it credit.  The switch from black and white to color caused an explosion of sunny, happy shows: Happy Days, Love American Style, The Bob Newhart Show, variety hours with Carol Burnett, Sonny & Cher, Dean Martin, everything filmed in glorious, saturated color.  Perhaps this was due to geopolitical concerns: denial of the Vietnam zeitgeist.  But it was equally programming that took advantage of the color technology.  Sure there were dark shows: Night Gallery, for example, but their shock value was based more on twist endings, than any evocation of mood.

Another innovation in technology was larger and more affordable screens.  When the largest TV screens were 13 to 20 inches, closeups were de rigeur.  With a 26 to 30 inch screen, establishing shots, traveling shots, panning shots, the language of filmmaking, could be utilized on television.  This changed the way television looked and worked.  Television had always been closer in essence to radio than film.  With larger screens and the employment of cinematic techniques, television became more and more a visual medium. 

I anticipate that with the super large screens of today employing High Definition technology, this trend will strengthen rather than diminish.  Within two generations cinemas will be rare, home entertainment will stream from a central hub (whatever the internet turns into) and packaging will no longer exist.  Intellectual property--anything which is capable of being sold digitally, will be.  While it is tempting to consider this negatively, I don't think it will be.  Television has improved with the advent of VHS technology.  The business model changed, but it still supported higher and higher quality of work. 

Where will it ultimately end?  Three-dimensional entertainment of course.  Total immersion and the assumption of a point of view.  Whether that's a holographic "room" or a set of goggles and gloves, or a biomechanical symbiosis of hardware and wetware ala William Gibson.