Christopher Hitchens died approximately a year ago, and Slate, among other places, has been running a number of articles in tribute to him, as well as a brief, annotated section of his posthumous book, Mortality, which I believe is coming out in a few weeks. The most moving piece was written by his wife, saying that as she reread the notes he left around their home for her, or read any of his writings, she could hear his voice. She could hear his voice, but could not see her husband anymore. She noted that he never expected, really until the last minute, that his cancer would actually kill him. I don't totally agree, having read some of his last columns. One thing for sure, and Katie Riophe, reviewing Mortality today, pointed it out - Hitch looked at his impending end with an unflinching honesty. I would like to read the book, but I am not sure I can.
I'm not sure I can. Not because I have a problem with either crying, or laughing over the book (the reviewer says there is ample opportunity to do both), but because, like many middle-aged people, I feel myself Almost There. Both of my parents are gone, and though I wasn't there at the very last moment for either of them, I was there for the illness, the decline, the shows of strength, the fadeout. A couple of weeks ago at a funeral (see previous post) I saw people I had known years ago changed by time, and life. I saw my older sister last week - she looks great, but we are all at the point where none of us looks (or feels) like we once did. We're Almost There.
Hitch did not think that, in facing his illness, he was doing anything particularly courageous, apparently feeling that courage should be reserved to those who volunteer to do good in dangerous circumstances. I concur, actually. Like my mother, Hitch was struggling to stay alive. There really isn't any alternative. It's not bravery - it's necessity.
But, I think he was brave in his everyday life and writing. Living on his own terms in spite of any tut-tutters (and they were legion). I rarely feel like I have that choice - too many compromises - to work, to other people. Sometimes it really sucks.
The tourists flocking around NYC at this time of year seem to think everyone who lives here faces endless excitement (sometimes we do, and sometimes it's not the good kind), but the truth is that many of us go home at night from our not-very-interesting jobs, make dinner, watch tv and go to bed, and the next day we do the same thing again.
David Plotz, in his commentary about Hitch this week, pointed out that the way it at least feels like one is living a long life (regardless of the length in years) is to create lasting memories. Everyday routine is thoughtless and does not create anything worth remembering, but the frequent occurrence of significant events creates impressions that fill up your life experience. He suggested that Hitch did something of the sort every day. Even though the number of days he lived was cruelly short, when it came to experiences, he lived a long life indeed.
While adventures are way cool, and I try to have them as often as possible, I really envy the people who make everyday life an adventure. There aren't many of them, and it sounds like Hitch was one (and his wife too, and I hope she continues) - there have been many stories floating around in the past week about raucous dinner parties, shouting children, sharp witticisms over drinks, and the like. I tend to be a quiet person, and I am not sure I could sustain that much noise, but there can also be adventure in introspection, at least I would like to think so. In any case, we should all value our time, and our friends. That is one thing it is obvious that Hitch took seriously.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
For Mrs. B.
A couple of weeks ago, I got a terse email from the husband of one of my college friends that his mother's graveside service was to be held the following Saturday in New Jersey, not far from NYC. I did not even know she had died (truth to tell, I thought maybe she had gone some time ago already). Later emails with my friend filled in a few more details. I had been looking forward to an unstructured weekend, but I decided to go.
As might be expected (and it is, I fear, a cliche') anticipating the service shot me right back to college days 35 years ago. Late nights working in the college theatre and parties, parties, parties. Nicknames like Skipper, Gumbo, Big George, Space Cowboy, Churl and Chucky-Bird. Subsequent days of hanging out in NYC and upstate at their home before they moved to PA. Thanksgivings and Christmases up in sometimes-snowy Lake Peekskill. And of course, we were all younger. And thinner.
No one knew me at the service except my friend, her husband, and some friends of theirs from the NY area. And the husband's brother's wife. Though I had met both of them long ago, Brother did not remember me at all. The MIL would have remembered me maybe, as I met her numerous times. She was opinionated and loud - Bayonne born and bred. She once said of Bayonne, "I was born in Bayonne and I'll die in Bayonne. They'll have to carry me out." This was not strictly true, as she moved to PA with her son and daughter-in-law in the late 80's, but in spirit she was absolutely correct. My friend said the nursing home staff members were devastated - how many loud, opinionated Bayonne natives end up in quiet Western PA? She was the life of their workday party. The gravesite included a very handsome portait of her cat (now residing, I understand, at my freind's house), and her urn draped in her dimestore pearl necklace - who could possibly argue with that?
I thought my friend and her husband looked pretty good, considering the time that had passed. I wondered if I looked as good, considering the same. We had lunch at a real new Jersey diner and the handful of us yakked together along with my friend's almost-adult daughters (whom I had not seen since they were babies). Except that we could not talk about Mother (because her sons would have burst into tears if we had), it was more like a reunion than a funeral. The other attendees tried to keep the occasion relatively somber, but happily they did not really succeed.
I never knew Emily well enough to know whether she enjoyed a drink, but here's to her anyway. She lived life fully, thanks to her two boys, who took her on trips to Vegas and to the first Arthur Treacher's in New Jersey. And finally, she furnished the occasion for a group of old (and getting older) friends to get together, to talk, to discover, and to still recognize each other after all this time.
As might be expected (and it is, I fear, a cliche') anticipating the service shot me right back to college days 35 years ago. Late nights working in the college theatre and parties, parties, parties. Nicknames like Skipper, Gumbo, Big George, Space Cowboy, Churl and Chucky-Bird. Subsequent days of hanging out in NYC and upstate at their home before they moved to PA. Thanksgivings and Christmases up in sometimes-snowy Lake Peekskill. And of course, we were all younger. And thinner.
No one knew me at the service except my friend, her husband, and some friends of theirs from the NY area. And the husband's brother's wife. Though I had met both of them long ago, Brother did not remember me at all. The MIL would have remembered me maybe, as I met her numerous times. She was opinionated and loud - Bayonne born and bred. She once said of Bayonne, "I was born in Bayonne and I'll die in Bayonne. They'll have to carry me out." This was not strictly true, as she moved to PA with her son and daughter-in-law in the late 80's, but in spirit she was absolutely correct. My friend said the nursing home staff members were devastated - how many loud, opinionated Bayonne natives end up in quiet Western PA? She was the life of their workday party. The gravesite included a very handsome portait of her cat (now residing, I understand, at my freind's house), and her urn draped in her dimestore pearl necklace - who could possibly argue with that?
I thought my friend and her husband looked pretty good, considering the time that had passed. I wondered if I looked as good, considering the same. We had lunch at a real new Jersey diner and the handful of us yakked together along with my friend's almost-adult daughters (whom I had not seen since they were babies). Except that we could not talk about Mother (because her sons would have burst into tears if we had), it was more like a reunion than a funeral. The other attendees tried to keep the occasion relatively somber, but happily they did not really succeed.
I never knew Emily well enough to know whether she enjoyed a drink, but here's to her anyway. She lived life fully, thanks to her two boys, who took her on trips to Vegas and to the first Arthur Treacher's in New Jersey. And finally, she furnished the occasion for a group of old (and getting older) friends to get together, to talk, to discover, and to still recognize each other after all this time.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The beginnings of classicism?
One of the more interesting presentations last week was from our own panel. A young grad student presented on a Uigur folk dance ritual. He had some nice field video of extended members of a family whom he knew dancing together while local musicians played. Uigurs are Muslim, and here in the US we have this idea that Muslim women are barred from even semi-public participation, but the video showed men and women dancing at the same time, if not always together. The evening ends with dancers spinning to the music in a contest - the one left standing is declared the winner (in this video a youngster and a young man spun for so long that the musicians stopped and declared them both winners). It was a really charming and interesting glimpse of a culture that not many people know about (which was, in fact, the theme of the panel).
The presentation went on to note that China, which controls the Uigur Autonomous Region, has variously enacted prohibitions against the Uigur language as well as folk dance celebrations like this one. Lately, however, they have changed tactics, and have begun allowing very public dance performances with the idea that it would strengthen Uigur "identity" - or, at least, what China would like for the Uigurs to consider their identity. (I hope, if he reads this, the presentor will bear with me here - this is a real capsulization of his presentation). To that end, productions have been staged in large theatres and broadcast on TV. Many, many groups vie with each other using flashy costumes, lighting and stage effects, and putting large numbers of people onstage, doing theatricalized choreography of the actual folk dances. The presentor noticed that the Uigur audiences are happy with the presentations, since it represents some positive acceptance of their customs, however dramatized, and that some elements of flash have begun to show up in local rituals. Meanwhile, some of the hominess of family celebrations, as well as local idiosyncrasies, are being lost.
Though the presentor was trying for some neutrality, he thankfully did not hide the fact that he thought this might mean the end of the local folkdance rituals, and he expressed both distrust of the official acceptance of public performances and some sorrow that elements of flash were showing up locally. I understood his point - China, after all, is very, very big, and has been dominating all of the areas around it, not just, as is fashionably understood, Tibet. But the presentation did get me thinking.
For one thing, folk rituals all over the world have gone the way of the dodo with the avalanche of media. It happened long ago in the US (I remember first noticing in the early 1980's that a mall worker in rural PA looked like an MTV video jock, and suddenly realized that the reason was that, via cable - everyone was able to watch MTV! - A facile example, but you see my point). So we don't notice here anymore how national rituals - like the Superbowl - have taken over for more local events as a means of underscoring our collective identity. So the Chinese are busy doing in their autonomous reagions what we have already done to ourselves.
There was no time at our panel for discussion, unfortunately; no time to discuss things like colonialism, post-colonialism, and that the preservation of indigenous cultures often hinges on depriving people of things like plumbing and electricity that the rest of us already enjoy, and that the advent of these things almost by default means that everyone joins the hive collective.
But what really got me thinking was something different; i.e. how classical dance is formed. Is the destruction of local culture a necessary prelude to national culture? Is the absorption of folk movement into public choreography part of a transformation to a national artisitic expression?
I started thinking about the evolution of ballet. It has been awhile since I read about this, but ballet started as a "gentlemen's entertainment" held in cigar smoke-filled theatres where an exclusively male audience ogled the bare arms, lower legs and half-revealed bosoms of female dancers doing, essentially, folk dances. From those somewhat salacious beginnings we have the artistry and athletcisim (and, yes, the sensuality) of modern ballet, while the folk traditions that helped spawn it have all but died away.
So the Uigur dance transformation from local tradition to a more uniform public one is underway. It may well be the death of the local, but is it also evolving on the road to classical dance?
The presentation went on to note that China, which controls the Uigur Autonomous Region, has variously enacted prohibitions against the Uigur language as well as folk dance celebrations like this one. Lately, however, they have changed tactics, and have begun allowing very public dance performances with the idea that it would strengthen Uigur "identity" - or, at least, what China would like for the Uigurs to consider their identity. (I hope, if he reads this, the presentor will bear with me here - this is a real capsulization of his presentation). To that end, productions have been staged in large theatres and broadcast on TV. Many, many groups vie with each other using flashy costumes, lighting and stage effects, and putting large numbers of people onstage, doing theatricalized choreography of the actual folk dances. The presentor noticed that the Uigur audiences are happy with the presentations, since it represents some positive acceptance of their customs, however dramatized, and that some elements of flash have begun to show up in local rituals. Meanwhile, some of the hominess of family celebrations, as well as local idiosyncrasies, are being lost.
Though the presentor was trying for some neutrality, he thankfully did not hide the fact that he thought this might mean the end of the local folkdance rituals, and he expressed both distrust of the official acceptance of public performances and some sorrow that elements of flash were showing up locally. I understood his point - China, after all, is very, very big, and has been dominating all of the areas around it, not just, as is fashionably understood, Tibet. But the presentation did get me thinking.
For one thing, folk rituals all over the world have gone the way of the dodo with the avalanche of media. It happened long ago in the US (I remember first noticing in the early 1980's that a mall worker in rural PA looked like an MTV video jock, and suddenly realized that the reason was that, via cable - everyone was able to watch MTV! - A facile example, but you see my point). So we don't notice here anymore how national rituals - like the Superbowl - have taken over for more local events as a means of underscoring our collective identity. So the Chinese are busy doing in their autonomous reagions what we have already done to ourselves.
There was no time at our panel for discussion, unfortunately; no time to discuss things like colonialism, post-colonialism, and that the preservation of indigenous cultures often hinges on depriving people of things like plumbing and electricity that the rest of us already enjoy, and that the advent of these things almost by default means that everyone joins the hive collective.
But what really got me thinking was something different; i.e. how classical dance is formed. Is the destruction of local culture a necessary prelude to national culture? Is the absorption of folk movement into public choreography part of a transformation to a national artisitic expression?
I started thinking about the evolution of ballet. It has been awhile since I read about this, but ballet started as a "gentlemen's entertainment" held in cigar smoke-filled theatres where an exclusively male audience ogled the bare arms, lower legs and half-revealed bosoms of female dancers doing, essentially, folk dances. From those somewhat salacious beginnings we have the artistry and athletcisim (and, yes, the sensuality) of modern ballet, while the folk traditions that helped spawn it have all but died away.
So the Uigur dance transformation from local tradition to a more uniform public one is underway. It may well be the death of the local, but is it also evolving on the road to classical dance?
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Burnout Day
I just finished a long run of activity, culminating in Crazy Week - last Monday in Philadelphia, Tuesday going to DC (it sort of does take all day to get there), gave a paper on Wednesday (went more or less ok), Thursday-Saturday helping a friend with her project in DC, Sunday - getting up at 5am to come back to NYC. Monday - back to work. All the while editing galley proofs of a friend's soon-to-be published book celebrating 20 years of publishing a martial arts journal (full disclosure - I have an article in it, too).
Philly was great -we did a swordsmanship demo/lecture/hands-on workshop for a kids' camp. The feedback was great - it's nice that every now and then someone likes seeing what we do. I heard that one of the kids even wrote a haiku ode to his sword - now that's tradition! I mean, of all the weird things that I've done, I've never done that.
The DC experience was more of a mixed bag. It was nice to see some people I had not seen in awhile, and some of the sessions were good at midweek. Good discussions on Chinese "Classical Dance" (or lack thereof) and my own paper about kenbu. Stuff like that always stirs the brain, which is a good thing, because my brain frequently does not get the kind of workout I think it deserves. The very best part was that James Brandon, a towering figure in the study of Japanese theatre, gave a lecture, and all of the scholars sat there like undergrads with their notebooks and pens. And of course, one of the (planned) conclusions he addressed was: what makes kabuki? My response to that question may make it here, or somewhere else, in the near future.
What did I learn in DC? A few things: (1) No one really likes shingeki (look it up). (2) The Shochiku company really did perform short propagandistic "democracy" plays during the US occupation at the "suggestion" of the various cultural review boards (that they showed them from around 1895-1945 on some level or other favoring the other side should go without saying). Thanks, as always, Dr. Brandon! (3) Don't listen to Jonah (you know who you are!). (4) Get my own room again for conferences - it is worth the money (no offense guys, but I am really a loner). (5) To avoid aggravation, make sure the next time I help someone with a project that it somehow furthers some of my own projects, not just creating an opportunity to review galleys for someone else's book at the same time. (6) You really can beat beach traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike if you lose enough sleep. There's probably other stuff but I will have to remember it later.
I am burnt out and this post is not as polished as some of the other ones - editing, writing my own paper, writing the book contribution, creating my powerpoint presentation (the best part), all in the past month or so. Obviously I have the writing bug today, but am too tired to do anything coherent (not that today should be all that different). Gak.
I just finished the galleys today and sent them off. I think the book will be a smash, inasmuch as books of that sort ever are. More about that later. More about a bunch of stuff later.
Philly was great -we did a swordsmanship demo/lecture/hands-on workshop for a kids' camp. The feedback was great - it's nice that every now and then someone likes seeing what we do. I heard that one of the kids even wrote a haiku ode to his sword - now that's tradition! I mean, of all the weird things that I've done, I've never done that.
The DC experience was more of a mixed bag. It was nice to see some people I had not seen in awhile, and some of the sessions were good at midweek. Good discussions on Chinese "Classical Dance" (or lack thereof) and my own paper about kenbu. Stuff like that always stirs the brain, which is a good thing, because my brain frequently does not get the kind of workout I think it deserves. The very best part was that James Brandon, a towering figure in the study of Japanese theatre, gave a lecture, and all of the scholars sat there like undergrads with their notebooks and pens. And of course, one of the (planned) conclusions he addressed was: what makes kabuki? My response to that question may make it here, or somewhere else, in the near future.
What did I learn in DC? A few things: (1) No one really likes shingeki (look it up). (2) The Shochiku company really did perform short propagandistic "democracy" plays during the US occupation at the "suggestion" of the various cultural review boards (that they showed them from around 1895-1945 on some level or other favoring the other side should go without saying). Thanks, as always, Dr. Brandon! (3) Don't listen to Jonah (you know who you are!). (4) Get my own room again for conferences - it is worth the money (no offense guys, but I am really a loner). (5) To avoid aggravation, make sure the next time I help someone with a project that it somehow furthers some of my own projects, not just creating an opportunity to review galleys for someone else's book at the same time. (6) You really can beat beach traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike if you lose enough sleep. There's probably other stuff but I will have to remember it later.
I am burnt out and this post is not as polished as some of the other ones - editing, writing my own paper, writing the book contribution, creating my powerpoint presentation (the best part), all in the past month or so. Obviously I have the writing bug today, but am too tired to do anything coherent (not that today should be all that different). Gak.
I just finished the galleys today and sent them off. I think the book will be a smash, inasmuch as books of that sort ever are. More about that later. More about a bunch of stuff later.
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