Oh, Lenin!

Our choral society has been rehearsing intensely for two concerts to take place within the next month. We will be singing the brief vocal sections of two early and not very popular symphonies by Dmitri Shostakovich, or DSCH, in musicialogical shorthand. The symphonies were written in celebration of the Bolshevik Revolution of October 1917 and the earlier incomplete revolution of May 1905. The poems he used for text are awful. The music's not hard but the Russian is. It has taken a considerable effort to get our collective tongues around some of the interesting diction. Our introduction to Russian was the vowel ï. "Imagine," our director suggested, "that you are trying to say 'ee' with a fist in your mouth." Go on, try it. It's got less color than a schwa. You want to say ee but it comes out as a grunt. Some other examples, phonetically, are "fslu," "vgla," "vzvi" and everyone's favorite, "zhm'om." The apostrophe is a brief "y" as in nyet.

DSCH has been a controversial personality most of his professional life and now in posterity. He was the first composer to come of age in the Soviet era, and he was the first to be celebrated. His future was bright. The two pieces on our program were written in the 1920's, when the system was still new and the people optimistic. There is a lot of interesting history about that era - communism was stylish even. Comrades named the children after tractors and power plants. Lenin, then Stalin, implemented a series of economic reforms, five year plans, that never really worked. At the time, there was hope that the millions of people could escape 900 years of crushing poverty under Tsarism. DSCH wrote heartfelt symphonies extolling the virtues of the revolution and glorifying the struggle shared by the People.

By 1934 the honeymoon was over. The offical view was that DSCH's opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtensk, was bourgeois, and he fell out of favor. After that event, he and his work were subjected to scrutiny. DSCH was never officially disgraced, but it is said to have worked under perilous circumstances. It is thought that he composed on two levels. The surface of the music did not challenge political orthodoxy. But the music is deeply ironic, withering at times. It seems remarkable that he took such chances and survived.

Learning his music is like learning about the man. It is strange at times, seemingly simple. But as layers are peeled away, there is much more to find. There are musical surprises and the signature of a master. Even in these early, often-ridiculed works, there are moments of remarkable beauty and inspiration. The composer and the cause may have been discredited but the spirit of optimism is alive. The music moves one to aspire to something better, to struggle for an escape from the hell of oppression and suffering.

We're doing the pieces because we were asked by a wonderful, world-famous conductor to participate. It is a very great honor and an opportunity to make our group better known and respected. At first bored by the pieces and resentful of the amount of time devoted to what is essentially a total of thirty minutes of singing, no one seemed terribly enthusiastic about the music. But that began to change. Along the way our director, who works very hard and very smart, whipped up our enthusiasm for the work and transmitted it to us. In the last few rehearsals, we have grown close to the music and the language. It has motivated us to embrace it, to engage in the struggle to master something decidedly foreign. The credit for this inspiration has to be shared among Lenin, Shostakovich and our director.

The payoff, more than the concerts themselves, is the learning. Words such as barba (struggle), molchanye (silence), and stradanye (suffering) are added to our very short Russian vocabulary list. We find too that Shostakovich had some brilliant moments, even when working with banal material. Most of all, we've learned again how much more one can appreciate the quality and mystery of music listening from the inside.

Toppermost

In his history of the Beatles, Bob Spitz explains everything important about the phenomenon of this group and its manager Brian Epstein. Spitz suggests modestly that there are no revelations here. In fact, the book confirms facts that previously have been established, provides documentation for facts assumed and views the participants with a clear eye. It's a long book, but compulsively readable, impossible to put down. It is the show biz story in its most extreme form and a great read. But this is not a review of the book. It's a comment on the nature of their creativity.

John, Paul, George and Ringo were four boys from Liverpool, a rough and tumble North England city. They grew up in the shadow of World War II. They were influenced by American music. To a man, they fell through the educational safety net of British education. They all were self-taught , lacking the musical vocabulary that would help them to explain their musical ideas. Fortunately, they worked with a producer who recognized their brilliance and was able to translate their descriptions into sound. They were children of the working class, destined to do as their families had done for generations. Many teenagers in the north lived for the evening broadcasts of American popular music by Radio Luxembourg. These four became devoted to the music of Elvis, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly. They absorbed the music of Ray Charles and the R&B artists of the 50's and early 60's.

They succeeded because of talent and total dedication to their craft. There is hardly a true artistwho is not wholly dedicated to art. As a good friend explained, "Complete dedication is necessary but not sufficient." Not everyone worked as hard as the Beatles did. But many who did work hard lacked the talent - their genius in crafting songs, extending or rethinking the forms, harmonies, rhythms, creating melodies so true that even they doubted their originality.

The creative process is at the heart of the mystery of the Beatles. There is that initial spark of an idea - completely original or stolen from something else - but after that, it's all about what you do with it. Good writing is not what is thrown on the page. It's how it's shaped afterward.

Certain songs, like Yesterday, took a couple of years to reach final form. The melody came first but there were no words. The first verse began "Scrambled Eggs, oh baby, how I love your legs..." That was never going to work. Over time, the writer heard other things, felt no feelings, and connected them with the music to produce the final product. The arrangement also went through several permutations before finding the ideal combination of solo voice, acoustic guitar and string quartet background.

It's almost universally accepted that the primary writers, Lennon and McCartney, were not nearly as successful working alone. The difference in the work began to show in the White Album, where they did not collaborate much. It shows.

So, the lessons for this one: if you want to be the toppermost of the poppermost, and you have talent, you need: total devotion and conviction, the doggedness to keep working it without self-censoring; a mind open to new ideas and information; teamwork and the ability to subordinate ego to the creative process.

South Dakota Steps Up

Those wise old heads in Pierre have taken the first step toward dismantling the current abortion laws. Both of those august bodies of the South Dakota legislature have passed a new bill banning abortion in all cases except where the mother's life is at risk. And Governor Mike Rounds, a known opponent to abortion, is poised to sign the bill into law. Not only does it ban abortions but it criminalizes them. Anyone convicted under this law would be sentenced to five years in prison for doing something that today is legal and constitutionally protected.

Why is South Dakota acting as the pulse of America, at the forefront of this retreat? There is one privately-funded facility providing abortions in South Dakota at the rate of 800 per year. It is no strain on the treasury. There is private funding for the No Choice side. In short, the government is being subsidized by private interests. That in itself is a nice, first amendment issue. Governor Rounds said that it's a matter of principle: that he would sign it if it would save lives. Although the Governor has questioned if this is the right time for a frontal attack on Roe v. Wade, that won't stop him from signing it. The Governor no doubt is aware that the same powers that toppled Senator Tom Daschle are backing this bill. Governor Rounds certainly realizes who is buttering his bread.

This case or another will reach the Circuit Court of Appeals at some point. The Supreme Court will have to decide if it will hear the case. Although it is facing a decision to hear a line of partial-birth abortion cases now, there are at least four votes lined up in favor of reviewing Roe v. Wade. Assuming it will, the Court may be faced squarely with whether or not to reaffirm that decision.

Even those who support Roe v. Wade must harbor doubts about its validity as legal precedent. Let's be clear that Roe does not hold that there is a constitutional right to choose. Maybe that's the effect of the decision but it isn't the legal basis. Roe also does not say that the right to an abortion is a constitutional right. The framers would never have thought or said that. Roe rests upon the "right to privacy," which is not expressed in the Constitution. The right to privacy grew out of a decision upholding the right of people to practice birth control within their zone of privacy. Even though there is no guaranteed right to such privacy, the Court found that such a right does exist, as one of a penumbra of rights. Let's stop there for a moment.

Penumbra is a kind of shadow, thrown off from the First Amendment. The Supreme Court in 1965 found that the First Amendment, in addition to the expressed rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of assembly and the freedom from establishment of religion, creates something like an umbrella under which other rights are gathered. The right of privacy, which in the Griswold case was a right of marital privacy ("older than our political parties, older than our school system...") was one of those penumbral rights, so basic and fundamental no one would bother to write it down. There is also the Ninth Amendment, which states that there are other unmentioned rights that are not impaired by the failure to mention them. It's one of those catch-all lawyer things, like "including but not limited to..."

Roe v. Wade, as good law, is dicey. Justice Blackmun identified the decision of the mother as a right of personal liberty (as distinct from marital privacy) under either the Fourteenth Amendment (equal rights) or the catch-all Ninth Amendment. Still seems a little tortured. It's questionable jurisprudence because it owes its existence to unspecified rights that are read into the meaning of the document, a gloss on what is actually there. For those Original Intent people, those who insist that Jonah actually was swallowed by a whale, there's nothing there. That makes it somewhat easier to reverse. But the framers did note that they did not cover everything, so part of the original intent was to encompass rights too obvious to mention.

On the other hand, the abortion debate is really shaped around matters of belief, bringing us to religion. The marking of the beginning of life or of potential life is at the heart of the No Choice Movement. Once there is an embryo, they say, a life is in being. Termination of the pregnancy is murder. But that really is a philosophical concept, as is the meaning of existence. It spills over into the freedom from establishment of religion. Truthfully, one's beliefs about abortion are built upon norms, and they in turn arise from beliefs, religious or philosophical depending on your point of view. This is a slippery slope for judges, and it's doubtful that anyone is willing to consider reevaluating Row in terms of the anti-establishment clause (from which we derive a popular polysyllabic word, antidisestablishmentarianism, for those who care). Too bad. This really calls the fundamental question under the First Amendment of whether a majority having one set of religious-ethical beliefs can criminalize the beliefs of the minority. The majority would say that it can when it is saving a life. But that begs the question of when life begins.

The impact of upholding Row on the grounds that the abortion statutes would tend to establish a religion would be tremendous and far-reaching...and one that this court will not undertake.

How Was Your Day?

From the vantage point of my middle-class utopia, it's hard to feel a lot of compassion for those who hate their work. If you cover your costs, have a little left over and are not exposed to radiation, that sounds like a fairly good job. We've come a long way from the Depression era mentality of our grandparents. They would have been very satisfied with almost any sort of work, however humbling it might have been. Things were bad for many people.

This is not the Depression. It's the New Economy, and there seems to be work for all who want it, provided, of course, you're not too picky about what you do. That may be tough for some of us careerists, whose goals are beyond mere wealth. Most of us are competent, some even adept, at many things. Genius is rare in the first place, and then it has to find the right outlet.

I'm visiting with some young friends in Colorado. They have bought a house and are fixing it up. They enjoy their weekends in the mountains. They're not awfully concerned with finding the Mogul in themselves - yet. Hopefully things will stay that way for them, because they seem to have a great time. They work to live, not the other way around. Some folks, like me, for instance, am trying to learn from their example.

It's not that they don't have bad days at the office. But they seem good at letting it go. They have a mortgage to pay, so they are not indifferent or irresponsible. They have a balanced attitude about the meaning of work in their lives. Ultimately that makes every day fine.

Topsy Turvy

It's another round of what did they know and when did they know it. I don't know if you can call it Katrina Gate, inasmuch as it involves Levees. But the coverup looks like it merits a Gate tag.

Michael Brown, the former head of FEMA, announced that he was now willing to answer questions about his handling of the relief effort for New Orleans. Following the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, Brown refused to answer questions posed by Congressional investigators. He has changed his mind. As a private citizen he said, "I feel an obligation to answer any questions they put to me."

I might be offbase here, but wouldn't a public official have a greater degree of accountability, and therefore a greater obligation to answer questions than would a private citizen? At the very least, the obligation would be equal. There is no justification for the head of FEMA refusing to answer questions about matters in his bailiwick.

What Would Atticus Finch Do?

There was a significant gap in my education. I missed the lessons about growing up and dealing with disappointment. I've always been thin-skinned, quick to take offense at a slight or to react with anger to defeat or disappointment.

A few months ago, a group leader had asked me to prepare material. When we got together today, it was clear that the leader had asked someone else to do it in the interim but had not told me. A mistake was made. Two people should not have been asked or, if it was unavoidable, then the leader should have said something to me about it - it shouldn't have come as a surprise. It was inconsiderate and poorly handled. My disappointment and unhappiness are real, and I am entitled to feel it. But it's really about what you do with those feelings. Do you take your ball and go home, or do you try to regain your equilibrium and go on?

In the past when something does not go my way I retreat to a place of anger and self-loathing, and after that I usually withdraw from the activity or the group. I had about a half-hour to deal with the feelings before the meeting broke up.

Has there ever been a wiser, more balanced and emotionally mature character than Atticus Finch? To Kill a Mockingbird is all about honor and dignity--finding the best inside yourself under circumstances that test you. Atticus teaches his children to be tolerant and compassionate, not to jump in with your fists or temper but to right yourself; to see it from the other person's point of view. Instead of being churlish and pulling back, you try to understand why things happen the way they do. In the absence of meanness and bad intentions, most everything can be forgiven.

At the end of the meeting I asked the leader about the change, and the person apologized for the change and for failing to let me know. Politics within the group necessitated the action, and I did not disagree when I heard it from that point of view. It nevertheless hurt but more important things, such as principles, good citizenship, comraderie and generosity, were a balm for my disappointment. It doesn't mean that I will give up or stop trying to be a part of the group, to do my job well or to fight for other opportunities. But this one was over, and I would find a way to accept the outcome. Atticus showed me that you can nourish your own spirit and heal your own wounds.

What Oil Problem?

It's hard to blame Bush for his tepid State of the Union speech. His major initiatives this past year failed. He's getting skewered for the Iraq War and for the lack of domestic forces, money and leadership to handle disaster recovery ("Great job, Brownie!"). If he could have cancelled the appearance he would have done it.

I don't know why anyone is surprised that he would choose this moment in time to give lip service to the national need to wean itself from use of fossil fuels. He did not have much else to talk about. Besides, it was one way to keep Exxon's report of huge quarterly earnings off the front page.

Anyone who lived through the oil embargos of the 1970's knows that the day of reckoning was at hand. The nation's foreign policy has been a long, costly and tragic instance of the tail wagging its dog. Our government has supported Shiites against Sunnis or vice versa, depending upon whose hand is on the faucet at any given time. The US supplied Saddam to keep Iran at bay. Then Saddam turned, and we drummed up Shiite support against him. Which brings things back to those pesky Iranians. They now have nuclear capabilities Makes hostage taking seem quaint.

Paul Krugman argues that there will be no real change until there is a steep gasoline tax. That's a start. I think that there also needs to be an incentive for people using renewable energy sources and driving hybrid, or flex-fuel, cars, as they are now called. In places like Gotham here, we have to get cars off the highways, and create a viable light rail system for commuters and a more effective method of limiting midtown traffic.

But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the Bush administration will take any steps, let alone the bold measures, required to kick our petroleum jones. What would his friends think? The words were right but there will be nothing initiated to support them. Thus the paradox of cutbacks on the renewable energy task force at the same time of this policy statement.

A few basic ideas to get started:

1. No corporate tax break for leasing heavy passenger vehicles. The fact that the government subsidizes the purchase of a Porsche Cayenne is a thoughtless obscentiy.

2. Serious financial commitment to development of renewable energy.

3. Federal and state incentives for the use of flex-fuel vehicles and public transportation.

4. Downtown areas closed to auto traffic.

5. A limit on cabs and a policy that encourages or makes mandatory multi-passenger trips.
This seemed to work out just fine during the latest transit strike. No problem getting cabs to Brooklyn at those rates!

I am in the market for a car. While I would like to get that nice sedan with all the power and trimmings, it's clear that a Prius or other hybrid is the right choice, if purchasing a car is the right choice at all. It may not be as powerful or as sexy as that Lexus but when I drive past you waiting in line for a refill, I will make sure to wave.