You in America now!

While walking in our nation's Capital yesterday, my somewhat aimless wandering intuition impelled me along a pavement path that provided, perhaps unexpectedly, a sudden purview of the Fed. That is to say, I was suddenly standing there in front of the Federal Reserve, where Federal Reserve Notes, better known as dollars, are generated.

Since I like to capture pics of places that are perceived as power penumbras, I prepared to snap a picture.

But before I took the picture, I wanted to make sure everything was hunky-dory, because there happened to be a couple of federal police guys right there, where I had decided to pause and snap the pic. So I asked them if I could take this picture of the building:

The reason I sought their permission is because, a few months ago when Pat and I were in Rome, we were passing by an entrance that appeared to be some kind of official building of the EU, European Union. (I knew this because of the two flags, Italian and EU, which were displayed above the main entry door). In order to get a larger perspective for my anticipated picture, I crossed the street and prepared to snap the pic.

But while I was snipping it, the guard began gesturing to me quite frantically, really quite aggressively, so that I got the message that I shouldn't be snapping such a pic.

. . .although I did not know why. But I was nevertheless able to ascertain his prohibitory meaning, and so I immediately ceased and desisted from any further photographic presumptions. But that was after I had managed to snap one prohibited pic:

As a result of that experience I have been, from that day forward until now, a little bit inhibited to snap a permissive pic of any public place without official permission.

But yesterday, on this particular occasion, in Washington, D.C. yesterday, there was no problem, because when I asked the policeman, after explaining that in Rome they had shut me down, he said no problem!. He laughed and said:

"Well this is America, and you can take all the pictures you want!"

Boy, was I relieved.

Then later, when I thought about it all, yesterday's pic-snipping liberty seemed ironic, because the policeman's statement reminded me, oddly enough, of what the old guy, Fiddler, had said to young Kunta Kinte, in the 1980's miniseries Roots, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075572/

written by Alex Haley. When Kunta Kinte was just off the boat, a slave-ship, and bound in chains, writhing in agony, having such a hard time adjusting to life as a slave in pre-Emancipation America. That's when ole Fiddler had said to him:

"You in America now!"

Which is to say: You in slave-country now, boy, not like back in the old country where you was some kind of tribal prince or whatever you were there.

The very terrible news announced by Fiddler to Kunta Kinte was that now, in the Land of so-called Opportunity, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, the black man was, sad to say, no free citizen, certainly no tribal cheiftain or son thereof, but rather a slave, a piece of property to be owned by some white-privileged slave-owner.

But when the federal police guy said to me yesterday You're in America now, it was a much more liberating declaration than the one that Kunta Kinte had gotten when he arrived here a few hundred years ago.

These days we have more freedom here, and less paranoia, than the Europeans. Take all the pics you want. And the great grandsons and great granddaughters of slaves also have more freedom than their enslaved ancestors did.

Viva Las Picturas!

Nevertheless, today I did wander, right here in the Capital of the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, into a situation that was photographically prohibitory. At the Art Museum, I was told not to snap pics in a certain room. But I had already, in my ignorant haste, snipped one contraban pic!:

So don't tell anybody you're seeing, in the gallery background above, this American photo of a famous French painting. That way we can continue to celebrate La Liberté, La Fraternité, L'Egalité.

Glass half-Full

A Scene at the Lincoln Memorial

Yesterday we drove up from Charlotte to Washington. After checking into the hotel, we had dinner in the room, then launched out for a nocturnal walk to the National Mall and Lincoln Memorial. By 'n by, being doused by a rainstorm we found ourselves taking cover under this unfamiliar rotunda which turned out to be something called the D.C. War Memorial. I snapped this pic:

which turned out to be a much clearer photograph than the one I attempted a few minutes later in the drizzling D.C. night at the Korean War Memorial:

This very dark image of ghostly soldier statues seems to reflect a dim commemoration of a war that was taking place on the other side of the world about the time I entered this world in 1951.

My photographic success brightened considerably when, a few tromping minutes later, we arrived at the Lincoln Memorial and caught this view in the dripping night.

This luminescent sight reminded me of our arrival in Greece a few months ago when, having just stepped out of an Athens Metro station we caught a similarly eerie first sighting of the distant Acropolis, which seemed to hover at the apex of an ancient high-ground hallowed spot.

But that was then, and this was now, which is to say, last night:

We ascended the glistening steps of the Lincoln Memorial, and when we got up there this is what we saw:

Then, wandering over to the glyphed wall-inscription of our war-striven President's message at Gettysburg battlefield. I was reminded of a scene from my 2007 novel, Glass half-Full. In chapter 6 of that book, we find Marcus and Bridget, a young couple who have recently met, gazing at the inscribed words of the President's famous speech. Here's the scene:

They came to an inner sanctum. Carved on the white marble wall in front of them were the words of the slain President's Gettysburg address. Marcus stopped, taking in the enormity of it, both physically and philosophically. He was looking at the speech intently. Bridget was looking at him.

After a few moments: "Isn't that amazing?"

"Yes." She could see that he was thinking hard about something. The great chamber echoed a murmur of humankind.

"Supreme irony." The longing of a nation's soul reverberated through the memorial. . .in the soundings of children, the whisperings of passersby. Deep within Marcus' soul, something sacred was stirring, and she could see it coming forth.

"The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here." He was reading aloud Lincoln's words on the white wall.

But for the echoes of a million people who had passed through this place, there was silence. After a moment, Bridget responded ". . .and yet, there it is, carved on the wall for all to see. 'The world will little note what we say here. . .' "

"Right, Bridget. Isn't it amazing?"

Glass half-Full

Tribulations

The Climate Change fanatics are expecting a Climate Apocalypse.

The FreeMarket fanatics are expecting an Economic Apocalypse.

The Religious fanatics are expecting an Armaggedan Apocalypse.

The Islamist fanatics are expecting a Dabiq Apocalypse.

The Shiite Twelver fanatics are expecting a Twelfth Imam Apocalypse.

The Entertainment fanatics are expecting another Apocalypse blockbuster.

The Leftist fanatics are expecting a RightWing Apocalypse.

The Rightist fanatics are expecting a LeftWing Apocalypse.

The Racist fanatics are expecting a Race War Apocalypse.

For some groups of people, an apocalyptic tragedy has already begun, having changed their lives forever, in ways that we, the clueless online onlookers, can never comprehend.

For members of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, life as they knew it has been torn asunder, as if a raging lion had attacked a grazing lamb.

Two days ago I heard people on a radio program arguing about whether the mass murder committed by a lone racist gunman in Charleston was a "hate crime" or a "crime against Christians."

What we call it is really meaningless.

The truth is; it's both--and. . . a serious multiple homicide perpetrated by a hateful, anti-Christian man who is worth of only thing, the death penalty.

This multiple murder did take place in a Christian church; Nine Christians were cruelly murdered.

In my Church this Sunday morning, our pastor lead us in a prayer for the families of these nine martyrs, who are now in the presence of Jesus Christ, who, like them, was murdered in his own innocence.

Our pastor reminded us of Paul's counsel to the Christians of 1st-century Rome, who were later persecuted in the same murderous way as our brothers and sisters of Emanuel AME. Paul exhorted the believers in Rome to "weep with those weep."

And so, while most of us did not weep for these deceased saints, we did pray for their families, and for their gathered believers, which is to say their church. We stand in solidarity with them, in what we call the Body of Christ.

In such a time as this, we are reminded of the words Jesus spoke:

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

In such a time as this, the collective prayers of the church will summon the Holy Spirit to comfort the families and saints of Emanuel AME Church.

And although murderous acts such as this may come, they will not defeat the purposes of God among his people.

Nor will any coming Apocalypse, imagined or otherwise, extinguish the love of Jesus that draws his people together in times of tribulation.

Glass half-Full

458 B.C., when Iranians and Jews worked together

The God of Providence sees to it that his people have opportunity for historical renewal when it becomes necessary.

Such is the lesson that this Christian believer distills from my reading of a scholarly treatise in biblical history and theology, written by Kyong-Jin Lee: The Authority and Authorization of Torah in the Persian Period, (Peeters 2011)

Now I am no scholar. However, I am a student of history; I have appreciated this book, and managed to learn from it, even though it was written mainly for academic scholars.

Professor Lee explores the working relationship between 5th-century BCE Achaemenid rulers and the the local priests whose leadership legitimatized Persian channels of authority throughout their vassal countries.

Following well-worn paths of scholarly research, Kyong-Jin Lee examines several case studies in which the ancient Persian kings and their appointees consistently worked within pre-existing channels of local authority, religious and political, to collectively maintain a Pax Persicus. Her exegesis reveals a modus operandi of very practical Persian administrations. Regional satrapies, appointed by the Achaemenid King, generally sought to understand how each vassal state had habitually operated religiously and politically. Then the dutiful satraps acted in an informed manner to legislate effectively. Utilizing native leadership, the Achaemenids would work to construct productive channels for effective localized administrations. Thus a network of King-appointed priests or governors worked to maintain peace and order throughout the Persian empire.

Through Kyong-Jin Lee's careful analysis of steles and documentary fragments from Egypt and Asia Minor antiquity, a consistently Persian legislative approach to governing emerges for the reader. It is inclusive, cooperative and ultimately pragmatic. Her chosen precedent case studies help the reader gain understanding about the main object of Lee's study: the working relationship between king Artaxerxes and his emissary to the Jews of Jerusalem, Ezra the scribe. About ~458 BCE.

This Christian reader has little experience navigating the meticulous academic exegeses of such scholars as Peter Frei, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Lisbeth Fried, Juha Pakkala and other noteworthy scholars upon whose research Kyong-Jin Lee builds her case. Nevertheless, I must say:

Reading this book has been quite a learning experience for me.

Circa the 5th-century BCE, the rise of the Achaemenid Persians under the conquerors Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes and Artaxerxes, brought about new political conditions favorable for the Jewish people, who had been deported to Babylon about seventy years earlier by Nebuchadnezzar. By an edict of the Persian king Artaxerxes, the Babylonian Jewish scribe Ezra was commissioned to travel to Judea on a fact-finding mission which eventually became a Persian-backed restoration of Jewish religious practice in Jerusalem. Imagine that. This development contributed not only to political stability in the Judean "beyond the River" satrapy, but incidentally also contributed (Providentially, from my faith perspective) to Torah, and later the written Bible.

So I find my 21st-century Biblical reader-self feeling cognitive gratitude to these Persian monarchs of long ago--Cyrus, Darius, Artaxerxes, whose benevolent rulership facilitated a rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem and hence the continuing worship of Y__H. Therefore, this believer infers this historical lesson:

After a time of great trial--an era of captivity and chastisement under an oppressive (the Babylonian) empire-- the God of history can arrange for the restoration of his people. He can raise up foreign potentates to facilitate their homeland aliyah, and thereby allow the ministrations of the loving, Providential God to continue among them through the ages, right up to the time of his supreme Sacrifice for the good of us all, such a time as then and now, when a Passover lamb would no longer be necessary.

Smoke

My great jazzified orchestral adventure

I had worked my 63-year-old body to a point of exhaustion last Wednesday afternoon, and so I took a little break from pressure-washing. The green mold that likes to grow on vinyl siding had now been blasted from two more high gable ends of the apartment buildings for which I am responsible. I am, you see, a maintenance guy.

So I slid slowly down the ladder and slogged over to my little shop. Plopping wearily into the padded chair, I activated the radio with expectations of easing for a little spell of time into some fanciful musical escapade. Alas, I was not disappointed. My favorite radio station, WDAV, http://www.wdav.org/ immediately came through in classic style to whisk my overworked mind far beyond the ladder-heightened adventures of blasting H20 onto doomed algae colonies.

And then, strains of unfamiliar, though strangely captivating, orchestral sound came wafting to my ears. The music was soothing, with an elegant piano that stroked my worn-out being, but it was punctuated occasionally with bursts of symphonic divergence in a fashion that indicated some orchestral work of the early 20th century.

These impressionistic, mildly jazzy strains seemed vaguely familiar to me, but I could not place them. Surely it's Gershwin, I wondered; the snappy snippets erupting here and there reminded me of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, which is one of my favorites. The very rhythmical slow-to-intense piano allegrettos landed me in a bewildered ponderance of trying to identify the composer. It was Gershwinesque, for sure, spicy with dynamic thrusts of emergent jazz, and slashing staccato poundings on the keyboard, while rambunctious woodwinds answered in the background, followed by lush strings that tamed the composer's carefully-constructed disruptions into interludes of pure repose.

Then that captivating first movement energy slid languidly into an adagio second movement that soothed my weary soul like balm in Gilead. I had a few moments of unparalleled restorative calm, a true respite from my pressurizing labors.

Now comfortably installed at my shop's work table, I began replacing the inner parts of a removed toilet tank, one of the 94 that I regularly maintain.

Suddenly, rapid bursts of precise piano, then bravissimo winds and sassy brass, were bursting forth in the last movement's Presto prestissimo, affirming my ruminations that surely this incredible piece of music was the work of some great composer. A few minutes later, sure enough, Joe Brant's vocal coda identified the opus as Maurice Ravel's Piano Concerto in G.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_(Ravel)

Composed during 1929-31, it was a musical opus that Ravel had said "nearly killed him." I learned this a day or two later on Wikipedia.

That 25-minute concerto took him two years to write. The piece's intricacy and innovative energy, with brief boogie-woogified left hand in the last movement and all that jazz, convinces me that the composer's desperate statement is "nearly" true. This intricate piece of music took a mountain of work. It was an exhaustive labor of love, the outcome of which was to to unify two great traditions of music, old European orchestral and new American jazz, in such a work as this.

Here's pianist Helene Grimaud performing it with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Tugan Sokhiev:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbNoqzpbc0U

George Gershwin was doing similar renovations in classical music at about the same time as Maurice Ravel. And I was curious about this. Ravel's Piano Concerto in G is, I think, so similar in feeling and era-sensitive timing to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, I was wondering who came first. I was thinking that Gershwin's Rhapsody had premiered in 1934. Yesterday I learned on Wikipedia that Ravel's upstart, jazzified Concerto in G was first performed in 1932.

So Ravel's groundbreaking innovation scooped Gershwin's?

Actually, not. As it turned out, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue premiered in 1924! not 1934, as I had thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhapsody_in_Blue

Which only makes sense--that the American, being born and raised in the land of the blues, the western continent of jazz's birth, with Louie Armstrong blowin' his horn down in N'awlins, King Oliver movin' up in Chicago, Duke Ellington finessin' in New York, etc etc., it only makes sense that George would scoop the Frenchman Maurice Ravel in this musical transition from one golden age to another, one old continent to one new one.

Here's a contemporary YouTube of pianist Makoto Ozone performing Rhapsody in Blue with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Alan Gilbert. But warning! to you classical music purists out there: this is Ozone's jazzed up version of Gershwin's jazzed up original composition! George Gershwin would, I believe, be impressed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxowOVIdnR0

But the discovery of this jazzed-up symphonic scoop is not the end of my story. A little further research early this morning online took me to one of the many black prodigies of American early jazz, Willie "the Lion" Smith. He was ticklin' the ivories in Harlem and over on 52nd Street back in the day, early '20's, before George caught a vision for his blue masterpiece, and before Maurice grabbed hold of his jazzifyin' Continental groundbreaker Concerto long abouts 1929-31.

Willie the Lion was an amazing, transitional piano impresario, and a legend back in the jazz age. Now this is where my great musical adventure, having begun in a moment of repose on Wednesday, and then morphing through Ravel and Gershwin, right into now, in the midst of Sunday morning's research-driven blogfest. Are you ready for Willie?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBhbCjSnemE

Listen on!



Smoke

Through the Looking Glass Gate of 1968

It was many, many years ago today

Sergeant Pepper thought he taught the band to play.

We been goin' in n' outa style,

'though we've traveled now for many a mile.

Yes, 'T'was many and many a year ago,

and whose years these were I think I know,

'cause I was born and raised in the Way down south;

Oh, Sweet potato pie and shut my mouth!

Meanwhile, suddenly down in Memphis

the tenser had gone to tensest

when the Man who was a Mountain said,

as though he were already dead:

I may not get there with you;

I may not get there with you,

and then suddenly he's gone where

I know he found a stair

way to heaven.

Film at eleven,

they said.

But He was already dead.



So then we woke up from the dream

of marmalade pie and soured cream

'T'was in that summer I hear them sayin,

while America was frayin':

Hell no! We won't go.

Bring your Democratic ass up to Chicago!

But we were agonizin'

while some bad moon was a-risin'.

I can't go there, I say I say.

Me gots to work; me gots to stay,

so I'll meet you there in fourscore and seven.

Therefore, lest I catch that same stairway to heaven,

and I feel my engines revvin',

I think I'll just skip the part about film at eleven.

But then we said,

when even Bobby too was dead

Hell, just lock the door and throw away the key;

Jest let us go then, you and me.

Let us give up hope

'cause we can't any longer cope.

Let us lock the door and throw away the key,

me and thee, and them out there makes three.

But hey! I thought;

lest we all be sold and bought,

if we fall for that that old cynic's tune

just gag me with a spoon!

Back at the ranch, meanwhile,

and suddenly she's there at the turnstile.

We feel the women come and go;

we wonder why but we don't know.

They look for Michelangelo

but then the men don't show.

They went to where the flowers go

while Sergeant Pepper puts on his show.



Maybe I didn't know then what I don't know now,

so I thought I'd try to work it out somehow,

until I found myself caught up in a Fall,

and suddenly I caught it all.

So we wrote it all off as a loss,

when we hung it, later, on a damned old cross.

I'm sorry to burst you bubble;

but thanks for all our trouble.



Glass half-Full

Hey you unemployed, you shovel-ready?

Pat and I have been watching, on Amazon, Ken Burns' documentary series about the Roosevelts (Teddy and Franklin and Eleanor and all them others in between). This morning I find myself wanting to share some thoughts about President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=ken+burns+roosevelt

FDR was a man for his time. He was, as we readers of the Bible like to say, a person who had been born "for such a time as this."

"This" time being that time-- the time that he was born into, and destined to have a great impact on: the 1930s.

Through the long course of Ken Burns' biographical film-depiction of FDR, any viewer can ascertain many attributes of true leadership that Mr. Roosevelt manifested in his personality.

Most notable among those attributes is a thoroughly positive attitude: We can do this, he exuded, and we can do it with great joy and a good attitude. Watching the old newsreel clips of FDR I am reminded, strangely enough, of another great President, Ronald Reagan, who possessed a similarly positive outlook on life. Mr. Roosevelt's jovial optimism also reminds me of the first pastor I ever had after becoming a Christian at age 27. That was a fellow named Tom Gable, about 35 years ago.

But Mr. Roosevelt's unique leadership was not an attribute that was easily acquired. His gift of joyful positivism was shaped by God, through the terrible crucible of suffering. It was thereby crafted into a finely-honed treasure. His crucible of suffering was a disease: polio.

We all have, as we Christians say, our "cross to bear." Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "cross" was a dreaded, debilitating disease.

I daresay if Mr. Roosevelt had had no such impediment-- with as much class privilege and intelligence as he had going for him-- he would have been as arrogant as the day is long, and his great leadership skills would never have been manifested in any truly effective way.

Just sayin'. No way to prove such a statement.

Smiling and displaying great confidence has a lot to do with this. Confidence in himself, of course, but more importantly, confidence in us.

Now I know that among my circle of friends, most of whom are conservative southerners generally espousing Republican principles, to admire Mr. Roosevelt, especially in a public way, is anathema, because he was, you know, the guy who got us going down the terrible road of socialism that eventually led to LBJ and Obama and our current entitlement-driven welfare state and so forth and so on.

But here's the thought I want to explore on this beautiful Friday morning in June, 2015: Sure, Mr. Roosevelt was perhaps, a "socialist" by some definitions, but look what stupendous works got done in the 1930s under his leadership: dams, rural electrification projects, conservation projects, millions of trees planted, post offices all over the country with artistic murals, bridges, roads. And in my neck of the woods here in North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway was built. Fifty years after that project, I worked on its final phase. I got hired in 1981 as a steel-tieing rodbuster. This was a job I took on-- liberal arts college graduate that I am-- for a few years, to feed my wife and young'uns back in the early days of our marriage, in order to complete the Parkway's missing link, the Linn Cove Viaduct--the section that was never finished back in the '30s--because it was in the shadow of rough, rocky Appalachian terrain, a mountain that we call, around here, Grandfather.

So there we were last night watching Ken Burns' masterful documentary-style story-tellin' about Roosevelt and the WPA, CCC, NRA, etc. And we see all those workin' folks on them grainy old blackn'white newsreels. The workers were performing great feats of mastery over nature, staying busy and out of trouble, getting significant legacy edifices erected, while our great capital-breathing nation recovered from a blown-up 1920s Wall Street bubble. Sound familiar?

But here's the thing. If you'll look at all them old and young codgers on them newsreels back in the day, you can discern that they knew how to work.

"Shovel ready" is what I'm talking about. Literally, men-- and many a woman too--knew how to use shovels back then. They knew how to do physical work, in order to construct all them great projects and assure future wilderness and national parks and so on and so forth, and in so doing, implant within our national heritage many great infrastructure and/or numerous national treasure wonders that are still with us today.

But here's the rub. I don't think folks these days are like those crusty Americans from back in the day. There's no way we can do what they did.

That was then and this is now.

Back in the day, during the '30s, fellas were just three steps off the farm anyway, and they knew how to really use a shovel. Workers these days are more likely to be texting or checking email on their mobile device while leaning on the shovel, and so I don't see us really able to dig our way out of this hole we're in.

So if there were a Roosevelt kind of person around today to lead us out of this mess, God only knows who it would be. I certainly see anyone like that on the horizon.

Mobile-device-ready doesn't exactly carry the same weight as shovel-ready. Nevertheless. . .take a look around at America. While we are trying to find make-work for folks, what needs doin'?



Glass Chimera