Bernstein in Berlin: A Christmas Classic

In the early 1990s I purchased a Deutsche Grammophon CD of the famous concert Leonard Bernstein conducted on Christmas, 1989, a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and listening to it has become a holiday tradition around my humble little homestead.

Bernstein, who died less than a year after this concert, explains in this video how the event came to pass, as he drew on musicians and singers from both sides of the German divide and elsewhere to fashion what became known as the "Ode to Freedom" rendition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9:



"Ode to Joy," the masterpiece of the great German poet Friedrich Schiller, celebrates the unity and brotherhood of mankind, a theme that was weaved into the finale of Symphony No. 9 by Beethoven. Bernstein adapted the title of the poem to "Ode to Freedom" in honor of the newly freed people of East Germany and their unification with West Germany.

Here's a short snippet of the concert, which was recorded at the Schauspielhaus:



The entire concert is available on YouTube, broken into four separate videos. I had never seen any footage from the concert before, so it was quite revealing. The quality of the videos isn't spectacular, but the sound is marvelous. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Part I:



Part II:



Part III:



Part IV:








Nice little pieces of self-parody

I too fear the overreach of regulation of the free enterprise system due to the global economic collapse. As an aspiring entrepreneur, I sure picked a rotten time to flee the world of the legacy corporation.

But why are some of the biggest voices of libertarianism either in a state of self-parody or fearing, gasp -- socialism! -- because their purist economic beliefs have been put to the test, and have failed?

When The Economist is advocating some interference in the markets, and when the author of "Liars Poker" reveals how nobody on Wall Street could see what the hell was coming on (and those few who did were ignored), shouldn't that be a sign that a certain ideology that, like most when taken to extremes, has gone off the rails?

It's one that I still want to identify with, certainly more than either Bush-style conservativism that lies in wreckage, and quasi-New Deal cries on the left for protectionism, single-payer health care and expansion of entitlements.

But it's embarrassing to read the lunatic prose of "The Libertarian Moment," the first piece linked here, and especially this sequence harkening to the immediate days after Nixon's resignation:

"Yet even during that dark night of the American soul, with all its eerie echoes of George W. Bush’s final miserable days in office, premonitions of liberty-loving life abounded for those who knew where to look. The contraceptive pill, which gave women unprecedented control over their sexual and reproductive lives, had been made legal for married women in 1965, and was on the verge of being legalized for unmarried women too."

The Constitution lay in tatters; but hey, thank God single people could screw their brains out and forget all about Watergate thanks to the pill! Precisely the segue I would have made!

Except that, following that logic, and as Bush has pardoned his last Thanksgiving turkey (fowl freedom!), we have the decision in California -- Ahnuld's Kalifornia, supposedly libertine, if not libertarian -- to roll back marriage rights for gays that had been previously granted. Oops! How did that happen?

Libertarian ideas are still compelling to me, but I do want these folks to grow up and get real. Just a little bit. Please?

"The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. Like other ideologues, libertarians react to the world's failing to conform to their model by asking where the world went wrong. Their heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult for them to accept that markets can be irrational, misunderstand risk, and misallocate resources or that financial systems without vigorous government oversight and the capacity for pragmatic intervention constitute a recipe for disaster. They are bankrupt, and this time, there will be no bailout."

That fabulously creepy Highsmith feeling

One of the underrated pleasures of reading the Wall Street Journal (especially given the grim economic news and the paper's reactionary editorial page) are some of the features in its Saturday Weekend section.

Crime fiction historian Leonard Cassuto's remembrance this weekend of Patricia Highsmith's "Strangers on a Train" gave me some delightfully harrowing recollections of her novel that Alfred Hitchcock adapted for the cinema. Some comparison has been made to our own time, the so-called Age of Terror, with the chilling dawn of the nuclear age that led to mass paranoia and a search for scapegoats that Highsmith loaded into her early works:

" 'Strangers' was her debut novel, but her sense of anxious foreboding was already fully formed in the crucible of Cold War paranoia that surrounded her. For Highsmith, who was gay, that paranoia was shot through with anxiety, for American Cold War politics intertwined with an intense homophobia that branded homosexuals as an official national security risk. Highsmith's creative goal, she wrote in her notebook at the time, was 'Consciousness alone, consciousness in my particular era, 1950.' "

Much of Cassuto's piece is an homage to a female writer who essentially created her own stylistic form, one that was largely disdained and unappreciated in her native land for much of her lifetime:

" 'Strangers on a Train' began Highsmith's career-long tour of the minds of characters who aren't comfortable in the world, and her edgy, original thrillers have always defied easy categorization. Even more popular now than when she was alive and writing, Highsmith stands as an utterly unique genre writer."

I've read about a half-dozen Highsmith novels (but none of the Ripley 5 as yet) and when she steps outside the mind of criminals, like Bruno, she still evokes blood-curdling suspense that is hard to top. My personal favorite is "Tremor of Forgery," but even those rare novels in which no crime is committed, such as "Edith's Diary," her psychological insights are tremendous.

Frightening, deeply unsettling, but tremendous. She broadened the suspense genre as the Cold War period was subsumed by Vietnam, Watergate and the rise of the conservatives, taking in all of these developments.

Highsmith wrote during times in which Americans weren't thrilled about being confronted by their darkest impulses, and they didn't appreciate someone willing to step deep into the shadows to expose them. As Cassuto writes, Highsmith was an amoralist -- "I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial, for neither life nor nature cares whether justice is ever done or not."

I'm still waiting for an American novelist of this time to step into that breach. Then again, the power of her work may be precisely because the topics that she explored were considered taboo.

Grateful for this Veterans Day

Not just to those who have served in the past and continue to do so, but also because of the recent safe return of my brother from his deployment. He's finally met the baby daughter whose birth he missed!

Today also is the 90th anniversary of Armistice Day, and The Guardian is running an excellent commemorative series this week on World War I. Here's a video link (unfortunately it cannot be embedded) to an interview with a surviving British World War I veteran that captures the hatred of war and idealism (even pacifism) that many of those who fought in "The Great War" spoke about for decades:

A friend recently told me about a trip he had taken to St. Michel, in eastern France, and toured through a private American World War I cemetery.

"I was there thinking no one has visited these souls for probably years and its a forgotten place in history."

This conflict is of special interest to me as a former history major and lifelong history buff because of how it shocked a Victorian world a half-century before Vietnam had a similar effect in America.
The unsentimental historian Barbara Tuchman, wrote at the end of her eminent "The Guns of August" that of the war's "many diverse results" there was

"one dominant one transcending all the others: disillusion."

It's one of many outstanding pieces of scholarship about The Great War. Paul Fussell's "The Great War and Modern Memory" and Modris Eksteins' "Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age" are exceptional for their fascinating examinations of the war's effects on literature, art and culture. As Eksteins writes in his introduction, in one of many brilliant passages about the war ushering in modernity:

"That buffer, between thought and action, a positive moral code, has disinegrated in the twentieth century, and in the process, in the colossal romanticism and irrationalism of our era, imagination and action have moved together, and even have been fused.

"Sensation is everything. The ghost has become reality and reality a ghost."

Why we fail to learn from this history -- and I'm thinking of the neoconservative plunge into the Middle East that will have the U.S., and some of its few remaining allies, bottled up for too many more years -- is as great a tragedy as the wars themselves.

Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fuss Auf Liebe Eingestellt

The terrific Open Culture site has unearthed Marlene Dietrich's 1929 screen test for "The Blue Angel," which catapulted her to eternal fame.



This site's an absolute gold mine for the thoughtful, intelligent use of the Web. Despite the pleas of some Internet scolds that there's no such thing.

It's not easy going green

As the unfortunate culture wars in American politics have been revived in time for the November elections, there's nothing more refreshing than thinking far beyond our borders for some needed perspective on matters that are hardly sexy. Or just about sex.

Global thinkers Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria engage in a lively Q & A on the former's new book on global warming and environmentalism. I've had my disagreements with both, namely their often too-sweeping pronouncements, but this conversation sure beats the hell out of whether Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter is a viable campaign issue:

"America's problem is that we've lost our way--we've lost our groove as a country. And the basic argument of the book is that we can solve our problem by taking the lead in solving the world's problem."

But it's a yawner to the American electorate beyond the "drill, drill, drill" refrain. And it's probably too late to avoid the red meat fare we're going to be served for the next two months.

Excavating an oeuvre

I've not yet picked anything up by the late South American novelist Roberto Bolaño, but five years after his death his full body of work is only now being fully revealed and is still awaiting translation:

• Monsieur Pain (novel)
• Antwerp (novel)
• The Insufferable Gaucho (novel)
• Parenthetically (essays)
• Assassin Whores (short stories)
• Secreto De Mal (posthumous collection of writings-stories, sketches, poems, miscellany)

The titles of Bolaño's works apparently have managed to generate as much attention as the substance of what he writes.

How I fell in love with jazz

It's Saturday night and I'm listening to this program, which has been my constant companion for the last dozen or so years.

I came across it purely unexpectedly, and virtually by accident, which makes its discovery even more satisfying. As a pop-addled child of the 1970s, I finally grew up musically and began to shed the rock world that didn't last much longer than my youth.

This host doesn't spin any junk. None of the smooth or yuppie jazz, the odious Kenny G sound that might be easy on the ears. But it ain't jazz. The classics, ranging chronologically from the Duke Ellington and late Big Band era, with a big sweeping dive into the Bop period and up through the late 1960s and John Coltrane: this is the basic discography. There's some Louis Armstrong, and as well as Diana Krall and a young Russian pianist, Eldar. Mix in some Latin jazz from the likes of Tete Montoya. A personal and unique stamp is what makes it such a treat. 

And the special occasions, even the sad ones, have been most memorable. The week Frank Sinatra died, nothing was played but Ol' Blue Eyes for the entire five-hour show.

It's one of the many reasons I'm tuning in now, and hope I will be for many years to come.

Color this passion bright orange

Excited about the chance to see the talented, but surprising, Dutch side today for the first time in the European championships quarterfinals. Talented, as they always are, with a stocked roster of some of the best club players on the continent. Surprising, because Holland has been a notorious underachiever on the international stage recently. Two years ago they didn't impress at the World Cup, and in 2002 missed that event altogether. A nation that created the "Total Football" revolution had descended into a collection of individuals who didn't seem to care playing together. 

But in an age of often soulless, defensive-minded soccer dominated by the commercial demands of the club game, these Dutch are sparking some fond memories of Holland's glorious past, led by Johan Cruyff in the 1970s and a decade later, from current coach Marco van Basten:

"Their style is love-you-madly, artfully managed excess. . . . It is Liberation Soccer, fiesta football, with the added pleasure that no one is trying to turn it into ideology."

It's hard to believe this is essentially the same Dutch squad that two years ago exited the World Cup in violent disgrace against Portugal, guided by an unremorseful van Basten. Soon he will be taking the reins at famed Amsterdam club Ajax, but for just a little while longer (and maybe just this quarterfinal matchup against the resolute Russians) there's some genuine passion on the pitch that's being allowed to be played out.

Read the whole ode to Die Oranje, but be warned of the hack lead. It's gruesome. Once you get past it, you may find it just as enjoyable as watching the Dutch. 

Update: I blogged too soon. Russia was just as dazzling today in a 3-1 extra time win as Dutch-born coach Guus Hiddink continues his expatriate miracle work. South Korea in '02, Australia in '06 and now this might be the most impressive feat of all.

Monday morning crank: Gore Vidal

Perfect way to start the week, as far as I'm concerned: A rather chippy New York Times Q & A (registration required) with the old man, who never had any use for the Gray Lady and clearly didn't want to be part of this interview:

Q. Why do you think critics have traditionally praised your essays more than your fiction?

A. That's because they don't know how to read.

And that's just the first question. It gets even more delightfully curmudgeonly from there. Good way to get my innately crabby brain working the way it works best.

Thanks to: Bookninja.

Whereby some Adventures in Good Blogging get underway . . . I hope

Not a mission statement. Nor a detailed manifesto. And surely not anything planned out. I hope this blog is at least a thoughtful stab from time to time on subjects that interest me that have nothing to do with my work:

The arts (especially literature, jazz and classical music, film noir and Impressionistic and Modernist painting), cooking and travel, many sports (notably soccer) and what I call "Web life," which encompasses above all abiding passions for Internet radio and broadcasting. Had I not become a print hack, life behind a microphone might have been the route I would most likely have taken.

But after 20 years as a newspaper reporter and the next five as a Web news producer and editor -- the geek crowd likes to call my type "digital immigrants" -- I still feel the need for a creative writing outlet that's personal and quirky and eclectic and human. Hey, isn't that what blogs are all about?

This enterprise could end up just about anywhere -- I may get all worked up at times over issues like Net Neutrality and efforts by the major telecoms to limit access to the Web, or at least coax extortionist sums for the privilege of surfing. There's a special place in Purgatory just waiting for the likes of unnamed monopolists to whom I already pay too much money for what they call basic service. Every so often I may drop them a rung or two here.

From mid-August to mid-May, I get hopping mad and frustrated at the exploits of the greatest football club in the world, Liverpool FC, which is going on a 20-year league title drought in England. Rafa Benitez' managerial decisions and a seemingly Stone Age central defense probably will not be effectively resolved during this summer respite, unfortunately.

I've gone absolutely berserk (happily so, in this case) over the availability of artistic, literary and cultural websites, blogs, photos, audio and video clips and other content that surely make the purists scoff. Oh, and those "Cassandras" who bemoan the Web and are convinced it's making us all dumber, they really make me crabby because of their either/or absolutist diatribes. 

What you won't see here: much in the way of politics. Even if I weren't a working journalist, why follow down those weather-beaten paths? A journalistic comrade is convinced that most political blogs aren't well-written because there's so much partisan hackery involved, although I've linked on my main page a few of the better ones that show what can be maximized with Web technology and online news values. I'm pretty adamant about issues like the First Amendment, the Constitution, etc., so there may be some postings here when freedom of expression is imperiled, which is far a more frequent occasion than it ought to be. 

I'm not religious, but I don't see how matters of faith, theology and belief can be separated from a blog that delves into cultural matters. But there is a distinction between, say, examining Graham Greene's Catholicism and harping on the ideological battles that have engulfed American politics and religion for most of my lifetime. 

While I have my own political ideals, I heatedly shun ideology of almost every kind, especially those creeds that try to infect the pursuit of art, truth and joy. Art for art's sake may sound like a cliché, but it's the best defense against taking the passion out of life's greatest passions.

Aw, hell, that sure does sound like a mission statement, manifesto and plan for blogging action after all, doesn't it? All I want to do with this blog is have fun with it. As a middle-aged Johnny Sue-come-lately to the Web, this blogger is excited about some Adventures in Good Blogging. May I surprise myself every day with what I write.

And if you want to find out more about me, here goes. Want to see what sorts of things I file away on the Web? Check out this collection. Check out my favorite sites on the blog roll to the right, and get touch with me via email at: aucontraire81@gmail.com.