How To Say It

I have been working for the last two weeks on a longer-than-usual piece. It may or not make it to my blog, but for now working on it is a reasonable excuse for not posting anything here. It’s been hard work.

In the meantime, I have come across a couple of things about expressing ourselves in words that speak to me, though I think to different parts of my brain.

One is from songwriter Lucinda Williams, about whom I confess I’d know nothing had not Garrison Keillor included this in his January 26 Writer’s Almanac: “Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem or the song, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few.”

The other is from columnist Marc Munroe Dion of the Fall River (Mass.) HeraldNews, reprinted in this morning’s Plain Dealer. Dion laments the poor state of oratory (including what the headline writer dubs as “Obamatory”), stating that today “we as a people would slaughter any attempt at the great phrase.” After giving examples, Dion writes:

“We know everything. We are beyond the noble word, below the soaring phrase, proud in our cynicism, more receptive to sarcasm than to prayer. You can’t fool us, and to prove it, we rip and tear at every utterance until it is shown to be a hallow trick. Those speaking to us no longer even seek to inspire, because we laugh at inspiration. The stand-up comic suits our mood more than the prayerful leader.”

How is a writer to write (or a speaker to speak, or a singer to sing) to a public such as ours? Somewhere between simply so everyone can get it and nobly so someone might be moved, I guess.

Can't Do It All?

Encouraging insights from writer A.G. Harmon, who teaches at the Catholic University of America (but with apologies to my friends for his male-only pronouns)...

“It is liberating, in fact–-to know what we are, to know both our capabilities and our incapabilities. Freedom is understanding what one can do so that one can go about doing it. It is not being trapped with the cage of anxiety that tells us we can do everything. Lucky is the man, said Walker Percy in The Last Gentleman, who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.

“This can seem somewhat hard and defeating news to the young soul who wants to believe that the world is his oyster, and that he can be anything that he wants to be, as the current meme goes. But the longer, mature view holds that understanding what shape you have taken–-accepting your gifts and abilities, but also your inabilities and weaknesses–-allows for the potential, if not the guarantee, of progress (we are free to reject what we see, after all).

“Movement, action, become possible when a clear view of potential is fathomed. That can come only by an honest assessment of what form we have taken (or more precisely, for the person of faith, have been given). Instead of straining in frustration for the impossible, we can then move forward within a profile that shines with the sun of a genuine authenticity.” (Image, Fall 2012, p. 72)

Thanks, A. G.–I needed that today. It lets me move my current writing project forward.

Wandering, Lost in Music

Among the many who were working out at “The J” Friday morning, I was surely the only one listening to Dvorak’s 8th Symphony. How I love that work! I think there should be a law somewhere that every time Dvorak’s 9th (“New World”) is played, the 8th must be played as well. It well deserves an equal hearing.

Last week we ordered a CD of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, Cats. My wife and I and our daughters share a long and happy history with Webber’s marvelous music and dance interpretations of T.S. Eliot’s poems. When we received a Barnes and Noble gift card for Christmas we decided it was time to retire our cassette tape of the original cast performance. Cats is a joyous celebration of unique individuality and community cohesion, and even has a simple and important story line (which people often miss). I listened to the CD Friday night, and smiled and smiled and smiled. Lots of good Memory there. Thanks, all you Jellicle Cats!

Wednesday afternoon I attended the first in a four-week series of presentations about three composers and one composition. Donald Rosenberg, a Plain Dealer classical music critic, is lecturing about about and playing examples from Wagner, Verdi, Britten, and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. It’s part of CWRU’s Laura and Alvin Seigal Lifelong Learning Program (that is, it’s for senior citizens). I’ve never been a real Wagner fan, in part because I’ve never gotten into opera as deeply as I’ve gotten into other musical forms. But I learned quite a bit about him and enjoyed the musical samples I heard. How long would it take me to listen to all of his operas should I decide it’s something I want to do?

(A sidebar: I felt younger than most in that crowd; I know it’s a fool’s feeling, but it’s a good one. I was embarrassed by our impatience when the sound system didn’t work just right at the start. You’d have thought we were a room of starving people fighting for the last crust of bread on earth. Do we have to get so demanding just because we get old?)

Finally, Saturday morning I tutored a fifth grade boy who had read a story in school about a Tsar and a Firebird. He had a worksheet he was supposed to fill out, and I was trying to help him without having read the story itself. Sadly, he didn’t know what a “Tsar” was, where the story had taken place, or what a Firebird is/was. I wished I could have pulled out a recording of Stravinsky’s ballet, played it for him, and said, “Now that’s a Firebird!

It’s great to have time to wander the halls of music.

Call and No Response

Determined to be a “more engaged” citizen, two days after the election I sent an email about a couple of concerns to President Obama, and copied it to Ohio’s Senator Brown and our district’s Representative Fudge, hoping they might help him.

In a few days, “Sen. Brown” replied with a note that clearly misunderstood what I wrote about, and “Rep. Fudge” sent me a stock reply about how hard she is working for me, etc. “Pres. Obama” finally sent me an automated reply after Christmas, also letting me know how hard he is working for me, and offering links to help me understand what he hopes to accomplish in his second term.

I know nothing at all about their take on the concerns I expressed.

Are Republican office holders better than Democrats at answering constituent's letters?

My Plan for Shrinking Government

Been thinking a lot about the “solution” to the Fiscal Cliff fiasco that Washington finally hammered out. It’s a solution nobody likes much, and apparently it doesn’t solve the issues it was supposed to solve anyway. Mostly it is one more sign that our government is pretty dysfunctional.

I wrote a whole “rant” about what’s wrong with Washington, but I will spare you the burden even of skimming it. You’ve heard it all elsewhere. So here’s what I am thinking about, which surely you will hear here first:

It’s hard to remember that people in the public eye are people pretty much just like you and me. They only have 24 hours in each day, and should sleep for at least 8 of them. In those waking hours they tend to do the kinds of things you and I do...good, bad, and in between. They may be surrounded by all kinds of advisors and p.r. experts and spinmeisters, but at the end of their days they have to sleep with what they have said and done. And, because they are public people, we have to sleep with that, too.

But people can learn to be better people by getting in touch with who they are and knowing what it is to be members of the human race. People, even hardened, cynical, crafty political people, can strive to become more like Abraham Lincoln, of whom Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, recently said: “[Lincoln's] political genius was rooted in his remarkable array of emotional strengths, which enabled him to form friendships with rivals who had previously disdained him, to put past grudges aside, to assume responsibility for the failure of subordinates, to share credit with ease and to learn from mistakes.”

The things Goodwin claims Lincoln was good at do reveal a “remarkable array of emotional strength.” Convinced that what our political leaders most need is emotional health, I believe “we, the people” should recruit, assign, and pay for a therapist/psychologist/pastoral counselor for each person we send to Washington. It would be healthy for them–and for us.

Friends, let’s shrink this government.