Klarinet Archive - Posting 000050.txt from 2006/02
From: "Rommel John (Rafi Jochanan) Miller" <rjmiller@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] That's music?
Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 22:35:31 -0500
That is what I would like to know, what exactly do people continue to see in
Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney or any of the lot? They've
come and they've gone as far as many of are concerned leaving little but
trash in their wake. I mean look at what "Rock and Roll" has evoloved into,
if we were to say the same for Classical Music and look to people like
Philip Glass, or another Baltimorean Christopher Rouse, we could either say
hurrah, or feh. But be it dissonant or harmonic, classical or avant-garde,
contemporary or post modern it is still more music than anything that the
Rolling Stones, the Beatles or any of those drones ever put out.
And that is the problem, the lure of music is the quick buck to be made with
a quitar and catch lyric, a wiggle of the hips, a good rap and lots of bling
that hangs of the lead singer, be it gold or be it a ho'.
And its what permeates the airwaves with American Idol, and all the other
crap that is on TV and in my humble opinion ruining it.
Does anyone out there get a really cool alternative arts networks called the
ARTS Network? On Baltimore County Comcast the local Community College
broadcasts the Arts network after 10pm and all through the night, and they
show the equivalent of music "videos" of classical performances that you
might hear on a classical music NPR station. All of it commerical free, and
if you have your stereo hooked up to your cable it is glorious listening.
That is where basic cable is at for me, somewhere between PBS, TCM, The
History Channel, Discovery Channel, Food Network, Adult Swim (Cartoon
Network) -- I love Anime, Comedy Central for some of their programs, and the
obligatory cable news networks that is all I really have cable for.
I wish I bookmarked the website for the ARTS Network, but I will send it in
another e-mail, but this station which originates in Burbank, CA, is
unbelieveable, and truly one of a kind, and a classical music affectionato's
dream come true, becasue it is pictures and music, and sometimes very
inventive video productions indeed.
There is this one Russian produced video of Ravel's Bolero that is basically
the entire history of the Russian People, and told while ascending a flight
of steps, either an allusion to the stepps of Bulgaria or to that famous
scene on the steps in "Battleship Potempkin."
Everytime I see that video not only does Bolero fill me with a sense of
exurberance, but the video itself invigorates me and makes me appreciate the
fact that so much inventiveness and artistry continued to thrive even under
Stalin and Krushev, and produced great underground films and animations,
that made it to the West, so that now that Russia is free stuff like this
can be dreamt up and made.
If only we here in the US had such a market for Classical Music as to be
able to make Videos and show them on TV! Oh what artistry, what
inventiveness might we bring to the screen, or would we be limited by
producers and budgets, and by our own lack of imagination in a land that is
bloated, obese and wastes everything from food to gas and complains when
prices go up?
The Russians had to suffer and endure great hardship under people like
Stalin and Krushev, and it was no picnic, they no privation of the arts, and
being made to conform their art to state and social standard.
We in America have too much freedom, we can piss in a can of cat food, stick
a crucifix in it, hang a rosary from the cruxifix and light it ablaze and
call it "art" and get away with it, but that is how morally depraved some of
the sophisticates in the art world have become.
I mean was Maplethorpe really doing art or was he somewhere between artist
and pervert/pornographer? That's the sixty-four dollar question. And that
the same question we have to ask of Mick Jagger and 50 Cent, and every fresh
face the producers of the big record companies throw in the face of the
public every three months or so.
I mean it even goes on in classical music too. The battle between who is
sexier, Hillary Hahn or Anne-Sophie Mutter, the Better young Clarinetist,
Julian Bliss, or who? I mean remember when Yo Yo Ma was the hottest thing
on two legs? I mean the man is still great, but 15 years ago he was like
the Pope in the Music world.
Same with James Gallway, or remember a man called Virgil Fox?
This foolishness has been going on forever! "Everyone today is throwing a
hero at the pop charts" as Paul Simon once wrote in a song. But even Paul
Simon was once a victim to the power of exploitation of the production
company.
It all boils down, I guess to greed, corporate and personal, and where one
places one's priorities.
I'd rather just be, something of a nerd and a weirdo, a lover of the
eccentric things in life, like classical music, klezmer music, jazz music.
Sometimes even Polka music. Happy with who I am, more or less, and happy
with where I am probably now headed in life even if some of the people I
know don't like it or want to help me (I'm talking about VA Voc Rehab.) But
I am okay with that, more or less, I have to be, becasue you can't fight
city hall, and you sure can't fight the Federal Government and expect to
live, I mean win.
I am sorry that I get on these tangents and sometimes I wonder if some of
you out there read them. But in some way I really think some of us have to
start thinking about the moral and ethical things in life and start to say,
like that guy did in Kentucky Fried Movie, when he went over to his window
and he opened it, stuck his head out and yelled: "I'm mad as hell and I'm
not going to take it anymore!" Well, I'm not mad as hell, but I hope you
get the point, when everyone likes to criticize us for being fat, lazy and
stupid, it is time to get up and do something about it. And one way to do
something is to open your heart and mind to the ethical and the right thing
to do, and to urge others that the ethical is a good thing too.
That way I can say, I might be fat, lazy and stupid, but at least I am a
good person, I don't lie, cheat or steal, I try really hard to treat others
the same way that I'd like to be treated and when a persons needs a hand or
even a loan, I'd like to think I might be able to help that Other out, even
without ever expect to be repaid in any way, shape or form. Call me crazy,
call me idealistic, call me what you will, but the all that I have said is
what the Torah has taught me, for example, did you know that in any city you
can find a thing called a "Hebrew" or Jewish Free Loan Association and you
can go to them and ask them for a loan and present your case for wanting
that loan and the board of directors will make a decision to either grant or
deny that loan while you wait, but the absolute beauty of the transaction is
that while you are expected to repay the loan in full, there will not be one
penny of interest charged or accrued to that loan at all!
For the Torah says, and the Talmud reinforces it, that a Jew shall lend
money to both fellow Jew and Stranger (non-Jew) and shall not charge any
interest on that loan whatsoever, for the Lord HaShem gives you the World
and all that is in it freely and asks nothing from you in return, for even
if you choose, you are not obliged to live an Orthodox life. And that is
the beauty of Judaism the concept of Free Will given by HaShem, and that
were it not for this free will freely given we would cease to be, and the
universe would cease to be. So, G-D gives freely this free-will that
enables us to choose whether or not we believe or don't beleive in Him,
whether we live an Orthodox or a secular life. Funny isn't it? We think we
have all the answers when were it not for HaShem, we'd have nothing at all,
and it is only through free-will that we are able to think that we are
better than G-D or don't need G-D or that G-D doesn't exist, or that Science
is G-D, but in the end we will find out, as all those who have died have
already discovered for themselves.
G-D is. And that is all we need to know, and people like Mick Jagger seem to
think themselves immune to this knowledge, and go about doing whatever it is
that they do, and just because six hundred thousand other people rant and
rave and go wild over the Rolling Stones does that mean that YOU have to?
FREE-WILL, is all you need to know.
Shalom,
Rafi.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ormondtoby Montoya" <o4rmondtoby@-----.net>
To: <klarinet@-----.org>
Sent: Sunday, February 05, 2006 8:22 PM
Subject: [kl] That's music?
> I like to think that I enjoy a variety of art forms, and I'm watching
> the half-time SuperBowl show right now, and I cannot understand why
> anyone gets anything whatsoever out of that singer (I think his name is
> Jagger). He isn't singing, and he isn't dancing, and his lyrics are
> void of content. What do those kids see in him?
>
>
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