Oscar Sunday Digression

So I'm behind in my movie going this year. The only nominees for best picture that I've seen are Arrival, Manchester by the Sea, and Moonlight. (My vote would go for Moonlight.) Three innovative and compelling movies, but not a large enough sample for my unsolicited and unofficial vote to matter much.
Still, I have seen some interesting off-Broadway theater recently. Though I admire Wallace Shawn both as an actor and a writer, I was a little underwhelmed by Evening at the Talk House. I liked the surreal meditation on death and murder, but I felt the show lacked the kind of humor that could have lightened the philosophical musings of the show. But the cast was excellent and the New Group's staging intimate and inviting.
Yen has been selling out at the Lucille Lortell Theater, no doubt in part because Lucas Hedges, Oscar nominee for Manchester by the Sea, is in the cast. I have to say the small ensemble cast in this British miserablism show was excellent, but again the proceedings were overwhelmingly depressing. The show presented a compelling depiction of an impoverished family and the toll taken by parental alcoholism and neglect (as well as some level of mental illness in the younger of the too sons and sexual violence),  I wanted to see some levity or hopefulness, which was only present in one character for the most part (the girl who befriends the two neglected boys). That may just be my taste or mood, and I'm glad I saw the show. But it didn't exactly lift my spirits (as I'm sure it wasn't intended to).
But the best thing I've seen on stage recently was part of the Public Theater's Under the Radar festival. Chicago-based Manual Cinema's Lula del Ray made the most creative use of overhead projectors that I've ever seen, on stage or elsewhere. (And who knew you could still get your hands on overhead projectors!) Told with minimal dialogue and maximum silhouette and puppetry stagecraft, the show is about a girl who runs away from a bizarre and lonely home on a satellite field, where her mother is employed trying to detect communication from alien civilizations. The show features original live music, and the ethereal score really propels the story of this lonely girl who runs away in hopes of meeting her favorite country western duo (the show's notes say the show was inspired by the music of Hank Williams, Roy Orbison and Patsy Cline). The show blends and blurs the line between cinema and live theater, and does it to great emotive effect. After the show, the theater company invited the audience to the stage to get a close look at the puppetry and stagecraft employed in the production, and I've rarely seen an audience, adults and children alike, take such an enthusiastic interest in the behind the scenes workings of a show.

Lyrical Musings on Dylan & Bonair-Agard

One of my fantasies of late is to create a podcast or other online journal or venue that pairs musical performance with poetry readings. The idea would not necessarily be to have music composed specifically to accompany the verse, (or vice versa, ha!) but rather just to lighten and enliven the reading of poetry with musical accompaniment or companionship, which helps to make readings less stuffy, in my opinion. Of course, many people have done this before, but it still seems to me like too often poetry is too divorced from musical performance. I'm not a musician, but I'm astute enough to appreciate musical lyrics as literature.
Which reminds me, of course, that Bob Dylan was formally awarded the Nobel Prize for literature this week. I watched Patti Smith's vulnerable and beautiful rendition of 'A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall' online, and once again felt giddy about Dylan's work and recognition. I guess he's supposed to formally give a Nobel lecture, and I read a rumor online that perhaps he'd show up in Sweden next spring to fulfill that requirement with a concert, which I think would be the most fitting way for Dylan to end the ambiguity about Dylan's reaction to winning the award.
And further intimidating me in my quest to create a music and poetry publishing or performance space was the huge success of a recent concert and performance reading I attended at National Sawdust, the new original music incubator and performance venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Poet Roger Bonair-Agard teamed up with musicians, including Jeffrey Ziegler, Sean Dixon, Ian Rosebaum, Abena Koomson and the band Miyamoto is Black Enough, to bring his muscular, assertive work to life. The reading was a celebration of his most recent book, Where Brooklyn At? I felt like such an amateur, seeing this acclaimed poet and professional musicians keeping a crowd in rapt attention. Suffice it to say if I do proceed with my vision of creating a music and poetry performance enterprise, I'd be lucky to create performances a fraction as attention grabbing as what's happening on stage at National Sawdust.

A Winter of Discontent

I cannot recall ever feeling so depressed and dispirited by the results of an election. A venomous campaign that saw a narcissistic candidate defeat, in the electoral college scheme of things anyway, perhaps the most qualified major party nominee in the history of the republic. Donald Trump, backed by a majority of self-described evangelical Christians, naturally, seems the embodiment of the seven deadly sins, most especially pride, envy and gluttony. Hillary Clinton, for all her faults, spent a lifetime preparing to serve in the nation's highest office and brought a sense of dignity and purpose to her campaign. Trump spent his time lampooning and threatening his critics, and behaving like a schoolyard bully. Really, America? This is the person you want representing our great country on the world stage for the next four years? As David Remnick wrote in the New Yorker, Trump's central message centered around vanity, hate, arrogance, untruths and recklessness. And his "fact free" campaign promises bode ill for his presidency.

On the bright side, and I've had real trouble finding a silver lining in this year's election, is the horror of a Trump presidency may inspire progressive activism. We've seen hints of this already, from the enthusiastic backing Bernie Sanders received in the Democratic primaries to the influence of protest movements like Black Lives Matter and the Standing Rock activism. My only fear is that when civil disobedience drifts toward civil unrest, it can backfire and help the standing of conservatives. Another bright spot? Millennials voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton. According to one website I saw (which, admittedly, I can't remember now) she would have scored a 500 plus electoral landslide had the election been decided exclusively by voters under the age of 30. Hopefully their progressivism can be nurtured and sustained. 

While we're on the topic of vane, arrogant leaders and sometimes reckless leaders, I continue to admire Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall. Just who might emerge as Trump's Thomas Cromwell, a skilled, self-interested and adroit advisor who helps steer Trump away from danger, especially in international entanglements? I'm not impressed by the list of foreign policy advisors being touted as Trump allies so far. 

The Parchman Hour

I tend to be a little wary of documentary theater, just as I'm reticent about historical novels. I often find myself thinking, well why don't I read a nonfiction account about this historic issue or topic? But lately I've been pleasantly reminded of how and why dramatizations of actual historic events can illuminate the characters in history and what motivated their actions and made them significant. This time it's the Guthrie Theater's excellent production of Mike Wiley's play with Music, The Parchman Hour, that won me over. The story centers on some of the key players among the Freedom Riders who bussed into the Deep South to oppose segregation and often ended up threatened, abused and jailed --at the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary known as Parchman Farm. In song and story, the actors remind the audience just how much physical and mental menace and brutality the freedom marchers faced on their journey to try to force state and local governments enforce the court mandated integration of schools and public facilities. The fact that this all occurred fairly recently, in the early 1960s, reminded me that the racial tension and systemic racism that continue to plague our society today (the play incorporates references to the Black Lives Matter movement.)
The title of the play refers to the variety show that the freedom marcher inmates at Parchman Farm performed for each other to entertain themselves and keep up their spirits during the time they were in jail. It always interest me to see how, even under extremely dire circumstances, people rely upon humor to salve their woulds and sustain their spirits. (And what better tool than farce to highlight government hypocrisy.
Director Patricia McGregor and musical director Sanford Moore (of Moore by Four fame here in the Twin Cities) lead an outstanding cast that includes Sam Bardwell, Nathan Barlow, Cat Brindisi, Whitney Maris Brown, David Darrow, Kevin R. Free, Katherine Fried, Terry Templeman, Jared Joseph, Zonya Love (whose incredible voice gives ballast to many of the musical numbers) Stephen Conrad Moore, and Kory LaQuess Pullman.

A Little Left of Center

U.S. Senator John McCain announced he'll write in the name of fellow Senator Lindsey Graham for President. U.S. Representative Eric Paulsen says he'll write in the name of Senator Marco Rubio, the king of empty suits on Capitol Hill. One after another, prominent Republicans, after enduring months of boorish talk and behavior by their party's presidential nominee, and noting polls that show Hillary Clinton pulling ahead in her bid for the White House, have decided to abandon ship and disavow their party's nominee. But they all go to pains to say they won't be voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Secretary Clinton had difficulty securing her own party's nomination because she's perceived to be too moderate or centrist. Some even view her foreign policy views as hawkish. Yet the Republicans suggest that she's so far to the left that they'd rather aid and abet a misogynist, xenophobic candidate than admit that Hillary, one of two viable candidates on the ballot, would be a better president than the "bloviating idiot" (George Will's words) that their party has nominated.
Just remember that when you go to the polls. These Republicans are so irately partisan, so doctrinaire in their self-described conservatism (personally I don't see pillaging the environment, empowering corporate boards and executives at the expense of people, and piling on the the federal debt to fund tax cuts for the very rich as conservative values) that they'd rather disparage a moderate presidential candidate than support her. When the election is over, if Republicans control one or both houses of Congress, you can expect more gridlock and obstruction on Capitol Hill. The legislators who refused to reach out and embrace any olive branch that President Obama offered them won't be any nicer than President Hillary Clinton. If you want a functioning government, and won't mind a political environment a little to the left of George H.W. Bush, then vote Democratic across the board, up and down the ballot. Only with a Democratic congress will Hillary be able to govern in a way that is guided by a progressive compass.

Tangled Up in Blue

I found myself more pleased with the announcement that Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature than I might have expected. First, there's provincial pride–I like to celebrate all accomplishments originating in Minnesota, my own native state–and Dylan's birthplace in Minnesota's northeastern Iron Range territory strikes me as a formative influence on America's most famous poet songwriter. (If you haven't seen Martin Scorsese's documentary about Dylan, No Direction Home, it's definitely worth seeing. I'm hoping public television stations will rebroadcast in light of Dylan's latest honor.)
Despite my Minnesota roots, I was slow to come into the orbit of people who love Dylan's music. I guess I was a generation behind the people who discovered him growing up. By the time I was coming of age, heavy metal or garage bands like Husker Du, The Replacements and Babes in Toyland were capturing my imagination (under the influence of more musically sophisticated friends of mine).
But at some point I discovered Dylan's brilliance, often from listening to covers of his songs performed by other bands and singers. Dylan's lyrics do rise to a level of poetic intelligence and resonance that I think is rare in popular music. Other lyricists whose work I think can often stand on its own as poetry include, of course, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, and more recently Erika Badu. But Dylan's Nobel helps to shed light upon the poetic achievements of great song writers. And, if I'm not mistaken, though several poets who've lived in America have won the biggest award in literature, Dylan is the first truly American poet to claim victory. (T.S. Eliot was born and raised in the U.S., but spent most of his adult life in England.)
The times definitely are a' changing.

A Stakeholder Society

I'm watching (mostly listening to, actually, since my back is to the TV) an interview with former President Bill Clinton on TV (CNBC). He makes an interesting point that I think is critical to reforming our economy in a progressive direction yet maintaining free enterprise. He says corporations have to take more of a stakeholder view of governance rather than a shareholder based governance model.
President Clinton was speaking in the context of international trade, more or less defending the NAFTA trade deal he implemented in the 1990s (he noted that the US economy added more than 20 million jobs during his administration and that even manufacturing jobs in the US increased during his two terms in office). The benefits of free trade deals are debatable (I prefer "fair trade" negotiations that ensure that worker rights and environmental standards are part of the equation), but the growing push to have corporate governance include the best interests of all stakeholders (employees, customers, society at large) rather than primarily shareholders is a goal I strongly support. Today, corporate governance is incredibly hierarchical, which helps to explain why employees at or near the bottom of the pyramid feel threatened, insecure and underpaid, while those at the top seem to be protected from retribution and even rewarded (remember those golden parachutes?) for failure or malfeasance.
Which brings to mind the sales scandal at Wells Fargo. Heretofore, I considered Wells Fargo to be one of the banking industry's better stewards of sound banking practices, given how well they weathered the Great Recession compared to their peers. But when 5,000 lower ranking sales employees have to be fired because they illicitly opened unauthorized accounts for customers in order to generate additional fee income, you know something fishy is going on higher up the corporate ladder. You don't have thousands of junior employees doing something bad unless there are incentives for unethical or illegal behavior – and supervisors willing to look the other way. Nobody got fired for the bad behavior until Wells Fargo came under fire for the illicit activity. As long as it went unnoticed in the media, Wells Fargo didn't notice any problem.
My suspicion is that Wells Fargo is not alone. I think many financial institutions – and frankly corporations in other sectors as well – essentially create incentives for employees to bend rules and take advantage of customers. This is particularly dangerous in cases where consumers really on a someone who may be serving fully or partly as a sales person for advice about complicated transactions, like home loans or pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately, we live in a sort of Glengarry Glenn Ross society, where sales persons are under an "eat what you kill" pressure to meet targets in order to keep their jobs. It's time the corporate higher ups took responsibility to make sure sales incentives do not encourage unethical behavior.