The Wild Winds of Fortune

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Note to self: If you insist on wearing the very low-cut black knit dress with the cross-over bodice, it is inevitable that at some point during dinner you will drop food into your cleavage. 

28 years ago yesterday I forced a man I loved and three of my friends and relatives into powder blue tuxedos.*

The Rocket Scientist married me anyway.

To state the glaringly obvious, the world was a much different place in 1983.

It would be one year before the Macintosh debuted.  What would become MS Word was distributed free (on floppy disk, of course) in PC magazine. The ARPANET (which you needed to beg, borrow, or steal a number to access) officially changed to the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.  And, although none of us would recognize it until years later, transforming all our lives.

In 1983, the total of record titles available on CD was under twenty.  Cassette tapes ruled, because you could put them in your Walkman, which at that point had been around for only four years.

The top three songs that year were “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson, “Karma Chameleon” by Culture Club, and “Flashdance… What a Feeling” by Irene Cara.  The movie that the last came from had started a craze for legwarmers and torn shirts for women.  (I still have a pair of legwarmers around somewhere.) All was not easy listening, though: the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their first album.

No one had heard of Rollerblades (introduced in 1987), or grunge music. VCRs had been around less than a decade, and the movie and recording industries were, as usual, fighting tooth and nail to restrict consumers’ access to them.  It would be a year before the Supreme Court ruled that yes, you could legally record that last episode of M*A*S*H, or that first episode of The A-Team.  Of course, this was before the entertainment industry came to understand that VCRs created an entirely new and very lucrative income stream for them.  And revolutionized the access that most people had to pornography.

At that time, most of us thought, mistakenly,  that Star Wars would be a trilogy.  (Some of us feel it would have been much better if it had been left as such.) We felt about the release of Return of the Jedi much as many of us feel about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.  1983 saw the release of that ode to the baby boomers, The Big Chill (such a great soundtrack),  and a prefect gem of a movie that did only so-so at the box-office but which would spawn at least one catchphrase and become an integral part of many Decembers since then, A Christmas Story.  That year also saw the release of the most annoying, soppily sentimental, and manipulative Best Picture winner ever, Terms of Endearment.

Karen Carpenter died.  Among many others, including Buckminster Fuller.  And a lot of people whose names mean something to me, but who are non-entities to my children.  Actor Jessie Eisenberg was born.

The third year of Ronald Reagan’s presidency had both the invasion of Grenada and the declaration of the third Monday on January as a holiday in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
In 1983, two separate research groups, one French and one American, announced they had isolated the retrovirus that caused HIV.  The role that one strain of HPV played in the development of cervical cancer was identified.  Sally Ride broke a glass ceiling as well as the atmosphere, becoming the first American woman in space. GPS became available for civilian use for the first time, thus insuring that eventually all of my family vacations would be filled with demands from my loved ones to geocache.** 

Our world has changed in ways unimaginable in 1983.  As has my personal universe.  But the Rocket Scientist has been there through all of it.

Here’s hoping he’s here for whatever the world will be like twenty-eight years from now.

*It could have been worse: the really hot color that year was a sort of burgundy pink.  And my poor bridesmaids… the color was a lovely cobalt blue, but the cut of the dresses was … well, you know how you always tell your bridesmaids that they can use their dresses later if they simply shorten them? Uh, no.

** I am the only person in my household who does not geocache.  On vacations, there tends to be as much geocaching as everyone else thinks they can get away with before I throw a temper tantrum.

I don’t know how much I will be blogging the next two months.  I am enmeshed (embroiled? Immersed?) in a big project for the non-profit I volunteer for.

Also, and I am just going to throw this out there, if any of you are employed by companies that have charitable foundations, I would love it  if you would shoot me an email.

Not only is this post the second hit on Google for “children ardent for some desperate glory,” this post is the second hit for “Little known American heroes.”  I can’t help but believing that a lot of the traffic is composed of high school kids doing reports for their history classes.

To state the obvious, the internet sure has changed things.  It’s a little disturbing, actually.  It also means I should probably be more careful about how I title my blog posts.

[This WILL contain spoilers.  A lot of them. You have been warned. Short review: Two thumbs up.  Four stars.  I plan to see it again, which makes it among the better Allen movies for me.]

When he is on his game, no one captures wistful befuddlement better than Woody Allen.  And with his latest movie, Midnight in Paris, he is on his game.  Totally.

The movie concerns a screenwriter and would be novelist, Gil, played by Owen Wilson (in an uncharacteristically restrained performance) who has come to Paris with his fiancee, Inez. He is in love with Paris, its romance and grandeur; a love which Inez — and her parents — most emphatically do not share.

Gil longs to have been in Paris in the 20s.  He believes that life was somehow better then, more interesting, less mundane.  And, magically, his wish comes true, at, naturally, midnight.  Midnight in Paris is a fantasy story, albeit with substance at its core.

In his sojourns to the 20s, where he returns night after night, he meets the notables of the era:  Cole Porter, Ernest Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, and a whole parade of literary and art figures.  (Part of the charm of the movie is trying to identify the characters before they are named:  Look, Salvador Dali! Alice B. Toklas!)  He lives his fantasy fully: at the suggestion of Hemingway, he hands his unfinished novel, which he sees as redemption from his life as a hack Hollywood screenwriter, to Gertrude Stein for review.

At Stein’s, he meets a woman named Adriana, played by the incredibly beautiful Marion Cotillard, who has a much less romanticized view of her surroundings than Gil.  She is far, far different from his shallow and materialistic fiancee.  A woman who has slept around the artistic community — Modigliani, Braque, and when we first meet her she is Pablo Picasso’s lover and model — she longs for what she sees as a gentler, more elegant time: La Belle Epoque, Paris of the 1880s and 90s. At one point the movie becomes an onion: each generation longs for the splendor of a past one.

It is when she gets her wish, and she and Gil are transported back to Maxim’s in the 19th century, that Gil realizes the basic flaw in not only her fantasy but his own. Everybody longs for the past, he tells her, but that doesn’t mean it is a better place.  Each era has its flaws.  He returns to his own, settling instead for living in the Paris of the new millennium.  (Without his annoying fiancee.)

A lot of reviewers have called this movie a “trifle.”  Not in a bad way, but in a light and sweet way.  The movie is that.  It is also funny, thoughtful, and layered.

The only false notes are the characters of Inez, her parents, and her friends Carol and Michael, who are portrayed pretty much as stereotypical ugly Americans. It is not that they are touristy — Gil himself is described that way — but that they are unbelievably crass and materialistic. There is nothing wrong with being an American in Paris, the movie seems to say, as long as you are respectful about the city, which is a rather simplistic view of the world.  Inez and Gil are so very different, in fact, you begin to wonder how they could have ever ended up together in the first place.  Paris after your engagement is rather far along the road to discover that your bride-to-be is an empty-headed, mean-spirited harpy.  The characters of Carol and Paul are likewise drawn in very broad strokes.*

I would have rather had more nuanced side characters — the people surrounding Gil in 2010 seem so much less alive than the ones he meets in the 1920s, which is a shame.  It would have made a very good movie a great movie had Allen chosen to make Gil’s compatriots in contemporary Paris more interesting.  It would have made the choice he made to return to the present seem more like one undertaken out of desire than out of a belief that it is the right thing to do and that the past is not always what it seems.

Of all the Woody Allen movies I’ve seen, to me this  most closely resembles Radio Days, an under-appreciated gem from the 1980s. Both have a wistful nostalgia for time and place: Queens in the 1940s, or Paris in the 20s.  Unlike Radio Days, however, the place and time are not filtered through the protagonist’s memory but through his imagination: a subtle difference but an important one. Memory, for all its faults, it a much more reliable source of information.  In some sense, there is a question as to whether Gil’s time travel is really happening or whether it only exists in his head.

I think Roger Ebert sums up nicely how I feel about this movie (as he so often does):

Either you connect with it or not. I’m wearying of movies that are for “everybody” — which means, nobody in particular. “Midnight in Paris” is for me, in particular, and that’s just fine with moi.

*I would take exception to the terribly pedantic character of Paul, played by the good-as-usual Michael Sheen, except that I’ve been like that at times.  It made me squirm.

[Thinking is] what a great many people think they are doing when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.  William James

I really have no interest in seeing the musical version of Sister Act.  Really.  Partially because I liked the original, and this version has neither Whoopi Goldberg nor Kathy Najimi, and partially because it is a “moviecal.” (I have mentioned my probably unwarranted prejudice against musicals made from nonmusical movies, right? Excepting The Producers, of course.)

But I love the message of “Raise Your Voice.”*

So, I am going to work on “let[ting] my freak flag fly.”  I’ll let you guys know how it goes.

*Okay, so I also have fondness for non-classical works sung in Latin.  I’m weird that way.

For those of us who talk to ourselves (not to mention the nagging voices in our heads), the evolution of Bluetooth and other hands-free cellular technology has been a godsend.  People see us alone in our cars talking earnestly, and assume we are in the middle of some important business deal, or, in my case, yelling at my children.

Singing in your car is a little tricky.  You need to be subtle, and watch the head movements. Not to mention keeping your shoulders still.

Somehow, I don’t think anyone was fooled into thinking I was talking on the phone who saw me in my car this morning, singing along to “Putting It Together”* at the top of  my lungs and gesticulating wildly with the hand that was not gripping the steering wheel.

Back to people thinking I’m crazy.

*”Putting It Together” is a completely brilliant song.  Sondheim does an excellent job of describing a character’s predicament and skewering the contemporary art scene at the same time.

At some point, you will be able to write a coherent, intelligent analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes.  You will be able to discuss what Congress needs to do to make class certification of discrimination claims easier, or even whether that is a good idea.  You will be able to understand whether the commentators who state that this was an entirely predictable and proper result are talking out of their ass or not.

That time is not now.

Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn.

 [This is the inspiration for this post.  She did a much better job than I did.]

In Night Watch,  Sam Vimes observe that it wasn’t that he wished he knew then what he knows now, more that he wishes he didn’t know now what he didn’t know then.

Amen.

But just as you learn the things you don’t want to know, you also learn other, more lasting lessons. You learn…

That no one is perfect.  That you can never figure out what a perfect person would be anyway, and that a person’s flaws sometimes make them more interesting than their virtues. And that sometimes what you think is a flaw isn’t.

That sometimes the people you love will do stupid things.  That they will hurt themselves and others.  And that loving people does not always mean protecting them from themselves.  Sometimes the best thing  for you to do is be there to help them pick up the pieces, not keep them from falling in the first place.

That the people in your life who love you enough let you fail often love you enough to let you succeed on your own terms.

That it takes only a moment’s inattention for disaster to strike.  And that you, being human, will sometimes have those moments of inattention, and the results may be catastrophic. You will learn to forgive yourself for not being God, and immune to horrible things happening to you.

That there may people inextricably bound to your life who believe vile things.   Things which make you angry, and sometimes make you want to weep. You may learn to love them anyway, for the things that they believe that are good, and the hope that someday they will learn better.

That the destination does not always live up to the hype. You learn how important it is to appreciate the journey.

That you are never as smart as you thought you were at twenty-five.  Or thirty.  And that you really never were that smart to begin with. But realizing you’re not that smart makes the world a much more comfortable place to live in.

That life is rarely simple, and never easy.  Those who tell you otherwise are lying — either to  themselves or to you. But the fact that life is never simple will make it more interesting, even as it makes it harder. 

That almost the only things in life that are black and white are zebras and crosswalks.

And, finally…

That love in and of itself is not enough.  But it is necessary.

I just believe in quality control.  I reread former posts to check for typos, misplaced and repetitive words, and incorrect grammar and capitalization.  I then make corrections.

My Tony post had a lot of errors. I am embarrassed.

You know, Pat, it might be better to do a better job of proofing posts before you publish them.*  Of course, given the way the world is, I am sure that there is an error in this post which I will not see until next week.

[Edited to add: it didn’t take a week, merely five hours.  I misspelled “obsessive” in the title of the post.  This has now been corrected.  Sheesh.]

*This is why I always print out things on paper that I need to be particularly careful about.  For some reason, I find it a great deal easier to spot mistakes when they are not on a computer screen.  Spellcheck is particularly annoying:  it can pick up misspellings, but not other errors.

I am so so sorry.  Without thinking,  I included a major spoiler in my review of Stephen Sondheim’s Company.

I will try and be more careful next time.  I would blame it on the lack of caffeine, but I think I had already had coffee by then.  Of course, it was only half-caf….

[EDITED TO ADD:  It has been pointed out to me that I included a MAJOR SPOILER at the end of this review.  Oops.  I’m sorry.]

I have written about my passion for the work of Stephen Sondheim. Last Thursday, I had the opportunity to see one of his seminal plays on stage — sort of.

What I saw was the film of the production of Company performed with the New York Philharmonic, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Patti Lupone, Stephen Colbert, Christina Hendricks, Martha Plimpton and others.  It was wonderful, and it reinforces again for me the difference between knowing musicals from their soundtracks and from seeing them live (or, in this case, quasi-live).*


Company was a startling work when it debuted. It seems less so now, since others have trod the path that it blazed, and some of the language and situations seem dated.  Nonetheless, it is an intellectually engaging and moving play.

Company is about a man coming to grips with his desire for and yet fear of making a deep commitment to anyone.  He views all of his friends’ marriages and sees the flaws.  At the same time, he recognizes his own loneliness — he is always “company,” never with someone himself.  (“Side by Side by Side” notes that he has been seven times a godfather, but never a father.) He is an observer on the outside — he can’t even allow himself to have a single deep relationship: his three girlfriends have a number in the first act (“You Could Drive a Person Crazy”) about his tendency to get a woman infatuated with him and then abandoning her.

The work has humorous and serious songs that show a deep understanding of human nature and the pitfalls of marriage.  “Sorry-Grateful” captures the mixed emotions that people feel towards those whom they love. “The Little Things You Do Together” is a humorously snarky look at some of the ways in which married couples share things and drift apart.  “Barcelona” demonstrates the danger of saying empty meaningless phrases to someone who may take them seriously.

The performances were wonderful.  Neil Patrick Harris did a lovely job projecting Robert’s wistful loneliness.  I loved Stephen Colbert in the role of Harry:  his singing voice was merely adequate, but he is a surprisingly accomplished actor.  It would have been easy to play a cardboard cutout of a middle-aged boor, but he captured the character’s underlying vulnerability and confusion.

Best of all was Patti Lupone.  She took a role completely identified with Elaine Stritch — that was written for her, in fact — and made it her own. Listening to the soundtrack, Stritch’s Joanne sounds like a hard-bitten, tough broad.  On the other hand, Lupone played Joanne as a bitter alcoholic who seems like she must have once been a femme fatale, and who still retains some her former charms.  Her proposition to Robert near the end of the play resembles a less predatory version of Mrs. Robinson’s  in The Graduate, until she reveals that she in fact has a different agenda in mind.

Lupone takes Joanne’s signature number, “Ladies Who Lunch,” and wisely does not try to mimic Stritch’s delivery. Stritch’s Joanne seems angry and sardonic, while Lupone’s Joanne comes across as bitter and deeply wounded.  Where Stritch, in keeping with her usual style, sings clipped phrases, Lupone lengthens them, making them more melodic. Perhaps paradoxically, this does not soften the song, but underscores the difference between Joanne’s confidently feminine exterior and her seeming inner self-loathing.

All in all, it was a wonderful show.  It was, as Sondheim often is, full of subtext and without an easy resolution.  As the Rocket Scientist noted when we were leaving, you don’t know what happens to Robert — does he find someone and settle down? — or his friends. The play just… ends.  There is no happy ending — arguably, there is no ending at all. 

Sondheim once said that his intention was to leave the audience screaming with laughter for two hours, and then have them go home and be unable to sleep.  With Company, he succeeds brilliantly.

*I really wish there were more productions like this.  With the Met showing operas in theaters, there is no reason not to have them; such productions would provide an excellent means to bring works to people who will never have an opportunity to see them live.